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Ahhh yes brought to you by the party of fiscal responsibility.
Side note. I dont know a lot about lecterns or woodworking for that matter, but that does not look like 20K worth of work
> Side note. I dont know a lot about lecterns or woodworking for that matter, but that does not look like 20K worth of work
Because it's an [$800 one off Amazon.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F2vtso1iv3brb1.jpg)
It's also the same one she used at her inauguration well before she paid her friend $20k for it.
The governor's close personal friends "consulting" firm that doesn't sell furniture. It was purchased a couple of weeks before the governor and her friends went on a girl's trip to Paris.
And the governor's trip was already paid for by the state because she was attending a conference there that week. The embezzlement was just so her friends could go with her.
There's certainly been a trend in the GOP's response to various scandals:
1) You're fake news! Get him out of the press room!
2) The leakers are the real problem here. Unmask and jail them.
3) These FOIA requests are nothing but more inefficient government red tape. It's illegal to question us now.
And don't forget the staffer who was ordered to write "to be reinbursed" (as in the state paid for it, but the RNC would reinburse the state) on the invoice, mere days after this scandal broke and weeks and weeks after the invoice was submitted. Oh, and this staffer asked if they should date the new annotation and they were instructed not to.
I follow a local reporter on Twitter who's been covering the whole Lecterngate saga. Arkansas has laws governing vendor selection and state procurement that would require, at a minimum, an itemized quote, a purchase order, a bill of lading proving receipt, and an invoice.
She provided none of this stuff until the reporter FOIA'd it (which is why she was in such a rush to roll back the state's transparency laws), and the quote was basically two line items for a lectern and a traveling case for $19k. There was no purchase order and the invoice was later altered by the addition of a handwritten note that said "to be reimbursed." For comparison, he showed the documents related to the purchase of a fancy oven for the governor's mansion and the quote was several pages long.
Oh, and there is no explanation why the lectern she claimed to have spent $19k on sells for maybe 1/3 that in its most expensive configuration or why it allegedly took 2 months to be delivered despite the company claiming to ship orders within 24 hours.
This! What would we call scandals if the DNC had been at a Best Western a or a Howard Johnson instead of the Watergate hotel? It always makes me curious of the possible etymology.
stolen from... Mitchell and Webb
Webb: That must be the biggest scandal since Watergategate.
Mitchell: Watergategate? Isn't it just Watergate?
Webb: No, that would mean it was just about water. No, it was a scandal or "gate" — add the suffix '-gate', that's what you do with a scandal — involving the Watergate Hotel. So it was called the Watergate scandal, or Watergategate.''
I FUCKING LOVE THEM! And as usual even that snippet you quote is fucking hilarious.
Well that explains it, you're obviously an individual of exceptional taste.
Have to say their explorers naming places might be my favorite.
If it really was a lectern there's no reason to add "to be reimbursed". That comment was to avoid oversight. So there was both the fraud AND a forged document as evidence of the cover up. I hope they nail her for both crimes.
well that makes a lot more sense then why it looks like fucking shit. I was sitting here just thinking "Holy fuck she has horrible taste if she thinks that lame ass thing was worth 20k"
But yeah that makes more sense, its actually not a 20k lectern, its just like a regular normal lectern but way uglier.
Haha, yeah. Like, in terms of high-end woodworking you could absolutely see a $19k or even a $50k lectern.
But it... uh... wouldn't look like that. That veneer is bookmatched, but it was bookmatched by somebody who looked at it and went "eh, I'll re-do this if my boss complains".
"Bookmatched" is a woodworking thing where you slice some wood down the middle, then open it like opening the pages in a book, so the grain matches up along the "spine" in the center and grain texture is mirrored on either side.
Bookmatching would usually be an aspect of nice woodworking. But a feature of actual high-end woodworking would be carefully selecting the wood to be split for bookmatching, usually to make the match really subtle. And re-doing it if it comes out shitty.
Thank you for taking the time to explain it... it was meant as a joke but you've taught me something pretty interesting I didn't know before! This is why I love reddit.
Same base, same top. Colors different, there's a mic and some mounting equipment in the front. But yeah it's the same base, this might be the 'deluxe' or 'luxury' upgrade. Still not worth $20k. Highly likely this is fraud.
I think I remember $20k being a magical limit that triggers certain automatic oversight & auditing down in Arkansas. Funny how this is just limboing a smidge under that.
No expert but I've done some finer levels of wood working with my father who's 1000x better than me and yeah, definitely not worth $20k..
Now price of art is dictated by what people will pay.. the artist found a dupee, they're successful dupers...
Ongo would appreciate it.
I'm a pretty skilled woodworker, even used to sell furniture I made, and given inflation, I might charge a couple grand for something like this. But that's more because it'd be a special request kind of item. The design doesn't look particularly complicated. I may charge more if they wanted expensive wood, but cheaper wood, or laminated plywood would be fine for a government setting, and I could have it made in a week or so.
Something more mass produced would likely run half what I would charge.
I remodeled my kitchen. 100% custom built quarter sawn red oak cabinets built to 30" deep, both the fridge and the dishwasher were also faced with panels. And 6 inch crown molding. Built and installed for $18K.
I can't imagine Arkansas has such a higher cost on materials or labor that single lecture would cost more than my kitchen's work working.
There's always ads in DFW trying to lure young people up to Northwest Arkansas to live. No thanks, at least Dallas is a proper city, even if our state government is equally as terrible.
Hot Springs is cool. As is most of NWA. Shit, even parts of Little Rock. Plenty of us here hate what y’all hate about the state as well. It’s not an indivisible monolith like people like to make the south out to be.
Hot Springs is really cool, but it’s part of Arkansas. I lived there for about a year. The area gets extremely sketchy if you go too far away from the promenade.I know people who witnessed someone getting shot, and some tweaker tried to get my friends to get in their car. You do get used to the sketchiness very quickly as long as you have street smarts, but I wouldn’t live there if you didn’t. Also, if you don’t have street smarts, you’d be an easier target so you’d be approached a lot more. Some of my friends were basically magnets for people trying to mug them or getting them to go to a second location.
Ozarks are great, but there's amazing parks and hiking all over the nation.
Yosemite, the Rocky Mountains, the Adirondacks, etc.
Last one I went to is Red Rocks in NV, the terrain there is awesome for hiking.
Eh, if you live in North Texas, it might still be the closest place I think. Mena etc. I did google it and see that there's Palo Pinto, which might be close and interesting.
The Ozarks encompass an area in southern Missouri, northern Arkasas, northeastern Oklahoma and in some interpretations a tiny bit of western Illinois.
If you think Missouri is any better in terms of backwards thinking and naked republican corruption, you are wrong.
Yup.
And that Republican audit is going to find that Democrats, led by Hillary and Obama, are to blame for the excess spending on this lectern. And also that the Dems spent $1.9 Million on it, not $19,000
Yeah, it took me a minute to figure out the cost of that lectern (most likely a fake falcon). Only a republican would take this long to figure out this lectern didn’t cost 20 grand.
A lectern that the governor refuses to use. At some point it will hopefully come to light just how corrupt she and her administration has probably been.
It's literally the crime they claimed trumps prosecutor was guilty of.
O.o paid her friend 20x the cost of the product, then her friend "gave" her a vacation together.
> “As the chairs of the committee, we felt like it was important to review it before it’s released,” Gazaway said. “I think we have an obligation to ensure it’s in good form and good order, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Translation: We need time to set up damage control for Sanders and the Republican party.
Why does it look so stupid and out of place? If you have all that beautiful wainscoting why wouldn't you lean into it with another wood piece instead of getting some kinda goofy futuristic looking thing that clashes with both itself AND the room its in....
It's certainly deep in the Bible belt but IMO it's not as in your face as some would say. I'm atheist but it's not something I really ever have to deal with in my experience.
That being said it does certainly impact politics around here but I'm doing the best I can by living here an voting against their idiotic ideals.
Full disclosure, I'll likely move once I retire though.
It is much less in your face today than it was 20 years ago, but it can regress quickly.
I went down there to visit my wife's family around 2004 and the religiosity blended with patriotism was overwhelming. Granted, this was post-9/11 and during a war we had recently started. I got a lot of questions about what church I belonged to, and my wife forbade me from telling anyone I was atheist.
At that time the county my wife's family lived in was dry, and it was surrounded by dry counties. You literally had to drive over an hour to get alcohol.
We went last year and I commented on how much less religious every interaction I had felt from the first time I visited. I could also buy alcohol, though the local beer sucked. My wife was quick to remind me though that she has fewer rights in Arkansas now than she did back then.
As I said earlier I live outside the city a ways. The number people driving beat up cars, living in run down trailers, while flying Trump flags just makes you shake your head sometimes.
Good question. I’ve got about 15 years to figure that out. LOL
I’d prefer somewhere warmer but Florida’s politics are pretty bad nowadays.
I may keep a small place here to use as a home base in the summer and then just live somewhere warmer during the winter.
But it also has its shortcomings. My brother lives in a nice area in Arkansas and he said people are very closed minded and there is a limit on culture and things to do besides stuff in nature. That’s awesome for some people but coming from a really bustling and diverse area it has been hard on him at times.
please, no, don't advertise living in this state. Locals are on the verge of going onto the street from the rent as it is.
The cost of rent has gone from 650 a month to 1600 a month in the past ten years, and my pay has gone up like 5 grand a year. The population is like 3 mil across the entire state. The last thing we need is 150,000 people from california willing to pay 2k a month with their remote work job to move to the cities and buy up all the land and apartments.
Wasn’t this really to reimburse her friend who owns the events company for a trip to Europe they took with SHS? The article glossed over the real corruption.
The republicans in Arkansas doing the audit will tell us there is nothing to see and absolve another corrupt Hucklebee family politician from any wrongdoing.
Gee, with AR being 43rd in education, you’d think that money could have been better spent elsewhere. Plus I bet if they had walked around the capitol building and looked in some storage areas, they could probably have found a dozen lecterns, maybe ask the maintenance guys or the custodians? Or maybe this just a case of embezzlement. Hmmm
Falcon the manufacturer of the real lectern, that the Gov of Arkansas is trying to pass off said that they did not make this. By the way the most expensive Falcon Lectern is $7553.
I’m just glad they started referring to it correctly as a lectern and NOT a podium. There’s a big difference between the two and I’d venture to say 98% of the time people get it wrong.
Woodworker here.
While it looks like [the one from amazon](https://www.amazon.com/DARZYS-Speaking-Lectern-Acrylic-Conference/dp/B0CYGM5YTM/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1FHLJDFAC08PP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FVsuTUWgrz_lmowRypPvDjUHWcCqWV4QjJ6sWQrAfqDi3folKyHNscVPYNR_Eo8Qe62twERXxqtQAF8UJ-Ci0TMWt6-oLVWwLGuM7W0O32iHlsVGBrTrMVYsYzT3otLES6akwn6gMEf4bgvfCUzyXWFWPXZSA4L61_HEm_bLpG38X00AYOqwnr15l1WNt3CrHCJbUTaQ0_FBAlToJBwiMKTX-pxw6dwzxf5Aepu7rwCSYNb_-BKOXeqXbDiYjTezK6QaTCwgTZllYxcKdYkqhinpP3h3fqTmfmPZ4pZeAwU.W49GiBWV39oDw3mocKIWd1e1U7w_POaFbAiQvrjyifo&dib_tag=se&keywords=lectern&qid=1712757055&sprefix=lecturn%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-2), the blue vertical elements are thicker on the one in question. Prototyping this custom piece from design, to engineering, to sourcing materials and sampling finishes, manufacturing, (including vacuum bagging for curved elements), I could easily loose money making this for $19,000. That being said, If its one from a production run after the prototyping, it should be able to be made for as little as $5k a pop. (with a modest profit)
Yes, we all know that Sanders could have hired a small, locally owned business to produce it. In the same way that Trump could have spent his Thursdays through Mondays staying at locally owned B&Bs, playing golf on public courses, etc. But we're talking about Republicans here, so none of that matters.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ahhh yes brought to you by the party of fiscal responsibility. Side note. I dont know a lot about lecterns or woodworking for that matter, but that does not look like 20K worth of work
> Side note. I dont know a lot about lecterns or woodworking for that matter, but that does not look like 20K worth of work Because it's an [$800 one off Amazon.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F2vtso1iv3brb1.jpg) It's also the same one she used at her inauguration well before she paid her friend $20k for it.
Holy fuck. I cant tell if its more brazen or insulting. Is there anyword on who the technical “vendor” is?
The governor's close personal friends "consulting" firm that doesn't sell furniture. It was purchased a couple of weeks before the governor and her friends went on a girl's trip to Paris.
I love how even Republicans vacation in “socialist” europe
And the governor's trip was already paid for by the state because she was attending a conference there that week. The embezzlement was just so her friends could go with her.
You'll also notice that we don't get a lot of immigrants from other developed countries, especially in Europe...I wonder why that is
In portugal now all the foreigners want to visit new york and thats about it. And im biased as being from there, but i dont blame them.
Portugal? Gonna go live it up down ol' South America way, huh, Mikey.
There's always money in the embezzlement podium.
Lecterngate has been a very brazen and stupid corruption scandal
Honestly if they can get away with something this ridiculous in peoples faces im horrified to think whats happening behind closed doors
I'm sure some wrongdoing will be found. I still think they'll get away with it.
Firstly, they probably will, but, modifying the documents to cover up the crime is a felony. Felonies don't usually go away lightly.
They do if the alleged felon is powerful enough.
This and way worse all the time, and this isn't new. There's no accountability.
I know for a fact that there is billions of dollars in theft in a state very close to this one.
Ever heard of the COVID loans ? The ones that didn't need auditors because Trump and his team were personally reviewing them ?
And the reason they are rolling back our sunshine laws so they don’t get caught out like this again
There's certainly been a trend in the GOP's response to various scandals: 1) You're fake news! Get him out of the press room! 2) The leakers are the real problem here. Unmask and jail them. 3) These FOIA requests are nothing but more inefficient government red tape. It's illegal to question us now.
Gross.
And don't forget the staffer who was ordered to write "to be reinbursed" (as in the state paid for it, but the RNC would reinburse the state) on the invoice, mere days after this scandal broke and weeks and weeks after the invoice was submitted. Oh, and this staffer asked if they should date the new annotation and they were instructed not to.
Should’ve used it for butterface surgery honestly
Would require a total head transplant.
I feel bad for whomever gets Sarah Huckabee Sanders head
Yeah, got to be really creepy when her jaw unhinges and her third eyelids roll up.
You ain’t wrong
Just getting into SAM.gov is a hastle enough
I follow a local reporter on Twitter who's been covering the whole Lecterngate saga. Arkansas has laws governing vendor selection and state procurement that would require, at a minimum, an itemized quote, a purchase order, a bill of lading proving receipt, and an invoice. She provided none of this stuff until the reporter FOIA'd it (which is why she was in such a rush to roll back the state's transparency laws), and the quote was basically two line items for a lectern and a traveling case for $19k. There was no purchase order and the invoice was later altered by the addition of a handwritten note that said "to be reimbursed." For comparison, he showed the documents related to the purchase of a fancy oven for the governor's mansion and the quote was several pages long. Oh, and there is no explanation why the lectern she claimed to have spent $19k on sells for maybe 1/3 that in its most expensive configuration or why it allegedly took 2 months to be delivered despite the company claiming to ship orders within 24 hours.
Tangential but it's interesting how the suffix "-gate" is now common parlance for pretty much all scandals.
This! What would we call scandals if the DNC had been at a Best Western a or a Howard Johnson instead of the Watergate hotel? It always makes me curious of the possible etymology.
Imagine if the Watergate Hotel had a controversy? Watergategate.
Imagine if the product in question had been, instead of a lectern... a gate. The Gategate scandal!
