Activist Susan Cunningham told us last Sunday about her outrage that a tea party group wanted to use the local high school auditorium in Union to disseminate its lies--and that it wanted the fee waived. Not one to sit home alone and fume, Susan joined 25 or so "take the fight to them" activists and appeared at the Wednesday evening Union school board meeting. One tea party member showed up.
The sign Susan brought that evening built on a recent school bond issue campaign with the theme "Save our schools. She added "from Patriots" because these particular tea partiers call themselves the Franklin County Patriots. (Get a load of their professional looking--not cheap, sponsored by the big bucks?--website.)
The school board was mighty impressed with the arguments Susan's group presented--including the fact that as anti-tax, anti-government, anti-public-anything citizens, the teabaggers support vouchers over public schools.
The board voted unanimously not to waive the fee for the teabaggers. But it turns out that the district has no policy about who may rent the auditorium, so the tea party event will be there on Oct. 10. The local Dems had just assumed that political groups would not be allowed to rent the place. Now that they know differently, they'll make use of it, so in a way the baggers did the Dems a favor. And the Democrats may decide to attend on the tenth and participate--but civilly, of course.
Until the last few days, the only celebrity status Charles "Chet" Hurth from Union, MO had enjoyed was for being sued ten years ago when he was a law student at St. Louis U. for biting a female law student on the butt--so hard she had to seek medical treatment. Now Hurth, the city attorney for tiny New Haven is embroiled in something that's grabbing headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle.
You're probably aware by now of the latest dirty trick the Republicans are up to, a petition initiative drive in California. They want Californians to vote in June on whether to split California's electoral votes in the 2008 presidential election by awarding electoral votes by each congressional district rather than by the winner-take-all rules that have applied.
Under its proposed district-by-district system, Kerry - who won California's popular vote in 2004 - would have received just 33 electoral votes, and Republican President Bush would have earned 22 votes - more than the number awarded in Illinois (21), Pennsylvania (21) or Ohio (20).
