Those of you in St. Louis who can get free on a Monday morning might want to hear a group of Democratic state reps sum up (in something more than a moan) last spring’s session. Actually, Democrats had some prettyastounding success at fighting defensive actions. Paired with the state reps’ report will be a “revelation” (according to one of their officers) about ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). Enticing.

West County Dems meets at the United Commercial and Food Service, Local 655, 300 Weidman Road.  (Just north of Manchester) . The program runs from 9:30 to 11:30, but socializing (great place to network) starts at 9:00 and some of the members will go out to lunch together as well. Non members are welcome.

Representative Vicky Hartzler via Twitter yesterday:

@DoDBuzz dodbuzz by RepHartzler

House lawmakers appeal to Obama to stop defense cuts – bit.ly/rfJl7a 21 Jul

And today:

@RepHartzler Rep. Vicky Hartzler

Are voting on Legislative branch approps bill. Am voting to reduce our office budget by 7%. We all must do w/ less to balance our budget! 5 hours ago

[emphasis added]

Cognitive dissonance in everything.

It gets even better. A few minutes ago:

@RepHartzler Rep. Vicky Hartzler

New CNN poll shows 66% of Americans support passage of Cut, Cap, & Balance yet today the Senate tabled it! Unbelievable! Call them! 10 minutes ago

Really?:

CNN/ORC [pdf]

Interviews with 1,009 adult Americans conducted by telephone by ORC International on July 18-20, 2011. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or

minus 3 percentage points.

The sample includes 856 interviews among landline respondents and 153 interviews among cell phone respondents.

14. In those discussions, several budget plans have been proposed that would reduce the amount the government owes by trillions of dollars over the next ten years. If you had to choose, would you rather see Congress and President Obama agree to a budget plan that only includes cuts in government spending, or a budget plan that includes a combination of spending cuts and tax

increases on higher-income Americans and some businesses?

Only spending cuts 34%

Spending cuts and tax increases 64%

Other (vol.) 1%

No opinion 1%

18. Based on what you have read or heard about the discussions between Congress and Barack Obama on the debt ceiling, do you think Obama has or has not acted responsibly?

Yes, has acted responsibly 52%

No, has not 46%

No opinion 2%

19. Based on what you have read or heard about the discussions between Congress and Barack Obama on the debt ceiling, do you think the Republicans in Congress have or have not acted responsibly?

Yes, have acted responsibly 33%

No, have not 63%

No opinion 3%

[emphasis added]

That ain’t exactly a vote of confidence in Vicky Hartzler’s position, eh?

Then, on the proposals:

21. In some proposals, Congress would raise the debt ceiling while cutting between two trillion and four trillion dollars in government spending over the next ten years and raising taxes on some businesses and higher-income Americans. Would you favor or oppose this proposal?

Favor 66%

Oppose 34%

No opinion 1%

23. In another proposal, Congress would raise the debt ceiling only if a balanced budget amendment

were passed by both houses of Congress and substantial spending cuts and caps on future spending were approved. Would you favor or oppose this proposal?

Favor 66%

Oppose 33%

No opinion 1%

[emphasis added]

The devil is in the details on the second one. Some of the details which won’t make the republican gimmick proposal work:

24. Now I’m going to read you some of the specific proposals for cutting government spending and increasing taxes that have been suggested as part of the discussions on the debt ceiling. For each one, please tell me whether you favor or oppose that proposal as a way to reduce the amount that the government owes.

Cutting federal subsidies to farmers

Favor 31% Oppose 66% No opinion 2%

Cutting pensions and benefits for retired government workers

Favor 30% Oppose 68% No opinion 2%

Cutting defense spending

Favor 47% Oppose 52% No opinion 1%

Cutting the amount the government spends on Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor

Favor 22% Oppose 77%

Cutting the amount the government spends on Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly

Favor 12% Oppose 87% No opinion 1%

Cutting the amount the government spends on Social Security

Favor 16% Oppose 84% No opinion 1%

Increasing the taxes paid by oil and gas companies by ending federal subsidies for those businesses

Favor 73% Oppose 26% No opinion 1%

Increasing the taxes paid by businesses that own private jets

Favor 76% Oppose 23%

Increasing the taxes paid by people who make more than 250 thousand dollars a year

Favor 73% Oppose26%

Those polled want all of the things the republican obstructionists in Congress don’t.

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) evidently didn’t read the fine print.

…until someone caves to republican debt hostage takers.

A bumper sticker produced by the 4th Congressional District Democratic Committee.

A White House spokesTwitter on the rumors of capitulation to the republican hostage takers:

@pfeiffer44 Dan Pfeiffer

Anyone reporting a $3 trillion deal without revenues is incorrect. POTUS believes we need a balanced approach that includes revenues. 1 hour ago via web

The answer to the question, apparently, is forty-four.

Congressional Teabaggers: Ahhh! Woooh! What’s happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my… well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a… teabagger base! Yeah! Teabagger base! And hey, what’s this roaring sound, whooshing past what I’m suddenly gonna call my head? Astroturf! Is that a good name? It’ll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I’m dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the Astroturf? There’s an awful lot of that now isn’t it? And what’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ‘Debt’, ‘Default’, ‘Obligations’, ‘Global Recession’! That’s it! Global Recession! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me? Hello Global Recession!

Heh. This makes sense in a circle of life sort of way. Today, at the 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

C091068 HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE INC [pdf] 7/21/2011

Southwestern Bell Telephone LP – AT&T Missouri

1 AT&T Center Room 4200

St Louis, MO 63101

7/21/2011

$25,000.00

[emphasis added]

Or, if you prefer, it eliminates the irony middleman.

$25,000.00 will pay for a lot of robocalls.

…and it’s looking that way for more people.

Why can’t Missouri have a senator like DeFazio? Why can’t all fifty states have at least one like him? In the video, he is articulate and passionate about the harm that “chained CPI” would do to all but the wealthiest. And yet the Gang of Six  wants it and Obama enthusiastically embraced it.

If we had fifty plus like DeFazio, the middle class would have a future in this country.

“…You know, who I am and, uh, the reasons I align myself with the Republican Party is a reflection of my background and experiences that I’ve had over the years…”

Hartzler Farm Subsidies — $774,489

Hartzler Farms Inc received payments totaling $774,489 from 1995 through 2009

Year Total USDA Subsidies

1995-2009

1995 $16,606, 1996 $28,070, 1997 $18,449, 1998 $32,765, 1999 $89,330, 2000 $89,261, 2001 $135,482, 2002 $24,517, 2003 $41,910, 2004 $61,708, 2005 $105,698, 2006 $38,598, 2007 $29,579, 2008 $39,878, 2009 $22,639

Total $774,489

“…my parents in January, would sit down and take several days, cash flowing the, uh, the year, projecting forward what they thought the yields on the crops were gonna be. The prices on the crops, looking at the expenses, the payments that we had, seeing if we’d be able to make it all work. And after a few years my mom and dad called my sister and I over and said, you need to sit here with us and learn this process…”

Those were evidently lessons learned well.

Yesterday, breathlessly, via Twitter:

@RepHartzler Rep. Vicky Hartzler

Check out my latest video from my speech about women in the economy http://tinyurl.com/3vrtqs9 19 Jul

Okay, we  will:

….Representative Vicky Hartzler (r): Thank you very much Mister Speaker and thank you, uh, my friend from, uh, Washington state. This is so exciting to get to be here tonight to get to visit with the American people about what it means to be a Republican woman.

And I am honored to represent Missouri’s fourth congressional district. And as I share with people about the great, uh, district that I get to represent, it’s a story of the heartland. Uh, the Missouri’s fourth district we are just made of small towns and farms and we work hard and we hunt on weekends and go to church on Sundays. And we just want the government to leave us alone.

And basically what we have seen over the years is Washington getting bigger and bigger and pushing out the private enterprise and, uh, threatening our basic freedoms. And so that’s what we have to push, uh, back against and restore America’s greatness.

You know, who I am and, uh, the reasons I align myself with the Republican Party is a reflection of my background and experiences that I’ve had over the years. I wanted to share just a few of those things with you.

I grew up on a farm near Archie, Missouri. And as my mom and my dad and my sister and I, we raised corn and soybeans and we had a lot of hogs and, uh, we had a cow calf operation. And one thing that strikes me very, uh, pivotable [sic] to my life is my parents in January, would sit down and take several days, cash flowing the, uh, the year, projecting forward what they thought the yields on the crops were gonna be. The prices on the crops, looking at the expenses, the payments that we had, seeing if we’d be able to make it all work. And after a few years my mom and dad called my sister and I over and said, you need to sit here with us and learn this process. Well, I can tell you, as a little kid, that wasn’t the most exciting way to spend our evenings. But, it was a wonderful experience because we learned how hard it was to make everything work, and to pay for everything, and to live within your means. And I learned that you have to, you can’t spend more than you take in. And I learned fiscal responsibility. That is so much a part of the Republican party and what we are here trying to do is to restore that. Because Washington keeps spending money that it doesn’t have. And we can’t do that at home. We don’t do it on our farms, we don’t do in our businesses. And, uh, it’s time that Washington learned some lessons from the heartland and from and from ordinary families like mine.

Something else I learned on the farm is that, uh, hard work pays off, usually. Course there’s a lot of things dealing with weather and other things you can’t control. But, but one thing you can’t control lately is the amount of government regulations that’s threatening agriculture….

“…Uh, the Missouri’s fourth district we are just made of small towns and farms and we work hard and we hunt on weekends and go to church on Sundays. And we just want the government to leave us alone…”

Cass County, Missouri Summary Information

$74.9 million in subsidies 1995-2010.

$43.5 million in commodity subsidies.

$12.6 million in crop insurance subsidies.

$12.4 million in conservation subsidies.

$6.30 million in disaster subsidies.

Ten percent collected 74 percent of all subsidies.

Amounting to $45.9 million over 16 years.

Top 10%: $12,961 average per year between 1995 and 2010.

Bottom 80%: $274 average per year between 1995 and 2010.

[emphasis added]

4th District Of Missouri (Rep. Vicky Hartzler) Summary Information

$1.16 billion in subsidies 1995-2010.

$837 million in commodity subsidies.

$ in crop insurance subsidies.

$220 million in conservation subsidies.

$107 million in disaster subsidies.

Ten percent collected 71 percent of all subsidies.

Amounting to $827 million over 16 years.

Top 10%: $16,878 average per year between 1995 and 2010.

Bottom 80%: $412 average per year between 1995 and 2010.

[emphasis added]

“…And I learned that you have to, you can’t spend more than you take in. And I learned fiscal responsibility. That is so much a part of the Republican party and what we are here trying to do is to restore that…”

Really?:

The consequences of the last republican administration.

“…That is so much a part of the Republican party and what we are here trying to do is to restore that…”

I hope not.

“…Because Washington keeps spending money that it doesn’t have. And we can’t do that at home…”

Unless your home gets $774,000.00 in agriculture subsidies from Washington.

“…And, uh, it’s time that Washington learned some lessons from the heartland and from and from ordinary families like mine…”

Crop Summary for Hartzler Farms Inc

Crop Payments 1995-2010

Corn Subsidies $278,407

Soybean Subsidies $212,424

Wheat Subsidies $168,044

Livestock Subsidies $13,188

Sorghum Subsidies $6,408

Barley Subsidies $273

Because all ordinary families in the heartland are worth somewhere between four and fifteen million dollars?

And coming in at number seven out of 2,364 for agriculture subsidies in Cass County, Missouri?:

Total USDA Subsidies in Cass County, Missouri, 1995-2010

Recipients of Total USDA Subsidies from farms in Cass
County, Missouri totaled $74,879,000 in from 1995-2010.

7 Hartzler Farms Inc Harrisonville, MO 64701 $797,377

[emphasis added]

“…And, uh, it’s time that Washington learned some lessons from the heartland and from and from ordinary families like mine…”

Indeed.

Last night we retrieved a teabagger robocall which was left on our answering machine:

Who is Amy Kremer and why is she leaving messages on our phone machine?

