Category Archives: Voting

One week

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We’re a week away from the election. In a number of states, including Missouri, people have already voted. In Missouri, it absentee voting. The other states have early voting, a scheme by democrats to make vote fraud easier.

Easier? How?

It’s simple. Most county clerks really don’t do a passable job. For them it’s best to just ease along, not making any waves. When people register to vote, they don’t cross check to see if the person is already registered with another name. For instance, I, like most Americans, that three names. Let’s make up one, John Thomas Roberts. Mr Roberts could be registered as John Roberts, Tom Roberts, John T. Roberts, J. Thomas Roberts at 123 Main Street. If the clerk mistypes the address, some of those entries could be at 123 Main Street, others at 124 Main Street—and everyone version would be registered as a real voters. Mr. Roberts could, therefore, vote four times—more if he voted early and then showed up at the polls as well. You see, most county clerks never cross-check, nor remove early voters from the poll registry. Mr. Roberts could, theoretically, vote eight times.

In areas in Kansas City, St. Louis, and other liberal bastions across the state, the local poll judges wouldn’t be able to stop them. In times past, some judges were blocked from the polls, or intimidated by thugs. Kansas City’s past history in the last decades has had both.

http://media.cleveland.com/plain_dealer_metro/photo/11647531-large.jpg

Polling station with paper ballots

Can we eliminate vote fraud? No, not completely. What we can do, however, is make vote fraud much more difficult. First, require voting by paper ballots. In my county, we mark our choices in black ink on the ballot and then it is scanned and read. Fool proof? No. If the ballot is improperly marked it could be misread. The scanner can have basic logic to reject ballots that have no votes, two votes for the same office, or marks outside of the selection box. But, if there is a question later on the vote count, those paper ballots are still available for a real person to check.

What else can be done? Photo Voter-ID, using a photo taken at the time of registration. Liberal claims to the contrary, if a photo ID is required to cash a check, there is no reason why a photo-ID can’t be required to vote. All claims to the contrary are just tactics by liberals to preserve their ability for vote fraud.

What else? Eliminate early voting. The democrat adage, “Vote early, vote often,” is real. Should we eliminate absentee voting? No, there are legitimate reasons for absentee voting. Citizens in the military, deployed  outside the country or based in other states, retain their right to vote and to have their votes counted. There are mechanisms in place for the military to vote. There are also legitimate reason why others, not in the military, cannot be present to vote at their polls. But, in those cases, the absentee voter should present and sign an affidavit attesting to their reason for not voting at their home polling station, such as travel or illness to name two.

Our Republic is based on the fundamental right of its citizens who meet the established requirements for a voter. That means that aliens, non-citizens, whether here legally or illegally, do NOT vote. The democrats want those illegal votes, it dilutes the votes of citizens and the democrats believe those illegal votes can be bought. The legality of voting is irrelevant to them. Voting is nothing more than a means for them to gain and retain power. If they thought they could get away with it, and if we don’t fight them, one day our right to vote and have it counted, will be no more.

This election appears to be leading to a ‘Pub victory in many areas of the country and in Missouri. Let’s work with our legislators, local and national, in the 2015 session to pass, and override vetos, for some real voter security—paper ballots, audits of the voting rolls and insuring they are clean, passing Photo-IDs for registration and voting, and putting some real teeth in penalties for vote fraud. In many instances, vote fraud is only a misdemeanor. Vote fraud should be a felony with a long prison term and heavy fines.

The United States is a republic, not a democracy nor a mobocracy. We must have the tools to insure it remains a republic. Else, we will have not a republic, not a democracy, but the rule of elites of a single party—just like the old USSR.

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Lawfare in Missouri

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If you haven’t heard, there is another constitutional amendment on Missouri’s November ballot, Constitutional Amendment #6 (HJR 90). No, it’s not the education amendment, it’s another one to define early voting. Democrats usually push for early voting. They remember the old adage, “Vote early, Vote often.” In many areas of the state, precincts in Kansas City and St Louis for example, early voting allows for massive vote fraud.

