Politics

[KCMax]

But you need more than a fake SSN to get a drivers license in Kansas, according to the KDOR website.

http://www.ksrevenue.org/dmvproof.html

Yea, its almost like Kris Kobach is unnecessarily making it harder to vote to call attention to his pet project.

[AllThingsKC]

Heck, even the commercial for the Kansas photo ID mentions that a drivers license is sufficient. So, I am baffled as to why a drivers licensee wasn't enough for your wife to vote. Seems to me she has a strong case against the state of Kansas for infringing on her rights.

[KCMax]

Heck, even the commercial for the Kansas photo ID mentions that a drivers license is sufficient. So, I am baffled as to why a drivers licensee wasn't enough for your wife to vote. Seems to me she has a strong case against the state of Kansas for infringing on her rights.

I think two issues are being conflated.

To vote on election day, all you need is an ID like a drivers license, like the commercial says. But you need to be a registered voter on the rolls.

To be registered to vote, you need to prove citizenship. This can only be done with a birth certificate, naturalization papers, or a passport.

My wife could have brought her photo ID to the polling station if her name was listed as a registered voter. But her name was not on the rolls anymore, as she hadn't sufficiently proven her citizenship.

[auntbigdog]

Just when I think Kansas' government has sunk to a new low, it surprises me once again.

"We need to trust the people of Kansas," LaTurner said. "I don’t think we can ever go wrong if we do that."

[KCMax]

Source: Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich hospitalized with self-inflicted gunshot wound

Schweich just announced he was running for Governor.

EDIT: News reports coming in he has died. Jesus.

[bbqboy]

Now that the Dems are a minority party in the Senate are they going to filibuster like the GOP? And for those who complained about the GOP and the use of the filibuster, will they complain when the Dems use it?

Why bother, when there's a Dem in the White House wielding veto power? The filibuster has been around forever, so I suspect they'll still use it from time to time the way they always have, but even if they had the impulse to use it the way the GOP has over the last six years, requiring 60 votes on virtually any legislation almost as a matter of course, there's no real reason to do that anyway. If the GOP keeps the Senate in 2016 and a Republican takes the White House, we'll see.

The repubs will be unable to keep the senate in 2016. Too many contested seats.

[FangKC]

The talking heads on KC Week in Review last night were just discussing that Senator Roy Blunt's re-election is no longer considered a sure thing.

[FangKC]

Looks like Tom Schweich was about to expose some corruption among big political donors. Rex Sinquefield is mentioned by name in the article.

Missouri's auditor, who fatally shot himself in an apparent suicide, had vowed to take down the state's most powerful politicians and donors, including his fellow Republicans, when he launched an anti-corruption campaign for governor last month.

...

He took specific aim at the state's top political donor, retired investment mogul Rex Sinquefield, who largely bankrolled the campaign of his GOP gubernatorial rival Catherine Hanaway, a former state House speaker and federal prosecutor.

Schweich said the $900,000 Hanaway accepted from her "billionaire patron" made her "bought and paid for" by Sinquefield, who employs an "army of mercenaries" to exert his influence over elected officials.

"Nothing is too dishonest for them, and apparently nothing is too petty for them, either," Schweich said last month. "It's corrupt, and there's a lot more corruption going on in that camp that we'll be talking about in the days to come."

http://tinyurl.com/qj3pat6

[chaglang]

Tim Jones went on an absolute Twitter tirade about Tony Messenger's Thursday column (http://bit.ly/1JUPNhG). Called Messinger a "disgusting, contemptible excuse for a human being" and demanded the P-D fire him. Jones later said the left was trying to violate his 1A rights over calls that Lindenwood fire Jones over his remarks.

Now he seems to be trying a gotcha strategy over the Netanyahu speech:

‏@SpeakerTimJones
Wondering: Does @stltoday & @tonymess #StandWithIsrael & support #NetanyahuSpeech ? I do. And so do my @GOP friends.

It looks an awful lot like an "I have Jewish friends" rebuttal.

[chaglang]

BTW, a new ruling says that the Missouri Constitution allows felons to possess guns:
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-c ... 93720.html

I'd say "whoops" but it probably wasn't an accident.

[grovester]

Man, the politics of these two states are fucking dark.

[FangKC]

grovester, I used to work in state government in Arizona when I was much younger. The state legislature was full of wackos. One state senator, who later ran for governor and lost, got pissed because mountain sheep were standing in the road, so he got out of his truck and shot them. They were a protected species. One former governor was impeached for taking campaign donations to finance his car dealership. He also rescinded the Martin Luther King Holiday; went on a witch hunt trying to get a list of all homosexuals in government, so he could fire them; referred to black children as "pickaninnies, insulted Jews; said working women caused divorces; and claimed that the Highway Patrol headquarters had a laser beam pointed at the governor's office in a attempt to drive him crazy. In fact, within a period of ten years, a second governor was indicted on 21 federal counts of extortion, making false financial statements, and bank fraud, and convicted. He resigned office since a felon cannot serve as governor in Arizona.

