• About
  • The Poetry of Protest

Show Me Progress

~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

Show Me Progress

Monthly Archives: May 2013

Phyllis Schlafly shows her colors and they tend toward the white end of the spectrum

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Eagle Forum, GOP minority outreach, GOP racism, missouri, Phyllis Schafly

Why is it that so many racists, homophobes, misogynists, and other rightwing nincompoops come to ground in Missouri? The latest to break silence is the “conservative icon,” as TPM styles her, Phyllis Schlafly, she of the poisonous Eagle Forum which, in its mission statement, manages to justify use of all the labels I used in my first sentence. Seems Schafly thinks that the the message of the GOP’s 2012 electoral losses does not justify outreach to minorities. In fact, she thinks that what is needed is more outreach to white Americans:

The Hispanics who have come in like this will vote Democrat and there’s not the slightest bit of evidence that they will vote Republican,” Schlafly said on “Focus Today.” “And the people the Republicans should reach out to are the white votes, the white voters who didn’t vote in the last election and there are millions of them.”

Schlafly told PolicyMic she believes that Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election because “his drop-off from white voters was tremendous” and the GOP doesn’t “know how to relate to grassroots Americans.”

Where to begin? First, one is struck by the fact that the accounts of Schlafly’s pronouncements that I have read so far focus rather narrowly on the fact that she is diverging from the common wisdom that the GOP needs to shift its ground in regard to Latinos before it is swallowed up by demographic change. This response is justified to an extent since Schlafly seems to believe that Latinos and other minorities will always be inclined to regard the GOP and its policies as anathema. It also makes it clear indirectly that to diehards like Schlafly, there’s no room to contemplate tailoring GOP policies to appeal to other than change-averse, mostly elderly white folks.

But there’s something else interesting that’s implied by Schlafly’s contempt for minority outreach. Her Republican Party is, simply put, a white man’s party.  She’s basically affirming what we all knew or suspected all along: the GOP stands for white privilege.

Where Schlafly errs, however, is in her assumption that “whiteness” is somehow monolithic and that it characterizes “grassroots Americans.” Lots of us white folks are just as revolted by the radical social Darwinism, Christian triumphalism, conspiracy-mongering and exclusionary policies of today’s GOP as any minority, and all the outreach in the world wouldn’t bring us into their nasty little fold (nor are all or even a majority of us who hold such views “feeding from the government trough,” as one of my rightwing neighbors puts it, either). Where I grew up, the grassroots came in a variety of colors and represented a wider range of interests and beliefs than today’s GOP, at least as exemplified by the self-identified grass-roots expert, Phyllis Schlafly, is capable of comprehending.

Slightly edited for clarity; spelling of Phyllis Schlafly’s name regularized.  

 

Michele Bachmann (r)

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Michelle Bachmann

What’s next, a prosperous future grifting for The Faux News Channel?

Heh.

Is Vicky Hartzler the new Michele Bachmann? (May 29, 2013)

Is Vicky Hartzler the new Michele Bachmann?

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

conservatives, fringe politics, Michele Bachmann, missouri, tea party, Vicky Hartzler

You know how every year you hear somebody say that such-and-such a color is the new black? Well it seems that Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann is such an icon of rightwing goofiness that now that she has announced her intention to retire at the end of her current term, commentators are searching for the new Michele Bachmann. And guess who the first contender to be named is? Missouri’s own Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4), author of Running God’s Way, a guide for rightwing Christians in politics, famous locally as the Tea Party darling and mostly closeted birther who is also the recipient of massive governmental farm subsidies.

Makes sense. the Tea Party queen stands down while one of the possible number one ladies in waiting takes the crown. Charles Pierce, who is leading the hunt for Bachmann’s successor, notes that among the  points in Hartzler’s favor is her intellectual acuity:

Among other things, Ms. Hartzler apparently believes that the heathen Chinee are spying on us through our toasters.

and her courageous stand for religious freedom for the right kind of Christians:

She’d also rather the government not tolerate those “fringe religions” because the First Amendment says that Congress Shall Make No Law Unless Vicky Hartzler Thinks Your God Is Freaky.

