If Not Us, Then Who?

Red Wing Daily: June 6, 2025

In Arkansas both liberal and conservative voters got pretty worked up during the 95th General Assembly over the restrictive legislation Republican state Senator Kim Hammer successfully spearheaded against our citizen initiative/referendum process ("democracy" to the Left) …. read more

State

• Running for State House: Scout Stubbs of Greenbrier, owner of vape and hemp retail stores and a dog boarding company, will run for Republican House District 42 in 2026, the spot currently held by term-limited state Representative Stephens Meeks.

• Do the Party’s bidding: The RPA’s hatchet man in central Arkansas, Drew Martin, has been made it latest Executive Director.

• It’s working: Citing Arkansas’ new law mandating an 8-grade reading level for citizen-led ballot initiatives, AG Tim Griffin has shot down another proposed ballot measure dealing with the repeal of Republican state Senator Kim Hammer’s new citizen referendum/initiative legislation. Working on at least two fronts, Protect AR Rights and For AR Kids not only submitted the now-failed Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment, they are also challenging Act 602 by filing to intervene in a federal lawsuit two other Left-leaning groups filed against Act 602.

• More common than you might think: After first learning that most of the allegations circulating about Hardy Police Chief Scott Rose “appeared unsubstantiated and based on rumor,” further interviews with the alleged victim and her family led a coalition of federal, state, and county law enforcement to arrest Rose on Monday on felony charges of second degree sexual assault, sexual indecency with a child, and endangering the welfare of a minor plus a misdemeanor charge of providing a minor with alcohol.

• Musical chairs: Prohibited by law from running for the same position to which Governor Sarah Sanders appointed each of them, Arkansas Supreme Court Justices Nicholas Bronni and Cody Hiland will each run or the other’s seat on the Supreme Court in 2026. Remember, Supreme Court positions are elected at the March 31, 2026 primary election; any runoffs happen at the November 3, 2026 general election.

• Simply the best? US News & World Report says five Arkansas cities made it into their annual “best places to live” survey as measured by affordability, happiness, desirability, retiree taxes, job market, and health care quality. Rogers, Springdale, and Fayetteville appear not only on the national list, but these three also lead the survey of “best cities” inside the state of Arkansas.

  

• ICYMI, election work: The state Board of Election Commissioners is authorizing reviews of Pulaski and Izard Counties’ election commissions after staff reviews of 2024 general election complaints. Other investigation of six related complaints led to a unanimous decision to decertify as-yet-publicly-unnamed entire county election commission, even as one commissioner points out the “Hatfields and McCoys” environment they’ve learned about in more than one county. (FYI, former RPA Rules Chairman Belinda Harris-Ritter is the Republican Party’s designee on this influential State Board; Board member Republican Jamie Clemmer of Saline County also sits on the Library Board in Saline County, the scene of ongoing “library book wars” over inappropriate content.)

National

• Leftist Governor Hobbs supports the CCP: Arizona Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed legislation that would bar the People’s Republic of China (Chinese Communist Party) from owning land in that state, despite supporters saying they need to protect Arizona’s military assets. Hobbs says the bill "does not directly protect our military assets" and opens "the door to arbitrary enforcement."

• Here’s the deal: If you want a good, clear overview of most of the main provisions in the House’s Big Beautiful Bill Act, here ya go. It, of course, can address much of the major spending cuts we wish to see because of the reconciliation process that can allow its passage in the Senate by a simple majority rather than 60%. Meanwhile the White House sent its first $9.4 billion rescission bill to the House for action on Tuesday this week.

• After the “Byrd bath” The Senate’s Byrd Rule restricts reconciliation bills to items that are more than “merely incidental” to the federal budget, which leaves the Senate parliamentarian as the sole judge of what stays and what gets cuts as the Senate deals with that Big Beautiful Bill Act. On the possible chopping block are several items MAGA voters want to see such as

  — the 10-year ban on AI regulation by states

  — barring Medicaid recipients from care at Planned Parenthood (similar to what the Byrd Rule stripped out in2017)

  — limiting federal judges’ ability to hold administration members in contempt

• Establishment vs MAGA in the Texas GOP: A group of 26 Republican Party county chairs sent an open letter to Texas GOP State Chair Abraham George and its executive committee describing the Party’s financial situation as “grave and deteriorating” and stating the Texas GOP is unprepared for the 2026 general election. Elected a year ago, George followed outgoing Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi, who ushered in the “far-right using the party institution as a bully pulpit to attack more moderate conservatives,” according to old guard insider; however, Republican AG Ken Paxton and 24 leading GOP members together with far-right oil billionaire funders Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks.

• “Amazon of guns” Donald Trump Jr. is opening an online firearms store called GrabAGun that “seeks to restore access to firearms and accessories, offering a streamlined online shopping experience while adhering to federal regulations.”

  “This is giving [the public] an opportunity with ‘grab a gun,’ to shop the way they shop virtually everything else.” — Donald Trump Jr.

• Hidden from whom? “The FBI’s electronic case management system, Sentinel, allows agents to hide the existence of relevant investigative reports from other authorized users of the federal database,” such that a search of FBI evidence and records by lower-security individuals would show 0 results. We now know Robert Mueller used this trick to conceal and hide exculpatory evidence about Fusion GPS during the Russiagate hoax against President Trump. What about past FOI requests from the press and the public? What about other probes — did FBI agents see all of what the FBI found to make its final determinations? Apparently even members of Congress were unaware. How many DOJ and FBI agents knew of the “Prohibited Access” functionality? Unknown.

Tech

• Bentonville tech: Anyone who works online is probably familiar with the icon product called Font Awesome, but did you know this remote-only-worker company is based in Bentonville? It’s used on more than 200 million sites, the company says. They added 300 new icons to their new Font Awesome 7, a vector-based, scalable collection of icons — symbols like hearts, stars and shopping carts — designed to load faster and work with accessibility technology like screen readers as well as allow users to mix and change icon colors easily.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
- Elon Musk about the Big Beautiful Bill Act

A bit more of what’s going on between @elonmusk on X and @realDonaldTrump on Truth: