missouri

For those silly ones who regard government as a moral institution, an article in the business section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1 March 2009 may provide some problem in reconciling their delusion with reality. The article “Missouri could win in shell game” describes the Missouri legislators as a pack of con artists engaging in shell games with Federal bailout money. Republicans and Democrats are engaged in activities, which in this land of two laws, one for the politicians and another for the citizen, would be invite a visit from the FBI if the average guy tried the same con. But be not concerned. Senator Victor “Bagman” Callahan thinks there is “…enough to go around for everyone.” By everyone, of course, he means the politically connected, not the fools who actually pay taxes. Thank goodness there is $4 billion for the gang to split up. Imagine if it had only been $3 billion. Morals are cheap in the Missouri legislature but not that cheap. Missouri legislators, who are busy trying to con the con artists, seem to have let their mathematics slip. Missouri is getting $4 billion out of an $800 billion “beggar the children bill.” That is only 0.05% of the loot. But Missouri has almost 6 million folks out of an estimated 300 million Americans or almost 2% of the population. Shouldn’t there be a more equitable distribution of the swag?      The article suggests the felonies will result in a win-win for “conservative” Republicans and Democrats. What the benefit is to the taxpayer is left to the imagination. Don’t pay taxes, don’t worry. Running the government printing presses will set the classic conditions for inflation, too many dollars chasing too few goods. The “stimulus” bill will only stimulate production of taxes and money to cover the trillion dollar debts “as far as the eye can see.” Fortunately the naïve innocents of the Missouri legislature have consultants from the National Conference of State legislators to advise them on the running of scams. “It’s all a matter of appearance,” stated one consultant who had the wit unlike the Missouri legislators to go nameless – just in case someone decides to make a Federal case out of a little graft, corruption and misappropriation of Federal funds. After all didn’t Obama say if the bailout money was misused he would see that the miscreants would suffer? Perhaps the legislators are expected that Obama to expire just like so many others.   Senator Callahan shows he knows as much about economics as he does about morality. “I’m happy we’re not in South Carolina. And I hope, by the way, we get some of that moron’s money.” The senator, who is a living example of why Mark Twain thought idiot and politician were redundant terms, obviously believes pixies bring the money to Washington and unicorns bring it to the wise folk for their enjoyment. It is not “that moron’s money”; it is not Callahan’s money; it is not even Obama’s money. It is the taxpayers’ money. Jay Nixon, who apparently believes that sins of the father should be visited upon the son, has said apparently with satisfaction our children and grandchildren will be paying off the Obama debts. But that is the hope of these politicians – that the bill comes due long after they have left office. At the end of the day Missouri voters will wish their politicians had the sense that South Carolina’s does.

A lot of old time Republican senators have decided to hang up their cleats, or may decide to do so in the coming months.

Already deciding to retire are Mel Martinez (Florida); Sam Brownback (Kansas) and this week Kit Bond (Missouri).

There is also a rumor on RedState that Ohio's George Voinovich may step down at term's end.    

All things being equal, we are usually better off running an incumbent, but unless we adopt a Weekend at Bernie's  strategy the day will come to replace incumbents.

The future of the Republican party will depend on who gets to step up in these races.

Promoted.  This is an interesting approach to stopping card check, preserving the secret ballot and expanding the authority of States to set their own policy.  - Jon Henke

The misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will take away the secret ballot for potential union members and force them to openly declare their preferences for or against a union, causing that worker to be easily open to intimidation by union thugs. This is a law currently in the table in Congress, one that Barack Obama has pledged to push through regardless of how it eliminates one of the oldest democratic rights there is.

But, now Missouri is trying to head off the possible federal enactment of "card check" (the provision that eliminates the secret ballot) by legislating that a secret ballot is protected by state law.

So, the question remains, can a state law supersede a federal law?

A lot of tears have been shed, apparently, in anguish and fear over the "Truth Squads" in Missouri. Why so scared? The CBS affiliate who ran the story, opened by saying ""The Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad." That is false.

The factually challenged Michael Barone, as well as Drudge and Limbaugh (and consequently right wing blogs) reported that ""[St Louis Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce] are threatening to bring criminal libel charges against anyone who levels what turns out to be false criticisms of their chosen candidate for president." Setting aside the fact that what they say is totally false, "criminal libel"? There is no "criminal libel" in Missouri.

The story being pushed is that Bob McCulloch and Jennifer Joyce have threatened to silence criticism of Obama with threats of criminal prosecution. That is completely false.

Soon-to-be-ex-Governor Matt Blunt whined that ""What Obama and his helpers are doing is ... abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment." Totally untrue.

What Bob McCulloch actually said was " "... if they're not going to tell the truth then somebody's got to step up and say, 'wait a minute that's not true' ..."

That's it. Wow. Imagine that - pointing out lies and correcting the record. What a threat to the first amendment, eh?

So, hopefully this will allow all of those who are "terrified" by the continuous lies Limbaugh and company spoon feed their so-willing-to-believe-anything audience to sleep a bit easier tonight. Unclench your hands. Take a deep breath. Hug your ferret and rest easy.

And seriously, aren't you tired of your overlords scaring you all the time?

On thenextright.com, there were a series of blogs talking about the importance of the states in the Big Ten Conference. After reading that series, having time to reflect, and the commencing of the shortest general election campaign in history, I felt that it would be appropriate to point out another conference: The states in the Big 12 Conference.

I am not doing this blog series to put down the Big Ten (though I’m not sure I’d want to be a math major from the 11-team league), but I am doing this to show that the Big 12 states will play a central role in the 2008 Presidential Election. I should also point out that there are a number of reasons that the Big 12 may be overlooked in favor of its sister conference to the east.
 

1. The Big 12 is made up of smaller media markets compared to the Big 10. The five biggest media markets in the Big Ten are Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Cleveland, and St. Louis. The ones in the Big 12 are Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, St. Louis, Denver, and Kansas City. The St. Louis-area is included twice because it sits on the border of Big Ten state Illinois and Big 12 state Missouri.

    

2. The volume of electoral votes in Big 12 states is largely concentrated in one state. Outside of Texas (three of the six largest Big 12 cities are in Texas), no other Big 12 state has 12 or more electoral votes. The Big Ten region has four states with more than 12 electoral votes. Of course, the larger pot gets the most attention.
    

In short, the size of the composition of voters from the two regions draws large attention to the Big Ten and away from the Big 12. However, size isn’t the only thing that matters. Consider that George W. Bush, on his way to 286 electoral votes in 2004 won every Big 12 state. While the race came down to Ohio, imagine what his chances would have been if he had lost Iowa and Colorado. Take away Missouri as well as Iowa and Colorado and John Kerry is President.

Also, consider that the last time that a Democrat won three of the seven states was Bill Clinton in 1992. Clinton won 370 electoral votes and won Colorado, Iowa, and Missouri. Meanwhile, the last time that a Democrat swept the Big 12 states was in 1964 with Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win over Barry Goldwater. In short, the Big 12 is an important hold for Republicans and a chance to win an election for Democrats.

The states that make up the region are Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. As of today, it appears that Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas are likely to go for John McCain. For the purposes of this blog series, I want to focus in the coming days on the three swing states from this group: Colorado, Iowa, and Missouri.