This amendment, however, the dems don’t support. Why? Because it limits early voting to the five business days prior to the election and only during normal business hours—9am to 5pm…and only if the Legislature provides funding. Such an amendment makes it more difficult, not impossible but more difficult for the democrats to exploit and makes vote fraud more difficult as well. This amendment is thought to be a pre-emptive strike at democrat sponsored bills that would allow up to 6 weeks of early voting including weekends.

Since the amendment has been passed in the legislature, the dem’s only hope is to obfuscate the language on the ballot. One of their pet judges changed the ballot language to read like the dems wanted. The Secretary of State immediately appealed the decision.

THE 2014 BALLOT — ‘Missouri court reworks early voting ballot summary,’ AP: “A Missouri appeals court panel rewrote the ballot summary Monday for an early voting proposal, ruling that the wording approved by lawmakers was misleading because it failed to mention the measure is contingent upon funding. A proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot will ask Missouri voters whether to authorize a no-excuses-needed early voting period for future general elections. The six-day voting period would be limited to business hours on weekdays. In its ruling Monday, a panel of the Western District appeals court said the summary prepared by the Legislature failed to note the early voting period would occur only if the Legislature and governor provide funding for it. …

“The appeals court ordered additional wording to be included in the ballot summary. The rewritten ballot summary will state: ‘Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to permit voting in person or by mail for a period of six business days prior to and including the Wednesday before the election day in general elections, but only if the legislature and the governor appropriate and disburse funds to pay for the increased costs of such voting?’

“The legal challenge to the measure had been brought by an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of civil rights leaders Norman Seay and Nimrod Chapel. The lawsuit argued that the court should simply strike the measure from the ballot if it decided the Legislature’s summary was unfair. But the appeals court rejected that approach, concluding it has the authority to rewrite the wording.” — PoliticMO Newsletter, September 16, 2014, and The Southeast Missourian.

Like I said, lawfare. If you can’t win, or don’t believe you can win at the polls, sue.

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Remember the internecine battles during this year’s primaries between the Senate Conservative Fund (SCF) who was backing conservatives and the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) who was backing RINOs and anyone running against SCF supported conservatives? Well, the NRSC wants to make up.

Red State has a report today about the NRSC’s attempts to gain—not the SCF’s support, no, just their money. The NRSC spent all theirs fighting Republican conservatives during the primary.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee Loves the Senate Conservatives Fund (Or At Least Its Money)

Remember how the National Republican Senatorial Committee wanted everyone to know just how terrible the Senate Conservatives Fund is?

Remember how NRSC consultants took to op-ed pages, pushed reporters, and tweeted about the lavish and extravagant expenses of SCF?

Remember how when a candidate got endorsed by SCF, everyone knew immediately NRSC would support the opposite candidate out of spite? (See e.g. Ben Sasse v. Shane Osborn)

Remember how the NRSC, Chamber of Commerce, and other establishment groups poured tons of money into primaries to stop SCF gains and those of other outside groups?

Well, NRSC spent so much money trying to ensure its incumbents were protected that it now has no money to pick up new seats. Brilliant strategy there Jerry Moran and Josh Holmes. Just brilliant.

So what is the NRSC doing now? Begging the Senate Conservatives Fund to spend money.

The column continues at the Red State website. As far as I’m concerned, the NRSC is nothing more than a parasite, attempting to maintain the RINOs’ status quo in Washington.

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This is the next gun-grabber tactic. Sue ammo retailers.

Online ammo retailers targeted in lawsuit by anti-gun violence group

By Jessica Chasmar – The Washington Times – Monday, September 15, 2014

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence is filing a lawsuit against online retailers that allegedly sold ammunition to James Holmes, the suspect accused of the Aurora theater killings.

“The lawsuit alleges that the websites negligently supplied Holmes with the arsenal he used to kill 12 people and wound at least 58 others by failing to use any screening mechanism to determine his identity or intent for the products,” the Brady Center said in a media release, Fox-affiliated KDVR reported.

The lawsuit comes as the Brady Center continues its “Stop Bad Apple Gun Dealers” campaign, which seeks to target those who “supply guns to criminals by selling them to straw purchasers (people buying guns for others), gun traffickers (people buying guns to illegally resell), and other dangerous people,” according to its Web page.

The lawsuit in the Aurora, Colorado, case will be filed on behalf of Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was killed on July 20, 2012, when Mr. Holmes allegedly gunned down 12 people at a Century movie theater. The official announcement was set to be made Tuesday in Denver, KDVR reported.

The Brady Center said it plans to name Lucky Gunner, at BulkAmmo.com, as well as other online weapons sellers in the lawsuit, the station said.

We must be ever vigilant.

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Primary Day! Go Vote!

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Today is Primary Day in Kansas and Missouri and probably a few other states, too, but, I’m only interested in these two. I was Facebook chatting with a friend earlier. We were wondering if the turnout would be high or low and whether one would benefit our folks more or less. In the end, we just didn’t know.

It did remind me of the first time I voted. The time was 1956. Adlai Stevenson was running against Dwight Eisenhower. My folks lived in southern Illinois. My mother was a grade school teacher. My father was a coal miner and part-time farmer. A few years later when the near yearly strikes by the UMWA permanently closed most of the coal mines, he became a full time farmer.

Being a miner, he was a member of the UMWA, the United Mine Workers of America. Dad remained a member of the union after the mine, where he worked for thirty years, closed. He wanted to retain his pension and health benefits. If he didn’t continue to pay union dues, he would lose pension and benefits.

Elections in coal country were a bit different from other areas of the country. There were highly organized affairs with the unions firmly in control. On election day, each poll would have a collection of union officials outside. Every union had a representative at every polling station. When union members arrived to vote, they checked with their union representative who, in turn, checked their name off the union roster. Heaven help the union member who didn’t vote or check in with the union before voting. Fines up to $100 was not uncommon.

In Illinois at that time, schools and many businesses closed on election day. Mom and Grandma had voted earlier. Dad had some chores to do. He voted later and I, nine-years old, went with him.

We arrived at the polling station that was set up in the yard of the township headquarters in West City, IL. Dad was recognized by a number of other union members and waved over. The union rep at that polling place was a man whose name I’ve forgotten. I do remember Dad calling him a ‘loud-mouth.’

Dad checked in, had his name checked as voting on the union roster and was given a ballot with all the union-backed candidates already checked off. There were few, if any, items on the ballot unchecked. Dad introduced me to Loud-mouth. I remember he hollered, “Another UMWA vote here!” and pushed a ballot into my hands. He told me to follow my father and put the ballot into the same box as did my Dad. I looked at Dad. He looked down at me and gave a slight nod of his head.

A few steps away were the election judges, both union men. One took my ballot and Dad’s and stuffed them in the ballot box. The other had my Dad sign the voter roster. He asked my name and I gave it. The judge wrote it on the voter roster just below my Dad’s name.

I had just voted in my first election, at age nine. It was the union and Illinois way. In parts of the county today, I’m told the voting practices haven’t changed in the near-sixty years since I first voted.

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Mississippi Primary just won’t go away

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The NRSC, Haley Barbour, Thad Cochran and Karl Rove wish they’d been more…clandestine in their behind-the-scenes maneuvering in this past primary election. In fact, I’ll bet they hope to survive their fiasco without spending time in the gray-bar hotel.

http://images.politico.com/global/2014/06/28/140628_thad_cochran_gty_605.jpgYesterday, a black minister accused the Cochran campaign of vote buying. That is illegal at both the state and federal level.

Democrat Pastor Accuses Thad Cochran Campaign of Vote-for-Pay Scheme

 

 

A black Mississippi pastor has emerged to claim Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) campaign paid “thousands” of Democrats $15 each to vote in the June 24 GOP runoff – and that he was Rev. Stevie Fielder, an associate pastor at First Union Missionary Baptist Church in Meridian, Mississippi, says Cochran’s campaign “told me to offer blacks $15 each and to vote for Thad.”

Fielder, who was paid by freelance journalist Charles C. Johnson for the story, provided a new outlet launched by Johnson—GotNews.com—with four text messages from a person purporting to be Cochran campaign staffer Saleem Baird.

The messages cite an official Cochran campaign email address—Saleem@ThadForMs.com—and include detailed discussions of the campaign providing envelopes of money to distribute to people who vote.

