At Majikthise:

…Eliminationist wags were selling bumper stickers that read “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8” on Cafe Press. Psalm 109:8 reads: “Let his days be few. Let another take is his office.” The next verse is, “Let his children be fatherless And his wife a widow.” Followed by, “Let his children wander about and beg; And let them seek sustenance far from their ruined homes.” How long before one of these is spotted on the bumper of a hapless Republican county chair? I’m taking bets.

At beliefnet:

Psalm 109:8–A Prayer for Obama or Ourselves?

….the “Prayer for Obama,” does more than anticipate that he leaves office; it entreats God to destroy the president.

Psalm 109 belongs to a special category of the psalms known as “imprecatory” prayers–it is a lament in the form of petition to destroy one’s enemies.  It is the personal prayer of an individual, someone who has been dealt an injustice by another–and usually more powerful–person.  The words of Psalm 109 are those of deep agony, the longings of a victim for retribution and justice.  This psalm is considered one of the most difficult of all the psalms–full of violent images of vengeance and death.   Many a biblical critic has struggled with its words–and not a few–including Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant theologians–recommend that it not be used in public worship, much less as a bumper-sticker political slogan….

Such nice people.

From CafePress:

….This morning we made the decision to remove all Psalms 109:8 designs from CafePress.

The public debate started with questioning if the design was simply intended to be criticism of the President or something much worse. The discourse was surprisingly civil online, given the heated nature of the topic. Given that, and the positions of groups like the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League, we decided to let the dialogue play out publicly before making a final decision.

Last night we posted a poll on our blog, read through the emails we’ve received and weighed the nature of the calls we’ve received on the topic. In the process we also learned that many of the original designers of the Psalm 109:8 designs had already decided to remove them on their own.

General consensus has proven that the design does point to a broader interpretation of the Psalm and thus has been deemed inappropriate for sale at CafePress.

We try to create an atmosphere of self-expression. Many of the things we encounter are not black and white, but grey. When the dialogue is civil, we want to let the larger community work things out rather than making an uninformed ruling. The dialogue has played out and common sentiment has reached agreement – this merchandise is not appropriate….

[emphasis added]

It is instructive to take a look at Roy Blunt’s and Cynthia Davis’ respondes to H1N1 preparedness. Both Blunt and Davis pay allegiance to a similar conservative credo; yet Davis tells the government no thank you, keep your vaccine, while Blunt  puts on a big show, pointing his little finger at the big, bad government that didn’t get him his vaccine right away.

As we pointed out earlier, Blunt has, predictably, remained faithful to the tried-and-true Republican playbook: do nothing, obstruct, defame the opposition, and use the rhetoric of movement conservatism to do so – all suitably fact free, designed to give Blunt the requisite populist sheen.

Davis, however,  responds to the need to head off a potential public health crisis in a way that is true to her belief that government is not entitled to intervene  in health questions (except, of course, when they involve women’s reproductive rights):

It is not the job of the government or the schools to provide vaccines.  Schools are educational institutions, not health institutions. … ultimately this decision should be worked out between you and your doctor.

In Davis’ delusional reality, the recommendations of epidemiologists for disease control can be safely disregarded simply because they might interfere with her narrow definition of the role of government. She conceives of public health policy as a function of doctors interacting with comfortable, middle-class individuals who can afford their services – and if that is not really an effective way to deal with potential epidemics, then let the devil take the hindmost.

With such liars and simpletons for leaders, is it any wonder that the Republican cadres are going into a Tea Party tailspin? The bred-in-the-bone conservative masses are  tasked with understanding why things went south after George Bush led the way to the promised land, gave them their tax cuts, thrilled them with feckless displays of military might, gutted  corporate and financial regulation, and unleashed the free market dogs on a hapless nation. And what tools do they have to help them make sense of what happened? A choice between the mendacity of Republican power politics or the delusional dogma that fed its inevitable failure

*Graffito Angst photograph from Wikipedia Commons.

Public Policy Polling, 763 voters, 11/13-15/2009, (source)

Of Missouri’s last five elected Governors: John Ashcroft, Mel Carnahan, Bob Holden, Matt Blunt, and Jay Nixon- who do you have the least favorable opinion of?

Ashcroft 21%

Carnahan 19%

Holden 22%

Blunt 29%

Nixon 10%

Now, the poll was a duel between partisans. But amongst Independents, they disliked Holden and Blunt and liked Ashcroft and Carnahan.

Fun note: PPP unintentionally released these poll numbers on Matt Blunt’s 39th birthday. Really.

Update: Rich Chrismer referred to the data as highly misleading, before proclaiming Blunt “Missouri’s third most popular governor”. Didn’t know you could proclaim something to be highly misleading before highly misleading others.

The same state that gave Ashcroft 56.7% and 64.2% went on to give Carnahan 58.7% and 57.2%. Another way to put it, in 1984, Ashcroft won 56.7%, Harriett Woods won 53.8%, and Reagan won 60%, in one of Missouri’s greater ticket splitting years.

40% of Missourians vote Democratic almost every time, 40% of Missourians vote Republican almost every time, and the other 20% elaborately split their tickets.

