Andanh.com

I have cooking to do tonight (see a platter of Farmer Al's heirloom tomatoes and eat your heart out; I'll spare you the peppered ham, squash casserole, yeast rolls, cole slaw and peach and blackberry cobblers), so I'm leaving it to the readers early for an open line.

If I get a report from the Democratic State Committee meeting, I'll try to post it. There seems little doubt steps will be taken to bar sex offender Dwayne Dobbins from running for legislature as a Democrat. (Richard Carroll has qualified as a Green candidate for the seat, don't forget.)

UPDATE: On motion of Party Chair Bill Gwatney, seconded by Jason Willett, Dobbins was stripped from the list of Democratic Party nominees under a newly adopted rule. Dobbins was present. He said he'd be talking to attorneys about his next move.

Politico is writing on Obama's continued invocation of Ronald Reagan. He praises his communication skills, but not his policies.

I don't get it, particularly at this  late stage from a candidate who's having to endure a little battering on substance.

Would you rather have 1) a president who communicated well, but ran up enormous deficits, conducted illegal diplomacy and otherwise visited misery on millions or 2) a bumbling speaker who was fiscally responsible, honest, alert and possessed of sound judgment. Obama can combine the best of communication and intellect. Why the Reagan stuff? Except raw pandering, of course.

Claude B. passes along a passage from an account of Maverick John McCain's candid "town hall" meetings. He's like Bush in more ways than one, turns out.

Campaign aides portray McCain's town halls as no-holds-barred events in which the candidate urges friends and foes alike to take their best shots. And while he routinely takes more hostile questions than does Obama, McCain's events are not always as open as they appear.

Security officers ordered three women — identified as protesters because they were wearing pro-abortion-rights T-shirts — to leave a line of "overflow ticket" holders at a July 15 McCain town hall in Albuquerque, N.M. And Friday's "Employee Town Hall Meeting" for General Motors workers in Warren, Mich., was advertised as "not open to the general public."

Morning News reports on a teen trapped last night in a cave in Devil's Den State Park. She'd been wedged in a narrow spot almost nine hours when the story was last updated. So far, I'm unable to find if the situation has been resolved this morning. The cave is cold and wet. The girl was part of a church outing.

UPDATE: After being trapped for 17 hours, the teen was freed this morning. 40/29 has the report.

Brummett argues that Barack Obama really is a new kind of leader, not just a politician seeking the broadest possible acceptance.

Evidence: He's for charter schools and teacher merit pay. He's for shipping public money to churches for social programs. He's for fewer abortions through encouragement of adoption and family planning. Bite tongue.

I'm outta here.

PS -- my office mail is down again. Write me at mfbrantley@aol.com

Helena-West Helena Mayor James Valley was disciplined by the state Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct today. He'll be suspended from law practice for 30 days, once the formal order is filed with the Supreme Court.

The committee found Valley had not communicated sufficiently with a client in a child support case. He waited 14 months before filing a petition for reduction of child support payments and then did nothing further, a committee spokesman said. Valley never responded to the committee's request for information on the case. His penalty was enhanced, a spokesman said, because Valley had been reprimanded three times previously.

UPDATE: His statement on the jump.

Checking in with the Ethics Commission on another matter, I was informed that the Commission had signed off on "honoraria" to justices of the peace who perform weddings. They may not charge a fee to perform weddings. But, the Commission has ruled, if somebody offers to palm Marryin' Sam a little cash, up to $100, that's OK. Anything above $100 becomes, by statutory definition, impermissible private compensation for public duties.

This is an old pet peeve of mine. But the peeve is with the law, not the Commission. When nothing up to $100 is considered impermissible payment -- and the statute makes no mention of time limits -- there's nothing in the law that prevents, say, a lobbyist from tipping a legislator about $50 daily for simply being a swell fellow. Or $99.99. Just as long as the legislator doesn't set a fee in return for specific work. Over time, those little honoraria could add right up.

Can it possibly be true? Are House members really lobbying for election as House speaker in 2011? So says the Fayetteville Trucker, who claims the name of Rep. Robert Moore of Arkansas City, former ABC director, is among those already going around.

A week-ending vignette from the Pulaski County courthouse.

A couple from Memphis seeks judicial approval for marriage.

He: 22

She: 14 and pregnant.

Her justification: 1) "I go to church." 2) "My daddy says it's OK because we're in love."

Ruling: Denied.