It's a Quarter After One, I'm Tanked At The Red Lion…

I began typing this entry 35,000 feet over Cedar Point, at the same time two lads from Tennessee and their gorgeous lead singer wrapped up a three-day sojourn across the pond, building on the unprecedented chart success they’re achieving.

Lady Antebellum’s trip to Britain may appear fruitless, performing only one concert, and that one to 2000 devoted fans at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, but for those pining for the world to embrace the trademark twang of country, that close-knit concert may very well be country music’s equivalent to The Beatles’ landmark 1964 debut concert on The Ed Sullivan Show and at old Shea Stadium.

And Britain may have just warmed up to the format, in particular the three members of Lady Antebellum. In addition to BBC Radio One regularly performing tracks from their newest album Need You Now, the trio of Dave Haywood, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott appeared on BBC One’s Breakfast Show for a live interview segment lasting just over seven minutes. Need You Now, including the title song and “I Run To You”, have soared on the UK’s charts, echoing the success the trio have registered in the US over the likes of Justin Bieber, Rhianna and fellow country starlet Taylor Swift.

Listing The Beatles as among their influences, and joking that they were once mistaken for Kings of Leon, Lady Antebellum are the epitome of not just the world’s earbuds acclimating to songs about mama, drinking, pickup trucks, and jailhouse blues, but equally of country music evolving from its distinctly rural American roots. Much as the Mississippi delta gave rise to jazz and blues, genres quickly embraced and adapted by legendary British rockers including Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, country music has now reached a point where it has openly influenced, and been influenced by, the bass beats of classic rock, the somber, soothing tones of adult contemporary, and even the occasional jolt from heavy metal.

Even as The New York Times declared country music dead in 1985, performers rooted in church choirs and old guitar standards began branching out from behind the friendly confines of the WSM microphone at the Grand Ole Opry. Artists, ranging from classic Southern Belles like Reba McEntire to transplants like the Canadian Shania Twain, explored the inclusion of traits from beyond the commonly acceptable bounds of country music. As country music caught on across North America, so too did the outside influences. Shania drew some flack for a song which, for all intents and purposes, could hardly be classified as country. Reba built on her success by way of launching a television series on The WB (and later The CW), running for six seasons. Reba's crossover appeal furthered when she released an album of duets in 2007, featuring Kelly Clarkson, Don Henley, Carole King and Justin Timberlake among her collaborators.

In the past two years alone, country music has reached a point where it is, for all intents and purposes, attached to the mainstream as much as hip-hop and R&B. Taylor Swift’s near-bubble gum pop appeal, with chart success on country and mainstream charts, drew a less than positive response from a certain rapper on a certain live music award broadcast. Soft rock crooners Darius Rucker (of Hootie and the Blowfish fame) and Uncle Kracker have found their ways on the country charts by virtue of including just enough twang for country music stations' programming directors to add them to their playlists.

Many of these artists, though, can also look back to successes achieved by rock-and-roll pioneers such as Elvis and Boddy Holly, or can look to the enduring image of Jim Reeves. Over 45 years after his umtimely passing in a plane crash en route to Nashville, Reeves' booming bass voice against gentle background music continues to resonate in the songbooks of Britain, Ireland, and South Africa, where he spent several months touring in 1963.

Could Lady Antebellum's newfound appeal across the pond result in the potential inclusion of up to 400 million fans, or maybe some Johnny Cash knockoffs in future Eurovision Song Contests? Or has country music morphed into the point where it is now part of the Simon Cowell-fronted-but-really-controlled-by-Sony-investors cookie-cutter music machine, defined only by an artist's preferred training, or what a publicist believes would best market the artist? These are questions that not only tug at the ear of devoted and occasional music fans, but also probe deeper into society.

Whether British fans of Lady Antebellum will delve deeper into the rich history of Country music and find a new genre of their own liking, or start grouping their tracks with Little Boots because both artists play regularly on Heart, will be a test of time. If past results are any indication, though, it will likely be the latter. I've yet to hear Mix 93 or Z100 play anything by Lena or Alexandra Burke.

Freshmen MPs vulnerable to Foot-In-Mouth Disease

Funny how an outside candidate keen to make himself accessible now, as an elected official, wants to cut off access.

Over the last month Dominic Raab, the Conservative representing Esher and Walton in the House of Commons, has called on a political advocacy blog to pull his e-mail address from their Web site. Raab has told media outlets that his office is being flooded with e-mails from across Britain and that they're unable to handle the volume of correspondence.

