Senator Claire McCaskill held a townhall today, and she may have had an epiphany:
Claire McCaskill’s staff shows their profound concern for Missourians
Not really.
…by flipping them off, locking them out, and calling the police on them.
As Gateway Pundit reports, this past Friday a Tea Party protest outside Democrat Senator McCaskill’s offices in St. Louis was received by her staff with obscene gestures and a refusal to hear their concerns. The protesters were voicing their objections to socialized, government-controlled healthcare and the inevitable (and already-proposed) tax increases and related financial irresponsibility being proposed by the Democrats. Apparently the staffers felt “they were being threatened”.
Real threatening-looking crowd, eh?
Um, no. Police? Senator McCaskill, is that how you respond to your constituents’ concerns? By insulting them and chasing them away?
Last night Senator McCaskill twittered: “I moved my office from fed bldg to street front when I got elected to make it more user friendly, approachable.“.
More approachable. Right.
(Update: McCaskill attempts to explain her staff’s behavior. Not a real apology, you’ll notice: “sorry you were offended” rather than “sorry my staff members were such idiots”. Moe would have banned her for that pathetic attempt.)
Let us recap the Gerald Walpin situation.
We can begin with this video, which goes over the basic points:
Short version: Walpin was investigating Obama crony’s involvement in an AmeriCorps-related scandal involving misappropriation of funding. Case was settled, to the mild detriment of crony*. Walpin disagreed with settlement. Complaint made against him. So far, this is all he-said, he-said.
Steelman out of the race for the MO Senate seat?
The Hill is reporting tonight that it is looking more and more like Sarah Steelman may decide to forego a challenge to MO Rep. Roy Blunt in the primary for Kit Bond’s Senate seat. Instead she may try to run for Blunt’s current 7th District House seat in Missouri.
Former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman appears increasingly less likely to run against Blunt, and she acknowledged Monday that she is looking at a possible campaign for Blunt’s open House seat as an alternative.
Steelman said shortly after Sen. Kit Bond’s (R-Mo.) retirement announcement in January that she was leaning toward entering the Senate race, and for a while, it was a foregone conclusion.
But after unleashing a string of Blunt criticisms and opening an exploratory committee in April, she has grown quieter and begun evaluating other options.
She was still largely quiet last week when potential Blunt challenger Tom Schweich and the man who had been promoting him, former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), both changed course and announced their support for Blunt.
Though rarely afraid of ruffling feathers in the GOP establishment — including in a pitched gubernatorial primary with former Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.) in 2008 — Steelman told The Hill on Monday that she is worried about hurting the GOP.
A new face in the 2010 Missouri Senate race?
Thomas who?
Several sources are reporting today that a new name has emerged on the Republican side of the quest to replace Christopher “Kit” Bond in the U.S. Senate. Thomas Schweich, a law school professor at St. Louis’s Washington University and an attorney with Bryan Cave, is apparently being recruited by former MO Senator John C. Danforth, former Hungary ambassador and Bush cousin Bert Walker, and former Belgium ambassador Sam Fox.
My immediate reaction to this news was “if he’s coming from Danforth, I gotta be concerned.” While Danforth served as a Republican, he has made it a habit in recent years of stabbing Christian conservatives with pointy sticks, despite his credentials as an Episcopalian priest. Danforth was at the head of the wave of GOP “moderates” blaming social conservatives for the ills of the GOP. Sound familiar? And now he’s promoting a candidate for Senate. Tell me I shouldn’t be suspicious.
But there’s another, more significant reason to be concerned about Schweich.
What the Tax Day Tea Parties Represent
The nationwide protests are just the start of a movement that could — if followed through — bring real change to Washington
On Wednesday, over 200,000 ordinary Americans gathered at nearly 1,000 locations around the country. Fed up with high taxes, increasing debt, and expanding government encroachment into their private lives, they gathered to express their displeasure with the Obama administration’s policies and to rally around conservative ideas to push for a new way forward for America.
From the 400 people squeezed onto a tiny grassy plot in Macon, Georgia, where I spoke at noon, to the 15,000 gathered in downtown Atlanta, grassroots activists and community leaders at every location joined together in the Peach State and across the country to spread a message of American values: individual responsibility, equality of opportunity, fiscal responsibility, and governmental accountability.
The reaction from liberal media and pundits to this widespread demonstration of and for traditional American values was predictable, to say the least. With that most ingrained and dependable of leftist traits — projection — on full display, liberals from California to Capitol Hill, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D), declared these hundreds of grassroots gatherings to be “astroturfed” – events funded by “corporate front groups” – and (according to one senior Democratic aide) attended by “neo-Nazis,” “secessionists,” and “racists.”
How far we’ve come from 2008, when “community organizers” were being compared to Jesus (and government executives to Pontius Pilate) and dissent and protest were being hailed as the highest possible forms of patriotism!
Claire McCaskill really steps in it this time
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has reached the highest levels of tax-avoidance hypocrisy.
Let me explain.
This week, Carl Levin introduced a bill, supported by the Obama Administration, to crack down on offshore tax havens, including those in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda.
One of the bill’s co-sponsors is Claire McCaskill.
