The segment I saw on 40-29 at 10:00 PM showed Mr. Womack yelling. Was he yelling because he couldn't answer the question? Or was he yelling because he wasn't pleased about being given a hard time? I saw that the Iraq War has cost nearly a trillion dollars. I wouldn't call that a 'fraction.'

A gallon of fuel delivered to a forward operating base in Afghanistan supposedly costs about $150 a gallon. Which is more important... blowing stuff up or taking care of our Seniors?

Posted by: PRBarb101

January 5, 2012 at 9:26 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

This was just more of the same from arrogant Womack. Last night I stumbled across an article that had to be retrieved from Google cache. He was quoted as saying food pantries needed to treat their clients like you would treat a college student who overspent on the family credit card. He has no concept of what ordinary people are going through these days. Even worse, he truly doesn't give a damn! I'm glad my area is being put in the fourth district soon.

Posted by: inquire

January 5, 2012 at 10:46 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

"Womack hears constituents" may well be the most inaccurate headline of 2012.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 5, 2012 at 12:27 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

.

>>“The principle drivers ofthe deficit and the debt are health care expenditures,” Womack said.<<
.
THIS IS TRUE.
.
Guess who set it up?
.
--Medicare Part D
.
--Medicare Advantage.
.
Both plans are making medical expenses the BIG DEFICIT driver.
.
Both plans were drawn up, designed and passed by
REPUBLICANS.
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NOW THEY WANT A CHANCE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
.
Why insurance Companies don't like 'ObamaCare' is because it REPEALS Medicare Advantage. Advantage is a Bush Program that adds $500 Billion to the Deficit every 5 years. ObamaCare REPEALS Medicare Advantage so the program no longer Pays private insurers for all the expenses they get to bill Medicare.
.
Now charlatans like WOMACK like to say Medicare is unsustainable. Yes, MEDICARE ADVANTAGE is unsustainable. It was pure Republicanism at work. Huge payoffs (deficits) paid to private insurers.

.

Posted by: cdawg

January 5, 2012 at 1:03 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

PRB: "I saw that the Iraq War has cost nearly a trillion dollars. I wouldn't call that a 'fraction.'">>

It's much worse. I've been quoting Stiglitz on this for some time (former chief economist of the World Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, author of a book on this question) and he puts the long term cost, using very conservative estimates, north of $3 trillion. Perhaps $5 trillion. Wiki has a good page on this, with references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financia...

It's useful to note the complete pile of manure that the Bush admin shoved on this before the war:

"In a March 16, 2003 Meet the Press interview of Vice President Dick Cheney, held less than a week before the Iraq War began, host Tim Russert reported that "every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion, recovery of Baghdad, perhaps of Iraq, about $10 billion per year. We should expect as American citizens that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement." -ibid

In reality, Bush's adventure in Iraq was burning through about $10 billion every three weeks.

See also: "Iraq war will cost more than World War II"
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/new...

Three trillion $1 bills laid end to end would go from the earth to the sun, and back, and to the sun again (with a few million miles left over).

PRB: "A gallon of fuel delivered to a forward operating base in Afghanistan supposedly costs about $150 a gallon.">>

The Pentagon says it's much worse:

"$400 per gallon gas to drive debate over cost of war in Afghanistan"

Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate...

The Pentagon comptroller’s office provided the fuel statistic to the committee staff when it was asked for a breakdown of why every 1,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan costs $1 billion [note: that's one million dollars, per soldier]

The $400 per gallon reflects what in Pentagon parlance is known as the “fully burdened cost of fuel.” ...In some places, Geiss said, analysts have estimated the fully burdened cost of fuel might even be as high as $1,000 per gallon.

...44 trucks and 220,000 gallons of fuel were lost due to attacks or other events while delivering fuel to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan in June 2008 alone.

The Marines in Afghanistan, for example, reportedly run through some 800,000 gallons of fuel a day."
http://thehill.com/homenews/administr...

Posted by: fayfreethinker

January 5, 2012 at 8:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

since when is SSI and Medicare an entitlement?

Look at your pay stub; what you send to the two each payday does not mean entitlement, it means you're entitled to it because you payed into it. The Republicans borrowed them dry and now they call it an entitlement because they want us to pay AGAIN to get money back into SSI and Medicare.

Rep. Womack is just another R. senator that has NO clue PERIOD. I believe he is worse than most.

Posted by: boark

January 6, 2012 at 12:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

..."He said he worked at jobs and entered the military to pay for his own college education.

Good for him. But he essentially was saying the government paid for his college education and that his good fortune somehow justified his not wanting the federal government to help pay for someone else’s."...
Does anyone, including John Brummett, believe that was what Womack was saying?

Posted by: EndPoliticalCorrectness

January 7, 2012 at 9:22 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

EPC--

RE "Does anyone, including John Brummett, believe that was what Womack was saying?"

I believe that's what he was saying, but if it makes you feel any better, he was probably saying it out of extreme ignorance and/or failure to do an irony check rather than actual Teabagger malice. His Teabaggfer malice, which is, admittedly, copious, tends to be manifested in his votes. Most of his rhetorical blather reflects state-of-the-art core Republican denial and wishful thinking.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 7, 2012 at 11:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

I like Womack. I can sure tell who the left wing radicals are by the above mentioned comments. When was the last time one of your precious Democrat Congressman held a town hall? Put out a news letter? Where's Pryor?

Posted by: footballfan

January 7, 2012 at 3:31 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

EPC--
RE "I believe Womack was saying he earned his college tuition by serving in the military and those who can't afford tuition have the right to do the same."
Unfortunately, the message that came across was, "How dare you expect the government to pay for your education? The government paid for my education; why don't you try that?" Mr. Womack needs to understand the concerns of his constituency well enough to anticipate their questions and prepare to answer them intelligently, rather than show up cold and rely on generic Republican rhetoric to do the work for him. (This is not to say that generic Republican rhetoric addresses the concerns of any other constituency.) He will be out of office long before he ever understands the concerns of his constituency, and probably dead before he knows how to address those concerns.

footballfan--
Mr. Womack's town hall meetings are, for the most part, a venue where he can recruit for the Republican Party, and bad-mouth the President and the Senate in order to excuse the shameful performance of the Teabagger-driven Republicans in the House. This is neither professional nor appropriate to a town hall meeting. Given this approach, plus his tendency to present misinformation and unwillingness to listen to-- much less actually have a dialogue with-- his constituents, Mr. Womack would be doing us a favor to give up his sham of a "listening tour".

RE "Put out a news letter?"
Both Arkansas Senators have e-mail newsletters. Costs and finances being what they are, I doubt that anybody mails newsletters to their entire constituencies like Hammerschmidt used to.

RE "Where's Pryor?"
Where is Boozman?
To be fair, Pryor and Boozman have to cover the entire state, so their visits to any given location will be less frequent that a Representative's will be. I also note that Mr. Pryor's Senate site has links to schedules for his mobile office (most recent stops: 9 November in Searcy County and Boone County) and Tele-Town Hall (none currently scheduled). Sen. Boozman has no such links on his Senate site.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 7, 2012 at 4:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Footballfan
I'm a gun toting conservative, and I think Womack is a bad choice. So it has nothing to do with being liberals. It's called common sense..

Posted by: p5harri

January 7, 2012 at 7:46 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

RE: Mr. Pryor attended the opening of the new concourse at the Walton's airport in Highfill, and spoke to the Rotary Club in Rogers. He was in Fort Smith on 13 September; he was in Van Buren, Fayetteville and Bentonville on September 14. These were mobile office visits, specifically for meeting with constituents.

My case in point, Pryor will not host an open town hall meeting for the general public the way Womack and Boozman will. Pryor is like Obama. Obama has an hand picked audience for his orchestrated propoganda appearances. I can't wait for him to have to debate the Republican Nominee this year without using his teleprompter. He is totally lost without it.

Posted by: footballfan

January 7, 2012 at 11:06 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

A typical nonsensical statement by someone who always has to have the last word:
...."Unfortunately, the message that came across was, "How dare you expect the government to pay for your education? The government paid for my education; why don't you try that?" ...

Posted by: EndPoliticalCorrectness

January 8, 2012 at 9:11 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

.

>>Obama has an hand picked audience for his orchestrated propoganda appearances.<<
.
So, he learned from the Karl Rove playbook. Seemed alright back then, didn't it.

Posted by: cdawg

January 8, 2012 at 4:45 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

footballfan--

RE "What's Obama going to run on, his record?"
Why not? See
http://ndn.org/blog/2011/11/truth-abo...
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/poli...

Not for blame, but for comparison, look at what Bush did with the Clinton jobs and economy, and look at what Obama has accomplished despite the Bush jobs and economy.

RE "He doesn't have a clue what to do other than blame Bush and the R's for everything."
As you should be able to see, it is more a case of the Republicans blaming Obama for Bush's disasters.

However, blaming the Republicans for the state of things could well be a successful tactic if used. The Teabaggers are leading the Republicans to bigger losses than those of 1996. (Of course, to be fair, Gingrich was only one person; the Teabaggers are two people.) The backlash has already started.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 9, 2012 at 2 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

MrD--

RE "It is stupid for anyone to die of malnutrition simply because of not eating when there is plenty of food in the house."
Even if there is "plenty of food in the house", there are no more grocery stores. Once all of the oil is gone, there will be no more oil. It is stupid for anyone to demand a feast when you are at the foreseeable limit of the larder. It also is stupid for the morbidly obese to eat more simply because they think they can.

