In 1949, George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four to warn of the dangers of totalitarian governments — the sort that he saw cropping up in Spain and Russia during that period. He wrote of a harsh world where truth becomes fungible. The all-powerful, all-seeing Big Brother controls everything. Thought police weed out dissension. Facts and history are altered to meet the needs of the party in power.

Little did Orwell know he might be describing the United States in the second decade of the 21st century.

Over the course of the past year, the Republican party has chosen to downplay the events of January 6. A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found about two-thirds of Republicans viewed the attack as not violent or only somewhat violent. Yet overall, about two-thirds of Americans described the day as violent or very violent.

Immediately after January 6, Republican leaders denounced the insurrection. On January 19th, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the President and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.” House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said, “The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”

But before long, the back-pedaling began. The landscape of reality for Republicans quickly began to change. Impeachment efforts were blocked. So were attempts to establish a bi-partisan commission to investigate the attack. McCarthy is now refusing to testify before the January 6 commission, despite previously having agreed to do so.

Throughout 2021, Republican members of Congress downplayed the events of January 6. For example, Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde (R) characterized the attack as a “normal tourist visit.” And now the Big Lie — the claim of a stolen election — continues to gain traction. Of course, the former President is beating the drum the loudest. But plenty of others are joining the parade.

Republican legislatures are working hard to limit voting rights, all under the guise of preventing another “stolen” election. According to a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, 30 percent of Americans say there is solid evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Among Trump supporters, 69 percent say Biden’s election was not legitimate. Numerous court cases and state election audits have proven otherwise.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell dives deep into the nature of truth and how a party in power can change it. A substitute language, Newspeak, is created to stamp out the truth of what is happening.

“There is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. “

Orwell saw a society in which the party was all-powerful. History was altered to support that.

“…the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it… All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived.”

In a Washington Post opinion piece, Ellie Silverman notes the deep divides in America. She cites remarks by Cassie Miller of the Southern Poverty Law Center: “It suggests that we’ve actually moved beyond just partisanship. Americans are living in two wildly different realities and are viewing each other increasingly as enemies that they have to contend with.”

The bending of truth is nothing new to Trump world. Think back to remarks by Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway, defending false statements about Trump’s inaugural crowd. She termed the lies “alternative facts.”

One would think the blatant alteration of facts would backfire. But it doesn’t. The facts don’t matter. It’s the emotion that counts. In a Washington Post essay, Philip Bump uses as example NPR host Steve Inskeep’s challenge to Trump regarding the audit of the vote in Arizona.

“Put succinctly, you can’t combat irrationality with reason.
When Trump defended his position by mentioning the vote result in Arizona, Inskeep pointed out that the partisan review of ballots in that state’s Maricopa County had not changed the actual result.
To a rational person, this is damning: Trump’s allies pushed for an “audit,” got one, and Trump still lost. How can you rebut that? But the point of the audit was always to codify doubt. The audit accomplished what it was intended to accomplish: Give Trump and his allies something full of “questions” to which he could point as evidence that something sketchy happened.”

Codify doubt. Create confusion. Fuel conspiracy theory. That’s the real purpose of alternative facts. This blurring of reality happens at all levels — think local school boards, social media, conversations around the family table. And now, the Republican National Committee has cast the violent January 6 insurrection as “legitimate political discourse.”

Thomas Friedman recently wrote in The New York Times about the crisis we now face. He fears we are headed for a very dark place because once “there is no more truth, only versions, and no more trust, only polarization — getting them back is almost impossible.”

Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four did not end well for its protagonist, Winston Smith. Let’s hope our ending is better.

(Updated February 8. 2022)

The post The truth is expendable appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What a bizarre month this has been.

We’ve had Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) ask if the National Forest Service might change Earth’s orbit around the sun to alter the effects of climate change. An Ohio doctor pushes the idea that the vaccines can magnetize people and make them susceptible to government monitoring — an idea readily accepted by Republican legislators there.

Now comes Rep. Ann Wagner, (R-Missouri) proposing a bill that would hold China accountable for “deliberate, reckless action that allowed the coronavirus to spread, killing millions worldwide.”

She recently warned constituents that the government must pass this legislation, “to make sure China pays for their reckless actions.”