The blog in question, 38degrees, bills itself on enabling concerned citizens to sign petitions and pursue group action on various issues, ranging from recalling MPs who may have misused their position to local planning issues including proposed CAFOs and housing developments. For the past month, 38degrees' operators and Raab have exchanged e-mails concerning Raab's request and made those e-mails public.

Raab has taken offence to his inbox being flooded with hundreds of e-mails from concerned citizens across the length and breadth of Britain sending the same form letter advocating for the adoption of the Alternative Vote, the referendum which is slated to occur in May 2011. In the e-mail exchange with 38degrees, Raab has noted that he would welcome responding to individual e-mails from advocates of AV. Both Raab and 38degrees say they have advice from Parliament's Information Commissioner backing their stand on Raab's request.

Now, on the surface, this request appears idiotic. Raab is a public figure now. His e-mails, if they're conducted from a government e-mail account, are subject to opens records laws. (That said, Raab listed a Yahoo! e-mail address on his candidate profile, and if he is still using that Yahoo! account for government business, then that's a slightly different issue here.) And Raab asking people to stop e-mailing him, be it to his Yahoo! or Commons e-mail address, is like asking the Niagara River to stop flowing over Horseshoe Falls.

What his office can do, like what several reps here in Missouri do, is set up a generic auto-reply that acknowledges receipt of an e-mail and explicitly state on there that unless the issue is raised by a resident in his constituency (as verified by post codes) there's a good chance the e-mail won't be replied to or actually be seen by the MP. If an e-mail did not include a post code or did not match those that reside in the constituency (in Raab's situation those would be KT10, KT11 and KT12), then the office staff could label it as low priority. This would be to ensure that the highest priority emails—from constituents and media—would be given top priority.

What concerns me about 38degrees, and what may be distressing Raab, is whether the e-mails he's receiving via 38degrees' mailing system (which is modelled on progressive grassroots sites like MoveOn.org) is mailing the same form letter to all 650 MPs, regardless of the petitioner's given constituency. While it is useful to generate large numbers as to show national opinion on certain issues, an MP's priority must be his/her constituency. If the MP is to be a delegate representing the wishes of his/her residents (as opposed to a trustee), then he/she must be able to discern the voices of his/her neighbours over those of adamant campaigners.

While Web sites like 38degrees, MoveOn.org, (and even Missives from Missouri, to a lesser extent) allow regular citizens to become aware and actively involved in issues affecting their lives, citizens need to be able to think and form opinions for themselves, rather than just fill in a few boxes and go back to watching EastEnders or iCarly. Rather than remaining a sheep under the stewardship of a new shepherd, a truly active citizen needs to be able to articulate their view and personal experiences relating to such issues. Only then will the power of new media reach its optimum.

Divided Attention, Dog Days of Summer Edition

Just under a fortnight ago I attended the wedding of two college friends. Not only was it the first wedding I attended since things across the pond went the way of Labour when Michael Foot handled the helm, but it was also a mini-reunion of sorts with several peers I hadn't seen since my years at Truman. In particular, I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with the husband of one of those peers. It was a most enjoyable and informative conversation for both of us, and the insight I gained from it has given me a chance to reflect on, well, the general direction of this blog. Or should I say indirection?

But again, my attention is divided. Much like how I'm split between covering the news of home and recent happenings in Blighty, city leaders in KCMO are split between what exactly to ask voters to approve with the public safety sales tax due for renewal before June 2011. The quarter-cent levy currently goes towards improving the police department's facilities and equipment, including the new police academy and Shoal Creek Patrol building just outside Pleasant Valley. Several on the city council, backed by police chief Jim Corwin, want to retain the sales tax for this use.

However, Mayor Mark Funkhouser wants to put more police officers on the streets. Citing citizen concerns raised to him, the mayor would instead like to augment the sales tax to foot the salaries of 100 officers, and extend its duration for 20 years rather than 15.

At first glance, I'm inclined to back more police on the beat. That means more eyes watching out for crime, traffic infractions, and kids in need of Royals baseball cards. Unfortunately, the mayor's desire to hire extra personnel by way of a sales tax generates two major problems.

The first problem, more critically, is proposing a sales tax with a set duration (let alone a sales/use tax) to increase the number of personnel serving a critical need for the city. Say you're one of the 100 officers brought in as a result of a passed sales tax aimed at hiring more officers. When that tax expires and citizens don't renew it, or sales revenue plummets more than it already has, your job probably isn't that secure. Even if the advocacy groups and unions do all they can to make sure you get your salary, generate bad PR for the city, etc., it would still compromise the force's effectiveness the same way dumping 100 officers or slashing a different part of the budget would. And further, this fear could easily be played upon by civic leaders looking to subvert such a tax into a gravy train for pet projects, or rely heavily on this tax as to free up money from other sources for said gravy train pet projects.

The second problem, at the moment, is that in Missouri it's not legal to propose such a tax. Until August 28. That's when Senate Bill 981, sponsored by Democrat Victor Callahan of Independence, becomes law. It would allow Kansas City to pass a sales tax of up to one percent to fund salaries of police officers. Unfortunately, while parts of the bill contain emergency clauses, this particular provision did not. Which is problematic as, for the measure to appear on the November ballot, the city must approve ballot wording by the 19th.

As the city is not on the same page on this critical subject, I suspect that voters will face a desperation-induced ballot measure come April, shortly after KCMO voters are worn out from a municipal election that still operates on the oddest dates for elections in Missouri.

Strange Bedfellows At The Westminster Motel

The strange bedfellows stemming from Britain's nascent Coalition government continue to develop. This week, it's a pairing of Labour's shadow cabinet with 50 backbencher Tories determined to quash the proposed May 2011 referendum on the alternative vote system. Their reasons, largely based on political dogma, are naturally divergent.

The ballot measure, which will go before voters across the UK on 5 May upon passage of the enabling legislation, will eliminate the first-past-the-post system in favour of ranking candidates in order of preference. The system is already in place for electing the mayor of greater London and in local elections across Wales and Scotland, the latter of which will occur simultaneously.

The 50 Tory backbenchers – principally Eurosceptics and right-wing politicians that could pull off a mass defection to UKIP if they really wanted to – oppose this system, believing that first-past-the-post has been a tried-and-true institution that can keep fringe candidates out of Parliament. But instead of going along with their party's coalition agreement, to let the people decide on what system they want, these stuck-in-the-mud traditionalists have every intention of maintaining the status quo.

It must be noted that Cameron, in spite of his willingness to allow the vote, will campaign against it. However, as part of the Coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative plurality agreed to let there be a vote on electoral reform (as championed by the Liberal Democrats) in exchange for the Tories' desire to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons and ensure an equal number of residents in each constituency.

As a result, Labour's leadership, which championed the Alternative Vote (and even passed the original proposal just six months ago) indicate that they may sign onto a motion to oppose the bill alongside the rebel Tory MPs. They fear that the Lib-Con coalition may gerrymander the new constituencies to divide Labour strongholds and render improbable any chance of a Labour or even LibDem government from forming in the near future. Naturally, it's fodder for generating sound-byte rebuttals, as Cameron was quick to call Labour "backtrackers" and "opportunistic".

With Labour's prospective U-Turn on the proposal, should it pass through Parliament only the Liberal Democrats (among the Westminster Three) will be on board with the Alternative Vote, even as they indicated preference to dumping single-seat constituencies in favour of the Single Transferable Vote system, as used to elect legislators in Northern Ireland.

The Coalition That Gaffes Together…

Were America's 24-hour newsrooms not so enthralled over LiLo's mug shots or when Mel Gibson gets his next one, they might have picked up on these two nuggets that occurred during Prime Minister David Cameron's trip to Washington this week.

First, the Prime Minister admitted to Sky News' Adam Boulton that Britain, while not a pushover, was the junior partner in the special relationship with the U.S. What really irked British media though was not Cameron's admission of this generally accepted reality, but how he qualified it.

Cameron suggested that the UK was also the junior partner in 1940. While this might play right into the hand of my jingoist compatriots who to this day insist America saved Britain's hide in World War II, there's a slight historical problem with this.

As 'The Few' took to the air to defend Britain's skies against Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe, the States remained on the sidelines, limiting itself to not-so-covert assistance of the Allies by way of the Lend-Lease Act. The resolve of 'The Few' prevailed when Germany formally abandoned the Battle of Britain in December 1940, months before Roosevelt and Churchill would meet off the coast of Newfoundland to promulgate the Atlantic Charter, and a solid year before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Even after America's "day of infamy", the United States only declared on Japan, which resulted in an invitation to the European theatre through Germany and Italy declaring on the U.S. on 11 December 1941.

