Representative Jason Kander (D-44) produced the following video quiz on ethics reform, stating, "For some time, I have been searching for a concise, entertaining way to promote and explain the need for comprehensive ethics reform in Missouri":
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?
That First Amendment will make you crazy. It's like we have a choice between protecting free speech (down with dictators!) or keeping corporate money from buying elections for the wealthy (down with the oligarchy!). But censoring corporate speech without weakening the First Amendment is nigh onto impossible, according to William Freivogel.
Freivogel, a former editor at the Post-Dispatch whose particular beat was the Supreme Court, now heads the journalism department at SIU. Speaking at West County Dems last Monday, he emphasized that he sees no way to accomplish both goals. His reservations have a lot to be said for them. Consider that it wasn't just the NRA that supported the High Court's ruling in Citizens United wherein the McCain/Feingold law banning corporate ads before an election was deemed to violate the First Amendment. The ACLU also supported the position that such censorship was unconstitutional. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, warned that banning such speech would mean censoring Sierra Club ads sixty days before an election that disapprove of a congressman voting for logging in the national forest; preventing the NRA from publishing a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent favors handgun bans; and forcing the ACLU to take down from its website a page telling the public to vote for a candidate in light of his defense of free speech. All these are classic examples of government censorship.
Keep in mind, though, that four justices thought such censorship was necessary. John Paul Stevens, writing for the minority, noted that allowing corporations free rein to speak will further undermine the integrity of elections. He expressed concern about the doctrine that corporations are people and about the likelihood of foreign corporations affecting our elections.
Freivogel can appreciate Stevens' objections. Having come of age during the Watergate era and having seen the abuses of money in politics, he wanted campaign finance reform. But now he thinks:
"There's no way to write a campaign finance law that is going to effectively restrict money abuses in politics and is also going to be consistent with the First Amendment. McCain-Feingold is an attempt to do it. In some ways, if you think about it, McCain-Feingold had some very good provisions, but its provisions made certain kinds of electioneering ads in the time period coming to an election illegal. That's an incredible exercise of government power. It is making illegal political speech at the very time that it's most important, the time right before an election. In some ways, it makes the First Amendment not make sense. Why would the First Amendment make it illegal to have certain kinds of political speech by the ACLU or the NRA or NARAL right before an election and still protect pornography and flag burning. It's a little bit hard to make that argument.
So, as I say, as I saw then the development of soft money that made the Watergate reforms ineffective and saw the problems of that McCain-Feingold law, I basically have come to the conclusion that you can't make the law that's going to both protect the honesty of the electoral process and also protect people's right to join together in groups and to make their views known in the days right before an election.
The only leeway Freivogel would grant in this dilemma about censorship is that he wishes the Court had made a distinction between non-profits and for-profit corporations. That way, Missouri Votes Conservation could air ads about how much money Blunt takes from Big Oil and how necessary cap and trade is. And, to be fair, the NRA could recommend voting against candidates who endorse handgun bans. But Exxon--with its motives of greed and its disregard for the future of the planet--could ... shut. up. Ooh, that sounds good, right? But aside from the fact that SCOTUS didn't make that non-profit/for-profit distinction for us and that creating it is not a legislative option--it wouldn't solve anything anyway. Exxon, trust me, would not be silenced for more than a nanosecond, because that's how long it would take the oil Goliath to get one of its cronies to incorporate a non-profit front group to accept a few million bucks and film ads that lie about climate change.
While digging around on the Web, I came across a couple of blog posts concerning Claire McCaskill. In response to a letter concerning the miscues of Democrats in Congress, McCaskill sent the blogger this response boasting about her wise stewardship of tax dollars - and addressing none of the concerns about which the blogger had contacted McCaskill. This inappropriate, one-note response struck me as a perfect representation of McCaskill's one-note public persona - the fiscally responsible legislator who, like a thrifty aunt, understands the value of a dollar just as well as any of the good folks back home.
The problem comes when McCaskill confuses the discipline of economics with the ledger book - or, in McCaskill's case, perhaps, assumes that her constituents lack the vision to see beyond the ledger book. For example, McCaskill has been in the forefront of those so-called moderate Democrats who ballyhoo a simplistic approach to debt and deficit reduction that is designed to play well at home, but is not likely to address any of our real economic problems.
Most recently McCaskill has once again joined Republican Jeff Sessions (Alabama) in introducing an amendment that would freeze spending for three years. As Pat Garofalo of The Wonk Room notes:
...the notion that a blanket freeze is a good way to reduce deficits is severely misguided. For one thing, it locks in funding without any debate as to whether current levels are appropriate, and it will limit the ability of the Congress to respond to changing demands ... . As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has pointed out, this makes it hard "to do much of anything for the middle class that's important" going forward.
A freeze removes any sense of prioritization from the budget (building effective programs while eliminating ineffective or duplicative ones), and simply whacks away a chunk of funding across the board. As CAP Senior Fellow Scott Lilly has pointed out, programs that are under the radar, but vital to the nation's functioning, will likely end up on the short end of a freeze.
It seems as if McCaskill's ersatz fiscally responsible bad angel is once more leading her astray. Certainly her auditor persona has its good moments - her work on government contracting, which President Obama referenced last Wedensday, comes to mind, as well as her principled stand on earmarks - but she should certainly give the deficit bashing a rest. There are, after all, plenty of Republicans with nothing more constructive to do than to bang on that particular empty drum.
Update: If you are interested in what a nuanced, as opposed to simplistic take on deficits, spending and role of government, actually looks like, take a look at this set of graphs and accompanying commentary.
Image created by Viktor Voight from the Wikimedia Commons.
Our friends at Fired Up posted on this Twitter item by Renee Hulshof, spouse of former Congressman and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Kenny Hulshof (r):
My husband is convinced that the dems will get healthcare passed. This educated prediction from him is freaking me out.
[Note: according to Twitter - "This person has protected their tweets."]
Huh? Why, because millions of Americans might be able to get access to affordable health care and just might be able to do so even if the have a pre-existing condition?
Kenny Hulshoff (r) was elected to Congress in 1996 with 49.4% of the vote. He served until January 2009, not seeking re-election and instead deciding to lose to Jay Nixon in the 2008 gubernatorial race by only garnering 39.5% of the vote. Kenny Hulshof (r) served in Congress for twelve years.
While in Congress Kenny Hulshof and his spouse were eligible to participate in the federal health insurance program [pdf] for members. Among its provisions:
...Members meeting minimum enrollment period requirements who are also eligible for an immediate annuity may continue to participate in the health benefit program when they retire...
Okay, Kenny Hulshof has "retired", but we don't know if continues to participate. Do you think anyone will bother to ask him?
...enrollees are not subject to pre-existing condition exclusion...
If it's good enough for Congress it's too good for anyone else?
...At the time of retirement, members...receiving an immediate annuity have a one-time election to continue to participate...provided they have been enrolled for at least five years before retirement (or if less, must have been enrolled from the last day in the period in which the employee became eligible to enroll in the plan up to the date on which the employee became an annuitant) and are eligible for an immediate annuity. Like active workers, retirees may enroll as individuals or may elect family coverage for themselves, their spouse...
Now, we don't know if former Congressman Kenny Hulshof (r) and his spouse were ever enrolled in the federal health insurance program for Congress or if they are presently eligible as "retiree and spouse" for coverage, but in as far as the former, wasn't it nice to have that option? Too bad that option isn't available to everyone else. Apparently the prospect of this happening is enough to freak out Renee Hulshof.
The March 11 issue of the Muleskinner, the weekly student newspaper at the University of Central Missouri, included a front page article on an unfilled Missouri Sunshine Law request pertaining to the search for a new president for the institution. This morning a significant number of newspapers were scattered about the University's visitor lot (and the University president's designated parking spot) and along South Street. We had heard rumors that previous issues of the paper had gone missing from campus newsstands.
At the entrance to visitor parking.
Along South Street.
Along South Street.
It couldn't have been because of the headline story, could it?
This couldn't have been about the headline story, right? Nor stories about an armed robbery near campus, or funding for a campus center which helps youngsters with autism...
It was probably just someone who doesn't like to read.