“Send me individual names and amounts along with home address to saleem@thadforms.com and I’ll have money separated in envelopes at the office waiting for you,” one message, sent three days before the runoff, says.

Fielder said he helped distribute the Cochran cash for votes on a promise of eventually getting paid $16,000—and because a key Cochran campaign staffer convinced him that Cochran’s conservative challenger state Sen. Chris McDaniel was racist.

“They sold me on the fact that he was a racist and that the right thing to do was to keep him out of office,” Fielder said.

But Cochran’s campaign never paid, Fielder said.

Today, it has been disclosed that Haley Barbour was behind the racial robot calls against McDaniel.

On the Tuesday broadcast of his FOX News show, host Sean Hannity played a radio ad that aired in Mississippi during the Republican primary which clearly pitted State Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Miss.) as a racist that wants to take away government benefits. The group responsible for that ad, Citizens for Progress, is reportedly backed by Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi and former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

“He’s got some answering to do on that,” Hannity said. — Real Clear Politics.

Neither story bodes well for Cochran, Barbour, et. al. There appears to be concrete proof supporting the accusation. It does not bode well for the NRSC, either, nor the GOP Washington establishment. More reports from Mississippi by McDaniel supporters say they will not vote for Cochran if he is still on the ballot come November. It could well be that a democrat is elected to the Senate this year in Mississippi.

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Voting with their…

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Feet.

Sean Hannity is off the air in Kansas City. He has been for months. The local station dropped him after his last contract expired. He was replaced with Michael Savage. I believe Savage may have two or three listeners.

Due to Hannity’s absence, you may not have heard the news. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said conservatives weren’t wanted in New York (Hannity lives on Long Island.)

Hannity soon received offers to relocate by the governors of Florida and Texas.

Sean Hannity Becomes Another High-Profile Tax Refugee

By STEPHEN MOORE AND TRAVIS BROWN, Posted 06/06/2014 06:31 PM ET

The TV host can save as much as $1 million a year just by escaping New York's tax regime.

The TV host can save as much as $1 million a year just by escaping New York’s tax regime.

Now we can add Sean Hannity to the growing list of celebrities to abandon their New York residencies in favor of states with better economic climates.

The popular TV and radio host has long been a New York resident with second and third homes in both Florida and Texas, two of the brightest stars in our nation’s economic constellation.

But on his primetime Fox News show, he recently told Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: “You’re soon going to be my senator.” He will split his time between a home in Naples, Fla., and a small ranch in Texas and end his New York residency, which means he’ll no longer be taxed by the Empire State.

Why this move after so many years as a New Yorker?

Well, in January of this year, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo created a firestorm when he contended that conservatives have “no place” in his state. In response, both Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Texas Gov. Rick Perry invited Hannity to consider a move to their states — invitations Hannity has gladly accepted.

It’s quite obvious why Hannity would not want to live in a state where his party is vilified by the governor. Yet there are many compelling financial reasons that favor Florida and Texas.

For one, neither Florida nor Texas levies a personal income tax — quite appealing considering that New York’s marginal income-tax rate for top earners like Hannity is over 13%. For New Yorkers making over $1 million a year, a move to Florida and Texas will let these top earners take home at least $130,000 more after taxes.

Hannity no doubt pulls down an income that will save as much as $1 million a year by saying so long to New York.

He isn’t alone in choosing sunny economic climates over New York’s shakedown tax system. Between 1992 and 2011 (according to data from the Internal Revenue Service), New York lost $71.36 billion in net adjusted gross income (AGI). By comparison, Texas gained $27.34 billion, while Florida gained a whopping $100.53 billion.

With population growth outpacing New York’s nearly 3-to-1, Florida has now passed the Empire State as the nation’s third-most populous.

The annual state report by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation confirms that Hannity is making a wise financial decision. Its 2014 State Business Tax Climate Index places New York dead last on the list as a result of high income, corporate, sales and property taxes.

The article continues onto a second page, here.