RE "We have oil and we have the means and technology to refine it. Why are we paying Arabs extortionate prices?"
All oil is expensive now. Even our own oil is expensive. But remember supply and demand? Conservatives complain about petroleum prices, but they don't appear to want to do the most logical thing to lower them: reduce demand. Here's some information on refinery capacity: http://factcheck.org/2008/05/us-oil-r...

RE "We could employ hundreds of thousands of people in the oil industry if the current government (and all recent past adms.) would open drilling."
The Obama administration has increased the number of rigs to a twenty-five-year high. See
http://tinyurl.com/88stlbr

RE "I suspect our oil companies are mere 'middle men,'...."
Your suggestion seems somehow muddled in the ways that it refers to the integration of oil producers and refiners, but the belief that risk and difficulty play a part in the scheme of things is largely correct. (See the link above on refinery capacity.) But why should oil companies go to the trouble or take the risk when they can make record profits, pay little or nothing in taxes, and get government subsidies on top of that? Mr. Womack wants to keep giving the oil companies free money, by the way, but he wouldn't (and probably couldn't) tell Ms. Eubanks why. We're all paying for expensive oil at the pump and through reduced quality of government.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 9, 2012 at 11:37 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

commonsense96 (with my apologies to Thomas Paine)--

RE "Right. Let's spend another $500M taxpayer dollars on another Solyndra whilst we wait on the sun gods to bless us."
Given the success of the government's investments in alternative energy compared to the stock market's performance, I'd say that you've hit the nail on the head by recommending more of it. Now that we're past the major breakthrough in price reduction that caused Solyndra to go bankrupt, it should be easier now to anticipate market conditions that will affect profitability for a while.

But there are other ways to reduce demand: more efficient cars and trucks, more incentives for carpooling, more mass transit, more trains, more energy-efficient buildings, less sense of entitlement,...

RE "Number of oil wells is an irrelevant measure."
Not in response to "We could employ hundreds of thousands of people in the oil industry if the current government (and all recent past adms.) would open drilling."

RE "Trains and Tractor-trailers will not run on solar energy in the near future...."
Joke's on you. You were the one who suggested solar energy, not me. Oh-- and here:
http://www.euronews.net/2011/06/16/be...
A lot of trains run on electricity already.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 12, 2012 at 2:47 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Mr. Laubler--

RE "Womack yelled when some "I want free school but no service to my country" liberal tried to argue on behalf of the Guantanamo detainies."
As is typical of a Teabagger, you have your facts wrong. Ms. Eubanks asked how Mr. Womack could vote to cut Pell Grants, but continue to offer huge tax subsidies to hugely-profitable oil companies.

RE "Secondly, the war has cost almost a trillion OVER TEN YEARS."
"The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with the Bush tax cuts, will account for almost half of the projected $20 trillion debt in 2019." See http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2... for one estimate. Here's another that gives the projected costs of veterans' health care and disability benefits at 422 to 717 billion dollars: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military...

RE "I'm surprised at how cheap it is."
That's a typical borrow-and-spend attitude. It also ignores the ongoing human costs. As you are a veteran who has had trouble getting the heard-earned benefits that you deserve, I'm surprised that you can call any war "cheap".

RE "You liberals are like children...."
You conservatives are like children. You bitch when you don't get your way. You accuse the other party of partisan politics. Yet you never complain to your conservative representatives for doing the same.

RE "How can you support Obama."
Never mind the better-than-any-Republican argument. Obama has done a better job than he is given credit for, and most of his policy failures are due to interference from defeat-Obama-even-if-it-destroys-the-nation Republicans.

RE "they STILL didn't pass all the "pie in the sky" items YOU voted them in to perform."
I didn't elect anybody to provide "pie in the sky". Every Presidential candidate overpromises. Look at Ron Paul. Or the others.

RE "Look who he has to work with across the isle (and senate) and in the White House."
But Mr. Womack doesn't "have to" work with Democrats. He signed Grover Norquist's no-tax pledge, so, being a man of some of his words, he has to NOT work with Democrats. As a Teabagger yourself, you should be well aware that the House is a horse that runs from behind, and the back end of that horse is the TEA Party.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 12, 2012 at 12:02 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Frankloyd: "Here's a YouTube recording of Womack blowing his top at the above referenced meeting..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucy6zm...
>>

I finally got around to watching this. It's quite short, a little over a minute. In the one bit where he blows his top at this lady, Womack yells:

"How can you sit here and defend due process for people who aren't even citizens of the United States of America?"

