The Insider

When we first asked Gov. Mike Beebe about the “circuit breaker” idea out of Arizona (automatically opting out of Medicaid expansion if the feds reduce the matching rates in the future), he said it was fine but noted that states can already opt out at any time, an assurance he got in writing from the feds.

Old habits die hard. We may have a new Republican majority in the legislature, but like the old Democratic majority, it still doesn’t hurt to have a lawmaker spouse to land a part-time job during the legislative session.

An interesting controversy is brewing in Conway Public Schools, periodically a scene of discord as more liberal constituents object to the heavy dose of religion that powerful local churches have tried to inject into the schools, particularly in sex education short on science and long on abstinence.

The Arkansas Times has written a number of times about the ugly situation that would occur if Medicaid expansion doesn’t happen: People who make between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level will be getting government subsidies to buy health insurance, but those who fall below 100 percent of FPL who don’t qualify for Arkansas’s stingy Medicaid program will be left out in the cold.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel insisted Tuesday in a field-all-questions news conference that the potential release of personal text messages in a Garland County homicide case didn’t prompt his decision to admit to a past affair with Hot Springs lawyer Andi Davis.

A statement released Dec. 21 by Paragould Police Chief Todd Stovall suggests that his department may be backing away from its earlier hard-line — and almost certainly unconstitutional — plan that would have allowed officers on patrol in SWAT fatigues and carrying assault rifles to demand the ID of people on the street and arrest anyone who failed to comply.

The city of Little Rock is negotiating a contract with the Union Rescue Mission to run its outpost for the homeless on Confederate Boulevard, apparently unbothered by the organization’s hiring requirements: Only members of “evangelical Christian churches” may apply for the day center jobs, which will be paid with taxpayer dollars.

The news of the fatal shooting of 67-year-old Little Rock resident Eugene Ellison by Little Rock Police Officer Donna Lesher on Dec. 9, 2010, after an altercation in Ellison’s apartment, has jumped the pond.

Part of the deposition of Little Rock Police Department Officer Donna Lesher, who after a brief struggle shot and killed 67-year-old Eugene Ellison in his apartment near Asher Ave. on Dec. 9, 2010, is now part of the public record as one of the filings in an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit, and contains some doozies.