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McCaskill still working toward goal of reading the healthcare bill By Jordan Fabian - 11/21/09 06:28 PM ET Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is still reading the 2,074-page Senate healthcare bill. McCaskill has promised to read the bill in its entirety before it comes up for the amendment and final voting process, which is expected to occur after Thanksgiving.The freshman sentor also read Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill in preparation for August's town hall. "The goal is to read the bill over the next few days and to be ready to do it after Thanksgiving," said McCaskill spokesperson...

A new billboard off of Interstate 70 in Missouri provides a short “citizens guide to REVOLUTION of a corrupt government” and issues a call to “PREPARE FOR WAR.” It reads: 1. Starve the Beast. Keep your money. 2. Vote out incumbents. 3. If steps 1 & 2 fail.... You can guess the rest. This billboard replaces one that warned that the socialist “Obama-Nation” is “coming for you.” It’s unclear who the owner of the billboard is, but the first one was the work of a “Missouri businessman.” While it’s unclear who owns it, the Lafayette County Republican Central Committee seems...

The chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, cast doubt on Friday about the Obama administration's decision to try the September 11, 2001, conspirators in a U.S. criminal court. Skelton, a fellow Democrat of President Barack Obama, asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to brief the committee about the decision to use the criminal courts instead of the revamped military commissions. "As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these cases, nor that the presumption in favor of federal criminal trials over military...

It has always amazed me how unconcerned evolutionists seem to be about entropy and the problems it poses both for a natural origin of life and for macroevolution. The argument from entropy is one of the most powerful arguments against the spontaneous formation of life from a random association of non-living chemicals...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 20, 2009) — A Missouri National Guardsman in training to become a military truck driver faces charges of making a terrorist threat in a school near Whiteman Air Force Base. According to court records, the trainee, Pfc. Michael John Frederick, 19, went into a Sedalia high school during a Saturday evening event and told the superintendent that the Army had told him to warn area schools that escaped prisoners might be trying to kidnap students. Frederick was wearing his military uniform when he made his warning about escaped inmates. However, there were no escaped inmates...

Sure, the economy sucks. Unemployment is at least 10.2% and, yes, if you include part-time workers who would rather have full-time jobs it may be over 17%. The government is showering our cash on Wall Street and burning through piles of our children and grandchildren’s money “saving” phantom jobs in Congressional Districts that don’t exist. Oh yeah, and Congress is planning for a government take-over of our health care system, legislating higher energy prices and raising taxes. Sheesh, no wonder we’re feeling blue. Well, not to worry, three-term Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) has found a solution: Stop Complaining So Much....

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 12, 2009) — Tammy Duckworth is now a major in the Army National Guard, a former Democratic Party congressional candidate, and an assistant secretary in the Department of Veterans Affairs. But on Nov. 12, 2004, Duckworth’s life was likely saved by the quick action of other National Guardsmen when she was piloting a helicopter that insurgents shot down in Iraq. Those Missouri National Guardsmen assigned to helicopter duty at Fort Leonard Wood attended Duckworth’s fifth “Alive Day” Thursday in Washington, D.C. Staff Sgt. Christopher Fierce, a Dixon resident who was also wounded that day, has...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 9, 2009) — Even for a combat medic like Spc. Erin Raymond, knowing how to clear a room is a fundamental soldier task. “I have to be a soldier before I’m a medic,” said Raymond, who lives in Saint Robert. “It’s important because, even though I am a medic, if I’m put in a situation where one of our members is wounded and I have to help clear a building, I need to know my basic soldiering skills before being a medic. Also, if by chance I ever need to go into a building to...

<p>Contact your Senators and let them know what you think!</p> <p>U.S. veterans or subsidies for United Nations (U.N.) bureaucracy.</p>

At issue: a young black woman named Heather Ellis cut in line at Wal-Mart three years ago and refused to leave eventually fighting with and assaulting the local police. She turned down a plea bargain because she would not be allowed to sue the city. Now she is facing a "maximum" of 15 years for 2 felony counts of assaulting police officers and resisting arrest. CNN and the Race Baiting Industry have descended on this small town calling it a "town known for it's racism" in their coverage and alleging that the local prosecutor has ties with the Klan. I...

