Maureen Dowd nailed it when she said the wingoverse is filled with inmates who are “much like the spooky spirits swarming up over Bald Mountain in ‘Fantasia.'” One of those demented wraiths, speaking at last week’s Values Voter Summit, proposed that as long as abortions remain legal, it should be required that they be performed in public.

This weekend, as Michael Bersin reported, St. Louis is hosting a host of these zealots, and it seems that no matter how loony they are, some Republican legislators will buy into it:

Take Janet Folger Porter, for example, who’s helping run the event. Porter, a leading right-wing activist and talk-show host, believes the United States is “cursed” for having elected President Obama, who took office as the result of a communist conspiracy. She’s told her audience that the H1N1 flu vaccine is really a nefarious plot by the government to kill millions of Americans, and that the Obama administration is creating internment camps for conservatives.

Porter is just one of the truly unhinged conservatives who helped make this weekend’s event a reality, along with other nutty activists like Phyllis Schlafly, Joseph Farah, Mat Staver, and Rick Scarborough.

Are Republicans keeping their distance? Some are, some aren’t. Four sitting Republican members of Congress — Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Steve King (Iowa), Tom Price (Ga.), and Tom McClintock (Calif.) — will be addressing the conference today. Former presidential candidate and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) will headline the event this evening.

As Benen points out: “it’s exceedingly difficult for a conservative to be too crazy for the Republican Party.”

I might have dredged up the hundred bucks to attend the events this weekend and get a better grasp of just how far gone the participants are, but these people scare me–and some of them recognize me.

Climate Progress reports  that the Murkowski amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that I wrote about last Tuesday was debated yesterday and ultimately denied a vote, effectively killing it. The amendment was designed to do an end run around the EPA finding that carbon dioxide emissions comprise a dangerous pollutant. It would have prohibited the EPA from regulating emissions from stationary (industrial) rather than mobile (automotive) sources.

In one sense, it is unfortunate that this piece of drek was not brought to a vote, since it would have given us a chance to see whether or not Claire McCaskill’s inclination toward coal industry interests is steep enough for them to push her completely over when it comes to the  American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) act.  The fact that legislators like  Murkowski can try to undercut the ability of the EPA to do its job underlines the importance of persuading weak Democrats like McCaskill to put their votes where their progressive claims in fund-raising letters suggest they should be.

The furror over the Murkowski amendment reinforces the importance of ACES since, as Climate Progress points out, EPA regulation alone cannot substitute for strong congressional action to slow climate change:

1. It would be difficult for the EPA to enact a CO2 cap and trade without congressional cooperation,” as John Podesta, former Clinton Administration Chief of Staff and now CEO of CAP, recently said.  The endangerment finding is far better suited to addressing new sources that it is existing sources.

2. A subsequent president could trivially stop or endlessly delay whatever actions Obama was able to start with the EPA.

3. If Congress rejects the binding targets of W-M, then we have no basis for negotiating with other countries as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process.  Indeed, we would have no basis for a deal with China.  A promise by Obama that he would try to use the limited authority EPA has to commit to a modest cut in CO2 by 2020 – and deep cuts in 2030 and 2050 – would be seen as meaningless.

Nor do McCaskill’s stated reasons for trying to weaken the ACES cap-and-trade provisions hold up. Her claims that the legislation would “unfairly punish” coal-dependent Missourians shows (willful?) ignorance of what the legislation contains.  ACES ensures that coal-dependent states are provided with billions in subsidies to ameliorate the impact of cap-and-trade and develop alternatives.   Neither does it help her cause when she channels her inner Republican and claims that the United States can’t be expected to do more than developing nations like China and India – particlarlly since both of those countries have announced plans to take relatively major steps to curb emissions (see here and here).

It is great that the Murkowski amendment failed, and those of you who phoned McCaskill and did all the good things you do deserve huge credit, but we cannot keep fighting this battle over and over. We need Claire McCaskill to do her job and provide real leadership on the vital issue of climate change.  We need her to unequivocally support ACES so that retrograde lawmakers like Murkowski cannot continue to use the legislative process to serve the interests of their wealthy, corporate clients to our detriment.  

ADDENDUM:  Note that per Fired Up Missouri! Kit Bond tried to horn in on Murkowski’s act.  Nor were Bond and Murkowski alone in offering amendments designed to weaken environmental protections according to the New York Times.  You see what I mean about Republican intransigence and why we need ACES?

If there’s no public option:

Unpopular

From the few tea leaves I get to see, I’m getting the sense that people on The Hill are not even having the conversation about just how unpopular forcing people to buy shitty insurance they don’t want is going to be.

Mandate + No Public Option = Unpopular taxpayer bailout of private insurance

…The Baucus bill is a mandate with no price controls, because it lacks a public health insurance option to increase competition with private insurance…

May 27, 2009:

Senator Claire McCaskill in Sedalia – May 27, 2009 – part 4

….Question: Thank you for coming today. And  many people whine about taxes., but my family, we’re paying like over seven thousand dollars a year in health premiums. And I’d much rather trade that in for a national health care system. And I appreciate what my taxes buy. [applause]

Senator McCaskill: Well, thank, thank you for that. Does anybody mind if I read another. [laughter] You know, I, I do not think we’ll do a, the President doesn’t support, and I don’t support a single payer system. I think competition in the marketplace and choices is very, very important in health care. Now, if we enact these reforms and , but I have a feeling that this is gonna work, because I think we’re gonna have the kind of competition that will drive down costs. And, we gotta make sure that the government run health program is fair, because we don’t want it to be so overwhelming that it stamps out all the private insurance. ‘Cause we want that healthy friction in competition, between the two. We certainly have had competition as it’s related to the, the, some of my friends on the other side of the aisle want to do with health care what we did with Medicare D. Which is a government sponsored but completely private program. Well, you know, yeah, there’s competition there. Sometimes there’s so much competition it’s confusing, seniors don’t know whether they’re going or coming, whether drugs are covered or not, whether they’re getting a good deal or a bad deal. But the problem with that is, we built into that program six billion dollars worth of profit on taxpayers for the pharmaceutical industry. Well that doesn’t seem right to me. They actually put in the bill that we couldn’t buy bulk to get down prices. Well that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of. So I don’t think we want to emulate Medicare D because I don’t think we can afford it. I don’t think we can afford to plus up certain silos of profit in the health care industry.  I think we can figure out ways to provide competition and choices and to bring down costs. And that are the three goals. Competition, choices, and bring down costs. And I’m kind of excited. I think we’re actually gonna get a bill this year. I feel pretty good about it. [applause]…

December 15, 2008:

Claire McCaskill (D): “Kitchen Table Talk” in Kansas City, part 3

…Question: On the issue of health care, this is a great opportunity to jump right in there, you know there’s a lot of [inaudible] thought, you know, early in the campaign health care was really being talked about by the group of [inaudible] candidates, by Barack Obama, by John McCain, so we thought this, the stars were aligned, health care is actually going to get dealt with, but then we had this little economic problem kind of creep up towards in there and everybody said, “It’s never going to happen!” But I was wondering if you had any insight, from the outset he picked Daschle, given the appointments that he did, that perhaps the impetus for reform now actually exist than the whole possibility of stimulus, in terms of the economic problems that may actually help push health reform along. So I just kind of wanted your insight on that.

Claire McCaskill: Well, I think Daschle’s going to be a very strong – he clearly, I mean I’d recommend his book on health care reform to anybody who hasn’t read it. He’s really knowledgeable in this area and this was what he really wanted to do because he is driven in terms of wanting to work on health care reform in this country. I think we will get at some serious health care reform within the first, hopefully the first of two terms, but the first Barack Obama administration. I think they’ll be some nibbling around the edges on some health care reform, possibly even in the stimulus. Expansion of the ability to stay on COBRA for example. Some, some additional funding for children’s health insurance. Potentially some tweaking of the Medicare rates. I think all of those are within the realm of possibility in the stimulus. But nobody is backing off at really taking a whack at the silos of profit in the health care industry and reconfiguring health care so it’s more efficient, effective and certainly more preventative. Yes?…

“…I don’t think we can afford to plus up certain silos of profit in the health care industry.  I think we can figure out ways to provide competition and choices and to bring down costs. And that are the three goals. Competition, choices, and bring down costs…”

“…But nobody is backing off at really taking a whack at the silos of profit in the health care industry…”

We’re waiting.

Our yellow cat, Gus, is bigger than Sadie–big enough to have his way–and he often bullies her. On warm evenings, my husband and I always spend time in the yard, and Gus considers us humans his property. Any time Sadie approaches within ten feet of us, she does so at her peril; she knows he’ll probably jump her.

That’s what makes his behavior so puzzling and funny if we put down just one food bowl with their favorite treat in it. Suddenly, he’s a … wuss.

After he walked away, we gave him his own bowl.

Rep. El-Amin (D-St. Louis) pled guilty to charges that he accepted $2100 from a gas station owner to lobby the city of St. Louis on his behalf.

