Willy K Posts

In Ireland, the Orange Walks are parades that celebrate Protestant England's victory over and subjugation of the Catholic north. Concurrent (though not so "noble") themes run through open-carry activists own marches through Ferguson, Missouri.

Not that sedition laws were ever a good idea, but it's sickening that people think it's okay to talk about armed revolution because they don't like the black man in the white house, and they're not smart enough to know that folks whose politics disagree with their own are not, in fact, criminals.

Is it worth it? Some black officials are looking to back tea party loon Rick Stream in the upcoming St. Louis County Executive election. The reason? To snub current officeholder (and inept handler of the Ferguson fallout) Steve Stenger.

Ferguson, Missouri, town hall meetings are still taking place to discuss the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting. But the obvious question arises: Are the people that most need to be at these meetings even attending?

The idea of guns in schools raises several questions that go beyond the issues involved in adequately training teachers, itself a veritable minefield: Will teachers go through mandatory mental health screening? Can the authorities guarantee that no teachers with anger management issues will be armed in schools? Do schools mandate that guns are locked up while teachers are in class — rendering the good guy response moot — or are they left accessible to children in purses, lockers, desk drawers, or, better yet, on the desk tops? Missouri might just find out.

The GOP did some soul-searching after their drubbing in the 2012 election and came up with several ways to connect to voters more effectively. Their plan to make inroads with women, however, have run up against some very old, white, and male headwinds.

A CNN poll taken last February found that 55 percent of all women — and, crucially for the senior-dependent GOP, 64 percent of women over 50 — said that Republicans just don't understand women. The Republican response to their "woman problem" has been strictly cosmetic in nature, and hinges on the assumption that if they can just express their positions in "feeling" words rather than "thinking" words, all will be right in GOP-Land. No where is this more apparent than the "emotional" support of a House Bill that will quickly deport border children right back to the violence they're fleeing.

Numbers tell stories. Based on statistics from 2010, "24/7 Wall St." ranked Missouri eighth for overall gun violence. Missouri had 14 gun injury deaths per each 100,000 people — only 11 states had a higher rate. The story these numbers tell isn't surprising. Almost all of these states are poor, Southern or Western and deep red or getting redder. Missouri isn't quite as poor or — maybe — as red as some, but given the inclinations of the Republicans who run our legislature, we'll soon be charter members of the hard-scrabble, hand-to-mouth, red-state contingent.

After 300 Missouri religious leaders interrupted House proceedings — 23 of whom were peaceably arrested — their voice was heard in its cry for Medicaid expansion. Unfortunately, Rep. Myron Neth didn't like their tone, and now pins its failed expansion on the protesters' lack of decorum.

With their vote to overturn Missouri Gov Jay Nixon, the state legislature voted yesterday to deprive a low-tax, low-service state and its vulnerable citizens of vital revenue; they did it because they're retrograde ideologues or because they're so well paid by folks like billionaire Rex Sinquefield that they just don't care about the consequences for the rest of us.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-MO, got a big affirmation recently when the Supreme Court essentially endorsed the type of big money politics that have provided the bedrock for his political career. It's no surprise then that Blunt is downplaying the impact of the McCutcheon decision.

Obamacare implementation is getting nearer and right wings groups are resorting to more audacious and at times outright evil schemes to derail the complex legislation. Using regulation - something the right wing ostensibly hates - some GOP groups plan to bog certain elements of the ACA down in piles of paper, all but ensuring problems getting services to those who need it most.

Over the weekend, Robert Reich called out the wealthiest 1% of Americans for their acts of "treason" on the American people with their bid to control the government. While every state has its shining examples of these efforts, perhaps none more than Missouri.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed the disastrous GOP tax cut bill HB253. Over a ten year period, the bill would have cut corporate income taxes from 6.25 percent to 3.5 percent, at a price tag of $800 million. The move keeps Missouri from following the potentially calamitous path set by neighboring Kansas — for now.

A round-up of Monsanto's hold on Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), capped off by last week's last minute submission to a completely unrelated bill that would provide the weed-killing, seed-engineering mega-company even more freedom to harm the environment and genetically alter America's food.

Todd Akin is out with a fanciful new ad. In it he claims that, "federal stimulus spending 'made McCaskill rich.'" (Not to distract from the main point, but wasn't she rich before the stimulus?) Apropos the ad, Akin asserts:
... Claire McCaskill is on record for going through the stimulus line by line, and stated that the stimulus was solely for creating jobs and stimulating the economy, [...]. Now we know that McCaskill's family business received $1 million of taxpayer money from the stimulus bill that she voted for. I voted against this bill because I did not believe it would help the economy and because pork-barrel spending can neither stimulate the economy nor create jobs.