Election 2010

[aknowledgeableperson]

You can agree or disagree with those policies, but I think its silly to say liberals didn't get anything out of two years of Dem rule

The statement was more to the point of the issues the Lib Dems ran on/hoped to accomplish with their term in power, especially with a Dem Pres.  Items such as getting out of/reducing troops in Afgan, ending DADT, single payer health care (your points made are valid where more of a compromise than a goal), closing Gitmo, climate change legislation, card check for unions (who spent a ton of money in the 2008 elections), and like items.

With regards to the filibuster, with control of the House and 60 votes in the Senate (before Brown's election) the Dems didn't need the GOP to get their goals accomplished.  All the Dems had to do was to unify their party like the GOP did.  If so then "filibuster" would have just been a word.  Anyway the threat or use of a filibuster, IMO, has been reduced.  With a GOP House and enough Blue Dog Dems in the Senate running for re-election in 2 years to work with the GOP minority in the Senate and with a Pres who now seems to walk-the-walk with regards to the bipartisan talk most if not all legislation will be done before even before its first vote.  You might have some Lib Dem and hard-core Tea Party types voting against and expressing displeasure with legislation but I think most legislators will read the election results as voters wanting things done instead extreme hard line stands and nothing done, at least I hope so.

[LenexatoKCMO]

ending DADT,

Don't count your chickens yet.  It passed the house yesterday and it doesn't look like you guys have enough bigots willing to line up for a fillibuster in the Senate.  There are already four declared R yes votes. 

[NDTeve]

Don't count your chickens yet.  It passed the house yesterday and it doesn't look like you guys have enough bigots willing to line up for a fillibuster in the Senate.  There are already four declared R yes votes. 

Who passed that law?

[LenexatoKCMO]

Who passed that law?

Nice try, but a red herring.  At the time it was relaxing the standard from where it had been.  Can't point at the other guy and say look he passed the current unequal civil rights policy when you are the guy who fought all along to try and keep it even more unequal.  Perfect illustration of the sort of intellectual dishonesty that passes for political insight these days. 

[mean]

Perfect illustration of the sort of intellectual dishonesty that passes for political insight these days. 

Indeed. Well played.

[LenexatoKCMO]

The intellectual dishonesty is the thing that absolutely disgusts me most about American politics - more so than any particular policy or issue.  How any of this shit gets said with a straight face just flaborgasts me.  If only we had some media outlets that weren't too chicken shit to call politicos out when they float gems like that.  At least banish it to informal internet circulation; but the hacks all know the spineless fourth estate will gladly put that shit on teleivision or in print with little or no refutation. 

[ComandanteCero]

which reminds me.... interesting results from a recent poll.

heh

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/ ... nt=671&lb=

In most cases those who had greater levels of exposure to news sources had lower levels of misinformation. There were, however, a number of cases where greater exposure to a particular news source increased misinformation on some issues.

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely), most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points), the economy is getting worse (26 points), most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points), the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points), their own income taxes have gone up (14 points), the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points), when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points) and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points). The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it--though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.

There were cases with some other news sources as well. Daily consumers of MSNBC and public broadcasting (NPR and PBS) were higher (34 points and 25 points respectively) in believing that it was proven that the US Chamber of Commerce was spending money raised from foreign sources to support Republican candidates. Daily watchers of network TV news broadcasts were 12 points higher in believing that TARP was signed into law by President Obama, and 11 points higher in believing that most Republicans oppose TARP.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Don't count your chickens yet.  It passed the house yesterday and it doesn't look like you guys have enough bigots willing to line up for a fillibuster in the Senate.  There are already four declared R yes votes. 

Don't put me with the "you guys" group.  Don't Ask, Don't Tell is outdated, stupid, and other things so I hope it is thrown out with the trash.

[NDTeve]

Don't put me with the "you guys" group.  Don't Ask, Don't Tell is outdated, stupid, and other things so I hope it is thrown out with the trash.

agreed. Color me a non-social issues conservative.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Well, it looks like the Senate Dems and the Pres finaly got the balls to do the right thing.  Although it may not have an immediate effect it looks like the Pres will sign it next week and don't ask don't tell will be history

[mean]

agreed. Color me a non-social issues conservative.

So you're a libertarian?

[KCMax]

This is really mindboggling to me.  Is there something I don't know about Prop B where it makes sense to kill it?  Or did a million people really look at that question and think to themselves about how much they really hate puppies?  I haven't followed any polling on it or anything up until now but I just kind of assumed a ballot item to protect puppies would be a home run.  I mean to even say it almost sounds like a joke, like the "DirecTV hates puppies" TWC commercial.  What on earth is going on in this godforsaken state?

