Dealing with Republican sturm und drang--and nuttiness

by: hotflash

Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 08:34:29 AM CST

Jim Guest, R-Pluto (pictured at right), believes that the government has been implanting electromagnetic chips in citizens' brains in order to control them and torture them. Blink. This assertion was striking enough to get Guest a mention in a New York Times article about a British psychologist who tracks the crazies on the internet. Unfazed by the notoriety of one of its members, the House leadership, as Fired Up! points out, has granted Guest tacit support by appointing him chair of the Real ID and Privacy Committee.

Ed Emery, R-Lamar, is out there too. In 2006, he inserted language into a special committee report claiming that abortion causes illegal immigration. Seriously. (We've killed so many of our babies that now we have to have Mexican workers come here to fill the gap.) Democrats on the committee refused to sign the report, but nine Republicans signed it.

Zimmerman's reaction?

"It makes complete sense if you're insane. ... These are our colleagues. But that's okay. Such has ever been the way with state legislatures. It wasn't so long ago that an Arizona legislator introduced a bill to change Pi from 3.14159 to 3.10 so that it would be easier for math students.

So anytime Zimmerman is tempted to get impressed with himself, he says:

"I look in the mirror and I remind myself that I make the same salary and have precisely the same job as Jim Guest and Cynthia Davis.

The upside of all their nuttiness is that it's so easy for Democrats to point all that out in campaigns. And besides:

Republican-crafted Ethics "Reform" and the Missing Piece

by: RBH

Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 14:58:15 PM CST

But don't worry about ethics, Republican Leader Steve "Air" Tilley is proposing an ethics package. Which would be a great joke, if it's not going to be taken seriously by Republicans and newspaper writers as being reform.

At least Five questions worth asking about a Tilley ethics bill in order to figure out if it's going to be reform or synthetic reform.

1) Will lobbyists and special interests write the Tilley bill or just provide an outline of acceptable limitations?
2) How far will gift bans really go? and how blatant will the loopholes be? Will Lobbyists be able to co-own valuable items with legislators to stretch a gift ban?
3) How long will former legislators be barred from lobbying? a year? two years? longer?
4) Will a bar on political consulting while in office really mean much other than the person doing the consulting not directly earning money for his efforts? (In other words, will it be a symbolic ban where the majority pats themselves on their backs at the end)
5) How much of this bill will ultimately get scrapped or fused onto the Shields bill?

But any ethics bill that fails to address the Texas-style campaign contribution laws we have on the books is not complete. Any bill that thinks you can clean up politics in the Missouri General Assembly while allowing prominent legislators to keep receiving six-digit long checks from power brokers and special interests is a bill built on a surplus of optimism, hope, and delusion.

Campaign Finance: It's their world, the rest of us only live in it

by: Michael Bersin

Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 12:59:06 PM CST

The stenographer writes in today's Kansas City Star:

Posted on Sat, Dec. 12, 2009 10:18 PM
ON POLITICS
Ex-lawmaker calls Missouri General Assembly a 'scam'
By STEVE KRASKE

Former Missouri lawmaker Brian Yates couldn't hold back.

Having resigned his seat Dec. 1, midway through his final term, the Lee's Summit Republican let loose last week with a no-holds-barred assessment of the state of Jefferson City....

....Serving in the General Assembly, he said, had become a "scam...."

....The 34-year-old lawyer ticked them off: the passage of legislation in exchange for campaign donations, the underhanded dealings of former House speaker Rod Jetton, price tags placed on committee chairmanships, wealthy folks getting all the attention, all that political money sloshing around the Capitol....

The stenographer fails to mention what our good friends at Fired Up point out:

Brian Yates (R-Payday Loans)
Submitted by .Sean on November 30, 2009 - 5:43pm

Rep. Brian Yates (R-Lee's Summitt) is officially resigning at noon tomorrow to work full time for QC Holdings.  It's a payday loan company, with stores operating mostly as Quik Cash or National Quik Cash.

H'ray usury!

We did a search at the Missouri Ethics Commission for campaign contributions by QC Holdings during 2008 and this is what we came up with:

Paydayates

by: RBH

Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 18:48:11 PM CST

What about "a 9-to-5 job" for a payday lending giant. That's what Brian Yates is going to do, moving from one field with a bad reputation to a field that deserves a worse reputation.

QC Holdings ("Quik Cash") appears to have a valuable team member. We'll keep our eyes open and report back when he becomes a lobbyist for the free market tradition of extreme interest rates. (The United Payday Lenders of Missouri (which QC is a member of) have two lobbyists)

The STL Better Business Bureau said that "Missouri accounted for 30% of QC Holdings' total branch gross profits last year" and that

"Among the nine contiguous states, only Tennessee has more payday loan locations (1,481) than Missouri (1,275) with the next highest being Kentucky with 785, according to the Division of Finance's report. The report also shows that the APR allowed by Missouri's statutes of 1,950% based on a two-week loan of $100 is by far the highest of the nine contiguous states"

When they say Payday, they mean "payday for them", not you. And if the Republican Legislature actually moves to help people out (which is unlikely), QC can roll out at least one employee who knows his way around the place.

BTW, the Special Election will likely be held on April 6th because Yates resigned too late for a February Special election. Although this is actually a slight financial win for the area since it'll be held concurrently with Municipal Elections in Lee's Summit.

An extra two months is good news for taxpayers and for likely Democratic candidate Dave Coffman.

We'll keep you posted on this story.

Yates resigning by end of month, HD56 special election set for February

by: RBH

Thu Nov 26, 2009 at 17:15:00 PM CST

Yates resignation is coupled with his announcement that he will be endorsing a conservative mystery candidate from Lee's Summit in the 8th Senate District primary on Monday to oppose Bryan Pratt and Gary Dusenberg. Let's get to some of the facts here.

Barring unexpected twists, the Republican nominee will be Mike Cierpiot and the Democratic nominee will be Dave Coffman. Coffman has raised $3300 through the 3rd quarter in the short time he has been a candidate. Cierpiot has raised $24K including $12,001 from personal injury attorney Mike Ketchmark whose political contributions are both large and in the form of Price is Right Contestants Row bids.

56th Legislative District - second quarter campaign finance reports

by: Michael Bersin

Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 15:17:22 PM CDT

Chris Ruggles (D) in the 56th Legislative District

Chris Ruggles (D) filed his second quarter 2008 campaign finance report with the Missouri Ethics Commission on July 15th: