Where Have All the Conservatives Gone? July 22, 2007
Posted by Webmaster in Elections, Missouri.comments closed
JEFFERSON CITY | Where have all the conservatives gone?
With Republicans in firm control of Missouri government, lawmakers have mandated how children ride in cars and what kind of gas motorists put in their tanks.
State spending has reached record levels, up nearly 16 percent in the last two years. So-called conservatives have expanded government programs to treat autistic children and provide medical care to women with incomes nearly twice the poverty level.
Handouts to ethanol makers have boosted the price of corn, which raised the cost of cereal, milk and meat. And Missouri lawmakers this year approved a $10 million tax subsidy for beef producers to offset the higher feed costs that the ethanol subsidies helped create.
“We’re supposed to stand for less government, small government and letting the individual make the decision rather than government,” said Sen. Chuck Purgason, a Caulfield Republican. “All (ethanol subsidies) did in my district was raise the price of fertilizer, feed and every other agricultural product.”
While talking big about small government and free markets, Republicans — and not just those in Missouri — have grown more comfortable chipping away at some of the most cherished canons of conservatism, leading conservatives said.
Conservative Missouri legislators lament that they feel like a minority within the majority Republican Party. They decry the movement away from conservative principles, blaming it on term limits, pressure from lobbyists, pressure from constituents not to reduce services and their own unwillingness to make tough choices.
This missive sounds so familiar. Missouri, though, is a little slower than the country at large when it comes to political sea changes. When Republicans took over the U.S. House and Senate in 1994, no U.S. House seats in Missouri changed hands, leaving a 6-3 Democrat majority thereof. It wasn’t until 2000 that Republicans won a majority, 5-4 of U.S. House seats from the state, and, like 1994, that number stayed the same even as Democrats won the House back in 2006. Also, Republicans didn’t win control of the Missouri State Senate until 2000, and the State House until 2002. At this rate, the Republicans will lose that, eventually.
Cleveland City Council Member Sends Alleged Black Crack Dealer a Letter July 22, 2007
Posted by Webmaster in Black Crime.comments closed
The Smoking Gun has it. As you can read from the letter, the suspect, Arsenio Winston, and the politician, Michael Polensek, had a previous run-in, animated with profanity from the latter.
You will also see that the suspect’s mother isn’t taking the letter too well, and is supposedly conferring with a lawyer. Therefore, Mr. Polensek’s next letter should be address to the mother, asking her why her parenting was so inept or worse that her son would pursue a career as a crack dealer.
Mr. Polensek is apparently fond of writing these kinds of letters to people he considers to be derelict of duty. If the Cleveland Plain-Dealer considers these words to be indicative of a “poison pen,” then a lot of politicians need to be “poisoning” themselves so.
If only St. Louis had someone like this on the Board of Aldermen. It’s all we can do to count our blessings to have two of the 28 members vote against reparations for slavery.
UPDATE 9:25 PM: Mr. Polensek has had four vans stolen from him.
