Category Archives: State Politics

It’s Monday!

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…and all the news that happened over the weekend is…or isn’t, being reported.

In case you haven’t heard, there was a First Amendment event in Garland, TX, over the weekend. A couple of RIFs decided to crash the event with gunfire and a carbomb. The event was an art show. Nice liberal ring to that event, wasn’t it? It was a collection of cartoons about mohammad.

The RIFs drove up, fired one shot that lightly wounded a security guard, and fifteen seconds later, according to some commentators, they were DRT. It seems that some heavily armed police was on site. Just waiting for trouble.

I guess it’s open season for RIFs in Texas. Perhaps those heavily armed police were trolling for terrorists? Whichever, it worked.

I’ve noted the MSM has yet to identify the two shooters as Islamic. One, it was announced over the weekend, had been on the FBI’s watch list for some time when he attempted to travel to the middle east for training as a jihadi.

The libs are blaming the organizer of the event, Pamela Geller, for the attack. However, she was a darling of the media when she presented an anti-mormon musical, called, The Book of Mormon. I guess the media is fine attacking religions as long as they aren’t islamic and don’t shoot back.

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Ferguson, MO, is and has been in deep financial trouble. They can, however, afford to hire a $1330 an hour lawyer to defend the city against the upcoming DOJ lawsuit.

FERGUSON • In the days following a Department of Justice report accusing Ferguson’s police and municipal court of widespread abuses, the city made a series of conciliatory moves. Three employees involved in racist emails were forced out. The city manager stepped down. So did the police chief and municipal judge.

Less than a month later, on March 27, a City Council that’s been grappling with declining revenues voted unanimously in a closed meeting to hire one of the nation’s most distinguished and highest-paid trial lawyers to navigate what could be a prolonged and expensive reform process.

His name is Dan K. Webb.

The city of Ferguson is paying him $1,335 an hour. — St Louis Post-Dispatch.

I suppose funding priorities are fluid in Ferguson. As I said in a recent post, “People get the government they vote for.”

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The eastern GOP establishment is firmly back in power in Jeff City. Liberal ‘pubs filed a bill to increase the state’s gas tax another 10¢ a gallon. The bill passed in the senate along philosophical and geographic lines. The dems and the eastern GOP senators voted for it guided by GOP Senators Ron Richard and Tom Dempsey.

After passing the bill, they allowed an amendment to be added to convert I-70 to a toll road. In essence, the Dempsey, Richard and the dems would sell I-70 to a private group who would then charge taxpayers to use the road their taxes had built.

With the selection of John Hancock to the GOP State Central Committee, there is not a single ‘pub from the western side of Missouri in the party’s leadership. The bad old days of GOP crony politics has returned to the detriment of rest of the state. That the GOP would allow a tax increase is one sign of the return of GOP collusion with democrats that we had hoped would never return to Jeff City.

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Missouri Spotlights

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The Kansas City Star ran an article about Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich who is running for Governor on the ‘Pub ticket. I’ve met him a few times, heard him speak and was generally impressed. However, if the Red Star’s quotes of him are accurate, I would have a hard time voting for him.

The article is written by Steve Kraske, a well-known rabid liberal who has, on occasion, fled far from the truth. Given his reputation, I’m accepting this article with a large grain of salt while I wait for Schweich to comment on it.

Tom Schweich is running against the Missouri GOP, but wants Republican votes

By STEVE KRASKE, The Kansas City Star, 02/02/2015 12:00 AM, Updated: 02/02/2015 6:00 AM

ANALYSIS

As Tom Schweich launches his bid for the 2016 GOP gubernatorial nomination, he’s doing so as an outspoken critic of much of what the Missouri Republican Party has become.

And yet, he needs GOP votes.

The party, Schweich says, is dominated by one man, the wealthy party benefactor Rex Sinquefield.

It’s beholden to other special interests, too, and has often not acted on behalf of the vast majority of Missourians.

Party leaders have flaunted ethics laws, Schweich insisted, and he reels off several examples. “It’s like Ethics 101,” he said during his quick stop in Kansas City last week when he rolled out his campaign.

