On Tuesday evening State Auditor Nicole Galloway (D) spoke at Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri. She addressed the audience for about twenty minutes and then took questions for approximately a half hour.
State Auditor Nicole Galloway (D) speaking at Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall
on the campus of the University of Central Missouri – June 16, 2015.
Question: ….When you inherited the State Auditor position early this year, after the passing of Tom Schweich, what were some of the challenges you faced from inheriting it so suddenly and how did you overcome them?
State Auditor Nicole Galloway (D): That’s a great question. And, uh, I mean, I think first thing of that question is to recognize the great auditor and public servant that, uh, Auditor Schweich was. I mean, I truly believe he did a great job and cared deeply about what he did. Yes, he did. [applause]
I completely recognize that I came into this position in a unique and, uh, difficult circumstances. And, um, you know, I have been in difficult transitions and circumstances before. And I think treating people, again, with respect, professionally, and listening to them, that went a long way, just providing the support that people needed.
Um, because I’m a CPA and a certified fraud examiner I understand what an audit is. I’ve audited large organizations, small organizations and so working the professional staff that has been there for a long time, um, we speak the same language, ’cause I know what an audit is. And so that transition into the type of work we were doing, um, was, was pretty smooth. [applause]
Question: …Are you planning to obtain a higher position in our government?
State Auditor Nicole Galloway (D): Well, um, I will run for election in two thousand eighteen and, yeah, and it wouldn’t…[applause] Future voters, you guys will be able to vote then. [applause]
I would not have accepted this position or want to be in this position if it wasn’t something I was serious about and that I wanted to do for a long time….
One of the schools of instruction at Missouri Boys State involves creating working models of a legislature, including a House and Senate. Participants attend lectures presented by individuals with working knowledge of the processes.
In the Missouri Boys State House – listening to a lecture before opening a session of the House.
There are a number of volunteers assisting instruction in the school with significant legislative expertise:
Representative Mike Colona (D) discussing the legislative process with the individuals comprising the Missouri Boys State House.
Lt. General Martin Steele was a keynote speaker at Missouri Boys State on Sunday evening. General Steele is a riveting speaker with a compelling life story. He grew up in Arkansas, participating in school athletics on integrated teams (a rarity at that time), attended Arkansas Boys State with Bill Clinton and Mack McLarty, joined the Marine Corps – serving in combat in Viet Nam – and moved up through the ranks.
Lt. General Martin Steele speaking on Sunday evening at Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.
General Steel spoke for an hour and then, as is the Missouri Boys State custom, took questions from the audience for approximately another half hour.
The discussion was nuanced. A sample:
[….]
Lt. General Martin Steele: ….We have time for Q and A. And, listen I, besides Boys State media that’s it, I’m not gonna read about all this in the Kansas City Star tomorrow morning, right, or am I? Good, who knows? All right.
[….]
Question: ….In your opinion what are the two biggest national security threats, foreign and domestic, to the United States? And how as young leaders do we help combat them and keep our great country safe?
Lt. General Martin Steele: Great question. Inside, domestic first, before we get to foreign enemies. And I think that it’s about ourselves. It’s about these issues that we’re talking about. What’s the threat to the fiber of our being and our soul is understanding, um, uh, equality, justice, liberty, freedom. I mean, these issues that I just burst out of Voting Rights Act and, and voting, you know, that, we didn’t have those back then. That happened in sixty-five, the Voting Rights Act. And we’re still struggling with, uh, gerrymandering, and you’ll talk about this week and, and voting rights and who gets the right to vote, and everybody says, yeah, and the ID cards and all this stuff that I hope that you’re gonna talk about. But back then blacks couldn’t vote. They weren’t allowed to vote. So I think that the issues internally of our own social understanding of one another as we evolve as human beings on the planet, it’s about that internal internecine warfare about these social issues….
[….]
So I think that the challenge that we face internally, enemies foreign and domestic, inside us it’s those social issues that could be our unhinging….
[….]
No, the Kansas City Star wasn’t there. They don’t have enough reporters anymore.
