#st. louis post dispatch

[annushorribilis]

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

Missouri Republican weighing party switch after vote to restrict trans health care

A rare party switch in the Missouri House could be in the offing after one Republican wasn’t allowed to speak against a GOP plan to restrict

A rare party switch in the Missouri House could be in the offing after one Republican on Wednesday wasn’t allowed to speak against a GOP plan to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.

Rep. Chris Sander, R-Lone Jack, one of two openly gay Republicans in the Legislature, said Wednesday that local, state and national Republicans needed to decide whether gay and transgender Republicans were welcome.

“If they want to tell all Republicans who are gay to get out and go to the Democrat Party, they just need to do that,” Sander, a 2001 graduate of Hazelwood West High School in St. Louis County, told the Post-Dispatch.

Sander was one of three Republicans to vote against the restrictions, which are headed to Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, for his consideration.

House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, R-Lee’s Summit, and Rep. Gary Bonacker, R-House Springs, also broke with their party to vote with Democrats against the ban.

Sander, who said he is Republican committeeman for the Van Buren Township in Jackson County, said he planned to speak at the county party’s May 22 meeting.

Members of the county GOP have tried to censure Sander for filing a resolution that would overturn Missouri’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, which was nullified by a 2015 Supreme Court decision.

“I’m going to rail against them and I’m going to say how I think it should be, and if they don’t like it, they can just get rid of me, and if that happens then I’ll be an independent or a Democrat,” Sander said, adding he might also consider becoming a Libertarian if he left the GOP.

“If they kick me off that (Jackson County GOP) committee, I will not be a Republican,” Sander said.

If Sander were to quit the GOP, he would join a short list of other House members over the past decade to leave their political party.

In 2015, then-Rep. Keith English, a Florissant Democrat, said he was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent.

“This is no longer the Democrat Party of Bill Clinton or John F Kennedy. I’m leaving the party because I love my state,” English said at the time.

English’s decision to ditch the Democrats followed another Democratic defection a day after the 2014 midterms.

Then-Rep. Linda Black, who had been a Democrat from Desloge, switched to the Republican Party a day after the election after she ran unopposed.

Her St. Francois County district had a long history of electing Democrats but voters there have bolted to the Republicans in recent election cycles.

Sander’s eastern Jackson County 33rd District is roughly 58% Republican and 39% Democrat, according to an analysis of the district’s partisan makeup.

“I can see myself winning an election as a Republican or a Democrat or an independent,” he said.

Republicans controlled 117 seats in the House in 2015 following Black’s switch.

The GOP now controls 111 seats despite continuing to hold a two-thirds majority.

Democrats hold 51 seats following Democratic Rep. Rasheen Aldridge’s resignation this year to join the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. Parson has not called a special election to replace him.

[religionsinyourlips-archive]

my aunt and uncle literally cut out the St. Louis Post Dispatch rep tour review and sent it to Colorado for me and wanted me to show my parents.......

my family understands my mind and my brand more than I thought

@taylorswift

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emails reveal how Missouri governor decided to attack a reporter for opening a new tab from a government site

Sarah K. Burris at Raw Story: 

Bloomberg News detailed the specifics of the governor of Missouri's war against a reporter who did nothing more than right-click on a state's website. According to newly obtained emails, the governor's lawyers and staff are being exposed for an attempt to use a report of a security breach as a campaign issue.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Josh Renaud did nothing more than open a website, but Republican Gov. Mike Parson thinks that means he's a hacker. It began when Renaud discovered a massive security breach when he right-clicked on a government site that publicly listed thousands of Missouri educators and their social security numbers. Parson then demanded that a local prosecutor file charges against Renaud.

[...]

Any person with a web browser can click on the source code of any website. In Chrome, for example, one would click "View," then "Developer," and "View Source." Another way to do it is by right-clicking or hitting "control" and clicking on the website and clicking "view page source."

Renaud reached out to the government in good faith to alert them to the security problem, but emails sent among Parson's staff after being alerted reveal the real-time decision to make Renaud into a "hacker."

"Some of those notes were first reported by the Post-Dispatch, while others I received under open-records laws revealed general disinclination to speak to the press," said the report. "In reply after reply, Parson’s spokespeople tried to paint Renaud’s journalism as 'more than just a right click' on a web browser. In the emails, one draft talking point mirrored language earlier used by Parson’s top lawyer, Andrew Bailey, alleging the reporter took 'eight separate steps' to get the Social Security numbers (one of which, I’m told, was opening a new tab in Google Chrome)."

