Jim Lembke

Sen. Jim Lembke (R-Lemay) shared the following thoughts on Newt Gingrich with  adoring Facebook fans today: 

Listening to Beck on the way into the office. He had a dozen or so quotes from Newt saying that FDR was the greatest president of the modern era. If I didn't hear it with my own ears, it would have been hard to believe. I have said Newt is always the smartest guy in the room, but they may have said the same thing about Hamilton.(when Jefferson was absent) Turns out Newt is a progressive Hamiltonian and cannot be trusted with the reigns [sic] of our republic. Don't make a false choice, Choose LIBERTY!!!

Emphasis added. 

Obviously, few things are more damning in modern politics than alleging that a man is a 'progressive Hamiltonian.' 

Sen. Jim Lembke wrote the following to the Draft Ed Martin for Governor Facebook group this afternoon: "We need a candidate for governor that embraces the constiution, knows the proper role of government and is not afraid to stand firm against the tyranny of the federal government. We need a leader at the top of our ticket that will take the fight to Nixon. This race is an uphill climb and will take a candidate that is seasoned, and has been around the block. I believe the right man for the job is ED MARTIN." 

Early this week a warm and sympathetic Herman Cain had some words of motivation for the unemployed and impoverished people in our country: 

Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! [...] It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.

Uplifting stuff to be sure. It reminded me of State Senator Jim Lembke urging unemployed Missourians to lift themselves up by their boot straps so to speak.  

"People need to get off their backsides and get a job," Lembke is quoted as saying this week in the Kansas City Star. "Maybe they'll have to get two jobs or three jobs to make ends meet, but they need to quit stealing from their neighbors."

For these two staunch conservatives the only group they may dislike more than government workers are the citizens they claim to represent. 

Yes. 

These politicians hope that by being obstinate, they can derail the health care reform law they so despise. But they are denying their states the opportunity to design affordable, consumer-friendly insurance marketplaces.

Opponents of reform need to tell the public what they intend to do about the problem of uninsured Americans. “Let them die” isn’t an acceptable fallback position.

One thing is certain with the Missouri GOP, when they are wrong they own it. It turns out all the bluster about Governor Jay Nixon establishing a state health care exchange by executive order is dead wrong. Here's the excerpt from a report by Jason Hancock of the Post Dispatch:  

Several Republican senators, who had announced during their meeting that the governor was issuing an executive order creating a state-run health insurance exchange, rushed out to stop it.

But no executive order was actually issued. 

Until today, most Missouri Republicans probably thought a "fiat" was just a fancy, elitist foreign sports car, but that didn't stop them all from incorrectly using the term to describe a decision before a board about accepting a grant. (By the way, in a unanimous vote, the Missouri House of Representatives approved creating an exchange earlier this year). 

Peter Kinder is leading the charge by issuing an inaccurate and highly political statment from his official office. He also praised fellow fabricators State Senators Jim Lembke, Jane Cunningham and Rob Schaaf. A stately group determined to point out the injustice inherent in the system, and that injustice is the possibility of an exchange making it easier to get health insurance. These are the people who rule us. 

"Missouri is turning those things down in order to prove…what?"

One-term Senator Jim Lembke (R-Lemay), Brian Nieves (R-Freedom Bunker), Will Kraus (R-Lee's Summit) and Rob Schaaf (R-St. Joseph) filibustered HB18 for almost 14 hours overnight to remind everyone just how much they hate the federal government sometimes when they can really make a show of such hatred.

In the end, a compromise version of the bill cut $14.4M in federal money for weatherization projects.

There are a lot of things about this filibuster I don't understand. 
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For great twitter coverage of the whole thing, check out the feeds from @Missourinet, @DrebesD, @RoseannMoring, @VirginiaYoung, @EYokley, @AllisonBlood and @ScottCharton.

Carl Bearden -- currently of United for Missouri, a Rex Sinquefield-funded organization -- thinks that the ongoing filibuster by one-term Senator Jim Lembke, Brian Nieves, Will Kraus and Rob Schaaf is just peachy. Posted this evening to Nieves' incomparable Facebook page:

You guys are doing a great job! I'm interested as to how other Senators believe that they can trust any "deal" they make in the future seeing that the "deal" you and the others are honoring has not been honored in return!

"I'm very hesitant to derail anything that's a potential economic development or job-creation opportunity."

Senate Approps Chairman Kurt Schaefer on the GOP Callous Caucus' insistence on rejecting already-allocated federal dollars that would help Missouri communities

After lots of big talk from one-term Senator Jim Lembke and Brian Nieves, I'm delighted to see that the pair opted against a filibuster of already-allocated federal education money for Missouri schools.  Given the reality of how their silliness would negatively impact local schools and the overwhelming reaction from their own communities, it's easy to see why they backed down.

Nieves hasn't yet notified his Facebook legions of the decision -- it's just an oversight by a very important person doing very important things, I'm sure. Howeve,r it's worth remembering on this happy day that Nieves promised "fireworks" and likened acceptance of the federal dollars to stealing televisions.