The 76th annual session of Missouri Boys State sponsored by the American Legion is being held in Warrensburg on the campus of the University of Central Missouri this week. 983 high school boys from close to four hundred high schools across the state are attending the session. Registration started after noon on Saturday:
Logistics.
A Boys State counselor speaks with parents during Saturday’s afternoon registration.
Leading a town cheer before the start of the evening assembly.
Lowry Finley-Jackson, Adjutant for the American Legion Department of Missouri.
University of Central Missouri President Chuck Ambrose took a selfie with Boys Staters
behind him in the audience from the stage of Hendricks Hall during last night’s opening assembly.
And, we’ll be covering as many speakers as we can this week:
LT. GENERAL MARTIN R. STEELE
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Lt. Gen. Martin Steele rose from Marine Corps private to three-star general, culminating his military career as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans, Policies, and Operations at Headquarters, US Marine Corps. Upon his retirement from active duty he served as President & CEO of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. Lt. Gen. Steele currently serves as the Associate Vice President for Veterans Research, Executive Director of Military Partnerships, and Co-Chair of the Veterans Reintegration Committee at the University of South Florida.
KARL ROVE
Monday, June 15, 2015
Karl Rove will accept the 27th Annual George W. Lehr Memorial Speaker’s Chair on Monday evening at Hendricks Hall. Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000-2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004-2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process. Before Karl Rove became known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, non-partisan causes, and non-profit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional, and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states.
WARNER BAXTER
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Warner Baxter is chairman, president and chief executive officer of St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation, parent company of utilities that serve more than 2.4 million electric and nearly 900,000 natural gas customers. Additionally, Baxter serves on the boards of UMB Financial Corporation, Edison Electric Institute, Barnes Jewish Hospital, the Electric Power Research Institute, and The Muny.
MISSOURI AUDITOR NICOLE GALLOWAY
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Nicole Galloway is the 38th State Auditor of Missouri. As State Auditor, Nicole brings her expertise to work for all Missourians to be their watchdog holding government accountable. Prior to becoming State Auditor Nicole was Treasurer of Boone County for four years. She was Secretary/Treasurer of the Missouri Technology Corporation, investing in entrepreneurs to help create jobs, and she served as Secretary/Treasurer of the Missouri County Employees’ Retirement Fund, protecting the retirement benefits of nearly 16,000 participants in 111 counties.
MISSOURI GOVERNOR JAY NIXON
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Jay Nixon is serving his second term as governor of Missouri. As Governor, Jay Nixon has worked to make government more efficient, effective and responsive to the needs of Missouri families. He is committed to maintaining fiscal discipline, creating jobs, growing the economy and investing in public education. Prior to becoming Governor, Jay Nixon was elected to a record four terms as Missouri’s Attorney General. In 1986, he was elected to his first term in the Missouri State Senate, where he would represent the people of Jefferson County for six years.
WHITE HOUSE FELLOW AND NAVY SEAL COMMANDER ERIC GREITENS
Friday, June 19, 2015
A Navy SEAL, Rhodes Scholar, boxing champion, and humanitarian leader, Eric is the founder of The Mission Continues, a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Missouri that challenges veterans to serve and inspire in communities across America, and the author of the New York Times best-seller The Heart and The Fist. Eric was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a White House Fellow, and in 2011 the Association of the United States Navy named him the Navy Reserve Junior Line Officer of the Year. In 2014, Eric stepped down as CEO of The Mission Continues but continues to serve as an ambassador and member of the Board.
“…And, oh, by the way, if you look at those places where people have to wait in line to vote, if you look at the places where people have to wait in line to vote in America it’s where what are called poor people live and that’s wrong. Okay, that’s just deeply wrong…”
Governor Jay Nixon spoke at Missouri Boys State this evening in Warrensburg on the campus of the University of Central Missouri. His prepared remarks were followed by a freewheeling forty-five minute question and answer session.
Governor Jay Nixon speaking at Missouri Boys State in Warrensburg on the campus of the University of Central Missouri – June 19, 2014.
The subject of early voting came up:
[….]
Question: ….You mentioned participating for voting. How do you plan on having more people participate in actual voting?
