Free Republic

Missouri's Governor and Hillary Clinton's campaign both allege what are arguably civil rights violations We reported recently that Missouri's Governor, Matt Blunt, accused the Obama campaign of conspiracy to misuse his state's law enforcement resources to "threaten and intimidate his critics." The text of Governor Blunt's statement appears below. When we add the Clinton campaign's allegations of "voter intimidation," we get a very disturbing picture of which all voters need to be aware. We encourage our readers to copy and circulate the following material in its entirety.

Quote from Gov.Blunt "This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Saturday, September 27, 2008 Contact: Jessica Robinson, 573-751-0290 Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics. “St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Saturday, September 27, 2008 Contact: Jessica Robinson, 573-751-0290 Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics. “St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign....

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed into law today legislation that will make it harder for illegal aliens living in the state to receive benefits and harder to find jobs. The new legislations requires all public employers to use the E-Verify system to verify the legality of a potential employee and requires and individual to prove their citizenship status before receiving state benefits such as food stamps and housing. The bill also punishes those localities that adopt policies to not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Missouri joins Arizona, Oklahoma, and Georgia in instituting state-wide anti-illegal immigration laws. So far, the laws...

The Democrats held the vote open after they had lost. They strongarmed three Democrats, apparently, to change their vote to help create an extra layer of bureaucracy. Matt Blunt and other Republicans are yelling "Parliamentary Inquiry!" Republicans are asking why the Democrats changed the rule and then did NOT follow the rule

Gov. Matt Blunt abruptly announced Tuesday that he will not seek a second term, leaving Republicans without a candidate in a race the incumbent had stockpiled millions of dollars for. The 37-year-old said he had decided not to seek a second term in November because he had accomplished virtually everything he set out to do when he ran for governor four years ago. Blunt has trailed in the polls, however, behind Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, who has been campaigning against him for several years.

Gov. Matt Blunt unleashed his latest proposal Monday in a flurry of legislation aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. The proposed law, Blunt said at a news conference held at the Cape Girardeau Police Department, would specifically prohibit illegal aliens from obtaining driver's licenses, penalize those who are here illegally and punish those who help illegals obtain licenses. The state already has safeguards intended to prevent illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses, but Missouri lacks a specific law prohibiting it, Blunt said. The penalties are still open for discussion, but Blunt suggested making the first offense a class B...

Jefferson City, MO (LifeNews.com) -- Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has called for a new state task force to examine the myriad of ways abortions hurts women by causing either medical, mental health or other problems. Blunt has put together the Governor's Task Force on the Impact of Abortion on Women at a time when abortion advocates say abortion benefits women. Blunt answered questions about the new task force at a press conference Monday."This is a very informal group of good people who believe in advancing the cause of life and believe that we should minimize the impact of abortion...

JEFFERSON CITY | Citing an “unnatural influx” of illegal immigrants, Gov. Matt Blunt on Monday ordered state troopers to start checking the immigration status of every person they arrest. Blunt pointed to the case of an illegal immigrant from Peru who was charged in the Aug. 4 murders of three college students in New Jersey. The man already had been arrested for child rape and assault charges but was out on bail. Had law enforcement officers checked his immigration status, critics have said, he would have been detained and the killings would not have occurred. Blunt said that while Americans...

Missouri Governor Signs Bill Into Law With New Regulations on Abortion Providers Friday , July 06, 2007 AP JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri abortion providers will face new regulations for their clinics and new restrictions on teaching sex education classes under a bill Gov. Matt Blunt signed into law Friday. The measure places more abortion clinics under government oversight by classifying them as ambulatory surgical centers. Planned Parenthood has said the law could force it to spend more than $1 million on remodeling, plus some extra staffing costs. The law also bars people affiliated with abortion providers from teaching or...