Talk about reckless actions, I bet she can’t wait to read “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,” a new book by Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta that captures the Trump administration’s dysfunctional response to the unfolding pandemic.

The book details some of the inner workings of Trump world early on in the pandemic. We knew he wanted to block cruise ship passengers from re-entering the country. But did we know he also wanted to bar infected Americans returning from abroad? His solution: send them to Guantanamo. All to keep the COVID numbers down in the U.S.A.

The book is not without its ironic moments…

“Testing is killing me!” Trump reportedly exclaimed in a phone call to then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on March 18, yelling so loudly that Azar’s aides overheard every word. “I’m going to lose the election because of testing! What idiot had the federal government do testing?”
“Uh, do you mean Jared?” Azar responded, citing the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
– Washington Post

Trump fired key people to stifle sound scientific commentary. And, of course, he espoused ideas like using hydroxychloroquine and bleach injection. He repeatedly claimed the whole pandemic was all a hoax. He downplayed the need for masks and he failed to encourage widespread vaccination.

Crazy, right? We laughed. But Abutaleb and Paletta take a more somber view.

“One of the biggest flaws in the Trump administration’s response is that no one was in charge of the response… Was it Birx, the task force coordinator? Was it Pence, head of the task force? Was it Trump, the boss? Was it Kushner, running the shadow task force until he wasn’t? Was it Marc Short or Mark Meadows, often at odds, rarely in sync?… Ultimately, there was no accountability, and the response was rudderless”

Yeah, Ann Wagner, people need to be held responsible for making the pandemic much worse than it needed to be.

The post Strange times, reckless behavior, nightmare scenarios appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I’m a glutton for punishment. From time to time, I dip into Donald Trump’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed just to see what kind of insanity is on the menu. Recently, it seems like every time I did, there was a rash of rage about the election he lost and how unfair the world is to him.

How bad was Trump’s obsession with his election loss? Mother Jones just published a revealing tally of all his tweets since election day and the numbers are mind-boggling. Not including re-tweets, from November 3 to December 16, Trump posted 506 original tweets about his lost election. There are probably about half that many more re-tweet postings. In a recent sampling, about half of Trump’s election-related postings were flagged by Twitter as being factually disputed. A glance at the chart below paints the picture.

Contrast those 500 plus election fraud tweets to the mere 13 he has posted about the virus that has cost more than 300,000 American lives. No tweets were posted about the COVID-19 death toll.  There were only 32 tweets about the vaccine that we so desperately need.

I guess the man has his priorities, but they’re likely different than yours or mine.

The post Trump’s obsession with grievance appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Paul Krugman recently posted a piece in the New York Times, The Deadly Delusions of Mad king Donald. It likened our current state of affairs to being trapped on the Titanic. Definitely worth a read. Krugman writes thoughtful pieces, but one of the commenters, Citizen nicely summed things up with a goody making the internet rounds in April, but still worth repeating.

The post Adventures on the Titanic appeared first on Occasional Planet.

This morning’s New York Times roundup, by David Leonhart, mentioned a blog post by a Dartmouth biologist, Erin S. Bromage: The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them.  It is an excellent explanation of the role of time, airflow, viral density in spread of disease. A little math, lots of science and some references to serious papers. It contains some very practical information: basically, avoid enclosed spaces where you might spend time with other people. Worth a read.

Here are some excerpts:

    Indoor spaces, with limited air exchange or recycled air and lots of people, are concerning from a transmission standpoint. We know that 60 people in a volleyball court-sized room (choir) results in massive infections. Same situation with the restaurant and the call center.  Social distancing guidelines don’t hold in indoor spaces where you spend a lot of time, as people on the opposite side of the room were infected.

The principle is viral exposure over an extended period of time. In all these cases, people were exposed to the virus in the air for a prolonged period (hours). Even if they were 50 feet away (choir or call center), even a low dose of the virus in the air reaching them, over a sustained period, was enough to cause infection and in some cases, death.

Social distancing rules are really to protect you with brief exposures or outdoor exposures. In these situations there is not enough time to achieve the infectious viral load when you are standing 6 feet apart or where wind and the infinite outdoor space for viral dilution reduces viral load.