ST. MARTINS, Mo. — Authorities said Saturday that a 15-year-old has been charged with first-degree murder for the death of a 9-year-old central Missouri girl found in the woods two days after she went missing. Police did not release the teen's gender or name and provided few other details about the person suspected of killing Elizabeth Olten. Cole County Sheriff Greg White has said the teenage suspect is not related to Elizabeth but was acquainted with her and is from the same area just west of Jefferson City. Several hundred people braved soaking rain and cold weather to search a...

Police in Hazelwood are told they'll have to get a subpoena to obtain surveillance video of a school bus beating that occurred Friday afternoon. The bus was taking students home from Hazelwood West High School when a 14 year old boy allegedly punched a 15 year old girl in the head, repeatedly. The girl's mother tells me that the bus driver stopped the bus and told the boy to get off. A friend called the girl's mother and told her what was happening. Mom met the bus at a stop near her home, then called police. The girl was swollen...

The media will be barred from covering a speech by Sarah Palin at a Missouri university next month. The former Republican vice-presidential nominee and ex-governor of Alaska demanded the ban as part of her contract with the College of the Ozarks....

More than 100 radical leftists from across the nation, including top leaders of the feminist, socialist, labor, and victimhood movements, descended upon St. Louis on Saturday for the 2009 Healthcare-Now.org National Strategy Conference.

AUXVASSE - Bernie Breer, 67, died when his friend accidentally shot him after deer hunting off Route B in Callaway County. Breer was one of three hunters accidentally shot during the opening weekend of dear season. Breer's friend accidentally shot him while taking his gun off his shoulder. "The firearm discharged and hit the victim in the stomach area," Missouri Department of Conservation officer Tom Stother said. Officials reported hunters in Adair and Macon Counties were accidentally shot while deer hunting during the weekend. Last year, a total of five people were accidentally shot during all of deer season. None...

ST. LOUIS (Nov. 16) -- Nearly three years after Heather Ellis switched checkout lines at a southeast Missouri store and touched off what she calls a racially charged dispute with white customers and authorities, the young black schoolteacher faces a trial that could send her to prison for 15 years. Witnesses have told authorities that Ellis cut in front of waiting customers at the Walmart in Kennett on Jan. 6, 2007, shoved merchandise already placed on a conveyor belt out of the way and became belligerent when confronted, according to court filings. Ellis maintains she was merely joining her cousin,...

He says he killed a human being on his 27th birthday. His words are louder than the clatter of customers on this Veterans Day at Panera Bread in Oak Park Mall. But the 29-year-old Army veteran from Lenexa, with baby-face cheeks and crinkly eyes, tells it so matter-of-factly, so dead on bluntly, it sounds normal. He was pulling night-time guard duty in Iraq. A bullet whizzed past his head. Through the scope on his M-16, he found the shooter on top of a building nearly a mile away. Watched as the shooter popped his head above the railing and swung...

Investigators are digging up a rural Missouri property looking for notes they say six children buried in glass jars documenting years of nightmarish sexual abuse allegedly at the hands of their grandfather, father and three uncles. The children reportedly wrote the notes between 1988 and 1995 because they claim they were told doing so would make their memories go away, police said. Police who are excavating the 55 acre property said they are also looking for bodies, although they would not say whether they were looking for bodies of adults or children. The five men, three of whom were lay...

"The doctor overseeing my health care advised me to get an H1N1 flu shot. I've been under a six-year treatment program for a chronic infection, plus I have heart and lung problems. Therefore, I am considered a high risk. Fortunately, my doctor had three shots available, but I would have to get approval from my county health department. Much to my surprise, the woman at the health department apologized and told me that even though I was a senior citizen at high risk, the health department had been instructed to approve shots only for children and pregnant mothers. I asked...

Some believe the proverbial “deck” is stacked against Kenneth Gladney receiving justice. And who could blame them.

JEFFERSON CITY - Portions of downtown Jefferson City are shut down due to a possible hostage situation in a government building. State employees in the building say police officers are outside patroling the area with assault rifles. The area is locked down. Follow KOMU online and on Twitter for updates. A viewer called KOMU to say a hostage situation took place in the Governor's Building on Madison Street. Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder is sending accounts from his Twitter account saying snipers are on the roof of the Jefferson Building and negotiators are on the scene to speak with a suspect...

