The Source

Arguing for the Voter ID Bill: The Push Begins

Strength is gaining in favor of passing legislation requiring photo identification at the voting booths, and former Missouri legislator Kevin Wilson penned an excellent argument in favor of the legislation Saturday for the Joplin Globe:

Really, so they think it’s un-American to require people to at least prove that they are who they say they are to vote? I guess maybe in some way they might be right because there is ample evidence in American history of instances where various political machines have used voter fraud to sway elections. So, since that has been a part of the American political scene forever, maybe someone could consider it un-American to try to keep that from happening. […]

When you go to your local convenience store do they ask to see an ID if you write a check? What about if you go to the video store? Do they want to make sure that you are who you say you are before leaving the store with a DVD? And, no one questions that. So why would we not want to preserve the most precious right that we have as Americans and make sure that only those eligible are voting? […]

So, if the cards are free, what is the beef for requiring people to prove who they are if they show up to vote? Is it really that big a deal to insure the integrity of our most basic right? How does requiring someone to prove that they are who they say they are before casting a vote disenfranchise them?

Headshot. 1000 points.

He’s right on the money here. Then again, I’m baffled every time I realize we actually have to argue over this kind of stuff.

Ridiculous.

- B.H.

Voter ID Bill Moves Forward... Again

Jay Nixon may have vetoed the bill last time around, but the legislature is pushing ahead with a voter identification bill to require photo ID at the voting booths.

The House Committee on Elections voted 7-3 in favor of moving a bill sponsored by Rep. Shane Schoeller, R-Willard, which would require voters to present a form of identification that includes a picture when they arrive at a polling site. The perfectly split party-line vote had Republicans supporting the bill and Democrats opposing it.

The legislation specifies that the state would reimburse any costs incurred by elections authorities to issue picture IDs to potential voters. It also allows voters without a form of photo identification to cast a provisional ballot.

Liberals would have you believe that this is some sort of civil rights violation; that it is somehow wrong to have to prove you are you when exercising your most important right.

Given this country’s history of liberals stealing elections through the ballot box – especially in Missouri – it’s not hard to see why they shroud this issue in a mask of social concern: they’re protecting their own self-proclaimed right to cheat.

As technology changes so, too, should change the way technology is utilized. In a world with thumbprint and iris scanners and microchips in our pets and facial recognition on your Facebook pictures the Republicans are pushing to update the voting process by bringing it in line with technology around since the 1800s.

And the left opposes it.

Who are the real progressives?

- B.H.

McCaskill Named One of DC's Worst 'Porkers'

She may be on a crusade against earmarks, but that hasn't stopped a watchdog group from naming Claire McCaskill one of Washington's worst "porkers" when it comes to spending.

Earmarks were temporarily banned from appropriations bills last year, but that didn’t stop officials from misusing or attempting to misuse the federal spending process, Citizens Against Government Waste contends.

On Monday, the group announced its short list of the six worst “porkers” in 2011. In the absence of earmarks, the list of offenses include a wider range of deeds than traditional pork-barrel spending.

From Congress, the nominees are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.).

Energy Secretary Steven Chu and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis round out the list.

This inclusion of McCaskill, who is in a tough reelection fight, is noteworthy because she has been a top crusader against earmarks. The group put her on the list for advocating that the troubled postal service start a marketing campaign to promote letter writing, an idea the group deems a waste of money.

This has to have McCaskill's campaign hurting today, because her inclusion on this list is inevitably a commercial in the works. It's a relatively damaging blow to her ability to pound away at the earmark and government waste issue on the campaign trail.

- B.H.

Nixon Making Everyone Unhappy

Even the progressives, apparently, have had their fill of Jay Nixon. For example, this article from the News Tribune:

“Because of our strong leadership,” Gov. Jay Nixon declared during Tuesday’s State of the State address, “Missouri is once again moving forward.”

Forward motion, however, is not evident in the budget and policy proposals he advanced.

How is cutting funding for higher education — preparation for the jobs of the future — consistent with progress on employment and economic development?

And how is eliminating 816 jobs in state government — while remaining state employees receive a pay raise — consistent with progress in responding to Missourians and delivering services?...

The cuts outlined in Nixon’s address may reflect reality, but they do not denote progress.

Somebody call the burn ward.

- B.H.

Redistricting Nightmare: Maps Thrown Out Six Weeks Before Filing Period

The census and subsequent redistricting has made this a particularly nasty election season in politics.

Case in point: Missouri's maps were thrown out yesterday.

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a pair of newly redrawn state Senate district maps and sent the new congressional map back to a judge for review.