… When assessing the risk of infection (via respiration) at the grocery store or mall, you need to consider the volume of the air space (very large), the number of people (restricted), how long people are spending in the store (workers – all day; customers – an hour). Taken together, for a person shopping: the low density, high air volume of the store, along with the restricted time you spend in the store, means that the opportunity to receive an infectious dose is low. But, for the store worker, the extended time they spend in the store provides a greater opportunity to receive the infectious dose and therefore the job becomes more risky.

… Basically, as the work closures are loosened, and we start to venture out more, possibly even resuming in-office activities, you need to look at your environment and make judgments. How many people are here, how much airflow is there around me, and how long will I be in this environment. If you are in an open floorplan office, you really need critically assess the risk (volume, people, and airflow). … If you are sitting in a well ventilated space, with few people, the risk is low.

…If I am outside, and I walk past someone, remember it is “dose and time” needed for infection. You would have to be in their airstream for 5+ minutes for a chance of infection.

Be careful out there.

The post A little math, a lot of science: calculating COVID-19 risks appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Wow, this is going to be easy! That’s what I thought when I looked at the Trusted Traveler website. My wife and I were trying to sign up for “Known Traveler” cards and guaranteed TSA Precheck designation, which would help speed passage through airport security and customs lines.
The website encouraged us to sign up and prepay the $100 per person fee, then simply await conditional approval and schedule an interview. In our case that interview had to take place at the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) offices at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
So we signed up and paid our fees. About a week later we got word that we had been conditionally accepted. Now we had to schedule our appointment. Whoops! The soonest availability was some three months out. I guess I had blown past the alert on the website warning that “the extended partial government shutdown has resulted in a substantial backlog” of applications and renewals.
Oh well.

We made our appointments and awaited the big day of our interviews. When it finally came, we trundled off to the airport, fought the usual parking challenges and strode confidently into the CBP office. It wasn’t really an office – just a big empty lobby with locked doors all around.
We joined ten rather unhappy looking people. Most were sitting around looking bored. One was pacing and punching at his cell phone. Another was frantically working a red wall phone mounted near a locked door.

One of the calmer souls kindly told us to have a seat; she pointed to a sheet of paper on the wall that read, “The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is temporarily reducing staff at Global Entry enrollment Centers… Thanks for your patience and understanding.”
It listed weekday hours as 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM. But our appointment had been set for 11:30 AM! The other people also had morning appointments. One woman had been there since 9.

The prospects looked grim. We considered giving up the whole idea and leaving. Then we remembered the $200 we’d paid. New appointments were not being accepted until January. We agreed to wait until noon to see what would happen.

Several of the applicants had already tried knocking on the CBP door – no answer. Some had tried to call various CBP numbers – no answer. But gradually we realized we were all in this together. We began to feel the stirrings of camaraderie.

The next official person we saw would have to deal with all of us – in solidarity!
And so we waited. At 12:08, a lone CBP officer in a black uniform ambled into view, toting a soft drink and a small Igloo cooler. He was immediately set upon by everyone in the room. “What’s going on?” “We had morning appointments. 9. 10. 10:30.”

He declared that he’d accept people with appointments scheduled after noon – but none from the morning, because our appointments had been cancelled, and we should have gotten emails telling us so. “Wait, what??” No one in the room had received any such cancellation notice.

“Can’t help you,” the officer said. He explained that they were short-handed because the bulk of their staff had been “reassigned to our southern border.” But sensing a mounting fury in the room, he agreed to call his supervisor. He said she’d appear later to address our concerns. “Is there a chance we will be seen today?” we asked in unison.

He looked a little bit weary. We got the feeling this scenario had happened before. “Can’t help you, he said as he ducked into the CBP’s secure area, its automatic doors slamming and locking shut behind him.

And so we waited, again. About an hour later, the supervisor walked in. She looked like a supervisor. Sharp uniform, confident but relaxed gait, silver oak leaves on her epaulets. We all jumped up and began pelting her with questions. Calmly, she assured us that she would do everything possible to get all of us processed. Talk about grace under fire.

