MISSOURI ETHICS COMMISSION
CONTRIBUTION OF MORE THAN $5,000.00 RECEIVED BY ANY COMMITTEE FROM ANY SINGLE DONOR - TO BE FILED WITHIN 48 HOURS OF RECEIVING THE CONTRIBUTION
Bernie Davis
O'Fallon MO
Back to Basics Christian Bookstore
6/30/2010
$26,000.00
[emphasis added]
That's a lot more than the perks you get from working at a national fast food chain franchise, don't you think?
Yes, one of the most incomprehensible right wingnut members of the Missouri House (and that's saying a lot) is running for the seat in the 2nd Senate District, challenging a republican incumbent in the primary. The candidates on the August 3rd primary ballot:
State Rep. Cynthia Davis and Rep. Todd Akin are, predictably, wringing their hands about the ruling by a U.S. District Judge in Wisconsin that found the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. How can they possibly worship their God if they can't let non-Christians know who's boss? Sister Cynthia, never one to let the grass grow under her feet, is taking action:
... I am preparing a Missouri Resolution that will join our state with the national effort to stand strong against those who seek to strip us of our traditions, our heritage and our acknowledgement of God Almighty, Creator and sustainer of the universe, author of all civility and source of mercy, grace and charity.
Akin is, of course, equally concerned about this victimization of innocent Christians:
This decision flies in the face of reason as well as our nation's traditions and is yet another attempt by an activist court to subvert our national spiritual heritage
Both bible thumpers cite historical justification for the National Day of Prayer - and it does have historical antecedents, although the record is not as clear as they claim. For instance those in attendance at the Constitutional Congress of 1776 not only rejected repeated requests by Benjamin Franklin for prayer, but:
...there is no record of a resolution providing for prayer. Franklin himself wrote afterwards that "the Convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.
James Madison also proclaimed a day of prayer, but later repudiated such events because "they seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion." Or take Thomas Jefferson, who explicitly opposed such public prayer events, believing that faith was the province of the individual, not the state:
I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct it's exercises, it's discipline, or it's doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it.
So no, Todd and Cynthia, the founding fathers, were they Christian, deist, or whatever, don't really seem to have supported your brand of Christian triumphalism, but rather preferred to establish a democratic republic where individuals are free to take responsibility for their own worship in the confines of their homes and churches. Perhaps the Bible says it best in Mark, Chapter 6, verse 5:
And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.
There is no trope so worn out, dishonest, or silly that some right-wing hack won't revive it when subjected to the appropriate Pavlovian stimulus - such as, for instance, taxes. Which brings me to Cynthia Davis who, in her latest Capitol Report, has resorted to pushing the Tax Foundation's old Tax Freedom Day chestnut:
Tax Freedom Day answers the basic question, "What price is the nation paying for government?" An official government figure for total tax collections is divided by the nation's total income. The answer this year is that taxes will amount to 26.89 percent of our income, and the stretch of 99 days from January 1 to April 9 is 26.89 percent of the year. Overall, Americans will pay more taxes in 2010 than they will spend on food, clothing and shelter combined.
I'll refrain from overmuch commiseration since I strongly suspect that most of those Americans who made enough money to pay taxes are still getting plenty of food, clothing and shelter - while enjoying the physical, educational and social infrastructure their taxes purchased. Additionally, except for a very few, "tax freedom day" came and went long before the April 1 date cited above. The Center on Budget and Policy Policies publishes an annual analysis of the ways that the Tax Freedom Day percentage misleads:
No, we're not making this up. And we can't really venture to call this an elaborate "April Fools" joke because it is coming from the poster child for the batshit crazy wingnut segment of the Missouri body politic.
HB 2468 Creates the Missouri Freedom to Own Lightbulbs Act
Sponsor: Davis, Cynthia L. (19) Proposed Effective Date: 08/28/2010
CoSponsor: LR Number: 5509L.01I
Last Action: 04/01/2010 - Introduced and Read First Time (H)
HB2468
Next Hearing: Hearing not scheduled
House Calendar HOUSE BILLS FOR SECOND READING
Yes, you read that correctly, the "the Missouri Freedom to Own Lightbulbs Act". From Representative Cynthia Davis (r). Yes, that Representative Cynthia Davis.
HB1778 (Organ Donor Awareness Day) passed 141-7 with 7 Republicans (Cynthia Davis, Ed Emery, Doug Ervin, Tim Flook, David Sater, Rodney Schad, Bryan Stevenson) voting Nay.
There's diminishing returns and all in the reaction for these things. But apparently that was the time to make a stand against the tyranny of the government making people aware of organ donation.
Anyone who follows the antics of Tea Partying State Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-19) is used to her endless bleating about a big government takeover. At the same time, many of us have also noted Davis' proclivities for pushing legislation that oversteps normative bounds in terms of government intrusion into personal areas such as marriage, divorce, sexuality and choice. Yesterday, Davis, in her role as Chair of the House Special Committee on Children and Families, may have gone a little too far and unequivocally revealed her hypocrisy about the perils of big government's stealthy takeover tactics when she made a flagrant bid to impose her anti-choice beliefs on the rest of us by trickery.
Democratic members of the Committee assert that Davis attempted to substitute the text of one anti-abortion bill, HB1236, that had not been referred to her committee for action, for the text of HB1238, which was scheduled to be heard yesterday morning. HB 1236 mandates a complex series of medical screening criteria before an abortion can be performed. The less restrictive text of HB1238 rquires evidence of informed consent on the part of a woman seeking abortion. Both bills are onerous, but HB1236 is ultimately more problematic.
If true, not only is Davis' behavior dishonest, it's a violation of Missouri's constitution. A news release yesterday (via The Turner Report) stated:
Davis' attempt to switch bills violates Article III, Section 21 of the Missouri Constitution, which prohibits bills from being changed from their original purpose. The action also could violate Missouri's Sunshine Law, which requires advance public notice of what legislation will be considered at government meetings.
To add insult to injury, Davis not only attempted to thwart the legislative process through deception, but she attempted to stifle discussion that might have revealed her subterfuge:
Davis allotted nearly all of the March 3 hearing to supporters and prohibited the standard practice of allowing committee members to question witnesses. After all supporters had testified, Davis allowed a mere five minutes of questioning about the bill at the end of the hearing.
One can understand that the general Republican postmodern approach to truth may have encouraged little Cynthia to believe that her ends justified her means - and since she makes no bones about taking her inspiration from David Barton, founder of the Wallbuilders, a group that has set out to rewrite American history to conform to their fundamentalist religious preferences, she may even think that she is ethically entitled to act in this fashion.
If Davis has indeed tried to subvert the legislative process, she has violated the public's trust and is unfit for office. I'll certainly email (Ronald.Richard@house.mo.gov) or phone (573-751-2173) the speaker of the house to inquire and ask that she be removed from her position as Chair of the House Special Committee on Children and Families. Who knows - if a few people protest, maybe she'll get some kind of slap on the wrist?
republican Representative [speaking as an advocate of the resolution at the opening of the debate]: ...Democrat Congressman Bart Stupak, if you're pro-life you will vote for the health care freedom act and against Obamacare....
Representative Cynthia Davis (r - let them eat McDonalds), debating HJR 48, 50 & 57
There was a flood of something, and it wasn't water. Representative Cynthia Davis (r - let them eat McDonalds), fifty-five minutes into the debate:
...Representative Cynthia Davis : Good morning, I rise to speak on the HJR.
Speaker: Proceed, lady.
Representative Cynthia Davis : Thank you. Mister Speaker, a lot of people are confused about what is the role of the national government and what is the role of the state government. Truth is, the national government has no business doing education or health care. It's not in the Constitution. You know, a river is a beautiful thing when it stays within its boundaries, but when it's unlimited it's called a flood. And a flood is destructive. And it's not pretty anymore. [inaudible] Also, this has nothing to do with Barack Obama. It has to do with choice. It has to do with liberty. And it has to do with our freedom and our right to govern ourselves. The national program really has nothing to do with protecting insurance companies either. You know, I moved here from Massachusetts. And they forced everybody to get on the insurance program and they still have not achieved that goal. And if Massachusetts had such a great plan show me where are the people clamoring to move into Massachusetts? The bigger question I want all of you to consider today is why would any state legislator want to give up our liberty? You know, we're vested with the duty of protecting our citizens and protecting their liberty is foundational.
Some of you may have not heard my bullying story. When I was in seventh grade I learned a lesson about bullies that I'll never forget. You know, the national government is strutting around like a big bully. And unless we say no, we're gonna get hurt. There was a time in junior high when all the classes had to pass in the hallway. There was a girl who, apparently, didn't like me, though I will never know why. But she would sneak up behind me and stick her foot in front of mine and trip me. So I'd fall or sometimes almost fall. And then I'd go home and I'd tell my mother. Mom, this girl tried to trip me again today. And my mom said the only way to stop it is if you stand up to her and hold firm. Well there was one day when we were passing through the hall, through the classroom and, and, and I, I noticed her tripping me and, and I turned around and what happened next was a blur. But, it was good. It was good 'cause I stood up to her and, and the, we were ushered to the principal's office and the principal called my mom and said, your daughter was engaged in a fight. And my mom was never more proud of me. And that girl never tripped me again.
And that is what we're confronting with this resolution to try and tell the federal government, you can not bully us, we are gonna stop you right here, right now. We're gonna protect our citizens.
This HJR is our only and last hope for protecting Missourians, to keep their freedoms and their rights. Thank you....
"...Also, this has nothing to do with Barack Obama..."
You weren't listening to your colleague at the start of debate, were you?
"...It has to do with choice..."
So, if you support the resolution you're pro-choice?
"...And it has to do with our freedom and our right to govern ourselves..."
Question. Didn't we elect our members of Congress? Just asking. Oh, you meant they should all be republicans just like you.
"....[blah, blah, blah] your daughter was engaged in a fight..."
Earlier in the week I wrote about State Rep. Cynthia Davis' diatribe about the Department of Education's Race to the Top grant program. Two events today, however, have helped me to better understand the source of Davis', and, I think, general conservative hysteria about public education.
The first of these events was the decision of the The Texas State Board of Education to revise American history text books in order to better indoctrinate children in right-wing dogma. The second event was the news of the President's proposed reform of Bush's odious No Child Left Behind legislation in order to better address desired skill sets and insure that they are taught effectively.
The contrast couldn't have been any sharper. On the one hand, the Texas board conceives of educational standards as a propaganda tool; on the other, educational standards are meant to insure that individuals have basic skills, as wide a frame of reference as possible, and the critical skills to use it properly.
Which brings me back to Davis, a politician who exudes the paranoid world-view of the far right. She, along with the majority of the members of the Texas State Board of Education, seem to believe that the goal of education is to teach belief systems, not objective facts and critical reasoning skills. Since her conception of appropriate educational goals is so debased, she, of course reacts with panic when she thinks that her perceived adversaries in the great cultural war might be able to do to her children the very thing she would gladly to do the rest of our children.
Which then brings me to the obvious question - how could we have ever permitted someone with such a warped approach to education as Davis to occupy a position where she regularly attempts to influence educational policy for Missouri?
I wait with the proverbial baited breath for each and every one of State Rep. Cynthia Davis' (R-19th) Capitol Reports; I am filled with anticipation to learn just how absurd her latest effort to deal with the complexities of government will be. Her most recent effort (printed here at The Turner Report) does not disappoint. It brings us Davis' musings on educational reform, specifically the Race to the Top federal grants program which Davis condemns as a manifestation of:
... the insatiable appetite the federal government has for controlling every element of our lives. There really is no reason for congress or the executive branch to be meddling in how we educate our children or how we administrate health care. ... We are trading away our freedom on how to manage our own schools for a set of federal standards that will be defined by those in Washington, not those closest to the students like the parents and the teachers.
