Chad Livengood of the Springfield News-Leader via Twitter:
Rep. Tim Jones can’t believe the legislature can take on the insurance industry but can’t take on “the teachers unions” & school executives. about 9 hours ago from web
Because teacher unions in Missouri have unlimited power and insurance companies don’t?
Yes, this Tim Jones.
…for right wingnuts neither of the following in the Missouri Constitution has any meaning:
When I wrote about Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, I noted that he is not really as moderate as he likes to present himself. I quoted the Senate website listing some of the far right bills he has sponsored and co-sponsored. Although there’s no indication that Schmitt is, like Jones, a birther, the bills were far right. But he does at least pay lip service to education.
Schmitt didn’t actually specify, come to think of it, that public education is critical, but that does seem to be a corollary of what he said–unless I’m reading too much into his remarks. At least he wasn’t attacking public education like Jones. So Schmitt is a tenther, opposes federal health care reform (but wants autism covered by insurance companies), and wants to make it impossible for the federal government to pass stimulus packages to get us through dangerous recessions. (Question: How do you maintain educational institutions in times like this if Congress can’t make additional funds available to cash strapped states?)
The difference between far right and moderate Republicans these days, then, seems to boil down to those, like Jones, who make no bones about wanting to rip out the underpinnings of our society and those, like Schmitt, who are far more, shall we say, tactful about stating their agenda.