St. Louis Activist Hub does the best work bar none, in Missouri, of calling out teabaggers on their lies:

The St. Louis Tea Party, after a weekend of chest-thumping and saber rattling, is now trying to portray themselves as victims of a Lefty and Media conspiracy to make them look like extremists. I think there is overwhelming evidence that their actions over the past week were specifically intended to intimidate members of congress and/or rile up their followers, potentially into violence. I present it here.

At a rally at Carnahan’s office last Saturday, they threw boots at Carnahan’s picture. That was a warm up exercise. Then they:

finally ended by setting the picture of Carnahan on fire while Dana Loesch said things like, “This is how a fire smells when it’s burning Tyranny”.

They used a photo of Carnahan with blood dripping from his mouth: [visit St. Louis Activist Hub to see the photo]

Jim Hoft titled  his post “Russ Carnahan Gets Booted and Torched,” and said:

The protesters torched Russ’s photo while they chanted “Death to Dictator.”

And that’s not all that these “victimized” bullies have been up to. But you have to visit the St. Louis Activist Hub to get the rest of the story. Don’t miss the concluding paragraph.

In the wake of health care reform becoming law, we have been gifted with numerous displays of Missouri’s good ole boys in the Grand Old Party trying their best to establish a little street cred with the right of the right wing. So far, the displays have been confined to relatively harmless posturing (nonbinding resolutions, constitutional amendments of dubious legality, etc.). Today, however,  a Missouri Senate Committee took concrete steps to make sure that the state’s repressive status quo in regard to abortion continues by acting to take advantage of a provision in the federal legislation that allows states to keep the exchanges from offering abortion coverage:

The state Senate Small Business, Insurance and Industry Committee voted 5-1 Monday for legislation would ban any health insurance exchange from offering policies covering elective abortions — even if women are willing to pay an extra premium for the coverage. The legislation now goes to the Missouri Senate.

According to Planned Parenthood’s Michelle Trupiano, if this bill is passed by the Senate and signed by the Governor Nixon, none of which is out of the realm of possibility, the outlook for poorer women will be dire:

…it already is rare for Missouri women to be able to purchase an insurance policy addition for abortion coverage. So they often pay the full cost of an abortion, which she said is about $500 for a first-semester pregnancy.

For people covered through new health insurance exchanges, the Missouri legislation “leaves those particular women with no options for abortion coverage,” … .

What I want to know is where these jerks were when I wanted to keep my tax dollars out of worthless federally funded abstinence only sex education programs, or any of the Bush-era faith based initiatives that gave our tax money to groups like the  Salvation Army while permitting them to prosyletize and discriminate against gays, Jews, Catholics, what-have-you, in their employment practices? Abortion is legal and the religious fanatics who oppose it should have no more standing than I do.

It takes special talent to be in the House majority and see your amendment lose on a floor vote. It takes even more talent to have it happen twice in one day, on two votes in a row.

Using that criteria, our favorite Republican legislator Denny Hoskins (CPA/R-Warrensburg) can feel talented.

One Republican tactic to cut spending is to slice off random amounts from the budgets of directors and pretend that it adds up to something.

Knowing that, it’s no surprise during the HB2008 debate that Ryan Silvey would propose cutting the General Revenue Fund contribution to the Director of the Department of Public Safety from 1,056,555 to 1,035,764. That passed on a voice vote.

Then Denny Hoskins proposed cutting it some more, all the way down to 979,305, and he lost, 76 to 75. Multiple Republicans voted and i’m sure good times were had by all.

Then it was time to poke at HB2009 (Department of Corrections). Ryan Silvey (who superglued a mic to his hand and passed 7 amendments yesterday) proposed cutting the Office of the Director for the Department of Corrections from 4,048,955 to 3,997,743. That was approved via a voice vote.

Then Denny Hoskins proposed cutting it some more, all the way down to 3,775,135, and he lost, 88 to 61. Not even Amendment aficionado Ryan Silvey voted for this. I’m pretty sure that with Denny’s amendments and the process of cutting costs on these things, a few dozen people had their jobs saved from a CPA on a mission.

You can read this for the overview of events.

So after losing twice on two straight recorded roll calls, Denny Hoskins stopped proposing amendments for some reason. Proving that no good thing really ever threepeats. He hasn’t had such a lousy day since the property tax hilarity.

Don’t worry Denny, at least you’re more popular than Slot Machine Mark Parkinson. So, in conclusion, I think I’m off the Christmas card list.

Via our good friends at Fired Up, here’s the KRCG video (edited) which starts with Representative Jeff Roorda (D-102) speaking to the budget and then responding to an off microphone comment from Representative Tim Jones (r-89):

The transcript:

Representative Jeff Roorda (D):….this chamber, Mister Speaker. All we saw all week was phoney baloney amendments to take this director’s salary away or that director’s salary away. Grandstanding that we know is not going to be there at the end. We, and then we get mad when our side actually cuts our, our fund, our House contingency fund, people are mad. (voice off microphone) Be quiet. You, if you’ve got something to say then you stand up and you. (shouting off microphone)

Speaker: Gentlemen. (gavel)

Representative Tim Jones (r): (off microphone shouting) Nice walking on the bill. [Inaudible] walk on the bill (repeated). You lie, you lie, you’re a liar.