Governor Jay Nixon (D): I don’t plan it. I just tell you to do it. And if you don’t do it then idiots get elected and bad things happen. [applause, cheers]
You know what it is, I mean, sure, I’m for early voting, I’m for absentee voting, I think we ought to have voting on weekends beforehand, I think you ought to be able to show up and vote like two weeks beforehand, that fits your schedule instead of making it hard.
I don’t think there ought to be lines at the polls. I think it’s ridiculous to live in a world in which you can go to McDonald’s and get a cheeseburger in one minute, but if you’re gonna vote you’ve got to stand in line for three hours. [applause, cheers] And we ought to fund it to make sure people can vote [inaudible]. [applause, cheers] And, oh, by the way, if you look at those places where people have to wait in line to vote, if you look at the places where people have to wait in line to vote in America it’s where what are called poor people live and that’s wrong. Okay, that’s just deeply wrong. You go to the, you know, you go to the really ritzy places where they got plenty of tax dollars and people don’t have to wait at all. By golly, they can order a Perrier and vote at their leisure. [laughter] But, uh, I think we need to make voting much easier for people, both in time and in the way you do it.
Kansas City Mayor Sly James spoke in Warrensburg on Sunday evening for the 75th session of Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.
Kansas City Mayor Sly James speaking at Missouri Boys State in Warrensburg – June 15, 2014.
Mayor James spoke on being a mayor and public policy and then took questions from the audience. Toward the end of the question and answer session he received a question about guns:
[….]
Kansas City Mayor Sly James: [in response to a question about gun violence] …Well, one way of keeping hands out of the, guns out of the hands of criminals is to stop people from selling them to them, uh, should abide by the law. And when you go to gun shows in Missouri or a back car, or a back trunk of a car you don’t have to comply with any background checks unless you’re a federally licensed gun dealer. So, when it’s easier for a kid, a sixteen year old kid to get a gun than it is for him to get driver’s license I got a problem with that. So, yes, we do need to do that.
How about some sensible things like everybody who buys a gun needs to be registered? It’s interesting to me that everybody who drives a car, which can be considered an instrumentality of death when you think about it, because by driving a car drunk, by driving a car when you’re incompetent, by driving a car out of road rage you can kill somebody. Every single person who drives a car is supposed to have a license. But everybody who owns a gun does not have to. I’m sorry, that does not make logic to me. It’s great for ideology, it’s bad public policy. [applause, cheers] We do not need [inaudible].
There’s some very basic common sense rules and things that can be done that will not interfere with Second Amendment rights but will help keep the guns out of the hands of people who are mentally incompetent, past felons, or what, you know, stupid people. Okay? One is, if you as an owner of a gun have your gun stolen from your house you should be required to report it to the police, but you’re not. So, guns get stolen, we never know that they’re on the street, but the first job, one of the main jobs after a murder using a gun is trace it back to its origin. But when you have those gaps and we need to know something, maybe we know something about what’s going on in the neighborhood that we can connect somebody to. All sorts of things like that.
But, the other thing, too, is there was a bill in the Missouri legislature that Mayor Slay in St. Louis, of St. Louis and I fought hard. It was a bill that basically said that federal gun laws could not be enforced by federal agents in the State of Missouri. And, in the original version of the bill local police really had the authority and the obligation to arrest a member of the ATF or the FBI or DEA, uh, who was enforcing a federal gun law against a criminal and that this, the federal agents could be jailed and fined and could no longer work as a law enforcement agent in the State of Missouri. One of the single dumbest rules and pieces of legislation I’ve ever heard in my life. Because every agent, every city that has police and every city that’s trying to do something about crime works with the federal government. They have resources that we need, they have, uh, things that we simply can’t do, and it’s a partnership. It would have destroyed KC NoVA. All of our partnerships would have been wiped out.
