Bush Administration

Check out the new Missourians for Fair Elections website:  

http://mofairelections.blogspot.com/

And call your Senator and tell them not to mess with the constitution and our voting rights.

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

Does John McCain approve of these tactics employed by Kenny Hulshof's minions at the Missouri GOP, and why hasn't the media asked that question?

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Well, here we are, two years later...this time in a presidential election year.   Despite a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that overturned the costly 2006 photo ID law because it would effectively disenfranchise as many as 240,000 registered voters while doing nothing to prevent non-existent voter fraud, the House and Senate Republican leadership suddenly seem positioned to again push through another regressive measure to make it harder for registered, law abiding Missourians to vote.

The last time, GOP Senate Pro Tem Mike Gibbons allowed a rarely-used procedural move in the middle of the night to shut off debate about the highly-controversial photo ID measure so it would pass and “punish” democrats.   Story Continued »

Over at BradBlog, Tom Klammer of Kansas City's KFFI radio recounts some of his experiences with University of Missouri academic Jeffrey Milyo, whose recent testimony before a committee of the U.S. Senate we posted on here.  Milyo had testified there about an incredible study he had done which purported to show that Indiana's photo identification voting law had no negative effects on voter turnout in 2006.  The study was released just as a case involving the law was making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Via Bloomberg I see that the pending merger between the country's two satellite radio giants, XM and Sirius, has been approved by the Justice Department.  

The merger is a blow to the National Association of Broadcasters, which has spent millions of dollars on lobbying against the joinder of the two satellite radio firms.  The lobbyist who failed the NAB?  Former Missouri Governor, United States Senator and Attorney General John Ashcroft. 

The turn of events is particularly compelling when we consider how Ashcroft came by the National Association of Broadcasters lobby contract to begin with.  It was Ashcroft who first approached XM Satellite Radio about lobbying on behalf of the proposed merger with Sirius --a pitch which XM refused.  Apparently out of spite or vengefulness --but presumably not out of principled support for the cause-- Ashcroft quickly signed up to lobby for the NAB against the XM-Sirius merger.

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Political Despair---------------- I am in such despair over what is going on in the Democratic Party, I am beginning to manifest symptoms of a full-blown dissociative disorder. I have reached a level of despondency where I am beginning to think the Democrats may be unfit to govern.------------------------  Story Continued »

Just when you thought things could not become more confused, pitched, mad and surreal, another bomb falls. Just in case you were too caught up this past Sunday in the really important events surrounding the Oscars to note the latest bizarre twisting and turning on the road to the White House, Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for President.  Story Continued »

I will never forgive the main stream media (MSM) for the transparently flagrant "selection" actions they have taken during the primaries. The certainly of my conviction on this is modified by two factors: First I have not followed the campaigns and the debates with enough enthusiasm or interest to make my knowledge at all comprehensive. And second, I have heard few others on the left make this argument in quite this way.  Story Continued »

Last night I tuned in at six in the evening to watch Sixty Minutes only to find the time preempted by what I was later to learn was a rebroadcast of a CBS Reports program previously aired in May ‘07 entitled, "Fathers, Sons and Brothers, A report on members of the Iowa National Guard who are serving in Iraq and their families" I found the program actually very deeply moving and by no means entirely a piece of political propaganda.  Story Continued »

Time to put the anti war rhetoric on hold  Story Continued »

Fragment of a conversation overheard in the Oval Office during a recent visit of former advisor, Karl Rove to Washington, DC: Karl Rove: You sent for me Mr. President? President Bush: Hey Karl. Why don’t you take a load off? KR: I want to tell you how wonderful it is to be back in the White House. We certainly had some jovial times here, if you remember. But enough about me. You had something special you wanted to talk to me about sir?  Story Continued »

From his perch in Washington DC, newly minted GOP Gubernatorial candidate Kenny Hulshof had this to say during his conference call with reporters yesterday:

"Missourians reject blind partisanship..."

Maybe so, but over his decade-plus in Washington, Kenny certainly hasn't rejected it:

Hulshof has voted with President Bush more than 92% of the time and voted with the Republican Party 95% of the time. [Congressional Quarterly Voted Studies]

Missouri voters are no doubt poised to reject Hulshof's record of willful partisanship, should they get the chance.­

The infamous Thor Hearne of now-defunct GOP front group "American Center for Voting Rights" is back in the saddle, today speaking for the Missouri Bar's continuing legal education (CLE) program for Missouri attorneys as a session that can be applied toward -- how ironic -- "ethics."

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