And she delivered. After 90 minutes, my wife and I, representing the last of the morning’s cancelled appointments, finally found ourselves sitting across the desk from the supervisor. She took our pictures and fingerprints, all the while making us feel comfortable with friendly small talk. She asked about our planned travels and patiently explained how the Known Traveler system works.
She’s been with CBP since 1997. And she’s seen it all. During the last government shutdown, her officers were required to work without pay, putting a strain on their everyday lives. And they’re currently working with short staff because so many officers are being deployed to the Mexican border. Consider too, how the reputation the of CBP has suffered for the handling of migrants at the southern border. No wonder these folks are stressed.

Even though she had to deal with frustrated and unhappy people day in and day out, this supervisor kept her cool. She got everyone processed and on their way, even though it took four hours. Despite the delay and stress, we were reminded that in even the worst of circumstances, a little kindness and respect go a long way.

[Lori Kesler contributed to this post.]

The post Customs and Border Protection thanks you for your patience appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) seems to have a thing for scary words like socialism, state-controlled healthcare, atheists, liberal professors, progressive and, gasp, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

Much of what you will find if you Google the phrase “Paid for by House Republican Campaign Committee, INC., Eddy Justice, Treasurer” will not be pretty. In fact most of the search results lead to downright nasty negative ads slamming Democratic candidates for various Missouri House races. Many of these pages have urls that look like the candidates’ official sites.

The House Republican Campaign Committee was formed as a political action committee. The official HRCC website claims that it is “Building MO’s GOP Majority Since 2004.” It’s treasurer is Eddie Justice. He’s been in that role since 2010. He was one of Eric Greitens’ nominees to the state school board. The state senate blocked him from that post.

There is no high road with the HRCC. Not even a chance of a civil conversation.
Of the web offerings by the HRCC, only three are positive sites pushing Republican candidates. At least seven are scare sites with the message that the named candidates are evil and that you should vote “NO.” No reference is made to the candidates for whom they would like you to vote.

Here’s a sampling of some of the HRCC vitriol:

Peggy Sherwin. 104th District, running against Adam Schnelting.
The 104th is in central St. Charles county. Sherwin is a retired professor and has taught newly released felons transferable skills related to re-entry into society. She has been endorsed by Missouri NEA, NARAL and various labor groups. Here is Sherwin’s real campaign site.

Using the url, peggyproblems.com, the HRCC claims:

• She’s a socialist extremist who wants government run healthcare, higher taxes, open borders and wants to take away our 2nd amendment rights.
• Peggy supported both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.

Jessica Merrick. 20th District, running against Bill Kidd (incumbent.) The 20th is near Kansas City, north of Blue Springs. She believes everyone should have access to affordable healthcare and that our public education system is drastically underfunded.  Here is Merrick’s real facebook campaign page.

Using the url, realjessicamerrick.com, the HRCC screams:

• Our faith. Our Freedom. Nothing is sacred to Jessica Merrick.
• Too Extreme. Too Far Out of Touch. Vote NO on Jessica Merrick.

Michella Skelton. 50th District, running against Sara Walsh (incumbent.)  The 50th is south of Columbia. Skelton favors paid family leave, improved healthcare for all, the rights of workers to unionize and bargain for higher wages and better working conditions. She has a long list of endorsements from a variety of progressive sources. Here is Skelton’s campaign website.

Using the url, extremistskelton.com, the HRCC declares:

• Michela Skelton’s campaign is backed and funded by liberal professors that defended Melissa Click during the campus protests that led to a decline in enrollment, lost tuition revenue and fewer jobs in our community.

Brady O’Dell. 11th District, running against Brenda Shields. The 11th is in southwest Missouri around St. Joseph. O’Dell calls himself a blue collar worker who is against “Right to Work” legislation and is for raising the minimum wage.  Here is his real campaign facebook posting.

Using the url, bradyodell.com, the HRCC claims:

• Vulgar Brady O’Dell’s progressive policies are wrong for Missouri
• Brady O’Dell wants to bring socialism to Missouri. This destructive system will kill jobs, raise taxes, and expand failing, inefficient government programs.
• Brady O’Dell clearly doesn’t like our tax cuts. Socialist Brady O’Dell will try to repeal your tax cuts and increase government spending by MILLIONS.