Hannity’s operation pays a significant amount of taxes to New York and well as to the local government. Now Cuomo’s bombast has lost the state and Long Island. Hannity could save as much as $130,000 a year by some estimates. A drop in the bucket, perhaps, for New York—if Hannity’s decision was the only one involved. However, it isn’t. Hannity isn’t along leaving New York. Rush Limbaugh moved out several years ago after a series of harassing tax audits that netted New York nothing.

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Photo-ID. Last Tuesday was the primary election in Mississippi. The media was focused on the race between Chris McDaniel and Thad Cochran. They conveniently overlooked another significant event in the election—the requirement for a photo-ID to vote.

The Biggest Non-Story in Tuesday’s Elections? Mississippi Voter ID Implemented With No Problems

Hans von Spakovsky / / Jameson Broggi /

It wasn’t the biggest story following Tuesday’s elections in various states, but it was the biggest and most-ignored non-story.

Mississippi’s new voter ID law got its first run in the June 3 primary, and the sky did not fall. Despite the tiresome and disproven claims by opponents that such laws cause wholesale voter disenfranchisement and are intended to suppress votes, Mississippi “sailed through” its first test of the new ID requirements, according to The Clarion Ledger, the newspaper of Jackson, Miss.

Aside from being able to use any form of government-issued photo ID, like every other state with ID requirements, Mississippi provides a free ID for anyone who does not already have a government-issued photo ID.  Contrary to the claims of those who say large numbers of Americans don’t have an ID, Mississippi estimated that only 0.8 percent of Mississippians lacked an ID.  In fact, even that may have been an overestimate since the state had to issue only about 1,000 voter ID cards. All those who forgot their ID on Tuesday also could vote by an affidavit as long as they returned and showed an ID within five days.

The Clarion Ledger reported how few problems there were in the implementation of the new requirement. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said the state “devoted countless hours of time and training to election officials across the state” and the result was that there were hardly any complaints. There was only one reported case of a man mistakenly being turned away for lack of an ID, at which point an election commissioner was sent to solve the problem. But this was one of the few reported problems across the entire state in which almost 400,000 voters turned out to cast their ballots in the primary elections, including in the fiercely contested Republican U.S. Senate primary where incumbent Thad Cochran faced off against challenger Chris McDaniel in a razor-thin election.

As Sid Salter from the Clarion Ledger put it, the voter ID law was a “non-event” and “voters expressed little, if any, inconvenience at the polls due to the new law.” So how is the new law being covered by the media? Instead of reporting that the voter ID law is “sailing through,” the mainstream media has instead elected to remain silent. As Hosemann said, “No news is good news.”

An interview of Sharyl Atkission, formerly of CNN and under attack by Media Matters, slams the current crop of journalists as being tools, easily manipulated by Obama and the liberal establishment. Atkission left CBS because of the restrictions by CBS on her reporting. She was immediately attacked by CBS and Media Matters for her claims of liberal bias in the news.

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Yawners…

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As expected, and as I noted in yesterday’s post, Ben Sasse won his primary race for Senate in Nebraska and Shelly Moore Capito won her primary for Senate in West Virginia. Both are expected to win in the general elections in the Fall.

Sasse will replace retiring Senator Mike Johanns (R). Capito will replace Jay Rockefeller (D) adding one more Senate seat to the ‘Pubs.

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Tales of Gloom and Despair! That is what one pundit is prophesying for the dems in the elections this year. Michael Barone, writing in the Investor’s Business Daily, mulls the future for the democrats.

Demographic Trends Aren’t Necessarily In Favor Of Democrats

By MICHAEL BARON, Posted 05/13/2014 06:24 PM ET

Michael Barone

Michael Barone

Demography is destiny, we are often told, and rightly — up to a point. The American electorate is made up of multiple identifiable segments, defined in various ways, by race and ethnicity, by age cohort, by region and religiosity (or lack thereof), by economic status and interest.

Over time, some segments become larger and some smaller. Some prove to be politically crucial, given the politics of the time. Others become irrelevant, losing cohesion and identity.

From the results of the 2008 presidential election, many pundits prophesied a bleak future for the Republican Party, and not implausibly.

The exit poll showed that President Obama carried by overwhelming margins two demographic segments that were bound to become a larger share of the electorate over time.