This would have been bad news weeks ago. But this is just a little too late in the ballgame for this kind of political strategy.

With candidate filings for the 2012 elections set to begin Feb. 28, the rulings opened the door to the possibility that final district boundary lines won’t be drawn by then. That would cause confusion and possibly discourage some candidates from running, party leaders said.

Statewide politics in Missouri is a joke thanks to the mismanagement and activism of the show-me-left, as has been well documented on this blog.

But this is embarrassing.  

- B.H.

Insight into Nixon's State of the State Address

Gov. Nixon will give his State of the State address tomorrow night, and if previous speeches are any indication he will try his damndest to shed a positive light on Missouri’s economy.

The speech he gave last week in Excelsior Springs was by all intents and purposes considered the forerunner to tomorrow night’s annual address, and it gave great insight to what we can expect.

He won’t be talking about the unemployment rates much. His office is quick to tout them as a positive but in reality they aren’t much to be proud of... or anything to be proud of.

(In regards to that unemployment rate he did mention that it has fallen to its lowest levels in 34 months, deceptively failing to mention that he’s been in office for 36 months. Those of you with second grade math skills will see that’s not moving forward.)

He will be talking about China. A good amount. I expect him to parrot his line from last week that goes something like “Wouldn’t it be nice to have somebody in China pick up something and flip it over and see Made in Missouri stamped it?”

The line may play well, but the fact that much of what he’s referencing depends solely on the Aerotropolis deal – which is a mess – means his Missouri-China declaration doesn’t hold much water.

One thing you won’t be hearing about at all (other than Moberly) is anything too specific… like numbers.

Numbers are more or less “guidelines” to Nixon’s administration (and liberals in general).

That’s why this year’s budget is half a billion dollars short and Nixon can’t figure out a way to come up with the dough. He’s so desperate that his best idea so far has been to borrow tens of millions of dollars from Missouri’s most successful universities, a soundly defeated position from which he has since retreated.

So you won’t be hearing too much about that either.

Basically, you’ll be hearing a bunch of meaningless platitudes and half-truths and deceptive declarations all thrown at the wall hard to see what will stick, hoping it doesn’t hit the fan on the way.

Get ready for some real fireworks, political junkies… if by fireworks you mean pointless dribble from a first-term-lame-duck governor.

- B.H.

Kander Flips in Favor of Voter ID Bill, Supporters Deny Obvious

Chalk up a round one loss for Jason Kander in the Secretary of State race.

Walking in the footsteps of so many liberal flip-flops before him Jason Kander came out in support of Shane Schoeller's house bill requiring photo identification to vote in Missouri.

Kander said:

"...one of the big issues in this in this race is photo ID. My rule is real simple, photo ID, going to vote – if it, if a policy makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat, then I’ll be for it.”

Schoeller, backing Kander into a corner, issued a press release priasing his decision:

Schoeller welcomes Kander’s support on this issue, “It is imperative that we protect your vote and work to halt voter fraud. By requiring that a photo identification be presented helps us promote the integrity of our election process.”

Kander's defenders have, in turn, tried to walk back from the statement today, attempting to prove that Jason Kander didn't mean what he said when he said it.

It all boils down to one giant loss for Jason Kander early on in this race for Secretary of State.

He now is stuck between saying he's either flipped on a major issue or he didn't mean what he said.

And neither is a position from which to project strength heading into a long election season.

No matter how you slice it Kander doesn't look great coming out of this one.

At best he'll look like a say-anything politician.

With the anti-establishment movement still in full swing nationwide, looking like just another politician won't earn you any points.

He's learning the hard way.

- B.H.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/mow/news2012/flores.ind.htmlone of the big issues in this in this race is photo ID. My rule is real simple, photo ID, going to vote – if it, if a policy makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat, then I’ll be for it.”

Criminal Alien Identity Theft Ring Uncovered in St. Joseph

Anyone familiar with St. Joseph over the last several years knows that things have been getting worse with regards to illegal immigration, with the St. Joseph area becoming home to one of the fastest growing populations of illegals in the nation.

But it seems that criminal aliens haven't just been heading to St. Joseph for the work, rather they've been travelling from across the country in droves to obtain fake documents like birth certificates and social security numbers from a massive identity theft ring.

Check out the highlights from this press release fresh out of the US Attorney's Office:

14 defendants, including six members of a St. Joseph, Mo., family and three Guatemalan nationals in Carthage, Mo., have been indicted by a federal grand jury for participating in a more than $5 million conspiracy that utilized the Missouri Department of Revenue license office in St. Joseph to provide more than 3,500 fraudulent identity documents to illegal aliens across the United States.

