Arkansas Watch vs. Talk Business Top Legislators Lists

The second edition of the Arkansas Watch "Ten Best Legislators" list (along with the "Ten Worst") has gotten quite a bit of attention.  But we are not the only ones to offer a top ten list.   We are not even the only ones to offer a top ten list that most people consider a "conservative" source.   TalkNow Business is considered by some to be conservative.   And they do have a staff member or two with conservative bonifides, such as Steve Brawner.  But TalkBusisness is not a limited-government conservative ('conservatarian') site.   It is a business site.

In this day and age of crony-capitalism, almost by definition a business site can't be a limited-government site.  Big business has learned that instead of spending money marketing products and services to customers, it is more profitable to lobby government to get them to subsidize purchases of your product, or mandate that citizens purchase more of your product than they would of their own free will.

In this case, big hospitals and insurance companies both wanted the so-called "private option" to pass.   Those are two powerful, well-funded lobbies that make up much of the talk when people "talk business."   They wanted it to pass because it, like every form of Obamacare, it does what I described in the paragraph above.  

Hospitals will now get paid by the government so that they don't have to write off any costs from people who don't pay or quit paying.  They have a guaranteed income stream from the taxpayers.  Of course, hospitals are already compensating for the non-payers by charging the rest of us a little more, but don't count on those prices going down just because they will now get over $200 million additional taxpayer dollars a year.   We have seen that with both health care and higher education, and anything government throws money at really, that the more money that is thrown at something the higher its "costs" go.  

The only way to control costs is with true free-market incentives.   Since the hospital lobby made no promises to reduce the charges to the rest of us in exchange for the $200 million extra taxpayer dollars a year, and since we are moving even further away from a free market that could quickly force such price reductions, this bill represents a $200 million dollar special interest windfall from your pockets to theirs.

Insurance companies like the way that Arkansas' Obamacare legislation both subsidizes the purchase of their products and mandates the purchase of more of their products than people would choose to buy of their own free will.   The Waltons don't need to purchase health insurance, but they are mandated to.  I may feel like a $10,000 deductible is OK, but the regulations might say that a policy like that does not meet the requirements and I must purchase a more expensive one with a lower deductible.   They are counting on "lowering" costs by forcing lots of healthy people into purchasing their products against their will.

This is what the astute reader should bear in mind when they compare the Arkansas Watch top ten list with the Talk Business Arkansas list.   We rated people by how honest they were, by how hard they fought to limit the growth of government spending and control over our lives, and by how well they communicated with the people they were supposed to be serving.   Talk Business ranked people by who could keep the crony-capitalist party going for one more session. They ranked people based on who could "get things done" - by which they meant spend public money and grow government.     Consider that they had uber-lib Joyce Elliot as one of the top ten, along with many Republicans who said and did whatever they had to do to implement Obamacare (and Big River Steel too).

Which list is better?  Of course we are partial to ours, but it all depends on what you are looking for.   You have to decide for yourself whose lists have the most credibility.

Junk Evolutionary Science on Junk DNA

When scientists first discovered that the genome (the collection of genes) of living creatures contained a great many genes that did not code for proteins, they dubbed it "junk DNA".   The vast majority of human DNA fell into this category, and not just humans, but in virtually all living things.   They heralded this as strong evidence that macro-evolution occurred.   After all the reasoned, the extra genes that are just sitting around not doing anything have to be either evolutionary leftovers, or construction areas for the next evolutionary great leap forward.

It turned out that "Junk DNA" was not junk at all.  Rather, the non-coding regions regulated gene expression in the genes that did code.  Such DNA turned out to be "highly conserved" among similar groups, such as mammals.   That strongly indicated that such genes were important.    When evolutionist discover a finding that is contrary to the theory, they never question the theory, they just cobble the new finding unto the theory somehow.

A Common Designer could fit the evidence just as well as a common ancestor for conserved non-coding DNA in similar groups.    And conserved non-coding DNA shut another potential door for evolutionary adaptation.  These non-coding genes were not just sitting around with no function for generations until by some miracle the right mutations resulted in a genes that assembled into a useful new adaptation.   No, they needed to stay pretty close to what they were to properly perform the original regulatory function.

But just in case that door needs nailing shut, here comes the genome of the humped bladderwort, a strange carnivorous plant.  If any plant has done a lot of evolving, it ought to be that one, based not only on its morphology but also its genes- it has triple the chromosomes of most plants.  But what it does not have is non-coding DNA, at least not to any respectable degree.  

The tone of the article is one of near shock.   Apparently non-coding DNA is not necessary for complex life forms, even forms that seemed to have undergone a lot of adaptations.    They speculate that the plant has some mechanism that strips non-coding DNA from the genome, though how it does this while still undergoing all the adaptations they think it underwent, and still functioning it a mystery to them.

Scientists are clearly missing something important.  Chalking up every unexpected finding to the wonders of evolution, an "evolution of the gaps" as it were, becomes increasingly incredulous to the honest mind.

The Ten Worst Legislators in the State of Arkansas

On a positive note, be pleased to view our choice of the "Ten Best Legislators" here.

 The rankings were determined by a confidential panel of five activists- me and one chosen from each congressional district in the state.  More details about the selection process can be found here.   The votes from the 2011 session can be found here.

This was an unusual session, and realistically, there was a lot to be negative about.  The specter of Obamacare loomed large over the state.  It was the defining issue of the previous election campaign and the defining issue of the session.  And most Republicans blinked.  The deceptively-named "private option" is nothing more than Obamacare in a hat and sunglasses, no matter how hard they try to spin it.  What also won't fly are attempts to redirect attention to other "accomplishments".    Twenty bills about flag-waiving, or abortion bans that will most likely never be implemented, or back-loaded tax cuts which will be overwhelmed by new spending mandated by Obamacare, don't cancel out the tremendous blunder to implement the program in this state.  

Attempts to mis-direct attention to those measures to cover for this disaster amount to someone asking "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"  Calling Obamacare by some other name simply because the government money passes through an extra set of private hands does not make the situation any better- it makes it worse because it introduces the factor of dishonesty into what would otherwise be simply a disagreement about policy.  

With that being said, here is the 2013 edition of the Arkansas Watch "Ten Worst Legislators" in the state of Arkansas.

#1 Worst- All Democratic Legislators.

