Hans's blog

Garrison Keillor famously wrote about a place called Lake Wobegon, where "all the children are above average."

Under the Blunt administration, the people who run the state have apparently worked very hard to make sure that we have an opposite Lake Wobegon effect.  Bluntees have rigged the system so that state employees are always adjudged average or below. 

Blunt administration appointees have invented and implemented an employee rating system called PERforM, on which they will presumably make "merit" pay increase decisions for workers.  Because pay for working people hinges on the ratings, Bluntees have to be very careful to make sure that even employees who earn high marks don't get scored that way. 

Consider the discussion of the PERforM system from this email, sent earlier this year by a manager from a state facility in southeast Missouri...

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As former US Atty Brad Schlozman resurfaces as the likely focus of a federal grand jury investigation for perjury, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Perez buys into the Todd Graves spin on why he was forced out as US Attorney.  Perez writes:

Mr. Schlozman's promotion to the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City came after the department asked his predecessor, Todd P. Graves, to resign. Mr. Graves was among several U.S. attorneys who had shown reluctance to bring vote-fraud-related cases, according to testimony and documents gathered by Senate investigators last year.

What reluctance, exactly?  As we've pointed out here before, then-US Attorney Graves announced vote fraud charges only 10 days before the 2004 PRESIDENTIAL election, which had to be in violation of the Justice Department policy.  Yet the Wall Street Journal reports as fact Graves' supposed "reluctance to bring vote-fraud-related cases."  

Maybe while the investigators are looking into fibs made under oath, they should take a look at Graves' testimony too. 

Although there were many other worthy submissions of offensive quotes, the Heartless Quote of the Week goes to Senator John Loudon, hands down:

Republican Sen. John Loudon ridiculed concerns [voiced by nuns, elderly, disabled, student, poor and minority voters] that the photo ID requirement amounted to a tax on voters.

"The only thing taxing is you have to get off your duff and get an ID that's given away for free," Loudon said.

Yes, Loudon told that to Kathleen Weinschenk, who has cerebral palsy and doesn’t drive -  and who wouldn’t be able to vote without a government-issued photo ID if the heartless GOP has their way.  Story Continued »

If you only read one article today, read this, which details the back story on the Republican attempts to shove through a restrictive measure that will prevent registered law-abiding voters from voting. 

Bush Operative Pushes Voter-ID Law
by Jason Leopold

May 14, 2008—A senior legal adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection campaign is working behind the scenes to help enact a Missouri state constitutional amendment that critics say would suppress the vote in the key battleground state this November by requiring voters to show proof of citizenship.

Mark “Thor” Hearne, Bush-Cheney’s national counsel in 2004 and now a partner in the St. Louis, Missouri, firm of Lathrop & Gage, has been collaborating with Missouri’s Republican state Rep. Stanley Cox, the sponsor of the constitutional amendment, Cox’s office confirmed this week...    READ FULL STORY: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051308b.html

Front page story on Missouri.

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship
By IAN URBINA

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

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Everyone who has ever failed wants to blame it on someone else.  Now the out-of-state MoCRI-Babies are doing just that after their attempt to change Missouri’s constitution failed.  From the AP:

Asher and Connerly attributed the difficulty in collecting signatures to the court battle. They both called for changes in how initiative petitions are handled in Missouri.
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The Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition will hold a press conference today and a rally tomorrow in connection with President Bush's visit to St. Louis.  The event will point out that Missouri's economy has declined as domestic priorities have been abandoned in favor of neverending war in Iraq.  From the Pro-Vote advisory:

What President Bush won’t say is that his upside down priorities of endless war in Iraq and tax breaks for millionaires have led to the sagging economy.  Missouri’s share of the cost of war is already more than $8 billion while neglected domestic priorities, like education and healthcare, continue to be squeezed by this administration.

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Today, the AP busted California millionaire Ward Connerly's so-called "Civil Rights Initiative" clan of circulators for deceiving Missouri voters.

Said Connerly's Missouri puppet Tim Asher:

"The deception thing - it's the same old nonsense that has been put out in other states," he said.

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With only about a week before petition signatures are due in Missouri, another of Ward Connerly’s “Super Tuesday for [so-called] Civil Rights” states seems to have failed in gathering enough valid signatures.

From Rocky Mountain News in Colorado:

A group analyzing thousands of signatures that qualified a November ballot measure backed by Ward Connerly filed a legal challenge claiming more than half are invalid.

[The group]…found about 69,000 signatures that they claim are not valid.

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California millionaire Ward Connerly and his clan of carpetbaggers aren’t just being turned away in Missouri, they are also receiving the cold shoulder in Arizona. 

The well-funded national front group,“American Civil Rights Coalition/Institute,” that has been trying to ban affirmative action programs state by state, has been having a tough time.   Each day, more and more people are finding out the truth about the group and what they are up to (despite their clever, attractive talking points and preferred ballot language), and are refusing to support the regressive measure.

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From the Post-Dispatch editorial board:

"Carpetbaggers wanted"

Ward Connerly, the California-based anti-affirmative action crusader, is looking for “circulators” willing to travel to Missouri “to earn big bucks” collecting signatures on his petitions to end affirmative action programs here...

...A guy from California e-mails a New York-based conservative website trying to recruit a couple dozen more carpetbaggers to join his false flag operation. Things must not be going too well. Good...

Read the full editorial here.

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In what can only be described as a desperate move due to lack of support from Missouri voters, California millionaire Ward Connerly has sent an email calling for more out-of-state mercenaries to help (fraudulently?) gather signatures to change Missouri's constitution and ban affirmative action programs that help women and minorities.

Connerly writes that they need at least 25 individuals and that...

"All expenses will be paid and there is the potential to earn big bucks to collect signatures."

These imported mercenaries will be asked to do "whatever it takes" to qualify the anti-affirmative action initiative, greatly increasing the likelihood that fraudulent tactics will be employed to get the measure on the ballot in Missouri.

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A few facts to note during the 2008 election cycle and the simultaneous debate about ballot summary language for initiative petitions...

The initiative effort to repeal protections on stem cell research in the state of Missouri is run by GOP operative Jeff Roe.

Roe was responsible for the vicious smear campaign against Judge Tom Brown which cost him his seat on the bench in 2006.

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From today's Post-Dispatch:

[Ward Connerly’s so-Missouri Civil Rights Initiative] is distinguished by an extraordinarily deceptive title. Indeed, when a guy with a clipboard walks up to you at the supermarket and asks you to sign "the civil rights" petition, you'd probably be inclined to do so; most everyone is in favor of civil rights.

But the effect of this measure would be to roll back employment and education programs that took years of true civil rights struggle to achieve. And it would do so in cynical, dishonest fashion.

…these highly motivated special interests are willing to deceive voters to get their names on the dotted line.

…Any straightforward discussion of the merits of affirmative action programs would laugh Mr. Connerly's civil-wrongs arguments out of the state. That's why he has to mask his plans true aim and sneak it through the back door. Missourians should slam it on him.

Earlier this week, we learned about Ward Connerly’s group’s use of fraudulent techniques to push their agenda in Oklahoma.

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As the 2008 election fast approaches, more attention is being paid to what might be on the ballot, including multi-millionaire Californian Ward Connerly's attempt to change Missouri's constitution to ban affirmative action programs in our state that help women and minorities.

The Kansas City Star's Lewis W. Diuguid writes today:

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