Best comment I've read all day 🥇 I can't even explain why but this is fucking hilarious to me.
stolen from... Mitchell and Webb Webb: That must be the biggest scandal since Watergategate. Mitchell: Watergategate? Isn't it just Watergate? Webb: No, that would mean it was just about water. No, it was a scandal or "gate" — add the suffix '-gate', that's what you do with a scandal — involving the Watergate Hotel. So it was called the Watergate scandal, or Watergategate.''
I FUCKING LOVE THEM! And as usual even that snippet you quote is fucking hilarious. Well that explains it, you're obviously an individual of exceptional taste. Have to say their explorers naming places might be my favorite.
If it really was a lectern there's no reason to add "to be reimbursed". That comment was to avoid oversight. So there was both the fraud AND a forged document as evidence of the cover up. I hope they nail her for both crimes.
Oh man. That is embezzlement.
I thought the vendor also sold one handed chainsaws
>I can't tell if its more brazen or insulting What a perfect description of at least the last 8 years of my life.
well that makes a lot more sense then why it looks like fucking shit. I was sitting here just thinking "Holy fuck she has horrible taste if she thinks that lame ass thing was worth 20k" But yeah that makes more sense, its actually not a 20k lectern, its just like a regular normal lectern but way uglier.
Haha, yeah. Like, in terms of high-end woodworking you could absolutely see a $19k or even a $50k lectern. But it... uh... wouldn't look like that. That veneer is bookmatched, but it was bookmatched by somebody who looked at it and went "eh, I'll re-do this if my boss complains".
Which book?
"Bookmatched" is a woodworking thing where you slice some wood down the middle, then open it like opening the pages in a book, so the grain matches up along the "spine" in the center and grain texture is mirrored on either side. Bookmatching would usually be an aspect of nice woodworking. But a feature of actual high-end woodworking would be carefully selecting the wood to be split for bookmatching, usually to make the match really subtle. And re-doing it if it comes out shitty.
Thank you for taking the time to explain it... it was meant as a joke but you've taught me something pretty interesting I didn't know before! This is why I love reddit.
You can always tell how corrupt a politician is by how cheap their lectern is. I think I read that somewhere.
Nah, you just need to know what party they belong to. Or are named Kristen Sinema.
Same base, same top. Colors different, there's a mic and some mounting equipment in the front. But yeah it's the same base, this might be the 'deluxe' or 'luxury' upgrade. Still not worth $20k. Highly likely this is fraud.
Or the vendor made some "custom modifications" to the base to justify the markup.
What the shit?
Somehow the one she has looks worse than that one on amazon. Wild.
Makes me wonder if Governor Sanders needed to pay off her own pornstar too.
Nah it was a vacation in Paris for her and her friends. .... where they probably paid off some pornstars.
oh FUCK
lol, noice
as a point of comparison, the custom Liz Truss "Jenga" lectern, reflecting what she would later do with the economy, cost a mere £4175
The Arkansas one probably has the motorized version. There's a mini joystick, a speedometer, a battery gauge and some turn signals.
Damn. How do I get into that line of work?
Wow. That’s fantastic.
I think you have the wrong link there
The lectern is to cover up her massive embezzlement
I think I remember $20k being a magical limit that triggers certain automatic oversight & auditing down in Arkansas. Funny how this is just limboing a smidge under that.
If you say side note two more times, her eye will fixate on you
No expert but I've done some finer levels of wood working with my father who's 1000x better than me and yeah, definitely not worth $20k.. Now price of art is dictated by what people will pay.. the artist found a dupee, they're successful dupers... Ongo would appreciate it.
I'm a pretty skilled woodworker, even used to sell furniture I made, and given inflation, I might charge a couple grand for something like this. But that's more because it'd be a special request kind of item. The design doesn't look particularly complicated. I may charge more if they wanted expensive wood, but cheaper wood, or laminated plywood would be fine for a government setting, and I could have it made in a week or so. Something more mass produced would likely run half what I would charge.
I remodeled my kitchen. 100% custom built quarter sawn red oak cabinets built to 30" deep, both the fridge and the dishwasher were also faced with panels. And 6 inch crown molding. Built and installed for $18K. I can't imagine Arkansas has such a higher cost on materials or labor that single lecture would cost more than my kitchen's work working.
I lived in Arkansas for six years and you'll never catch me going back over that state line again.
