That's right folks, Governor Jay Nixon has decided to appoint me, your loyal editor, as the state's go-to-guru on small business. There's no press conference to announce the fact, and I don't get a title, or a paycheck, or even a hint of acknowledgement, but this Forbes article pretty clear lays out my small business stimulus plan (which I not so coincidentally sent in to the governor's office) as a way to use stimulus money to create new jobs in Missouri.
"Nixon's proposal is unique in at least a couple of ways, partly
because it would use federal money to bolster Missouri's competition
with other states for new jobs.
The plan also is unusual because
it does not rely on the state's existing tax credit programs. Instead,
it would use a budget bill to establish a $100 million pool of money
for new or expanding companies and an additional $100 million pool to
invest in small businesses and emerging technology companies...
As proposed by Nixon's administration, no project could receive more
than $10 million from the $100 million pool for new or expanding
businesses. Companies would have to pledge to create at least 100 jobs
within five years, with a projected positive affect on state tax
revenues.
The amount that any company could receive would depend
partly on the salaries and benefits paid by the employer, with a
maximum of up to $50,000 per job. The money could be provided as
forgivable loans of through several other methods.
Nixon's
administration estimated the pool of money could help create about
4,000 jobs, based on an average incentive of just over $25,000 per job."
So what are we to do? How about block grants to small businesses to
hire? If we have to spend money (I'm not convinced of it), give it to
small businesses and watch them create jobs. Here's an example. I
need to hire employees to grow my business, but I'm not willing to take
the risk of training people who may or may not work out when cash flow
could bankrupt me. I contract out to part-time workers because the
risk of hiring a full-time worker is too high.
Give me
$80,000. I'll hire two employees, pay them well - pay their health
insurance, and spend a year training them. My investment is lost time,
but my potential reward is two employees who could help me grow my
business. At the end of the year, if I've done my job, I can assume
the full risk of employment, and I've just taken two people off the
unemployment rolls and retrained them as skilled knowledge
professionals. It's short-term, it's targeted, and it shifts the
burden over to employers after the first year...
Rates of pay could be established based on the work being done, but you
can shoot for an average total compensation of $50,000 per job. You
could make it a $300,000,000,000 one time expense, and you've just
added 6,000,000 jobs to the economy in the first year, trained new
workers (construction, mechanics, marketers, accounting), and you've
actually done some good. It's not a perfect plan, and it only works if
it's temporary (permanent government grants for employers is a very bad
idea), forcing people to adjust quickly.
Now I'm no fan of Jay Nixon, but I have to say it was pretty smart of his staff to take the idea of a "gasp" conservative and focus on job creation. The unique nature of the proposal is that it takes little paperwork, isn't a tax credit, and goes right to the heart of the problem - businesses are afraid to hire. If we're going to spend money, this is the best use of it.
So kudos to Governor Nixon. He may not be able to say he got the idea from a filthy capitalist, but you my faithful readers know the truth.
Got back from the tea party - somewhere between 7-10,000 people filled Keiner Plaza, an astounding number considering that it was 6:30 on a Wednesday and elections won't be held for 18 months. The crowd was diverse, but the sentiment was clear - Washington is a poor steward of the economy, and if we want to preserve our freedoms, we need to clean house.
Bill Hennessey, Kevin Jackson, Dana Loesch (who gave a rousing firebrand speech), Gina Loudon and Jim Hoft spoke, and the crowd was polite, but firm in their determination. I know liberals and our own @clairecmc are confused - they think that the paltry dollars handed out as "tax cuts" should pacify the crowd. They still don't get it. It's not taxes - it's about firing 100 or so Congressional representatives who can't be bothered to read the bills they vote on, no matter how many trillions they are borrowing and spending.
I'll leave you with this - plenty of families were there, and plenty of children. While we could work on our chants and protests (or move to more direct action), this photo sums it up.
If Congress is going to act like children, we're going to give them a timeout.
Curious about the crowd size? Here's a panorama, and one from the reverse side after the jump.