The HRCC has not restrained itself to web postings. They also are sending out direct mail like this one slamming O’Dell. The socialism quote allegedly came from a 2013 facebook post.

And then there’s this direct mail piece which displays masterful Photoshop work on  Mike Labozzetta who is running against incumbent Republican Jean Evans in the 99th State Rep District in St. Louis County

The HRCC mailer was an over-the-top hatchet job that made Labozzetta look like a depraved Jack Nicholson from The Shining. In reality, Mike is a friendly attorney who works with entrepreneurs, business owners, non-profits and startups. On his website, he says his goal is, “to create a government that invests in its citizens by investing in their education, in their healthcare, and in creating a diverse economy that provides opportunities for all.” Here is Labozzetta’s campaign website.

All of these targeted candidates are reasonable people with high ideals. One has to wonder if their Republican opponents are really on board with these ugly HRCC postings. When asked if she condoned the negative mailers about Labozzetta, Jean Evans stated only that she would not run negative ads and that she has no control over the ads produced by the HRCC.

If these negative offerings hold sway, it will be sad commentary on Missouri voters.

The post MO GOP PAC goes low with scary words and images appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Missouri 2018 ballot is a monster. So much to vote on, so little time: Candidates, the dreaded judges’ retentions, plus amendments to the Missouri constitution, a slew of ballot initiatives, and—in St. Louis County—several obscure amendments to the charter. We could all use some guidance, and maybe a little coaching, too. Here are links to some articles from Occasional Planet, addressing frequently asked questions about the Missouri 2018 ballot. Not comprehensive, but, we hope, useful.

THE PROPOSITIONS

Missouri Amendment 1: Cleaning up Missouri politics
October 31, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Sponsors of Missouri Amendment 1—aptly nicknamed Clean Missouri—aims to increase fairness, integrity and transparency in Missouri politics. With the length and complexity of the 2018 midterm ballot, it’s fortunate that this good-government proposal is first on the ballot, because many voters may fall victim to ballot fatigue long before they get to some of the other issues. Read more.

Gas tax [Proposition D] on MO ballot: I voted yes before I knew what I was doing
October 30, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Proposition D on Missouri’s 2018 midterm ballot asks voters whether to increase the tax on a gallon of gas. Should you vote for it? Good question. If passed, Proposition D would raise the gas tax by a total of 10 cents, over four years. I generally support tax increases, because it’s clear from the necessity of continuous cutbacks in services, Missouri government is not adequately funded. And then I read an op-ed by former Missouri legislator Joan Bray. Read more.

What are these St. Louis County charter amendments about, anyway?
October 24, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
On their 2018 ballots, many voters in St. Louis County may be surprised to encounter a quartet of proposed County charter amendments. Reading them over for the first time, they can seem obscure, and, as a result, voters may opt to skip over them. But don’t. While they may seem obtuse and “inside baseball,” the four proposals are actually worth consideration. And, incredibly, they are bi-partisan, supported by Republican and Democratic council members.
Read more

Bingo amendment on the Missouri midterm ballot
October 22, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
On November 6, 2018, nestled on the ballot between three other amendments to the Missouri Constitution, four statewide propositions and a bunch of local ballot issues, Missouri voters will find a constitutional amendment proposal about Bingo. It’s not a huge issue–a lot of us thought Bingo was settled in the 1980s–but there it is, and rather than be surprised in the polling place, you might as well know about it.
Read more

3 medical marijuana proposals on MO ballot: Compare and contrast
October 14, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
If you’re voting in Missouri on Nov. 6, 2018—and you are, aren’t you?—you’re going to find: not one, not two, but three proposals pertaining to legalizing medical marijuana. If you haven’t thought about them before you get to your polling place, you’re probably going to find them confusing. Each one has a different focus and a different tax rate attached. And you’ll have the opportunity to vote on all three of them.
Read more

THE VOTING PROCESS

Back-stage tour of election headquarters: numbers tell the story
October 28, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
A tour of St. Louis County’s election headquarters reveals lots of interesting facts. Read more.