The other thing that I thought was interesting about the bill was it lowered the age for being able to have a conceal carry license from twenty-one to nineteen. I don’t know why nineteen. There’s never been anything that’s been nineteen. It’s eighteen, twenty-one. Nineteen. But [laughter], I, it was great, it was great, you know. Um, but, you know, this is in, this is coming out of the legislature, mind you, where, um, a loaded gun was left by a legislative aide in a public bathroom. Okay? Guns were taken off of legislators as they went to the Missouri Supreme Court for a meeting. Okay? But you’re gonna say, look kid, if we catch you drinking a beer at the age of nineteen you’re in serious trouble. And, by the way, put your gun away, man, I see it hanging outside, it’s supposed to be concealed. [applause, cheers]
We need to recognize, we need to recognize that there is in fact a correlation between the number of people who die by gunfire and gunshots in this country versus the entire world and the number of guns that are out there. It just makes sense. The more people who have guns, the more people are gonna get shot. There should be some limitations. There is nobody in this room who would say everybody should be able to have a gun. Because if that’s the case then five year olds should have a gun, people with one eye should have gun, people who are blind should have a gun, their seeing eye dog should have a gun. [laughter, applause]
[….]
Kansas City Mayor Sly James took a selfie with the Boys State audience after speaking.
David Axelrod at Missouri Boys State – June 14, 2014.
David Axelrod, campaign strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns and former senior advisor in President Obama’s administration, spoke in Warrensburg last night at the opening evening assembly for the 75th session of Missouri Boys State held on the campus of the University of Central Missouri. Axelrod spoke in prepared remarks for about twenty-five minutes and then took questions for an hour.
The transcript of a portion of the question and answer session:
Question: …What political issues would you like to see us [our generation] tackle?
David Axelrod: Well, I, I, the, the one of them, and it sounds trite, but one of them is the one I just mentioned, which is we’ve got to restore civility in our politics. It’s gonna be much harder to solve any of the other problems unless we do that. We have to respect each other more in our politics. And that’s one of the things that I’m hoping that you as a generation will bring to it.
You guys have to be sick of the constant fighting and squabbling that you see on television. Uh, and the, you know, you have the ability to, to demand something more. So I hope, uh, that you do that.
But, look, I, I think that, um, the greatest, uh, one of the great threats to, to, uh, who we are as a country are changes in the economy that, um, frankly, are nobody’s fault, it’s just the nature of progress. But technology has, uh, eliminated lots and lots of jobs. Um, the jobs, good jobs they’ve eliminated haven’t been replaced. Other jobs have been created but they require more education. Um, uh, and so we’ve seen wages flatten out. It’s harder to make a living, it’s harder to keep ahead of your expenses, um, and it’s harder to see the future for, uh, your kids. I think that we need a strategy to deal with that. And, and some of it has to do with we have to up our game on education, make sure that every single kid in this country gets the education that they, uh, deserve and can realize their full potential. We’ve got to make college affordable, uh, because there is a big difference between what your earning potential is if you go to college and if you don’t go to college. We have to use our community college system to train up people to do the jobs of the future in conjunction with business.
Uh, we need to lead the world in research and development. The stupidest thing that we’ve been doing lately is cutting back on research and development that lead to innovations. We’re the innovation leader. And a lot of it had, began with basic research that was funded by the government. And when we don’t fund that research we’re eating our seed corn.
We’ve made great progress in energy in the last few years. We’re on the road, on a path to become energy, uh, independent. But we also have to do it in a way that is, uh, cognizant of the, uh, of the environmental, uh, crisis that we have. Uh, and I know this is a debate with some, I, not with ninety-nine percent of scientists but with others. Uh, you know, we have a problem and this college [University of Central Missouri] exemplary for the way it’s approached, uh, their energy, uh, concern, their energy, uh, output to try and, uh, help that problem by becoming more green.
But we still have, we have great, we have, a bounty of natural gas has transformed our energy picture. We have doubled the renewable energy, we have, we can make energy a real source of strength for us, uh, moving forward.
So there are things that we can do that will propel our economy, create good jobs and prepare people, uh, for those jobs so that we can maintain the quality of life that we want, uh, for ourselves.
I would love to see you guys work on all that. And it will require you working together, Republicans and Democrats, kind of sitting down there and looking at the facts and saying, what’s a practical answer to these questions. Instead of, uh, kind of beating each other up to try and win election.
[….]