They’ve threatened to go too far with tax cuts, and the GOP has picked up a reputation as a “mean party,” Schweich said.

“What I’m seeing from my party is not good,” he said.

Tough talk, to be sure. But is this the way to curry favor with his fellow Republicans?

Schweich is gambling that rank-and-file Republicans are fed up, too, and that he will contrast favorably with his GOP primary opponent, Catherine Hanaway, a former House speaker who has received more than $900,000 in donations from Sinquefield.

But these days, evidence that Republicans are frustrated is tough to find.

The GOP is sustaining record majorities in the General Assembly. They control six of eight congressional seats and believe they’ve got a great chance to pick up statewide seats in 2016.

And lawmakers report a dearth of phone calls from constituents when it comes to concerns over Sinquefield and the state’s standing as the only one in America that permits unlimited campaign donations and unlimited lobbyist gifts.

Still, when voters have been asked to crack down on lawmakers through term limits or low-dollar strict campaign donations, they’ve done so in overwhelming numbers.

And Schweich himself has taken big money from other mega GOP donors, including former Ambassador Sam Fox.

Schweich rightly points out that his job as state auditor presents a strong platform from which to base a gubernatorial candidacy. Example 1A is Claire McCaskill, now a two-term state senator. Schweich can talk a lot about rooting out inefficiency and corruption and cracking down on wayward city and county governments all over the state.

But last week, he kept coming back to a single theme, and that is the lost-in-the-wilderness modern-day Missouri Republican Party.

“I don’t like the direction the…party is going now,” he said.

Will his fellow Republicans agree?

By the end of the article, I’m a bit unsure who Kraske is attacking? Schweich, Sinquefield, Missouri’s open campaign contribution laws, or those nasty, mean, unrepentant republicans in general. Regardless, he has quotes from Schweich that if accurate, draws questions on Schweich’s run for Governor.

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Today is a big day for Right-to-Work advocates. They will be heading to Jeff City for a RTW hearing on HB 116, sponsored by Eric Burlison, R-Springfield, and HB 46, HB 47, HB 48, and HB 69, sponsored by Bill Lant, R-Pineville.

This year there is something new! Some democrats are talking about voting for or are sponsoring some Right-to-Work bills, too. One democrat, Representative Courtney Curtis, has sponsored such a bill, HB 582. It’s a soft bill, of course, but  it is still a loosening of the rigid, pro-Union stance democrats have held for nearly a century.

Is Democrats’ Big Tent Open To ‘Right To Work’ Legislation?

By

When it comes to having a “big tent” for its members, Missouri Democrats have talked the talk – and walked the walk. 

After all, the Missouri Democratic Party has included state lawmakers who vote against abortion rights and gun laws; such legislators have even run for state Senate and congressional seats. And the party appears poised to nominate for governor Attorney General Chris Koster, who opposes campaign donation limits.

But state Rep. Courtney Curtis may be testing his party’s permissiveness by sponsoring so-called “right to work” legislation for construction unions. Curtis says the bill is “drawing the line in the sand.”

“The question really is: Are we a big tent party or not?” Curtis, D-Berkeley, said in an interview. “If we are, then you know there is room for a person like me. But the reason I’m doing it is because one of the other tenets of the party is equality and fighting for it.”

Curtis introduced a bill and a constitutional amendment late last month that would, among other things, no longer make paying dues to a construction union a condition of employment. While it’s not unusual for lawmakers to propose “right to work” legislation, it is for a Democrat like Curtis to sponsor such a measure – especially since organized labor is such a mainstay in the Missouri Democratic Party.

Curtis’ bill appears to be an offshoot of the lingering frustration between African-American political leaders and labor unions in the St. Louis area. Last year saw fierce – and often hostile – battles on the St. Louis County Council over legislation to expand the availability of contracts to minorities and women.

During that debate, Councilwoman Hazel Erby, D-University City, and then-St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley contended it was difficult for African-Americans and women to break into the building trades. Curtis emphasized his bill is “not about spilt milk. It’s about opportunities going forward.” 

