Hey Digby...

...Jonah Goldberg's theory that the voters simply don't know what they're doing? Missouri is run by a whole lot of pantloads.

The ballot language referred to the cost-of-living increase.

It read: “Shall Missouri Statutes be amended to increase the state minimum wage rate to $6.50 per hour, or to the level of the federal minimum wage if that is higher, and thereafter adjust the state minimum wage annually based on changes in the Consumer Price Index?”

However, Cooper and other Republicans have concluded that voters didn’t understand what they were considering.

Silly voters, you obviously don't understand what's going on, so we're going to go ahead and fix your mistakes for you.

And while we're picking on my home state...I posted that a couple of weeks ago. In the last week or so, there's definitely been something of a whiff of panic coming from Missouri Republicans. Governor Blunt is sinking further as corruption becomes more of a conversation topic, and it's starting to look like some major losses could be on the docket next year (then again, I could be underestimating the people who voted for these folks), so they're cranking through absolutely everything on their ideological agenda. And they're geting more and more transparent by the moment...

First there's the MoHELA initiative...from the KC Star...

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt’s “Lewis & Clark Initiative” started out with a laudable goal but a nefarious means of getting there.

After a thorough mangling in the General Assembly, the plan has gone from half-bad to all bad.

To raise funds for a major expansion of the state’s life sciences industry, Blunt proposed plundering the assets of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MoHELA), the nonprofit agency that helps families afford college.

Lawmakers are on the verge of grabbing those assets. Making things even worse, the life sciences building program has degraded into a hodge-podge of campus construction that excludes Kansas City and Columbia.

Legislative leaders already had purged medical research buildings from the list because of hysteria over stem-cell research.

So much for the state’s commitment to life sciences.

This week Senate Republicans, in an act of petty retribution, yanked $15 million that had been intended for an expanded pharmacy and nursing building at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A $31 million new cancer center at the University of Missouri-Columbia was also scratched.

Republicans threw the temper tantrum because Democrats Jolie Justus of Kansas City and Chuck Graham of Columbia delayed a vote on the bill with a filibuster.

And from Fired Up! Missouri...

[T]he MOHELA appropriation legislation reveals that fifteen million of the dollars generated by the sale would go into a small, loosely overseen non-profit corporation controlled by Blunt's GOP crony Rob Monsees --the same man who brought the MOHELA sale to the Governor to begin with while employed as a deputy chief of staff in his office.

Those $15 million are being directed into sixteen "projects" controlled by the Missouri Technology Corporation --of which Rob Monsees serves as executive director--most or all of which are reportedly unknown to at least some members of the Missouri Technology Corporation's board of directors. Given that the legislation also provides for "100% flexibility" between projects for the appropriated funds, Monsees would have broad latitude to reapportion the funds into projects he favors.

And while we're at it, here's the desperate abortion legislation...

The House passed legislation yesterday that would subject abortion clinics to more stringent regulations, a move critics claim would make it harder for women to get abortions in Missouri.

...

Missouri has a strong anti-abortion majority in the General Assembly, which is pushing a bill that increases state oversight of abortion providers and bans them from teaching or distributing materials for school sex education courses.

Bans them from teaching or distributing materials for school sex education courses, i.e. information about contraception. This is going to end well.

And speaking of ending...I can't tell if I'm smelling Republican defeat in the air, or if it's getting so surreal living here that I just really want to smell defeat in the air. I don't want to get too optimistic, so I'll just stop thinking about it for now...