Referring to the organization as an “abortion clinic,” Gov. Matt Blunt announced Monday that he was pulling taxpayer funding for a statewide women’s preventive health program from Planned Parenthood offices in Joplin and Springfield, and moving the funding to other area agencies. Blunt stopped the remainder of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Missouri’s annual $27,000 funding for the Show Me Healthy Women Program. The program was formed 15 years ago to provide free breast-cancer and cervical-cancer screenings, and Planned Parenthood of Southwest Missouri has been a provider since its inception. Jessica Robinson, Blunt’s press secretary, said the funding has been transferred...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A fired federal prosecutor said Friday he doubted his investigation into Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt's administration was connected to his dismissal. Former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins, a federal prosecutor in Arkansas, was removed from his job in December -- one of eight U.S. attorneys replaced in recent months by President Bush's administration. Cummins in October publicly cleared Blunt's administration of wrongdoing in the awarding of Missouri license office contracts, saying he closed an investigation without pursuing criminal charges. Cummins said the Justice Department told him he was being fired to make room for someone...

The Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. gave Gov. Bill Owens a D grade for his fiscal performance during his last year in office in a report released this week. The Libertarian-leaning think tank releases a report card every two years for all 50 governors based on 23 criteria gathered from various sources, such as the U.S. census and budget data provided by state governments. According to the report, Owens “engineered one of the biggest falls from grace in this report card’s 16-year history.” The institute blasted Owens for his support of Referendum C, which was passed by voters last November...

The folks at the conservative-leaning Cato Institute have published their annual report card on the fiscal policy of the nation's governors. And they've dropped Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget score from an 'A' to a 'D.' The Cato report is here. It uses about two dozen different measures of fiscal performance, generally grading spending cuts and tax cuts as better, and spending and tax hikes as worse. So why did they drop his grade? "After one year of of aggressive budget cutting, " the report says, "he has let the big spenders in Sacramento get to him." The Cato report says California's...

Jefferson City, MO (LifeNews.com) -- Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed a bill allowing donors to crisis pregnancy centers to be eligible for state tax breaks provided the donations go to groups that do not perform abortions or refer women to abortion centers. The legislation will help pregnant women, but Planned Parenthood opposes it because it would likely lose money as a result.The legislation allows a tax write-off of half of the value of a donation made between $100 and $50,000. The state would limit the tax write-offs to a total of $2 million in donations annually."These are resource centers that...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, May 27, 2006 – A delegation of U.S. governors arrived here yesterday to visit with servicemembers. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt visits with servicemembers serving here in Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom May 26. Blunt and fellow governors Brian Schweitzer, of Montana, and Mitt Romney, of Massachusetts, shared lunch with servicemembers to check on the welfare of their constituents. Photo by Staff Sgt. Robert R. Ramon, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Govs. Brian Schweitzer, of Montana; Matt Blunt, of Missouri; and Mitt Romney, of Massachusetts, shared lunch with servicemembers to check on their constituents...

Jefferson City, Missouri THERE'S A SUREFIRE WAY for a Republican governor to lose favor with the public, the press, and Democrats: wipe out a state's budget deficit without raising taxes. This inevitably involves trimming spending on Medicaid, the out-of-control health care program for the poor that's become the largest expenditure in virtually every state's budget. Faced with a $1.1 billion deficit last year, Missouri governor Matt Blunt chose to restrain spending--especially Medicaid spending--and not to increase taxes. For months, he was pilloried in the Missouri media for cutting off Medicaid recipients. And his approval rating dropped in one poll to...

...Some 20 states... already have anti-price-gouging laws on their books-- and many governors have declared emergencies to invoke them. These de facto price controls typically place ceilings of between 10% and 25% on how much companies can raise prices in the wake of a natural disaster. In almost all cases such laws are wrong-headed, because they exacerbate supply problems by short-circuiting the price system that matches supply with demand. ...If governments will not allow the price system to ration the demand for gas, a new "price" system will emerge called gas lines.... Let's explain why prices have been rising. Katrina...

...[I]n almost every other consumer industry-- booksellers, retailers, home appliances, insurance, banking, stock brokers-- the introduction of Internet and discount sellers has been a phenomenal financial benefit to customers.... Economists call this process of squeezing out transaction costs "disintermediation." If any industry is ripe for this, it is the $70 billion-a-year real estate brokerage market. Yes, fees have fallen modestly to about 5.1% on average in recent years. But a new study... concludes that in an unimpeded free market, fees should be dropping much faster -- particularly amid a real estate boom that has doubled home values over the past...