I still don't get the arguments against Prop B.

Voters' puppy mill law closer to repeal

The heated campaign last fall over Missouri's Proposition B may have been for naught. Before the voter-approved standards on dog breeding can take effect, the Missouri Legislature is poised to repeal them.

Saying the new requirements would put the dog breeding industry out of business, the state Senate voted 20-14 on Thursday for a wholesale rewrite.

[phuqueue]

What's the point of even bothering with a referendum if a simple majority of the legislature can repeal it?  You know it's not going to stand up unless a majority supports it.  I guess it's just there for those issues that the legislature doesn't care enough to take up in the first place -- so even if a majority supports it, they'll never bother with it, or even if they don't support it, they won't bother to repeal it.

Hell of a state we've got here.  "Representative" government!  Feel the excitement!

[phxcat]

I still don't get the arguments against Prop B.

Voters' puppy mill law closer to repeal

I would guess two things- money from the breeders and the weird hyper yet selective libertarianism that has been gripping the Republican Party lately.

[Highlander]

I would guess two things- money from the breeders and the weird hyper yet selective libertarianism that has been gripping the Republican Party lately.

More likely a blacklash against the perception that groups like PETA can force their agenda on a political entity.  Do you really think that breeding puppies is lucrative enough to enable breeders to influence politics by wealth?  Highly doubtful.   

[zlohban]

More likely a blacklash against the perception that groups like PETA can force their agenda on a political entity.  Do you really think that breeding puppies is lucrative enough to enable breeders to influence politics by wealth?  Highly doubtful.     

My daughter is a liberal student and is currently studying veterinarian medicine. She was also opposed to Prop B which surprised me greatly.

She recognizes that Missouri has a problem with puppy mills but disagrees with the PETA driven solutions written in the proposition. She thinks that the veterinarian community needs to get off their asses and push for a logical solution to this problem.

One solution would be to limit where pets can be purchased, for example city ordinances making it illegal to sell animals in parking lots and street corners. Another would be to make it illegal to sell outside of the breeders confines which would encourage the public to help monitor breeding facilities, for example you wouldn't shop in a dirty grocery store.

 

[phxcat]

More likely a blacklash against the perception that groups like PETA can force their agenda on a political entity.  Do you really think that breeding puppies is lucrative enough to enable breeders to influence politics by wealth?  Highly doubtful.     

I really don't know- I thought about adding a question like that to my original post, but then thought about how much it costs to by a dog at a pet store, and that people must buy quite a few there (I don't- mine came from the Humane Society) and that the Humane Society (according to the article) "bankrolled" the referendum drive.  I would bet that the industry can outspend the Humane Society- and, like I said, money, in combination with Tea Party styled libertarianism, which is much more prevalent at the state level, compared to the federal level, as we can see in a lot of the blatantly unconstitutional nullification, birther and anti-immigration, and anti-public employee union laws being bandied about in many state legislatures, gives the legislatures the feeling of authority to override the public's desires in cases where they may be ideologically opposed to what they see as government over-regulation.  The extreme right wing libertarian approach is that all government regulation is bad and that the free market will take care of it, despite the fact that it hasn't and probably won't.  Also, a lot of tea party legislators believe that law such as this one (as is noted in the article) are more insidious than they appear- that by allowing the law to stand, there will somehow be farther reaching implications to destroying our freedom.

A backlash against PETA would make sense if this were a voter referendum.  It's not- the voters approved the original law.  Legislators wouldn't be as affected by that.

[aknowledgeableperson]

money, in combination with Tea Party styled libertarianism, which is much more prevalent at the state level,

I am not sure if it is so much Tea Party as to the old urban vs rural battles always being fought in this state as well as others.

[FangKC]

Voter fraud found in 2010 primary election in John Rizzo/Will Royster race for a state legislator post in the Old Northeast district.

Rizzo won by one vote, and it appears his uncle voted illegally in the election. His uncle, John Moretina, was not a legal resident of the district. Moretina was found guilty in federal court. It is also alluded to that Moretina's wife might have also voted in the election, which if true, would have meant that Will Royster would have won by one vote.

Royster has made the ongoing claim that Rizzo operatives also sought out Somali residents of the Old Northeast, took them to the polls, and told them to vote for Rizzo.

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/13/42 ... urned.html

http://northeastnews.net/pages/?p=18800