I’d say Vicky has a good chance of becoming the new Michele Bachmann, but I want to know if her election would mean that Missouri will become known as the Bermuda Triangle of Crazy? Do you feel proud that we’re first-off in the running for the crazy crown, or what?

ADDENDA: This is one account of the record of achievement that Hartzler has to equal or surpass in order to become the new Bachmann.

*Slightly edited.

Roy Blunt keeps fighting the not-so-good fight for Monsanto

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Jeff Merkley, missouri, Monsanto, Monsanto Protection Act, Roy Blunt

You’ve probably read about Roy Blunt’s giveaway to Monsanto – he slipped a last minute rider into totally unrelated legislation, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act 2013, which “compels the USDA to ignore federal court decisions that block the agency’s approvals of new GM crops. The amendment was a rich gift to Monsanto which has been trying to get something like this passed for a long time:

Speedy deregulation of the new-generation herbicide-tolerant crops is important for a simple reason: Monsanto’s blockbuster Roundup Ready technology-featuring corn, soy, cotton, sugar beet, and alfalfa (hay) seeds engineered to resist Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide-is failing. Roundup-resistant superweeds are galloping out of control throughout big-farm country. The industry’s only solution to the problem is to roll out seeds resistant to multiple herbicides at once, adding old, toxic ones like 2,4-D and dicamba to the Roundup mix. […]  the strategy will work brilliantly to sell more herbicides and burnish the bottom lines of the Big 6, but it will only put off a reckoning with the problem of resistant weeds while simultaneously harming the environment.

In an effort to undo Blunt’s chicanery, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkeley tried to amend the Farm Bill last Thursday to repeal Blunt’s “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it is popularly known. The amendment was blocked by GOP Senators led by – guess who? – Roy Blunt, who has been dubbed by Mother Jones “Monsanto’s man in Washington.” Nevertheless, in defending the amendment, Blunt, the consummate Washington insider, adopted his best aw shucks demeanor and pretended to be the farmer’s best friend:

Earlier on Thursday, in an interview with The Huffington Post, Blunt said that the point of the provision was to protect farmers who had already purchased seeds that were later deemed unsafe. “I was raised — my mom and dad were dairy farmers. Once you’ve made a decision to plant a crop for that year, you can’t go back and undo that decision,” he said.

Requiring Monsanto or other seed companies to compensate those farmers for lost income wasn’t a viable strategy either, the senator said, if the seeds had previously been permissible. “You can’t sue them for selling a crop that the federal government said is OK to plant,” he said.

Sounds good,right? But then why try to sneak the legislation through congress with no review or debate? Perhaps because, as Blunt admits, he wrote the amendment at the behest of and jointly with Monsanto, whose concern for farmers’ welfare is not exactly overwhelming when it’s a matter of the corporate bottomline:

Monsanto’s alleged “concern” for farmers has its limits. GMO seeds often end up in the fields of unsuspecting farmers who planted crops using traditional seeds. Inevitably, Monsanto’s “seed police” turn up at their doors armed with lawsuits claiming seed patent violations. The farmers are prohibited from recycling their own seeds and forced to pay hefty fines to Monsanto for having GMO crops they never planted in their fields.

Farmers buying Monsanto patented seeds must agree not to save the seeds for replanting or to sell seeds to other farmers. Each year farmers are forced to buy new seeds and more Roundup weed killer from Monsanto. Traditional seeds are disappearing. In the 1990s, pesticide manufacturers purchased seed companies, anticipating potential profits from monopolizing both aspects of farm production,

Blunt also claims that the rider he is fighting so valiantly to defend does nothing. That’s right – he claims that the USDA already has the authority to do what this bill specifies that it must do. Of course, there is, as Senator Merkley has noted, a difference between being able to so something on an as needed basis and being compelled to do it in all instances, regardless of the merits – but that’s perhaps just a little too subtle for our down home boy, Roy.

What Roy does understand all too well, though, is the old payola:

… According to OpenSecrets, Monsanto first started contributing to Blunt back in 2008, when it handed him $10,000. At that point, Blunt was serving in the House of Representatives. In 2010, when Blunt successfully ran for the Senate, Monsanto upped its contribution to $44,250. And in 2012, the GMO seed/pesticide giant enriched Blunt’s campaign war chest by $64,250.

Blunt is also a magnet for PAC money from the agribusiness industry as a whole, OpenSecrets data shows. In 2012, agribiz PACs gave him $51,000-more than any other industry save for finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE). In 2010, the year of his Senate run, agribiz PACs handed him over $243,000, more than any other besides the FIRE and energy industries.

Senator Merkley has promised to continue to try to repeal Blunt’s Monsanto Protection Act. It wouldn’t hurt if some of us let Senator Blunt, the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture,  know that we’re tired of his business as usual attitude towards the folks who want to purchase our government. Call or email him today. Credo Action is offering a script for the phone call if you think it would help you.

Thinking outside the barrel

28 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bumper stickers, electric car, oil

Pass the gas station.

Why can’t the best of us behave a little like the worst of us once and awhile?

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

healthcare, Jan Brewer, Jay Nixon, Medicaid expansion, missouri, Obamacare

In W.B. Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming,” he famously writes:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Sadly, these often quoted lines seem to be all too true when it comes to current politics. Take, for example, Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer and Missouri’s Governor Jay Nixon and their respective responses to the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

Nixon’s no dummy; he wants the Medicaid expansion badly. He’s campaigned around the state and tried every reasonable, polite way to bring pressure to bear on the stable of GOP jackasses in Jefferson City to get them to do the right thing. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that there’s no way the Missouri GOP would forgo their obsessive hatred of Obamacare – along with everything Obama – long enough to think the Medicaid issues through,or to take them seriously if they did. These are the same fools, after all, who made the legislative session that just finished the butt of jokes across the nation.

Nevertheless, the Governor, in response to the GOP legislative rebuff, has politely refrained from casting stones, remarking that next session will provide another opportunity for Medicaid expansion. Of course, the statehouse will also be populated with the same blockheads next session, but such an observation would be beneath the dignity of famously GOP-cooperative, non-partisan (and lacking all conviction?) Jay Nixon.

In Arizona, however, Republican Jan Brewer, who has in the past been viewed as a number one, prima dona, tea partier – particularly when it comes to immigration issues – nevertheless managed to figure out that the federally-subsidized Medicaid expansion was a really good opportunity to improve life for thousands of Arizonans. Gifted with a legislature on a par with that of Missouri’s, she has shown herself to be filled with Yeats’ passionate intensity. No polite, rationally argued invitations to do better from Brewer  – she’s going to war with the Obamacare-averse Arizona legislature:

Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is stepping up her pressure on the GOP-led legislature to expand Medicaid by declaring a moratorium on legislating until they give in.

Brewer vetoed five unrelated bills on Thursday, according to the Arizona Republic, and threatened to keep blocking legislation until Republicans expand Medicaid to cover thousands of Arizonans, which Obamacare permits at minimal cost to the state.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m truly grateful for a Democratic governor like Nixon who can still veto some or, if we’re lucky, all of the bad bills sent to him by GOP lawmakers – as long as he actually does so, that is, since one can never be sure when he’s going to decide to make nice with the GOPers. I supported his election, and it’s possible he’s got some surefire strategy in mind in regard to Medicaid for next year. But I still wonder why liberals like Claire McCaskill or pseudo-liberals like Nixon don’t care enough to really go down to the wire fighting for just a few truly important issues. True, there are a handful of Democrats who show some spirit: Massachusett’s Elizabeth Warren, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, and just-retired Rep. Barney Frank, to name a few. But still – why can’t we grow and support progressives like these in Missouri?

While it’s too early to say whether or not Brewer will win her war with the Arizona legislature, it still grates that backward-thinking Jan Brewer has what it takes to fight for the uninsured in her state. Meanwhile, good old Jay Nixon just takes the slings and arrows of the GOP legislature on the chin – and, as a result, thousands of low-income Missourians will have to keep on keeping on without the health insurance that could save their or their children’s lives.

P.S. I don’t really think Jay Nixon is the best of us – but he’s not that bad, especially when compared with the Jan Brewer of the recent past.

*Edited slightly to restore omitted text.  

