Today is the 99 in DC day of action on Capitol Hill where thousands of workers, students, veterans and the unemployed are asking our representatives to listen to the concerns of the 99% instead of consistently protecting the 1%.

In Representative Vicky Hartzler's office this afternoon, a number of contituents visited her office in an effort to meet with her and were forcibly removed.  One of her constituents opted to wait for Hartzler in her waiting room and was subsequently arrested.

Arrested.

Arrested for asking to meet with their Representative.

Unconscionable.  It's obvious that Hartzler would rather continue to protect the 1% from having to pay their fair share; and then when confronted with the truth and her own constituents, chooses to have them arrested instead of listening to their concerns.

See video of the action taking place in DC below:

No, the title of this post is not a typo.  From our friends over at Think Progress, there's this:

Last week, GOP presidential primary candidate Newt Gingrich appeared at Harvard to talk about his campaign. At the conclusion of his speech, he fielded questions from students that were recorded and uploaded to YouTube. One student asked the former House speaker about the pay gap between men and women. Gingrich completely dismissed this gap.

Yes, you read that right.  Gingrich is more concerned with men facing pay inequity.  In fact, here's exactly what he said:

[I]f anything, you’ll be here in fifteen years wondering what we’ll do about men inequality and male unemployment.

Courtesy of Progress Women, we've got these stats for Mr. Gingrich if he ever decides to address pay equity issues in Missouri, where we're no where close to seeing equity for women as they see only 75¢ for every dollar earned by a full-time male worker, essentially making $616/week to the $819/week of their male colleagues.  To add insult to injury, the gap in Missouri is 6% greater than the average gap across the United States and is larger than the wage gap our neighboring states.

Mr. Gingrich, I'll eat my hat if I'm wondering about pay inequality for men in 15 years.

Photo: flickr

Coalition for Missouri's Future sent out a press release last week demanding Rex Sinquefield "come clean on Everything Tax proposal."

“It’s outrageous that Rex Sinquefield is asking Missouri voters to sign a petition in support of a proposal that will make them pay more for nearly everything they buy every day and yet he won’t bother to share the details with them,” said Richard Martin, campaign manager for the Coalition for Missouri’s Future.  “What are they trying to hide?  How does Sinquefield propose to ‘let voters decide’ when he won’t provide them with any accurate information?

They make a good point, if you think about it. Perhaps Rex should rename his front group 'Let Me Decide.'

The entire press release can be found on the Coalition for Missouri's Future website.

Thousands of Americans area headed towards Washington, DC this week to Occupy Congress:

Piggybacking on the Occupy Wall Street movement, the three-day “Take Back the Capitol” protest will open Monday with construction of a “Peoples Camp” on the National Mall as a base of operations. On Tuesday, protesters will hit Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress about extending federal unemployment benefits.

This afternoon, students, workers, unemployed Missourians and other concerned citizens will embark from Kansas City, head to St. Louis for a quick stop to pick up additional allies, and will then head to Washington, DC to take their message of economic equality for all to the halls of Congress.

Joining thousands of Americans making the trek to DC, and supported by millions more across the country, these Missourians will be making sure the voices of the 99% are heard and counter the influence of the 1%.

“I'm part of the 99 percent that politicians in Washington have been ignoring, and it is time that Congress listens to us, not just corporate lobbyists from K Street and their campaign contributions." said Jonathan McFarland of St. Louis. "We're going down there to the corridors of power to make our presence felt. We need good jobs and an end to foreclosures now.”

They will be joining the many community groups, unions, religious organizations, and unemployed workers going to the nation’s capital from December 5-9th to break the grip that corporate lobbyists have on Congress.

Citing the problem in Washington being that too many members of Congress listen to corporate lobbyists from K Street and their campaign contributions instead of the 99%, Occupy Kansas City, Occupy St. Louis and their allies in the Labor movement, veterans, students, clergy, retirees and others are insisting the 99% be heard and that congress work to create jobs, not continue to bail out banksters and leave working families with the tab.

Does John Brunner have substantive answers about any substantive issues yet?  Check out this glorious non-answer in the News-Leader to a direct question about the House GOP plan to eliminate Medicare as we know it: 

Q: Would you support transforming Medicare into a voucher program in which seniors purchase insurance in the private market, instead of the current government program, as proposed by House GOP Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.?

Akin: Yes, he is on record supporting and voting for the Ryan plan.

Brunner: "What I am looking at is, can you give people a choice -- the Ryan plan or keep their current program? Or even a third option? ... Or combinations of those plans to bring some choice, so you can have that incentive to lower costs?"