Quelle horreur! Federal standards that reflect an informed, national consensus about what an educated individual should know and the best ways to teach it, rather than the prejudices of small-minded state legislators like Cynthia Davis! You may want your children taught creationism, among other questionable tenets, but most people I know certainly do not.
According to Davis, a national reform effort is not needed:
There is nothing "Race to the Top" can give us that we cannot already give ourselves. If we want school reform, we can simply vote for the reforms the voters want, not what is mandated from on high
Tell that to school administrators in St. Louis, Kansas City, and, I suspect, some of the poorer rural districts and see how they react. Following Davis' logic, one has to conclude that many Missouri parents actually want a mediocre or poor education for their children - or else, surely, they would have voted for just the right reforms long ago - and figured out how to fund them, too - something that our current legislature doesn't seem to be able to manage.
Davis is right that the No Child Left Behind program is a failure; it was always underfunded and excessively rigid - partly to placate conservative beliefs about education, or, as some suspect, to force failure and eventual privatization of our educational system. It did, however, reflect the growing recognition that we need national educational achievement standards and an equitable approach to delivering education if we are to be successful as a nation.
This time, however we are being offered an incremental approach to reform that reflects the real world rather than slogans, which is why the effort to spur practical innovation via the Race to the Top could be an important step. And this terrifies poor Cynthia Davis? Quelle horreur!
Despite the sorry shadow of its former self that the Post-Dispatch has become, editorials like this one keep me subscribing:
State Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O'Fallon, whose "hunger is a positive motivator" beliefs earned her national renown last summer, has come out in favor of feeding people who don't want to be fed.
House Bill 1235, sponsored by Ms. Davis, would require mandatory feeding tubes for terminally ill patients - but only for those patients who have said they don't want them. The feeding tubes would have to remain in place for at least 60 days before they could be withdrawn.
During that time, nurses would have to place food and water in the patient's mouth at least three times a day. If the patient swallowed - either on purpose or by reflex - the tube feeding would continue indefinitely.
Davis' loopy logic is that the coming national health care program might engender those death panels the Rs were so distraught about, though she avoids that discredited term in favor of the phrase "people who are motivated by economics". Same idea.
Consider these two pieces of irony that the Post points out:
Ms. Davis, worried that national health care reform will lead to rationing, is sponsoring a resolution that would allow Missouri to "opt out" of the changes. But Medicare has been covering elderly and disabled Americans for 45 years, and no one ever has accused it of rationing their care.
But in 2005, Ms. Davis and her fellow Missouri House Republicans - "motivated by economics" - voted to ration health care by cutting Medicaid insurance for 100,000 people. The cuts ended Medicaid coverage for, of all things, feeding tubes.
Ms. Davis' latest bill would add about $8,000 in costs for each nursing home patient who receives an extra 60 days of tube feedings that she or he doesn't want. It would add about $56,000 for each hospital patient.
The summer feeding program Ms. Davis attacked last June cost $1.81 for each breakfast and $3.18 for each lunch. That irresponsible spending prompted Ms. Davis to offer a helpful hint. "Tip: If you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break."
Tip for Ms. Davis: Leave the intensely personal decisions about end-of-life care to patients and their doctors. Worry instead about Missouri's hungry children.
I have a question: Do we have enough nutcases in the House to pass HB 1235? Because I'm starting to get tired of seeing the rest of the nation point at Missouri and laugh.
* Communis rixatrix: a common scold, "a species of public nuisance - a troublesome and angry woman who broke the public peace by habitually arguing and quarreling with her neighbours."
Do you sometimes wonder about the mental state of the fringiest of our Republican legislators? Consider the following recent examples of shrill and clueless scolding on the part of two of the people elected to represent us:
--At a hearing on anti-abortion legislation, State Senator Jane Cunningham felt it appropriate to ask witness Michelle Trupianio, a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, if she had ever had an abortion. When Trupiano appropriately responded that it was none of Cunningham's business, Cunningham proceeded to badger her until Senator Matt Bartle "reminded her to allow witnesses to answer the questions asked of them."
--A couple of weeks ago, Rep. Cynthia Davis rudely and aggressively questioned an African-American witness at a hearing before the House Health Care Committee about the nutrition practices of "your people," and "your community." Davis also quizzed the witness about her religious background as if it were relevant, and brought up her own personal opinions about the choices she believes food stamp recipients make.
Both of these women used their relatively powerful positions to bully and belittle people whom they clearly consider to be not only different from themselves, but threatening and inferior. What should have been dispassionate forums to explore issues were perverted into irrelevant personal inquisitions by a couple of two-bit Torquemadas.
All of which came to my mind when I read a recent column by Nick Kristoff in the New York Times. Kristoff described research that suggests that people whom we commonly classify as "liberal" or "conservative" may have significantly different cognitive structures from each other. Research that looked at startle responses and other neurological markers lined up with earlier research that found that conservatives:
tend to see the world in stark, black-and-white terms, perceive the social order as vulnerable or under attack, tend to make strong distinctions between "us" and "them," and emphasize order and muscular responses to threats.
Sounds about right, doesn't it? The more offensive people like Cunningham and Davis seem, the more they are really playing defense. What this research implies is that they represent extreme degrees of a common neurological bias. When you mix their biological inclination to respond with fear or disgust with simple-minded religious or political ideology, you get holy warriors (jihadists?), bent on running roughshod over all the infidels who don't see the world just like they do - a conclusion that is not too encouraging for those who believe in rational give-and-take, but it could add an important dimension to theories of persuasion such as, for example, Lakoffian "framing."
Remember when Cynthia Davis was busy worrying that a summer food program sponsored by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services would undercut the motivating effect of hunger on young people? Or her more recent perorations on how using part of the marriage license fee to aid domestic abuse victims, who might have been living together without benefit of matrimony, is an insult to couples wishing to marry?
You thought it would be impossible to top Davis for sheer mean-mindedness, right? And that may be true, but South Carolina's Republican Lieutenant Governor Andrew Bauer is at least in the same category. He recently compared feeding hungry children to "feeding stray animals," adding that:
You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better
Davis and Bauer are soulmates maybe, heartless for sure, but sadly familar. Remember Dicken's Oliver Twist and the cruel workhouse matron, Mrs. Corney and the corrupt Beadle, Mr. Bumble? Self-righteous meanness never seems to go entirely out of style, no matter how far we think that we have progressed since the horrors of the 19th century workhouse.
While reading Cynthia Davis' comments about her proposed "Marriage Matters in Missouri Bill," HR1234, I figured something out about the mental processes of people like Davis and the Tea Partiers who have endorsed her as "their" candidate. Talking Writing about one of the more innocuous aspects of her proposed legislation, a provision to waive part of the marriage license fee for couples who get some type of premarital counseling, Davis offers this observation:
I was surprised to discover that $27 of the marriage license fee goes toward child abuse and domestic violence shelters. Why should the innocent citizens who are doing something honorable, moral and foundational to our civilization be forced to pay for the damage caused by those who are behaving dishonorably? Statically, people who are "living together" are more likely to beat up their partners and children than married people, but they are not being asked to pay for domestic violence or child abuse. The philosophical premise behind this fee is insulting to all married people.
Oh wow, I thought. I'm married and yet I would not be insulted at all if part of my marriage license fee had gone to help women and children trapped in abusive relationships, married or not.
Then I got it. What Davis is talking about is an aspect of the "freedom" that rings the Tea Partiers' bell over and over. They are not worried abut the "freedom to be you and me" - they don't even like that type of freedom - but rather freedom from the claims that individuals in a comity might be expected to exert on each other. In other words, it's nothing more than narrow, bougie, mean-mindedness.
Ever wonder why the Tea Partiers throw tantrums about government spending, even when it is demonstrably beneficial and would actually pay for itself - like rational health care reform would? It's because the spending is used for other people, very likely people who might be a little different from God's select variety of tea people. They feel directly affronted that their money might be used for somebody who is poor and/or black (remember Saint Reagan's "welfare queens"?), or those who have a different life style (perhaps cohabiting "dishonorably" per Davis). That's what it means to usurp the freedom of a Tea Partier.
Just for the record, I have to add that Davis' assertions about who is involved in domestic violence aren't just mean, they are also not necessarily true. For one thing, domestic violence is not well reported or understood, so sweeping statements about who is actually being abused and who is doing the abusing cannot be well substantiated.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) does collect and publish statistics for those cases that are reported to law enforcement agencies. According to the BJS, individuals most likely to suffer from domestic violence are women who are separated - and the offender may be the separated spouse or a boyfriend.
Violence that culminates in homicide, however, is most likely to involve those noble married folks whom Davis believes to be so direly insulted by the wedding license fee. And jut to be clear, in 70-80% of domestic violence homicides, which, as we have seen, predominantly involve married couples, the guilty partner had a history of abusing his or her victim.
In looking forward to the coming legislative session, State Rep. Jake Zimmerman, D-Olivette, acknowledged that he will be working with a number of unhinged members of the Missouri House. He waved Cynthia Davis aside as by no means the most wackadoodle of them and called to the attention of the audience at West County Dems two Republicans who have outdone even Cynthia.
Jim Guest, R-Pluto (pictured at right), believes that the government has been implanting electromagnetic chips in citizens' brains in order to control them and torture them. Blink. This assertion was striking enough to get Guest a mention in a New York Times article about a British psychologist who tracks the crazies on the internet. Unfazed by the notoriety of one of its members, the House leadership, as Fired Up! points out, has granted Guest tacit support by appointing him chair of the Real ID and Privacy Committee.
Ed Emery, R-Lamar, is out there too. In 2006, he inserted language into a special committee report claiming that abortion causes illegal immigration. Seriously. (We've killed so many of our babies that now we have to have Mexican workers come here to fill the gap.) Democrats on the committee refused to sign the report, but nine Republicans signed it.
Zimmerman's reaction?
"It makes complete sense if you're insane. ... These are our colleagues. But that's okay. Such has ever been the way with state legislatures. It wasn't so long ago that an Arizona legislator introduced a bill to change Pi from 3.14159 to 3.10 so that it would be easier for math students.
So anytime Zimmerman is tempted to get impressed with himself, he says:
"I look in the mirror and I remind myself that I make the same salary and have precisely the same job as Jim Guest and Cynthia Davis.
The upside of all their nuttiness is that it's so easy for Democrats to point all that out in campaigns. And besides:
The word from Dave Catanese suggests a disappointing or interesting turn of events in the Cynthia Davis saga:
"I plan on being a candidate in 2010, but not for Missouri State Auditor," Davis said.
Now, let's see. Cynthia Davis could run for the State Senate against Scott Rupp, (edit: she could run for Congress against Todd Akin, which would be hilarious), she could run for a St. Charles county or municipal office in O'Fallon, or she could run for the U. S. Senate against Roy Blunt and provide us hours of entertainment. As a Kansas City sports fan, I always bet on disappointment, so I'm sure Cynthia is prepping her race for Director of Elections or Collector of Revenue.
Cynthia Davis also bashed Tom Schweich for donating to Claire McCaskill and praising the composition of Obama's cabinet. Because blind party loyalty is what you want in an auditor.
Meanwhile, Chuck Purgason moves onwards, hitting Roy Blunt on earmarks. No word on when Blunt will just start voting against budgets or not voting, before claiming credit for the earmarks. It's what Kit Bond would do.
In an article in the New York Review of Books last October Michael Tomasky predicted that if health care reform becomes fait accompli, the follow-up strategy of the fringewing opposition would be to rally under the "Tenther" banner. Tentherism refers to one of the more amusing distortions of the constitution current in right wing circles; Tenthers hold that the ninth and tenth amendments allow states to nullify any federal legislation they don't like.
