24thState

Santorum visits the 24th State

Breaking:  Presidential candidate, former United States Senator Rick Santorum is taking a detour from the early primary states that count and showing some love to the Show Me State. This makes him the first Presidential candidate to do so. 

With Speaker Gingrich deciding not to compete, dismissing the non-binding primary as a beauty contest, the Missouri Primary is the first chance for Santorum to go head to head with Governor Romney as one of the elite three to win any of the first three state contests.  Sorry Congressman Paul. 

This may prove to be shrewd move.  A victory, while symbolic will allow Santorum to make the point to the conservative base that he is the better alternative to the establishment candidate Romney and give him an edge in the "you drop out, no YOU drop out" behind the scenes battle for those preferring anyone but the establishment candidate.

The first announced public event is Monday the 30th, 2:15pm, at St. Charles Community College in the Conoyer Social Sciences Building.

Maybe this will promt Governor Romney to compete by throwing a little campaign "stimulus" money at the Primary he has hitherto ignored.

 

Learn about Missouri Caucuses and becoming an Election Volunteer

The Missouri Precinct Project (MoPP) is working to get Tea Party conservatives to serve as precinct committeemen and women around Missouri. Below is the January issue of their newsletter. With caucuses coming up in March, the MO Precinct Project is gearing up to help get the grassroots base out to the caucuses. Please plan to attend their February 11th meeting about the Missouri caucuses and becoming an election volunteer!

January 2012 Mopp Enewsletter-1

Gubernatorial Candidate Bill Randles on Governor Nixon's Speech

Because you probably won't see this candidate's response in any other media:

Randles Responds to Nixon's State-of-the-State Address

Liberty, Mo., January 18th, 2012 -- Bill Randles released a written statement today in response to Governor Jay Nixon's State of the State address given last night.

"Last night Jay Nixon delivered his fourth State of the State Address. It was simply more of the same failed policies that have placed Missouri near the bottom in every measure. His governorship has been one of failure in every category.

He claims Missouri is a business-friendly state, but a study released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2011 ranked us dead last in terms of regulatory burden and business-friendliness. Under Jay Nixon Missouri lost 90,000 jobs in 2010, the third worst performance in the country. Missouri is one of only three states that spends more than 30% of its state budget on Medicaid alone.

Under Jay Nixon, Missouri has lost a record number of jobs and businesses. His solutions? More bandaids in the form of government programs and crony capitalism. The same formula he has been pushing for three years and that has failed so miserably.

We heard not one word about any serious reform of the policies that led us here. He, of
course, said nothing about our broken tax code, dysfunctional judiciary, or outdated labor
policies. No, he once again has chosen to put the interests of trial lawyers, labor unions, and
crony capitalists ahead of the interests of ordinary Missourians.

His education policies are a disgrace. He makes excuses for the failures of the Kansas
City and St. Louis public schools. He mouths the teachers union line that more money will fix everything – ignoring the billions of wasted dollars already poured into them. He then has the audacity to attack charter schools and claim they need to be more accountable. But apparently this call for accountability does not apply to the public schools in our urban areas that have incinerated billions of dollars, dimmed the future prospects for generations of out more vulnerable children, and enjoyed a virtual monopoly for decades. No, Jay Nixon prefers to placate and reward the failed urban education monopoly and continue to trade our children’s futures for his political convenience.

Jay Nixon is a failed governor. Last night’s speech shows a tired product of a corrupt political machine uninterested in and unable to fix the serious structural problems in our state. He seems to believe his record of failure has earned him another four years. Missouri businesses, tax payers, and children cannot afford another four years of Jay Nixon."

--Bill Randles, Republican gubernatorial candidate

For more information on the Randles for Governor campaign, visit our website, Facebook fanpage, and Twitter feed.

When it Come to Education, Think Big! Tutoring

Fortunately, educational choices abound in these United States.  In fact, despite government intrusion, Americans have more choice than people in any other country.  In Missouri, parents can choose from some of the strongest public school systems in the country, outstanding private schools (secular and religious), charter schools, virtual schools and even home school.  The tradition runs deep.

Home schoolers when confronted will often point out that home schooling used to be the domain of wealthy.  One of the more famous home schoolers was President Theodore Roosevelt.  Raised in Matthattan in affluence, he suffered from numerous illnesses as a child.  They called it private tutoring.

Congressman Akin homeschools his kids and three excelled in the U.S. Naval Academy.  Not bad.

How did they do it?  Certainly parental diligence matters above all else, but it helps to have tutors.

Think Big Tutoring is a tutoring company that empowers parents to have the confidence to make any choice they want.  You have seen their link in the upper left corner of our site.  Parents choosing to home school but who question their ability to help their children with higher level math or science or a foreign language can pull in tutors for a fraction of the cost of private school tuition.

When it comes to raising the next generation of patriots.  Let's do our best, and think Big!

John Kerry Award: McCaskill Openly Discredits Herself

What can you conclude from the following statements uttered by the same individual?

The John Kerry-I-was-against-it-before-I-was-for-it Award winner is...

Claire McCaskill for this noteworthy performance.     

"I hate coal"

"People against coal are irresponsible"

                                                    - Senator Claire McCaskill

Jonathan Prouty from the MRP offers the following:

Less than two years after Claire McCaskill declared “I hate coal,” McCaskill today toured a coal-fired power plant in Springfield and stated that people against coal are “irresponsible.”

According to The Pitch, April 23, 2010, “McCaskill tells The Pitch that she doesn't like Missouri's reliance on dirty energy. ‘I'm no fan of coal,’ she says. ‘I hate coal.’”

Lloyd Smith, Executive Director of the Missouri GOP has his own commentary: “After voting for cap-and-trade, supporting job-killing EPA regulations that will devastate the coal industry, and declaring ‘I hate coal,’ Claire McCaskill now wants you to believe that she is a champion of affordable energy.  It’s no wonder Missourians don’t trust ‘Chameleon Claire’ McCaskill.”

How about Nukes?

Be There: Missouri Senate Repub's Set 1st Debate

Lincoln Days 2012 in Kansas City, Feb. 18th

In announcing the event, David Cole, Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party says,  “Defeating Claire McCaskill is incredibly important for the future of our state and our nation—and we have three great candidates, any of whom would make an outstanding United States Senator.”  I agree with this statement wholeheartedly and will explain why, and why I believe every patriot who is able ought to be in Kansas City.

The GOP Lincoln Day convention rotates between St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield.  For GOP party members and all conservative activists, this is the closest thing you will find to a CPAC in Missouri.  If you are not familiar with CPAC, you are not paying attention. This is a chance to meet the candidates, visit their display tables and furthermore, meet the other patriotic organizations and make life long friends.  If you talk about having an impact or are frustrated about our party being out of touch, then go touch it!

For this lifelong St. Louisan, the Kansas City location will always hold a special place.  The 2006 Lincoln Day event was the only time I held the stage as a statewide candidate.  More importantly, I was steeped in the emotion of knowing that a woman in Florida had made the monumental decision to put her new born baby up for adoption and in so doing, picked me and Gina to be the parents.  Occasions like that have a way of putting things into laser focused perspective.  So we raced from Kansas City to Florida and met our Sammy for the first time the day after the debate.

As we focus on the critical nature of this cycle, beating Obama may be the top priority, but gaining a Republican majority in the Senate is a very close second.  There is reason for optimism that we can do that without taking out Senator McCaskill, but the odds are slim if we fail.  Remember, McCaskill is the one who talks blue dog, but found Hilary too conservative, favoring instead the extreme leftist Obama in her party's primary.  Never forget that.

This may surprise some, but of all of the candidates for Senate, I have known Sarah Steelman the longest.  I first met her in 1991, when I was the president of the Capitol Area Young Republicans and her husband, David was on the steps of the Missouri Supreme Court building announcing his bid for Attorney General.  I had the pleasure of serving in the Senate with Sarah Steelman beginning 10 years later. She  is an outside the box thinker who made major marks pushing for government integrity and broadening the state's sunshine laws.  She takes an economist's view of government as did Reagan.

I have known Congressman Akin the best.  He and I commuted to Jefferson City together many times as State Represntatives.  I consider him a friend and mentor.  He is a true patriot who loves this country as much as amyone.  I wish he was more of a fighter than a bomb thrower, but he is pretty good at both when he wants to be.  He will ocasionally cast a vote that bothers me, but I never doubt his integrity.  Home schooling six kids and sending three through the Naval Academy to become warriors for our nation is no small feat and shows priority balance.