Politically, it was one of the more fascinating experiences of my life.

[phxcat]

grovester, I used to work in state government in Arizona when I was much younger. The state legislature was full of wackos. One state senator, who later ran for governor and lost, got pissed because mountain sheep were standing in the road, so he got out of his truck and shot them. They were a protected species. One former governor was impeached for taking campaign donations to finance his car dealership. He also rescinded the Martin Luther King Holiday; went on a witch hunt trying to get a list of all homosexuals in government, so he could fire them; referred to black children as "pickaninnies, insulted Jews; said working women caused divorces; and claimed that the Highway Patrol headquarters had a laser beam pointed at the governor's office in a attempt to drive him crazy. In fact, within a period of ten years, a second governor was indicted on 21 federal counts of extortion, making false financial statements, and bank fraud, and convicted. He resigned office since a felon cannot serve as governor in Arizona.

Politically, it was one of the more fascinating experiences of my life.

Was?

[FangKC]

I didn't keep up Phxcat. Is it still?

[phxcat]

We don't have the level of confirmed corruption of the Meacham/ Symington era (which was before I was here) but the Arizona state government gives Kansas a run for its money on bad legislation, and not even two months into their terms, the Tea Party governor and Tea Party Superintendent of Public Instruction got into it about the superintendent firing two school board members who disagree with her (and who she can't fire). The governor, who has refused to pay the schools the money that the courts ruled the state owes, further cut education in his proposed budget, and then used his donors to retaliate against school superintendents who spoke out against his budget.

[ztonyg]

We don't have the level of confirmed corruption of the Meacham/ Symington era (which was before I was here) but the Arizona state government gives Kansas a run for its money on bad legislation, and not even two months into their terms, the Tea Party governor and Tea Party Superintendent of Public Instruction got into it about the superintendent firing two school board members who disagree with her (and who she can't fire). The governor, who has refused to pay the schools the money that the courts ruled the state owes, further cut education in his proposed budget, and then used his donors to retaliate against school superintendents who spoke out against his budget.

As an Arizonan, I have to say (even though it pains me to say it), I miss Jan Brewer. She was a traditional conservative as opposed to a "tea party" conservative and she blunted a lot of potential "tea party" damage. That's why, with a legislature that gives Kansas's and Missouri's a run for its money in terms of conservatism, Brewer was able to get a temporary sales tax hike in place. Arizona also has enacted Medicaid expansion that even the current "tea party" legislature will probably not undo.

It's a shame that the Republican party has gotten too extreme. I long for the days of someone like Bob Dole.

[KCMax]

We don't have the level of confirmed corruption of the Meacham/ Symington era (which was before I was here) but the Arizona state government gives Kansas a run for its money on bad legislation, and not even two months into their terms, the Tea Party governor and Tea Party Superintendent of Public Instruction got into it about the superintendent firing two school board members who disagree with her (and who she can't fire). The governor, who has refused to pay the schools the money that the courts ruled the state owes, further cut education in his proposed budget, and then used his donors to retaliate against school superintendents who spoke out against his budget.

Oklahoma and Alabama are up there too.

[flyingember]

As an Arizonan, I have to say (even though it pains me to say it), I miss Jan Brewer. She was a traditional conservative as opposed to a "tea party" conservative and she blunted a lot of potential "tea party" damage. That's why, with a legislature that gives Kansas's and Missouri's a run for its money in terms of conservatism, Brewer was able to get a temporary sales tax hike in place. Arizona also has enacted Medicaid expansion that even the current "tea party" legislature will probably not undo.

It's a shame that the Republican party has gotten too extreme. I long for the days of someone like Bob Dole.

Yeah, the tea party isn't conservative, they're a group of well meaning and scared people being toyed with by a extremists politicians backed by corporate money that want their way no matter who it ends up hurting

and it's hurting the very people that vote them in. That's what makes it really sad.

[shinatoo]

Yeah, the tea party isn't conservative, they're a group of well meaning and scared people being toyed with by a extremists politicians backed by corporate money that want their way no matter who it ends up hurting

and it's hurting the very people that vote them in. That's what makes it really sad.

Yeah, the AMERICAN PEOPLE arn't WELL INFORMED, they're a group of well meaning and scared people being toyed with by a extremists politicians backed by corporate money that want their way no matter who it ends up hurting

[flyingember]

that's a fair point. the tea party claimed to be better though, more populist.

not that that's unique in American politics either