We noted yesterday that our Republican legislators seem to rely overmuch on rote regurgitation of set scripts with little regard for fact.  One of the examples offered was the inimitable Todd Akin – and he’s been at it again.

The Wasington Independent reports that Akin harangued the members of the House last week in an effort to revive the rather inexplicable Republican frenzy about the White House’s appointment of administrative coordinators popularly termed “czars.”  Rep. Akin was in fine fettle, waxing indignant as he asked:

Why does President Obama appear so eager to appoint ‘czars,'” he asks, “while leaving positions requiring Senate confirmation unfilled?

One can only conclude that he is unaware of the unprecedented number of Republican holds and filibusters placed on the president’s nominees.  Additionally, one of the three “unconfirmed” czars that he named was John Holdren, the Sciences Czar, who actually was confirmed by the Senate in March of this year.

It’s downright embarrassing.  Of course, everyone makes mistakes – but then we don’t let everyone set national policy either.  Perhaps the citizens of the 2nd district will bear that in mind next time Akin is up for reelection.  

Dear Ms. Lauber, may I offer you some information you might find useful in your campaign against Todd Akin for the Republican nomination in CD 2? If you subscribe to the idea that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, you might want to check out Barney Frank’s press release about some remarks Congressman Akin made on the House floor last spring. Akin berated Democrats, and Barney Frank in particular, for failing to rein in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. It turns out, though, that Mr. Akin is the one who opposed regulating Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae when Frank introduced legislation on that topic–not a fact Akin would want advertised.

In 2007, when the Democrats assumed control of both Houses of Congress and Mr. Frank became Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Congressman Frank moved quickly to pass a bill to regulate the GSEs [Government-sponsored enterprises].  He introduced the Federal Housing Reform Act of 2007 (H.R. 1427), on March 9th and it was approved by the Committee on March 29th.

The bill was passed by the full House on May 22nd, with all 223 Democrats and 90 Republicans voting in favor of the bill, and 104 Republicans voting against it.  Among those voting against regulation of the GSEs was Congressman Todd Akin (R-MO), who led the Special Orders on Wednesday.

In 2007, Congressman Frank, along with Representatives Brad Miller and Mel Watt, introduced the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act (H.R. 3915) which would regulate predatory subprime mortgages.  The bill passed the full House on November 15th, with all 227 Democrats and 64 Republicans voting yes, and 127 Republicans voting no.  Representative Akin voted against the bill.

–boldface mine

Admittedly, there is one wee problem with using Barney Frank’s press release, that being the way he skewers Republicans, citing example after example, for refusing to control subprime lending or regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the twelve year period when they controlled the House.  

“According to the Republican version of the history of the financial crisis, as presented on the House floor on Wednesday by Representative Todd Akin (R-MO), Congressman Frank is responsible for the fact that no legislation passed the Congress to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until 2007, and no bill trying to restrict subprime lending passed the House between 1994 and 2007.  The problem with their argument is that the Republicans were in power from 1995 through 2006 in the House, and they had complete control over what legislation did or did not pass.

“Being accused of having blocked legislation to prohibit irresponsible lending to low-income people from 1995 to 2006 is flattering in a bizarre way,” Frank noted.  “Apparently those Republicans parroting these right-wing talking points believe that I had some heretofore undisclosed power over first Newt Gingrich and then Tom DeLay, which allowed me to keep them from passing legislation they wanted to pass.  If that had been true, I would have used that power to block the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the House, the war in Iraq, large tax cuts for the very wealthy, the intrusion into the sad case of Terri Schiavo, and appropriations bills that badly underfunded important social priorities.

“I did not try to stop them from passing legislation to control subprime lending or to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because in the first case they were never willing to do so, and in the second case, I worked together with Republican Chairman Mike Oxley on the only bill that the Republicans considered during that period to restrict Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the bill was defeated because, in the words of Mr. Oxley, the Bush administration gave his efforts ‘the one-finger salute.'”

–boldface mine

Not to worry, though, Ms. Lauber, about this and several other damaging examples Frank cites of Republican obstructionism regarding banking regulation between early 1995 and the end of 2006. Just don’t quote any of that stuff on your campaign literature. There’s not one voter in a hundred who will go to Frank’s original press release and read it, and that kind of nosy critical thinker isn’t going to be a Republican anyway.

photo of Todd Akin courtesy of FiredUp!  