But he minced no words about the bill’s desired impact: “It would hopefully cripple the building trades.”

“It is a ‘right-to-work’ bill. But I’m calling it Workforce Opportunity Improvement,” Curtis said. For “minorities within the unions that aren’t getting a fair shake, (it) would give them better opportunities potentially. And for the individuals that are minorities outside of unions, it would give them better opportunities to participate in the workforce. They currently don’t have that.” The article continues at the web site.

As expected, the unions are all up in arms, especially the construction unions who have been so proliferate with their contributions to various democrat candidates. “Labor is up in arms about it. [Construction unions are] already starting their marketing campaign that if this happens to us, it’s going to happen to everybody else,” said a union spokesman.

Perhaps democrats, at least some of them, see the declining union membership numbers and realize that unions are fading slowly away and will soon follow those extinct species like the Dodo, Great Auk and the Giant Moa. It can’t happen too soon. Our economy can no longer support parasites like those unions have become.

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Today is Groundhog Day. “Punxsutawney Phil, the world’s most beloved and furry seasonal prognosticator, saw his shadow on Monday morning (despite overcast skies), portending six more weeks of winter, “ sayeth the Washington Post.

Let’s remember that Groundhogs are varmints and it’s open season on varmints.

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Hearts and Minds

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…is an old phrase made famous in the ’60s and ’70s. The concept was valid. However, the implementation left a lot to be desired. The phrase came to me today as I read an article in the American Thinker. Most of the nation is watching the candidates for federal office. But there are hundreds of other candidates running for local, county and state offices as well and the prognosis for THEM is more telling on the sensibilities of the country. The outlook for the dems is potentially worse than anyone thought.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/content/images//2014-10-16%20Senate%20Map%20(600).png

Center for Politics Projected Map of the 2014 general election

One clarification. When the article below speaks of chambers, it counts the state Houses and state Senates separately. One state, Nebraska, has a single-chamber legislature. Nebraska is also, by state law, non-partisan. That leaves 98 partisan legislative chambers.

State Legislatures and 2014

By Bruce Walker, October 19, 2014

Most of the midterm attention seems to be on control of the United States Senate, with some attention on key gubernatorial races like Florida and Wisconsin, and with a smidgen of notion to the size of the Republican House majority after 2014.  Most pundits see Republicans padding that current majority by some seats.

There is another level to the 2014 midterm that passes almost completely under the political radar:  control of state legislatures.  Twenty years ago, in the 1994 midterms, Republicans made dramatic gains in state legislatures – a vital part of our constitutional system, which had been utterly dominated by Democrats for a century.

How weak had Republicans been in state legislatures?

Consider these data.  After the 1980 Reagan landslide, Democrats held 74 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers.  After the 1984 Reagan landslide, in which Democrats carried only one state, Democrats held 67 out of the 98 chambers.  After George H. Bush beat Dukakis in 1988, Democrats held 72 out of 98 chambers.  Even when Republicans were winning the White House easily, Democrats held overwhelming strength in state legislatures.

This really changed when Newt Gingrich nationalized the midterm election with his Contract With America, which swept Republicans into secondary statewide elective offices, like lieutenant governor and state attorney general, as well as state legislative seats.  After the 1994 midterms, Republicans held 46 of the 98 state legislative chambers; they held the same number after Clinton was re-elected in 1996.  This strength actually grew after the 1998 midterms, when Republicans were losing House seats, and grew again after the 2000 presidential election. 

That was a tipping point.  Democrats had long, and rather boastfully, gerrymandered congressional districts so that the number of Democrats in the House was significantly larger than the number of votes Democrat candidates in House races received.  In the reapportionment and redistricting after the 2000 census, Republicans, for the first time in a century, could stop Democrat gerrymandering and, in fact, gerrymander themselves.

Just as importantly, Republicans could now stop Democrat gerrymandering of state legislative districts and could, in fact, draw the district lines in state legislatures to maximize the number of seats Republicans would win.  This strategy proved so resilient that even after the 2008 election – after two straight elections of big Democrat gains – Democrats held only 62 of the state legislative chambers, five fewer than they held after the 1984 Reagan landslide.