He carried Hispanics 67% to 31%, despite Republican opponent John McCain’s support of comprehensive immigration reform. Obama carried voters under 30 — the so-called Millennial Generation — by 66% to 32%.

But over time, Democrats’ hold on these groups has weakened. In Gallup polls, Obama’s job approval among Hispanics declined from 75% in 2012 to 52% in 2013 and among Millennials from 61% in 2012 to 46% in 2013.

The recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll of Millennials showed Democrats with a big party-identification edge among those over 25, but ahead of Republicans by only 41% to 38% among those 18 to 20.

The older Millennials came of political age during the late George W. Bush years and were transfixed by the glamor of candidate Obama in 2008. The younger Millennials are coming of political age in the middle Obama years and are plainly less enchanted and open to the other party.

There are other rifts in what some saw as the emerging eternal Democratic majority. National Journal analyst Ronald Brownstein often contrasts whites and nonwhites, but nonwhites are not a single homogeneous group.

Hispanics tend to vote more like whites than blacks, with high-income Hispanics trending Republican.

When California Democrats tried to use their legislative supermajorities to put on a ballot proposition repealing the state’s ban on racial discrimination in state college and university admissions, Asian-American legislators withdrew their support.

They got hundreds of calls from parents concerned about their kids’ chances to get into Berkeley and UCLA.

Campus-based Asian activists maintained solidarity with their fellow “people of color.” Asian parents with their families’ futures at stake saw things differently.

Union members were long a key Democratic constituency. But there are increasing splits between public sector and private sector unions.

In New Jersey, Democrats with private sector union backgrounds have backed GOP Gov. Chris Christie’s fiscal reforms. In Nevada, the state AFL-CIO is opposing the teacher unions’ drive for more than doubling the business tax to pay for education spending.

On the national level, Laborers International Union president Terry O’Sullivan has spoken out bitterly against the Obama administration’s refusals to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

The column continues at the IDB website. It explores the splits in unions over the Keystone pipeline versus, “billionaire Tom Steyer’s pledge to spend $100 million against the pipeline.”

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Hundreds trapped underground after explosion, fire at Turkish coal mine

OFFICIALS SAY ‘hopes are diminishing’ Wednesday as rescuers struggle to reach more than 200 miners trapped underground after an explosion and fire at a coal mine in western Turkey kills at least 205 workers during a shift change.

This headline strikes close to home. I grew up in coal country. My Father was a coal miner as were our neighbors around us. Dad was in two mine explosions when he was much younger. After the second, he changed jobs to work above ground where he operated a loader filling railroad cars with coal.

Mine explosions used to be fairly common. It was one area the UMWA worked with mine owners to improve safety. No one, not the miners, the union, nor the mine owners, wanted explosions. Not only did it kill people, it disrupted production and repairs were costly. More than one mine was closed, never to reopen, after an explosion.

I had a personal experience with one large mine explosion. I still remember the event to this day.

Night of the Big Bump!

http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/display/11664886-d188-4e01-853d-1f9a628b1c0f.jpg

Miner’s Memorial, Benton, Illinois

On December 21, 1951 at 7:40PM, an explosion occurred at the Orient #2 coal mine in West Frankfort, IL. The explosion occurred at a depth of approximately 500 feet and about 2 1/2 miles from the shaft head—almost directly under our farm.

Read more here…

 

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Countdown

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The Missouri Legislative session only has a few more days to run. Conservatives passed a much needed Tax Cut by overriding Nixon’s veto of the bill. The tax cuts will affect small businesses and individual taxpayers the most.

Unfortunately, many other bills are hung in committees, held hostage by RINOs who dare not offend their liberal constituents. They care not for their conservative supporters.

Here is the run-down on some of the more popular bills. It’s possible one or two may break loose and make to the the floor for their final votes. If so, expect Nixon to vote each one.

The first item is the Impeachment of Governor Jay Nixon. Three separate bills of impeachment were submitted. All are sitting in the House Judiciary committee and they will likely remain there. None of the ‘Pub committee members have the guts to bring the bills to a vote, much less allow them to reach the House floor. Those members, all lawyers, are using legal reasoning to block the bills. Impeachment is NOT a criminal charge—it’s a political charge, but the lawyers in the committee refuse to consider that position.