Although the Tenther premise is assuredly negated by the Constitution's supremacy clause along with other considerations, the more feckless of Missouri's fringer pols have been quick to jump on the bandwagon. As Hotflash noted last October, state Senator* Jane Cunningham has promised to introduce nullification legislation. Not to be outdone, the witless but very energetic Cynthia Davis (R-19*) has already started the ball rolling to amend the State Constitution and nullify the provisions of federal health care reform legislation.
The Tenther movement, however, like the related Tea Party anger orgies, is not quite as natural a development as would-be constitutional defenders such as Davis and Cunningham would like us to think - or may actually think themselves. According to Lee Fang of ThinkProgress:
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), founded in 1973 by conservative activist Paul Weyrich, is a DC-based front group which helps state lawmakers craft corporate-friendly legislation. As the Atlantic has noted, ALEC developed template health care "states' rights," legislation to declare aspects of health reform unconstitutional. ALEC has promoted this "tenther" legislation using its network of mostly far right Republican state lawmakers. The bills, which have been adopted in some form in 24 states so far, aim to invalidate federal regulations of health insurance, the public option and the individual mandate using the Tenther Amendment.
To take the chain of influence one step further, one of the main architects of the ALEC Tenther strategy is Joan Gardner, Executive Director of State Services with Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's Office of Policy and Representation. Is the picture becoming clearer?
Jane Cunningham and Cynthia Davis may be the face of Tentherism in Missouri, but we should remember who is pulling the strings. Bleat as they may about "freedom," Cunningham and Davis are doing nothing more than providing a sham patriotic facade for the insurance industry's war to save its profit margin.
* Corrected
It is instructive to take a look at Roy Blunt's and Cynthia Davis' respondes to H1N1 preparedness. Both Blunt and Davis pay allegiance to a similar conservative credo; yet Davis tells the government no thank you, keep your vaccine, while Blunt puts on a big show, pointing his little finger at the big, bad government that didn't get him his vaccine right away.
As we pointed out earlier, Blunt has, predictably, remained faithful to the tried-and-true Republican playbook: do nothing, obstruct, defame the opposition, and use the rhetoric of movement conservatism to do so - all suitably fact free, designed to give Blunt the requisite populist sheen.
Davis, however, responds to the need to head off a potential public health crisis in a way that is true to her belief that government is not entitled to intervene in health questions (except, of course, when they involve women's reproductive rights):
It is not the job of the government or the schools to provide vaccines. Schools are educational institutions, not health institutions. ... ultimately this decision should be worked out between you and your doctor.
In Davis' delusional reality, the recommendations of epidemiologists for disease control can be safely disregarded simply because they might interfere with her narrow definition of the role of government. She conceives of public health policy as a function of doctors interacting with comfortable, middle-class individuals who can afford their services - and if that is not really an effective way to deal with potential epidemics, then let the devil take the hindmost.
With such liars and simpletons for leaders, is it any wonder that the Republican cadres are going into a Tea Party tailspin? The bred-in-the-bone conservative masses are tasked with understanding why things went south after George Bush led the way to the promised land, gave them their tax cuts, thrilled them with feckless displays of military might, gutted corporate and financial regulation, and unleashed the free market dogs on a hapless nation. And what tools do they have to help them make sense of what happened? A choice between the mendacity of Republican power politics or the delusional dogma that fed its inevitable failure
*Graffito Angst photograph from Wikipedia Commons.
Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis' persona has elements of the mid-20th century comedian Gracie Allen, who developed a sweetly stupid comic schtick derived from an earlier vaudeville stereotype, the "Dumb Dora." Unfortunately, as Davis' newsletters often demonstrate, in a political context Dumb Dora's skewed logic is not always funny -- particularly when dealing with topics such as the massacre at Fort Hood.
At this early point all that we can actually verify about the perpetrator, Nidal Hasan, is that he was a disturbed man whose discontent seems to have been expressed through religious preoccupations. To Davis, however, that Hasan is a Muslim is the only important fact. She writes in her latest Newsletter:
Christianity is the foundation of tolerance. ... Jesus teaches us to love our enemies. On the other hand radical Muslims, such as Hasan's imam (Islamic cleric) teach it is honorable to kill non-Muslims.... While some Muslims may be unaware of what their faith teaches and others do not adhere to these parts of the Koran, we as a country should not ignore the obvious
ooooh! We loving and tolerant Christians just can't trust those scary Muslims, no matter how reasonable they seem!
But wait a minute - earlier this year another disturbed man, his anger focused through the lens of fundamentalist Christian dogma, erupted in a violent act. Christian anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder shot Dr George Tiller who had just been acquitted of violating Kansas' late-term abortion law. There can be little doubt that Roeder's motivation was influenced by his religious beliefs.
And what did Cynthia Davis, Christian anti-abortion champion, have to say about fundamentalist Christian terrorism in the person of Scott Roeder?:
With no knowledge of the person who shot George Tiller, I can only speculate he may have been mentally unbalanced. With the exception of self defense, it is hard to imagine how anyone could shoot another human being in his right mind,...
.
Gracie Allen may have presented a Dumb Dora face to the public, but her stage character never allowed stupidity to lead her past the bounds of decency and fairness. One wishes that one could say the same for Cynthia Davis.
`Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.
`There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
You hear some strange notions in Wonderland. Last Monday, for example, when Todd Akin spoke at Cynthia Davis' town hall, he mentioned in passing that for every government job created, two private sector jobs are lost and that by advising FDR to create public works jobs in 1932, John Maynard Keynes turned a recession into the Great Depression.
But only the Mad Hatter would agree. The real world begs to differ:
As for the claim about private sector jobs lost when government jobs are created, the evidence is like wine on the March Hare's tea table: there isn't any.
Akin dispensed another tea party notion, namely that Spain, one of the strongest economies in Europe, plunged this year to a 17 percent unemployment rate because of overdependence on solar and wind power. Akin opposes cap-and-trade legislation because it focuses on increasing solar and wind power, while neglecting nuclear power. To prove how unreliable those alternative sources can be, he explained that the Spanish government offered citizens tax credits for installing solar and wind power and that so many of them responded and sold their excess power back to the government that, on days when there was no sun or wind, there was insufficient power for the Alcoa Aluminum plant. Aluminum plants use a great deal of power and, finding its power source undependable, the Alcoa corporation moved its plant back to the United States. Voila, 17 percent unemployment.
State Rep. Cynthia Davis and Rep. Todd Akin are, predictably, wringing their hands about the 
Earlier in the week I 
Do you sometimes wonder about the mental state of the fringiest of our Republican legislators? Consider the following recent examples of shrill and clueless scolding on the part of two of the people elected to represent us:
All of which came to my mind when I read a recent 
You thought it would be impossible to top Davis for sheer mean-mindedness, right? And that may be true, but South Carolina's Republican Lieutenant Governor Andrew Bauer is at least in the same category. He recently 
In looking forward to the coming legislative session, State Rep. Jake Zimmerman, D-Olivette, acknowledged that he will be working with a number of unhinged members of the Missouri House. He waved Cynthia Davis aside as by no means the most wackadoodle of them and called to the attention of the audience at West County Dems two Republicans who have outdone even Cynthia.
Jim Guest, R-Pluto (pictured at right), believes that the government has been 
In an 
It is instructive to take a look at Roy Blunt's and Cynthia Davis' respondes to H1N1 preparedness. Both Blunt and Davis pay allegiance to a similar conservative credo; yet Davis tells the government no thank you, keep your vaccine, while Blunt puts on a big show, pointing his little finger at the big, bad government that didn't get him his vaccine right away.
At this early point 
But wait a minute - earlier this year another disturbed man, his anger focused through the lens of fundamentalist Christian dogma, erupted in a violent act. Christian anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder shot Dr George Tiller who had just been acquitted of violating Kansas' late-term abortion law. There can be little doubt that Roeder's motivation was influenced by his 