On Aug. 6, the same day the White House told its supporters to “punch back twice as hard,” black conservative Kenneth Gladney found himself at the receiving end of several of those punches. He was beaten by a group of thugs from the Service Employees International Union after they found him selling conservative memorabilia outside Bernard Middle School, the site of of a South St. Louis County health care town hall meeting hosted by ultra-liberal Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.).

Vincent Mosby signed a marriage contract and paid a dowry in a religious ceremony in August, police said. Mosby, 23, of Kansas City didn’t legally wed his 14-year-old bride, however, because Missouri law won’t allow it without a judge’s order. Police said she was pressured into the union because her mother and stepfather thought she was going to be sexually active with a boy her age. ***** Police said the girl’s stepfather and mother became concerned that she was going to become sexually active, so the stepfather allegedly approached Mosby about marrying the girl. The girl was “strongly encouraged” to...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — American society may be less religious than it was a few generations ago, but its religious diversity has greatly increased. That change has dramatically impacted the Army, which must now offer religious services not only for Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants but also for a wide variety of different Christian denominations and minority faiths. That’s far different from what Lt. Col. John Bjarnason, Fort Leonard Wood’s family life chaplain, saw when he joined the Army in 1969. “We have a wide range of all kinds of different choices for our trainees to...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — Shortly before Army personnel nationwide conducted a moment of silence for the 13 soldiers and others killed by an Army psychiatrist Friday afternoon at Fort Hood in Texas, an Army chaplain assigned to family life issues at Fort Leonard Wood explained how the Army tries to help soldiers and families. “Our military is grieving now this great loss at Fort Hood,” said Lt. Col. John Bjarnason. “We feel very sad for the families that have lost a dear one there.” Bjarnason, 64, entered the Army during the Vietnam era, returned to active...

BUCKHORN, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — A Halloween alternative party at Grace Covenant Church of Buckhorn, near Fort Leonard Wood, has raised $2,300 for bullet-resistant vests and other equipment in the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff J.B. King, who is a Southern Baptist, said he and his deputies greatly appreciate the help from the independent charismatic church. “It’s been a godsend,” King said. “During the past four years, this has amounted to a very healthy amount of money. We placed this donation into our equipment fund and it has helped us buy all kinds of equipment for our vehicles; for...

While roaming the grounds of the US Capitol yesterday, Kristinn Taylor obtained a list of possible democrat defectors of the now infamous “Healthcare” bill. Kristinn was asked to post this list of wobbly democrats on FreeRepublic in an effort to mobilize our forces and overwhelm these members with phone calls and e-mails asking them to vote NO on the socialization of our healthcare. We also learned that Nancy Pelosi had just scheduled the vote for tomorrow; Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 6:00 PM. For all those who were unable to answer the call to surround the Capitol yesterday, here is...

During an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program with host John King, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) demonstrated that he just doesn’t understand what happened in New York’s 23rd Congressional District over the weekend.

An estimated 200 anti-socialism protesters carried signs and waved at passing motorists for more than two hours yesterday afternoon as they have almost every Saturday for six months at the intersection of Highways K and N in O’Fallon, Mo. Among those participating were three first-generation Americans who took time to share powerful messages every freedom-loving American should hear. Those messages appear in this video.

This column is in answer to the linked NAACP objection to my column(s.) I have linked to the column in question and the letter. Please read both before perusing my response. My initial reaction to this communiqué and that of my liberal-leaning friend, webmaster and former editor of the Rolla Daily News, Martin Schwartz, was: “You (Weinbaum) made an opinion in the op-ed section of the RDN. They (NAACP) disagreed with it. So the NAACP wants to stop this and other opinions like it from being published in the paper.” In other words, until Weinbaum conforms to NAACP opinion, he...

Contact: Dr. Gregory Thompson, Personhood Missouri, 417-894-5768, 417-754-8774; Keith Mason, Personhood USA, 202-595-3500 ext. 3 ST. LOUIS, MO, Oct. 30 /Christian Newswire/ -- Planned Parenthood sued the State of Missouri this week to challenge two pro-life ballot initiatives, in an apparent effort to stifle the people's constitutional right to the ballot process. One of the ballot initiatives, submitted by Personhood Missouri, states, "Section 35, Person defined. As used in sections 2, 10, and 14 of Article I of the state constitution, the term "person" shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." The personhood...

Unemployment in the St. Louis region topped ten percent in September — the first time in over 26 years that joblessness in the area has reached into double figures.