This is the tenth post in an ongoing series as we file Missouri Sunshine Law (RSMo 610) requests and investigate the non-renewal of the contract of University of Central Missouri President Aaron Podolefsky. Links to previous coverage are below the fold. BG & MB

We’ve been curious about the overt hostility toward University of Central Missouri President Aaron Podolefsky expressed by a personality on KOKO radio:

[from a September 18, 2009 broadcast]

…Greg Hassler: …Before we talk about that though I want to briefly mention a, uh, article that was in the, uh, Daily Star-Journal yesterday about, uh, the faculty support of Aaron Podolefsky, the President at the University of Central Missouri, uh. Nice article, it really was, but it was kind of an opinion piece ,ah, posing as a news story. And that’s okay, sometimes, you know, a paper will lean a little left, push their agenda. That’s what you get with the Daily Star-Journal, and that’s fine.  That’s nothing wrong with that. That’s okay, if you choose to…[crosstalk]

Marion Woods: Newspapers do that, don’t they?

Greg Hassler: That’s what they do. That’s fine, but, here at KOKO morning Hassler and Woody…[crosstalk]

Marion Woods: We have, we have ours, too, though.

Greg Hassler: We like to, uh, present both sides of the story and let you make your decision. Fair and balanced.

[laughter]

That’s what we do, isn’t it?

Marion Woods: You stole that from somebody, didn’t you.

Greg Hassler: I, I did. [laughter] I did. Anyway, here’s the deal. We’re not gonna spend a whole lot of time on this. Just want to let everybody know that, you know, that it was said a hundred and twenty-six signatures, over half of the tenured faculty. That’s all it said in the article. That’s just great. But that’s, there, there’s a lot more to it than that. Out of four hundred and twenty-one faculty only two hundred and fifty maybe are tenured, so they’re only talking about a very small percentage of the faculty. So, it sounds like, wow, over half the faculty. It’s not the case. Four hundred twenty-one faculty  So, one twenty-six out of four twenty-one and then you gotta figure in professional staff that work there and support staff. Professional staff, of course, they’re the leaders of their departments. The support staff, they make the University strong. You gotta count those guys in there. They’re employees, too, right?

Marion Woods: Yeah.

Greg Hassler: So now you’re talkin’ one thousand plus employees. So if yah, if yah look at the numbers, you know, if you’re just talking faculty alone twenty-nine percent faculty approval, maybe. Seventy-one percent disapproval or didn’t vote. And if yah figure in everybody you’re only talking about an eight percent approval rate versus ninety-two percent disapproving or not voting. And you know it, would you feel intimidated if somebody came up to you and asked you to sign a petition in support of your boss at the work place? That would…[crosstalk]

Marion Woods: Just a little.

Greg Hassler: Yeah. That would, I don’t under, that’s, that’s crazy. It really is and that makes for really, uh, a good work environment, I’m sure. But anyway, the bottom line is this, the University is a major employer in our community, the most recognizable asset in our community and if it falls or fails or weakens so does our community. So you have to have good leadership at the University. And who that leader should be, that is strictly up to the Board of Governors. That’s their job, that’s what they, if they think Aaron’s doing a great job, sign him up.

Marion Woods: Yup.

Greg Hassler: I mean his contract ends June two thousand and ten, give him a five year deal. If they don’t think he is, bring somebody else in that does. I mean, in, in a perfect world, and the hierarchy is, you know, the faculty in, you know, they educate our youth. You know, professional stuff do, uh, run their departments, support staff make the University strong and the Board of Governors decides who the President of the University is. That’s, that’s the deal. Uh, I mean, Podolefsky’s tried to find another job.  He really has. And I asked you this question earlier today. Have, you’ve been here a long time.

Marion Woods: Yep.

Greg Hassler: Have you seen the University like this ever before? You got a President who’s trying to find another job but can’t, trying to hold on to the one he has, causing conflict in the University, has faculty saying he’s great, you have faculty saying he’s not great. It’s tearing it apart. It really is. And this is where the Board of Governors, it’s now, it’s now time for them to step in and, and clean this mess up. [crosstalk]

Marion Woods: Do something.

