I would gladly offer Matt Blunt’s office advice on how to make the entire administration implode, but they don’t seem to need my help.  They’ve got it covered.  On Tuesday, they whined like third graders that Carnahan’s guard had shoved someone too.  That bought them an extra day of heated coverage.  But on Wednesday they really outdid themselves, moving decisively on every front. 

News broke that they have filed a complaint against Eckersley with the Missouri bar for breaking attorney-client privilege.  (Actually, they did that way back on October 19th, but Eckersley’s been out of state and only just returned and discovered the news.)  Breaking privilege isn’t illegal, but it can be grounds for disbarment.  Just what Bluntco needs:  to look vengeful against someone who told the truth.  Because that’s what’s so fascinating about the move: it’s a tacit admission of what Eckersley claimed from the beginning.  They’re compaining that he told the truth when he said that he advised them their e-mail retention policy was illegal. As he commented:

“First I’ve been told I didn’t say anything, now I’m being told I said too much.”

Technically speaking, that’s an old move that only just got revealed.  Here’s a new one.  Bluntco wants a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Jay Nixon.  They’re demanding a special prosecutor for no particular reason (the MOGOP is still on about Nixon’s use of the state car and a couple of other equally irrelevant issues).  The real reason is that they’re being toasted to a crisp, so they figure Nixon deserves to feel some heat too. 

It’s a preemptive strike, since Nixon is promising to reveal before the end of the week his plans as attorney general for dealing with the governor’s failure to adhere to the state’s Sunshine Law policy.  McCaskill, by the way, has recommended that Nixon keep clear of launching what looks like a politically motivated investigation by appointing a special prosecutor.

Having publicly stepped into the fray, McCaskill is coming in for her share of Blunt trauma.  His office has filed a Sunshine Law request that she produce every document, “both deleted and undeleted” from  her last sixty days as state auditor of Missouri.  She should send them the deleted ones first, don’t you think?

And for good measure, the MOGOP is also requesting that nineteen Democratic legislators, all in leadership positions, produce every piece of paper and every e-mail from their offices for the last three years.  It’s a transparently vindictive move, but the Democrats will comply–wasting days, weeks or months.  But they’ll be rewarded for their efforts by having ringside seats as they watch Matt Blunt KO himself.

Fired Up! has the best summary of Bluntco’s plan of action:

These developments can’t be viewed favorably for the few remaining Blunt boosters out there.  Once your man is so damaged that he starts lashing out at everything that moves, even when the lashing out does as much harm to him as it does his adversary, it’s a sure sign that he’s mortally injured and is headed for the exit.  Team Blunt is wounded, desperate and punching at anything it thinks it sees through its swollen eyelids.  Despite all the rage, they are slowly bleeding out.  Good riddance.

photos courtesy of Columbia Tribune

What do the Wonder Twins have to do with leading US Senators? Blue Hampshire has the answer.

And remember, contact your representative today to stop telecom immunity.

In the Senate (both in the US Senate and here in Missouri), the senators debate a bill until there’s an agreement that the debate’s over. Only then a final vote can be taken. The vote to end debate (called a cloture vote) requires a supermajority, while a final vote generally requires only a simple majority to pass. A filibuster is an attempt to prevent a bill from passing by keeping it from ever coming to a vote.

Jimmy Stewart’s character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” made the filibuster famous by singlehandedly stalling the entire Senate. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view the bills being passed) the movie is misleading; a single Senator can’t hold up a bill that way. S/he needs 39 accomplices in the US Senate to go along – otherwise, the rest of the Senate would vote for cloture, bringing the debate to an end.

Nowadays, a full-fledged filibuster hardly ever happens, with all the images it conjures up of talking to all hours of the night reading from the Federalist Papers, recipe books, the Bible, and letters from home. The filibustering side threatens, and if they have the votes, the bill is usually withdrawn without so much as a cloture vote.

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Nearly 700 nurses, members of the United American Nurses have been on strike at nine Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) hospitals in Kentucky and West Virginia since Oct. 1.  They are striking because management policies are endangering patient care.  Primary concerns are understaffing and mandatory overtime. 

We’re being asked to do impossible tasks, to be responsible for too many patients.  Some days we have as many as 12 patients to care for.  That’s too much for one person to do without making a mistake.  I tell my husband who is a retired teacher that if he makes a mistake, he can just erase the board. If a nurse makes a mistake, it could erase someone off the earth.

ARH has hired replacement nurses and is housing them in vacant wings of the hospitals.  The striking nurses now state that the company is increasing intimidation efforts by hiring security guards who continually harass them and use video cameras to spy on them.  Worse, over the weekend of November 10, a union representative’s car was burned just as he got off the picket line.

Local President of the West Virginia Nurses Assn. Union at Beckley ARH in West Virginia, Ocie Helton, RN states:

We are stunned. Violent threatening actions like this are beyond the pale.  Registered nurses who are out on this picket to stand up for patient care are being repaid with threats to our lives. What if the next time someone is in the car that is set on fire?  Working women and men are literally under attack in Beckley and risking our lives to speak out for our patients.

The home communities of the strikers are giving them strong support and state legislators joined nurses for a rally in West Virginia.  In Hazard Ky., the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, Daniel Mongiardo, a surgeon, refused to cross the nurses’ picket line.  Sarah Hunley, RN for 37 years in Harlan, Ky states:

This is home to us and we like it.  We like our patients – they’re our friends and neighbors and we want to give them the best care.  We’re fighting a big corporate giant, but we’re right in what we’re doing.

Picketing and monetary support for the strikers has come from across the nation and includes the California Nurses Assn, the Ohio Nurses Assn, NY State Nurses Assn, and Washington State Nurses Assn.  Also supporting are AFL-CIO, AFSCME, UMWA and  USW.

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Jack Kennedy apologized on national television for sanctioning the plan and was nonplused to discover that his approval rating immediately jumped ten percent. 

Maybe Matt Blunt should consider that anecdote.  Suppose the boy governor were to apologize for:  deleting e-mails, firing Eckersley and then sliming him, lying about the existence of Eckersley memos, employing a bodyguard who shoves reporters around.  And continuing to lie.  OK, his numbers wouldn’t bound upwards like Kennedy’s because it wouldn’t be a sincere apology about a well intentioned mistake.  But it might at least stop the hemorrhaging. 

Most Missourians, little interested in the goings on in Jeff City, are as yet barely aware–if at all–of the brouhaha, but if it keeps gaining ground as it has been, it will damage an already fragile re-election effort beyond repair.

The K-C Star’s Prime Buzz issues a dire warning:

Gov. Matt Blunt is in the middle of a political meltdown that could bring down his administration.

He might not just lose next year’s election against Jay Nixon. He could get demolished.

In the face of these problems, Blunt has apologized for the unfortunate shoving incident and promised to make his e-mail records public whined that one of Mel Carnahan’s security guards once pushed a reporter.  Bluntco is correct:  such an incident did take place.  And in fact, Carnahan’s man pushed the reporter about thirty feet!  But really, Team Blunt’s complaint sounds like indignation from a third grader.  “Yeah, I hit Susie, but last week Billy hit Mary.  Why are you picking on me?”  Like his role model, GWB, Blunt believes apologies are for sissies.

And by the way, when Carnahan’s guard shoved a reporter, Carnahan–who wasn’t already being grilled to a soot blackened wienie over anything–apologized.

There’s speculation, even from Ryan Cooper, the brother of penitentiary-bound representative Nathan Cooper (R-Cape Girardeau), that with the holiday weekend coming up, Matt Blunt will fire his chief of staff, Ed Martin, the man who did the Eckersley firing.  The theory is that we’ll wake up from our turkey induced snoozes to find that Martin is gone and all is well again.

Maybe Martin is toast, maybe not.  And considering how little attention the voters pay, firing him might work.  Or not.  But Governor Blunt should consider the possibility that he’s going to get demolished a year from now.

The letters to the editor about the commitment announcement of two males previously published in the Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal continue.

This subject has obviously struck some nerves. It is also truly indicative of some level of polarization in our culture and, I suppose, the reluctance of anyone to cede ground anymore. That is an observation, not a paean to useless and/or unprincipled compromise.

People are speaking out. The conversation is no longer one sided. Why should I be surprised? The last six and a half years have certainly taught us all very important lessons about not speaking up when we should. That in itself is a very good thing.

I have previously written about the announcement and the reactions in letters to the editor in the paper here [original diary], here [part 2], here [part 3], here [part 4], here [part 5], here [part 6], here [part 7], and here [part 8].

One letter in support of publishing the announcement was printed in today’s edition of the paper. This same letter reopened a painful chapter in the city’s history from 40 years ago.

The header for the letter was provided by the paper.

Issue Is All About Fear

“Please accept my sturdy support for publishing an announcement of the sacred commitment of two people…It’s unfortunate, but it still takes courage to stand tall while you’re tip-toeing into the 21st century…

…As I recall, the good citizens of the Burg voted down the opportunity for a swimming pool about 1967 for fear that whites would have to swim with ‘coloreds.’ It was their loss, of course, but it also said something about people’s fears. The current situation…is about fear, too…”

History certainly speaks for itself.

Our society’s current inability to get over fear is troubling. We’ll give up the Bill of Rights because someone else will exploit our fears in support of their own misguided belief that our freedoms leave us too vulnerable. They are afraid. Ironic, isn’t it?

As a culture we fear any changes in society because, well, something different can’t be any good. That might work out for a three year old, but it’s no way for a mature and diverse society to function.

Some fear others because they appear to be different in some way, blind to the obvious fact that we are all really the same. There’s the rub.

For the longest time too many people on have been afraid to speak out because they were afraid of being labeled “un” this or “un” that.

February 25, 2003

…The final audience member who spoke was the most eloquent [paraphrased from memory]:  “I am not from this country. I am a naturalized citizen.  I would like to thank those who spoke out against this [war].  It is a difficult thing to do [in this environment].  What is this un?  Nowhere else in the world do you hear un-French, or un-Spanish…  But, when people speak out here they are called un-American.  This is my home.  It is a very strange thing to be made to feel uncomfortable in your own home…”

It should be a very strange thing indeed to be made to feel uncomfortable in your own community…

The Ethics Commission has defnitely ruled that over-limit campaign contributions will have to be returned.  Sort of.  Which is to say that private hearings will be conducted with candidates who want to claim that returning them would be a hardship.  Such hearings might not conclude until February or March, and by then the legislature may well decide to pass another unlimited contribution law.  (The Supreme Court ruled the last law unconstitutional because of the ban on raising funds while the legislature was in session.  That part of the old law would be left out.)

In other words, as far as the Ethics Commission’s decision, it might all be moot.  In fact, it is moot when you consider that getting around those bothersome campaign contribution limits is child’s play anyway.  Instead of giving a lot of money in a lump sum, you distribute it to various campaign committees in several smaller sums.  Or you do a Rex Sinquefield 100 PACs maneuver.  Then, as Senate Majority Leader, Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, (pictured above) will tell you, you not only get to ignore the limits, you get to disguise where a candidate’s money actually comes from.

“I think that ought to send the message that really what you want is transparency. You want to know where the money comes from. And the more time and more places the money comes through, the harder it is to track its roots.”

Thus the solution, Shields will tell you, is to lift all limits. Sadly, even some democratic Senators agree with Shields, including Tim Green (Florissant), who introduced the original amendment, Chuck Graham (Columbia) and Chris Koster (Harrisonville).

But most Democrats would side with Senator Joan Bray (D-St. Louis), who says that any renewal of unlimited contributions legislation would likely be met with a filibuster from her party.  Bray says the Republicans would have to move the previous question to pass the bill, referring to a parliamentary move that cuts off debate, one that used to be extremely rare but has been used increasingly by Republicans.

Whereas Shields argues for transparency, Bray argues that:

“The public thinks we’re all controlled by money, and we don’t need to do anything more to make that reality or perception,” Bray said. “The public strongly likes the idea of contribution limits. It has expressed that in votes in the past. And we should respect and not resort to indulging ourselves in unlimited contributions.”

Bray argues for legislation that would control the proliferation of PACs and political committees.  Only a public campaign finance system would make more sense.  But short of that, a Democrat needs to introduce legislation to control PACs.

Here’s an analogy:  If people are finding embezzling too easy to get away with, Republicans think it would be wise to make the embezzlement easy to spot … and legal.  They figure that if it’s easy to spot, the boss can fire the embezzler.  Democrats want to make the embezzlement more difficult to achieve … and illegal.

There’s a no brainer.

When it comes to letters to the editor in the Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal it seems that exhaustion and the cult of victimhood have settled in.

I have previously written about the commitment announcement of two males and the reactions in letters to the editor in the paper here [original diary], here [part 2], here [part 3], here [part 4], here [part 5], here [part 6], and here [part 7].

One letter to the editor was printed in last Friday’s edition of the paper. One letter was printed in today’s edition of the paper.

The headers for each letter were provided by the paper.

From Friday, November 9th:

Tired Of The Issue

“To all the people that would like to FORCE me and my family to read over and over again about the “commitment”. I am tired of seeing it in the paper…

…I wouldn’t care about what two men want to do with their lives, but quit ramming it down our throats about the paper being “right” to run the announcement…”

There’s an easy solution – don’t read the entire paper. I hear that there’s some really juicy stuff about music pop stars on tabloid cable shows.

By the same token, this letter writer wasn’t too concerned about the people who were writing that the paper was “wrong”.

The letter, taken as a whole, is somewhat hard to decipher. It’s as if all that recent “unpleasantness” is, well, recently unpleasant. Gee, thanks for the update.

From today’s edition:

Looking For Warrensburg Pastors To Speak Up

“Where, oh where, are all the Warrensburg Pastors in this time of dialogue? Where are you when one of your own is being attacked? Why are you tardy in your defense? You know the truth and yet you sit on the sidelines and look from a distance. Are you fearful of losing your flock…?

Where to start?

What might a pastor [hypothetically, of course] be thinking?

Answer to the first question: “Sometimes it’s a sign of mercy and intelligence to not step into a mine field and let the fool who’s blundering around experience the full consequences of his ill thought out actions.”

Answer to the second question: “What do you mean ‘one of your own’? I’m not claiming him.”

Answer to the third question: “What gives you the mistaken impression that I’d defend bigotry and intolerance?”

Answer to the fourth question: “If my flock would desert me for failure to defend bigotry and intolerance I know a place where they can go to feel more comfortable.”

A curious mix of victimhood and a plaintive hope that there’s safety in approval numbers when it comes wearing our narrow minds on our sleeves.

No thanks.

Apparently Blunt feels the axe hanging over his head because he stumbled through questions from K.C. Star reporters in this video.  Finally, his security guards had to rescue him by shoving reporters aside, slamming the door of the SUV, and spiriting the governor out of harm’s way.