Blaine Luetkemeyer

The U.S. Senate passed a $17.6 billion jobs bill today by a 68-29 vote, sending it to the White House for the President's signature. "The bill includes a payroll tax break for small businesses and highway funding designed to spur job growth," according to Politico.

Blaine Luetkemeyer, speaking in Kahoka:

President Obama is neither a Democrat or Republican...I truly believe he’s a socialist, in the traditional sense of the word.  He believes in the goodness and greatness of government.  He truly believes in this way of life.

Barry Soetoro is neither a Democrat or Republican. Please update your files. 

Saturday:

Republicans — including Missouri’s Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond and Reps. Roy Blunt of Springfield and Blaine Luetkemeyer of St. Elizabeth — are trying to have it both ways. They voted against the stimulus bill and continue to denounce it as they try to take credit for projects that it funded.

What a maroon:

"It's a hoax. It's nonsense. It's a bunch of green folks who think they know how to live better than you do," [Luetkemeyer] said. "Man-made global change is nonsense."

The Democratic National Committee has a new web video calling out Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer for promoting the benefits of last year's stimulus bill bill in their districts while

Earlier today, President Obama accused Republicans of "putting party before principle and voting against his 2009 stimulus plan but then attending 'ribbon cuttings' for stimulus projects in their own districts." Watch it:

Reps. Todd Akin and Blaine Luetkemeyer may have gotten a little ahead of themselves in co-sponsoring a Congressional resolution to praise conservative activist James O'Keefe for posing as a pimp in the now-infamous ACORN videos.

O'Keefe has been a right-wing media star since the videos were released, but was arrested yesterday by the FBI for allegedly attempting to tamper with the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) New Orleans office.

In a new column for the Missourian, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-St. Elizabeth) says he "was shocked" as a freshman Congressman" when he "saw firsthand the path of irresponsible spending that Congress had previously been engaged in." 

As state Sen. Chuck Purgason and others have been pointing out in their challenges to the GOP establishment, George W. Bush and the GOP leadership in Congress "turned a thirty billion dollar deficit into a $566 billion deficit by 2006."  To be sure, Republicans have been railing against programs proposed by Democrats as well (even when the actually reduce the deficit).  But as Luetkemeyer notes, the hypocrisy of Republicans who have only recently become interested in balanced budgets and responsible fiscal policy is quite shocking.

I can't help but wonder what prominent Republican Catholics -- folks like Cong. Blaine Luetkemeyer and Crazy Eddie Martin -- think of this left-wing garbage coming out of the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen last month, saying Monday that world peace depends on safeguarding God's creation...

Benedict has been dubbed the "green pope" for his increasingly vocal concern about protecting the environment, an issue he has reflected on in encyclicals, during foreign trips and most recently in his annual peace message. Under Benedict's watch, the Vatican has installed photovoltaic cells on its main auditorium to convert sunlight into electricity and has joined a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions.

ThinkProgress:

Earlier this month, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) called the stimulus a "large-scale failure," but last week hailed a stimulus program in Frankford, Missouri as "critical." Referring to a $330,000 loan and $313,900 grant authorized by the stimulus, Luetkemeyer said, "Clearly, the 328 residents of Frankford will benefit from this grant and I appreciate the USDA’s willingness to help this community." In September, Luetkemeyer requested $100 million from the stimulus for a road project in Missouri...

I don't really understand why these people are being so mean to Glenn Beck.  As the extremely wise Blaine Luetkemeyer said a few months ago, everything you hear from Beck "must be true because nobody's refuting it."

And remember: If you like Glenn Beck, you'll love Ed Martin!

PolitiFact's Lie of the Year:

Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.

"Death panels."

The "death panels" phrase was created by Sarah Palin, but has its roots in the coordinated campaign to scare voters with the idea that Democratic health care proposals would create mechanisms for euthanizing elderly or sickly persons. It was outrageous and obviously false – that's what it's the "Lie of the Year" – but that didn't stop leading Missouri Republicans from helping to spread the lies.

Notable Show-Me State propagators of the Lie of the Year include:

• Rep. Roy Blunt, who said it's "easy" for the death panel debate "to go either way." Blunt repugnantly refused to smack down the falsehood on KTRS in August. "I think it's easy for that debate to go either way," he said. "You know, when they start talking about doing this every five years, then you do begin to wonder, now, just how committed is the federal government to being sure that that decision's already been made by you well before you and your family face it." 

The Post-Dispatch: "If the GOP doesn't want to be branded the "Party of Stupid," it could stand to nominate more people who can speak eloquently on complicated policy matters."

The Tribune's Janese Heavin has the scoop on a really interesting development in the story of Gary Forsee's opposition to federal clean energy legislation. For several days, he's sustained criticism for lending support to the Republican efforts to kill the legislation. Then yesterday, things got a whole lot worse for the President of the UM System when it was reveled that the calculations at the core of this opposition were incorrect.

In light of these facts, Forsee began to walk back his opposition at a Mizzou campus town hall earlier today, and reaffirmed his support for reducing carbon emissions.

Yesterday, the House voted 225-200 to permanently extend the estate tax at its 2009 level -- 45% for estates valued at more than $3.5 million, or $7 million for a couple.  As part of the 2001 Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% of taxpayers, the estate tax gradually decreased and was set to disappear for all of 2010, only to come back in 2011 at a 55% rate for estates worth more than $1 million. Media Matters:

Rep. Earl Pomeroy's (D-ND) H.R. 4154, the Permanent Estate Tax Relief for Families, Farmers, and Small Businesses Act of 2009, which passed the House today, will fix the problem by making the estate tax permanent at 45% and raising the exemption to $3.5 million.  According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, H.R. 4154 is actually a $233.6 billion tax cut.  Republicans, who want to entirely abolish the estate tax, must choose between supporting a Democratic tax cut or having rates rise in 2011.