Doesn't sound like a senior partner to me.

The staffers at 10 Downing, though, were more pressed into action over another gaffe that had occurred 12 hours earlier at the lectern of the House of Commons. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, standing in for Cameron during this week's Prime Minister's Questions, tussled words with Labour's Jack Straw, who served as foreign secretary and Lord Chancellor during Labour's past 13 years at the helm. In an effort to score a political one-up on the opposition amid a charged climate lacking decorum, Clegg declared: "Maybe he one day - perhaps we will have to wait for his memoirs - could account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all, which is the illegal invasion of Iraq."

Slight problem: a majority of Conservatives, including a freshman MP from the constituency of Witney named David Cameron, backed Tony Blair's government in joining the U.S. in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Liberal Democrats, when Clegg was representing Yorkshire in the European Parliament, were the largest party in Britain to oppose the war and declare it illegal.

What followed was a stark lesson for everyone running the Coalition government. 10 Downing attempted in vain to qualify Clegg's comments as his own, and then refused to counter them as Conservatives went on the counter-offensive. This also generated confusion over who exactly will declare whether or not British involvement in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was illegal, as a spokesman for the inquiry looking into the lead up to the conflict said its findings will not include an explicit statement of legality. Further, Clegg's statement from the dispatch box, were it to become a legal reality, could provide grounds to pursue criminal cases against current and former Government officials and even British troops who served in Iraq since March 2003.

While this may not prove too much a dent in the viability of the Cameron-Clegg Coalition, the slip-up in putting party platform over Government position, alongside the repeated yet draining efforts of Commons Speaker John Bercow to maintain order during the first PMQs with a Liberal party member at the lecturn, will give the Coalition reason to re-assess their strategy when dealing with a regrouping Labour opposition and disgruntled backbenchers. For Clegg, it is a stark reminder of the importance to represent the views of the Coalition as a whole when he speaks in place of the Prime Minister. Besides, there now exists a once-monthly session for questions directed to the Deputy Prime Minister, where leeway may occur for where his views as the "junior partner" of the Coalition may differ from the Prime Minister.

A Brief, Yet Somber Tribute

A typical summer thunderstorm swelled up over the Green Hills of Northern Missouri two nights ago. As it roared its way through my family's long-time stomping grounds, they started giving the Upper Midwest's Doppler radars, storm chasers, and residents concern as they showed signs of dropping a tornado.

As residents and loved ones from afar feared a repeat of the storms that dropped deadly twisters on Milan and Kirksville 14 months ago, NBC Action News assignment editor Nick Dutcher relayed warnings from the National Weather Service by way of his Twitter. When Adair County fell under a tornado warning, I asked him how close it was to Kirksville. He replied with reports of two radar-detected cells in the northern half of the county. Fortunately, the storms didn't produce any tornadoes of significance, if any.

Tragically, our brief exchange of Tweets turned out to be among the last things Nick would do from the assignment desk. Yesterday, police found Nick slain at his home in south Kansas City, and his SUV stolen. Nick was just 30 years old, and friends, colleagues, and media practitioners across the metro are stunned and in disbelief.

I only knew Nick from the many Tweets he posted whilst at the assignment desk: breaking news in the area during the run-up to 10 pm newscasts, extensive severe weather coverage, his love for Celine Dion's repertoire, and the occasional reality TV show. He was one of the few KC-area journalists I followed on Twitter during my eight months in the Kentish Riviera. And as Kansas City media pause to remember the young life taken away from us, I too reflect.

Nick, his family, friends, and the NBC Action News team, will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Meanwhile, KCPD are investigating Nick's death as a homicide, but have no suspects at this moment. Earlier this evening, they located his stolen Ford Escape abandoned just north of Swope Park. Anyone with new information pertaining to Nick's murder should call the KCPD's TIPS hotline at +1 816 474 8477.

Campaign.Mailers{at}mo.gov

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's "Political Fix" blog reports that Creve Coeur Rep. Jill Schupp, who is running unopposed for re-election to her House district, sent a campaign mailer from her former aide's Capitol e-mail address. Schupp is quoted in Tony Messenger's report as saying that it was her first time personally using the mass mailing client Constant Contact, that she was unaware that it had been set up that way, and that future mailers will come from a different e-mail address.

The missives in question were sent on 11 July and 11 May, from House.Mo.Gov addresses associated with Schupp and her office. As the operator of Missives from Missouri, I've been anticipating a mishap of this nature, as does happen often when politics mingle with new technologies and concepts.