Right-to-Work. Dead. However, it is still possible that Paycheck Protection, a separate bill, may be voted upon this week.

House Majority Floor Leader John Diehl, R-St. Louis, said explicitly Thursday he does not believe Republicans the votes to send ‘right-to-work’ to the Senate. The bill was a chief priority of the conservative wing of the House Republican Caucus, including House Speaker Tim Jones. Instead, labor eyes are turned to the Senate, where lawmakers are expected to return to the ‘paycheck protection’ bill. The legislation would require annual authorization for public labor unions to use dues and fees to make political contributions, and consent for withholding earnings from paychecks. — PoliticMO Newsletter, May 12, 2014.

Voting Bills. There are two Voting bills in the Legislature that may get final attention this session. One will be presenting a Constitutional  amendment to the voters to require photo-ID for anyone voting in Missouri. Voter-ID has been under attack in the state and this effort is another plan to strengthen our battle against liberal vote fraud in St. Louis, Kansas City and other locales in the state.

The other bill would be to authorize early voting. This is another attempt by democrats to provide a means for more vote fraud. Urge you Legislators to vote NO on this provision.

Second Amendment Protection Act. This one, too, is hung in a House Committee. Ron Calzone in his May 10th, 2014, Missouri First newsletter reports:

Five legislators hold the fate of SAPA, the Second Amendment Preservation Act in their hands.

That’s how many members of an 8 person committee are needed to sign a Conference Committee Report that will take most of the teeth out of HB 1439 and send if back to the Senate, where it will probably die.

Right now, it looks like at least 5 of them are probably going to recommend to the House and Senate that they remove the strongest enforcement clause from the bill. If they do, our only hope would be for Senator Nieves, the Senate handler of the bill, to refuse to make a motion to accept the Conference Committee Report, or for the House or Senate to vote the report down and go back to the stronger bill.

The frustrating thing for me is that it’s the House sponsor of the bill, Rep. Doug Funderburk, who wants to take most of the teeth (the “ineligibility clause”) out of the bill. Doug says he’s afraid that unless we weaken the bill, one particular Republican senator will vote “no” if a veto override is needed next September.

While it’s true that the senator he’s concerned about IS a potential no vote on override, this senator voted FOR the bill WITH the ineligibility clause in it just 10 days ago. This same senator voted FOR the veto override last September.

The ‘ineligibility’ clause was reinstated in the Senate. It prevents any Federal official from taking employment in Missouri in the Law Enforcement field under some circumstances.

The “ineligibility clause” in HB 1439 is the most important enforcement provision in the bill.

It’s designed to prevent federal officials who would infringe on your gun rights from accessing state resources as well as provide personal disincentive to those federal officials.

In addition to the “ineligibility clause”, SAPA includes a “private cause of action” provision that gives legal standing for any victim of 2nd Amendment infringement. Such a civil suit against an agent or agency does not depend on government doing their job, as would be the case with criminal charges.

However, because of something called “Supremacy Clause immunity”, civil suits and criminal charges, are almost impossible to make stick against federal officials. That’s where the “ineligibility clause” comes in.

The “ineligibility clause” simply says that any federal official who violates the Missouri Second Amendment Preservation Act shall be forever ineligible to hold a Missouri law-enforcement job.

Paper Ballots. The purpose of this bill is to insure that a paper audit trail will exist. Electronic voting, used in some parts of Missouri, have no paper trail and are vulnerable to hacking…or manipulation. Vote fraud exists. In one St. Louis precinct, more people voted that were eligible in the entire precinct. Without a photo-ID and an audit trail, just examples of vote fraud are very difficult to prove in court.

This bill, SB623, is hung in Rep. Thomas Flanigan’s Fiscal Review Committee. The Missouri Secretary of State claims this bill would cost counties money to remove the electronic voting machines and implement processes and procedures to insure paper audit trails are built to conform to the requirements of this bill.

We’ve come close this year but not close enough. We must all remember, when we approach the polls in the upcoming August Primary and the General elections next November, who voted for these bills, who did not, and most importantly, the gutless wonders who blocked these bills in committee. Remember, come August and November.

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