St. Louis County tally of 24th state Senate race has Lamping still in lead

By Jo Mannies, Beacon political reporter  

Posted 2:04 pm, Mon., 11.22.10

Republican state Senate candidate John Lamping has a lead of 133 votes over Democrat Barbara Fraser in St. Louis County’s final tally of the 24th District state Senate contest….

….Fraser said in a recent interview that she will definitely seek a recount, after the tallies have been certified by county and state election officials….

[emphasis added]

..explain this?:

CONTRIBUTION OF MORE THAN $5,000.00 RECEIVED BY ANY COMMITTEE FROM ANY SINGLE DONOR – TO BE FILED WITHIN 48 HOURS OF RECEIVING THE CONTRIBUTION

C091263 LAMPING FOR SENATE [pdf] 11/20/2010

Republican State Committee

204 E. Dunklin St.

Jefferson City, MO 65102

11/20/2010

$48,600.00

[emphasis added]

Just asking.

Spotted this morning on a vehicle in a local strip mall:

But she does speak for the Faux News Channel, Dancing With the Stars, Discovery/TLC, and teabaggers.

You know, everyone else who really counts.

Yeah, good luck with that.

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards. – Following the Equator; Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar

We spotted this on a decorated vehicle in eastern Jackson County today:

That’s a spaceship icon on the right with the text “science” inside.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.

– Speech, 11/23/1900

The entire package.

In the spring of 2009, we fought to stop AmerenUE from undoing the CWIP legislation–“we” being consumer protection groups, large manufacturing companies, lots of Dems and even a few Republican legislators. And, oh yes, Governor Nixon.

At the time, I wrote that Nixon: “is not opposed to more nuclear power, but he is opposed to ratepayers shelling out up front and then watching the shareholders take the resulting profits.” That’s what the fight was about, whether Ameren could undo a 1976 law that forbids it to make consumers pay upfront for the risky enterprise of building a nuclear plant.

Labor wanted the plant and the job of building it for the next ten years, and Nixon has apparently decided to help the unions out. But he intends to have his cake and eat it too. That is, he’d like to pretend he still supports CWIP, while pleasing the labor base by undermining CWIP. He’ll accomplish these contradictory goals by helping Ameren get $40 million of ratepayer money to assist the utility in paying for federal permit costs.

A year and a half ago, Nixon promised to veto any legislation that would undo the CWIP law. But now, now he says that a new plant would bring lots of jobs and, get this, he’s not helping undo the CWIP law, he’s just helping with the permitting process.  Never mind that the permit does Ameren no good unless it can undo CWIP, because if we don’t pay upfront, Ameren can’t finance the humongous, technically tricky project. Yes, I know that Nixon says Ameren has “formed a coalition with other electrical cooperatives and utility companies that plan to invest in the nuclear plant.” That might make getting financing a little bit easier, but it won’t be enough. And yes, I know that Nixon says this $40 mill will only kick in if Ameren gets the permit and it will cost each ratepayer less than a couple of dollars a year. (But that’s just to get the forty million. Paying upfront for another plant will cost ratepayers at least as much, probably a bundle more, than investing in green solutions to our coal addiction.)

A comic strip called Frazz in the Saturday Post expressed my opinion of Nixon’s reasoning. Frazz, a determined young athlete, stands next to his bike, helmet on, with rain pelting him and says: “True, it’s not the best day. But it could be the last day for awhile that’s even this nice.” An eight year old boy who’s a friend of Frazz winces and says: “All that logic and so little sense.”

Maybe there’s a possibility of leaving out the tax cut extension for the top 1%? You know, comforting the comfortable. Maybe, maybe not.

House and Senate Democrats plan tax cut votes after Thanksgiving

By: CNN’s Deirdre Walsh and Dana Bash and Ted Barrett

Washington (CNN) – Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate have decided to move ahead with votes after Thanksgiving to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making $250,000 or less….

[emphasis added]

From a comment at Poltical Wire:

…I do not want mine if it means you have to give them theirs!

I’d rather have no tax cut than give the sun and the moon to the haves and have mores. You know, dubya’s base.

A set of sobering images.

Via Dregs of the Future:

Foreclosures maps

….Select Real Estate -> Foreclosures

Google Maps search feature can show houses in foreclosure or default (missed at least one 1st mortgage payment).

* Go to maps.google.com.

* Click on the “More” box (located on the map itself in the top right of the Google map).

* A pull down menu will appear.  Click on “Real Estate”.

* Now, in the selection box on the left, check “Foreclosure” to select it, and remove the check in “For sale” to unselect it (just click on the check box).

* Now, the map will show foreclosures. Search for any city or zip code in the search box, or zoom in on any area of interest….

So, we thought we’d take a look at Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield.

Foreclosures and defaults in Kansas City.

Foreclosures and defaults in St. Louis.

Foreclosures and defaults in Springfield.

There are a number of clusters across the state.

When you run for any office you raise money and fight the fight from the day you announce your candidacy to the last minute that the polls are open on election day. You owe that to democracy and to the voters. Unless, of course, you’re part of the inside the beltway conventional wisdom cocktail weenie circuit:

Most Outrageous, Absurd Candidates of 2010

By Stuart Rothenberg

Roll Call Contributing Writer

Nov. 18, 2010, Midnight

….Tommy Sowers (Missouri). The Democrat raised just shy of $1.5 million through Oct. 13 and yet drew only 29 percent of the vote in a campaign that stands out for being about nothing but smoke and mirrors.