[in response to a question] …Sadly, and this is one of the problems in our politics, it depends on what level you’re working at, but even, even in local races they’ve become expensive and so part of it involves raising money which I regret. I think this is one of the things I also hope you guys find a way to deal with way too much money in our politics. And it’s becoming, and we, by the way contributed to it in two thousand and eight because we made a decision, we were worried about these third parties spending money against us and we didn’t want to limit what we could spend to respond to them. And we, we, we went out of what was called the federal, uh, finance, presidential finance system so we wouldn’t be capped. And we ended up spending almost eight hundred million dollars, which was exponentially more than had ever been spent before. And it’ll never go back.
So we, we in, you know, unwittingly I think, uh, uh, were at least, I don’t know about unwittingly, but contributed, uh, to the problem. So money, uh, is a problem because that’s how we communicate, and television is expensive and, uh, all that stuff.
But, if you’re in a local community I mean I think you want to lay down roots and the point here is, and I want to leave this, uh, with you, is, uh, you’ll make your name by working on things that are, matter to people, that are important to people. Become leaders in your community. If you help, uh, solve, uh, problems in your community, if you help lift your local school systems, or make your communities, uh, or, or, or make your communities safer or, uh, or help bring better health facilities to your communities or deal with any number of issues that come up, um, you’re gonna be known to those people, um, uh, who you worked with and you’ll build a network. And that becomes a foundation and you build out, uh, from that. Obama had a, had a base that he could build on. And then over time he got, uh, better known….
“…because I got to see what people were talking about and compare what I heard to what I knew and saw. The stereotypes that I heard in my neighborhood about people of a different color did not match up to the reality that I experienced when I as having lunch with them at school. The stereotypes that were pervasive with some of the folks at school about my neighborhood did not match up to the reality of my neighborhood because I lived there. I believe that that constant back and forth, that constant need, impetus, demand for me to examine what’s said, what people believe versus what is real has made me a little bit unique…”
Kansas City Mayor Sly James, speaking in Warrensburg at Missouri Boys State
on the campus of the University of Central Missouri on June 16, 2013.
Kansas City Mayor Sly James was the keynote speaker for Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central last night. He spoke for approximately forty minutes and then took questions from the audience.
Part 1:
Part 2:
“…After World War I the United States led all countries on earth in the number of people who had post high school certificates of degrees. Now, we’re like thirty-eighth in the world. We’re staring to slide the wrong way. Now, keep this in mind, too, I told you about Kansas City. I told you about the rest of the state. The country, we’re, Missouri’s one percentage better [in third grade reading proficiency] than the rest of the country on average. The good news is we’re two percentage better than Kansas…”
Part 3:
“…you’re moving into a world here soon where even facts are negotiable. We have difficulty meeting and talking to each other intelligently because we have the difficult time agreeing on what the baseline facts are. Not opinions, not speculation, facts. If we can’t agree on basic facts then we will never agree on what to do about situations. We have pundits that question everything from where the president was born to whether or not there’s climate change in the cornerstone of physics. And they’re entitled to those opinions, but they are not entitled to invent their own facts…”
Missouri Boys State is taking place this week in Warrensburg on the campus of the University of Central Missouri. Close to one thousand boys from across the state are participating in the program. This year sixteen boys from the People’s Republic of China are participating as part of the US-China Youth Leadership Exchange. Keynote speakers this week include Kansas City Mayor Sly James, State Treasurer Clint Zweifel, Bob Woodward, Secretary of State Jason Kander, and State Auditor Tom Schweich.
Jill Druskis, Director of the American Legion Commission on Americanism
and the American Legion Commission on Children and Youth.
Matt Dameron, a long time Missouri Boys State volunteer, introducing Kansas City Mayor Sly James.
Kansas City Mayor Sly James was the keynote speaker this evening.
After his address he took questions from Boys State citizens.
Governor Jay Nixon spoke at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on Sunday, June 17, 2012. We were there. We heard his speech and the question and answer session that followed. We recorded it.
JEFFERSON CITY • Gov. Jay Nixon has responded to Republican criticism that his position on the federal health care law has been murky, at best.
But his response still leaves some unanswered questions….
….Nixon’s office followed up by distributing audio of Nixon’s question-and-answer session with youths attending Boys State in Warrensburg — an event that took place earlier this month….
Governor Jay Nixon (D) at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on June 17, 2012.