Greg Hassler: One way or the other.

Marion Woods: Yeah, do something.

Greg Hassler: I mean, you’ve been here. Have you seen anything like this before?

Marion Woods: No, I haven’t.

Greg Hassler: I haven’t either. Anyway, hopefully, uh, you can take a look at, uh, articles that are written or things that we say on the radio and use your own common sense and make your own decisions.

Marion Woods: Yeah.

Greg Hassler: That’s all we’re saying.

Marion Woods: Okay.

Greg Hassler: And also, you know, I talked about the seventy-two percent of the, uh, approval rating in the community. That was that on-line poll that they did on the Internet. That, you can’t count that.

Marion Woods: No.

Greg Hassler: You can’t.

Marion Woods: Not really.

Greg Hassler: No, you can’t. Anyway, so, grain of salt. Right?

Marion Woods: Um, hmm.

Greg Hassler: Fair and balanced. Make your own decisions.

Marion Woods: [laughter]…

The content is similar to an unsigned editorial posted on the radio station web site.

Since the radio station has a contract [pdf] with the University to broadcast intercollegiate athletic events is it possible that this hostility from the station might have something to do with others’ perceptions about President Podolefsky’s support or lack thereof for athletics?

A little bird sent us the following information from a chart in the Chronicle of Higher Education from August 1, 2008 [A10]:

Top Spenders in Sports Recruiting

DIVISION II

…U. of Central Missouri

Recruiting Expenses 2006-7: $148,600

Recruiting Expenses 2001-2: $49,000

Percentage change, 2002-7: [+]203%

…Median for all Divison II

Recruiting Expenses 2006-7: $28,000

Recruiting Expenses 2001-2: $19,100

Percentage change, 2002-7: [+]36%

…Sources: U.S. Department of Education; Chronicle Reporting

[emphasis added for clarity]

Well, that certainly looks like a trending increase during a portion of Aaron Podolefsky’s time at the institution. And it’s certainly quite a bit more than the median amount spent by all other Division II institutions.

We then received a budget summary [pdf] of athletics expenditures from FY 2006 to FY 2010:

Athletics Summary [see the “budget summary” pdf above for the complete spreadsheet which was made available to us]

FY 2006

Total Adjusted Budget $5,384,833

Net Carryforward $41,480

YTD Actual-Expenditure $5,569,532

Year-end Available Balance ($184,699)

Carryforward Surplus/(Deficit) $53,134

FY 2007

Total Adjusted Budget $5,843,379

Net Carryforward $53,134

YTD Actual-Expenditure $5,804,972

Year-end Available Bal
ance $38,407

Carryforward Surplus/(Deficit) $31,916

FY 2008

Total Adjusted Budget $6,255,735

Net Carryforward $31,916

YTD Actual-Expenditure $6,367,952

Year-end Available Balance ($112,216)

Carryforward Surplus/(Deficit) ($112,093)

FY 2009

Total Adjusted Budget $6,249,238

Net Carryforward ($112,093)

YTD Actual-Expenditure $6,345,556

Year-end Available Balance ($96,319)

Carryforward Surplus/(Deficit) ($142,209)

FY 2010

Total Adjusted Budget $5,930,362

Net Carryforward ($142,209)

[emphasis in original]

Something happened in 2007. We intend to find out just what that was.

Our previous coverage:

Three steps behind, and to the right (January 25, 2008)

Three steps behind, and to the right, part 2 – a microcosm of our universe (September 21, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement”? (October 15, 2009) (transcript of a portion of the live radio broadcast)

It wasn’t just about a tree (October 21, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: I heard it on the radio (October 21, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: let’s not get cut out of the will (October 22, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: $87.75 will get you one sheet of paper (October 23, 2009)



“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: They’re not playing hardball, they’re playing cat and mouse  (October 23, 2009)

“A Gentleman’s Agreement?”: a cola and some scoreboards (October 24, 2009)

After Todd Akin’s recent diatribe – the one in which he trashed the CIA along with the rest of the “big government” bogeymen that worry him so much – we chided his fellow Republicans, including Kit Bond, for their inconsistency.  Bond, if you remember, had gone ballistic when Nancy Pelosi asserted that the CIA had lied to the Congress, but seemed content to hold his peace about Rep. Akin’s remarks.