It is rare that men have to be courageous in life. Despite what we wish to believe, courage of the kind that transforms lives is rarely needed, and the courage to alter a society is almost nonexistent. This is not a tragedy – it is the truth of all human life. We adapt and move on, and very little of what we experience radically alters our perspective. That has been the real story of the human experiment, and it is more true today of modern America than at any point in human history. It is our great fortune that violence and death and great natural disasters rarely touch the majority of us here in the United States. It’s the reward of being lucky enough to be born into a time and place where such things are noteworthy for their presence, not their absence. We are safe, wrapped in a cocoon of luxury and health undreamt of before the end of time. Most of us cannot fathom the normalcy of losing half of our children to illness, or the burning of our towns and the rape of our women with no hope of rescue from our enemies. We don’t watch our parents die from dirty water, or watch our children starve as our food withers away in a harsh sun. We are after all, civilized, and in our hubris, we imagine it is our innate goodness, and not the sacrifice of our ancestors that brought us such freedom.
In the absence of great moments in a man’s life where character is harshly molded, we’ve had to settle for the unrelenting grind of small, courageous acts. Only a small portion of the United States is involved in the dangerous business of courage. Firefighters, police officers, and soldiers exhibit physical courage that conquers fear to help others, but the rest of us settle for the salve of soft words. We’ve come to believe that courage is surviving. Courage now means going to work, protecting your family financially, and doing the little things like changing diapers and taking out the trash and not leaving when times are tough. Courage means paying your bills, saving a little for a vacation, and voting twice every four years. Is that courage?
Small events make up the fabric of life, and perhaps that fabric is torn these days, as fathers and mothers comfort each other that doing what they are supposed to do is noble, and not necessary. As with clean water and food, we mistake abundance as a reason to live lives of quiet desperation. Keep your head down, try to amass as much as you can, and always save for the future. Risk is only risk of failure. Like trust fund children, we know that we can’t face total destruction, and so we assume that losing our possessions is the end of our existence. To be courageous, one must only survive and accumulate. In a country and a culture where temptations beckon, courage is defined as not being a supremely self-centered narcissist.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Our ancestors would be proud of what they created in this country. Knowing that their efforts created such richness is surely a source of pride, if indeed the dead have pride. Knowing that your children’s children’s children won’t suffer like you did is the driving force of a culture. You share in the success of your descendants, and their comfort is your contribution to the world.
But let us not say this is courage. Courage isn’t working to better yourself. Courage isn’t performing the tasks that help you accumulate a retirement account or a second house or an estate to pass on to your children. Courage is defending your right to do these things, and the rights of others to improve their lot. Courage is the willingness to give up all that you have for a purpose greater than yourself. In the absence of life-threatening events, courage means risking your possessions so your children and their children can have theirs.
Despite what you hear from our Attorney General, America is not a nation of cowards. We do not lack courage. We lack leadership. It is not the people who lack courage, it is the civic and business leaders who have decided to go along with the intrusion of federal power. It is the CEO’s of the auto companies, and the oil companies, and the insurance companies, and the telecom companies, and all of the other industries facing nationalization and censure who refuse to stand up to an increasingly belligerent political elite who are the cowards. Having accumulated so much, they agree to lay down with the wolves in power in the hopes they will be the last ones eaten.
Has this always been the case? Where are the best of us who would never bow in fealty to a Congressman wielding the power of the subpoena? Where are the executives who stand up and tell Congress to get out of the way and let America fix its own problems? The appeal of a John Galt is not that he withdrew. It’s that he stood up and told the parasitic elite they were wrong. Where are these courageous men who know their work is the lifeblood of the nation? Who are the men who will stand up and say that class warfare and populist rage are tools to shift power from an economic elite to a political one? Where are the leaders who demand freedom, and not chains?
I have met those leaders, and they are not to be found in Washington. They are the men and women of the Tea Parties. They are business owners, and grandmothers, and college students and former Democrats and former Republicans who recognize the growth of governmental power and arrogance is a symptom of societal decay. They recognize that those who claim to work for you will later demand payment for work on your behalf. They recognize the value of a man’s work is in his voluntary contribution to his family and community, not his forced contribution to the treasury.
Courage is recognizing that the Tea Party protests on April 15th are the waking of American greatness.