Here’s a few quick observations

1) Had the gas station owner donated $2100 to El-Amin’s campaign committee, would there be charges and a guilty plea today? I’d guess the answer to that question is “no”. The reality of the Missouri campaign contribution laws is that it’s essentially no-holds-barred for an individual. That won’t be addressed as much as it should be because someone stupidly violated the law. Missouri’s campaign finance system is a brown paper bag and the promises made are a bit more subtle than bribery.

2) The “communicate by paper, the place is bugged” strategy did not work whatsoever. I’m not entirely sure that there is enough space in-between the walls of the 16 office clusters to fit a quality bug anyways.

3) I’d hope that T. D. would officially resign by around 5 or so today. It would be far more ideal for the people in his district to have an election in February (although barring some mistake, the general election will be boring).

3b) If you plead guilty, you should be automatically out of your office anyways. Just to speed the process up a few hours.

4) Wow, this hasn’t been a good summer for the reputation of the Democrats in the capital. It hurts even more when the wounds are self-inflicted. Electorally, most MO voters probably haven’t heard of Smith, Brown, and El-Amin. But it’s not helpful to the goal of 82 to keep having these things happen. These things drag down good people running as Democrats who want to change the way things are done in politics.

My estimate of the crowd at the Tuesday Blue Cross Blue Shield rally was way off. I guessed 100, but Keith Tubbs at Pro-Vote tells me that the sign-in sheet had 175 names and that they didn’t get everybody signed in. That’s a very respectable turnout for a workday lunchtime demonstration. So people–aka the organizers and just about everyone I talked to at the end of the rally–were disappointed that, other than me, the only media person to show was Jo Mannies of The Beacon.

I heard more than one person wondering if the press considered pro-reform people by themselves too dull to cover. You can understand them having that suspicion, considering that the press has been all over the tea party uproar for the last couple of months. To reinforce that theory, a couple of people mentioned the pitiful lack of coverage at the 2,000 person rally at the IBEW hall at the end of August. For that one, Mannies showed and the local Fox affiliate. That’s better coverage than for this recent event, but still, not enough for a 2,000 person rally. On the supposition that the media want excitement, one seventy year old lady joked that if it would get the cameras to the rally, she’d be willing to strip. Then she glanced down at her less than svelte figure and said, “No wait. You all would suffer.”

I tried to get a reaction to this paranoia by calling the Post-Dispatch yesterday afternoon, but I haven’t gotten a return call. Even without a response from them, though, I can offer a couple of possible reasons for the low media turnout at the two events.

Glenn Burleigh, the head field organizer for ACORN in St. Louis, says that OFA wanted to handle the press outreach for the IBEW rally, and he says that their insistence on doing so had a downside, namely that in these days of rampant layoffs at newspapers, the official press contact person at any given media outlet is likely to have changed in the last few months. Local organizers know who the current press contact person is and therefore might do a more effective job of getting the media to attend.

But, of course, local organizers were the ones contacting the press for Tuesday’s event. They do know whom to contact and they did it. Pro-Vote is the lead organization in the metro area for HCAN, and Tubbs, the St. Louis Regional Organizer there, tells me that Pro-Vote called media outlets well in advance to notify them, sent out a media advisory and a press release, and made reminder calls the morning of the event.

Tubbs mentioned that there have been a couple of smaller events held in front of the Blue Cross Blue Shield offices in St. Louis this summer, involving perhaps 25 people each time; and he speculated that perhaps the press didn’t care to cover what they thought would be another small event. They didn’t realize close to 200 people were going to show up.

That sounds like a reasonable assumption, but neither he nor I have no way of knowing for sure that he’s correct. We do know one thing for sure: Jo Mannies showed up and reported on both. Although Mannies devoted almost half her article to rebuttal from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, at least she was there, as she is at virtually every political event I attend where the press has been invited. But the Post-Dispatch? Much less dependable. KSDK? Same story. KMOV? Ditto. Oddly enough, the local Fox station is more dependable about covering these events than the other two stations.

Update: Alan Achkar, the deputy metro editor at the Post, just called and discussed our concerns about the lack of coverage. He emphasized that it had nothing to do with us being less flamboyant than the tea party. And in fact, he noted that the Post hasn’t covered many tea party events, only those where–because of large numbers or potential conflict–it would be irresponsible not to cover it.

Furthermore, he said: “I can’t tell you how many rallies are held in St. Louis every week”. He pointed out that there were five today, and not only could the Post not cover them all, the paper prefers not to cover rallies unless they are large. He didn’t know, without researching it, why the Post didn’t attend the rally at the IBEW hall, but agreed that national organizations often send announcements of rallies to a media outlet without the name of a particular person there, so that the information falls through the cracks.

As for last Tuesday’s rally, he said that if the organizers didn’t indicate what sort of attendance they expected, that would have lowered the chances of getting it covered.