I do not know John Brunner, and that may be my biggest complaint about him.  Through all my years of activism and 14 years holding office in the city he and I shared, I do not recall meeting him.  He will tell you he was busy building his business.  Fine, but the son of the patriot Jack Brunner who was very active, should appreciate why primary races and getting involved is so important.

For those conservatives wondering about John Brunner, I can tell you this.  His father picked me to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1996.  I turned down the trip to San Diego and the chance of a lifetime because I was not as far right as Jack Brunner who was requesting that I serve as a delegate for Pat Buchanon. I was a Phil Gramm guy.  You can make your own conjecture about John, but the son of Jack cannot be all bad.  Moreover, while he was largely absent from politics, Brunner did build one heck of a business, while Claire McCaskill was building her politician resume'.

You will also have a chance to meet that Indian Southern gentleman, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.  Seeing someone with that ethnicity speak with an accent closer to that of Haley Barbour than the average Missourian should be worth the trip.  Plus, I imagine he will have some inside scoop on how the POTUS mishandled and politicized the BP Oil Spill.

For additional details or to register, please visit www.mogop.org/lincolndays.

St. Louis City's Presidential Preference Primary Ballots Now Online

Missouri is holding a (mostly) meaningless Presidential Preference Primary on February 7th. It's meaningless because the national GOP declared that 2/7/2012 was too early for Missouri to vote. Missouri's delegation to the nation GOP convention will be selected during the March 17th caucus. I suppose Democrats, Libertarians, and Constitution Party voters have a reason to go to the polls on February 7th.

With that, here are links to the Presidential Preference Primary ballots:

• Democrat Feb 2012 Sample Ballot
• Republican Feb 2012 Sample Ballot
• Libertarian Feb 2012 Sample Ballot
• Constitution Feb 2012 Sample Ballot

Axiomatic Genius

A good Jewish friend of mine once answered my question as to why Jews voted so consistently for Democrats despite the abysimal record of Democrats regarding Israel.  All he could say was that their ratio of real intelligence to political intelligence represented the greatest deviation possible. 

I just received this from my friend Gary Silverman.  If you are seeking a finanical planner, I will be happy to connect you and reward him for sharing this gem.

An economics professor (sic) made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on)

Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Whitehouse.gov Setting (some) Records Right

Missouri Record: http://www.missourirecord.com/blog/index.asp?blog=689

Patrick Tuohey had a little fun with FiredUp, pointing out they got a lot of mileage out of Politifact’s lie of the year in 2010.  Touey's post was a good idea, so we took a look at other noted liberal sites who ran with the Politifact lie of the year in 2010 and list the number of times they repeat the "story".

    "Politifact" "government takeover"

    FiredupMissouri - 47 individual times
    DailyKos.com  -317
    Mediamatters.org - 422
    Talkingpointsmemo.com - 18
    crooksandliars.com/ - 1370
     thedailybeast.com/ - 29
    Npr.org –44
    CNN.com – 69 ( including several transcripts)
    HuffingtonPost.com -323
    Thinkprogress.org – 104
     Whitehouse.gov – 89 results

Now, this year’s “lie of the year,” targets Democrats claiming Republicans wanted to end Medicare, force grandpas to be strippers, and throw little old ladies off cliffs so we don’t have to pay their healthcare costs.  Don't hold your breath for Whitehouse.gov to show equal zeal for setting this story straight.

Thankfully, conservatives learned long ago that Politifact and other fact-checking sites, nonpartisan watchdogs sites like CREW,  news sites like Politico, and “moderate Republican” writers like John Cole and Andrew Sullivan are just CYA sites that bash Republicans and offer the fig leaf of once a year attack on Democrats.  It would be nice if left-wing bloggers would stick to their principles, but when Politifact and others resume normal operations. They’ll be right back on the horse, pretending.  

But it was a nice holiday gift to watch them howl.

 

 

What Newt Should have Said

The other day, Newt Gingrich hit Mitt Romney with:

If Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he's earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, then I would be glad to then listen to him. And I will bet you $10, not $10,000, that he won't take the offer.

Instead of reacting to Romney's sniping, what Newt should have said is:

I appreciate Governor Romney’s suggestion, but it would be more constructive if he first asked Barack Obama to give his house back to Tony Rezko.