[...]

As a fact-check, opening a new tab in Google Chrome isn't hacking, nor is viewing the source code.

Parson is now turning the case into a major campaign issue, spending campaign cash to air an ad attacking the "squalid excuse for journalism."

Missouri "Governor" Mike Parson (R)'s pathetic attacks on St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Josh Renaud by baselessly painting him a "hacker" for discovering a security breach is now a campaign fundraising tool for Parson. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

In perhaps the saddest statement since Jan. 6 on the state of American Democracy, Republican lawmakers across the country have been asked to say three simple words: Joe. Biden. Won. But they just can’t bring themselves to do it, even though Biden beat President Donald Trump by more than 7 million popular votes and trounced him in the Electoral College toll. In other words, those GOP lawmakers refuse to recognize the will of the people. Which means they no longer recognize democracy. [...] These are frightening times for anyone paying attention to the trends. The storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 was the starkest example of a willingness to use violence to achieve what a free election couldn’t. Before insurrectionists attacked from the outside, a few members of Congress inside had forwarded to the White House an elaborate scheme to effectively stage a military-backed coup to keep Trump in power.  [...] When one side comes this close to abandoning the fundamental pillars upon which this nation is founded, the question becomes more than just theoretical: Can American democracy, or America itself, survive if this radical faction doesn’t come to its senses?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board on the GOP’s assault on democracy (01.02.2022). 

This Post-Dispatch editorial is right on the money: The GOP no longer recognize[s] democracy.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Missouri "Governor" Mike Parson vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

Jason Hancock at Missouri Independent, via Raw Story: 

On Tuesday, a reporter with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch alerted the state that Social Security numbers of school teachers and administrators were vulnerable to public exposure due to flaws on a website maintained by Missouri's department of education.

The newspaper agreed to hold off publishing any story while the department fixed the problem and protected the private information of teachers around the state.

But by Thursday, Gov. Mike Parson was labeling the Post-Dispatch reporter a “hacker" and vowing to seek criminal prosecution.

Missouri’s pathetic excuse of a “Governor” Mike Parson launched an unhinged Trumpian attack on the free press by suggesting that Post-Dispatch reporter Josh Renaud was a “hacker” for accurately and ethically reporting on Missouri Social Security numbers of school teachers and admins were being vulnerable to hacking by the state’s DESE.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Woe is Donald Trump. The long-suffering, misunderstood president just can’t make the world understand what a raw deal he got. The pandemic was China’s fault. Or was it the World Health Organization’s fault? One thing we know for sure, the lax U.S. response was President Barack Obama’s fault. “We inherited a broken, terrible system …,” Trump told reporters on April 18. “Our cupboards were bare. We had very little in our stockpile.” That was Trump’s attempt, frequently repeated by the president and recycled in White House presentations, to lay responsibility for the inept pandemic response at Obama’s feet, as if three years in office were insufficient for Trump to repair all the supposed damage his predecessor wrought. Except it’s a lie of colossal Trumpian proportions. We’ve taken the time to dissect Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budgets from the year before Obama left office all the way to the present. Trump can lie, but the numbers cannot. Obama left office with an unblemished record of building up the nation’s pandemic preparedness. Trump systematically sought to dismantle it. [...] If the cupboard was bare, it’s because Trump swept it clean.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board on Trump’s lackadaisical handling of the COVID-19 pandemic (05.25.2020). 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trump had no apparent authority to launch his independent corruption probe and bring in his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to follow up with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Trump — who has paid off a porn star, bragged about sexually abusing women and openly urged Russia to meddle in the 2016 presidential campaign — ranks as the most corrupt U.S. president since Richard Nixon. Trump was on a singular mission in the July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy: to dig up dirt on Biden, his likely rival in the 2020 presidential race. The fact that he brought Giuliani into the conversation underscores that this had nothing to do with Trump’s executive authority and everything to do with his political campaign. Juxtaposed with Trump’s inexplicable decision before July to suspend nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine, there is more than ample justification for the House of Representatives to proceed with its impeachment inquiry. [...] How far must a president go in betraying his country before Republicans finally declare that he no longer represents their values? How much crisis, chaos and scandal can Republicans, exhausted from constantly defending him, tolerate before they decide enough’s enough? The time has come for Republicans to stand up for the Constitution, stand up for America, and tell Trump to step down.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board calls for Trump’s resignation or impeachment (09.25.2019). 

I 100% agree with the P-D’s editorial board on this issue.