Hidden in the congressional gains of the 2010 Republican landslide, the GOP controlled 59 state legislative chambers, far more than at any time in modern history, and as a direct consequence of that, Republican governors like Scott Walker were able to push through laws to limit public employee unions, reduce voter fraud, and protect the sanctity of life, among other conservative reforms.  

Because 2010, like 2000, was the election to choose state legislatures who would draw congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade, this Republican midterm gain was particularly important.  So even when Obama was re-elected in 2012, the congressional seats that had been drawn after the census largely by Republican state legislators elected a comfortable (albeit smaller) House Republican majority, and the state legislative districts drawn largely by Republicans gave the GOP 56 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers – a slight drop, but far more than Republicans had ever held in the heyday of Reagan or Eisenhower, both of whom won two landslide presidential elections.

After the 2014 midterm, which looks increasingly like a Republican wave election that will bring victory to Republicans in state elections as well as Senate and House elections, that 56 state legislative chambers could grow – perhaps a lot.  The Democrat majority makes for just one vote in the Colorado Senate, Iowa Senate, Nevada Senate, and Washington Senate.  In other chambers, the Democrat majority could easily be swept away by a modest Republican tide: Colorado House, Maine Senate, Minnesota House, Minnesota Senate, Nevada House, New Mexico Senate, New Mexico House, New York Senate, Oregon House, Oregon Senate, Washington House, and West Virginia House. 

Depending upon the outcome of gubernatorial races, this could put Republicans in a position to actually control state government in sates like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa.  These legislatures could pass and Republican governors sign new laws that rein in the political levies of public employee unions or create new and more effective ways to investigate and prosecute voter fraud.

No one is going to be talking about state legislative races on the Tuesday evening of this midterm, but the impact on politics and policies could be huge.

Liberal tyranny is spreading everywhere from Houston’s Mayor Annise Parker attempting to suppress religious speech to the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, ordering two pastors to officiate same-sex marriages or face fines and/or imprisonment. These two examples of suppression of free religious speech is no different from Kansas City’s Mayor Sly James passing an ordinance banning the open carry of a weapon, “to send a message,” to open carry advocates. The purpose of the ordinance was, again, the suppression of free speech and expression.

In the end, all these acts by government are suppression of ‘unalienable’ and constitutional rights by leftist controlled governments. That is why gaining control of local and state governments is so important. Political rot starts at the top. Political recovery begins at the bottom.

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Election Prognostications

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The November General Election is a month away and races across the country are tightening. I’ve been following the Kansas Senatorial (Roberts vs. Orman), and to a lesser extent, the Gubernatorial (Brownback vs. Davis), race. My prediction: Roberts and Brownback are toast.

I’d prefer ‘Pub wins in both offices but that is not going to happen. Kansas has always had a strong RINO contingent. The reality of Kansas politics is that liberals have always ruled the state either outright as democrats or stealthily as RINO ‘Pubs. Brownback’s win for Governor in 2010 as a conservative is a rarity.

The reasons for the Brownback’s probable loss is different from Roberts. For Roberts, it is his time to go. He ran a vile, mudslinging race against Milton Wolf and alienated the state’s conservatives. Now that he needs their votes, they aren’t there. They still remember Roberts’ negative primary campaign and they will either vote against Roberts or not vote at all.

Brownback’s probable loss is different. He was betrayed by ‘moderate’ ‘Pubs who banded together to support democrat Davis for Governor.

Why? Many reasons, some because Brownback is a conservative and took on the state’s Education Mafia. Others back Davis because Brownback is trying to cut Kansas taxes. That, the traitor’s believe, means budget cuts for education.

Kansas education is over-funded. The problems with education in Kansas aren’t due to a lack of funds, it is because those funds have been squandered on non-education projects. Lining the pockets of the education unions for one. Whenever any education reform is attempted, the Education Mafia runs to the courts; courts that have been loaded over the years with liberal, activist judges from local circuit courts up to the state Supreme Court. Just look how that court rewrote state law with the dems wanted to remove their own senatorial candidate to shift votes to their other candidate, Greg Orman.