And in this case, it has. To the untrained eye, Schupp's two e-mails did appear to come from her state office. This screenshot (click for full version) shows how I've set up Google Mail to place a label on every e-mail sent from House.Mo.Gov (Maroon) and Senate.Mo.Gov (Pink)

Also, as you can tell, GOP are Red, Dem are Blue, and e-mails sent by someone in a legislator's office is marked "Staffer". (And you can also tell that I've maintained support for the U.S. Soccer and Missouri's wineries, and even developed an interest in cricket. HOWZAT!)

In that screenshot, the mailing from Schupp, dated 11 July, was tagged as being from a House.Mo.Gov address. And this screenshot adds to that argument, but then re-qualifies it.

Here, the address and subject line affirms the source being from Rep. Schupp's office (and the address being a former staffer of the office), but adds that the e-mail itself was mailed through Constant Contact. However, it was signed by an account referring to Schupp's office and not her campaign, and on top of that (well, at the bottom of the mailing):
A re-affirmation of both the campaign nature of the mailer and the sender's address, from House.Mo.Gov.

Now again, I expected something like this to happen, and rather than continue providing screenshots until this is a shark-jumping, muck-racking escapade, I'll state my personal belief that this was an unfortunate oversight by Rep. Schupp. I anticipate the next mailer of this nature from the representative (provided my e-mail address isn't delisted!) to arrive from a different address. I should note, of course, that generally I don't post political mailers on Missives from Missouri, so as a result I opted to not post information on one State Senate candidate's barbecue for veterans in his district, or a discount that's being offered to readers of another campaign's followers for visiting a new restaurant. Both such items were sent from campaign addresses.

Ideally, lawmakers should follow in the example of lawmakers like Rep. Will Kraus of Lee's Summit and Sen. Joseph Keaveny of St. Louis City and maintain separate mailing lists for state and campaign business. Missives from both lawmakers, among others, have arrived from separate accounts. Reference the first screenshot, where the Keaveny Connection (which is providing exceptional publicity for organizations serving the St. Louis area) is tagged as being from Senate.Mo.Gov, but his later e-mail looking for canvassers for his campaign appears with only a DEM tag.

I have kept a close eye on weekly reports from both state and non-state addresses as to ensure that what's being posted is from a state legislator's perspective and not a political candidate. But of course, the line between state legislator and political candidate is often blurry, with caucuses from both parties providing material for their members to send home. Reports become as much an update to residents as they do a refresher of their legislators' values and political allegiances. State law, however, is clear in two areas:

1. State resources cannot be used, in an official capacity, for political campaigns.
2. Any e-mail sent from a state e-mail address to at least two people is available for public review through the Sunshine Law by anyone.

As such, any campaign material sent from either House.Mo.Gov or Senate.Mo.Gov will be published on Missives from Missouri, and I'm afraid Schupp's slip-up is not the only one that's been published in the seven months I've operated this site.

The Special Session That Shouldn't Have Been

The 1st Extraordinary Session of the 95th Missouri General Assembly continues to linger in the vacant halls of the State Capitol, a session that has brought about some of the most desperate twists in principle by some to ensure the state's economic viability, and conversely the most desperate twists in the state's economic viability to ensure others' principles.

As we speak, a gaggle of staunch conservative senators are in the twelfth hour of a filibuster aimed at killing off a bill laden with incentives to convince Ford to retain two production lines at their plant in Claycomo. Their hope is to put to an end the practice of granting tax credits to practically everything that moves an inch in the state, which they believe is a major reason why Missouri continues to face growing revenue shortfalls.

Which won't get any better if 3700 people in Kansas City's Northland are indefinitely furloughed when Ford relocates their Escape & Escape Hybrid lines to another state.

As it stands, these jobs are gone in a year, off to Kentucky, and with it a large chunk of revenue from Clay County's largest private employer. Revenue that goes into maintaining roads in unincorporated areas of the county, North Kansas City and Liberty schools, and practically keep the village of Claycomo on the map. And even if this bill passes, there is no guarantee that Ford will bring a new model to Claycomo to replace the Escape.

There is, however, an even greater chance of 3700 Missourians being out of a job if it doesn't pass, all in the name of the ideal of free enterprise and small government. Now yes, a large chunk of affected workers can and probably will find a replacement job, but it's very unlikely that such jobs will pay the same. And yes, it might show a growing consumer consciousness for fuel-efficient and clean energy vehicles, like electric fleet vehicles now being manufactured by Smith Electric in neighboring Platte County. But in the short term, this loss will all but ensure a double-dip recession in many areas of Northwest Missouri, as the area adapts to find new jobs and revenue.

