24thState

MO House Representatives Vote 7-2 For Free Speech

Mike Pence of Indiana put forth an Amendment to HR 2829, an amendment that stated that no federal money would be used to try to bring back the Orwellian named "Fairness Doctrine," forcing broadcast stations to air opposing views as decided by the federal government.

The Fairness Doctrine was repealed back in the 80's, and the result was the explosive success of Talk Radio, led of course by Rush Limbaugh, but also leading to Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Matt Drudge, Michael Savage, and local hosts like our very own Jamie Allman on 97.1.

So the House voted, 309-115, to support your choice of who to listen to.

7 Missouri Congressional Reps believe that you're smart enough to choose who you want to listen to.  2 decided that the evils of Talk Radio have to be regulated by know-it-alls in a bureaucracy.

Voting for Pence's Amendment - Republicans Akin, Blunt, Emerson, Hulshof, and Graves, and Democrats Carnahan and Skelton.

Voting Against Pence's Amendment - Democrats Lacy Clay and Emmanuel Cleaver.

Carnahan and Skelton represent rural districts who depend heavily on Talk Radio for their news.
Clay and Cleaver represent St Louis and KC respectively, and doubtless feel their constituents won't feel as strongly about cutting off debate.

In other words, Clay and Cleaver believe it is government's responsbility to decide you what to listen to.

Ike Skelton's Press Release Good. Skelton's Bill Bad

A couple of weeks ago, the Press Contact for Ike Skelton sent me an e-mail asking if it was okay to forward press releases to 24thstate.  The contact was polite - the e-mail was correctly worded, and I was suitably impressed so of course I agreed.  But I let her know that I wouldn't print anything I didn't find interesting.

Well, yesterday, one of those press releases was awesome.  It's not out on his website yet, but Congressman Skelton, representing the 4th District, has a nicely worded July 4th Piece about the local community of Clinton, MO.

For the week of July 2, 2007

Celebrating Our Values on the Fourth of July

           As we celebrate the anniversary of our country's birth on the Fourth of July, it is a fitting time to reflect on the values our society has fostered.  I have often spoken of the innate goodness I find in the people of rural Missouri. A recent event provides a poignant anecdote which illustrates my faith in the kindness of Missourians.                  

A Message To Ted Kennedy

A Thank You To Senators Bond And McCaskill

Cloture Fails! Amnesty Bill Down In Flames!

The American people have spoken, and it looks like the Senate listened - 46-53.  And yesterday, everyone was worried about a one or two vote total.  That's big news, and a rousing victory for the American people.

But wait!  The problems the bill meant to address are not done, and it's time our government started working on fixing them.

1) Fix the Backlog:  Hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants who have played by the rules are waiting to emigrate to the US, but lack the background checks to do so.  The Bush Administration should put resources into

2) Increase Legal Immigration:  We are a nation of immigrants - the hope of the world.  Let's work to improve the flow of legal immigration to this country, allowing those who want to assimilate, to take our values and make them their own, come here for a better life.  If Republicans are smart, they will work to improve in small measures the ability of legal immigrants to come here.

3) Secure the Borders:  Build the fence.  Improve security.  Beef up the Border Patrol.  Stop allowing Mexican drug runners and paramilitary to shoot at our agents with impunity.  A nation that cannot control its borders, cannot survive.

4) Crack down on Business employing illegal aliens.  We know who they are, and it's not particularly hard to find them, if there is a will.  Find the most egregious abusers, and raid them, the same way the government does every time it wants to be seen as tough on enforcement.  Build the systems to verify Social Security numbers.

5) Reach out to the immigrants that are here legally and assimilate them.  Make English a requirement.  Work to improve the lives of the people are here and get them to understand that being American is not a geographical statement, but a values-based statement.

6) Deport those who preach sedition and revolution.  If you want to reclaim California and Arizona for Mexico, you don't belong in my country.

7) Find criminals and deport them. 

7) Hold the Mexican government accountable.  Let's not allow Mexican diplomats the satisfaction of helping Mexican citizens sue the Border Patrol for trying to stop illegal immigration.  Someone needs to sit down our southern friends and say, "No More Nonsense." 

There are serious problems caused by the unchecked flow of illegal immigration into this country for tweny years.  Let's begin to deal with them, and help those that are here assimilate.  Our goal is to improve the country, not wall it off from the rest of the world.  To do that - we have to both improve our legal immigration policies, and enforce our border controls.  We don't need a new law - we need to enforce the laws already on the books.

Thank you Senator Bond and Senator McCaskill.

Un-American Law Firm Gives To Arlen Specter

Lawrence Leibowitz, the Director of Marketing for Cohen & Grigsby now best known for teaching companies how to NOT HIRE AMERICAN WORKERS, is a donater to Senator Arlen Specter, (R-PA).

In 2004, Leibowitz gave $750 to Arlen's campaign, in two different amounts, as well as various donations to Cohen & Grigsby, which would have been disbursed elsewhere.

Arlen Specter voted for cloture on Tuesday, and is probably going to vote for it on Thursday.

Open Secrets has the information.  I wonder who else from the firm will turn up?

It seems that over $100,000 in PAC Contributions has been donated, all to Republicans, from the law firm of Cohen & Grigsby.

Does anyone have any questions why Republicans in the Senate are voting to let this immigration bill pass?  They are bought and paid for by lawyers who teach companies how not to hire US Workers.

I notice that Lindsey Graham's top contributor was a law firm too, Nelson Mulins, eta l.  They have an immigration practice. Perhaps we ought to be calling them up and asking them if they are anything like Cohen & Grigsby.

As an added legal service, Nelson Mullins attorneys conduct employer immigration compliance audits and structure the suspense database for tracking employment and presence status under immigration law for both foreign nationals and U.S. citizens.

Nelson Mullins offers seminars and training programs that allow companies to monitor compliance and equip human resource managers to respond to the needs of an international labor force.

The Nelson Mullins Immigration Law Practice is positioned to assist companies with current immigration programs and to prepare them for the rapidly changing environment of the application and enforcement of U.S. immigration law.

Always follow the money.  If McCain And Graham and Specter and the rest of them won't listen to the will of their constituents, maybe we should be spending more time paying attention to who is giving them money, and what that buys.

Jobs Americans Won't Do? Another Myth Exploded

The law firm of Cohen and Grigsby has conviently made a huge mistake right before the immigration debate. 

In a marketing seminar in Pennsylvania, the Director of Marketing, Lawrence Leibowitz, walks us through how to hire H1-B employees - namely by going through the motions to pretend to hire US workers, but disqualifying each and every one until you have complied with the letter of the law. 

But don't take my word for it.

---

Businessweek has more:

[O]ur goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker," says Lawrence Lebowitz, director of marketing for the Pittsburgh law firm Cohen & Grigsby, before an audience of employers at the firm's conference. The seminar provides details on how employers can meet the government's requirements for the Permanent Labor Certificate program (PERM), which lets employers sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency if they can demonstrate no U.S. worker can fill a job. The trick, according to Cohen & Grigsby attorneys, is to only go through the motions of hiring Americans without ever intending to.

Is this what Bush has in mind when he says jobs Americans won't do?  This deals with H1-B's, which are the most talented portions of the immigrant pool - and not the illegal immigrants that are being offered amnesty on Thursday by John McCain, Jon Kyl, and Lindsey Graham, and Teddy Kennedy.

But this goes to the root of the problem.  The system is broken - and the people running it don't care if it affects American workers. 

MO Republicans Forced To Cheer Democrat, Boo Republican

The amnesty bill moved forward yesterday, but the important cloture is on Thursday.

And Missouri Republicans are very, very confused.

Claire McCaskill, our freshman senator and a Democrat, voted "no" to cloture, which would have stopped the bill in its tracks.  The Politics Blog gives us McCaskill's strong answers supporting her stand coming from Adrianne Marsh, her spokesperson.

McCaskill might be playing a game, but she says all the right things, and she's voting appropriately.  My God, if the woman keeps it up, I'm going to be in pickle during her next election.  Strong on earmarks, doesn't cut funding for the troops, strong on illegal immigration. If more Democrats were like her, they would own 3/4's of the House and Senate.  I can't believe I just said that.

But let's go on to Senator Bond.

Kit Bond, a Republican against the bill, voted "yes" on cloture.  Politics Blog gives his reasons.

He wants the public to know what a bad bill it is.

Senator Bond.  We know it's a bad bill.  Everyone knows its a bad bill.  The government can't get passports for its citzens, or fix the backlog of LEGAL immigratns, and this stinking mess of an illegal immigration bill wants to throw another 12 million people into the system?

Bond's answers scare me.  He has provided enough wriggle room to get out his vote, but he shouldn't think that voting for cloture and against the bill will cut it with Missouri voters.

Thursday's Cloture vote is the Vote.  What will our senators do?

Apparently, Registering Your Dog Is A Felony

From Seattle, we finally have proof of vote fraud.  A King County woman got fed up with the shenanigans that occur each year in King County Elections {cough} Dino Rossi {cough}, and decided to show the state exactly how poor their voter registration rules were.

She added her dog as an adopted son on her utility bill, and then used the bill as proof for her dog to get a ballot.  For three elections, she received a ballot and mailed it in (she wrote the word void, on it, and put a paw print as a signature).

I guess the third time was a charm, because a detective showed up and arrested her for vote fraud.

I'm glad I didn't try this - I told my wife I was going to do this for St Louis, but apparently, the only vote fraud crime you can get caught for is one where you admit your guilt ahead of time.

Now - I wonder what would have happened if the woman had just mailed the ballot in without signalling that is was a fraud?  How many elections could she have voted in?

Personally, I think the woman should get a medal.  Vote fraud is real.  It's just that no one cares about it until the election results are close.

For those who don't know who Dino Rossi is - check out the archives for soundpolitics.com.  He's the Republican who won the 2004 election, only to have it overturned by a series of recounts (we'll keep counting until the Democrat wins).

More after the jump from wikipedia.

MO Republicans Going To Branson

The Columbia Politics Blog tells us that the 2008 MO State Republican convention will be held in Branson.

I remember Branson.  My parents took me there as a child.  All I can remember is a rollercoaster, but I wonder if I'm mixing that up with Six Flags?

Now that would be worth catching a picture.  Imagine Matt Blunt and Pete Kinder on a rollercoaster with their hands thrown up in the air, screaming for all they're worth.

Kit Bond would walk out with some funnel cake, and Sam Graves would have sticky fingers from cotton candy.

And the Post-Dispatch would run the headline, Republican Lawmakers Play While Citizens Suffer From Draconian Policies."