Olbermann calls Billy Long. Worst person in the World

The message was delivered to the bus garage this evening:

It has come to my attention that Congressman Billy Long will be at the Taney County Courthouse Monday, June 6 at 9 AM.

He will be in the Commission Hearing Room and we need everyone that can attend to be there.

Our support is very important to the Congressman.

If you have questions or comments he will be there to answer them.
Please attend and bring a friend.

In other news it has also been reported that Billy made Keith Olberman's worst person in the world! I just heard, KO said Billy needs to resign

I'll be busy.....

Heading down to the lake to open up boat, powerwash the deck.

Taneycomo is full of silt from the floodgates, Bull Shoals is flooded until August, so it looks like we'll be heading over to Tablerock.

ps-- Happy Birthday to my brother Tom! June 5, 1950.

Who's the biggest loser here?

Us.

Billy Long featured in story in San Jose Mercury,,,, and not in a good way

Earlier the bus stopped at the Forbes magazine piece on Billy Long and The St. Louis Examiner piece by Tom Appelbaum on Long.

The Forbes piece it’s easy to be an ideologue when you can’t see the faces or don’t know the names of the people you are hurting and that's enough to make Billy a one term congressman.

Another national voice has opined on the congressman from MO 7. Byron Williams, a writer for the San Jose Mercury:

When we need government and when we don't:Between the opposing polarities that too often dominate our discourse, lies the reality that dislike for government ultimately is a luxury. It is a luxury because it assumes that one has no reason to need government in that moment.

Rep. Billy Long, whose congressional district includes Joplin, spoke in April at a tea party rally lamenting about government spending. He boasted that he voted to defund Planned Parenthood.

Long told the enthusiastic crowd, "Your tax dollars should not be going to kill innocent babies." Never mind that this ruse has been categorically debunked.

But Long, whose brief congressional career is based on what's wrong with government, sang a different tune in the aftermath of the tornado that devastated Joplin. He recently praised the initial response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"On a scale of one to 10, they are a 12," he said. "I think they are doing an excellent job."

earlier, on May 26, 2011, in a ribbon cutting cermemony, Congressman Billy Long, R-Springfield, praised the work of federal officials, and said his job was to make sure the town could move forward “in a timely fashion.”

If anyone has a photo of Billy Long in Joplin where he DOESN'T have his hands in his pockets, please share it with us.

Tornado Photo: Garden Hose in a Tree

Evolution of Man

That man evolved from certain lower primates is proved beyond doubt. Several fossils of prehuman, sub-human and cohuman fossils are discovered in several parts of the world. The antiquity of man is 1 lakh to 20 lakhs – depending upon whom one considers as exactly human as our imagination permits. Since evolution is evolution, a sort of change but no sudden or spontaneous creation, we cannot exactly pin point where an individual in the process of evolution is man and no longer subhuman. Africa, Asia, Europe abound in human fossils of various evolutionary levels. A fuller discussion on this would be quite rewarding and revealing but this is not the occasion.

Billy Long's bad week continues....

Billy Long recently told a group of constituents that he had received 1300 emails prior to his vote on the the debt ceiling and everyone one of them said don't raise the debt ceiling.

Billy Long was the subject of an article by Tom Appelbaum in the St. Louis Examiner: Joplin tragedy speaks to the role of government in safety and education:

Arguably, the primary functions of government should include educating the children and keeping people safe, as well as responding to emergencies. This concept would be challenged, however, with some of the recent actions by some members of congress. Congressman Billy Long from Missouri’s 7th district, Joplin’s congressional district, based his election campaign on the reduction of the role of government, saying that he was “FED-up” with the government.

He even went so far as to belittle the role of the tornado warning system and voted to cut funding for the National Weather Service, which could put the nation’s early warning weather alert system at risk. The irony that these statements and actions have, coming from that area’s Congressional Representative, is only matched by the callousness of House Speaker Eric Cantor’s insistence that federal disaster relief be tied to federal spending cuts.

Rick Ungar, writing for Forbes Magazine: Deadly Tornados Reveal The Failure Of Today’s Perverse GOP Ideology

Setting aside what most of us may feel about Congressman Cantor’s rather heartless engagement with this heartbreaking situation, it turns out that Joplin is represented in Congress by a Tea Party backed Republican named Billy Long – one of the angry freshmen elected to Congress on a platform of being ‘fed up’ with career politicians and who ran on the motto that he was “Tea Party before Tea Party was cool.”

So, what is a Tea Party Congressman – dedicated to smaller government and individual responsibility – to do when the very people who are hurt and in serious need of federal assistance are the same people who sent him to Congress in support of his uber-conservative beliefs?

In Long’s case, the answer -so far- has been to do nothing as he weighs his ideological commitment against the dramatic needs of his constituents and the political damage that might follow whatever decision he makes.

Oklahoma publication, Tulsa World, first reported that Long told them upon his arrival in his district following the disaster, that his first priority was ensuring that Joplin received speedy assistance from the federal government. However, upon learning of Cantor’s position on the subject, Long has clammed-up, refusing to say where he stands.

The Springfield News Leader, May 25, 2011: House majority leader: Don't let disaster funds add to growing deficit:

"Our deficit is not because we are taxed too little but because Washington spends too much," Long said. "I was sent to Washington to rein in wasteful government spending. While we need to look everywhere to make spending cuts, making sure our first responder, disaster relief, and national defense communities have the tools they need will always be a priority while I am in Congress."

In February 2011, Billy Long voted "Yea" on H.R. 1 (which passed) which CUT first responder funding, disaster relief funding, National Weather Service funding, advance natural disaster warning funding and on April 15, Billy Long voted "Yea" on the Paul Ryan budget bill which, along with killing medicare, also cut funding in the aforementioned areas.

Billy Long also is in support of extending the Bush tax cuts for the top % of our population.

Frequent bus riders know that Billy Long, the master of hyperbole and self promotion, know that Long's words ring hollow and don't match his votes.

Even as I write this piece, word is spreading across the internet that Long voted, again, to kill Medicare. Developing