There is that story asking about the number of applicants, though:
Roy Blunt may be a little too obsessed with Robin Carnahan; she may not be quite as powerful as he thinks. According to Big Bucks Blunt, he is opposing not "Obamacare" which seems to be the bane of most members of the Party of No, but Carnahan's government takeover - as he twittered earlier:
According to @RasmussenPoll 60% of Missourians support our position on health care. Only 37% want Carnahan's govt-takeover.
Carnahan has recently expressed support for health care reform; she is after all a reasonably sane individual, and there is no reason to oppose it unless you are unhinged (Tea-Party) or lying about it as a tool to regain power (other Republicans). However, she might be a little surprised to know that she is the entity responsible for what so many of the cowering right wing consider a government takeover.
If Blunt does manage to establish that Carnahan should be credited for health care reform, he may live to regret it. He cites the Rasmussen polls, which many consider to have a Republican bias because they so consistently perform as an outlier in the direction of Republican druthers, to claim that health care reform is not popular in Missouri. Other polls show, however, that the national trend is now moving in the President's favor and once health care is passed - and the news tonight is that reconciliation will start Monday - approval rates in Missouri will likely climb. Which, oh frabjous day, may well leave Roy Blunt out on a limb while Carnahan picnics underneath.
Earlier, I noted that State Senator Jane Cunningham attended Todd Akin's kill-health-care-reform pep rally to push her Health Care Freedom Act. This bill would put a constitutional amendement on the Missouri ballot this fall that is based on fringewingers' wistful reading of the tenth amendment, which they insist permits states, Civil War to the contrary, to opt out of federal legislation they don't like - in this case, health care reform legislation.
The Beacon's Jo Mannies reported that Cunningham got a standing ovation for this ill-conceived, last-ditch effort to subvert the will of the people who voted for Obama and his promises of health care reform. Do you wonder whether any of those fools applauding Cunningham had the teensiest, tiniest idea about what effect opting out of health care reform could possibly have on Missouri were it to prove possible?
Just take a look at this interactive map prepared by the Center for American Progress. Under the health care reform proposed by the Senate, 200,957 more people in Missouri would be newly eligible for Medicaid, individuals who will continue to be uninsured given the status quo. The loss of federal funds for Medicaid that would result from "opting" out would mean that Missouri's uninsured would continue to exceed 700,000.
Nor, as has been amply demonstrated over the past few years, can Missouri effectively address the problem of the uninsured at the state level. As Ivor Volksy of the Wonk Roomputs it:
Political considerations, special interest influence and budgetary strains have doomed previous state-based health care reform efforts and governors who believe that nullifying federal reform is in the best interest of their citizens are placing politics ahead of sound policy.
Substitute "legislature" for "governors", and you have Missouri in a nutshell, with its 2008 nonelderly, uninsured rate of 14.5% - a rate that is probably quite a bit higher right now.
The Senate health care reform package would extend Medicaid coverage massively, providing subsidies that would reduce costs for state governments, employers, and individuals. It would also include incentives and reformulated payment systems that would work to make Medicaid more efficient. And yet there are people who will stand up and applaud a ideological nitwit like Jane Cunningham for her efforts to deny Missouri citizens needed benefits that give us good returns on our tax dollars.
I don't know why the President let the Republicans get eight months ahead of him in selling health care reform to the public. Now that he's started, though, he's saying all the right things. He needs to convince people that if we don't make these changes, even middle class people who currently have health insurance are going to be priced out of the market. And he needs to allay their fears that, in these recessionary times, we can pay for the plan without raising the deficit.
But you know what's happened over the last several decades. What's happened is, is that more and more businesses are saying, we can't afford to provide health care to our workers because the costs are skyrocketing. So they just drop health care altogether. A lot of small businesses, they don't provide health care to their employees anymore. And large businesses, what are they doing? They're saying to you, we're going to jack up your premiums, we got to increase your deductibles. If you're self-employed, you are completely out of luck. If you've got a preexisting condition, you are completely out of luck. And by the way, those of us who are lucky enough to have health care today, we don't know if we're the ones who are going to lose our job tomorrow, or suddenly it turns out that our child has a preexisting condition. And we'll be stuck in the exact same situation, even if we've got good health insurance.