If the Democratic legislators want to be evaluated as individual persons, they should act and vote that way.  If they are all going to march in lock-step with Mike Beebe, then there is no point in seeing or rating them as individuals.  Since they acted as a unit they should be judged as one.   The tribalism among the Democrat caucus was always strong, but this session, with them circling up the wagons in a minority status, it was ridiculous.   There would be a committee meeting scheduled on the re-hearing of a given bill, a bill to which many Democrats on the committee had already expressed objections.   If the Republicans made a deal with Beebe concerning the bill, then the next time the committee meeting re-opened they would all be for it, with no changes.   Citizens of Arkansas, if your state representative was a Democrat, then you had no state representative, and Mike Beebe had 46 representatives.   It was much the same in the senate.

Party politics destroys the Founder's intent with regard to the legislative branch acting as a check and a balance on the Executive Branch.  That truth is rarely clearer than it was this session.   For not representing their constituents  for abandoning whatever individuality or principles they might have had, for checking their brains and integrity at the door and just following orders like a suspect at Nuremberg, the Democratic Caucus ranks as the #1 Worst legislator.

#2 Worst - House Speaker Davy Carter of Cabot. 

There are two main ways to get high on the "worst" list.  One is to be an incompetent buffoon, the other is to be very effective at advancing the wrong policy by any means necessary.  Davy Carter is an example of the latter category.    He was forced on the slim GOP majority by a handful of Republican legislators and the unanimous support of our #1 on the worst list- the entire democratic caucus.      Without Carter willing to say and do just about anything to get it passed, Arkansas would probably not have implemented Obamacare.  Exhibit "A" for Carter's willingness to say anything was his claim that "a vote for the Private Option is a vote against Obamacare."    Of course the claim is an example of "The Big Lie".  Just make a claim so outrageously false that the average person will accept it as true simply because they can't believe that someone in a position of authority would maintain such a brazen falsehood.  All of the Democrats voted for the so-called "Private Option", and you know they are not all going to vote against Obamacare.  Still, that's his story and he's sticking to it- even though its false.

Carter is also anti-gun rights, while posing as a good 'ole boy conservative.   He helped kill a very timid bill that would allow those already permitted to carry concealed handguns to carry them openly.  Even government-permitted gun freedom seems to be too much gun freedom for Carter.    And when Denny Altes slipped a gun bill by them that granted more leeway than they thought it did, rumors started floating that Carter and company would abuse the codification process to materially change what the legislature actually passed  on its way to the law books.    Let's hope that's just a rumor, but the sources sound confident and at the least Carter has tried to claim the bill said less than what it said.

The Republican party in this state, in particular the other legislators, are now placed in the unfortunate position of either granting consent to his untruthfulness, whether by silence or by affirmation, or coming out against it and bringing the real split that already exists in the party out into the open.  The Democrats who put Carter in office must be laughing all the way home.

#3 Worst- Senator David Sanders of Little Rock. 

David Sanders checks in at #3 on the worst list for being the opposite kind of bad- the clownish kind.   He was the ramrod for getting many state legislators to endorse Texas Gov. Rick Perry early on in the process.  Perry promptly self-destructed with an embarrassing series of gaffes and miss-statements and left the race early.    Shortly thereafter, Sanders organized what he called a "listening tour" for state legislators, which actually turned out to be a series of fund raising events with corporate big-wigs.   He even lured Congressman Steve Womack into the process, unfortunately in a way that violated election campaign finance law. Womack asked them to return the money they raised at the event he attended.

Sanders has led his colleagues into one blunder after another.  Sooner or later you would think they would start to notice it.  At any rate, his support for Obamacare via the miss-named "Private Option" is no exception to his tendency to make the wrong calls.

#4 Worst- Senator Jason Rappert of Conway. 

Our panelists tend to be sincere Christian people, which is why guys like Jason Rappert bother them so much.   He is the kind of guy who will bite the hand that feeds him clean off by doing the opposite of what he said he would do, then accuse the owner of the new stump of being un-spiritual because they are upset.   There is no kind of arrogant like the kind of arrogant who thinks that they are holier-than-thou.    My guess is that he is going to have to run for Lt. Governor, both to feed is desire for self-aggrandizement and also because he may not be able to win another local race in Conway, so many people has he offended- but of course, they are all wrong for that!  This was the guy who wanted to risk a Con-Con for an idea that would not solve the problem of government overspending even if it passed and the Con-Con could somehow be limited.   A man who thinks he is God's point man does not mind taking big risks, too bad he is using our chips.

#5 Worst- Representative John Burris of Harrison.

 Is the so-called "Private Option" Medicaid Expansion?  "Nothing could be further from the truth" said John Burris from the floor of the house.  But in reality lots of things could be further from the truth.  Any thing that is the least bit untrue could be further from the truth, because the Private Option itself is a Medicaid program, just not the one we are most accustomed to.   John Burris was instrumental in pushing for the idea that the PO wasn't what it was.   He was Davy Carter's tag-team partner in the whole thing.  We warned early on that if Carter sent the Obamacare bills to Public Health (which Burris got to chair in exchange for being one of a handful of Republicans to join with the Democrats and impose Carter) rather than State Agencies, then Carter was pushing for Obamacare to pass.  That is what happened, with Burris his right-hand man and assistant spin-doctor.

#6 Worst- Senator Missy Irvin of Mountain View. 

Missy Irvin was one of the worst legislators in the state.  Several activists had expressed concerns about her privately, but the session results highlighted some of the issues.   She was the deciding vote on the implementation of Obamacare in the Senate.  And while Arkansas Times gets a whole lot wrong, one thing they did right was describing her illogical thought processes and slim grasp of public policy in an area that should have been a strength for her.   The changes she insisted on before she flipped were fig leaves at best, they did not change the substance of the bill at all.  And by the time she flipped it was more obvious than ever that the GOP had been taken on this deal.    The ArkTimes description of her poor grasp of policy rings true as well.  She is probably very personable, but unfortunately it takes a different skill set to be a good campaigner than it does to be a good legislator.

#7 Worst, State Representative Charlie Collins of Fayetteville.

When you are supremely confident, cocky even, you had better be almost always right.   Unfortunately his confidence does not match with his correctness.  Confident, personable, wrong.   For example, he was instrumental in the coup that put Carter in power.   There has to be some accountability for that disaster.  He never would come right out and plainly admit that the so-called "Private Option" would in fact increase the total number of persons in the state on some kind of Medicaid program.   And he assured me personally that the income tax cuts that were his baby played no role in his decision to back the mis-named "Private Option."    His colleagues don't appear to know that, one legislator told another member of the panel that Collins indicated to them the opposite.  Of course, after the first two years or three years those "savings" under the PO turn into new costs which will crush any reasonable hope of the tax cuts being sustained, but hey, at least there was a tax cut on paper that someone can put their name on.