And yet, we are beset on all sides by fools. Simple men who prefer chains to fresh air and sunlight call us extremists to poison our resolve. They insult us as useful rubes and greedy misers to sap our will. They hope to prevent you from recognizing that you are not alone. Sycophants to the powerful are terrified of your strength, and if you think lies and online attacks are bad, wait until they are confronted with hundreds of thousands of us demanding a return to fiscal sanity and constitutional limits on federal power.
“Why,” they bleat? “Why now?” “Why protest so soon after the November elections?” The answer is simple. It took the election of an untested state senator and a merry band of arrogant leftists to remind us that freedom and liberty must be preserved in each generation. We slept, and practiced surviving, and far too many of us thought we were good enough and smart enough and lucky enough to keep what we had, at the expense of common sense, virtuous leadership, and moral fiber.
We sleep no more. Hope and Change quickly were unmasked as the same old practiced despair of the elite. Barack Obama and his Democratic majorities have shown themselves even less competent than the Bush Administration and the Republican party. Throwing the bums out and replacing them with more bums from another party solves nothing. It’s time the American people reasserted themselves as the sole voice of authority in politics. Politicians work for us. It’s about time they remembered that.
So I say to you fellow citizen, come join us, not in protest, but in certainty. We surround them, and all that is needed is courage.
Courage. That is the rallying cry of the free. Courage.
Missourians For Fair Electric Rates has been surprisingly silent as of late. This "broad-based" coalition of concerned citizens who generated thousands of calls to the state capitol has seemingly decided that all of their work has been in vain, and melted into the shadows. So what happened to the "Truth Tour?" Were they successful? Was the truth freed?
I of course am being sarcastic. For those who sadly still read Paul Krugman, MFFER is what true astroturf campaigns look like, and it's exactly the pattern followed by Missourians for Fair Elections (run by Laura Egerdal (now a government employee), Julie Terbrock, and Jeff Mazur (also now a government employee)) last year.
17 long days since the site has been updated. If it were just the matter of Erin not having time because she was a volunteer, that would be one story. I understand that. But Erin Noble is paid by the left wing group Missouri Coalition for the Environment, which is one of those "endorsers" featured on the nocwip.org website. The site was launched and paid for, if only for the domain name. Was that on a business credit card from a wind power company, or a money order laundered through a paycheck cashing office on the Hill? Inquire, minds, we want to know!
This isn't news, of course. This is so March 2009. But it does follow the pattern I predicted it would, which is activity, press releases, media attention, phone calls, and then silence. The only thing left step is to figure out what government office Erin will get as a reward. Maybe Robin Carnahan will have something for her if she wins the Senate seat next year. After all, Missouri taxpayers should be paying left wing radicals to work in their government offices. Isn't that the whole point of the progressive movement?
The Democratic Governors Association held a meeting in Georgia for the Master's. There's no word on whether Jay Nixon attended, or really any Democratic governor. Strange, isn't it? Here's a meeting of the Democratic governors, and no one wants to talk about it. Who went? From what I hear, it was exciting, and I'm pleased that if Nixon indeed was at this Democratic Governors Association meeting, he at least got to relax and watch the Masters.
Still it is strange that there's a total media blackout. In fact, the only reason I know about it is Dan Riehl caught a press release from the Iowa Governor that he was attending the Master's to cheer on Iowa golfers (who didn't make the cut). Did the Iowa governor go alone? Don't worry, Missourians, the trip, if it occurred, was paid for by campaign contributions. We can assume that Ameren wasn't on the list, but I am curious who did pay.
I am curious how any Democrat could ever go to Augusta after the 2002 war on the Master's by the New York Times and other media outlets. Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but wasn't the biggest event in golf a sign of discrimination against women because the club doesn't allow female members? Is that only a story when a Republican was president?
Regardless, it would be nice to see some enterprising journalist check with the governor's office and find out if Nixon did go, and if so, who provided the corporate tents, lodgings, and cocktail parties for him to attend. If he didn't go, will he be heading to the May event, at the Kentucky Derby? I hear it's open for sponsorship. Would the governor's office be interested in a few bucks chipped in from 24thstate? I'm sure I could put out a Paypal donation event to scrape up enough funds to buy at least one mint julep.
Are you ready students? Your kind teacher has decided to lecture you on how stupid you are. It's clear you've been listening to those nasty bloggers who make things up, so Teacher McCaskill is going to give you a pop quiz.
1. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is commonly referred to by which of the following nicknames?
a) Bailout
b) Appropriations
c) Stimulus
d) Budget
Great question! The correct answer is c), as defined by Washington (Of course, the answer is actually given down at the bottom at question 10). $800 billion in spending is a STIMULUS, because politicians don't want to admit they are "bailing out" the economy. If this truly is stimulus, how come so much of it is spent in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and seems to reward Democrats who gave money to elect other Democrats?
Also, has the Teacher or her staff bothered to read the bill yet? How does McCaskill know what's in it?
2. True or False: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
contained an earmark for a project that would build a light rail system
from Disneyland to Las Vegas.
a) True
b) False
McCaskill says this is false. It's a game. See, the funds weren't specifically marked for the light rail system. The were added to a discretionary budget. Who put that $8 billion in? Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, who wants a light rail system from LA to LV. Don't my word for it.
During final stimulus talks, as Obama worked with congressional
negotiators to pare popular provisions, including a middle-class tax
cut, one notable measure was added: $8 billion to fund high-speed rail.
The culprit was Reid, who will face reelection in 2010 and has
championed a bullet train between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Of course, Rahm Emmanuel is taking the heat for this one. The Democrats have learned that it's painful to have a Majority Leader lose their seat (Daschle), and are putting all stops behind it not happening again. Here's the truth. $8 billion made its way into the STIMULUS from a meeting of Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid, who champions the light rail as a good investment.
3. What is the percentage of American families who will receive a tax cut under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?
a) 15%
b) 25%
c) 72%
d) 95%
Claire says d). Keep this in mind when Democrats talk about tax cuts. One - Over 40% of the country pays no income tax (the tax the federal government plays with). Right from the beginning, 40% can't have tax cuts because they pay no taxes. Those are tax credits, otherwise known as cash, which are no different than welfare payments. Second, throwing in a bunch of "tax cuts" when you can't pay for them leads to things like Inflation increases and long-term debt. The massive spending pushed in the last sixty days is a tax on all of us, but when someone gives you a $1, but you have to pay $10 more, they get to say they gave you a tax cut.
4. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides which of the following tax cuts or benefits?
a) $8,000 tax credit for first time homebuyers
b) $250 to Social Security recipients and disabled veterans
c) $2,500 in tax relief for the American Opportunity Tax Credit for higher education to 74,000 families
d) $400 in tax refunds for individuals and $800 for married couples through The Making Work Pay Tax Credit
e) All of the above
e) All of the above
5. True or False: The Fiscal Year 2010 Budget included over 8,000 earmarks.
a) True
b) False
True. There were over 8,500 earmarks. It's interesting to see McCaskill champion no earmarks, but vote for earmarks by another name. We see the answer in the next question. The 2010 budget was Obama's. The 2009 Omnibus was under Bush's watch. You can be sure that if McCaskill was the deciding vote, earmarks would not be an issue.
6. Of the 5 spending and budget bills passed in the Senate in the last 6 months, which did Senator McCaskill not support due to the increase in spending and high number of earmarks?
a) Troubled Asset Relief Program
b) Omnibus Appropriations Bill
c) The Budget for Fiscal Year 2010
d) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
In another one of her "principled" moderate stands, Senator McCaskill voted against the $400 billion Omnibus bill. Of course, it was convenient that six Republican Senators, including retiring REpublican Senator Kit Bond, voted for the bill, which made McCaskill's vote a throw-away. That would mean thta Sentaor McCaskill vote for almost $5 Trillion in spending, but cast a meaningless protest vote against $400 billion that was held over from last year to send to a compliant president.
7. The Troubled Asset Relief Program is commonly referred to by which of the following nicknames?
a) Budget
b) Appropriations
c) Bailout
d) Stimulus
Bailout. Like the Auto companies, AIG, Bear Stearns, and now Insurance companies.
8.The investment made to stabilize the financial markets
through the Troubled Asset Relief Program would require financial
institutions who took advantage of the program, like AIG, Morgan
Stanley, and Bank of America, to do what?
a) The financial institutions would all have to pay back the investment with interest.
b) The banks would have to invest the money in the stock market.
c) The bank executives would have to start doing community service.
d) The CEOs would have to testify before a congressional hearing.
