Red Wing Daily: May 6, 2025
State
Dismissed: After no action for over eight months, federal Judge Brian Miller has dismissed the lawsuit filed against the Republican Party of Arkansas and Secretary of John Thurston. The lawsuit was filed after the Party’s nullification of the 2024 State Convention where over 600 Republican conservatives overwhelmingly voted to close the Republican primaries and implement other historic changes to equalize Party power between the Party’s voters and the donors/elected officials.
New laws from the ATA: The Arkansas Legislature worked with Arkansas Trucking Association lobbyists to create and pass Act 604 affecting non-English speaking CDL drivers, as well as Acts 321 and 322 that criminalize organized cargo theft and add penalties for property theft designated as cargo theft. President Trump’s recent “Commonsense Rules of the Road” executive order mandating that non-English speaking CDL drivers be totally removed from the roads supercedes the weak $500 fine required under Act 604 when such drivers are identified.
Keeping it in the family: State Rep. Jeff Wardlaw of Hermitage is now term limited after eight terms at the State House but — hey, you can now vote for his wife, Laura “Missy” Wardlaw, who’s announced her candidacy for the southeast Arkansas District 94 seat against John Kyle Day in the March 3 open Republican primary.
Election czar: Former Miller County Judge Cathy Hardin Harrison has announced her run against term-limited Senator Kim Hammer of Saline County for Secretary of State, leading to a Republican primary in March.
Movin’ on up: “Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester has had exactly three jobs since graduating from law school in May 2022” and, after Governor Sanders appointed him to be Secretary of State he’s now has decided to run for the most important position of land commissioner, a well known stepping stone to higher office in Arkansas politics, if he wants it.
On your 2026 ballot: The 95th Arkansas General Assembly has concluded for now, with sine die yesterday. Per law, during each Session the Legislature refers up to three constitutional amendments your ballot. Voters will decide in November 2026 on whether to amend our state Constitution to
— prohibit non-citizens from voting in Arkansas elections (currently our Constitution only details who can vote, not who cannot),
— protect the individual right to keep and bear arms (our state Constitution mentions only “common defense” and not “individual rights” ), and
— allow the Legislature to create “more local” economic development districts (spending taxpayer money and extending tax-free benefits for specially selected projects in “cities, counties, or cooperative areas”).Make Tyson healthy again: Tyson Foods is reacting to Health Secretary’s Robert Kennedy’s plans to ban 2 synthetic, petroleum-based food colorings by "proactively reformulating" its food products that contain those dyes; plans are to complete the project to eliminate them from the production process by the end of May.
National
All they know to do: Rep. Maxine Waters, ranking member of Rep. French Hill’s House Financial Services Committee, planned to object to Hill’s scheduled Committee cryptocurrency hearing for today and plans to “walk out with at least some Financial Services Democrats” to host a pretend Democrat “shadow hearing” focusing on what else — possible “conflicts of interest” in the crypto industry among Trump circles and family. Hill and Glenn (G.T.) Thompson (Republican Agriculture Committee Chair) yesterday released a discussion draft of a proposed plan to regulate the cryptocurrency industry.
What happened to my truck? GM has recalled over 720,000 trucks and SUVs where 6.2-liter V-8 engines “can lose power or fail” due to internal manufacturing defects, requiring vehicles such as the 2021-2024 Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Silverado 1500, and GMC Yukon to be inspected and perhaps have an entire engine replacement.
Bondi pivots DOJ: Attorney General Pam Bondi has redirected the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ away from ‘“pattern or practice” investigations” that “previously centered on liberal causes like allegations of ‘systemic constitutional abuses as a response to the police beating of Rodney King.” With the support of Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon, a new Second Amendment task force now aims at issues such as unreasonable obstruction within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where it might take up to 18 months to obtain a concealed-carry permit.
Trading stocks in Congress: Republican Senator Josh Hawley has introduced the PELOSI bill that Prevents Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments, although chances of passage are close to zero, given the lucrative nature of such investments for so many of our U.S. Senators and Representatives. Do you believe our elected officials are better at stock market investing than Mr. Joe Citizen?
No, pedophilia can never be mainstream: A Maryland nonprofit conducted a conference for “minor-attracted persons” (pedophiles) late last week to teach mental health providers to be “empowered to work confidently and affirmingly with MAPs” by “encouraging those who are sexually attracted to minors to view their predilection as ‘an intrinsic part of their identity.’” One linked nonprofit “seeks to destigmatize sexual attraction toward minors and those who have this attraction. They say that they do not advocate for pedophilia or pedophiles and make a distinction between those who have the attraction and those who act on it.” Sure, we believe that. “What about the children!?”
Coming to a boil: Trump-appointed Judge Fernando Rodriguez says the Alien Enemies Act only applies when the US is at war and under an armed attack. But his permanent injunction blocking President Trump’s use of the AEA to deport illegal Venezuelan Tren de Aragua invaders puts a bright spotlight on constitutionally based jurisdictional issues. Federal judges in New York, Colorado, and Texas have issued similar rulings. Can federal district judges issue nationwide injunctions? How did the Supreme Court “jump over” the 5th Circuit appeals courts to issue the hurried Rodriguez ruling on Good Friday afternoon (the Court did not even wait for two dissenting Justices to file their dissents)? How much due process applies to illegal invaders — “Venezuelan detainees” per NPR? Constitutional activist Mike Davis from the Article III Project breaks it down with Steve Bannon:
Tech
Apple bends to tariffs: As a result of President Trump’s tariffs, CEO Tim Cook says most “iPhones … will be made in India, while Vietnam will be the main production point for products such as iPads and Apple Watches as far as the American market is concerned.
Higher utility rates on the way? Both Conway and Little Rock have announced $1 billion, 300,000-square-feet data center projects while the company(ies) behind the projects remain anonymous (although there is a link, perhaps, between the two). Now you know why the Legislature focused on SB307/Act 373 that seemed out in left field when Republican Senator Jonathan Dismang filed it in late February. Conway says they were working on the project for “about a year,” while Little Rock says its project has been on the table since early 2024. Act 373 allows “utilities [to] build power plants or other ‘strategic investments’ with less regulation from the Arkansas Public Service Commission (PSC) and charge customers higher rates to cover their costs” as the projects are built rather than the current practice of only charging those higher rates once construction projects are completed. Supporters have emphasized that the PSC still retains oversight for these utility projects.
Renewable energy outages: Experts are focusing on over-reliance on wind and solar “renewable power”as a contributing factor to the sudden power failure affecting Spain, Portugal, and parts of France on April 28. With so much power coming from wind and solar, “induced atmospheric vibration” could not be mitigated by what used to be massive numbers of oscillating physical power generating turbines that always absorbed those massive energy swings across the network thus leveling out the power demands due to their ability to hold and rebalance stored kinetic energy. Automatic switching then took the grid down as networks disconnected to prevent destructive damage.
“Cole Jester did a fantastic job as my legal counsel,
and he has been America’s best secretary of state.”
- Governor Sarah Sanders
"It was more about shock and awe and disruption than it was about government efficiency.
I think they were very efficient about creating shock and awe and disruption."
- 4th District Rep. Bruce Westerman, speaking on DOGE
"For the last 50 years, we have been running one of the largest uncontrolled scientific experiments in the world on our nation's children without their consent."
- FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, speaking about petroleum-based food dyes