#8 Worst- Senator Bill Sample from Hot Springs. 

One might be tempted to think that Bill Sample was just another turn-coat who ran on opposing the implementation of Obamacare in the state but then voted the opposite.  But we had a legislature full of such turn-coats, yet Senator sample earned more ire around the state than almost all of the others.  He got a lot of bills passed, but some of them were bills to float tax increases and make it easier for local governments to incur debt.   What I am getting at here is that many legislators were turn-coats on the defining issue of the session, but were typically conservative with the rest of their record.  What sets Sample apart is that he is going "full turncoat" on limited government issues.   He doesn't just want government health care to expand (so long as a couple of GOP lobbies get a cut) he seems to want government expansion in general, the reverse of his campaign rhetoric.   This Republican went to the legislature and fell in love with big government.

#9 Worst- Senator Johnathan Dismang. 

We don't know what happened.   He had a decent record up until the last session.  There were some tax cuts that he wanted to get through, and those were good, but we do have to wonder if there was not some sort of deal made to get them, because Dismang was one of those pushing for the PO hard.  Again, those tax cuts have been back-loaded.   They are very tiny at first, and by the time they are big we won't be able to keep them because the increased costs of the PO will demand tremendous amounts of tax revenues.  In order to claim credit for cutting taxes now, Dismang and others have signed onto something that will tie the hand of future legislatures, perhaps for decades.   We will be fortunate if we can avoid a tax increase in four or five years from now, never mind keeping this tax cuts on the books.  They got "took".  Dismang got took.  He could have been a contender.  Unlike these others that we have long been hesitant about, he was doing well. If he had used his great ability to block Obamacare he would have been a hero- that is a part of what makes it so bad.

#10 Worst is a three-way tie between Micheal Lamoureux of Russellville, Mark Biviano of Searcy, and Ken Bragg of Sheridan.  Each of the three were tied at minus nine points each.     I questioned one of the five who ranked Bragg strongly negative.  Why single Bragg out when so many of the Republican legislators basically lied when they campaigned on how hard they would fight Obamacare?  "I know a lot of them lied, but he was the one that lied to me." was the answer.

When it came to the other two, I did not have to ask.  Lamoureux did not just vote wrong, he was working hard for the spin machine on it, he just did not get quite as rash in his statements as Carter and Burris.  He was also in a leadership position in the Senate, so when the late cavers caved, we understand that some of the pressure to do so came from him.

Biviano has always been an embarrassment to the legislature and we find it odd that the people of Searcy can't find better representation.   He ran as a Tea Party conservative then legislated like a crony-capitalist.  Not content to help pass the Medicaid Expansion half of Obamacare, he actually sponsored a bill to officially implement the other half- a state exchange.  Previously Beebe had been using policy and regulation to take steps towards an Arkansas exchange, but Biviano's bill now gives him legislative authority to proceed.

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Dishonorable Mention

Sadly, there were far more than the dirty dozen we list here who deserve to be called out for their violations of the public trust.    Below is a list of the legislators who our panel of activists gave at least -5 points...

Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson- a caver with an unfortunate private life.  One has to wonder if he would be a state senator if he had another last name.

Sen. Jon Woods- after the grassroots helped him upset Sen. Bill Pritchard in the primary, he dissed them repeatedly.

Rep. Ann Clemmer- there are worse things in the world than sucking a few lemons.

Rep. Mary Lou Slinkard- snuck out of the committee room to kill a gun bill.  

Rep. Les Carnine - has always been one of the more liberal Republicans.

Rep. Robert Dale- if there was a bigger squish of a Republican than Carnine, it was Dale.

Rep. Andy Mayberry - is not funny anymore.

Sen. Jimmy Hickey - could learn something from Richard Womack.

Rep. Nate Bell- voted AGAINST funding the PO and is STILL on this list, if that gives you any idea of how obnoxious he can be.   Credit his wife more than him for that vote anyway.

The Ten Best State Legislators in the State of Arkansas

Sometimes we tend to focus on the negative too much when discussing the goings-on of Arkansas government.   It is too easy to forget that there are a lot of good public office-holders too.   That is why the Arkansas Watch semi-annual ranking of the Ten Best Legislators in the state of Arkansas has become one of my favorite columns to write.    The rankings were determined by a confidential panel of five activists- me and one chosen from each congressional district in the state.  More details about the selection process can be found here.   The votes from the 2011 session can be found here.

This was an unusual session, and realistically, there was a lot to be negative about.  The specter of Obamacare loomed large over the state.  It was the defining issue of the previous election campaign and the defining issue of the session.  And most Republicans blinked.  The deceptively-named "private option" is nothing more than Obamacare in a hat and sunglasses, no matter how hard they try to spin it.  What also won't fly are attempts to redirect attention to other "accomplishments".    Twenty bills about flag-waiving, or abortion bans that will most likely never be implemented, or back-loaded tax cuts which will be overwhelmed by new spending mandated by Obamacare, don't cancel out the tremendous blunder to implement the program in this state.  

Attempts to mis-direct attention to those measures to cover for this disaster amount to someone asking "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"  Calling Obamacare by some other name simply because the government money passes through an extra set of private hands does not make the situation any better- it makes it worse because it introduces the factor of dishonesty into what would otherwise be simply a disagreement about policy.  

But that being said, not every legislator succumbed to the intense pressure to break their word to the people who elected them.   Not every legislator rationalized and spun their way out of their campaign promises.   When there is an environment where the tendency is to go bad, it is just that much more impressive that many remained true.   Among these worthy statesmen and stateswomen, we present to you our bi-annual Hall of Heroes, the Ten Best Legislators in the State of Arkansas.....

#1 Senator Bart Hester of Cave Springs.

We knew that Hester had a lot of grit when he came out of nowhere to upset the establishment pick for this state senate seat, but even knowing that he exceeded expectations.   Hester not only stood strong against the public option with his vote, but with his voice.   One of the many failings of the party system of candidate selection is that when the majority of one's own chums start spinning, even the non-spinners feel pressure to defend them, or at least fall silent on an issue.  Not Hester.  He was a straight-shooter in a blizzard of spin.   He voted against Obamacare, he tried to convince others in his party to do the same, and when they did it anyway he told the truth about what they did.   He even loudly and publicly pointed out what we had been saying about the back-loaded tax cuts.  Time will tell, but from what we have seen so far, the people of Benton County have elected a treasure in Bart Hester.