Join us Wednesday, October 28th at 7:30 p.m. as Southeast Missouri State University and KMOX welcome Newt Gingrich and Governor Howard Dean for a discussion about health care today. Tickets are on sale now and are $8 for the general public. Tickets can be purchased at the Show Me Center Box Office and Ticketmaster outlets. Click here to purchase tickets online at Ticketmaster.com. Admission is free for university students, staff and faculty with Redhawks ID. NEWT GINGRICH is well-known as the architect of the “Contract with America” that led the Republican Party to a majority in the U.S. House for...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Oct. 27, 2009) — Teamed with several military organizations, the 7th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team from Fort Leonard Wood participated in confined space training on Oct. 20 and 21 as part of Operation Joint Eagle in Camp Gruber, Okla. The exercise was conducted by Response International Group, an organization composed of several of the firefighters who responded to the Oklahoma City bombing. The unit worked with the Illinois National Guard’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive Enhanced Response Force Package. “Working side by side with the CERFP helped each team understand its roles...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Oct. 16, 2009) — The Missouri National Guard’s 35th Engineer Brigade welcomed its new top non-commissioned officer, Command Sgt. Maj. Will Pierce, of Camdenton, in a recent change of responsibility ceremony. Pierce took over from Command Sgt. Maj. Ray Harding, of Saint Robert, who is retiring this month after 37 years in the Guard. “Command Sgt. Maj. Pierce has several qualities that will make him an excellent command sergeant major,” said Brig. Gen. David Irwin, brigade commander. “He has deployed multiple times with both an engineer battalion and the engineer brigade. He knows what it feels...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Oct. 16, 2009) — While training with civilian agencies in Columbia to clean up a mock terrorist lab producing chlorine gas, the Missouri National Guard’s 7th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team had to handle serious injuries sustained by one of its members. The injuries were only simulated but weren’t expected by those participating in the training of the Fort Leonard Wood unit with Columbia-area civilian firefighters, police, members of HAZMAT and SWAT teams, and FBI and bomb squad members. “There were a couple of hiccups, but that’s to be expected when you get that...

After claiming for more than a year that it could not do so, the Missouri Department of Social Services finally has obeyed a state law and published a list of employers whose workers get government-funded Medicaid health care coverage. Yet compliance with the Medicaid reporting law may be only an experiment. Although the list is supposed to be published quarterly, the department says there's no telling when it will produce the report again. As lawmakers in Washington, D.C., debate a national health-care overhaul, Missouri's experience shows how slow and difficult it can be for bureaucracies to implement even incremental changes...

A Cape Girardeau man was arrested for flag desecration Friday, a case that was dismissed within hours because of a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared flag burning was protected speech under the First Amendment. Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said that he was unaware of the case, Texas v. Johnson, that invalidated the laws of 48 states, when he filed misdemeanor charges against Frank L. Snider III. Missouri's law was passed in 1980. When asked whether the state law could be enforced, Swingle said he needed to research the issue. After reviewing the court's opinion, he...

Juvenile authorities said Saturday that a 15-year-old has been charged with first-degree murder for the killing of a 9-year-old central Missouri girl found in the woods two days after she went missing. Police did not disclose the teen’s gender or name and provided few other details about the person suspected of killing Elizabeth Olten. Cole County Sheriff Greg White has said the teenage suspect is not related to Elizabeth but was acquainted with her and is from the same area just west of Jefferson City. Several hundred people braved soaking rain and cold weather to search a heavily wooded area...

Bond Speaks Out Against Cap-and-Trade Senator Bond continues to fight against cap-and-trade legislation that threatens Missouri families and farmers with higher energy prices and job losses. The bill proposed by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) sets even stricter emissions targets than the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill. The Senate bill also removes provisions that require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be fair to ethanol producers and to protect energy-intensive manufacturing jobs in the United States that are exposed to unfair competition in China, an unsettling fact as experts say that the Waxman-Markey bill alone will eliminate 2.4 million...

A parole absconder from St. Louis is believed to have shot another man in a Tuesday night robbery near downtown Jefferson City, then was shot by one of his victims who acted in self-defense. Patrick Evans, 37, who was released from prison two weeks ago, was found hiding in a small room in an upstairs apartment at 611 E. Capitol Ave. just after 7 a.m. Wednesday, more than 8 hours after the shooting incident downstairs at the same address, according to police reports. "Officers were ready to re-canvass the area as daylight broke when they found a new blood trail...