Now it seems that perhaps Senator Bond might have learned something that led him to decide, however belatedly, that discretion really is the better part of valor. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has confirmed five instances in which the CIA lied to Congress since 2001, including the situation cited by Pelosi. Schakowsky is pretty unequivocal about what she expects from the Republicans who ganged up on Pelosi earlier:

Schakowsky was asked on MSNBC whether Republicans now owed Pelosi an apology. “I certainly think they do,” she said.

Will Senator Bond be big enough to step up and offer a public apology? I don’t know about you, but I’m not holding my breath.

*corrected

I would never admit to posting about an inconsequential topic. Except this time.

A right wing group called EnergyCitizens.org (FreedomWorks is among the sponsors) paid for a full page ad in the Wednesday Post-Dispatch. It showed a photo of a factory worker with “2 MILLION JOBS LOST” emblazoned across his chest. The caption read “Another UNFORTUNATE TRUTH about Congress’s climate bill” and the text said:

As Congress considers new climate legislation, Americans aren’t getting the whole truth. A recent study found the recent House-passed bill could cost two million American jobs.

America is in the middle of a harsh recession. Think about the impact of two million jobs lost. Yet another unfortunate truth about Congress’s climate bill.

Learn more at EnergyCitizens.org.

The ad is a little lean on the proof for that claim, to say the least, and it directly contradicts the Waxman and Markey assertion that green energy changes in our economy will create 1.7 million jobs. You’re probably inclined to trust the Democratic congressmen rather than Dick Armey et.al. But not so fast. PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org, relying on analysis from two unbiased government agencies, have investigated these contradictory claims and arrived at basically the same conclusion.

It’s true that limiting carbon emissions would create some jobs – building wind turbines or insulating homes and businesses, for example. But it’s equally true that raising the cost of burning coal and oil would act as a drag on the entire economy, slowing down job creation in other industries.

According to projections by the Energy Information Administration and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the net effect of the House cap-and-trade bill will likely be to slow future job growth. Using 11 different possible future scenarios, EIA projects that future job growth might be constrained by something between 388,000 (under the most optimistic assumptions) and 2.3 million (assuming everything goes badly) 20 years from now. CBO also says employment would likely be lower than it would without the legislation – but only “a little.”

In other words, the EIA analysis contradicts Waxman and Markey’s claim that “[t]his landmark bill will revitalize our economy by creating millions of new jobs.” The two agency reports are none too flattering for the Democrats, but neither agency heaped praise on the conservatives either.

The EIA figures that there might be 2.3 million fewer jobs in 2030 if the Waxman-Markey bill went into effect, but things went badly wrong; that amounts to 1.4 percent fewer jobs than under the no-change-in-law-or-policy baseline. Specifically, this worst-case scenario assumes that government officials would be “severely limited” in implementing a key cost-saving feature of the bill known as “international offsets.” These are supposed to allow U.S. companies to avoid having to reduce their own carbon emissions by paying others to plant trees or avoid deforestation in developing countries, for example. This worst-case future also assumes that nuclear power and “clean coal” technologies don’t advance any faster than currently projected.

But this everything-goes-wrong analysis was only one of 11 different possibilities. And EIA said that while it cannot say how probable any of them are, “both theory and common sense suggest that cases that reflect an unbroken chain of either failures or successes in a series of independent factors are inherently less likely than cases that do not assume that everything goes either wrong or right.”

Basically then, nobody knows whose prediction will turn out to be most accurate.

You may be wondering why I began by saying that this topic is inconsequential. The answer is that, since there’s no way to know who’s right about this issue, it makes little sense to even bring it up. But the reason to do so is precisely that it doesn’t matter who’s right.

Because if human beings don’t get carbon emissions under control, changing weather patterns will wreak such havoc on the global economy that any jobs lost from cap and trade will be … inconsequential.

Say what you will about the current Republican strategy in their ongoing war against reality, but they are disciplined.  Give them their cue and they respond right on time with the set pieces they have committed to memory and to which they will will hear no dissent, or, God forbid, any competing facts.  

Missouri’s Todd Akin (R-2nd) and Kit Bond are no exceptions. Today, they both mounted their favorite hobby horses, respectively health care reform (a.k.a. “big government”) and  energy policy, especially cap-and-trade legislation.