Probably of more concern here than his childish demeanor, should be the fact that the Congressman doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. I went to school in Canada and am just a lowly Arkansas goat farmer with a high school degree. I'm not even sure if I have read the entire constitution. But these rightwing conservatives so consistently make the same stupid mistakes that I end up learning a lot about it as I investigate their claims. Congressman Womack ought to read his constitution with more care since as I understand it, it is quite closely related to his job.

***
Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive *ANY PERSON* of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to *ANY PERSON* within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

[CAPS mine].
In case the reference to "any person" isn't clear enough, we have a ruling from the supreme court on this question when Bush tried to be tricky about it:

***
"Boumediene v. Bush
On June 12, 2008, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Boumediene v. Bush, that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for Guantanamo captives to access the US Federal Court system. And all previous Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions were eligible to be re-instated. The judges considering the captives' habeas petitions would be considering whether the evidence used to compile the allegations the men and boys were enemy combatants justified a classification of "enemy combatant."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_co...

These people are not citizens and the US supreme court says, under our constitution, they are entitled to be judged under our Federal courts system. Why? Because we are supposed to be a country that conducts itself with standards higher than those used during the Inquisition. According to the final authority on what the constitution means, this rule applies to "any person."

D.
-----------
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." --Mark Twain

Posted by: fayfreethinker

January 12, 2012 at 7:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

.

............More on the WHOPPER ALERT.........
.
"What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie..
.
"One group has been especially vocal about shaping a new narrative of the credit crisis and economic collapse: those whose bad judgment and failed philosophy helped cause the crisis.

Rather than admit the error of their ways — Repent! — these people are engaged in an active campaign to rewrite history. They are not, of course, exonerated in doing so. And beyond that, they damage the process of repairing what was broken. They muddy the waters when it comes to holding guilty parties responsible. They prevent measures from being put into place to prevent another crisis.

Here is the surprising takeaway: They are winning. Thanks to the endless repetition of the Big Lie.
....
Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busines...
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P.S. Sfret..the bankers will pay you Zero for working on their behalf no matter how many times you post.
.

Posted by: cdawg

January 14, 2012 at 1:45 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

SFRET: "Womack yelled when some... tried to argue on behalf of the Guantanamo detainies. You got under his patriotic skin. The detainies are terrorists.">>

The enormity of your error here was refuted nicely in the issue of TIME magazine that just arrived in my mail this afternoon. I'll reproduce the information below:

***
"A Dismal Decade

Jan. 11 marked 10 years since the first detainees in the war against al-Qaeda were taken to the U.S. facility at Guantnamo, a slip of land held by the U.S. on the eastern tip of Cuba. Critics decry the murky legality under which hundreds of supposed "enemy combatants" have been held without normal rights of due process. Inquiries found that few detainees have had concrete ties to al-Qaeda. Yet despite earlier promises to shutter the facility, the White House seems prepared to keep it open for years to come.

779: ... Number of men imprisoned at Guantnamo by the Department of Defense since the facility opened on Jan. 11, 2002

171: ... Number of men still imprisoned there as of January 2012

92%: ... Percentage of prisoners at Guantnamo who were never al-Qaeda fighters, according to government data

5%: ... Percentage of prisoners captured by U.S. troops

86%: ... Percentage of prisoners reportedly turned over to coalition forces in response to a bounty offer

13:.... Age of the youngest prisoner held at Guantnamo

98:.... Age of the oldest prisoner held at Guantnamo

21: ... Number of children the U.S. has imprisoned at Guantnamo"

(pg. 11)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/art...

So before you ignorantly go with this smear of an entire group as "terrorists," and thump your chest about how they shouldn't have the right to have their guilt determined by due process, it really wouldn't be too much to ask that you, and the Congressman, get your facts straight before you begin.

Posted by: fayfreethinker

January 14, 2012 at 7:34 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Tankersley101--

RE "It is interesting how people from the Left bad mouth sources they don’t agree with but stand by the Washington Post and Time Magazine; yet talk about fallacious arguments."

That's because people from the Left look at the information itself, not the source. A look at the information provided by some sources shows that the information is usually unreliable, which makes the source unreliable. Faux News, for example, so distorts and omits what facts it starts with that it is, as a purveyor of information, unreliable.

Note that when most of us "people from the Left" disagree with information provided by a favored conservative source, we provide refutation from another source. We don't just say the conservative source is bad-- we show how it is bad.

It is interesting how people who cannot refute facts that they disagree with bad-mouth the source of the information rather than the information itself.

It is superficial thinking such as yours that allows you to ignore postings that include information from, say, the Tax Foundation (rather conservative) or the Heritage Foundation (very conservative) because it appeared in an article in "Time" or "The Washington Post"-- or even because it was posted by a "Liberal!!!" (Remember when MrD said that the Heritage Foundation is liberal?)

Let us know when you learn the difference between an information source and an information middleman.

Posted by: AlphaCat

January 18, 2012 at 12:44 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )