The 100 Report
Senators Mike Moon, Eric Burlison Announces bid for CD-7
Vocal member of the Missouri Senate Conservative Caucus, Mike Moon, announced this week he would be seeking the republican nomination in CD-7 to replace Congressman Billy Long who is running for United States Senate. Following Moon’s announcement, Senator Eric Burlison, another member of the Missouri Senate Conservative Caucus, announced he would also be seeking the nomination.
The news came with mixed reviews from conservatives who are worried their departure from the Missouri senate will significantly hinder the ability for important conservative policies to make it across the finish line in the upcoming legislative sessions. Burlison will have to not seek re-election in order to run for the congressional seat, while Moon is not up for re-election so he will be able to run without much risk. If Moon is successful in the endeavor, the Senate Conservative Caucus will be down two current members in 2023.
Brown to host Franklin County Freedom Dinner with Paul Curtman, Tim Jones, and other conservative thought leaders
A Message from Paul Curtman
A Defense of Liberty requires action, movement and sometimes even sacrifice. No one is asking you to put on a uniform and join our brave servicemen and women overseas - but we are asking you to fight for your personal and economic freedom here at home.
There is too much at stake and it’s time to stir ourselves into taking our country back from establishment politicians in Jefferson City. Although most of them have an R behind their name, many of them continue to grow the size of government, and allow things like critical race theory to be taught in our public schools or allow out of control bureaucrats to rob us of our personal freedom and shut down our businesses.
But every now and then, someone stands up to put everything they have on the line and fight back.
Please help us fight back!
Ben Brown has stood in the gap for small business owners in danger of losing everything by the swipe of a pen from authoritarian politicians and bureaucrats. He has built a movement aimed at defending our freedom and liberty and I invite you to join us to support him as HE HAS ANSWERED OUR CALL to represent us in the MO State Senate.
WHERE: JOHN B. BUSCH BREWERY
108 Busch Ave, Washington, MO 63090
WHEN: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1OTH, AT 7PM
CONTACT: PAUL CURTMAN
info@thedefenseofliberty.com
TICKETS AND SPONSORSHIPS HERE.
Kalena Bruce hauls in $100K+ in 10 days for CD-4
Kalena Bruce, candidate for the 4th congressional district, hauled in more than $100,000 within her first 10 days. Bruce’s campaign said her campaign heralded the fundraising data, collected from Aug. 18-27, as an “impressive start.” Among other candidates for the 4th congressional and other offices, Bruce was a strong fixture at the recent Missouri State Fair.
“I am truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of support we have receive as we begin this campaign to clean up Congress,” Bruce said. “The support we’ve received from Missourians proves that folks are ready for a conservative outsider, not another career politician. And we’re just getting started.”
Read the full story here.
Social Security Trust Funds Projected to Run Out in 12 Years
The Social Security trust fund most Americans rely on for their retirement will run out of money in 12 years, one year sooner than expected, according to an annual government report. The circumstances, which were exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, threaten to shrink retirement payments and increase health-care costs for Americans in old age sooner than expected. The financial outlook for Social Security and Medicare, two of the nation’s preeminent safety net programs, has deteriorated over the past year.
Read the full story here.
Government price caps?! That’s not Missouri Values
By former Speaker of the House Tim Jones
The first year of Democrats controlling Congress and the White House has already proven to be an unmitigated disaster for American workers. The Biden administration’s “tax and spend” policies are hurting the economy, and unfortunately, its allies in the U.S. Senate are seeking to deploy new regulations that would further hit Americans in their pocketbooks.
While Democrats try to project “pro-worker” images, their policies hurt workers the most. We are seeing congressional Democrats tout Green New Deal policies even as Americans cope with gas prices that are a dollar per gallon higher than they were a year ago. Here in Missouri, rising costs for housing are leaving many Missourians bracing for higher property tax bills.
This month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that consumer prices rose 5.4 percent over the past year. This growing inflation bubble serves as a new regressive tax on the American workforce, wiping out any gains Americans might have recently seen in their paychecks.
In this environment, you would think United States senators — let alone self-declared “progressive” senators — would be pushing policies that would help American families. Instead, some are doing the opposite.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), along with progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), are looking to enact what could be one of the largest and costliest regulatory burdens in American history. They are seeking to impose new regulations on credit cards that would make it harder for Americans to access banking and financial services and would ultimately take money out of people’s pocketbooks.
Durbin and his allies want to expand government price controls to credit cards, strictly limiting the money that banks need to ensure security and financial inclusion in the digital marketplace. When this money disappears, a lot of benefits to consumers will as well.
American consumers receive between $40-$50 billion annually from credit rewards. For the average consumer, that’s nearly $170 per year that can be used to help pay for groceries and other necessities. But those rewards will likely be closer to zero if Durbin has his way.
Banks will also have to limit their credit exposure, and that will have consequences for consumers and their favorite stores. When a credit card transaction is fraudulent, it is the bank that winds up absorbing the loss. But with a significantly smaller financial cushion, banks will begin charging more for credit cards and eliminating the ‘no fee’ credit cards upon which many families rely.
If consumers do not believe this will happen, they should know that it has all happened before. In 2010, Senator Durbin introduced and passed an amendment that imposed similar restrictions on debit card transactions. Since then, these debit card regulations have hurt consumers, not banks.
After Durbin successfully imposed these regulations, a Federal Reserve study found the availability of free checking accounts at the banks targeted by Durbin’s amendment declined by 35 percent. A separate Boston University study found that the regulations cost low-income consumers roughly $160 per year, and the number of Americans without a bank account grew by nearly a million.
Not content with these outcomes, Durbin and his far-left allies now have their eyes trained on Americans’ credit cards. Fortunately, the 50/50 split in the U.S. Senate makes every vote critical, and Missouri has two strong consumer-minded, conservative senators in both Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley. Hopefully, they will do the right thing for American families and workers and oppose any expansion of Durbin’s already ruinous policies. Under these Democratic proposals, every dollar Missourians earn will be at risk to the never-ending regulatory burdens of Washington, D.C., political progressives.
Tim Jones is a former speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives, a talk radio host with KWTO 93.3 FM, 560 AM, and chair of the Missouri Center-Right Coalition.
Conservative Trust in Media Has Cratered (From Axios)
The percentage of Republicans who say they trust national news organizations has been cut in half over the past five years, according to a new study from Pew Research Center.
Why it matters: The party's trust in media starting dropping when President Trump took office, but has plummeted much more dramatically in the Biden era.
Details: Prior to the Trump administration, both parties had a great deal of trust in the national media, according to Pew. But while Democrats' trust in the national, local and social media continues to hold steady, Republicans' trust in those same institutions has sharply declined. Only 35% of Republicans today say that they trust national news organizations, compared to 70% in 2016. Conservative trust in national news organizations has fallen by 14 percentage points since late 2019, compared to single-digit percentage point drops each year during the Trump era. While Republicans tend to have a higher levels of trust in local outlets, they still trust local media far less than their Democratic counterparts. Both parties have little trust in social media platforms, but about half as many Republicans say they trust the information they get from social media compared to Democrats.
Be smart: Pew's findings echo a similar long-term study from Gallup last year, which found that Democrats' trust in mass media had grown to a near-record high during the Trump era, while Republicans' sunk to an all-time low.
The big picture: The polarization of trust in the media presents one of the most clear and troubling signs for American democracy. While the gap has been widening since the early 2000s, the major shift in Republicans' attitudes in the past five years points to increasing levels of partisanship and division in society.