MO voter ID update: No need for affidavits
October 22, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
The continuing, confusing saga of voter ID requirements in Missouri continues. On Friday, October 19, at 5 pm, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that voters who do not show a photo ID–but who do show a “secondary” form of non-photo ID, should be allowed to vote a regular ballot, without having to sign an affidavit. Bottom line: You can vote without photo ID in Missouri’s November 6 midterm election. Unfortunately, this news comes too late for hundreds of people who have already been trained by county election boards to be pollworkers.
Read more

How do I get a sample ballot in Missouri?
October 21, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Need a sample ballot? Many Missouri voters are worrying about the 2018 midterm ballot. We’ve been warned: It’s unusually long. It includes a slew of Constitutional amendments, propositions, County charter amendments, retention questions for state judges most of us have never heard of, and, of course, candidates for offices ranging from US Senator to local tax assessor.
Read more

Confuse the Vote: Missouri’s cockamamie Voter ID Mess
October 17, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Rock the Vote? Dance the Vote? How about Confuse the Vote? That’s the situation surrounding Voter ID in Missouri just three weeks before the November 2018 midterm election.
Read more

Confusing the vote: 2018 midterms edition
September 4, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
With a few heartening exceptions, the trend in voting rights in America is toward suppression and trickery—with just weeks to go before the crucial 2018 midterm elections. Voting rights in the Trump era is a one-step-forward-two-steps back story. And just when you think you’ve caught up on the news, another state, another county, or another White House authoritarian surprises you with a new wrinkle.
Read more

THE CANDIDATES

MO GOP PAC goes low with scary words and images
October 30, 2018. By Bill Kesler
The Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) seems to have a thing for scary words like socialism, state-controlled healthcare, atheists, liberal professors, progressive and, gasp, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Read more.

Ann Wagner has support of Sex Trafficking Advocate?
October 26, 2018. By Arthur Lieber
Well, we all make mistakes, but this is a whopper. Congresswoman Ann Wagner (MO-02) thinks that she has made name for herself opposing sex-trafficking. A recent Wagner TV spot seems to indicate an opposite tack. Read more.

Trying to cut through the B.S. in Missouri’s U.S. Senate Race
October 12, 2018. By Arthur Lieber
They’re angry with one another – Claire McCaskill and Josh Hawley, running in the tightly contested U.S. Senate race in Missouri. McCaskill is doggedly pursuing re-election and shows remarkable energy for someone who is 65. Hawley is trying to help Missouri Republicans overcome the stain of their last young knight in shining armor, former Governor Eric Greitens. Let me suggest ways in which at least one candidate, McCaskill could make her campaign more honest, spend far less money, and do the voters a real service.
Read more

Ann Wagner: Missouri Congresswoman in absentia
August 3, 2018. By Reece Ellis
Missouri has produced great people who are a credit to our state and are known for their legacy of public service. Congresswoman Ann Wagner [R-MO CD 2] is not one of those great Missourians. Perhaps there was a time she could’ve been, but the Faustian bargain she has made with Donald Trump has divested her of whatever dignity she could’ve hoped to muster after what was an already lackluster congressional career.
Read more

The post Everything you want to know about the Missouri 2018 ballot, but were afraid to ask appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When you’re running for a school board position in suburban St. Louis and tweet out memes about banning Islam in America, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, you could be invited to speak at a candidates’ forum at the local mosque. And that’s how it came to be that the first words Parkway School Board candidate Jeanie Ames spoke to the assembled crowd at the mosque were, “I am not a xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Islam, anti-Semitic racist.”

In fact, Ames spent the better part of her two-minute opening statement trying to defend herself against charges of bigotry and racism that had arisen, in part, from her retweet of a graphic calling for the banning of Islam in America.

She has since claimed that the offending tweet — and  others — were misconstrued or taken out of context. Unfortunately for Ames, her personal Twitter feed makes the context of her remarks crystal clear: Her motto, MAKE PARKWAY GREAT AGAIN, may offer a clue as to who has influenced her thinking.

In her Twitter profile, she describes herself as a “Proud wife mommy – Free market Capitalist – Constitutionalist – Catholic – Confederate – Lily-wearing – Metal lovin – Grass Roots – American Badass.”

Yeah, she called herself a “confederate.”