From my perspective as a non-Kansas resident, Brownback is a great governor. Kansas, as a state, however, is still ruled by an liberal oligarchy that despises conservatives.

Roberts is a lost cause. He’s drawn heavily on outside help from the NRSC, who helped Roberts campaign against Wolf, to pulling in Ted Cruz to schmooze the conservatives. Cruz was a good idea…until Roberts’ NRSC assistants pull a boner like this one.

Why the GOP will probably lose Kansas in just one Tweet

 By: streiff (Diary)  |  October 6th, 2014 at 11:15 AM

If you want to smell the flopsweat hitting the Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), re-election campaign, there is no better example than this tweet from the NRSC:

The GOP is attacking a guy for being a successful businessman. Does this make sense? Are we against people avoiding taxes? If so, I missed the memo because the GOP is against Obama’s war on corporate inversions. Should I run out and vote for an out-of-touch septuagenarian porkmeister who only survived a primary challenge because of attacks on his opponent that were beneath the dignity of any creature aspiring to the status of “man?”

Walsh, like his fellow-traveler the slightly befuddled Brad Dayspring, seem to have no talent at all beyond attacking conservatives and using the most disgusting calumnies to do so.

If you don’t object to your money being wasted by their truly bizarre choices of candidates to support, then, for Heaven’s sake, be offended that your money is being squandered by idiots.

I repeat my mantra from yesterday:

“I can protect myself from my enemies, but Heaven help me to protect myself from my friends.”

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Pass…

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I’m not sure if it was the busy weekend or perhaps I’ve become a bit jaded and skeptical. I, and others from western Missouri, met with others from the eastern and central Missouri to discuss the upcoming Missouri Legislative session. It was an interesting session. One attendee was a Jeff City lobbyist who gave us insight into the political machinations in the state Capitol.

While we were meeting, conservative pols and other grassroots activists met in Jeff City, ostensibly discussing the same upcoming legislative session as were we in Columbia. I suspect that somewhere in each conversation, the subject of how to control the “must have it all now” group that alienates legislators was a common topic. If you look upon the conservative legislation passed in the last twenty years, you will find we have made significant progress. However, we must recognize that we could lose it all if we can’t keep legislators on our side.

So I come down to my office this morning, scan the state, local and national news, and find…nothing that excites me. I still remember the discussions of the weekend that reinforced my confidence in a conservative legislature. I also remember hearing about activists who, while ostensibly defending their ‘rights’, endanger all we’ve gained.

I look at 2015 and I’m not overjoyed. We will have some degree of success and equal, or perhaps greater, loss. I remember an old adage I once read, “I can protect myself from my enemies, but Heaven help me to protect me from my friends.”

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Wow! What a weekend.

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I had a real busy weekend. I had a real busy week. My shootin’ buddy and I spent Thursday at the range practicing for a pistol match coming up next month. Saturday night was a Friends of the NRA dinner and auction in H’ville. Then Sunday afternoon was the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance 25th Anniversary picnic.

I’m pretty much whooped.  Still…I’d do it again in a second.

***

The Kansas Senatorial race continues to be in the front of the news. I’ve had some friends ask me what the controversy is all about. It’s this, as briefly as I can explain.

There are (were) three candidates running for US Senator; Pat Roberts, the incumbent on the Republican Ticket, Chad Taylor on the democrat ticket, and Greg Orman, a democrat who the democrats wouldn’t let run against Taylor in the primary. Orman decided to run as an ‘independent.’ In reality, it’s two democrats running against one ‘Pub. Ordinarily, this would be a shoo-in for Roberts because Orman would split the democrat votes with Taylor.

Suddenly, the environment changed. Polls indicated that Orman was running better against Roberts than Taylor. To the democrats, this meant one of their candidates was a possible winner, especially since Roberts pissed off much of the grass-roots conservatives who had backed Milton Wolf. A significant percentage of those Wolf supporters declared they would either vote for Orman or stay home.