Felonious behavior is becoming more dangerous, if two recent incidents are any indication.During a home invasion on Oct. 5, one of the intruders was shot and killed by one of the occupants of the mobile home.And an armed assailant is recovering from wounds after he was shot Oct. 13 by one of the people he was attempting to herd into a building housing law offices on East Capitol Avenue.In the first case, the weapon was kept in the home, which always has been allowed to defend people and property.In the second incident, the assailant was shot by someone who qualifies...

College of the Ozarks news release: Tickets to attend the Sarah Palin Convocation at College of the Ozarks on December 2, are no longer available. The ticket line quickly filled, consuming all tickets available to the public. Due to limited seating, there was a cap on available tickets. “As a charismatic speaker and highly-interesting political figure, Sarah Palin attracts much public interest,” said Sue Head, Executive Director of The Keeter Center for Character Education. “Because of this, the College anticipated that tickets would go quickly.” Governor Palin is slated to speak at College of the Ozarks December 2, as part...

PINEVILLE, Mo. — A 39-year-old man, who reportedly shot and killed another man in self-defense Sunday night in Anderson, has been turned over to U.S. marshals in anticipation of a federal weapon charge. McDonald County Sheriff Robert Evenson said Matthew D. Robertson, 32, died of a single shotgun blast during an altercation with Michael J. Smith at the Wallain Court apartment complex in Anderson, where both men lived in separate units. Authorities received a call at 8:30 p.m. reporting the shooting at the apartments and found Robertson dead, the sheriff said. Evenson said deputies determined that Robertson was in the...

Dressed in blue jeans and wearing a large parka, ski cap and sun glasses, I spent almost 20 minutes early this afternoon mingling among approximately two-dozen people being paid, according to a union source not at the rally, $11 an hour by St. Louis-area union bosses to wave pre-printed signs in support of President Barack Obama’s so-called “health care reform plan.”

In the wake of the news that radio host Rush Limbaugh was hoping to buy a chunk of the St. Louis Rams, Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote a column containing the now-infamous quote, supposedly from Limbaugh, regarding the notion that slavery "had its merits." We first became aware of the quote not from perusing the copy of the Post-Dispatch that arrives in our mailbox every morning in West Virginia, but because Limbaugh mentioned the issue during the Monday broadcast of his radio show. (Indeed, if Limbaugh had never talked about the quotes on his radio show, we...

Eastern Jackson County, MO —      Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders says his $1.03 billion commuter rail proposal is a uniquely Kansas City solution for Kansas City’s unique situation. “It has the potential to transform the greater Kansas City area in the span of two years,” he says. Our fair metro is often described as the second busiest rail hub in the country. That means we have lots of trains using lots of tracks – but there are also many miles of unused or underused tracks.      Jim Terry, who worked for the Union Pacific for 32 years and has...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Oct. 15, 2009) — While Waynesville and Saint Robert officials said Wednesday they expect annexing Fort Leonard Wood’s on-post housing areas will help attract new development by substantially boosting their Census 2010 population statistics, post officials aren’t yet able to give solid estimates of how many more people would actually be added to the two cities by the proposed annexation. However, it’s very unlikely that even the highest estimates of increased population would bring the populations of either Waynesville or St. Robert up to the level of Lebanon or Rolla, the closest cities on the I-44...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Oct. 16, 2009) — City officials in Saint Robert and Waynesville believe annexing the housing areas of Fort Leonard Wood would help the cities attract new businesses while not requiring military personnel to pay more taxes or requiring the cities to provide more services to their new on-post residents. However, calculating precisely how many people would actually be brought into the new city limits isn’t easy. Fort Leonard Wood officials released estimates Friday morning of how many housing units are available in three main categories of on-post housing with a total of 21,250 available bedrooms in...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Oct. 15, 2009) — In a bid to increase Census 2010 population statistics for Waynesville and Saint Robert, officials from those two cities announced Wednesday that they plan to seek voluntary annexation of housing areas on Fort Leonard Wood so both cities will have a larger population and be more attractive to potential developers. “A while back, I kind of alluded to something that was in the works,” said St. Robert City Administrator Alan Clark at Wednesday’s monthly lunch meeting of the Waynesville-St. Robert Chamber of Commerce. “I pray to God this thing comes to fruition...