Gary Nodler

"I am very happy that the Supreme Court has protected me from tax and spend liberals like you."

Sen. Jason Crowell (R-Cape Girardeau) to Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) during last night's floor debate on collecting sales taxes for Internet purchases.

Thanks to Missourinet for the audio of the full debate. Here is the glorious finish of their exchange:

More brilliant logic from Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin), posted yesterday at The Fuse Joplin:

Responding to the fact that many of our allies, like Great Britain, allow homosexuals to serve openly, Nodler says, "The fact is, in Iraq, and for a period of time in Afghanistan, that happens to be the force that has the highest casualty rate." Continuing, "I can’t say with any certainty that I have any proof that that’s because there’s less comfort from the Iraqis and Afghanis in dealing with those forces, but it might be.

“I believe the highest casualty rate in any of the allied forces has in fact been Great Britain,” Nodler concluded, implying some sort of correlation with casualties and the allowance of homosexuals to serve in the military openly.

Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) and Sen. Jack Goodman (R-Mount Vernon) are both running in the GOP primary to replace Roy Blunt in Congress for the 7th District.

Sometimes in a primary contest, candidates get grumpy with their opponents. Yesterday, it seems, Nodler was unhappy with a Goodman staffer.  So, as any dignified state senator and congressional hopeful might do, Nodler took his complaints to Facebook.

• Last night at 9:05pm: Will Lynch of Senator Goodman's office in Jefferson City has embarrased [sic] the Senator by making false claims about my filing. He said I claim to be from Springfield. My filing correctly listed my home address as Joplin and also correctly listed the campaign address in Springfield, where the campaign treasurers office is located.
• Last night at 9:08pm: I don't believe that my friend Jack Goodman would approve of this childish negative campaign activity from someone in his office.

Honestly: Are there any problems Facebook can't solve?

A note from our devoted reader, Sen. Gary Nodler.

State Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) followed up with the Post-Dispatch's Tony Messenger about his great column in today's paper, to clarify his concern for Iraqi and Afghani sensibilities regarding homosexuals and women serving openly in the Armed Forces.  

He is indeed very concerned that repealing the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy will jeopardize the safety of Americans here and abroad. He is also concerned that allowing women to serve in combat is similarly offensive and dangerous. 

Asked — as he was at the hearing — how that philosophy [trying not to offend Iraqi and Afghani sensibilities] applies to women already serving in combat, Nodler suggested that might be a problem, also.

“I agree that is happening now [women serving in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq]," Nodler said. “But I am not certain that is advancing the goals of the U.S. military.”

We may die in a terrorist attack if Congress repeals "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Here's a new photo on the Gary Nodler Facebook page that cries out for a better caption. It's original note, "After Dropping the puck at the MSU MU Hockey match," just seems inadequate somehow.

This is not good news:

Senate Majority Leader Kevin Engler [R-Farmington] also is bracing for trouble. Eight of the 10 senators term-limited in 2010 are Republicans. Of the 10 additional senators term-limited in 2012, seven of them also are Republicans.

"Over half my majority is term-limited, and most of them aren't running for higher office, so they have no responsibility to the voters," said Engler, R-Farmington. "Some things that would be tempered before will not be tempered now, because their objective is, 'So what? You sure don't care what the public thinks. I can kill everything if I want, because I'm not up for election."

The idea of Republican Senators being even less "tempered" in their obstructionism and extremism gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) announced yesterday that he'll step down from his Chairmanship of the Senate Budget Committee before the 2010 legislation session to "avoid any appearance of conflicts of interest" while he raises money for his bid for Congress.

I am leaving the committee before the work for the next session begins so there can not be even the appearance of political considerations compromising the integrity of our budget process.

Read Nodler's full statement at The Turner Report.

Meanwhile, Allen Icet has refused to step down as Chair of the House Budget Committee, seemingly comfortable with the situation Nodler says should be avoided.

There's been a bit of chatter in recent days about Gary Nodler's creative and convenient understanding of the word, "earmark."  As Fired Up! first reported last Thursday, Nodler's definition of earmark is just wrong, on matter how confidently he seems in delivering his explanation. Nodler's belief is that a bit of spending is only an earmark when it's added on the floor of a legislative body.  But since he's running for Congress, Nodler's opinion about what what constitutes an earmark is simply irrelevant. What matters are the rules of the US House of Representatives, which are quite specific, but generally refer to any appropriation for a very specific project or purpose (you can read the full definition here).

After one of today's announcement events, newly-minted Congressional candidate Gary Nodler engaged in a bit of a back-and-forth with Chad Livengood of the News-Leader and Dave Catanese of KY3.

Livengood asked Nodler to explain how he  reconciles his state senate record with his new campaign promise to refuse earmarks. Nodler, in response, defended his past support for earmarks by creating an entirely new definition of the word.

Here is part of Nodler's arrogant response to Livengood's question, via KY3 (the video of the interaction is definitely worth watching):

If you understand the political process, and understand the definition of earmark -- an earmark is an item added in a substitute on the floor of legislative body that hasn't been through the committee process...

Read More »

Not exactly shocking news, but Gary Nodler is now officially in the race to replace Roy Blunt in Congress. At his announcement event today in Springfield, he had a lot of red meat for the right-wing base: abortion is bad, gay marriage is bad, stem cell research is bad. Paradoxically, he said that debt is "Public Enemy Number One," but the "very first order of business is securing our borders." Go figure.

Now in campaign mode, Nodler is railing against President Obama and the "ultra liberal Congress" for their spending practices. I guess we're supposed to forgot about the fact that the state budget he helped craft just a few weeks ago uses $1.2 billion in federal recovery money, considerably more than proposed by Governor Jay Nixon.

For more, check out the contemporaneous Twitter coverage from Dave Catanese and Chad Livengood.

State Senator Gary Nodler will announce his intentions for seeking Roy Blunt's 7th Congressional District seat on Thursday.

Nodler has two events scheduled Thursday, one in his hometown of Joplin and the other in Springfield, the 7th district’s largest city.

Nodler has been coy about his intentions, but it isn’t very often that a candidate schedules multiple events to announce that he is not getting into a race.

When Nodler last ran for the 7th district in 1996, Blunt won the GOP primary by 12 points. Since that loss, Nodler has gone on to win two state Senate races and is now chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee.

Keeping track of the always-fluid fiscal policy of House Republicans has been a challenge, even for the most seasoned of Capitol observers. For your handy reference, we've compiled a timeline of House leaders' promises, backtracks, backflips, flip-flops, bad ideas and final actions. 

No matter how you come down on fiscal policy and what should be done to kick-start the economy with federal money, chances are, you agreed with House GOP at some point in the past couple of months.