On January 24, the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran this article with the headline, A self-described ‘Confederate’ is running for Parkway School Board. Residents are alarmed. The article called her out not only for wanting to ban Islam, but also for referring to Michelle Obama as a “giant rat.”

Ames’ attitudes had begun to alarm a lot of people. Some who spoke to the newspaper noted:

“Jeanie Ames’ record of racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and other bigotry prove beyond any doubt that she has no place on the Parkway School District’s Board of Education … All people of conscience who believe in the value and place of all children at Parkway schools should oppose Ames’ candidacy in the strongest terms.”
— Anna Baltzer of Jewish Voice for Peace

“It is quite disturbing to say the least that a person with views such as ‘banning Islam from America’ is running for the Parkway School Board.”
— Mufti Asif Umar, imam of Daar-Al-Islam Masjid a mosque situated in the school district.

What else motivates Ms. Ames? Have a look at the banner on her Twitter page.

What does Jeanie Ames really want to do for the Parkway School Board? Is she misunderstood? Have her many offensive tweets somehow been taken out of context? The people in the photo below protested outside the March 25 candidate forum because they don’t believe she’s been misunderstood. They think Jeanie Ames has made herself perfectly clear.

This is an important moment in the community. Will Ames win or lose? And what will that tell us about ourselves?

Postscript:

Many of Ames’ neighbors have yard signs for the more progressive candidates in the race. None have Ames signs. Some are coming more to the point by posting yard signs stating “Hate has no home here.”

In the end, Ames lost, getting just 12.2% of the vote.

The post “Xenophobic, anti-Islam, anti-Semitic racist.” Who, me? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In 1934, following the era of Al Capone and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Congress placed restrictions on the sale, purchase and ownership of what it termed “Class 3 weapons,” aka automatic weapons. Fast forward to 2017 Las Vegas – enabled by a device called a bump stock, Stephen Paddock killed 59 people and injured more than 500 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Was Paddock using automatic weapons? Not really, but with a bump stock, a legal AR15 semi-automatic becomes every bit as lethal as the Tommy guns of the roaring twenties.

How did the modern bump stock come about? Ask its developer Jeremiah Cottle of Moran, TX. [from an article on Tactical Life.com]

I’ve been a recreational shooter my entire life, and I’ve always enjoyed shooting full-auto weapons. At the same time, purchasing a Class 3 firearm is outrageously expensive, not to mention it requires a mountain of paperwork sure to give you life-threatening paper cuts. I had bump fired in the past, but it was completely uncontrollable, unsafe and unusable. I wanted to find a way to change that, to make bump firing safer and more controlled.

So, I thought about it, and I prayed about it. Ultimately, I decided to go for it. I used all of my savings from the military, sold everything in my house that wasn’t nailed down and started making 3D-printed models and solving problems. Finally, I sent the stock to the BATFE [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] when I had a design that was close to being commercially ready. I was so happy when I got the word that it was approved.

Cottle’s company, Slide Fire is the principal manufacturer of the bump stock. Its promotional videos are chilling. Have a look at their showpiece.

How does a bump stock get past Federal regulators? The approval letter from BATFE explains

“The stock has no automatically functioning mechanical parts or springs and performs no automatic mechanical functions when installed … Accordingly, we find that the ‘bump-stock’ is a firearm part and is not regulated as a firearm under the Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act.”

More from Jeremiah Cottle:

Some people like drag racing, some people like skiing and some people, like me, love full-auto. Unfortunately, the average recreational shooter doesn’t have access to a Class 3 firearm of their very own—they’re just expensive and impractical, like buying your own personal golf-cart hovercraft. I mean, if you can afford it, why not? For everyone else, Slide Fire brings shooters the same full-auto experience but without having to take out a second mortgage on their home.

I wonder how much Cottle loves full-auto in light of what happened in Las Vegas. Maybe the incident didn’t affect him. According to Slide Fire’s video, it’s every man’s birthright, freedom unleashed. But right now @SlidefireSol is getting slammed on Twitter and rightly so.

One of Slide Fire’s videos begins with a quote it says is from George Washington [it is actually a misquote from George Washington Carver], “When you can do common things in uncommon ways, you will command the attention of the world.” Sad to say, in this case, the idea is very true.

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