Steelman: "The cost of living (increase) that's factored into the (voucher proposal) each year is different, and I'm afraid it wouldn't cover the cost of increasing health costs from year to year... And then I also worry about how, if you have that age population, if you can actually get reasonably priced insurance. It's difficult to insure the senior population" in the private market.

The Republican Debate Channel is gearing up for some more panelette get togethers, including one with Donald Trump's hairdo as moderator. Miss Liberty can only hope he will say "You're fired" to some of these folks. What have the candidates been up to since Thanksgiving?

Mitt Romney's hair is still perfect (even his barber says so), but he can't get people to sign his dance card. Governor Good Hair Perry is apparently shirking his gov duties while campaigning for anything that might get him out of the spotlight when he says dumb things - like vote on Nov 12th when the election is on the 6th (Hint: Rick, that message only goes to targeted audiences, and on the qt). He also seems to have forgotten the legal voting age. He might want to refresh his memory about executive authority. At the Huckabee forum, he seemed to believe that a President could vaporize a law passed by Congress and signed by the President with an executive order. 

The Missouri legislature started pre-filing some of the legisation they're expected to consider come January 4, 2012.  If you're so inclined, you can head here for the House or here for the Senate for full lists of what's been filed so far.

If you take the time to mosey on through the list of what's been filed in the House, you'll find this gem, HB 1046, filed by Lyle Rowland of the 143rd district in Southwest Missouri.

HOUSE BILL NO. 1046
96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Requires proof of identity and proof of United States citizenship for the office of President and Vice President to be submitted with the other required certification documents to the Secretary of State

Such certification shall provide verifiable evidence of identity and of proof of status as a natural born citizen of the United States for each nominee and the origins of such evidence. Such evidence shall be in the form of the most complete record of birth available by the controlling legal authority at the time of the nominee's birth.

It would seem that sheer insanity and birtherism is alive and well in the Missouri legislature.  No word yet on whether Speker-to-be Birther Tim Jones has endorsed this piece of legislation.

Update: It should be noted that last year's version of the Birther Bill was cosponsored by Shane Schoeller who is wants to be Missouri's next Secretary of Birthers State.

Pizza Man Herman Cain has "suspended" his campaign.

Cain told supporters at an event in Atlanta that the charges hurled at him over the weeks are "false and unproved" but said they have taken a toll on him and his wife, Gloria, who appeared with him on stage.

"I am suspending my campaign," Cain said.

I think we are all strangley impressed by how long he held on.

Read cover at Reuters.com

Newt Gingrich has been known to say the word "fundamental." Perhaps his fundamentals are resonating with the American people and explains why he has been leading in the polls recently. Too bad he fundamentally didn't file for the Presidential Primary in Missouri. 

It looks like when Newt isn't advocating for children to work as janitors in schools or having extramarital problems, he's exploring new ways to use the word "fundamental". It's really quite the impressive list.

New York Magazine has recently commented on the broad range of topics on which Newt has successfully implemented the word "fundamental" or "fundamentally", such as the NLRB, prisons, the exploitation of brain science, philosophy, and even trickle-down bureaucracy.

"fundamentally reshape the NLRB"..."fundamentally rethink prisons"..."fundamentally rethink how we exploit brain science across the board"..."fundamental philosophical basis for America"..."fundamentally wrong because trickle-down bureaucracy doesn't work"...

Read cover  NY Mag.

Over at Right Wing Watch, they have a recording of an interview of our very own Right Wing Fringe Representative Vicky Hartzler.  In the interview, Hartzler is talking with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and they get into a discussion of religious freedom and how the recent building of a pagan worship center at the Air Force Academy was "promotion" of "fringe religions."  Towards the end of the interview, Hartlzer goes on to call this "crazy."

However, in Hartzler's mind, it's no problem if the government "defends" the practice of religion, especially if it's Christianity, America's "main religion" in her view.  I guess Hartzler missed the part of history class where we're taught that we have freedom of reglion here in this country and there is no state-sanctioned religion.

Perkins: Do you see this as a part of a growing trend that we see that there is really kind of a marginalization of Christianity and almost a promotion of other forms of, I would have to say, fringe religions?

Hartzler: I agree, I think so. Christianity is the main religion in our country and as a policy for the Department of Defense we need to defend the practice of religion but we do not have to obligate taxpayer funds to facilitate or accommodate it or pay for it.

So, surprise, surprise, Former Senator John Danforth is set to endorse Mittens Mitt Romney.

Danforth will announce his support for Romney in St. Louis, where Romney will be attending fundraisers.