The answer is "a." Of course, now that some banks are trying to repay the money with interest, the Obama administration is preventing them for doing so. That would have been an interesting question. When will banks be allowed to pay back TARP money? Answer: When Obama is finished with them.
"Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money
back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's
been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of
government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He
sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says
no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back,
this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with
"adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics
talking, not economics."
McCaskill is pretending the bailouts are about money that we'll see again. If that is the case, why is it that banks that want to pay us back now, can't? Any comment, Senator?
9. True or False: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contained an earmark to protect a wetlands mouse in San Francisco.
a) True
b) False
This is yet another play on words. There were no "earmarks" in the stimulus, but there was money sent in block grants and to departments who spend the money at their own discretion. That includes $50,000,000 for a wetlands project that is cited by the EPA as harmful to the habitat of the wetlands mouse.
It's like giving money to a teenager for fast food, and then claiming you didn't authorize them to spend the money at Hardee's. They could have spent it at McDonald's or Burger King.
10. True or False: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
also known as the Stimulus, contained billions of dollars in earmarks.
a) True
b) False
It's too bad this question gives away the answer to the first question. Also, there's that problem of being another one of those bold-faced lies. There were no "earmarks" in the bill. That's because the way Reid and Pelosi defined the stimulus, congresspeople didn't get to add earmarks. The bill was written in secret, and published 14 hours before it was voted on. Over $800 billion dollars spent without anyone reading it, but no earmarks? The money was just "earmarked" for states to spend as they wish. So this question is technically true. It wasn't billions of dollars in earmarks. It was hundreds of billions of dollars in funds that will be used in the exact same manner as earmarks.
Why is Claire posting this quiz? It's because she's getting hammered at her Kitchen Table Talks. People are angry, and speaking up, and so Claire posts this load of bupkus up as a way of trying to calm us down. Ultimately it shows us just little she thinks of the public.
Don't expect to see a breakdown like this in the local papers. This kind of analysis can only be seen the the blogs.
In addition to the Lee's Summit Tea Party, another Kansas City Tea Party will be held on 4/15 from 4:00 p.m to ???? It will be on the front lawn of the Liberty Memorial. They have speakers, music, a t-shirt giveaway and a Re-Frame the Constitution table where people can sign scrolls that include copies of the Constitution that will later be sent to McCaskill and Bond.
Here's a list of info concerning what's happening with it. Here's some media exposure on the 13th
6:20AM-KFKF 94.1 Interviewing the event coordinator about the KC Tea Party.
And the lineup of confirmed speakers
Rob Willard, Club for Growth TeenPactMike Ferguson, Libertarian Party Michelle Davis, American Family Association Hearne Christopher, columnist Robert Gipson, Iraq War Veteran Dee Vantuyl Dr. Darrel Drumright, Campaign for Liberty
Jacob Turk is running against Emanuel Cleaver in Missouri's 5th Congressional District, or at least he is planning if he wins the primary next year. Turk has run twice against Cleaver before in heavily Democratic years, and it seems is looking for third times a charm in 2010, with no presidential election and rising anger at the jokers who are running Washington.
I bring it up because I got an email from Turk about the Lee's Summit Tea Party. Considering how many Republican legislators have avoided these, it's a smart thing for Challengers to get on board.
Time to Start a Movement
Movements win elections and change government. It is time to gather our forces. I need you to find 20 friends you can call on short notice and get them to turn out. Crowds garner media attention and bring other activists to our side. Movements inspire folks to be involved and we need folks involved now.
Tea parties are being set up across the metro area and we need to show up. These tea parties will be the first events we will lend our people power to make successful. Over the next year and a half as we march to the mid term elections and our opportunity to take back our government, we must activate, inspire, and motivate traditional minded Americans, those who believe in liberty not socialism.
Pick up the phone and make a call to action to 20 of your friends. The Lee's Summit Tea Party is April 15th Noon to 2p at City Hall. The website to track info is http://www.lstaxdayteaparty.blogspot.com/.
There two aspects to this email I really like. The first is the email isn't about Turk. He's not pushing the tea party as some invention of his - he's simply acting as someone who recognizes the tea party movement is truly grassroots, and he wants to get involved. The second things is the call to action.