As for a regional split: Obviously, Ashcroft’s strongest region is around Springfield. Blunt’s worst regions were KC and STL City (where he said “people don’t want to live”) and he won a plurality for least favorite in Springfield. The 660 typifies the partisan split, as 38% said Carnahan was their favorite (a plurality) and 28% said that Carnahan was their least favorite. Which proves that the best way to be the least favorite Governor of a Republican partisan is to steamroll them twice in an election.

No word on if David Spade will be hired to keep Matt Blunt busy next year.

Two weeks ago, I pointed out that Missouri makes some poverty-stricken families pay state income tax. They could do an earned income tax credit (EITC) for anyone below poverty level, as the federal government does, but our legislature prefers to live in 1931, which is when our current tax brackets were established. At that time–and still–the top tax bracket was $9,000. But if you were earning $9,000 in 1931, you could afford a new Cadillac every couple of years. These days, $9,000 will get you bus transportation and Ramen Noodles.

Now a new study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) adds to the outrage: At a time when Missouri is looking to cut its expenditures and generally doing so by slashing services to the poor, it turns out that the poorest Missouri families pay the highest percentage of their income in state and local taxes. The wealthy pay only two thirds as much of their income as the poor do.

• Missouri families earning less than $17,000 – the poorest fifth of Missouri ‘s non-elderly taxpayers – pay 9.6 percent of their income in state and local taxes.
• Middle-income Missouri taxpayers – those earning between $31,000 and $50,000 – pay 9.5 percent of their income in Missouri state and local taxes.



• But the richest Missouri taxpayers – with average incomes of $1,170,600 – pay only 6.6percent of their income in Missouri state and local taxes.

The lead author of the study, ITEP’s executive director Matthew Gardner, says:

“No one would ever design an income tax with lower tax rates for the best-off taxpayers. But that is exactly what Missouri’s tax system overall does: it allows the very wealthiest individuals to contribute less of their income, on average, than middle- and lower-income families must pay. In other words, Missouri has an unfair, regressive tax system.”

That’s why I don’t vote for sales taxes, even for good causes. They’re regressive. I suppose that’s cutting off my nose to spite my face. I mean, who suffers when needed services aren’t funded? Not the wealthy. They find ways to pay for what they want. It’s we middle class and poor people that miss out on what we need. And as long as Republicans–and spineless Democrats–control the legislature, they will continue to scoff at Jeanette Mott Oxford’s excellent proposal to reform the tax system, making more sales taxes necessary and increasing the burden on the poor.

Title for a Republican sonnet:

How do I love to screw working Missourians? Let me count the ways.  

This is the thirty-second post in an ongoing series as we file Missouri Sunshine Law (RSMo 610) requests and investigate the non-renewal of the contract of University of Central Missouri President Aaron Podolefsky. Links to previous coverage are below the fold. BG and MB

On Wednesday, November 17th a letter to the editor signed by seventeen local ministers appeared in the Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal, apparently in reaction to a radio broadcast and its aftermath:

…In an increasingly diverse and changing community, which challenges all of us to examine our basic commitments to human rights and religious freedom, and in light of recent public conversation and countless private conversations about the role of individual religious faith in the leadership transition at UCM, the clergy of Warrensburg feel compelled to add our voices…

…We, the undersigned clergy of Warrensburg churches, affirm our conviction that our community is and shall continue to be a place where persons of all faiths are welcome…

For others, still, though – qui tacet consentire videtur.

Our previous coverage:

Three steps behind, and to the right (January 25, 2008)

Three steps behind, and to the right, part 2 – a microcosm of our universe (September 21, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”? (October 15, 2009) (transcript of a portion of the live radio broadcast)

It wasn’t just about a tree (October 21, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: I heard it on the radio (October 21, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: let’s not get cut out of the will (October 22, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: $87.75 will get you one sheet of paper (October 23, 2009)



“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: They’re not playing hardball, they’re playing cat and mouse  (October 23, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: a cola and some scoreboards (October 24, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: a few more pieces of the puzzle? (October 28, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: your silence means consent (October 29, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: let’s not get cut out of the will, part 2 (October 30, 2009)

Old media irony impairment (October 30, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: I heard it on the radio, part 2 (October 31, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: where everybody knows your name (October 31, 2009)

Methinks that someone is paying attention! (November 2, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: Bond, Stadium Bond (November 4, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: where everybody knows your name, part 2 (November 4, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: I heard it on the radio, part 3 (November 5, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: nothing succeeds like success (November 6, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: your Friday news dump (November 6, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: nothing exceeds like excess (November 7, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: a grade for Accounting 101 (November 7, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: there ought to be a law (November 8, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: there’s gotta be a contract around here somewhere (November 9, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: there ought to be a law, part 2 (November 10, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: Garbo speaks! (November 12, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle (November 13, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”? Follow the money and it reveals the timeline (November 14, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: the new president search consulting contract (November 18, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”?: a march on a cold and rainy day {November 18, 2009)

(soon-to-be infamous image is from Fired Up! Missouri, and the billboard is located near Grain Valley Lafayette County, Missouri)

Don’t waste your time waiting for Roy Blunt, Chris Roepe (MOGOP Political Director and LafCo native) or Bill Stouffer to condemn this lunacy. It won’t happen. This is their base.