#2 Senator Bryan King of Green Forest 

Bryan King is a repeat member of our Hall of Heroes.   He checked in at number two on the 2011 list as well, but this year there was an even stronger group of legislators that he was being compared against.   While he is often quiet and does the right thing without having a lot of ego about it, he can also be passionate when the situation calls for it.    

He successfully got the Church Concealed Carry bill through- taking the decision of whether or not people can conceal carry in Church away from the state and placing it the hands of the church where it belongs.     We even like his vote against a "tort reform" bill that would have made it too hard too seek significant damages against corporate malfeasance.    We are people-first limited-government conservatives, not corporate tool conservatives, and it appears that so is Bryan King.   One weak spot was killing a voter-turnout bill in committee, but his overall performance was so strong we almost feel embarrassed mentioning it.

#3 Representative Justin Harris of West Fork.

Justin Harris is also a repeat member of our Hall of Heroes, and he actually moved up from the #7 spot in 2011 despite the stiffer competition.  He just got that much stronger, and has been described as having "a humble servant attitude while still refusing to be intimidated."  Like Hester, he not only voted against the deceptively-named "Private Option", but he refused to be a cog in the spin machine his colleagues were building to sell it.   Justin Harris sponsored some good bills, and voted mostly right.   He didn't get them all right.  He had a temporary lapse in judgement on the "Big River Steel" bill- a lapse that he owned up to and attempted to correct.  In these days of spin, just telling us the truth is worth a lot.  That candor, and humility and honesty, which ought to be so common in public servants but is in fact so valuable and rare, is enough to combine with his solid record and surprising grit to earn him the #3 spot on our "Best" list.

#4 Senator Alan Clark of Lonsdale. 

Alan Clark not only proposed a lot of solid bills, he got an impressive number of them passed.  A lot of them had to do with cleaning up election law to keep a political party which shall remain nameless from gaming the system.     Even though our panel was selected on a regional basis, Clark got a lot of respect even from panelists outside his region, despite the fact he is not as prone to media-seeking behavior as are some.    Somehow, they knew about Clark and his production.   And of course, Clark was staunchly against Obamacare-by-another-name, even when his party and the hospital and insurance lobbies were for it.

#5 Representative Bob Ballinger of Hindsville. 

Bob Ballinger is an attorney, and we think he knows more than his critics when it comes to some of the more controversial bills he sponsored.  For example, the bill which would exempt all firearms made and sold only in the state from federal gun laws.   It's based on sound logic, Kansas, Tennessee, Wyoming, and Montana currently have similar laws, and at some point we are going to have to confront the federal government's abuse of the commerce clause to end-run the Bill of Rights.    Ballinger was willing to take the heat on that and other solid pro-freedom causes, and of course he voted against the Obamacare Private Option.      He communicated well with the grass-roots too.   If there was one concern it would be that he did not continue to call the party leadership out what they did with the same frankness of those ranked a bit higher on the list.   Some of us feel that the fight is not over, and the time to let by-gones be by-gones is after some of them are gone!

#6 Rep. Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs. 

Bruce Westerman is another repeat to the "Ten Best" list, and like Justin Harris, he actually moved up in a strong field.   This was despite the fact that at first he was sucked into the spin over the mis-named "Private Option."   One important difference between Westerman and the rest-o-them is that he kept an open mind, looked at the facts, and had the humility and honesty to do an about-face and fight hard against the travesty that is the "Private" Option.   A politician would have retreated into tribalism and the political consultant's handbook which says you never admit to a mistake.   Westerman reacted like a statesman.   A rare principle-over party guy.  The rest of his record was sterling as well.

#7 Representative David Meeks of Conway.

David Meeks is another repeat on our "Ten Best Legislators" list, and if anyone here ought to be ranked higher it should be Meeks.   This writer for one should have listened to him on at least one occasion I can think of.    Meeks was among the pioneers in the use of social media to stay in touch with the grassroots in this state.  Since then, some others have closed the gap with him on it, but none do it better.   All of that staying in touch with the grassroots results in an excellent voting record.   He took on a very tough job of being a sort of intermediary between the bulk of his party and the grassroots.  While he did not waiver in his vote, this role may have tempered verbal and written criticism of the Obamacare bills at a time when having one foot on one side and one on the other was a difficult position.  Sometimes this is a place where humility and tact are not always appreciated as much as they should be.    Still, Meeks is an exemplary legislator, and fully worthy of another top-ten finish.

#8 Representative Richard Womack of Arkadelphia. 

Richard Womack made a strong splash as a freshman legislator.  He sponsored the right bills, he voted the right way, and he resisted tremendous inducements to switch his vote to support Obamacare.  To give you some idea, we have it on good authority that he was promised $30,000 to his re-election campaign if he would change his vote. That is more money than most state reps raise for their races over an entire two-year cycle.   He refused, now that $30,000 is liable to wind up in the campaign coffers of some puppet the offended lobbies will recruit to run against him.  They were not trying to get his vote based on policy, or principle, but a straight-up purchase.   I guess they thought they could get Womack to follow the dollars instead of keep his campaign promises.   They figured wrong.

#9 Representative Jim Dotson of Bentonville. 

Jim Dotson was another fantastic freshman legislator who hit the ground running.   Dotson ran on the SIMPLE plan, which included opposition to implementing Obamacare (no matter what they call it), and he stuck with the platform he was elected on.   That was harder than it seemed in a lot of places because many key people of a prominent grassroots group in his county got "turned" and became defacto supporters of the mis-named "Private Option" model of Obamacare.  He wasn't quiet in his opposition either.   He was more like an amen corner to Bart Hester.     While we can't vouch for all of the many bills he sponsored, he is who he claims to be, he is generally on the right track, and like Justin Harris and some of the other top performers, he is accessible and manages to radiate a nice-guy attitude while actually being strong as an oak.

#10 Representative Debra Hobbs of Rogers. 

Debra Hobbs made the "Ten Best" last time too, one of only five legislators to make the list twice and the only female to ever do so.   She showed great adaptability.  In previous sessions when their were few Republican legislators with the sand to file far-reaching conservative bills, she filed them.   This session, there were quite a few who were willing to file such bills, and she switched to quietly helping others get those bills passed while she worked on passing an array of smaller measures.   It is amazing what people can accomplish when they don't care who gets the credit, but we are watching and we choose to give her credit anyway.   Of course, she voted against Obamacare, even when it was deceptively called the "Private Option".    I don't even think she got much pressure on it because the wolves know who they can prey on and who it is a waste of time to try to flip.  It's a waste of time trying to flip Debra Hobbs on something like that.

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Honorable Mention

There were far more than ten legislators who deserved honor and praise for their service.   The "Honorable Mention" category is for all the legislators who accumulated at least five points from our panel of activists.

Rep. Kim Hammer of Benton - good candidate for "most improved."

Rep. Lane Jean of Magnolia - a beautiful town finally gets some strong representation.

Rep. Terry Rice of Waldron - I regret that this man was not the Speaker of the House

Rep. Charlene Fite of Van Buren - appears to be another Debra Hobbs type.

Rep. John Payton of Wilburn - for a guy from Wilburn, he got noticed a lot.

Rep. Bruce Cozart of Hot Springs - a solid performer who deserves more recognition.

Rep. Joe Farrer of Austin - No, not that Austin.    The Lonoke County one.

Rep. Bill Gossage of Ozark- A pleasant surprise.  Stronger than we expected.

Rep. Jane English of North Little Rock - if there was one legislator who deserved to be on the top ten list but did not quite make it, it would be the hard-working and high performing Senator Jane English.

Time for Ten Best / Worst Legislators

As a public service, Arkansas Watch has a tradition of releasing a post-session list of the "Ten Best" and "Ten Worst" state legislators in Arkansas.     We should have at least one of these articles ready for your evaluation by Monday, May 13th.  

The selections were made by a panel of five activists.  Since these individuals often work with the legislature, their identities will remain confidential.   I am the only one who knows who all five of these people are.    There is one from each congressional district in the state, plus me.   I feel that this makes it a more valid poll than some of these other "Best/Worst" lists that are done by a single individual or by people who all work together at the same place.  The main thing that sets it apart though, is the quality and outlook of the judges (except for me, they have to take me because I am running the poll!)   These are people who believe in freedom.  They are people who believe that government should be much more limited than it is, and where government power is necessary to maintain order then its power should be dispersed rather than centralized.

Participants were asked to rank the "Ten Best" and the "Ten Worst" choices, with one little twist I will save for later.   Their top "Best" pick got 10 points, with their next best pick getting nine points and so on until their last "Best" pick got one point.  The "Worst" list was constructed much the same way, but the numbers were negative numbers.    At the end, I total all the rankings and the ten highest scores are the "Best" and the ten lowest are the "Worst".

Please see this link for last sessions "Ten Best Legislators List" (which also contains a link to the "Ten Worst Legislators").   I hope you will check out the results from this session, which will be available in a couple of days.

Federal Gun Grabbers Aren't In Kansas Anymore

Or at least if they are, they are subject to prosecution if they exceed the bounds of the Constitution.    And I mean the real bounds of the Constitution, the ones that can be discerned by anyone with a high school reading level, not the imaginary powers that federal employees called judges have ascribed to their employer via court rulings.

The new Kansas Law specifies that guns and ammunition produced within the state and sold within the state are not subject to the various federal gun laws which have been passed based on Congress's power to "regulate interstate commerce."   You see back when Congress pretended to honor their oaths to uphold the constitution, they knew that they could not regulate guns because of the Second Amendment.   In an effort to end-run the intent of that amendment, they claimed that they had the power to regulate guns under the "interstate commerce clause".   That is to say, Congress has the power under the constitution to regulate commerce between the states.   They claimed the Commerce Clause permitted them to pass all of the laws they have made regulating guns.

What Kansas has done is say "as long as the gun is made here, and is only sold here, then there is no interstate commerce to regulate, therefore your laws are not constitutionally valid."  They are not the only state to do this.   Wyoming has passed a similar law based on similar reasoning.   So has Tennessee and the dispute with the feds on that one seems ongoing.

The story has an Arkansas angle.  Oh, not from anything our legislature has done.  The single piece of significant pro-2nd amendment legislation passed by them this session was done by mistake- they did not understand the consequences of the bill they passed.  Rather, I want to point out that before any of these states passed something like this, an Arkansas resident named Wayne Fincher made a machine guns and kept it within the state of Arkansas to challenge the law on the same legal basis.   Judge Jimm Hendren refused to let him put on a defense, and acted otherwise outrageously in the case.  Fincher lived 60 years as a law abiding citizen.  He is still rotting in prison because he made the major mistake of thinking that words on paper would protect him from the capricious and self-serving use of power on the part of our elites.  So far, Tennessee, Wyoming and Kansas are getting away with it, because states are a lot harder to arrest than individual people.

So Kansas wants this taken to court.  I wish Kansas the best in their efforts to advance freedom and limit the power of the federal government.  Unfortunately,  I don't have a lot of faith that a court case will result in a just verdict.   The Founders left an unfortunate gap in the system.  There is a fundamental problem with the way disputes between states and the federal government are adjudicated- all cases are decided by federal employees.   Even a brief look at the history of the question confirms the obvious- in the long run federal judges will favor the federal view of things regarding disputes between states and the federal government.  And why not, their employer is a party to the case?  

It is obvious that FEDGOV should not be able to use the "interstate commerce" clause as an end-run on the 2nd amendment, but I am afraid that the federal judges will imagine some fiction by which they rule it can.  Such "creative" rulings fly in the face of original intent and the plain meaning of words.  For federal judges to concoct such things it helps if they make their rulings while under the influence of a strong hallucinagenic- such as unchecked power.

If states are to be anything other than administrative units of an all-powerful central government, then at some point they are going to have to nullify such laws even when the "unbiased" judges in these cases rule that their employer is correct.    The best solution to this problem is the one suggested in "Localism, A Philosophy of Government" (I am a Localist and I own the rights to this work).  In the book, one of the many things advised to avoid the unfortunate tendency of power to centralize is that when a state has a dispute with the federal government, the judges hearing the case will be drawn from other states which are not a party to the case rather than federal judges.    Federal judges only rule on cases where two states have a controversy among themselves.

Best of luck Kansas, I hope the day comes when we have a legislature and Governor more like yours.