And yes, we caught the exchange. We didn’t transcribe it at the time. So, late, here it is:
….Question: […] In your support of Obamacare what outlook do you have for health care professionals [crosstalk]…
Governor Jay Nixon: My support of what?
Question: Obamacare.
Governor Nixon: Where’d you, what, what, what, what kind of fact based? [voices: “Woo.”] I mean, where’d you get that, I, that I support that?
Question: I just assumed you were a Democrat, so. [voices: “Whoa.”]
Governor Nixon: You know, I, it, uh, I lost to a guy in the, in, in tennis from Chillicothe so I’ll assume you’re a good tennis player, too, you know. [laughter]
Um, the, uh, I don’t think that, I don’t think you should have, uh, uh, a, uh, I don’t think you should have the federal law that orders people that they have to buy insurance. I never have supported that. Uh, you know [applause], I, I, [cheers]. So, I’ll give you a second shot. Go ahead, fire away. [laughter]
Question: Okay, so what is your opinion of Obamacare and what do you think the outlook of it will have for health care officials? [crosstalk][inaudible]
Governor Nixon: Yeah, I do think it’s, I think it comp, I think there’s a couple things. The short run it’s had some, some, some, some, some challenging effects. I mean, I think people’ve kind of frozen up, they’re not sure what’s gonna happen. And when you get, you know, o, a quarter of your economy waiting, you know, to, to, what to do next, what are the rules gonna be, I think, I think it slugs things, that slows things down. I think that’s, I think once the Supreme Court rules that, that, I think then some decisions can begin to be made.
Um, uh, clearly I think that, that some of the insurance reforms are important and needed. I think that ya, parents should have the option to con, to, to have kids on their policies much older. I don’t think you should be able to, just because you get sick an insurance company should say, [unintelligible] now it cost a hundred thousand or two or three hundred thousand we’re cutting off your insurance. I don’t think you should be able to say, uh, that, that you’re just gonna say, if you get cancer that you’re poor the rest of your life, there’s no, even if you pay for insurance for ten or fifteen or twenty years. I think there’s some really solid insurance reforms in there that are important. But I just think the states are much better positioned, because we’re much more, um, close, uh, in as far as what health care needs to be expanded. I think every kid needs to be covered. I mean, I, I, I think that, that, that, that, that while I’m interested in, kids, to say, ’cause this year I had a big fight with the legislature as they tried to cut blind health care. I mean, my golly. Um, you know, it, it’s, so, I think that kids and, and disabled folks, uh, ex, the expansions that, that’ll help them, uh, are important. Uh, I think some of the stuff that, that, that messes with the market, uh, and, and drives too much on the government side is problematic. I wish they had go, had, had gotten rid of a, a prohibition that we currently have as states that makes it impossible for us to bid, for example, for drugs, uh, you know the quantities of drugs. So, I think that, that, uh, uh, I’m not sure what the Supreme Court will do, uh, but it’ll good to get that done and us then get back to what we’re doing before, which is running these programs from the state level, uh, with, with some federal dollars coming in. But I think this, this, uh, uh. I, I think that that level of sweeping reform and, and the, and the, the constitutional principle of saying that the federal government can pass a law saying you have to buy something, I just, maybe it’s just because I’m from Missouri, but I, I don’t, I don’t like that, they, they haven’t done that before. I, I, you know, I, I think we live in a, in a, uh, in a society that should be much more, much more free. And I understand economically why, if you’re gonna sit there theoretically and say you ought to do it that, that, that folks would, would do it. But I just have never supported that. [inaudible][applause]…
“…But I just think the states are much better positioned, because we’re much more, um, close, uh, in as far as what health care needs to be expanded…”
“…this year I had a big fight with the legislature as they tried to cut blind health care. I mean, my golly…”
Game, set, match. If you don’t see the incompatibility of those two statements I’ll spell it out for you. If we have federal health care reform the Missouri General Assembly won’t be able to cut health insurance for blind people. Instead they’ll be better able to use their time erecting bronze busts of right wingnut radio jocks.
As we hear in some Democratic Party circles: “Jay Nixon is the best republican governor we’ve ever had.”