Danforth goes on to say that Romney's ability to turn around a company - which was really along the lines of get rich quick by raiding Bain Capital for all profits, and then layoff thousands of workers - is one of the key reasons he's endorsing the former Massachusetts Flip-Flopper In Chief.  I guess if you want someone who's going to allow Wall Street to continue raiding American workers' pensions and savings, and then turn around and allow corporations to ship thousands, if not millions of jobs overseas, then Mitt's your man.

All things considered, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised that Danforth is choosing to endorse a serial flip-flopper who can't keep his own opinions straight, after all, this is coming from a guy who has endorsed right-wingers on the fringe of the republican party and then turned around and whined about how embarrassed he is about the things those same sorts of fringe republicans say.

Senator Danforth, one question: if you're so embarrassed by the field of GOP Presidential candidates, are you equally embarrassed by your man Mitt sitting idly by the time a fellow candidate got racous applause for executing 234 people?  The time they booed the gay solider while he is serving his country in a war zone?  Are you ok with Mitt not taking the opportunity to stand up for those without health insurance while the crowd hooped and hollered about letting those folks die?

Way to pick a winner loser.

Nailed it: 

Occupy Economics from Softbox on Vimeo.

As expected, the Senate voted on the Middle Class Tax Cut of 2011 this evening which would have allowed the payroll tax cut to be continued for 2012.  The Democrat's version was fully paid for by a tiny surtax on millionaires - just a few hundred thousand tax payers - and would have provided an over $1,000 tax cut for 160 million Americans and their families.

Unfortunately, also as expected, Republicans blocked the measure and defeated the motion 51-49. 

So, yet again, Republicans like Roy Blunt have demonstrated their inability to do anything but protect the ultra-rich at the expense of tens of millions of working families, essentially voting to hike taxes on 99.8% of taxpayers.  Hypocrites.

Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Honestly, is there any entity in politics more effective in slamming Mitt Romney than Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign? In this new video, Team Huntsman not only draws additional attention to Romney’s awful interview with Fox News, but also fact-checks Romney’s denials about flip-flops." 

Republicans are showing their true colors in Washington, DC today, preparing to vote on a bill that would end public funding for elections as well as end the agency that provides oversight of elections which was established after the 2000 Presidential Election Debacle.

Instead of attempting to work with Democrats to fix the issues in the public financing system, Republicans would rather just do away with it.

Sounds like a recipe for more corporate influence on our elections with no oversight.

Disastrous.

On KTRS yesterday (FF to ~7:00), Former Sen. John Danforth had some choice words in describing his fellow republicans, especially those running for president:

I’ve been watching some of these republican debates and they’re just terrible. Terrible.  How many have they had?  Something like nine, ten, something like that, it seems like every week there’s a debate and, uh, and it’s embarrassing for me as a republican to watch this stuff.

Tell us, sir, what exactly has been so embarrassing about your fellow republicans?

What have been the big applause lines in these debates? Well, a statement that the governor of Texas is responsible for killing 234 people on death row.  Or that we favor torture. Or that we’re creating a fence on the Mexican border that electrocutes people when they try to cross it. Or when people show up at the emergency room at hospitals and they’re not insured don’t treat them. And that, I mean these are the big applause lines, people just hoop and holler when they hear all that.

Yep. I have to agree, those are some pretty despicable and embarrassing statements coming out of the mouths of your fellow republicans.  I'd be ashamed, too.  But by all means, do go on.

It doesn’t have anything to do with the republican party that I was a part of. This is just totally different. And all of these people who are saying this, y’know, and claiming that, y’know, they’re for all this stuff, they also sort of ostentatiously say, “Oh, we’re very religious people.  We really, we’re just very pious, Christian people.”  They were for torture, and electrocution of the people on along the border and all of that. That doesn’t have anything to do with, is contrary to the Christianity that I understand.

Let's just stop right there.

This isn't the party Danforth was a part of?  He didn't endorse Ed-Minuteman-Martin in 2010?  Pretty sure he did.

Instead of distancing himself from the republican party he claims to be embarrassed by, why doesn't Danforth start by calling out the extremists republicans in our own home state like Martin? Or Akin, who thinks that, "At the heart of Liberalism is a hatred for God."

Danforth claims later on that he dislikes divisive politics, but let's be honest, he's continually endorsed candidates who do nothing but spread fear and division across Missouri and our country.

Senator Danforth, start reforming your party with constructive criticism instead of continuing to endorse the same divisive republican politicians you claim to be embarrassed by. Show some leadership.