Constable Positions on the Chopping Block

Washington County is floating a proposal to reduce the number of elected Constable positions from the current fifteen to three.    If passed, townships would be combined so that only three constable positions would be on the ballot for the 2014 election.

I am not sure that the proposal would pass constitutional muster if challenged in court.  A plain reading of Article 7, section 47 of the Arkansas Constitution says that the voters of each township shall elect a constable.   I don't see how they could do that without reducing the whole county to three townships.  If they left that policy in place until the next redistricting, it would probably make it hard to fairly allocate voters using township information.

Separate from the question of can they slash the number of constables by 80% is the issue of should they do so?   It doesn't cost much money- they only get paid something like $7.50 a year.   Based on the principle of getting what you pay for, I'd say that is too low.   Unless they can leverage the position into some extra security work on the side, I can see why it would be hard to get good candidates.  Still, I know a few and we do have some good ones who serve because they are public spirited.  To tell you the truth, a lot of our legislators are not very good either, and for a lot of the same reason- the pay is too low considering what is asked of them.   If people think it is a good idea to slash constable positions because too many bad ones get elected, then I would have to say by the same logic we should slash legislators as well.

Maybe we should slash some county sheriffs too, if that reason stands.    If Washington County is re-configured to have only three townships then each third will be larger in population than many Arkansas Counties.   It doesn't make sense to have a constable covering a population base larger than half of the counties in the state.   Of course I don't favor that, but then again I don't think we ought to slash the number of constables either.

It has been said that the position is archaic, that it is a holdover from a time before we had automobiles and good roads.   County Sheriffs usually have enmity towards Constables because they are a separate elected official whose responsibilities overlap with their own.  

I think that is unfortunate.   The men who wrote the state Constitution were very sharp- and they were big on dividing power.  For example, on paper our Governor is one of the weakest in the nation.   Many executive offices that a Governor might appoint in other states are separately elected by the people and operate independently of the Governor.  They liked the idea of power being divided.    I don't see a problem in theory with having local constables operating con-currently with the Sheriff.  If there are bad constables, then that is the problem, not the existence of the office itself.   There are bad sheriffs and deputies as well.

Frankly, too many sheriffs are acting as if they are local administrative units of the federal government rather than locally elected, independent law enforcement units.   Oh sure the feds have more money to throw at crime.  They may even have more training and equipment.  In other words, every argument the sheriffs use against the existence of an independent constabulary could be used by the feds against them.    But in spite of those arguments, I believe most voters want sheriffs that are independent and answer to the local people rather than sheriffs who see themselves as mostly administrative units of the central government.

There is also a political party aspect to this move.   Constables tend to be free spirits.  If they file as a party candidate though, they are delegates to the Republican or Democrat District Conventions by virtue of the fact that they are serving in an elected office.    If there are ten Republican Constables in Washington County then in all likely-hood that is ten more "Tea Party" type Republican votes at district conventions.  Multiply that by the number of counties in each of the four districts and you can see that they would actually tilt the scales away from the establishment side of their party.   And the same is true of Democrats.  No wonder there is a move to reduce the number of Constables coming from the upper echelons of both parties.  They want the power to remain in hands that are both reliable to them and also few in number.   Maybe that is part of what is really behind this move.

The Big Show

"In an April 26 forum at The McCain Institute for International Leadership, Vice President Joe Bidenexpressed his admiration for Sen. Lindsey Graham(R-SC) in his own irreverent fashion. In a conversation with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Biden said that he would do whatever he could to help Graham win his reelection bid next year. The vice president said he would be happy to campaign for him or against him, promising Graham that he would “rip your skin off” if that would cement his reputation as an enemy of the Obama administration among South Carolina’s Republican primary voters."

Can the members of the ruling class spell it out any plainer than that for us peasants?  They intend for the whole Red-Blue thing to be a shtick.    It is all meant to be for show, an act as phony as pro-wrestling.  It is an act designed to keep the rubes back in the heartland entertained while their friends finish looting the country and collapsing the former middle class into abject poverty.  

Only a few "rouge" politicians are threatening to ruin the Big Show.   In the U.S. Senate there are three such men, Ted Cruz from Texas, Tom Lee from Utah, and Rand Paul from Kentucky.  They are actually attempting statesmanship, not performance art, and are therefore making a nuisance of themselves according to the cast members of The Big Show.   Here is a video where Cruz candidly tells us that some of the actors, er, Senators, were yelling at the three at the top of their lungs for filibustering gun control legislation that the establishment was trying to rush through.  The trio's stalling tactics embarrassed the actors who have been playing the role of "Pro-Second Amendment" Senators to actually vote that way, against their will.  

It is no wonder that the insiders of both parties get along with each other better than they do with the outsiders in their own parties.  The outsiders are the troublemakers who are trying to end the scams endemic to big government, the insiders are putting on a stage production to fool the people into thinking they are trying to end the scam.  The show's real purpose is to keep the thing going as long as possible.  It is designed to make the folks back home think that "something is being done" about our nation's dire situation while in fact the fraud rolls on.

While this problem may be worse at the national level, we have seen it here in Arkansas as well.  Recall last year that Democratic Senator Larry Teague had a general election fundraiser that was co-sponsored by every Republican member of the state senate at that time (Sen. Jason Rappert is an exception, saying his name was put on the invitations without his consent), including a former state GOP Chairman.   And of course, after all the election season noise from the Republican state legislators about how they would resist the implementation of Obamacare, they jumped right in and implemented it once they were sure their friends got enough of the taxpayer money.

Friends, the two-party system as it currently exists is a sham.  It is a fraud and a show.   That is a fact.   The outsiders deserve our support, but each honest citizen should ask themselves whether they want to spend 100% of their political time, energy, and effort playing a very minor bit role in the Big Show or whether they might want to prudently diversify their political investments.  That is, spend some of that time, energy, and effort doing the hard but necessary job of building a real political alternative to the grotesque charade Red-Blue politics has become.    

We may not be able to build a national alternative to the Big Show, but we can right here at home.  Then we just have to hope that our fellow citizens in other states do the same.  We can show them the way, but we can't do it for them.  In the days and weeks to come I and others will be visiting with various activist groups to see what we can do to provide a real alternative, at least on races that don't take millions of dollars to win.

Altes Outsmarts Beebe and Carter

Fort Smith Republican Representative Denny Altes has had his ups and downs during his legislative career, but he goes out with a bang, if you will pardon the pun, with Act 746.    It appears that Gov. Mike Beebe and House Speaker Davy Carter did not understand the full significance of the bill that became Act 746 when it was going through.   If they had, they would have stopped it, much like Carter acted to stop a much more timid gun bill (permitted concealed carry holders would not get in trouble even if their gun was showing).

Act 746 defines what constitutes a "journey" under existing gun laws, and specifies that one can carry a hand gun on a journey as long as one does not intend to use it on a person unlawfully.   Prior to the act, even the use of a gun in self-defense in these circumstances could be considered a crime.  

A plain reading of the law is that it is now legal to carry a handgun for self-dense if one is going to "journey" outside of one's home county.   No permit is needed for this by the letter of the law, nor does the law restrict the gun to a vehicle.

Nic Horton has more details on the Arkansas Project.   That includes how the Beebe administration is twisting and claiming the new law does not change much.   They may find a crooked judge willing to rule that way, or they may not.   The law says what it says.  Congratulations to Rep. Altes.

Symptoms vs. Problem on State Republican Obamacare Betrayal

 "The fun irony of AR politics. It was the Republicans who brought Obamacare to AR. " - Liberal blogger Michael Cook.

It does not matter that many if not most of the Republican legislators are flat out lying about what they have done. The liberals know that what the Republicans helped to pass is Obamacare. The nation knows it. Informed conservative activists know it. The only ones on the scene that don't know it are the "activists" who don't want to know it. They don't want to see what was in the bill and compare it to the claims.

The people who know that the men and women they worked to elect did the opposite of what they said they would do on the central issue of the last election are understandably upset.   Efforts of the betrayers to re-direct attention to all the things they did right amount to little more than asking "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"   Many of them are ready to turn disgust into action.  But what action?

Glenn E. Gallas of Hot Springs is rounding up support for a ballot petition which would send to the ballot a referendum to effectively undo what the Republican legislature just did- implement Obamacare in Arkansas.   I support his effort, though I have my doubts that Democrat Attorney General Dustin McDaniel will play fair as far as approving their ballot titles and getting it on the ballot.  Still, I want it on the ballot.  The people turned over the legislature for the first time in 138 years and the biggest issue was whether or not to implement Obamacare.   Shockingly, though the people made this dramatic course correction, the new bunch did pretty much what the old bunch would have done.

I am afraid that the real problem runs much deeper than this one issue.   What happened here was a symptom of  a grotesque malady that is rotting our body politic.   It was not the problem, it was a symptom of the problem.  Yes, I think we should treat the symptom, that is what the referendum would do, but it is a gigantic mistake to think that treating the symptom is solving the problem.    

Our candidate selection system in America in general, and Arkansas in particular, is broken.   We may keep trying to treat the symptoms this disease produces, but we cannot begin to heal the patient until we treat the real systemic problems.    Our nation was designed so that the Legislature would be the "People's Branch" that made the laws.   They were to check and balance the Executive and Judicial branches.   The state governments were to check and balance the federal government.   None of these intended actions can occur when Executive Branch Officials and Legislators are members of the same political party and when state and federal officials serve in the same parties.   

The party system has ruined the legislative branch for its intended purpose.   Legislators don't need to hear from constituents anymore.   They get their marching orders from the other politicians in their party like the Governor or they hear from their party bosses.   And in DC where this thing is really run, the Red Team and the Blue Team are funded by a lot of the same people.

Oh you might try to run some "outsiders" in a party primary against the incumbent, but if that incumbent has served the party well, there are a dozen ways they can tilt the primaries in their favor.   And if your outsider wins anyway, they can undermine them in the general so they will lose, then blame the grassroots for the loss.  I know.  I helped an outsider win two state-wide Republican primaries.

It is time we neighbors started asking ourselves just exactly why we need to route our candidates for the state legislature through a political party headquartered eight hundred miles away and staffed by people who are more interested in pleasing large corporate donors than blocking the growth of socialism/fascism.    It does not take a million dollars to be competitive in a race to serve in a state legislative seat.   It does not take thousands, or even hundreds, of campaign workers.    Since it ruins the intent of the Founders to have state and federal officials all serving in the same parties, maybe we should consider other options for candidate selection in our races here at home.   As broken as our present candidate selection is, it would be hard to do worse.

The main argument against it might be that "splitting the vote" in some races will result in the election of our least-preferred candidate.   That is not a reason to limit our choices to the same two political gangs that have ruined the country, its a reason to change our election laws from our ridiculous "first past the post" method of determining a winner.   We have run-off elections for city and county races, and those governments seem to work pretty well on much fewer resources.   

If we really want to get their attention, we should change the election laws to permit run-off elections at least in state legislative races.   That would allow people to vote their conscience without fear of "splitting the vote."     These guys know that Arkansas is a one-party state in many state house and senate districts, and they know incumbents who play ball with the party get a lot of help.   Right now, once they are in, they don't need you anymore.  Un-rigging the election laws would change that.

In the days and weeks to come, I and some others hope to reach out to activists around the state and begin a dialogue about what we can do to not just treat the latest symptom of our broken candidate selection system, but heal the root cause as well.

Big Lyon Theory

" they (the people) more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying." -Adolph Hitler in "Mine Kaumpf" 

The establishment in Arkansas, which consists of the people who run the Democrat Party, more than half of the Republican legislators, and of course the Democrat-Gazette and establishment media, are telling you the people of Arkansas "the big lie."     They are making claims so outrageously untrue that the normal person will tend to accept it as true simply because they cannot imagine their leaders would say something so breath-takingly false.  They think that their leaders would not have the nerve to lie so brazenly.  The average person thinks there must be some reasonable explanation.  

That's how Big Lies work.  That is, they work if they are repeated enough by people and institutions that citizens regards as "authorities."    Since the alternative is to believe that the majority of authority figures are to some extent complicit in propagating a colossal falsehood, it is easier just to shrug it off than face up to this unpleasant possibility.

I know this because I am one of those (mostly) normal people.  One way I am not normal is that as a hobby I am a "policy wonk".   I like to look into details of proposed legislation and project how it would work (or not).  Weird I know, but that is what makes the world go round, right?  As I looked into the details of HB1143/SB1020 and compared it to the claims of legislators I know and in most cases like, I went through this process.    The language of the bill  did not match up with the claims being made by men like Speaker Davy Carter, Rep. John Burris, and many other Republican legislators.  And when I say "did not match up" I mean that the truth was, if not 180 degrees the opposite of what they were claiming then it was close, maybe 170 degrees out.  

Almost all of the Republicans who voted to fund the act falsely known as the "Private Option", and several of those who voted against it, maintained these claims.  At first I thought, as Hitler wrote, that "there must be some other explanation."   In the internet age, many of these people are reachable and so I interacted with a number of them.   I asked them questions.  I quoted their own words back to them and compared it to the language of the bill.   They each, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, insisted that the "Private Option" in SB1020 was not an expansion of Medicaid, and not giving into Obamcare.     

These claims are outrageously false.  The are Big Lies.  At first they claimed that the Private Option was fighting Obamacare.   Towards the end, they modified their story on the latter question, saying that "Obamacare is here, we have it whether we do anything or not."   That was the opposite of what they said six months ago when they were campaigning .   Back then they insisted that if you elected them they would fight the implementation of Obamacare.    Either they were telling you the Big Lie then, or they are doing so now. 


So if you compare what they said then to what the say now, it is clear that one thing they said at least must be untrue. But even if you choose to kid yourself that they are not lying now, then you must also erase your own memory of what they told you about the same subject six months ago in order to maintain the belief that they have been honest with you.   

Like most authorities that use the Big Lie tactic, they are counting on your reluctance to accept that the authorities would attempt such brazen falsehoods to get you to shrug your shoulders and ignore the issue.   They are counting on you being either too apathetic to care about finding out the truth or too cowardly to face an unpleasant truth.   You don't want to face the idea that those like-able gents who spoke at your meeting last year have foisted on you a colossal lie.

I have heard people who allege that they are activists spouting other non-sense too, all to avoid having to face the obvious conclusion that their champions are flat out lying to them.  I have heard them say "it was too late for us to opt out."  That is wrong, as this article makes clear, there is no time limit on deciding when to opt out of expanding Medicaid.   What is not so clear is whether states can un-expand Medicaid once they decide to expand it, as Arkansas has now voted to expand it- even though the men and women you campaigned for are not being honest enough to tell you that that is what it is.  

Some legislators are saying that we can always get out of it if Washington does not do it they way we want it done.  The prior link about whether states can un-expand Medicaid shows that these confident pronouncements are mostly gas. We don't like the way the feds are doing education either.  When is the last time the state totally dropped a major federal education program because we did not like they way it was being done?  

Republicans claim that the "private option" will not be implemented unless it is done the way the Republicans want it to be implemented. Even assuming that there growth-of-government plan would be a good thing, their claims regarding this are also false.  I linked to the text of the bill.  Look at it yourself.   It only says that the program will not be implemented if the (temporary) waivers are not in place at the start. 

Once the program is implemented, there is no automatic trigger to stop the program even if all of the waivers the Republicans want are done away with. At any rate, it will be Mike Beebe's people who will determine whether or not the original waivers that the feds grant are sufficient to comply with the provisions of the act and"implement" the program.  What do you suppose they will say?  

This is like a repeat of the decision in 2011 on how to stop the Democrats from building a Health Care exchange.  They thought they had a deal with the Democrats then too.  Read about how that worked out for us (hint, we have a partnership exchange even though there was no legislative authorization for it).  Look at page 9 lines 12-14 of the bill.   Not only did it expand Medicaid, but it also obligated the legislature to set up some kind of exchange, which Beebe had no legislative authorization to do until now.  

In other words, there were two major things states had to do in order to help implement Obamacare.  One was to sign up everybody under 138% of poverty level in some sort of Medicaid program and the other was to set up a state Health Insurance Exchange (which is for people up to 400% of poverty level).  The Republicans in the legislature have caved on both major parts of the plan, unlike many other states who are resisting Obamacare by holding the line on growth of socialized medicine and forcing the feds to own the exchange rather than make the state and its taxpayers responsible for it.


The Democrat Gazette, as usual, is spinning it for the establishment by repeating every untruth at face value.  This report by John Lyon goes right down the list...

"Last week, the state House and Senate gave final passage to a package of bills encompassing Arkansas’ alternative to Medicaid expansion, the so-called “private option.” The plan is expected to save the state $670 million over 10 years and shrink the Medicaid rolls by 35 percent."

First of all, the so-called "Private Option" is not an "alternative to Medicaid expansion."  It's Medicaid Expansion. It is an alternative program under Medicaid which will result in a massive increase in the number of persons enrolled in some sort of Medicaid program.   It will not "shrink the Medicaid rolls by 35 percent."   It will only shrink the rolls of one Medicaid program, by adding another program that is paying for even more people.  

Do you remember when Blue Cross and other health insurers started adding high-deductible HSA plans?  Maybe a third of their customers went to some sort of HSA plan, and the others stayed with their traditional plans.  Would it be honest to claim that "Blue cross had their customer base shrink by 35%" just because some of their customers went to another Blue Cross product?  Of course not, but that is what Lyon is doing here with Medicaid.   

The so-called "Private Option" is a Medicaid Program, run under Medicaid Guidelines, any waivers granted will be Medicaid waivers which are temporary in any case.   The program will be administered by the Arkansas Department of Human Services and funded with taxpayer dollars.  What is "private" about an option like that?   It is corporate welfare for insurance companies and hospitals.  It is cronyism being sold as "free market" by Big Lie proponents.

The claim that the plan is "expected to save the state $670 million over 10 years" is also highly misleading.  It only saves money if their "private" reforms work as expected and only compared to expanding government to the max while making no reforms at all.  De-linking from Obamacare, refusing to expand Medicaid and refusing to participate in a health care exchange (putting all the cost on the federal government) is the option that would have saved the state billions of dollars over the next ten years.  

Here is a chart based on numbers put out by Beebe's own people.  He was trying to make the so-called "private option" work, so he had every incentive to make it look good compared to traditional expansion,  but one glance at the chart shows it is obvious that the plan only "saves" money compared to a plan that spends even more money!  De-linking, which they call "doing nothing" actually saves money.

John Lyon quotes Gov. Beebe as saying, "“If there is a message about this, the message is, ‘Washington: Republicans and Democrats can work together. "

Yes they can.  When they are implementing what the Democrats want done.  Because that is all that happened here, except that the Republicans got the insurance companies and the hospitals a cut of taxpayer money too.

Seeing is not an act of the eyes, but an act of the will. Men do not see according to the facts in front of them, but rather the heart within them.  I urge us all to pray for hearts willing to see truth.