Note to Pence: The economy trumps all

When Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson wisely refused to sign the state's new "religious freedom" law and returned it to the legislature for repairs, you had to wonder why Mike Pence, Indiana's rattled governor,   didn't do   it sooner before some business and sports world giants  broke down his door as he sputtered for  conflicting answers.

In Hutchinson's case, it was Wal-Mart, the state's biggest employer, along with Little
Rock's Regional  Chamber of Commerce, and Convention and Visitors Bureau that jerked the deal from his desk after he first said he would sign it.

In both states, as well as others that might be trolling, the issue was the same:

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!

What Pence painfully learned  in the age of hyper-communications is that he could be instantly rocketed   from his safe chair back home in Indiana to a broken national figure  who admitted that he had fumbled his interview by ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

He was completely unprepared - a governor, for Heaven's sake! -  for his political calamity. Now, despite his own protest that he meant no harm to LGBT's, he was betrayed by his 2000 congressional campaign website, by these damning words:

"Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual's [sic] as a 'discrete and insular minority' entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and minorities.'"

Some things never change.

Are schools ready for the Armies of the Right?

Let me see if I follow this:

Wayne LaPierre, the near-million-dollar a year megaphone for the NRA, first says schools should be armed against crazy gunmen.Then the NRA puts up another million for a task force headed by former Arkansas Republican congressman Asa Hutchinson to recommend ways to  confront the monstrous problem. Then Hutchinson appears at the National Press Club to declare,  "Eureka, we think we've found the answer!"

The envelope, please.  And the winner is...the NRA, which sponsored the study in the first place.  As Hutchinson went on to assert,  every school should have gun toters on the staff - the modern version, I assume,  of the well-regulated militia. But couldn't the NRA have saved its million  instead of purchasing an echo of its original idea?

When Hutchinson turned up on Lawrence O'Donnell's show Tuesday night, he dodged a number of questions embedded in the larger gun issues: less lethal weapons and magazines, mass killings beyond America's classrooms,  background checks et al.

He repeatedly reminded O'Donnell that his mission as the NRA's rising star was limited to school safety.  When O'Donnell asked him how much he was paid to produce an overlay on the NRA's position, Hutchinson snipped: "It's none of your business."

Nor, it's beginning to seem more likely every day, is the business of blood control that a great majority of Americans want.

* * * * *

Speaking of the Armies of the Right, Summit County Republicans will be able to greet two of Ohio's staunch opponents of gun control at  the party's Lincoln (!)  Day dinner on April 27 in Quaker Square: Reps. Jim Renacci and Dave Joyce, neither of whom have yet qualified as rising stars in the increasingly crowded firmament.

Renacci, in particular, has been singled out as a leading recipient of NRA money, and both guys arrive in County Chairman's Alex Arshinkoff's circle with the authorized version of the Party of No:  Whether it be Obamacare, gun control, abortion rights, gay marriage or a lot of other right-wing guff, you can guess the drill.

As for Arshinkoff, the message in the party invitation was customarily over-the-top with his well-recorded hyperbole - even for the political world.  His two honored guests, he promised,  would help lead Obamacare into the "dustbin of history", guarantee that America would again "Stand tall" in the world and join in other fights on Capitol hill, including sending Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to the shadows of the unemployed. (The "stand tall" thing is worrisome.  Is he referring to a new invasion of Iraq?)


There was a time when Hillary Clinton, not Nancy Pelosi, was the Dragon Lady at these affairs.  Now she is leading all Republicans in the 2016 presidential sweeps.  Does that speak of a revival of Jane Fonda in these GOP klatches. And , by the way, whatever happened to Jane?