…When is Senator David Vitter (r) going to resign?

Just asking.

So, the republicans in the Missouri General Assembly have really large majorities now. Any guesses for what’s on the agenda?

In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Lawmakers aim to thwart the voters’ will

By The Editorial Board | Posted: Monday, November 8, 2010 9:00 pm

Just days after Missouri voters approved tough new restrictions on puppy mills, Missouri lawmakers are talking about amending or overturning them.

In most states, such contempt for voters would be shocking and surprising. In Missouri, it’s old hat.

Last May, seven months before voters had their say, rural legislators tried to preempt the vote by prohibiting citizen initiatives involving any aspect of agriculture. It was blatantly unconstitutional. But no fewer than five bills containing similar language were introduced.

Now that Proposition B, the so-called Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act, has been approved, lawmakers are gearing up to override it….

And look who’s still getting money – yesterday, via the Missouri Ethics Commission:

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

C101530 MISSOURIANS FOR ANIMAL CARE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE [pdf] 11/9/2010

Missouri Soybean Association

[3337 Emerald Lane

Jefferson City MO 65109]

11/9/2010

$23,527.09

Missouri Farmers care PAC

[6236 W Cunningham] Dr

[Columbia MO 65202-9111]

11/8/2010

$5,078.95

[emphasis added][address insertions from the Missouri Ethics Commission summary report]

With an innocuous name like “Missourians for Animal Care” you’d think they’d have supported Proposition B. Nope.

Posted on Mon, Mar. 29, 2010

Agriculture, Humane Society agendas clash

By MATT CAMPBELL

Kansas City Star

…Agribusiness interests say the bill does nothing to boost enforcement and is a feint by the Humane Society to increase its leverage against big livestock.

“The dog-breeder issue is simply the beginning, we feel, of what can happen in the future with a broader agenda relating to agriculture,” said Estil Fretwell, spokesman for the Missouri Farm Bureau.

Agribusiness recently formed Missourians for Animal Care to fight the initiative. The chairman is the director of the Missouri Pork Association.

The Humane Society’s Pacelle said the puppy mill bill had nothing to do with livestock and that the industry used the same false argument about threats to farmers before Missourians approved a cockfighting ban in 1998….

[emphasis added]

The statewide vote:

Unofficial Election Returns

State of Missouri General Election  – November 2, 2010 General Election

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Proposition B   Precincts Reporting 3411 of 3411

Yes 995,423 51.6%

No 934,591 48.4%

Total Votes   1,930,014

Again, from the Post-Dispatch article:

…He uses the fact that it failed in 100 of the state’s 114 counties as justification…

Uh, counties don’t get to vote, only people do. But corporate interests can spend an unlimited amount of money.

In today’s Kansas City Star:

…said her anger is real.

The Lee’s Summit resident fears Obama’s plans for health care reform won’t work, and she resents criticism of the town hall outbursts.

“I don’t remember criticism of the people shouting, ‘Thousands died, Bush lied,'” she said. “It was OK to demonize Bush, but when we’re talking about real policy issues, we mustn’t mention it…”

Lying to get us to a war in Iraq or to gin up Homeland Security alerts for partisan political gain before a national election weren’t “real policy issues”? It boggles the mind.

“…I don’t remember criticism of the people shouting, ‘Thousands died, Bush lied,’ she said….”

Matthews, Gingrich, Hannity, others seize on new bin Laden tape to discredit war critics

January 20, 2006 3:47 pm ET

…Several media figures have seized on Osama bin Laden’s newly released audiotape to denounce critics of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq. Explicitly asserting comparisons between bin Laden and prominent war critics…

March 22, 2003, 5:57pm EST

ANTI-WAR PROTESTS CONTINUE WITH LARGE CROWDS IN N.Y

…Signs from the demonstrators supporting war read, “We Gave Peace a Chance and It Cost Us 9/11” and “Anti-War is Anti-American…”

And it goes on and on and on and on…

To quote a Congressman from Massachusetts: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

* it’s okay if you’re a republican

Why is this an outrage, and this is not? Just asking.

I’m waiting to hear about the second from the same people who were outraged by the first. [crickets]

Photo of Sarah Palin by Brian Adams/Runner’s World – via Balloon Juice  (The actual photo at Runner’s World is here).

Uh, you’re supposed to drape the flag over yourself, not drape it on your bar stool and then lean on it.

Dating from 1993:

UNITED STATES CODE

TITLE 36

CHAPTER 10

§176. Respect for flag

No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor…

…(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker’s desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general….

Okay, Chapter 10, as iterated on the non-governmental site above, is not enforceable.

Because:

Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989)

…Especially pertinent to this case are our decisions recognizing the communicative nature of conduct relating to flags. Attaching a peace sign to the flag, Spence, supra, at 418 U.S. 409″]409-410; refusing to salute the flag, Barnette, 319 U.S. at 632; and displaying a red flag, 409-410; refusing to salute the flag, Barnette, 319 U.S. at 632; and displaying a red flag, Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, [p405] 368-369 (1931), we have held, all may find shelter under the First Amendment. See also Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 588 (1974) (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment) (treating flag “contemptuously” by wearing pants with small flag sewn into their seat is expressive conduct)…

And:

United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990)

…Although the Flag Protection Act contains no explicit content-based limitation on the scope of prohibited conduct, it is nevertheless clear that the Government’s asserted interest is “related ‘to the suppression of free expression,'” 491 U.S. at 410, and concerned with the content of such expression. The Government’s interest in protecting the “physical integrity” [p316] of a privately owned flag [n5] rests upon a perceived need to preserve the flag’s status as a symbol of our Nation and certain national ideals. But the mere destruction or disfigurement of a particular physical manifestation of the symbol, without more, does not diminish or otherwise affect the symbol itself in any way. For example, the secret destruction of a flag in one’s own basement would not threaten the flag’s recognized meaning. Rather, the Government’s desire to preserve the flag as a symbol for certain national ideals is implicated “only when a person’s treatment of the flag communicates [a] message” to others that is inconsistent with those ideals. [n6] Ibid. [p317]…

…Even assuming such a consensus exists, any suggestion that the Government’s interest in suppressing speech becomes more weighty as popular opposition to that speech grows is foreign to the First Amendment…

[emphasis added]

Yeah, those are flag burning cases, but the big picture is that government can’t dictate behavior or any orthodoxy about what is “correct” patriotic behavior or speech. This is not a new phenomenon in America, either:

WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION v. BARNETTE, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)

…If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us…

In a time of war, no less.

Ask yourself, what would the political right be saying if it was Barack Obama standing in that same pose instead of Sarah Palin?

So, it all comes down to the political right’s view of what is patriotic orthodoxy. At this point they’re definitely not consistent about it, either. We’ll just have to go with *IOKIYAR.

*it’s okay if you’re a republican