Speaking in the House today, Akin voiced his opposition to:

…socializing healthcare in America regardless of any so-called “opt out” provisions.

Congressman Akin noted that giving states the alternative of “opting out” of the proposed public option is a misnomer in the sense that is does not insulate the residents of state form increased taxation, Medicare cuts] and overall drag on the U.S. economy.

The key word above is “socializing,” as in socialism,  and it has the effect of drowning out any real-world issues for Akin and his fellow alternative reality enthusiasts.  

Of course, since not everybody has been trained to salivate upon hearing the magic words, Akin must manufacture claims about taxes, chimerical Medicare cuts and persistently ignore the real drag on our economy that will result if nothing is done abut the spiraling costs of our current, out-of-control health care delivery system.

Bond’s shtick is a little more subtle if just as narrow in focus. It consists of an appeal to cupidity with unfounded assertions about the costs of cap-and-trade. During his weekly conference call with Missouri reporters today, he once more cited bogus studies that assert that cap-and-trade would raise electricity rates.

If you are curious about how Bond thinks we need to go about fixing the climate crisis which, to his credit, he does not entirely deny, he offered this prescription:

Add a hundred new nuclear power plants, use electric-powered vehicles, conserve more energy and we could add jobs, produce more tax revenues, and avoid expending very expensive taxpayer subsidies on things like wind and solar which only work when the wind blows and the sun shines

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  It’s all seems so easy when Bond puts it out there – go nuclear and just ignore long-term problems with safety and increasing piles of radioactive waste.  In a similar fashion, pretend that you don’t know that solar power, for example, contrary to the assertions of our Republican friends, is proving so viable that France plans to build solar plants in every region  and that even China recently jummped  on the bandwagon.  

If you listen to Mr. Bond, you would think that cap-and-trade is intended to happen in a policy vacuum. Bond is getting really good at banging that one-note drum to rally the forces against clean energy.  Too bad, as Media Matters demonstrates, he isn’t as good at facts.

Do contact these and other Missouri congress members and make sure they have their facts straight, but don’t expect Akin and Bond to change their tune.  Inconvenient facts only disrupt the harmonies that both these sons of Missouri like so much. No matter what arguments you raise, rest assured that Akin knows no other tune than his signature “Big-Government Rag,” while Blunt will continue to croon the “No-Cap-and-Trade Blues” no matter how often you show him he is wrong.  

We’ve been getting quite a bit of traffic from right wingnuttia over a reference at one of their sites (no, we’re not going to give them the linky goodness and ensuing traffic).

During the campaign, on July 10, 2008, Michelle Obama came to Kansas City for a town hall on the campus of the University of Missouri – Kansas City. We covered the event:

Michelle Obama in Kansas City – photos

(by the way, one of our photos from the event made its way to the Obama campaign web site)

Michelle Obama in Kansas City – remarks

Right wingnuttia is quite obsessed by this portion of the transcript, claiming that it’s proof that President Obama is illegitimate and this is further proof to be added to the convoluted birther pantheon of conspiracies:

…He understands them because he was raised by strong women. He is the product of two great women in his life. His mother and his grandmother. [applause] Barack saw his mother, who was very young and very single when she had him, and he saw her work hard to complete her education and try to raise he and his sister…

I kid you not. These are the kinds of people who memorize and obsess over every detail of The Brady Bunch as if the complete episodes were Shakespeare’s plays. They just haven’t figured out that there is a difference.

The Faux News Channel will pick this up in, three, two, one… And that’s the problem with political discourse in this country.

This is not working out so well for the rest of us, either.

Remember this?: Senator Claire McCaskill (D) voted to keep Joe Lieberman as chair of Homeland Security

So, was it all worth it for that subcommittee chair?

Or, how about this?: Now what, Claire?

As if that November 2008 vote to let Joe Lieberman retain his chairmanship made any difference.

Lieberman: Sure, I’d Filibuster A Health Care Reform Bill With A Public Option

Brian Beutler | October 27, 2009, 1:25PM

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told reporters today that he would in fact filibuster any health care bill he doesn’t agree with–and right now, he doesn’t agree with the public option proposal making its way through the Senate…

Just great. Just freakin’ great.