Now, everything I just said, if you talk to my opponents, they'll agree. They'll say, you're right, the health care system is broken. For too many people it's getting worse. They will acknowledge that the status quo is unsustainable. But you know what they tell me? We had that big health care summit. I know you guys watched all seven hours of it. (Laughter.) Yes, absolutely. It was scintillating. (Laughter.) But you heard what they said. They said, well, we agree with you that the current system is unsustainable, but this is just not the right time to do it. They said, let's start over, that's what they said. We just got to start from scratch.
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me tell you something. The insurance industry is not starting over. They just announced a 39 percent rate increase in California and a rate increase of up to 60 percent right across the border in my home state of Illinois - 60 percent in one year. That's the future. That's the future if we fail to act.
The President's emphasis on Wednesday, however, was less on the dire consequences if we fail to act and more on how savings in government spending can pay for the reform. He warmed up the audience by describing his line by line efforts to cut government spending on all fronts, not just health care.
For example, we decided not to fund an office maintained by the Department of Education - in Paris, France. (Laughter.) Now, I'm sure that was nice work if you could get it. (Laughter.) But I didn't think that was a real good use of our money. We eliminated a decades-old radio navigation system which cost $35 million a year. And some people might say, well, why did you do that? We need that navigation system. Well, the thing is, we got this thing call GPS now, and satellites. (Laughter.) So the whole radio navigation thing wasn't working so well.
With Claire McCaskill sitting behind him, Obama detoured into her ideas for saving government money, pointing out--appropriately, since he was heading for a high dollar fundraiser for her after his speech in St. Charles--that she "just pinches pennies."
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!
...The largest over-the-month decreases in employment occurred in Missouri and Ohio (-12,800 each), followed by Kentucky (-11,800), New Jersey (-9,100), Florida (-6,100), and Nevada (-5,700). Kentucky (-0.7 percent) experienced the largest over-the-month percentage decrease in employment, followed by Missouri and Nevada (-0.5 percent each), and Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, and Ohio (-0.3 percent each)....
The percentage unemployment for Missouri, compared to a year ago:
Missouri
January 2009 - 8.1%
January 2010 (preliminary) - 9.5%
Over-the-year rate change (preliminary) - 1.4%
[emphasis added]
The actual numbers (seasonally adjusted):
Missouri
Civilian labor force (Numbers in thousands)
January 2009 - 3,053.0
November 2009 - 3,008.5
December 2009 - 3,001.4
January 2010 (preliminary) - 2,994.5
Unemployed (Numbers in thousands)
January 2009 - 246.4
November 2009 - 290.2
December 2009 - 288.0
January 2010 (preliminary) - 283.0
Unemployed (Percent of labor force)
January 2009 - 8.1%
November 2009 - 9.6%
December 2009 - 9.6%
January 2010 (preliminary) - 9.5%
[emphasis added]
It could be worse, President McCain (r) and Governor Hulshof (r) could be on the Sunday tee-vee talk shows telling us, "We're doing nothing because nothing is the best thing to do. All is well!"
Since President Obama was to be in St. Louis today on Wednesday pushing for health care reform, Rep. Todd Akin (R - 2nd) thought he would jump the gun and rally the president's right-wing foes via a video town hall in St. Charles. Attended by about 2,200 people, the event consisted of presentations of the same ol' same ol' talking points by Akin and a handful of other retrograde Missouri politicians, including Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, and, via video, Akin's congressional fellow travelers, John Shimkus, (R-IL) and John Shadegg, (R-AZ).
According to KSDK TV, Akin was in his usual obstructionist form:
I want to say and I want to be completely clear, ... That the bill that we're talking about today is the worst bill that I've seen in all my time in Congress. In fact, it is so bad, it is at least two times worse than the next bad bill, which was the cap and tax bill to supposeably fix global warming.
Not exactly the most profound or relevant analysis - but then this was Todd Akin speaking and we all know that unsubstantiated invective and slogans like "cap and tax bill" seems to work very well with his support base. Other speakers hit the grace notes; State Senator Jane Cunningham, for instance, pushed her tenther legislation "which could potentially stop socialized medicine mandate at the state level." The real knee-slapper, though, came when Akin:
... credited divine intervention with the January election of Scott Brown, R-Mass., which deprived Senate Democrats of the 60-seat majority needed to block filibusters. Akin said he hoped God would intervene again to prevent a health care bill from getting through Congress.
Amazing how small and parochial the God of some of these so-called Christians seems to be.
It is instructive - and sad - to compare this event to the President's appearance, and to think that there are people who are happy to be led down the garden path by fools like Akin and pals. Sadder still to think about what we all stand to lose because we live in a place where this type of idiocy is taken seriously by anyone.
UPDATE: Today (Mar. 12) on the Dianne Rehm show, a caller from St. Charles reported that Akin went even further out onto the thin ice of tasteless absurdity by comparing the passage of health care to that good old Republican fall-back, 9/11. The response, from even the conservative commentator, was to condemn Akin's excess as insane, childish and, at the least, manipulative. Rehm seemed to have trouble believing that there were people present at that rally that cheered Akin - I have trouble believing that there people in my district that voted for him.
At St. Charles High School in suburban St. Louis this afternoon, Barack Obama laid out the argument for the health care reform bill. He was thorough. He was clear. He made that audience understand that we must have reform and that we can, even in these recessionary times, afford it. Indeed, we can't afford not to have it.
I'll write more tomorrow about how he laid out that argument, but right now, I wanted to offer you the end of his speech. It's the kind of stirring rhetoric that kept John McCain from becoming president. It's the kind of rhetoric we should have heard regularly these last few months. Here it is, better late than never.
...Senator Kit Bond: The Constitution says nothing of the subject of filibuster and it says nothing of the power of a minority to defeat the president's judicial nomination....
....It is the product of a rule of the Senate, passed many years after the ratification of the Constitution. This rule does not derive from the authority of the Constitution....
"...This rule does not derive from the authority of the Constitution...."
...Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member....
"...I'm going to stay focused on our mutual opponent, which is Ike Skelton, and his out-of-touch, liberal voting record..."
And we wrote yesterday:
...It's really something to watch republican primary opponents scramble for the most extreme spot on the fringe right with all the decorum of one of those mad dashes in a Marx Brothers movie...
We thought we'd take a look at campaign finance reports via the Federal Election Commission.
CANDIDATE INFORMATION
STOUFFER, BILL H0MO04094
Office: HOUSE
Party: REPUBLICAN PARTY Election: 2010
State: MISSOURI District: 04
FINANCIAL SUMMARY
From: 01/01/2009 To: 12/31/2009
I. RECEIPTS
Itemized Individual Contributions $239,910
Unitemized Individual Contributions $15,459
Party Committees Contributions $6,439
Other Committees Contributions $16,000
Candidate Contributions $0
TOTAL CONTRIBUTIONS $277,808
Transfers from Authorized Committees $0
Candidate Loans $70,000
Other Loans $0
TOTAL LOANS $70,000
Operating Expenditures Offsets $101
Other Receipts $0
TOTAL RECEIPTS $347,909
II. DISBURSEMENTS
Operating Expenditures $44,286
Transfers To Authorized Committees $0
Candidate Loan Repayments $0
Other Loan Repayments $0
TOTAL LOAN REPAYMENTS $0
Individual Refunds $0
Political Party Refunds $0
Other Committee Refunds $0
TOTAL CONTRIBUTION REFUNDS $0
Other Disbursements $0
TOTAL DISBURSEMENTS $44,286
III. CASH SUMMARY
Ending Cash On Hand $303,623
Net Contributions $277,808
Net Operating Expenditures $44,185
Debts Owed By $70,000
Debts Owed To $0
...Former [state] Rep. Vicky Hartzler stepped away from the pack of five Republican men running in the 4th Congressional District race.....
...While in the General Assembly, Hartzler said, she never voted for a tax increase.
"I didn't do that. I had some bills where there were some fees, like for a new license plate and things, but as far as tax increases, no," she said. "In this country, we need some fiscal leadership. We need someone willing to say no and look for creative solutions, with the runaway spending that we have in Washington and the growing deficit. I have a record that I believe more reflects the desires of the people in this area, which are telling me, stop spending our money..."
When is a tax not a tax?
The filed candidates in the 4th Congressional District:
LEONARD STEINMAN JEFFERSON CITY MO 3/1/2010 1:13 p.m.
IKE SKELTON LEXINGTON MO 3/5/2010 9:06 a.m.
Republican
JAMES SCHOLZ WARRENSBURG MO 2/23/2010 8:47 a.m.
ARTHUR JOHN MADDEN MALTA BEND MO 2/23/2010 11:29 a.m.
VICKY HARTZLER HARRISONVILLE MO 2/23/2010 12:58 p.m.
ROY VIESSMAN JEFFERSON CITY MO 2/23/2010 8:52 a.m.
BRIAN RILEY MARSHALL MO 2/23/2010 9:03 a.m.
BILL STOUFFER JEFFERSON CITY MO 2/23/2010 9:07 a.m.
BRIAN CLARK CLEVELAND MO 3/8/2010 9:35 a.m.
Constitution
GREG COWAN LEBANON MO 2/23/2010 2:21 p.m.
It's really something to watch republican primary opponents scramble for the most extreme spot on the fringe right with all the decorum of one of those mad dashes in a Marx Brothers movie. Bill Stouffer (r), from the same article:
"...I'm going to stay focused on our mutual opponent, which is Ike Skelton, and his out-of-touch, liberal voting record..."
Ike Skelton a liberal? That's news to anyone who is sane.
And Vicki[y] Hartzler? That's a real special brand of right wingnut - on health care reform:
....SMP: And, and you've told your story in a variety of, of places. Last week you attended a, another forum for, in this area. Could you tell me about that?
Randy Huggins:...Last Thursday I went to a health care information forum, I guess you could call it, Vicki[y] Hartzler [a declared Republican candidate for the 4th Congressional District seat] held here. And she had concerns about the legislation and she had things that she liked about the legislation. Then she said she had solutions. The solution that she offered for the pre-existing condition my grandson had was, she offered to bring the family a, a hot meal. [pause] We're hungry, but that's not gonna help his heart, so.
SMP: And so, do you, do you feel some frustration when, when dealing with this, you know, the subject of health care reform and when you feel like people give you solutions that really aren't solutions?
Randy Huggins: Absolutely it's frustrating. [pause] I, I just, I don't understand where they're coming from. Why they can't see the need to fix, the system's broken. And they don't see any need to fix it or to change it in any way. Just....
The republican party and their candidates - they "...give you solutions that really aren't solutions..." Vicky Hartzler would fit right in with all the other obstructionist republicans in Washington.
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.
Representative Trent Skaggs (D) and a few other members of the House, including a few in the Democratic leadership, have taken the opportunity to tweak the republican majority's propensity for foisting non-binding resolutions with no practical meaning on the House membership.
...Whereas, the majority leadership of the Missouri House of Representatives finds that criticizing Congress is, like, totally easy and great fun as well - way more easy and fun than doing real work...
HCR 69 Declares that nonbinding resolutions to Congress are a complete waste of time and pledges that the General Assembly will focus on meaningul legislation to solve problems in this state
Sponsor: Skaggs, Trent (31) Proposed Effective Date: 00/00/0000
CoSponsor: Harris, Belinda (110) ..........etal. LR Number: 5317L.02I
Last Action: 03/03/2010 - Offered (H)
HCR69
Next Hearing: Hearing not scheduled
Calendar: Bill currently not on a calendar
The amount of damage a sumo wrestler inflicts by sitting on someone's chest depends on whether he lowers his whole weight. And then bounces a few times. When VoteVets sat down on Roy Blunt's chest last month with a $600,000 TV ad buy, they bounced a couple of times. After pointing out that the Christmas bomber was on that plane because of our oil addiction, the veteran narrating the ad mentioned Blunt's vote against clean energy legislation. One bounce. It talked about the thousands he's taken in campaign contributions from big oil. Another bounce. Oof.
Now VoteVets is unhappy with Claire for signing that letter "seeking to stop EPA regulation of CO2 emissions from 'stationary sources' (e.g. coal-burning utilities and factories)." They've just put out another ad.
They're not going after Claire like they went after Roy. The ad mainly makes their case that getting off of oil is a national security issue. Oh yeah, it makes that case vividly. Then it mildly urges McCaskill to lead on this issue. Picture the sumo wrestler straddling her torso. He isn't sitting down yet. Or bouncing. But he could.
Organizing for America (OFA) has a great tool to help you call your legislator and tell him to pass.the.damn.bill. It gives you the phone numbers you need and a script--a script with no mention of the public option. Good for OFA. Let me reiterate the reasons we should stop pushing for the public option:
To get it passed, the House will have to vote for the Senate version, and the House is insisting that before they vote for it, they get assurances that some fixes will be made afterwards in reconciliation. Those fixes include closing the donut hole, improving the excise tax portion, seeing to it that the exchanges have some national standards so the states can't muck it up too bad, and maybe improving affordability. And Adam Green is saying that as long as fixes have to be made, the public option should also be on the list.
The problem is that House members will refuse to vote for the Senate version unless Reid assures them that he's got fifty votes to get those fixes passed. The fifty votes for the public option are probably not there, and by continuing to encourage progressive House members to insist on that option, we risk having the whole endeavor collapse. It's not going to be easy to get enough votes in the House, and as long as we encourage representatives who want a public option to hold out for that, we risk losing the vote in the House.
Why take that risk when, as a matter of fact, many progressive experts are saying that the Senate parliamentarian is more than likely going to rule that the public option does not even qualify for a vote under reconciliation. The parliamentarian will rule on that issue, and he may well rule against bringing it up for a reconciliation vote.
Now we've got progressives calling Claire to insist that she agree to vote for the public option. On the one hand, she's got us mad at her over that issue, and on the other hand, she's got the tea partiers mad that she's backing the bill at all. She'd like nothing better than not to have to vote again on this issue. EVER. By not promising to vote for the public option in reconciliation, she might keep Reid from getting the fifty votes he needs to be able to promise to the House. And voila, the House refuses to vote for the Senate bill and Claire sees herself getting off the hook.
Russ Carnahan is a similar situation. He's nervous. He'd rather not have to take another vote on this and give Ed Martin more electoral ammunition. That's silly of course, because Martin will try to crucify him for the vote he's already taken, but what I'm hearing is that he's got cold feet. So again, it is counterproductive to urge him to insist on a public option. That just gives him an excuse to vote no on the Senate bill.
Now, a diarist at Kos clarifies the situation further, by pointing out that the House is in serious danger of not having the votes to pass the Senate bill. Some representatives will refuse to vote for it because the Senate bill weakens Stupak. Others will refuse, as they did on the original vote, because the bill wouldn't be liberal enough for them even if it had a public option. The only way to replace those lost votes is to pull in the Democrats who voted against the House bill because it had a public option. The diarist begins with a video in which Tom Harkin, who prefers single payer and who strongly supported the public option, insists that we have to let it go now:
Tom Harkin, who succeeded the Late Ted Kennedy as the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee, was on MSNBC's The Ed Show yesterday. Ed pushed Sen. Harkin on the matter of including a public option in the reconciliation sidecar to the health care legislation. Sen. Harkin, a strong supporter of the public option, insisted that it could not be included if it hurt the chances of the overall package, and indicated that including it would do exactly that.
Earlier in the week I 
Freivogel, a former editor at the Post-Dispatch whose particular beat was the Supreme Court, now heads the journalism department at SIU. Speaking at West County Dems last Monday, he emphasized that he sees no way to accomplish both goals. His reservations have a lot to be said for them. Consider that it wasn't just the NRA that supported the High Court's ruling in Citizens United wherein the McCain/Feingold law banning corporate ads before an election was deemed to violate the First Amendment. The ACLU also supported the position that such censorship was unconstitutional. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, warned that banning such speech would mean censoring Sierra Club ads sixty days before an election that disapprove of a congressman voting for logging in the national forest; preventing the NRA from publishing a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent favors handgun bans; and forcing the ACLU to take down from its website a page telling the public to vote for a candidate in light of his defense of free speech. All these are classic examples of government censorship.
While digging around on the Web, I came across a couple of blog posts concerning Claire McCaskill. In response to a 
Earlier, I 
I don't know why the President let the Republicans get eight months ahead of him in selling health care reform to the public. Now that he's started, though, he's saying all the right things. He needs to convince people that if we don't make these changes, even middle class people who currently have health insurance are going to be priced out of the market. And he needs to allay their fears that, in these recessionary times, we can pay for the plan without raising the deficit.
Since President Obama was to be in St. Louis 