There ought to be a law...

Missouri voters, stop signing petitions.

There are too many outside interests that think they have a right to influence our state government, and that pisses me off most righteously.

What the hell business does Ward Connerly have interfering in our state government? He lives and pays his taxes in California, but he has a bit in his teeth and wants to outlaw Affirmative Action in Missouri. This pompous jerk thinks he has the right to tell us we should amend our constitution! And I gotta repeat - he is not a Missouri taxpayer, so where the hell does he get off?

With the May 4 deadline for signature collection looming, Connerly is downright desperate to collect enough signatures to get his wet-dream on our ballot in November. So desperate, in fact, that he is recruiting "members and friends" of the Minuteman xenophobes to come to Missouri and collect signatures.

The trip is being pitched as a “1-2 week paid ‘vacation.’” Travel and meals would be paid for. And like professional circulators, Minutemen would receive a small fee for each signature they collect.

Of course, organizers know it’s not money that drives Minutemen. The activist group, comprised of private citizens, has been monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal immigrants since 2005.

“The tie-in with immigration issues is very strong,” Minutemen organizer Stuart Hurlbert e-mailed his fellow members last week.

“About 3/4 of all immigrants and probably more like 90% percent of illegal immigrants, are immediately eligible the minute they cross the border or get off the plane, on the basis of their ‘race,’ for preferential treatment by all sorts of federally mandated programs.”

Connerly is also pushing a similar agenda in Arizona, but he isn't recruiting hate-mongers to gather signatures there.

"Why not?" you may ask.

Because, dear reader, Arizona has a common-sense law on the books that prohibits petitioners who are not registered voters in the state from circulating and collecting signatures.

Missouri needs a law like this. Fortunately, the people in my part of the state had the good sense to send Jolie Justus to the state senate, and she is on the case, working to get similar legislation passed right here in Missouri.

If you are a Missouri reader, please contact your state representative and state senator and encourage them to support legislation that would close our referendum process to outside interests pushing personal agendas.

UPDATE -- 8:15 p.m.

Via FiredUp! Missouri, we learn that one of Ward Connerly's minions, a fellow named John Wynne, was interviewed by police in Wentzville on Sunday when he ducked monitors who intend to assure that signature gatherers are honestly representing the petitions they are collecting signatures for.

In the course of conducting their interview and investigation, the Wentzville police learned that Mr. Wynne is wanted in three states on misdemeanor voter fraud warrants. He has quite a history of misrepresenting the position of petitions he gathers signatures for.

Because the charges are not extraditable, he was not arrested and so far as anyone knows, he is continuing to duck the monitors and collect signatures while misrepresenting the petition he wants Missourians to sign.

Have you called your state congresscritters yet to put a stop to petition gatherers like this creep?

Hillary Clinton Campaign Headquarters Open In Kansas City

Saturday after noon the Hillary Clinton campaign headquarters held a grand opening in Kansas City. The doors opened at 10:00 a.m. and volunteers started phone banking, then at 2:30 a group of local and state elected officials who are endorsing Senator Clinton in her bid for the White House spoke to the standing-room-only crowd.

The headquarters is located at 7442 Holmes, on the northeast corner of 75th and Holmes, across the street from the northeast corner of Tower Park. The office space is being donated by local businessman, developer, community re-investor and Democratic fundraiser Nick Abnos, owner of the Abdiana Futon chain.

I arrived at the headquarters at about 2:00, with the local politicians who have endorsed the Senator scheduled to address the crowd at 2:30. State Senators Rachel Storch and Jolie Justus, Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders, and United States Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver. They were great speakers one and all - well-spoken, articulate in their expression of why they are supporting Senator Clinton - but Congressman Cleaver spoke last, and that man can move a mountain with his oratorical skills.

He had a lot of things to say, and much of it quotable - but one thing he said rings absolutely true...speaking about the Republicans and the concern-trolling of certain factions of the Democratic Party - "We are all Democrats. We can't let them separate us."

Amen, Mayor (Congress is only national) you got that right.

Reporting from the Rally at Penn Valley

Well, I just got back from the Rally at Penn Valley, where the Peace Caravan departed from the campus to protest at the gates of the munitions plant. (I’m not participating in that phase of today’s protests – I see the need for a strong military and advanced weaponry – I also firmly believe that both are being misused in Iraq. Which is why I was out today to protest the war in Iraq and document the rally here.)

There were many good speakers and some great music. I certainly do not mean to slight anyone if I don’t include your favorite speaker in the *photo essay* that follows. It is entirely possible that I was unable to get photos of your favorite speaker or musician because I ran into a bit of a memory problem while I was photographing, and nothing was on zoom, so some pictures aren't usable. (I caught Zoe with the camera recently, so I probably need to cut my losses and just restore the factory settings and start over…)

Anyway - without further delay, or comment on my part, here are the pics from the rally. Enjoy.

Dirty Hippie Grandmas -
Gotta love 'em.

Politicians, take note -
You will never get up early enough in the morning to put
anything over on these ladies.

But don't take my word for it.
Ask our kids.

It was certainly a ruly mob...

My yes - just look at all those dirty hippies
out protesting the war and demoralizing the troops...

Oh wait - these are all folks who look like they might live next door...
Why...Is that Dave and Janet from the next block over?

And what about those protesters who have kids over there?
What about the gold-star protesters?
(Nodding reverentially to the Farnan family of Weston,
hand over heart.)

Megan Peterson of Missouri ProVote and Americans against the Escalation
gave a rousing and informative speech on the true costs of war.
She cited a study done by Coalition on Human Needs (.pdf alert)
that crystallized the costs of war for our section of the country
and contrasted those costs with the cost of helping those most in need.

If I get started, I will rewrite her entire speech, so just read the study.
And look for both Missouri ProVote and CHN on the links list in the near future.

Kansas State Senator Chris Steineger told us what the
Kansans in the State Senate District 03
could have bought
with the $1.1 Billion that they have spent on Iraq:

• They could have insured 360,000 Kansas citizens who have no health coverage.

• They could have educated 230,000 Kansas students at

the seven State Regents Colleges.

• They could have build 13,000 affordable housing units.

• They could have converted one million Kansas homes to clean, renewable energy.

Senator Justus - engaging the crowd and making me proud.
She explained perfectly why it is not improper for
state legislatures to debate the war.
Their constituents are directly affected!
It is therefore their
responsibility to debate it!!!

She and I are supposed to be sworn, bitter enemies, being as she is a
Muslim and I'm a Jew and all. But somehow, we just can't see it,
so we decided to take a pass on the whole sworn enemy
and hating each other thing...

Sorry if that disappoints anyone.

The Sign wavers along Southwest Trafficway received a lot more
honks and waves than they did one-finger salutes.

Activists: The Next Generation

And yes, our little rally qualifies as a legitimate anti-war protest
because there was a nun in attendance.
Everyone agrees that the mere
presence of a Sister legitimizes anti-war protests of all sizes.

All these empty boots. And when I got home and logged back on,
I learned of seven more pair.

*****

Turn out, tune in, and turn it up.

It's time to bring on the politicians because

there is no military solution.

It's time to stop the war.

It's time to bring the troops home.

It's time to fully fund the VA.

It's time to

ITMFA!!!

Wanker of the Week: Missouri State Senator Carl Vogel

Missouri State Senator Carl Vogel is our Wanker of the Week™ and a big 'ole pile of steaming hypocrisy all in one.

This dubious honor we (by "we" I mean me and the cats and a three year old) have bestowed on the Republican from the 6th district turns on a pissing match he is currently engaged in with my State Senator, and we already know I am a huge fan of hers.

My State Senator, the perfectly-named Jolie Justus, introduced an anti war resolution. It was, of course, voted down on a party-line vote, but it put everyone on record.

But here is where the behavior that garners him the honor comes in...Vogel leads the State Senate Ways and Means Committee, and because he opposed Senator Justus' anti-war resolution, he is refusing to hear two of her bills that are before his committee - stating "We were disappointed in the filing of the (Iraq war) resolution." and said that the state lege has no business debating the war. "That forum is not the Missouri Senate. I have no problem leaving that debate in Washington."

I call bullshit.

First, lots of Missouri businesses are being hurt by repeated deoployments of their employees who are in the Guard and Reserves. That makes it a state issue, Mr. pro-business Republican.

Then there is this:

On March 20, 2003, the state Senate, after bruising debate, passed a resolution supporting the invasion of Iraq. Here is some interesting text from that March 20, 2003 resolution: "Iraq's conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons threaten world peace." that resolution went on to tie Saddam to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 - "bringing justice to Osama bin Laden and those responsible for the terrorist attacks on United States soil."

Vogel voted for that resolution, full throated. (And still defends that vote, while denying that he's being a hypocrite! IOKIYAR, I guess.)

So for being a big steaming pile of hypocritical horseshit - Senator Vogel is our Wanker of the Week™.

Showing Some Love to My State Senator

I have to take a moment to crow about my State Senator.

First of all, she has the perfect Senator name - Jolie Justus.

Senator Justus. Does that just totally kick ass, or what? I mean, really. If that name is on the ballot, just certify the vote right now. How can you not vote for Justus?

I intend to call her Senator Justus for a long time, and in my flights of fancy, I don't go to a tropical isle on vacation - I watch election returns in November of 2016 and she takes the Class III Senate seat currently held by Kit Bond.

Right now, as I write this, she has been in chambers for over 24 hours as the Missouri legislature debates the sale of MOHELA assets. She is live-blogging the proceedings. She started live-blogging the issue shortly before 5:00 this morning.

If you can't tell, I'm a big fan of Senator Justus. She does a lot to restore my faith in the possibility of good government and representation of the people.

If you read her blog, you will see why I am so enamored of her as a politician. Some of the truly democratic, thoughtful ideals she holds just choke me up. I put her in the same category as I place Russ Feingold, Nancy Kassebaum and the late Paul Wellstone. It is a mighty small group of truly dedicated public servants that rises to that level in my mind, and she gained entre' very early on, but she doesn't make one single neck-hair stand up. That is unprecendented.

At one point the bill's handler and the governor's staff would not assure me that UMKC's projects would be included in the plan unless I promised them a yes vote. This was BEFORE I was provided the version of the bill that they wanted me to vote for. Of course I want UMKC's projects to be included, but how could I ever promise to vote on a bill that I hadn't even read?

This reminded me of that time a reporter asked Senator Feingold how he could vote against the Patriot Act, and he responded "I read it."

Vote Today, Kansas City

It's time for Kansas City to winnow the field to two in the Mayoral race. We sure have no shortage of candidates - twelve people are vying for one of the two slots on the ballot in the general, that will be held in six weeks. I can only take three of them seriously, and of those three, any one would do a good job, but I'm backing Funkhouser because he is the sanest person in the race where TIF is concerned. He could be stronger on getting us light rail, and he could stake out a bit more territory on fixing the problems with the Municipal Courts. But on balance, Mark is my guy. Eighteen years as city auditor has given him an end-users perspective on the inner workings of city government - and what things actually cost - that the rest of the candidates just can't match, no matter how many terms they spent on the City Council or as County Executive.

Besides - how often do you get a chance to vote for a guy who answers to "Funk" and had his biggest fundraiser to date in a real live down-n-dirty blues bar?


The other two candidates worthy of consideration are Jim Glover and Alvin Brooks. Since our incumbent Mayor, the Absolutely Fabulous Kay Barnes has expressed disgust with the negative campaigning that burst ont he scene about the same time as Missouri's white-trash, poor-man's Karl Rove got picked up as a campaign staffer by one of the more desperate contenders...I will just say nothing about the rest of the field. Some I don't know enough about to attack, but a couple of them...I'll just abstain.

Now that that is taken care of -

You need to go over to Gone Mild and read Dan's rant about the idiocy of closing 20% of the polling places less than a week before the most contested mayoral primary in the post-Pendergast era!

My State Senator is doing a fine job of taking care of her constituents - if you go to her site you will see that she has the links up and the top of the page is dedicated to polling update information. For those too lazy to click the link, here's her PSA:

Dude Where's My Polling Place?

Thanks to Dan for the heads up on polling place changes for Tuesday's city elections. If you get confused -- you can always vote at the Election Board -- 1828 Walnut.

I have been pretty busy lately, and remiss in my duties - but cruise her site and see that she is by golly doing the job we elected her to do, and I look forward to selecting Jolie Justus on my ballot for years into the future, based on what I've seen so far. (This is where I take a flight-of-fancy 10 years down the road to a contest for Missouri's Class III Senate seat...)

Senator Justus. I just like how that sounds, you know?