Hans's blog

Crazy Eddie Martin, looking for a shiny object to distract reporters from digging any deeper into his misuse and destruction of official government resources as well as his lying to the public, now has a new ballot scheme to impose term limits on Missouri's statewide elected officials (Governor and Treasurer already have them). 

So, Crazy Eddie doesn't trust Missouri voters to choose who represents them in office. This is not a surprising policy position from an extremist who doesn't trust that women can make decisions about their own health and doesn’t trust professional scientists to find lifesaving cures.  Story Continued »

Interesting op-ed in the Boston Globe today about the need for electoral reform.  Some of it hits a little close to home (Velda City anyone?):

More serious and troubling are wholesale methods of stealing elections...Best of all, for those with electoral larceny in their hearts, is voter suppression. Order too few voting machines for polling places in your opponent's strongholds and create long lines that discourage voters. Delete from voter rolls names that resemble those of convicts. Bloodless, bureaucratic, and effective: Thousands of demographically inconvenient voters are disenfranchised. It's also harder to be prosecuted for this...

I sure hope the St. Louis County Board of Elections and their directors get their plum positions in the McCain administration that they earned for helping deliver the state.  Oh, wait...­ 

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­Those of you who have been following the Fired Up coverage over the past 4 years of the Missouri ties to the Abramoff scandal may be interested in today's news. From Congress Daily:

Former Hill Aide Pleads Guilty To Not Disclosing Gifts

Ethics.
A former congressional staffer has pleaded guilty to not reporting thousands of dollars in illegal gifts from lobbyists, the Associated Press reported. Trevor L. Blackann pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court to lying on his 2003 tax returns. He is a former aide to House Minority Whip Blunt and Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo. Blackann is the most recent person convicted in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Among the gifts from lobbyists that Blackann failed to report was a free trip to a World Series game in New York. He also failed to report airfare, meals and entertainment at a "gentleman's club" paid for by lobbyists.

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 From the ­St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

...Bond played a key role in attacking the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the regulatory agency that oversees the two home-financing firms at the center of financial turmoil:

— In 2004, Bond tried to oust the oversight office's director, Armando Falcon Jr., as Falcon was looking into questionable accounting at Fannie Mae — problems that led to the resignation of its top two executives...

From AP:

A Justice Department investigation finds former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of the Western District of Missouri was forced out because of opposition from Missouri Sen. Kit Bond's office...

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After another embarassing defeat by voters and no solid legal arguments, California millionaire Ward Connerly’s so-called Civil Rights Initiative coalition (that would ban affirmative action programs designed to help women and minorities) has thrown in the towel in yet another of their ten “Super Tuesday” states.  [Note: they only made it on the Colorado and Nebraska ballots…wow…that’s super…]  From the Arizona Daily Star:

Backers of a plan to constitutionally ban government affirmative action programs in the state gave up Friday in their legal efforts to get on the ballot…[director of the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative Max] McPhail said there was no way for him to make his case…­

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Garrison Keillor famously wrote about a place called Lake Wobegon, where "all the children are above average."

Under the Blunt administration, the people who run the state have apparently worked very hard to make sure that we have an opposite Lake Wobegon effect.  Bluntees have rigged the system so that state employees are always adjudged average or below. 

Blunt administration appointees have invented and implemented an employee rating system called PERforM, on which they will presumably make "merit" pay increase decisions for workers.  Because pay for working people hinges on the ratings, Bluntees have to be very careful to make sure that even employees who earn high marks don't get scored that way. 

Consider the discussion of the PERforM system from this email, sent earlier this year by a manager from a state facility in southeast Missouri...

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As former US Atty Brad Schlozman resurfaces as the likely focus of a federal grand jury investigation for perjury, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Perez buys into the Todd Graves spin on why he was forced out as US Attorney.  Perez writes:

Mr. Schlozman's promotion to the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City came after the department asked his predecessor, Todd P. Graves, to resign. Mr. Graves was among several U.S. attorneys who had shown reluctance to bring vote-fraud-related cases, according to testimony and documents gathered by Senate investigators last year.

What reluctance, exactly?  As we've pointed out here before, then-US Attorney Graves announced vote fraud charges only 10 days before the 2004 PRESIDENTIAL election, which had to be in violation of the Justice Department policy.  Yet the Wall Street Journal reports as fact Graves' supposed "reluctance to bring vote-fraud-related cases."  

Maybe while the investigators are looking into fibs made under oath, they should take a look at Graves' testimony too. 

Although there were many other worthy submissions of offensive quotes, the Heartless Quote of the Week goes to Senator John Loudon, hands down:

Republican Sen. John Loudon ridiculed concerns [voiced by nuns, elderly, disabled, student, poor and minority voters] that the photo ID requirement amounted to a tax on voters.

"The only thing taxing is you have to get off your duff and get an ID that's given away for free," Loudon said.

Yes, Loudon told that to Kathleen Weinschenk, who has cerebral palsy and doesn’t drive -  and who wouldn’t be able to vote without a government-issued photo ID if the heartless GOP has their way.  Story Continued »

If you only read one article today, read this, which details the back story on the Republican attempts to shove through a restrictive measure that will prevent registered law-abiding voters from voting. 

Bush Operative Pushes Voter-ID Law
by Jason Leopold

May 14, 2008—A senior legal adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection campaign is working behind the scenes to help enact a Missouri state constitutional amendment that critics say would suppress the vote in the key battleground state this November by requiring voters to show proof of citizenship.

Mark “Thor” Hearne, Bush-Cheney’s national counsel in 2004 and now a partner in the St. Louis, Missouri, firm of Lathrop & Gage, has been collaborating with Missouri’s Republican state Rep. Stanley Cox, the sponsor of the constitutional amendment, Cox’s office confirmed this week...    READ FULL STORY: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051308b.html

Front page story on Missouri.

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship
By IAN URBINA

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

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Everyone who has ever failed wants to blame it on someone else.  Now the out-of-state MoCRI-Babies are doing just that after their attempt to change Missouri’s constitution failed.  From the AP:

Asher and Connerly attributed the difficulty in collecting signatures to the court battle. They both called for changes in how initiative petitions are handled in Missouri.
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The Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition will hold a press conference today and a rally tomorrow in connection with President Bush's visit to St. Louis.  The event will point out that Missouri's economy has declined as domestic priorities have been abandoned in favor of neverending war in Iraq.  From the Pro-Vote advisory:

What President Bush won’t say is that his upside down priorities of endless war in Iraq and tax breaks for millionaires have led to the sagging economy.  Missouri’s share of the cost of war is already more than $8 billion while neglected domestic priorities, like education and healthcare, continue to be squeezed by this administration.

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Today, the AP busted California millionaire Ward Connerly's so-called "Civil Rights Initiative" clan of circulators for deceiving Missouri voters.

Said Connerly's Missouri puppet Tim Asher:

"The deception thing - it's the same old nonsense that has been put out in other states," he said.

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With only about a week before petition signatures are due in Missouri, another of Ward Connerly’s “Super Tuesday for [so-called] Civil Rights” states seems to have failed in gathering enough valid signatures.

From Rocky Mountain News in Colorado:

A group analyzing thousands of signatures that qualified a November ballot measure backed by Ward Connerly filed a legal challenge claiming more than half are invalid.

[The group]…found about 69,000 signatures that they claim are not valid.

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