Pick up the phone and make a call to action to 20 of your friends
That's what we need. We need you, the people going to the tea party, to get off your duffs and start asking everyone you know to join you. If you're worried about trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, irresponsible spending slated towards special interests and not economic growth, or the mad rush towards restricting liberty through government control, now is the time to act. Find the tea party in your area, and bring your family and friends down. You're not an activist? You think I am? I write late at night when everything else is done. I have no more time than you, but I'm going to be there.
If you're in Kansas City, be sure to check out this tea party - and if Cleaver is your congressman, check this out.
2.7 Billion Dollars in earmark requests. Trillions spent in stimulus, and Cleaver wants another 2.7 billion for pet projects. If anyone needs a tea party wakeup, it's this guy. Good Luck, Mr. Turk.
I can't believe what I just saw. The President of the United States is caught on film bowing like a servant to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The picture you see is proof positive that Barack Obama, who just a day before met the Queen of England and gave only a polite nod, thought it a good idea to bend his knee to a foreign ruler.
Americans, especially American Presidents, don't bow to royalty. American Presidents who have sworn a holy war on the ghastly evil of carbon emissions really shouldn't be scraping and bowing to a Saudi King. There is no excuse for this.
Notice he does a full bow, with his right leg going back to support his weight as his knee bends. Bending your knee is a supremely different bow then bending from the waist. It's a practiced bow you give to a man you consider your superior. It's not a sign of respect. It's a sign of subservience.
Go ahead and try it yourself. Bow from the waist. Then bow as our President did. Not so easy, is it?
Obama did not bow to the Queen of England. I'd lay good money with odds that he wouldn't bow to the Emperor of Japan. Why in the world would he genuflect to a foreign king? And why isn't the American media up in arms at this?
Make no mistake about it. This story may be ignored by a fawning press more interested in Michelle Obama's clothes than Obama's bows, but the Arab Press will be treated to hundreds of views of the American President bowing in subservience to the Saudi King.
Here's another angle. This one has lefty commenters claiming he dropped something, or perhaps that he bowed down because of his great height (Obama is a little under 6'2", King Abdullah is 5'6"). I can shake my wife's hand without bending from the waist and lowering my knee, and I'm a foot taller than her, but nice try.
Some people will tell you this is a sign of respect. They think it's a cultural thing in the Middle East. It's not. Bowing to your king is a sign of respect (and also of fear). Reciprocal bows in Asia are signs of respect. In Japan, if you bow and the other person doesn't, it's considered a sign of dominance.
Care to see an example? This is a meeting between the prime minister of Malaysia and the King of Thailand. Notice they are performing small, polite, reciprocal bows. That's a sign of respect.
Compare that with Obama's obsequious genuflection to a man whose laws officially do not allow other religions to worship publicly.
This is a country where homosexuals and adulterers can be executed.
It was bad enough when Bush held hands with the Saudi king. Holding hands in Arab cultures is a sign of friendship. It's proper protocol, even if it turns our stomach that we do so only because oil spills from Saudi sands.
But bowing before another head of state, especially a royal one? Bowing to a King whom we protected from invasion by Saddam Hussein? In addition to being offensive to freedom loving people, it's dangerous. World leaders are laughing behind their hands at Obama. They would never bow to the Saudi King. Obama just proved himself weak on the world stage. That's a very dangerous thing for an American President to do.
Need one more picture? Take a look at Iran's President, Ahmadinejad,
meeting King Abdullah. Unless he is insulting the king, it seems a
handshake between a President and King are perfectly acceptable.
2 months in, and Obama makes George W. Bush look like a fiscal conservative and a diplomatic genius.
Churchill had it right. The American people always do the correct thing, after they have tried everything else.
Curious about whether Obama is really bowing? He is. Video makes it quite clear.
You need to be at the St Louis Tea Party April 15th. You need to organize, and coordinate and stand up now. 2010 is too far away.
24th State is named for Missouri, the nation's political bellwether which has the honor of being the 24th state admitted to the union.
From Springfield to Kirksville, from Kansas City to St Louis, we cover the state's news, views, politics, rumors, and elections.
The site is a group blog, run by average citizens from across Missouri with a desire to get involved in the political process. The Editorial Board is a mix of Tea Party members writing collectively.