The democrats were now in a dilemma. Orman, a democrat in an independent’s costume, was ahead of Taylor. They decided to have Taylor quit. That would allow the democrats to vote for Orman instead of splitting their votes between the two democrat candidates.

The Kansas democrat leaders forced Chad Taylor to quit.

After a series of legal shenanigans, with the aid of their left-leaning KS Supreme Court, they got Taylor off the ticket. Bad news for Roberts. But Orman isn’t the clean-cut, scandal-free candidate the democrats and he projects. He is being sued for failure to pay royalties to another company for the use of their patented technology.

The establishment ‘Pubs are rallying around Roberts and Orman is facing more scrutiny from the national press. Surprise, surprise! Orman is keeping closed-mouth about what his political views?

Greg Orman, a political enigma, faces growing scrutiny in Kansas Senate race

By Philip Rucker September 28 at 8:53 PM

WICHITA — Greg Orman, the upstart Senate candidate threatening to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Pat Roberts in Kansas, says it’s liberating to run as an independent: “I can go to Washington as a problem solver, not a partisan.”

But not having a party also liberates Orman from taking positions — especially on controversial issues that might alienate partisans.

Greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline? Orman said he doesn’t have enough information to say yes or no.

What about gun control? He said gun restrictions should be “strengthened” but would not specify whether he backs an assault-weapons ban.

And on the biggest question of all — Would he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? — Orman insists he’s not sure.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, left, and independent candidate Greg Orman talk after a debate at the Kansas State Fair Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, in Hutchinson, Kansas. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

“It’s not in the best interests for us to say that,” Orman said in an interview here last week.

Orman has said he would caucus with whichever party has the majority after November’s midterm elections. But what if the Senate is evenly divided and Orman’s decision swings the balance? He said that would be “a wonderful opportunity for Kansas.”

Orman’s rise has transformed deep-red Kansas into the year’s unlikeliest political battleground. Many voters say Roberts has lost touch with the state he’s represented in Congress since 1981.

Since Democratic nominee Chad Taylor withdrew his name from the ballot this month, Roberts has been in a two-man race with Orman, who has previous ties to the Democratic Party but preaches independence. Public polling has been unreliable, but both sides believe the race is very tight.

Orman, who entered the race in June, has surged on the strength of his pitch to fix a broken Washington without any allegiance to a political party. But now the enigma is under increasing pressure from voters to provide a clearer sense of his ideology and politics, while facing attacks from the Roberts camp over his business ties and Democratic past.

“I’ve been impressed with Greg so far, but we’re still in the ‘I’m an independent’ stage,” said Lynda Neff, 68, a retired teacher. “I’m ready to move past that and hear about some issues. . . . I will support him if he gives me a little more information.”

Perhaps the biggest test for Orman, a multi­millionaire investor who is partially funding his campaign, is surviving the intensifying public scrutiny of his business and personal relationships with Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs board member who was convicted in 2012 of insider trading and is serving a federal prison sentence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/politics/election-lab-2014

Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014.

View Graphic

Roberts and his Republican allies have launched a barrage of attacks designed to make Orman appear untrustworthy. On the campaign trail in Kansas last week, a parade of top Republicans alleged that Orman is a liberal Democrat in disguise.

“Anybody with a liberal record like Greg’s . . . that’s not independence. That’s someone who’s trying to snooker you, Kansas,” Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, said Thursday in Independence.

Palin’s 2008 running mate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), told voters a day earlier in suburban Overland Park: “Let’s be honest — he’s a Democrat. He walks like a duck and he quacks like a duck and he is a duck.”

Robert J. Dole, a former Senate Republican leader and 91-year-old Kansas legend, said Monday night in Dodge City, “There’s a multimillionaire who claims he’s an independent, but really [he’s] in the other party.”

In Kinsley on Tuesday, after reporters asked whether he trusted Orman to govern as an independent, Roberts said, “All of a sudden, if there’s a metamorphosis and the caterpillar changed — why, I just don’t think that’s in the cards.”

