* DRINK UP: The Arkansas Times' Craft Beer Festival to support the Argenta Arts Foundation is from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight at Sixth and Main, North Little Rock. Better get there early. There's a crowd limit and most of the available tickets were pre-sold. There are 150 beers to sample. Live music. Free food at neighboring restaurants. On-line advance ticket sales ($35) end at 5 p.m.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
We've sold out of advance tickets to the Beer Fest. A limited number of tickets will be sold at the gate.
* REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES THANK THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: Here's but one last-minute rush of anonymous money into tight U.S. Senate races. This is happening at every level in the country, with help from Citizens United, lax reporting laws and the determination of the wealthy to get wealtheir by electing Republicans who'll cut their taxes on the backs of the working poor.
* WHY HERB RULE FOR CONGRESS?: 2nd District Democratic congressional candidate Herb Rule is closing his inexpensive campaign with a flurry of jabs at Republican incumbent Rep. Tim Griffin, awash in special interst corporate cash. For example, this side-by-side comparison. As I've mentioned before, the Rule campaign is having some old-fashioned political fun. For example, from the document I linked:
* Herb Rule has had an Arkansas hunting license since he was 16 and frequently hunts with his sons and grandsons, continuing a time-honored Arkansas tradition.* Tim Griffin brags about being in the so-called “sportsman’s caucus” but never bothered to get a hunting license because, he says, he’s “very, very busy.”
From the more serious comparisons:
Fairness for Women* Herb Rule believes the government has no business in regulating when a husband and wife want to start a family.
* Tim Griffin doesn’t believe the law should give women access to birth control in their insurance policies
* READ THIS LINK BEFORE 11:59 PM: Arkansas Sports 360 goes dark tonight and thousands of Razorback fans will miss the reporting and comment that had been provided there by Chris Bahn and Jim Harris. Jim has a generous farewell column here. He was and is one of the good guys.
* POOR OLD HUCK: The Huckster slams "liberal, crazy websites" for mischaracterizing the TV commercial he narrated about the necessity of voting right to pass the test of fire. He never said a word about hell, he says, and says anyone who thinks otherwise is a Biblical illiterate. As you can see here from a collection of interpreters of the passage, several of them see that Biblical fire as judgment day stuff.
* PRYOR ON THE ROAD: U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor will join Sen. Steve Harrelson for a Democratic Party rally in Texarkana at 10 a.m. Saturday on Stateline.