Volume 12, Edition 2   •  February 9 , 2007

Lincoln Days Show GOP Strength, Unity

Register for the 2007 Missouri Lincoln Days in St. Louis by visiting www.molincolndays.com. For information about local Lincoln Days events, visit the MOGOP Event Calendar.

Strong and united Republicans are preparing to gather in St. Louis next week for the 108th annual Lincoln Days celebration, and we encourage the party faithful to join us! The three-day event that runs from Feb. 9-11 is being held at the St. Louis Hilton Frontenac and will feature an impressive list of speakers and events. The Missouri Republican Party banquet is Friday night with featured speakers including Gov. Matt Blunt, U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons and House Speaker Rod Jetton. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will be the featured speaker on Saturday at the Missouri Association of Republicans dinner. Other Saturday events include a Town Hall Forum featuring Sen. Bond, Lt. Gov. Kinder, State Treasurer Steelman, Sen. Gibbons and Speaker Jetton, along with Gov. Blunt’s Ice Cream Social, the Missouri Young Republicans State Meeting and the state Pachyderm Meeting featuring noted Republican author Michael Zak, author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party. Lincoln Days also offers an opportunity for Republicans across the state to mingle and speak one on one with our elected officials at a variety of social events throughout the weekend. Those wishing to register online for hotels and events, please visit www.molincolndays.com. We look forward to seeing you in St. Louis as we look ahead to 2008 and beyond.

Governor’s Health Plan Lauded Across State

Governor Blunt took his bold plan to improve health care in Missouri to several parts of the state recently with positive results. The Governor has set a high standard for health care for low-income Missourians with his MO HealthNet initiative which was necessary given the soaring costs of the old Medicaid system. Even the liberal media has been forced to embrace the new plan.

Missourians to Get Help With Utility Bills

Governor Blunt has long been committed to helping low income Missourians and the Utilicare bill is another example of that. The Missouri House has agreed to add $6.3 to the program, which helps people weatherize their homes to improve energy efficiency and pay utility bills. When the Senate follows suit, the money will be added to the $42.5 million in federal funding so that poor people don’t have to choose between heating their homes or buying food. Thanks to the Governor’s leadership last year, the Legislature approved a $6.1-million emergency supplemental appropriation to fully fund Utilicare for more than 12,000 low-income households.

Governor Seeks to Protect Uninsured Hit by Storms

Governor Matt Blunt is continuing his commitment to Missourians affected by devastating winter storms. The Governor has announced the creation of joint assessment teams that will begin looking at uninsured losses and the economic impact to businesses from the recent winter storms in 38 counties and the City of St. Louis. The joint damage assessment teams are made up of local officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), and Small Business Administration (SBA) representatives. The team will look at information collected by the local governments and will canvas areas with local officials. That information will be used to see what federal resources will be available to help citizens and businesses recover from the recent storms. The Governor is encouraging Missourians who have suffered uninsured losses or any businesses who have suffered economic losses to submit the information to their local city or county officials. The information will be given to the joint teams when they visit each of the 38 counties. The 38 counties the teams will canvas are: Barry, Barton, Benton, Boone, Callaway, Camden, Cedar, Christian, Cole, Crawford, Dade, Dallas, Dent, Franklin, Gasconade, Greene, Hickory, Jasper, Laclede, Lawrence, Lincoln, Maries, McDonald, Miller, Montgomery, Newton, Osage, Phelps, Polk, Pulaski, St. Charles, St. Clair, St. Louis, Stone, Texas, Warren, Webster, and Wright, along with the City of St. Louis.

Governor Touts Successes Fighting Meth

In his first year in office in 2005, Gov. Matt Blunt promised Missourians that legislation cracking down on the scourge of methamphetamine would help improve the lives of those families affected by the highly addictive drug. The Governor has kept that promise. A report released this week by the Missouri State Highway Patrol showed an amazing 40 percent decrease in meth labs since the anti-meth legislation became law less than two years ago. Figures from the Highway Patrol show there were 1,200 fewer meth lab incidents last year than in 2005. The anti-meth law from 2005 restricts the sales of products containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine and relocates them behind pharmacy counters. Individuals are also now required to show photo identification before purchasing products containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine and are limited to how much of the products they can purchase each month. Under the law, pharmacies are required to maintain purchase logs and make them available for inspection to law enforcement officers.

AARP Lets Down Seniors

The AARP angered many of its members recently when it publicly opposed a proposal backed by the Governor that would exempt Social Security payments from state income taxes. For an organization that is supposed to look out for the best interests of elderly Missourians, the AARP’s radical stance makes no sense. Missouri seniors have worked their entire lives and contributed to our state in a variety of ways and allowing their Social Security payments to be taxed is nothing more than a slap in the face. There have been numerous reports that many members of the AARP in Missouri have rebuked the organization’s stance. To read about this outrageous attack on Missouri seniors, click here.

McCaskill’s Hypocrisy, Bad Bookkeeping

Claire McCaskill made a career out of lying to Missourians during the most recent campaign, but now that she’s in Washington, she doesn’t seem to care much about what she told people she would do if elected. And the media is calling her on it. McClatchy Newspapers reports that while McCaskill “won election last year with a populist campaign bashing special interests and corporate lobbyists,” she invited dozens of lobbyists from major agricultural, pharmaceutical and tobacco companies to a fundraiser this week seeking $1,000 per political action committee and $500 per individual. In a not-so-unusual twist, the host of the fundraiser is Blackwell Sanders, a law and lobbying firm that Richard Martin, McCaskill's former campaign manager, just went to work for. Meanwhile, McCaskill’s recently-named chief of staff, Sean Kennedy, spent two years as a lobbyist. McClatchy also found that while McCaskill “has called for more transparency in lobbying, but she didn't allow a reporter to attend,” the fundraiser. But there’s more, of course. The Kansas City Star Buzz Blog reports that the Federal Elections Commission believes McCaskill may have accepted “excessive and/or prohibited donations from 19 people in the final weeks of the 2006 elections.” Meanwhile, McCaskill has smugly dismissed setting up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest that may arise from her family’s vast financial interests while she serves in the Senate. McCaskill also chose to vacation in Bali instead of attending freshman orientation for new Senators and is actively seeking to avoid federal campaign finance laws to pay off a campaign loan from her failed run for governor in 2004. This should be inspiration for all of us to work harder and smarter so that people of integrity are elected to public office.

Editorial Calls Nixon Commercial ‘Distasteful’

The Kansas City Star’s Steve Kraske and KY3’s Dave Catanese took turns recently mocking Republicans for pointing out that Jay Nixon’s response to the State of the State Address was motivated by pure politics. Kraske’s rhetorical comment was: “Duh,” while Catanese’s more sophomoric comment was: “No? Really!” Unfortunately, only the Springfield News-Leader took the time to actually engage in journalism and carefully analyzed the tone and character of Nixon’s commercial, which is dubbed both “distasteful” and “disappointing”. While blogolists often prefer pithy comments to actually doing their job as reporters, as it appears was the case with Kraske and Catanese, it is good to know that some still actually practice journalism in Missouri. So, without further, delay, here is the link to the News-Leaders’ dead-on assessment of Nixon’s first official campaign commercial.

 
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