- TOP THIS BRET BIELEMA: Twitter was on fire today with twipics of LSU football coach Les Miles‘ (right) successful rappel down a 24-story Baton Rouge bank building.
The line is open. Closing out:
* LOTTERY THEFT: A reported investigation of a (former) Arkansas Lottery Commission employee for theft of lottery tickets is apparently nearing a conclusion. Multiple sources expect a resolution, such as a plea, soon.
* A QUESTION FOR OUR MAN IN AZERBAIJAN: Secretary of State Mark Martin, a featured speaker at a meeting this week in Azerbaijan for reasons wholly unapparent to the rest of the world, does a lot of traveling. A frequent critic notes that as well as his recent request of an official attorney general’s opinon from Dustin McDaniel on the effective date of 2013 legislation that didn’t carry an emergency clause. That was a toughy. You start the first full day after adjournment and count 90 days. Commentary from the correspondent continues with a listing of Martin’s staff:
A lawyer, Deputy Secretary of State A.J. Kelly ($98.081); General Counsel Martha Adcock ($84,399); Government Affairs Assistant Adrienne Lee; Legal staffer Tiffany Minyard; Director of Government Affairs Kelly Boyd ($77,500), and a new attorney in the Elections Division. With that kind of high priced legal and other staff, why did Martin have to ask the AG for his opinon? Seems to an interested observer he pays people good money to know that answer.
Alex Reed of Martin’s office responds that the official opinion from the attorney general is a tradition of many years standing, including by previous holders of the office. I don’t think Charlie Daniels ever went to Azerbaijan. But Bill McCuen did take a famous motorcycle ride to New Mexico with his attractive posse. And Kelley Bryant polished the patina off the Civil War statue.
* ARKANSAS CHECKING FOR SUSPECT DRUG: A Health Department release says 10 clinics in Arkansas received a drug from a compounding pharmacy in Tennesse that is being checked because 40 patients who received the injectable steroid later developed infections.