….Still, even I am stunned at the absurdity of the campaign.

….Another Feifs e-mail [from Sowers’ campaign], this one on Nov. 1, the day before the election, went further: “In thousands of conversations with undecided voters in the district, Republicans and Independents tell us that they’re voting for a Democrat for the first time.”

As with most direct mail, the assertions here are propaganda, exaggeration, distortion and fiction. Still, isn’t there something at least a little wrong with prying cash out of people by leading them to believe that you can win when you can’t? Or were the Sowers folks so politically inept that in late October they thought their candidate could win?….

[emphasis added in original]

“…by leading them to believe that you can win when you can’t?…” Says who? That’s why we have an “election day” where people “vote” for candidates.

What’s absurd is that the punditocracy thinks that incumbents anointed by conventional wisdom should be given a free pass or face token candidates who just go through the motions.

Asshole.

I’ll take a candidate like Tommy Sowers any day.

In the news:

Mercury News editorial: Kyl’s START treaty stunt is a new low for the GOP

Mercury News Editorial

Posted: 11/17/2010 04:35:02 PM PST

Updated: 11/17/2010 08:44:52 PM PST

If you doubted that Republicans could be so craven as to put their own political interests above national security, the proof was delivered Tuesday: Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl announced he will block New START, which calls for the resumption of nuclear controls that until now have had bipartisan support.

Holding our nuclear security hostage solely to embarrass President Barack Obama is a new low. Public-spirited Republicans should demand that the treaty move forward as planned…

….Public-spirited Republicans….”? Really, are there any? There is no limit to the phenomenon of peak wingnut:

…the hypothetical point when right-wing craziness will have reached its zenith, and will thereafter subside to relative grumbling. Originally posited by John Cole to occur immediately after Obama’s inauguration. Said hypothesis has been subsequently and repeatedly disproved.

President Obama addresses the START Treaty in his weekly address:

The transcript:

Remarks of President Barack Obama

Weekly Address

The White House

November 20, 2010

Today, I’d like to speak with you about an issue that is fundamental to America’s national security: the need for the Senate to approve the New START Treaty this year.

This Treaty is rooted in a practice that dates back to Ronald Reagan. The idea is simple – as the two nations with over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia have a responsibility to work together to reduce our arsenals. And to ensure that our national security is protected, the United States has an interest in tracking Russia’s nuclear arsenal through a verification effort that puts U.S. inspectors on the ground. As President Reagan said when he signed a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union in 1987, “Trust, but verify.”

That is precisely what the New START Treaty does. After nearly a full year of negotiations, we completed an agreement earlier this year that cuts by a third the number of long-range nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles that the United States and Russia can deploy, while ensuring that America retains a strong nuclear deterrent, and can put inspectors back on the ground in Russia.

The Treaty also helped us reset our relations with Russia, which led to concrete benefits. For instance, Russia has been indispensable to our efforts to enforce strong sanctions on Iran, to secure loose nuclear material from terrorists, and to equip our troops in Afghanistan.

All of this will be put to risk if the Senate does not pass the New START Treaty.

Without ratification this year, the United States will have no inspectors on the ground, and no ability to verify Russian nuclear activities. So those who would block this treaty are breaking President Reagan’s rule – they want to trust, but not verify.

Without ratification, we put at risk the coalition that we have built to put pressure on Iran, and the transit route through Russia that we use to equip our troops in Afghanistan. And without ratification, we risk undoing decades of American leadership on nuclear security, and decades of bipartisanship on this issue. Our security and our position in the world are at stake.

Indeed, since the Reagan years, every President has pursued a negotiated, verified, arms reduction treaty. And every time that these treaties have been reviewed by the Senate, they have passed with over 85 votes. Bipartisan support for New START could not be stronger. It has been endorsed by Republicans from the Reagan Administration and both Bush Administrations – including Colin Powell, George Shultz, Jim Baker, and Henry Kissinger. And it was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a strong bipartisan vote of 14-4.

Over the last several months, several questions have been asked about New START, and we have answered every single one. Some have asked whether it will limit our missile defense – it will not. Some, including Senator Jon Kyl, have asked that we modernize our nuclear infrastructure for the 21st century – we are doing so, and plan to invest at least $85 billion in that effort over the next ten years – a significant increase from the Bush Administration.

Finally, some make no argument against the Treaty – they just ask for more time. But remember this: it has already been 11 months since we’ve had inspectors in Russia, and every day that goes by without ratification is a day that we lose confidence in our understanding of Russia’s nuclear weapons. If the Senate doesn’t act this year – after six months, 18 hearings, and nearly a thousand questions answered – it would have to start over from scratch in January.

The choice is clear: a failure to ratify New START would be a dangerous gamble with America’s national security, setting back our understanding of Russia’s nuclear weapons, as well as our leadership in the world. That is not what the American people sent us to Washington to do.

There is enough gridlock, enough bickering. If there is one issue that should unite us – as Republicans and Democrats – it should be our national security.

Some things are bigger than politics. As Republican Dick Lugar said the other day, “Every Senator has an obligation in the national security interest to take a stand, to do his or her duty.”

Senator Lugar is right. And if the Senate passes this treaty, it will not be an achievement for Democrats or Republicans – it will be a win for America.

Thanks.

I bow down before the master:

Liberal Media Skewers Kinder For Misfiring On Lawsuit (Again)