Jobs, revenue, impact, and critical specifics that has seen nary a mention in any of the three weeks of debate and political pandering. Instead it's been the need to pass it, the political means to do so, and the opposition from those who see the concept of government intervention at any level as the biggest problem to economic growth and not a possible agent of support.

The bill, should this filibuster come to a close, will likely pass, as Senate leaders say they have enough votes to pass it back to the House, where it will likely receive another round of yeas before landing on Governor Nixon's desk. How it got there, though, is another string of arm-wringing disappointment.

To ensure the rapid passage of the bill through the House, Speaker Ron Richard—comfortably on his way to the State Senate with no challenger in his bid to represent Joplin—wasted no time in pulling from committees two house members who did not express vehement support. Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt of Eastern Jackson County was removed from the Rules Committee after he called it a "bail out bill". Within a day, another Jackson County representative, Will Kraus of Lee's Summit, was removed from the Job Creation and Economic Development Committee after he stated he would prefer to hear both sides of the issue before casting his both. Both Pratt & Kraus were among the 19 nay votes on the bill the House advanced to the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Charlie Shields of St. Joseph waited until this week to remove Howell County's Senator Chuck Purgason from the Government Oversight and Fiscal Accountability committee. Purgason, under his purview as chairman of the committee, refused to bring the bill up for discussion, also referring to it as a bailout and suggesting that Missouri "sucks at economic development." Purgason suggests that to spur economic development, Missourians should instead dump income taxes and instead charge a higher sales tax to ensure revenue neutrality. Problem with that, though, is that unless it's enacted at the national level, a large chunk of Missourians could drive across the state line and take advantage of what would then be a reasonable sales tax rates in Bentonville, Quincy, and Overland Park, with Missourians nowhere near the border either stuck holding up the bulk of Missouri's revenue burden or renting a U-Haul on a regular basis to hoard up on necessities.

So now we have a filibuster that's stretched into 12 hours, to prevent a bill to possibly save 3700 jobs in the hopes of possibly saving more businesses. Well, one thing's for sure: the bill could have had more teeth. HB2 is a more specific version of House Bill 1675, also sponsored by Gladstone Republican Jerry Nolte. Nolte's original bill would have applied to any industrial manufacturer in the state, be it automotive, chemical, electrical, etc. Because this bill stalled in a Senate committee over the same ideological concerns (on top of issues legislators believed to be more pressing, like changing I-70's name in St. Louis back to the Mark Twain Expressway), Nolte asked the governor to call a special session.

The governor's call specifically addressed the Claycomo plant. As a result, Nolte's bill could technically not be as broad as it was. Thus, the current version on the Senate floor would only apply to manufacturers classified by the U.S. Census Bureau as "Automobile and Light Duty Motor Vehicle Manufacturing". (Interesting enough, according to the Census' 1997 figures, Missouri produced more goods in this category, in terms of dollar value, than all states not named Michigan.) The House attempted to saddle tax credits for senior citizens who own their own home and companies who create information technology jobs, but these were stricken by an earlier Senate committee who said they were outside the Governor's parameters for the special session.

So now, as Ford figures out whether it's still worth it to keep operating the plant they built 60 years ago on land which once was the residence of TWA's Jack Frye and site of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's honeymoon, state Republicans squabble with other state Republicans and Kansas City area reps squabble with other Kansas City area reps over the future of one of their most critical economic engines, all over ideological principles.

All the while, 3700 families continue to dread next year when they will need to go thumbing through the help wanted section, trying to find anything that will keep food on the table, much-needed medication in the cabinet, and their kids' fragile college savings viable. And this is where the focus should always have been. For that reason, this session has been one colossal farce played out by the General Assembly and the Governor. And it will be the families affected by this line's relocation—Claycomo's assembly workers, employees of suppliers across the state, eating establishments whose core clientele will evaporate, special education students who can't get the specialized attention they need during the school day because of even tighter budget constraints—who will feel the most pain from this farce of a session.

It isn't Ford who needs the bailout; it's these families, and at the end of the day, it's what the bill in question should truly be about. It's giving Missouri a chance to preserve these jobs and retain a sizable economic engine at a time when no one can risk a double-dip recession.