(off microphone shouts)

Speaker: Gentlemen. Sargeant at Arms. Mister Sargeant at Arms….

(video edit)

Representative Roorda (D): …Lost my cool. I apologize for that. Uh, as I was speaking on the budget I was accused by another member of walking on critical votes yesterday. Uh, Mister Speaker I think everybody in the body should be aware, based on my remarks Monday, that I lost a dear friend…and I did leave to attend his funeral yesterday Mister Speaker….

(video edit)

Speaker Ron Richard (r): You act with respect from both sides of the aisle or I will have members from both sides of the aisle removed.

Classy Representative Jones (r), real classy.

Do you suppose if the republican majority hadn’t wasted an inordinate amount of time addressing and debating federal issues instead of working on the budget sooner there might not have been some missed votes due to a member attending a funeral? Just asking.

Republican Tony Laszacs of Waynesville filed for the US Senate race today. An easier task than finding 10K signatures for a Moderate Conservative Party. Republicans tend to be unhappy to have votes siphoned. Ask Jon Ashjian.

Democrat Abdul Akram of Kansas City filed for Auditor. I’m not sure what in particular Susan Montee has done too badly and she’s one of the more direct officials from what i’ve seen. So the margin of victory should be an interesting baseline for “well-known Democrat v. unknown Democrat” races (typically it’s around 83/17 for the wellknown Dem)

St. Rep. Tim Flook of Liberty withdrew from his re-election campaign today and Republican Myron Neth filed in his place. Coincidentally this came several days after Flook took a stand against spending any money on promoting Missouri tourism. No word on if he will spend more time with his family at Elephant Rocks State Park. Democrat Mark Ellebracht filed for this seat yesterday.

Also, Republican Curtis Farber filed for the opportunity to lose by a large percentage to Mike Colona in HD67, Republican Clifford Olsen of Jeff City filed in HD114, and Libertarian Bradley Stubbs filed in HD142.

The last days to file are Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. The weather should be awesome. Our state capital is pretty nifty too.

Representatives of the Party of No and its supporters responded in one of two ways immediately after the passage of the Senate bill on Mondayhealth care reform law – with violent rhetorical excess, or with real violence. The first characterized the GOPers in congress who competed to outdo each other’s demagogic excesses in their efforts to portray this bill as an  “outrage” that threatens democracy. Their tantrums arguably helped whip up the second, more violent response on the part of their out-of-control Tea Party dupes. The result? Violence and threats of violence against Democrats who had refused to be intimidated by months of implied threat.

The latest beneficiary of the Republican efforts to fan the Tea Party frenzy is Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-3rd). A coffin that had earlier figured in a Tea Party protest was left on the lawn of Carnahan’s residence Tuesday night. Even KMOV reporter Matt Sczesny, who has seemed at times perhaps a little too friendly to the Tea Partiers to be considered objective (they certainly appreciate his coverage, at any rate), was moved to observe:

… the police were not involved, since it doesn’t appear there was any direct threat and the coffin was empty. However, one can only imagine what may be implied by leaving a coffin on a front lawn.  We all know that emotions have been running high over the health care reform debate, but this has to make you wonder where this debate is going.

Sczesny is correct – even though the Tea Party is claiming that they have been “smeared” by Carnahan and the coffin was simply part of a prayer vigil in which it symbolized the death of freedom. Viewed in the context of the the recent threats of violence, Carnahan, along with all sane Americans, should be concerned about where the delusional hysteria and bullyboy tactics of this group may take us.

The individuals, however, who ought to be most concerned are our putative Republican leaders who have been willing to play on the emotions of the looney tunes brigade for their own political purposes. As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo observes about the recent spate of violence:

… this didn’t come from nowhere and it can’t be pawned off on a few cranks. Everything that’s happened over the last five days has grown from a pattern of incitement going back almost a year — wildly hyperbolic statements, coded appeals to menacing behavior, flippant jokes about bringing firearms to political events and all the rest.

We need to contact our Republican congressional representatives and demand that they take responsibility for inciting fear and anger among their more unstable constituents, and for implicitly indicating that violence might be justified whenever individuals fail to prevail politically. Not that they’ll ever own up to their role – already they are fishing around for ways to blame the victims – but they ought to hear that a few of us at least know just what they have been doing – and that we will do our best to make sure that that knowledge becomes a commonplace.

Addenda:  Ezra Klein gets it right while keeping a calm, civil tongue in his head.

Elections have consequences. Hell yes we can.

With 4 business days left in filing, here are the opponents who have stepped up to face Todd Akin, Sam Graves, and Blaine Luetkemeyer.

.

They’re on pace to be unopposed by Democrats. Which is probably the first time that 3 Congressional Republicans have been unopposed in this state in awhile (or ever?)

The last thing those three need to say to themselves after this term is “I was so awesome that nobody opposed me”

25. $100 paid receipt. A chance to see the State Capital. And the possibility of being in a general election in November. The voters who’d never vote Graves, Akin, or Luetkemeyer need somebody.