“St. Joseph was the hub of a criminal conspiracy for thousands of illegal aliens who traveled to Missouri from across the country,” Phillips said. “Conspirators operated a vast black market where identities were bought and sold. It’s crucial for business and public safety that we maintain the integrity of government-issued IDs. Those who profited from this illegal scheme will be held accountable.”

If you ever wonder why liberals fight so damn hard to keep illegal immigration and an open border on the table, this kind of crap is the answer... they know the illegals will find a way around it all and end up on those voter rolls eventually.

That's at least 3,500 new voters Obama can court this year in Missouri.

Conspirators allegedly provided illegal aliens with birth certificates and Social Security cards in the names of others and provided them with Missouri residential addresses.

The indictment alleges that illegal aliens would travel to St. Joseph from across the United States to obtain either a Missouri driver’s license or non-driver’s license by using the unlawfully obtained birth certificate and Social Security cards. The state licenses could then be used by the illegal aliens to remain unlawfully in the United States, to unlawfully obtain employment and for other unlawful purposes.

The money involved apparently ain't bad, either:

It is estimated that more than 3,500 licenses were issued to illegal aliens by the Department of Revenue license office in St. Joseph, according to the indictment. Illegal aliens each paid $1,500 to $1,600 to obtain documents and a license, the indictment says, totaling more than $5,250,000 in gross proceeds paid by illegal aliens to members of the conspiracy.

...that is until you get caught.

St. Joseph has a major problem with illegal immigrants using the lax local government offices to scam on the government.

In fact, in many St. Joseph offices bending over backwards for illegal aliens is encouraged and even enforced.

We'll have more on this in the next several days. For now, we can be thankful this operation has been shut down.

- B.H.

Good News for Missouri River Residents

Some possibly good news at last for those on the Missouri River who have been desperate for levee repairs to commence:

Missouri is chipping in $3.3 million to help fix seven flood-battered northwest Missouri levees and likely will provide more repair money for three other levees in the next couple weeks.

[A] nationwide disaster relief bill… includes $388 million to repair levees on the Missouri River…

The Missouri funds will include $1.4 million in matching money for five of the most damaged levees in the corps' Kansas City district, which stretches from Rulo, Neb., to the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers in the St. Louis area. Those levees are the Union Township Levee District and Holt Levee District-10 in Holt County, Bean Lake Levee District in Platte County, the Rushville-Sugar Lake Association Levee in Buchanan County, and the Wakenda Levee District in Carroll County. All of them were overtopped and breached.

An additional $1.9 million will be used to help operators of flood-damaged levees that aren't part of the federal repair program - the Big Tarkio Drainage District and the Corning Levee District, both in Holt County. […]

Before the infusion of federal money, the corps had said it only had money available to fix 11 of 68 Missouri River levees. The hope is that all of them will be repaired now…

If things move smoothly, and at a relatively quick-like pace (good luck), that could be very good news indeed.

And then there’s this:

Things are looking a lot better in the upper Missouri River basin states than they did last year at this time—in terms of the possibility for later flooding in Missouri. The Corps of Engineers relies on information from the National Climate Prediction Center and climatologists such as Dennis Todey (toddy), who says the snow on the North Dakota and Montana prairies are nowhere near where it was last year.  And the mountain snow accumulation is about average or below average. But it’s still early in the snowfall season in those upstream states.    

Todey says the ground is dry in those areas too, meaning the soil can absorb more snowmelt that the already-wet soils were able to absorb last year.              

All of that means that  if the trend continues, less water is likely to run into Missouri River upstream reservoirs when the snow starts to melt.  

A particularly dry river basin would make things a lot easier if levee repairs run longer than anticipated, and would be a much-needed break for Missouri River residents bombarded by water in 2011.

Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes of last year as we move forward with river flood plans.

- B.H.

Update: Nixon Decides Not To Siphon University Coffers

It was one of the worst ideas in recent memory as far as plans to plug budget gaps go, and now it’s officially dead thanks to the outcry of an enraged populace.

Gov. Jay Nixon said Thursday that he will not tap university reserves to help balance Missouri's budget, scrapping the idea just a few weeks after its debut generated a generally negative reaction.

Nixon's administration had floated an idea that would have taken $106 million from the reserves of five of Missouri's largest universities to help fund the higher education operating budget for the 2013 fiscal year. The reserves would have been replenished over several years with money from Missouri' student loan agency.

Asked Thursday about the idea, Nixon responded: "That is off the table."

He may not know a good idea when he sees it, but at least he can recognize a bad idea once it’s been used to beat him senseless.

That’s a silver lining, right?

- B.H.