Orman argues that the Republicans are reading him wrong. He said he voted for Obama in 2008, and public records show that in the middle of that decade he made donations mostly to Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Al ­Franken (Minn.). In 2008, he briefly ran for Senate against Roberts as a Democrat before dropping out.

The column by the Washington Post is long. You can read it completely on their website.

I was surprised that the Washington Post says the new Senate will be ‘Pub controlled, 62 to 48 given their history of biased reporting. Joni Ernst now leads Braley, 44 percent to 38 percent. Most of the polling over the last month or more has Ernst in the lead but the MSM claimed otherwise and called Iowa a ‘leaning blue’ state.

Des Moines Register: “The ground under Bruce Braley has shifted. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate is 6 points behind his GOP rival, Joni Ernst, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll of likely voters. Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has for months been considered deadlocked…. One potential reason: Two-thirds of likely voters who live in the country are bothered by a remark he made about Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley that’s been perceived as besmirching farmers.”

Braley should have known that dissing farmers in Iowa is not a career-enhancing tactic.

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News from the front…

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Democrats, liberals and ‘moderate’ republicans (AKA, RINOs), are backing Paul Davis for Kansas governor against Sam Brownback. They received a surprise over the weekend about Davis. Their fair-haired boy, isn’t as clean-cut as they had presented to the political public.

Davis tangled in 1998 drug raid at Kansas strip club

By Tim Carpenter, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014, timothy.carpenter@cjonline.com
http://m.cjonline.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/mobile_story_full/13717054_2.jpg

Paul Davis, democrat candidate for Kansas Governor.

Democratic governor nominee Paul Davis was swept up 16 years ago in a law enforcement raid on a Coffeyville strip club based on an informant’s tip about alleged drug dealing, documents showed Saturday.

Davis, a single 26-year-old rookie attorney not yet elected to public office, was briefly detained with others inside the club by officers of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department. Davis wasn’t accused of wrongdoing, but the raid resulted in arrest of nightclub owner Marvin Jones in connection with trafficking methamphetamine.

In a story initially reported by the Coffeyville Journal, a series of documents obtained under the Kansas Open Records Act placed Davis at a venue called Secrets in August 1998.

“I was taken to a club by my boss — the club owner was one of our legal clients,” Davis said in a statement. “While we were in the building, the police showed up. I was never accused of having done anything wrong, but rather I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Confirmation of the incident emerged as statewide polling affirmed Davis maintained a 4-point lead over Republican incumbent Sam Brownback in a three-person race that includes Libertarian Keen Umbehr.

The Brownback campaign declined comment on disclosures published by the Coffeyville newspaper, but an official with the Kansas Republican Party condemned Davis.

“Davis’ behavior, whatever he was doing to or with that woman in the ‘VIP room’ while his client was dealing meth in the bar, demonstrates a total lack of judgment and is the kind of behavior that Kansans will find totally unacceptable in someone who wants to be governor,” said Clay Barker, the party’s executive director.

Law enforcement documents containing narratives of the raid indicated Davis had been found by an officer in a back room with a topless woman. Both were ordered to the floor while officers secured the building. Davis, according to the reports, told the officer he was an attorney for the club’s owner.

Davis, elected to the Kansas House a dozen years ago, had apparently traveled to the southeast Kansas club in 1998 with a law firm colleague James Chappell.

The Davis campaign distributed a statement Saturday from Independence Police Chief Harry Smith, who helped lead the raid at Coffeyville. He said Davis had been “questioned briefly and released.”

“At the time of my encounter with Paul, he was totally cooperative and was not involved in any wrong doing,” Smith said. “Paul was only one of 20 or more people present in the club when the raid was conducted.”

In addition, Davis accused the Brownback campaign of raising public awareness of the 1998 episode to distract voters.

“I’m not at all surprised Sam Brownback and his allies are digging up all they can to distract Kansans from the fact they remain down in the polls,” Davis said. “Kansans deserve better than a desperate smear campaign.”