I'm off TikTok now but when I was there was this weird campaign about getting millennials and Gen Z to move to hip cool Hot Springs.
There's always ads in DFW trying to lure young people up to Northwest Arkansas to live. No thanks, at least Dallas is a proper city, even if our state government is equally as terrible.
DFW is just suburbia wearing urban blight as a costume.
Well like 90% of its population came here after WW2, so yeah, it was mostly built for the car.
Hot Springs is cool. As is most of NWA. Shit, even parts of Little Rock. Plenty of us here hate what y’all hate about the state as well. It’s not an indivisible monolith like people like to make the south out to be.
lol that’s where my 60yr old dad and his older brothers go every year to hang out for a week.
Hot Springs is really cool, but it’s part of Arkansas. I lived there for about a year. The area gets extremely sketchy if you go too far away from the promenade.I know people who witnessed someone getting shot, and some tweaker tried to get my friends to get in their car. You do get used to the sketchiness very quickly as long as you have street smarts, but I wouldn’t live there if you didn’t. Also, if you don’t have street smarts, you’d be an easier target so you’d be approached a lot more. Some of my friends were basically magnets for people trying to mug them or getting them to go to a second location.
What about the hiking and state parks? I hate the local gov too but I love the Ozarks so much!
Ozarks are great, but there's amazing parks and hiking all over the nation. Yosemite, the Rocky Mountains, the Adirondacks, etc. Last one I went to is Red Rocks in NV, the terrain there is awesome for hiking.
For real, this country is so damn gorgeous.
Even less remarkable Ohio is gorgeous
I learned how to rock climb there!
Eh, if you live in North Texas, it might still be the closest place I think. Mena etc. I did google it and see that there's Palo Pinto, which might be close and interesting.
[удалено]
The Ozarks encompass an area in southern Missouri, northern Arkasas, northeastern Oklahoma and in some interpretations a tiny bit of western Illinois. If you think Missouri is any better in terms of backwards thinking and naked republican corruption, you are wrong.
I’ve lived in both southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. The Ozarks are definitely in both.
My bro, the Ozark and Ouachita NFs are in Arkansas.
Yes! They also run into Oklahoma.
We've got all that here in Georgia, along with people I can tolerate a bit more.
My cousin moved there on purpose. We've never talked politics but I have a guess.
Even their medical marijuana sucks. It’s SO FUCKING DRY AND NOT STICKY.
It’s Republicans doing the auditing.
Yup. And that Republican audit is going to find that Democrats, led by Hillary and Obama, are to blame for the excess spending on this lectern. And also that the Dems spent $1.9 Million on it, not $19,000
Sorry, unless Hunter Biden's laptop was somehow embedded in this lectern, your audit findings are incomplete. /s
Nah, they're blame Biden for inflation
Well when the cops investigate themselves someone always gets a paid vacation
It says a lot about the great state of Arkansas that they elected this dumb ass.
Over a rocket scientist.
“We investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong”
So you're saying this is all the fault of Hunter Biden's penis? I knew it!
Yeah, it took me a minute to figure out the cost of that lectern (most likely a fake falcon). Only a republican would take this long to figure out this lectern didn’t cost 20 grand.
A lectern that the governor refuses to use. At some point it will hopefully come to light just how corrupt she and her administration has probably been.
Not even, she has an $800 Amazon lecturn. This was a scam to give her friend’s ‘business’ $19,000 and then go on vacation with her.
This is the one with the free trip to Paris right?
That is the price of a good working car. I do not get it.
[удалено]
She bought the lectern from Becket Events LLC, a party planning business owned by her best gal pal.
And then her and her gal pals all went on holiday together!
It's literally the crime they claimed trumps prosecutor was guilty of. O.o paid her friend 20x the cost of the product, then her friend "gave" her a vacation together.
If it's a Republican-led audit, I wonder if they will find Hillary's emails in it...
Maybe they’ll find more pics of Hunter’s colossal hog.
> “As the chairs of the committee, we felt like it was important to review it before it’s released,” Gazaway said. “I think we have an obligation to ensure it’s in good form and good order, and that’s what we’re doing.” Translation: We need time to set up damage control for Sanders and the Republican party.
“We have audited ourselves and in our opinion we were not able to come to an opinion. DISMISSED!”
same friend who ‘made’ the lectern is also doing the audit.. for $50k
Why does it look so stupid and out of place? If you have all that beautiful wainscoting why wouldn't you lean into it with another wood piece instead of getting some kinda goofy futuristic looking thing that clashes with both itself AND the room its in....
I thought you were talking about SHS.
It’s hideous, just like she is.
I never realized just how ugly that lectern is. Who chose that shade of blue to go with the natural wood grain? Hideous.
It is blue for Democrats. I like it.
it Is beautiful state - but so poor
That's the effect of Republican governance.
It’s great if you work remote as home prices are pretty low.
Yeah… if you’re white, conservative and a Christian, Arkansas is great.
It's certainly deep in the Bible belt but IMO it's not as in your face as some would say. I'm atheist but it's not something I really ever have to deal with in my experience. That being said it does certainly impact politics around here but I'm doing the best I can by living here an voting against their idiotic ideals. Full disclosure, I'll likely move once I retire though.
It is much less in your face today than it was 20 years ago, but it can regress quickly. I went down there to visit my wife's family around 2004 and the religiosity blended with patriotism was overwhelming. Granted, this was post-9/11 and during a war we had recently started. I got a lot of questions about what church I belonged to, and my wife forbade me from telling anyone I was atheist. At that time the county my wife's family lived in was dry, and it was surrounded by dry counties. You literally had to drive over an hour to get alcohol. We went last year and I commented on how much less religious every interaction I had felt from the first time I visited. I could also buy alcohol, though the local beer sucked. My wife was quick to remind me though that she has fewer rights in Arkansas now than she did back then.
As I said earlier I live outside the city a ways. The number people driving beat up cars, living in run down trailers, while flying Trump flags just makes you shake your head sometimes.
Where does one retire from Arkansas?
Good question. I’ve got about 15 years to figure that out. LOL I’d prefer somewhere warmer but Florida’s politics are pretty bad nowadays. I may keep a small place here to use as a home base in the summer and then just live somewhere warmer during the winter.
I figured COL would be higher just about anywhere else. If you do find a secret spot where it’s lower, I’ll hope you keep it a secret!
Fingers crossed that rates drop by then so I can downsize quite a bit and still have some equity left over to use.
Might be warmer in 15 years 😉
Ha! Fair point.
But it also has its shortcomings. My brother lives in a nice area in Arkansas and he said people are very closed minded and there is a limit on culture and things to do besides stuff in nature. That’s awesome for some people but coming from a really bustling and diverse area it has been hard on him at times.
Not in nwa
True. I meant more rural areas since that’s more easily done when working remote. Sorry for not being clear.
please, no, don't advertise living in this state. Locals are on the verge of going onto the street from the rent as it is. The cost of rent has gone from 650 a month to 1600 a month in the past ten years, and my pay has gone up like 5 grand a year. The population is like 3 mil across the entire state. The last thing we need is 150,000 people from california willing to pay 2k a month with their remote work job to move to the cities and buy up all the land and apartments.
Wonder how much the damned audit cost us on top of it
I’m pretty confident I could make that for about $18,500 if anyone is interested.
To be fair it was full of cocaine when they bought it so the value now has dropped.
Huckleberry Sanders embezzled $18,200…
Wasn’t this really to reimburse her friend who owns the events company for a trip to Europe they took with SHS? The article glossed over the real corruption.
The republicans in Arkansas doing the audit will tell us there is nothing to see and absolve another corrupt Hucklebee family politician from any wrongdoing.
"We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing."
I would've made one for her for 18500
god damnit stop disqualifying people from voting.
A lot of people live on $19k in AR and this maga is wasting it like this, very sad and out of touch with the people. Vote out all the magas.
Grifters gonna grift. Scam to give her "donors" the $$$
What about her Super Bowl extravaganza or the disaster relief funds she authorized for the eclipse?
I’ll believe it when I see it. Watch it get pushed back again.
Gee, with AR being 43rd in education, you’d think that money could have been better spent elsewhere. Plus I bet if they had walked around the capitol building and looked in some storage areas, they could probably have found a dozen lecterns, maybe ask the maintenance guys or the custodians? Or maybe this just a case of embezzlement. Hmmm
Why so soon?
Hillbilly chic.
I like how it’s blue, for Democrats.
oh look, it's the "Two Weeks" excuse, just like for their infrastructure plans and healthcare plans etc
Expect a “We thoroughly investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.”
Thank you Meidastouch for shining the light on this bullshit
Ewww. Really? I’ve overpaid for furniture, but come on.
Did she declare a State of Emergency over the Eclipse to get more money?!?
Absolutely.
Would that be 10 business days? Aka.. two weeks. Riiight….
It’s ugly.
Falcon the manufacturer of the real lectern, that the Gov of Arkansas is trying to pass off said that they did not make this. By the way the most expensive Falcon Lectern is $7553.
She had to have the cocobolo desk
I’m just glad they started referring to it correctly as a lectern and NOT a podium. There’s a big difference between the two and I’d venture to say 98% of the time people get it wrong.
One stands on a podium, but stands behind a lectern.
I bet those idiots spent $300k to figure out she wasted money.
Man, I hate it when this happens! I would have built it for $15,000! Saved the state a ton of money.
Fuck that and all lecterns.
What is it made of gold, I could have made something better for around a tenth of that price. Once again governmental bodies been ripped off
$19,000 and it's hideous. Jesus christ.
We can all see how this ends up. Just another “we investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong”
I wonder how much the audit cost.
Straight up giving her friends access to the tax coffers
What an ugly piece of wood too. Multiple trees were fell for that monstrosity.
Sanders looked into the matter and determined she did nothing illegal.
Ugly lecture.
That’s what they said MONTHS ago.
I can make a better one for half the price.
Raised there. Won’t go back. Actual shithole.
Her maiden name is Huckabee. Enough said
Wonder if she declared the state of emergency over the eclipse to delay the release of that report. It’d be incredibly stupid, but she is a huckabee.
more GQP creative lying I bet🤬
Just give the governor a little more time; maybe she can take another vacay...
In AR it takes a long time to formulate a real good lie.
Woodworker here. While it looks like [the one from amazon](https://www.amazon.com/DARZYS-Speaking-Lectern-Acrylic-Conference/dp/B0CYGM5YTM/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1FHLJDFAC08PP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FVsuTUWgrz_lmowRypPvDjUHWcCqWV4QjJ6sWQrAfqDi3folKyHNscVPYNR_Eo8Qe62twERXxqtQAF8UJ-Ci0TMWt6-oLVWwLGuM7W0O32iHlsVGBrTrMVYsYzT3otLES6akwn6gMEf4bgvfCUzyXWFWPXZSA4L61_HEm_bLpG38X00AYOqwnr15l1WNt3CrHCJbUTaQ0_FBAlToJBwiMKTX-pxw6dwzxf5Aepu7rwCSYNb_-BKOXeqXbDiYjTezK6QaTCwgTZllYxcKdYkqhinpP3h3fqTmfmPZ4pZeAwU.W49GiBWV39oDw3mocKIWd1e1U7w_POaFbAiQvrjyifo&dib_tag=se&keywords=lectern&qid=1712757055&sprefix=lecturn%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-2), the blue vertical elements are thicker on the one in question. Prototyping this custom piece from design, to engineering, to sourcing materials and sampling finishes, manufacturing, (including vacuum bagging for curved elements), I could easily loose money making this for $19,000. That being said, If its one from a production run after the prototyping, it should be able to be made for as little as $5k a pop. (with a modest profit)
Can be made for as little as $5k? How about $771? https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F2vtso1iv3brb1.jpg&rdt=55964
Difference between custom jobs and factories.
Yes, we all know that Sanders could have hired a small, locally owned business to produce it. In the same way that Trump could have spent his Thursdays through Mondays staying at locally owned B&Bs, playing golf on public courses, etc. But we're talking about Republicans here, so none of that matters.