The Daily Hatch

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 10 am CST on April 21, 2011.

I just read Paul Greenberg’s article “The dance of politics,” Arkansas Democrat Gazette, April 17, 2011 and in it he stated:

  Mark Pryor, who is now our senior U.S. senator, is seldom so amusing, if unintentionally, as when he poses as being above the partisan fray. That is, when he’s not wading deep into it, as when he torpedoed the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the federal bench. That name from the past needs to be recalled every time Senator Pryor tries to paint himself as some kind of paragon of nonpartisan idealism.
    Miguel Estrada may have been the most promising nominee for the federal judiciary since the late Richard S. Arnold of Arkansas was being nominated to preside over ever higher federal courts.
    But the Estrada nomination never even got to the floor of the Senate thanks to partisan intrigues. For he was undeniably guilty of being (a) a conservative, (b) a Republican, (c) Hispanic, (d) intelligent and accomplished, and (e) all of the above—a grand slam that tends to drive Democrats bats. See their reaction to Marco Rubio, the new senator from Florida and the GOP’s Great Hispanic Hope. If only he weren’t so from-the-heart eloquent, he’d be a lot easier for Democrats to take.
    It’s the best of the best, like Miguel Estrada, who reduce the opposition to parliamentary maneuvers—because there was no attacking his qualifications, which were outstanding. So they resorted to low tricks, which is just what Senator Pryor and his happily former colleague, Blanche Lincoln, employed to bottle up Mr. Estrada’s much deserved nomination. Month after month after month after . . .
    In the end, the nominee withdrew his good name from consideration, realizing he would never get an even break from Mark Pryor, Blanche Lincoln and partisan company.
    But that was then. Now the no longer junior senator from Arkansas has decided to pose as some kind of statesman. He’s come out against partisanship, at least when he’s not practicing it. 
     
    Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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Here is a chance for Senator Pryor to look across party lines and take suggestions from a conservative Republican like me. He wants to get wasteful spending down and I am for that too.

In my past posts I could have been accused of giving just general ideas of where to cut. Now I am starting in with specifics that are taken from the article “How to cut $343 Billion from the federal budget,” by Brian Riedl, Heritage Foundation, October 28, 2010(Spending cuts in millions of dollars:         

 $4,300

 Eliminate failed federal job training programs.

 $2,000

 Eliminate the ineffective Job Corps.

 $576

 Eliminate the Senior Community Service Employment Program.

Name: The Conspirator
Release date: April 15, 2011
Director(s): Robert Redford
Cast: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, Tom Wilkinson, Alexis Bledel, Kevin Kline, Jonathan Groff and Norman Reedus
Genre(s): Drama

I love the movie “The Conspirator” and I wanted to take a closer look at the people involved.

Powell was charged with conspiracy and attempted murder and was tried along with the others who had been charged by the government. Powell maintained that Mary Surratt was innocent. He was relaxed during the trial and slept well at night. According to The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (p. 245), he didn’t have a bowel movement for 35 straight days. He was a stoic prisoner who handled his precarious situation with manliness. His lawyer, William E. Doster, argued in vain that Powell “at the time had no will of his own, but had surrendered his will completely to Booth.” He was found guilty and sentenced to hang. Early in the afternoon of July 7, 1865, along with Mary Surratt, George Atzerodt, and David Herold, Powell walked to the scaffold. The executioner, after checking the noose on Powell’s neck, said, “Paine, I want you to die quick.” Powell replied, “You know best, Captain.” After a hood was placed over Powell’s head, he muttered, “I thank you. Good-bye.” Those were the last words Lewis Powell ever spoke. No one from Powell’s family in Florida ever came to Washington during the trial. Until recently historians didn’t know what happened to Powell’s remains. They were not claimed by his family and were buried in Washington’s Holmead Cemetery in 1869. The cemetery was disbanded in the mid-1870’s, and there is no record of what happened with Powell’s body. However, his skull was discovered in 1992 in a collection of the Smithsonian Institution. The FBI confirmed the skull as Powell’s. On November 11, 1994, Powell’s skull was buried next to his mother’s grave in Geneva, Florida. Lincoln assassination experts Betty Ownsbey and Michael Kauffman participated in the burial. Pastor Daryl Permenter of the First Baptist Church of Geneva performed the services. The Geneva Cemetery is a very quaint cemetery. Pictured below is a photo of Michael Kauffman and the skull of Lewis Powell. The photo was taken by anthropologist Stuart Speaker who made the discovery. The photo is presented exclusively on this web page with the permission of Michael Kauffman. It is not in the public domain. The headstones of Lewis and his mother (who was born in 1811) are in a semi-shaded area. The headstones are pictured below the photo of Michael Kauffman and the skull.

NOTE: The first three photographs at the top of the page came from Alias “Paine” Lewis Thornton Powell, the Mystery Man of the Lincoln Conspiracy by Betty J. Ownsbey. Betty obtained the photos courtesy of Rufus Yent, a Powell relative. The fourth photo is from the Library of Congress. Anyone wishing to read the fascinating details of Powell’s military career can do so in Betty’s article entitled “The Military Career of An Assassin” in the November 1998 edition of North & South magazine. ** Verifying information about Booth’s March 17 kidnap plans was told by the late Lincoln assassination scholar, Dr. James O. Hall, during an interview published in the April, 1990, edition of the Journal of the Lincoln Assassination. Dr. Hall said that E.L. Davenport, an actor in the play at Campbell Hospital, recalled how Booth had arrived at the hospital and asked about Lincoln’s whereabouts on the afternoon of March 17. WHY DID BOOTH WANT SEWARD ASSASSINATED? If Andrew Johnson had also been assassinated as Booth planned, Senate President Pro Tempore Lafayette S. Foster of Connecticut would have become acting president pending an election of a new president. The process of electing a new president could only be set in motion by the secretary of state; thus Booth felt Seward’s assassination would throw the Union government into “electoral chaos.” A Presidential Succession law passed on March 1, 1792, was still in effect in 1865. It provided that the president pro tempore of the Senate was third in line to the presidency and the Speaker of the House was fourth. This law didn’t make any succession provisions beyond the Speaker. For much more information see the article entitled “Why Seward?” by Michael Maione and James O. Hall in the Spring 1998 edition of the Lincoln Herald. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: There is an extremely detailed description of Powell’s attack at the Seward residence in the October 2010 edition of the Surratt Courier. Barry Cauchon and John Elliott, who are working on the upcoming book Inside The Walls, found Private George Foster Robinson’s account of the tragedy housed at the Pearce Museum at Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. It is published in the Surratt Courier for the first time with permission from the college. NOTE: Betty J. Ownsbey’s Alias “Paine” Lewis Thornton Powell, the Mystery Man of the Lincoln Conspiracy is an extremely well researched biography. Betty spent 17 years researching the man. CLICK HERE if you are interested in purchasing Betty’s book on Powell. To listen to an interview with Betty please CLICK HERE. THE EXECUTION – JULY 7, 1865, AT 1:26 P.M. Left to right: Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt