Previously: Occupy Oakland: that didn’t go very well, did it? (October 26, 2011)

Apparently tear gas is considered some sort of beneficial lawn treatment. At the Great Orange Satan:

…Most of all, however, the revolution will not be allowed to interfere with a nice, pretty lawn. I admit, I never saw that one coming. If told me that politicians around America would choose “we need to protect that lawn” as their most insistent argument against prolonged public protest, the one requiring the most aggressive police intervention, I would never have believed you.

The Occupy Wall Street movement apparently has inadvertently (or, at this point, intentionally?) managed to stumble upon the one thing that is absolutely most intolerable to local government officials throughout the nation: protest all you want, but for the love of God don’t camp. Who knew? For decades protesters have been holding up signs, marching down streets, singing songs, making giant puppets or what-have-you, but they never figured out that if they really wanted attention, all they had to do was sit their ass down on a sleeping bag and all the hellfire of the American political and law enforcement infrastructure would come down upon their heads.

It demonstrates, I think, just how viscerally uncomfortable governments are with any protest that is seen as seriously threatening to the status quo. As long as the protest is transient-that is, it goes away the next day, leaving nothing of itself behind but some full trash cans and discarded signs-it is fine. As long as it makes demands that are either decently in line with the status quo or so not in line with the status quo that they have zero chance of altering a political outcome, it’s also fine. But staying overnight somewhere suggests a commitment to your cause that truly, truly unnerves politicians. It implies that you might still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and that is when the boundaries of free speech seem to find themselves well and truly tested.

The Occupy movement is seen as making an outrageous demand to alter the status quo by reducing the advantages wealthy Americans and corporate America have constantly been given by government, which is an unspeakable sin right there, and especially unspeakable because it would be quite simple to accomplish, practically speaking. A few laws repealed, a few laws reinstated, and you’re there. But Occupy compounds the sin with the audacity of apparently meaning it. If they just left after a while it would be fine, but staying, day after day? That smacks a bit too much of a direct challenge to authority, and that is where local and state political leaders begin to get very, very antsy.

We are not worthy.

Today:

@RepHartzler Rep. Vicky Hartzler

Getting ready to lead a 1-hour Special Order on House floor with other Republican Congresswomen sharing our plans to support our seniors. 3 hours ago

….the classic “legal” definition of chutzpah….a person who kills his parents and pleads for the court’s mercy on the ground of being an orphan….

It’s about Medicare? You think?

Akin, Hartzler, Emerson, Luetkemeyer, Graves & Long Vote for Medicare Elimination Plan

Submitted by .Sean on April 15, 2011 – 3:49pm

Todd Akin, Vicky Hartzler, Jo Ann Emerson, Blaine Luetkemeyer and Sam Graves voted Friday in favor of the GOP’s Medicare Elimination Plan.  Included as part of the Paul Ryan budget, it passed today despite bipartisan opposition….

[emphasis added]

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r) wants to kill Medicare… (April 6, 2011)

….The reviews keep coming in. Paul Ryan laid an egg. And Vicky Hartzler is content to clap louder.

Hartzler defends tax cuts, Medicare changes

By Eli Yokley – May 9, 2011

It’s been deemed the ‘Path to Prosperity,’ by its creator U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. It would repeal the Affordable Care Act, structurally change Medicare for Americans under 55, deliver Medicaid as a block grant to states, and cut taxes on the highest earners from 35 percent to 25 percent….

Support our seniors?

Yep, that’s real chutzpah.

Previously:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): media conference call on plane issues (March 21, 2011)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): media conference call on plane issues – Q and A (Mar 21, 2011)

“…Let me finally say, I have convinced my husband to sell the damn plane. He has hired a broker and I can tell you I will not be setting foot on the plane ever again….”

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) and her husband sold the plane.

A statement from Senator McCaskill’s Communications Director, Trevor Kincaid:

“Claire said she would sell the plane and did.  True to her word as always.”

The republicans filed an ethics complaint and the Senate Ethics Committee dismissed the complaint, finding that no rules were violated. The plane was sold at a loss for $1.9 million. The buyer was an air ambulance cooperative.

Claire McCaskill addressed the initial problem, discovered the property tax problem, disclosed it and promptly paid the bill. She said they would sell the plane, and they did.

And the republicans are still stuck with either Sarah Steelman or Todd Akin. Or is it Peter Kinder?

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C091068 10/26/2011 HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE INC The Travelers Indemnity Company 1 Tower Square Hartford CT 06183 10/25/2011 $10,000.00

Why, that could pay for a lot of robocalls.

Look what the HRCC did in the past:

HRCC robocall in the 121st Legislative District: desperation and homophobia (October 27, 2010)

….

Female voice: This is an urgent alert for all Christian families. Before you vote you should know that state representative candidate Courtney Cole has taken hundreds in campaign donations from a representative of the hard core pornography industry, including gay pornography. By allowing her Democratic campaign to be funded by those who are involved with and support hard core pornography Courtney Cole clearly does not share our Christian family values. On election day stand up for what’s right and decent by voting no on Courtney Cole. Paid for by House Republican Campaign Committee, Inc.

….

And you’d think they’d have to distribute free umbrellas with all the muck and mud they’ve slung in the past.

Of course, the Occupy movement deserved this response because they’ve been openly carrying firearms. Oh, wait…

You’ve got to wonder if the police in Oakland, California secretly sympathize with the movement. They had to have done this to generate sympathy for the protesters. It’s the only logical explanation.

Update:

Narration: I think everyone should see a few moments from the police crackdown of the Occupy Oakland demonstration. The police say that they cleared the demonstrators using non lethal force. But a tear gas canister can be lethal if it hits you in the face.

It’s hard to see from this video exactly how this demonstrator was wounded. But if you doubt that the police were deliberately aiming at the protestors watch this policeman when a group of protestors attempt to come to the aid of the injured person.

Watch that again.

Voice: What happened, what happened?

Second voice: He got hit.

Third voice: He got shot.

Voices: What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your name? Did he say anything? Shit. Did he say anything? Medic. Medic. Medic.

Welcome to the wholly owned corporate subsidiary that used to be America.

John Powers writes in The American Prospect that:

Today’s right-wingers have their own TV network, their own branch of Congress, and their own Supreme Court (which unfortunately is ours, too). They have their own Jacobins in the Tea Party and their own shadowy financiers in the Koch brothers (who are presently, or so I’m told, attempting to wrest control of SPECTRE from Ernst Stavro Blofeld). They have their own science (Intelligent Design, global-warming denial) and even their own “stupid things,” as Ronald Reagan once famously called facts.

They also have their own language-you betcha, they do-and they wield it with such demagogic effectiveness that George Orwell himself would stand in awe. …

The last point has inspired Powers to attempt a glossary that should allow even the most apolitical soul to plumb the almost cabalistic mysteries of GOP-speak. You should read it and recommend it to your friends. It hits all, or at least, most of the high points of this sub-dialect; my only complaint is that it is almost too polite. Consequently, I have tried my own hand at compiling some additional terms and  refining a few definitions, which, I believe not only captures the essence of many terms in use among GOPers, but also suggests why they feel so frightened by the 99% movement.  Hint: the clue is in the first term defined below, “job creators.”

Here, in the spirit of altruism, are a few of my additions to Powers’ glossary. Although they are not specific to Missouri politics, they may prove useful to puzzled Missourians whose only thought after listening to some of our state’s more polished speakers of GOP pidgin is WTF:

Job Creators:  Folks who contribute $$$$ to GOP election campaign and who fund lobbyists who, in turn, share the good life with GOPer pols.

Class Warfare:  Insisting that the job creators pay their fair share to insure the common good.

Moral hazard: The state that ensues if working or middle class folks take advantage of government subsidies which only job creators are supposed to enjoy, (e.g., big oil).

Free Speech: Campaign contributions from job creators (cf. Citizens United)

Regulatory Uncertainity: The state that ensues when government contemplates subjugating job creators to rules that reflect the need for common industrial standards or fair treatment of workers and customers.

Picking Winners and Losers:  The process whereby government subsidizes any job creator other than those who contribute massively to GOP election campaigns (e.g., green industries).

Lobbyist; consultant:  Often – although not always – a retired politician or political staffer collecting the premiums earned by faithful service to job creators during his/her political years.

Religious Freedom: Christian triumphalism, usually reflecting the beliefs of those sects who consider President Obama to be the Antichrist and who really, really want to support GOP candidates from the pulpit. Useful in animating folks who otherwise might not understand how important it is to placate job creators.

Small business:  Any business enterprise large enough to help support GOP politicians in the style to which they have become accustomed.

Left-wing hippies (also socialists, communists, mob, and thugs, occasionally even facists or Nazis – although most pols still have enough of a sense of shame to be very sparing with the latter two epithets): Anyone who speaks up and complains about the special relationship enjoyed by job creators and the GOP political establishment.

Envy and divisiveness:  The emotions that animate left-wing hippies; may be deleterious to the well-being of job creators.

Member of the middle-class:  There’s one born every minute, i.e., suckers.

Republican Chrissy Sommer is running against Democrat Paul Woody in a special election on November 5th for the House seat in St. Charles (HD 15) that Representative Sally Faith vacated earlier this year. Sommer is a classic case of talking the job creation/bipartisanship/boost public education talk, but lurching when it comes to the walk.

For example, Sommer talks job creation: “We need to fight to keep Missouri jobs in Missouri and to bring in new jobs.”  But stumbles. If she’s serious about job creation in her own state, then it’s odd that she bought her campaign signs from a company in Iowa. True, producing her signs wouldn’t keep even one Missouri worker busy for the year, but that doesn’t change the fact that, with hundreds of Missouri companies to choose from, she didn’t spare a thought for “Missouri jobs”.

Sommer broadcasts her love of bipartisanship. Her TV ad running on Fox and MSNBC asserts that she wants to stop the fighting in Jefferson City and provide new leadership. Her walk is wobbly, though. She tries to sound like a grass roots outsider, but her funding indicates that she is status quo from the get go. Almost 90 percent of her money comes from insiders: Republican candidate committees or employees of the House of Representatives.

Sommer talks a good game about public education: “I want to live in a Missouri where our children can receive a world-class education.” But she teeters when she refuses to meet with the National Education Association (NEA) who represent the teachers and educators in St. Charles County.

Sommer says: “I love St. Charles and Missouri, and I want to ensure that we have plenty of jobs and economic opportunity.” Consider this situation, though. (Watch out for the curb, Ms. Sommer!) She has worked for thirty years at her family’s janitorial business. Now, the Francis Howell School Board, which her husband presides over, is considering laying off all the custodial staff in the district and outsourcing the janitorial work. To whom? We’d have to ask the board whether the Sunset Maintenance Company might be in the running. And while we’re asking, let’s inquire of Sommer herself whether she supports laying off the district’s custodial staff in favor of outsourcing the work to a private janitorial business. We might hope that the “economic opportunity” she favors is more than just her own, but it would be inadvisable to lay serious money on it.

Correction: The date of the election is November 8th, not the 5th.

I just came from a meeting of the Franklin County Commission where the three commissioners voted to change county regs to allow a coal ash landfill in the Missouri River floodplain.  I don’t know whether to scream or cry.

Shame on these three bumbling, ignorant jackasses.  From the start of this charade two years ago, the public was told not to mention Ameren or the Labadie Bottoms in their public comments because “we’re just talking about changing the regulations, not a specific case.”  Of course, the only reason they were discussing the changes was because Ameren wants to build a 400 acre coal ash dump next to their 40 yr old plant in Labadie.  Go to http://www.leomo.info to see a photo of the smokestacks in the distance surrounded by lush, beautiful floodplain vegetation and animal habitat.  During the 1993 flood, the plant was surrounded by water.

I was so impressed with the testimony and comments by members of the public this morning.  Intelligent, powerful, inspiring short speeches that made it even more incredible that these three brainless, heartless jerks could vote AYE.

I said to them as I left, “This will come back to haunt you.  Shame on you.  You cannot destroy God’s beautiful creation without it coming back to haunt you.”  

The fight is not over, but one thing for sure.  Those three will never be elected to anything ever again.  Of course John Griesheimer doesn’t care because he’s probably got a job already lined up with Ameren.  What goes around comes around.  And I’ll be happy to see the three of them reap what they have sown.