I tell you, not just DEI, but AWARD WINNING DEI.
Now you’re gonna say how in the hell do you figure that?
Every single elected Republican has come out against far left-wing policies like DEI. From Parson to Kehoe to Schmitt to Hawley to Wagner to Smith to Graves to Luetkemeyer to Bailey to Malek to Ashcroft to Hoskins to Rowden to O’Laughlin to Plocher to Patterson and virtually every Republican member of the General Assembly and even the University of Missouri has come out against DEI there is no way a department would flip the bird to all of them and just carry on with this left-wing nonsense as they please…
Well, I heard a rumor to the contrary. I even heard that a department director was at a DEI conference on June 5th.
Now I was like you I was darn skeptical. However, I thought we would make a game out of it for our midweek update. So I made a Clue board of each department director for the suspect and each department for the room and of course DEI as the weapon.
I contacted each of the 17 departments, actually most of them contacted me or saw me around town, and finally at the end, I received the proof I was dreading.
As you can see here Mrs. Chlora Lindley-Myers was seen speaking at the DEI conference here.
Heck, they even promoted her at the conference on Twitter.
Now I know what you’re thinking, Scott you just photoshopped all that on your computer.
Well, there are two problems with all that:
#1 I am not that good at computers.
#2 I Sunshine requested the schedule for Chlora Lindley-Myers for June 5, 2024.
After receiving this grim news I did a little googling and saw that on the State of Missouri’s own website Mrs. Lindley-Myers not only openly touts her record of promoting DEI, but SHE HAS WON AWARDS FOR DEI.
So it’s not just taxpayers paying for DEI, they are working every day to pay for AWARD WINNING DEI. Right there hiding in plain sight.
Now who is to blame? Well all of us. The media dropped the ball, I personally failed you, legislators with oversight responsibilities dropped the ball, and every single Missourian who could have read her biography on the website they pay for dropped the ball. It’s like the 2024 Cardinals there is plenty of blame to go around.
Now the next question is what is gonna happen about it?
Well for starters Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman laid the law down during veto session.
With the very likely next Governor of the State of Missouri Mike Kehoe in the dias she stated that NO ONE would be confirmed to run the Department of Insurance and NO money would be getting appropriated there until someone could answer the question of what the hell is going on inside that department.
She was followed by Senator Mike Ciepiot and Senator Jill Carter raising some perfectly logical questions about who is paying for this and how deep is the rot in the department.
Then Senators Curtis Trent and Sandy Crawford got to what is the real meat of the issue. They passed a piece of legislation that in part blocked this clearly out-of-control and insubordinate department from further regulating, essentially Obamacaring, rural insurers out of business.
The Department of Insurance essentially responded to a state law passed by the Missouri General Assembly and signed by Governor Micheal L. Parson by saying that it’s a bad law, they don’t support it, so they will just continue their insubordination and not comply with it.
Senators Trent and Crawford have really found the real issue here. It’s the arrogance of the east coast folks who don’t even live here and don’t give a damn about anyone here, the “Greitens philosophy” of I know more than you because I went to a fancier college than you so I don’t have to follow the rules.
That a department paid by the hard-working taxpayers of this state can flip the bird over and over to those taxpayers’ elected representatives is the real problem here.
Now I think your ol’ hillbilly pal here has a real strong track record of spotting folks like this. The man who hired Mrs. Lindley-Myers, Eric Greitens can vouch for me on that.
I believe with every bone in my Missourah body that there is undoubtedly a direct connection with this left-wing bureaucratic arrogance and a department that has declared wholesale war on rural Missouri insurance premiums.
While the elitist, arrogant bureaucrats at the Department of Insurance travel the world to DEI conferences rubbing elbows with their fellow radical left-wing elitists I know a corn farmer in Marshall, who is a true son of Missouri, whose insurance premiums have skyrocketed 200-300% a year since these left wing policies were forced on rural Missourah.
There is no secret to what they are doing. They have a plan to eliminate small insurers and chase folks into the large monopolies…just like Obamacare. See just like President Trump says these elitists all run in the same globalist pack.
Since I broke this story I have had nearly a dozen small insurance brokers reach out to me. These are folks who have insured rural Missourians for 20 even 30 years. They tell horror stories about the heavy-handedness and arrogance of the department, and all say they’ve never seen anything like it.
Now I suppose some of these issues will sort themselves out in January if Governor Kehoe takes over. Mike Kehoe told the people of this state he would eradicate DEI policies in this state. There is no way to keep that promise if he were to bring Mrs. Lindley-Myers back, and say what you will Mike Kehoe is a man of his word.
Further, by statute, the directors of the departments will have to be re-confirmed by the Missouri Senate.
As of Tuesday, September 17th, I have personally heard from 14 senators who will refuse to confirm Mrs. Lindley-Myers again and will refuse to confirm anyone without changes at the top of the staff.
These are hurting are hard-working men who have spent their lives building a business terrified to speak out publicly because of the backlash they fear will come their way, and they need help…today.
Good rural Missourahians desperate for a hero, but they are too afraid to call for their natural and proven hero Governor Parson because they can’t risk any more retaliation.
I know what the East Coast elitists think about us. I’ve seen it, I can smell it, and this department wreaks of it.
I watched how hard Governor Mike Parson had to work and toil in order to get the state back in a good place after Eric Greitens quit on the job. The job of Governor is harder than any of us can fathom.
I believe with everything in my heart that he wants to leave all 17 departments in good working order for the transition to either Kehoe or Crystal Quade this fall.
Its a fine thing that Mike Parson can look any working man in this state right in the eye and tell them that he left our state in a much much better place than he found it six and a half years ago.
He can look that man in the eye and list 16 of his 17 departments and every single one of them is better off today than when he took office.
I suppose my question is until this mess is cleaned up, would Governor Parson really be able to say that the Department of Insurance is better off today?
If anyone still wonders the answer to that question just tune into the midweek update. I think my simple hillbilly curiosity is going to extend to the NAIC.
The white trash in me likes a fight, so I reckon it will be fun.
Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.