missouri – Page 6

Have you seen me?

Won’t you come home, Russ Carnahan? Won’t you please come home?

My name is Russ Carnahan (D, MO-03), and I’m lost:

(via Dana Loesch. Also note: Ed Martin is running against this guy.)

I was last seen a week or so ago, hiding in a garage after a get-together I threw ended with some people that I invited beating up a guy. I’ve dropped off the face of the earth since then. No Twitter*, no blogging, nothing from work… I’m just gone. Now, I’ve had a bit of a sheltered life, and I’m not used to it when things go bad: so I may in a bad place right now. If you see me, please let Ed Martin (R) know; he thinks that I need to take a break anyway, and he’d like to talk to me about it.

I may be with one or more friends, who are also missing: Continue reading Have you seen me?

Rep. Carnahan and the Gladney Incident: the secret press conference.

There is a reason why the United States of America is a democratic republic, and not an aristocratic republic. The first generation of a particular family may be politically able; may, in fact, be very able. The second generation of that family may likewise be politically able. Sometimes – sometimes, and mostly if the family name is Adams – even the third generation is politically able. But it is unwise to bet on that.

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D, MO-03) is of the third generation of a political family. His last name is obviously not Adams – and does it ever show.

Continue reading Rep. Carnahan and the Gladney Incident: the secret press conference.

Brave, Brave Carnahan.

Look at the scary, scary mob.

When faced with a vigorous band of constituents who wished to loudly express their discomfort and annoyance with both Russ Carnahan’s specific and general voting records, the Congressman did the proper thing: he engaged with them. He listened. He explained why sometimes – to evoke Burke – you have to exercise your own judgement in representing your district, and not knee-jerk defer to constituent opinion. In short, he was a Representative.

Yes, I’m joking. What he actually did was lock the doors on them before the speech, and ran out the back like a scared little bunny rabbit. Or a Democratic legacy politician who doesn’t understand why the grubby little proles are so exercised over things, all of a sudden. Continue reading Brave, Brave Carnahan.

New GOP challenger in Russ Carnahan’s (D, MO-03) seat.

This one is causing some commentary, behind the scenes: former Blunt chief of staff Ed Martin has started an exploratory committee to run in Carnahan’s district, which includes large parts of the St. Louis area. CQ Politics currently rates the seat as “Safe Democrat:” Cook reports the district as being D+7; and Carnahan is from the third generation of a powerful Missouri political family.

Actually, that last factor may suggest why Martin may think that he has a shot: Carnahan is part of a local aristocracy, and frankly? It’s starting to show. Continue reading New GOP challenger in Russ Carnahan’s (D, MO-03) seat.

Sen Claire McCaskill (D, MO) sounds rattled.

Also, resentful.

Welcome, Instapundit readers. I have worked out an interesting fundraising tactic here.

After a rather fascinating exercise of profiles in courage from her St. Louis office – essentially, they locked the doors, drew the blinds, called the cops, and hid from a bunch of protesters knocking on the door. But can you blame the staffers?

…I mean, those guys brought a cocker spaniel.

Anyway, Senator McCaskill would have liked to be conciliatory, except that the passive-aggressive resentment at being forced to treat these grubby neo-peasants as if they mattered as much as Beltway types kept getting in the way:

I think we learned from Friday and will do better in the future. In return I hope those that are protesting refrain from banging on the windows and doors continuously. Thanks so much.

Via Instapundit. For the record: it was the ‘Thanks so much’ part that wrecked the rest of the statement. If she had ended the statement one sentence earlier it would have actually come across as being witty; those three words decreased that quality by, oh, about fifty percent.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Missourians about to get charged for energy reduction programs.

Hey, these things cost money.

And, contrary to our current ruling party’s (Democrats) operating fiscal paradigm, there are no money trees out there. If you want a thing, you have to find a way to pay for it. The trouble is, of course, that if you don’t particularly want a thing you may have to pay for it anyway, particularly when the people who do want it (Democrats) happen to have one of their own as Governor of Missouri.

These three paragraphs come to the heart of the matter, I think. Bear in mind that Governor Nixon’s (D) overall goal is that there be less power usage, which sounds marvelous until you contemplate the implications of a population that’s increasing faster than power production. If you don’t want to increase power supply, and you can’t control the population, the only way to manage the situation is to set up conditions where individual expectations of fair-share power are lowered to a level that equals the supply. We have an adjective to describe that condition.

It’s ‘poor.’

Usually, regulators allow utilities to recoup the cost of building power plants or buying more power to meet customer demand. Recently, the Missouri Public Service Commission began allowing some utilities to pass along to customers the cost of programs that reduce demand for electricity.

For example, the commission last week approved a program in which St. Louis-based AmerenUE can offer credits to businesses that voluntarily shut down or scale back their electricity use during peak demand. AmerenUE will be able to recoup the cost for the program that starts Thursday by increasing the rates it charges business customers.

[snip]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that energy-saving programs offered by utilities will add about 3 percent to the average electricity rates. But it says customers who participate in the programs could save 10 percent to 20 percent on their energy bills, and even those who don’t participate might save if utilities don’t have to buy more energy or build new power plants.

(Bolding mine) Continue reading Missourians about to get charged for energy reduction programs.