From TPMMuckraker in 2009:

Party Foul! Tea Partiers Eat Their Own In Bitter Internal Feud

Zachary Roth | November 12, 2009, 5:08PM

The Tea Party movement is being ripped apart by bitter internal rancor, highlighted by a lawsuit against a former leader, vituperative name-calling, and charges of financial mismanagement and corruption….

…board members for the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) this week filed suit against Amy Kremer, a former TPP leader who fell out with the group over her involvement with a rival Tea Party faction, the Tea Party Express…

….At the root of the dispute is the acrimony between TPP and the Tea Party Express, a newer group formed by a team of GOP consultants. Many TPPers sees TPE as inauthentic, calling it the “Astoturf Express,” and deriding it as a “Republican front organization….”

[emphasis added]

Okay, like a grifter pulling a long con…

The robocall transcript:

Hello, this is Amy Kremer, tea party activist and co-founder of American Grassroots Coalition.

Tonight I called you to participate in a live tele-townhall meeting with Congressman Paul Ryan [r] to give you the opportunity to ask questions about the issues that are most important to you.

I’m sorry that I missed you, but we’ll be doing this again. So I hope that we will catch you home at that time.

If you’d like to contact my office directly please visit American grassroots coalition dot org.

Thank you very much. Have a good night.

Paul Ryan? Really? The guy that wants to destroy Medicare? No thanks.

Ryan Medicare Plan Would Make Americans Worse by 57%-34%, Poll Shows

By Heidi Przybyla – Jun 22, 2011 11:00 PM CT

….By a margin of 57 percent to 34 percent, poll respondents say they would be worse off if Ryan’s plan to convert Medicare to a system of subsidized private health coverage were adopted. Fifty-eight percent of independents, a critical voting bloc in recent elections, say they would be worse off.

That’s likely to encourage Democrats to bank their success in next year’s presidential and congressional races on tying Republicans to the Medicare plan, which was passed by the Republican-controlled House on April 15….

Apparently a lot of other people are thinking the same thing.

Today, in The Hill, Representative Todd Akin (r) shares his irony impairment with the world:

Raising the debt ceiling should be an exception, not the accepted norm

By Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) – 07/19/11 01:58 PM ET

….To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the solution is simple, but it’s not easy….

Oh, really? Invoking the name of Ronald Reagan, that commie pinko liberal?

@FiredUpMissouri Fired Up! Missouri

How many times has he voted to raise it? MT @eyokley Op-ed by @RepToddAkin in The Hill: Debt ceiling should “be an exception” bit.ly/oin5xx 2 hours ago

Good question.

In 2003:

H.J.RES.51

Latest Title: Increasing the statutory limit on the public debt.

Sponsor: No Sponsor (introduced 4/11/2003)      Cosponsors (None)

Related Bills: H.CON.RES.95, S.2986

Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 108-24 [GPO: Text, PDF]

Note: On 4/11/2003, pursuant to Rule XXVII, H.J.Res. 51 was deemed to have passed the House as a result of the adoption by the House and Senate of the H.Con.Res. 95 conference report….

[emphasis added]

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 141

     H CON RES 95      YEA-AND-NAY      11-Apr-2003      2:39 AM

     QUESTION:  On Agreeing to the Conference Report

     BILL TITLE: Congressional Budget for FY 2004

—- YEAS    216 —

Akin

[emphasis added]

In 2005:

H.J.RES.47

Latest Title: Increasing the statutory limit on the public debt.

Sponsor: No Sponsor (introduced 5/2/2005)      Cosponsors (None)

Related Bills: H.CON.RES.95

Latest Major Action: 3/20/2006 Became Public Law No: 109-182.

4/28/2005 11:59pm:

   Passed House pursuant to rule XXVII and H. Con. Res. 95….

[emphasis added]

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 149

     H CON RES 95      YEA-AND-NAY      28-Apr-2005      8:35 PM

     QUESTION:  On Agreeing to the Conference Report

     BILL TITLE: Congressional Budget for FY 2006

—- YEAS    214 —

Akin

[emphasis added]

You get the picture.

“Raising the debt ceiling should be an exception, not the accepted norm”

Irony impairment in republicans is apparently a feature, not a bug.