Davis used the standard liberal tactic when caught with their pants down—blame their opponent. But, it the shoe had been on the other foot, Davis and his backers would have been screaming through the root about Brownback.

Erick Erickson’s Red State website dug a bit deeper into the incident. When the drug bust started, the cops found Davis alone with a stripper, who wore only a g-string, receiving a lap-dance. You can read about the incident here.

Regardless, it’s all Brownback’s fault. Sound familiar?

Hypocrites!

***

An end of franchises? Maybe.

A story appeared this week about the federal government’s attack on small business owners. Unions, particularly the SEIU, is supporting the government in this attack.

Earlier in the summer, the NLRB, as part of an attack against McDonald’s, declared that franchise employees were to be considered employees of the McDonald’s parent company, not of the franchise holder. When the unions were pressuring McDonald’s to raise their minimum wage to $15/hr, the franchises were not affected. They were employees of separate, small businesses, not employed by McDonald’s.

Not so, said the NLRB!

Sorry, Unions: Franchises Are Real Small Businesses, Too

Stephen Moore / /

If the Obama Administration has its way, Ronald McDonald may soon have to wipe that grin off his face as he stands beneath the Golden Arches. One of the most successful models for expanding small-business ownership in America is under full-scale attack from unions and the White House.

The political strategy is to fundamentally change the legal relationship between locally owned stores like McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD), Popeyes (NASDAQ:PLKI), Taco Bell (NYSE:YUM) and their multibillion-dollar parent companies.

No longer would franchisees be legally classified as independent contractors to the parent company. The left wants the employees of each of the hundreds of thousands of independently owned franchise restaurants, hotels, retail stores and others to be considered jointly employed by both the independent franchisee and parent.

 This change would overturn a 30-year legal precedent for how the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) deals with franchisees.

As of now, entrepreneurs can purchase and run their own stores. Likewise, the parent company is sheltered from legal risks associated with the actions on the part of the independent franchisees. Furthermore, regulations such as ObamaCare that apply to large businesses do not affect smaller franchise operations.

With this change, parent companies with deep pockets could also be targets for shakedowns and lawsuits any time that there’s a grievance with a locally operated store.

Legal experts worry that the franchising model could become extinct. The stakes are huge because by the end of this year, the more than 770,000 of these independently owned franchise stores nationwide are expected to employ more than 8 million workers.

More than 31,000 automotive businesses, more than 155,000 fast-food restaurants and nearly 90,000 real estate businesses are part of this model.

The first serious assault against franchising came in June, when the city of Seattle, at the urging of the Service Employees International Union, enacted a $15-an-hour minimum-wage law applying to businesses with more than 500 employees.

The catch here is that the law applies to franchise businesses if the parent company and all its stores employ more than 500 workers. So a local Wendy’s (NASDAQ:WEN) restaurant with only 20 or 30 employees is considered a big business.

Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, a member of the mayor’s minimum-wage committee, explained the reasoning in an email: “The truth is that franchises like Subway and McDonald’s really are not very good for our local economy.”

He blasted franchise agreements as “economically extractive, civically corrosive and culturally dilutive.”

Then in July, the franchise model took another hit when the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel ruled that McDonald’s. can be held legally liable for labor violations because the parent company is a “joint employer” in all its thousands of stores. If this rule, now under legal challenge, were to stand, it would have huge consequences. The parent company could be liable if a McDonald’s store in, say, Rockford, Ill., violated overtime pay or workplace discrimination laws.

The column continues for several more paragraphs at the Daily Signal website. Former US Solicitor General Paul D. Clements Is representing the industry and claims the NLRB is vacating decades of settled labor law in their declaration against franchise owners.

If you are a franchise owner, would you be surprised to find yourself declared a “big business” by the feds? Your 20-employee operation would have to stand side-by-side with companies like GM, AT&T, or Apple. Suddenly, you would have to compete with them in the tax, regulation, and financial arena. Want to guess how long you’d last?

No, I didn’t think so. It’s another federal, statist-sponsored attack against capitalism.

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