Here's what Nieves wrote in January:

I can honestly see and somewhat understand the argument that says "Hey Brian, if we in Mo. don't take it they'll just give it to someone else." ... I admit that's a tuff argument to counter but I'll try: If I'm walking down the street and find a line of people taking stuff out of a damaged store front and I know that if I don't grab that 42 inch LCD TV, the guy behind me is going to anyway.... Doing something that is wrong is still wrong even if every body else is doing it! Kind of sounds like something our Mothers likely told us. The federal government has NO business in our schools anyway!

Super-awesome capitalization and punctuation are authentic.

Missourinet's Bob Priddy has strong feelings about the filibuster of unemployment benefit money by Jim Lembke, Brian Nieves, Rob Schaaf and Will Kraus, but goes out of his way to not be specific about attaching names to offending actions.   In fact, Lembke is the only one of these clowns who gets his full name printed in Priddy's most recent blog post, titled "The Four." Here's a passage where attaching names to behavior would clarify things:

One of the other participants thought that stereotyping the unemployed as people who needed to get off the couch and get a job was helpful to the discussion.(We are reminded of a former colleague at the Missourinet who once remarked, “Stereotyping saves time, doesn’t it?”) Another of Lembke’s allies seemed to feel that arm waving, shouting, and partisan demands that the governor get into the middle of the issue was somehow clever, amusing, and useful. (As Queen Victoria once remarked in an example of British understatement, “We are not amused.”) We’re not sure what the last participant’s contribution was. He seemed to be the little brother who wanted to play with the older kids.

So it was that Senators Lembke, Schaaf, Nieves, and Kraus set forth.

"I’m not going to be held hostage by a few people." 

Speaker Steve Tilley on the misguided filibusters and threatened filibusters of Jim Lembke, Brian Nieves, Rob Schaaf and Will Kraus

"Here’s the Missouri Senate’s idea of a compromise: Kill projects that create jobs, and penalize people who will lose jobs in the future, all in order to accept federal money to help the long-term unemployed."

One hundred percent of the federal tax dollars paid by Missourians should go to other states.

UDPATE: 

False alarm. Sen. Jim Lembke and his three feckless followers had no intention of standing down and allowing the Missouri legislature to accept federal benefits to help the people who have had the hardest time in the job market.

Word was earlier today that the gang of four was ready to make a deal. Turns out it was just more grandstanding. Their “deal” was that Gov. Jay Nixon would have to find $3 worth of cuts for every $1 the benefits would cost.

Sure. Nixon should cut state services more deeply than he’s already had to, hurt more Missourians, probably lay off state employees and add to the unemployment rate — all of that so Lembke and company can back out of the jam they’ve gotten themselves into and declare victory. Don’t think so...

Breaking news from the Associated Press: "Sen. Jim Lembke told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he will end his filibuster against the reauthorization of the benefits that expired for about 10,000 Missouri residents on Saturday. But he says he will instead try to block the state from spending as much as much as $400 million of federal stimulus act money on such things as home energy efficiency programs for low-income residents and a study about high-speed rail service."

Sens. Jim Lembke and Brian Nieves "will seek to 'reject as many federal funds as they can,' likely including health and education funds."

The Beacon's Jo Mannies has posted a breakdown (distributed at Governor Nixon's Friday press conference) outlining what each of Missouri's school districts is expected to lose in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 if the extreme GOP plan to reject already-allocated federal education money is successful.  A filibuster to block acceptance of the federal money -- money that will go to other states if Missouri rejects it -- is led by Jim Lembke (R-Lemay) and Brian Nieves (R-Freedom Bunker), and has been publicly supported by Chuck Purgason (R-Caufield) and Jason Crowell (R-Cape Girardeau)

The filibuster is also supported by US Senate candidate Ed Martin.

Full breakdown below the jump. 

Image credit: Associated Press

This weekend in the Joplin Globe:

While the state, with its 9.4 percent unemployment rate (for almost two years), struggles with how to create more jobs, about 34,000 unemployed Missourians will see benefits shrink and feel the pinch of joblessness much more sharply.

And that $105 million, part of a 2009 federal stimulus act, won’t go to other states. According to an Associated Press report, it will just sit there, locked away in a safe, instead of helping Missourians make ends meet.

Our frustration isn’t political, because this isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue. The measure passed the Republican-led House with a 123-14 vote, and had the support of Gov. Jay Nixon...

These people know crazy

...It's time to take a good hard look in the mirror.

“I know that we have, a certain, you would probably have to call them fringe, I would probably call them lunatic fringe, in the Senate that is holding up $189 million of education money that’s coming down from the federal government,” [Minority Leader Mike] Talboy stated.

It’s a delicate issue for [House Budget Chairman Ryan] Silvey, who hesitated to criticize fellow Republicans in the Senate, as Talboy worried about the impact on Missouri school districts.

“So catastrophic events for our students, either way,” Talboy suggested.

“Obviously, it’s not something I want to see happen. I think the House took a pretty strong position that we would like to see that money applied the way we asked it to be applied,” Silvey responded. “Use whatever adjective you’re comfortable with. It’s not going to be a good situation.”