Campaign Finance: get on board that train

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2016, Attorney General, campaign finance, Chris Koster, governor, missouri, Missouri Ethics Commission

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C031159 05/25/2013 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Andrew A OBrien 815 Geyer Avenue Saint Louis MO 63104 Self Attorney 5/24/2013 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Previously:

Campaign Finance: What’s your favorite number? (May 21, 2013)

Campaign Finance: here’s our favorite… (May 23, 2013)

Campaign Finance: teachers are evil, except when they save kids from a tornado or a crazed gunman

25 Saturday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

campaign finance, initiative, missouri, Missouri Ethics Commission, Rex Sinquefield, teachers, tenure

But since tornadoes and crazed gunman are relatively rare, teachers are apparently evil the vast majority of the time.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C121045 05/24/2013 TEACHGREAT.ORG Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 5/23/2013 $100,000.00

[emphasis added]

According to the Amended Statement of Committee Organization [pdf] filed on April 2, 2013 Teachgreat.org, a PAC, is supporting a “Constitutional Amendment to Art, IX, Relating to Teachers and Certificated Staff”.

And what does “Teachgreat.org” want to do with all that Rex Sinquefield money? Make teachers at will [pdf] employees.

Barack and roll…

25 Saturday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bumper stickers, Obama

…is here to stay.

A better way to tax corporations?

24 Friday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ALEC, California tax law, HB253, missouri, Rex Sinquefield, tax-reform

The initial and persistent reason cited by Republican state legislators for the terrible tax “reform” bill, HB253, that they sent to Governor Nixon is that it is necessary if we are to compete with Kansas in securing and retaining jobs. If businesses relocate to Kansas, which has gutted its tax system, they take their jobs with them, or so the argument goes.

The Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants succinctly summarizes the content of the bill as follows:

HB253 reduces personal [to 5.5%] and corporate tax rates [to 3.25%], establishes for a deduction for flow through income for businesses, and increases the personal exemption amount for low income taxpayers. The legislation offsets the costs of these reductions by implementing the Streamlined Sales tax agreement, expanding Nexus for out of state vendors, and setting revenue growth targets that must be met before the rate reductions are fully implemented.

Although legislators try to lowball the yearly amount of revenue the state would forfeit, putting the cost at around $500 million – which is bad enough – the Missouri Budget Project argues that the tax cuts will cause the state to ultimately lose close to a billion dollars. As for our stalwart lawmakers fear of Kansas, the Post-Dispatch’s David Nicklaus notes that:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal Washington think tank, recently looked at six states that enacted big tax cuts between 2000 and 2007, and five more that cut income taxes in the 1990s, and found that they gained no particular economic advantage.

Nevertheless, the race to the bottom in regard to corporate taxes is a growing phenomena, particularly in red states.This in spite of the fact that there are possibly better ways to deal with corporate taxes that would address revenue needs without aggravating the ill-perceived worry about competitivenes. Jia Lynn Yang of WaPo’s Wonkblog, cites the example of California’s new sales-based corporate tax law:

… Let’s say a company earns 20 percent of its sales in California. The company would pay 20 percent of its worldwide sales to California at the state’s corporate tax rate. No need to worry about where the firm has offices or where its employees work – and no chance of the firms shifting their income to other states using elaborate, hard-to-trace methods.

Although California’s new law has an elective approach that could be problematic, this sales-based system has been touted as a solution to corporate taxation on a national-level – it would put a stop to corporations like Apple moving their profits off-shore to avoid U.S. taxes. Whether or not it would offer a solution to a state like Missouri – it does not address the issue of the “right” corporate rate – it does show that there are better ways to approach corporate taxes than letting business off the hook entirely without compensating adequately for the lost revenue – or by sticking the state’s middle and working classes with the bill in terms of higher stales taxes, which the Missouri legislation originally proposed to do.

Unfortunately, coming up with such solutions takes a commitment to use government to further the welfare of Missouri’s citizens, along with at least a modicum of intelligence; it also precludes ideological predispositions against taxes as an article of faith. Even more significantly for many Missouri GOP lawmakers, such solutions would not garner big checks from big-time progressive taxation opponents like Rex Sinquefield or the corporate pooh-bahs behind the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who have been pulling the strings of many of our state pols for some time.

← Older posts

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007

Categories

  • campaign finance
  • Claire McCaskill
  • Congress
  • Democratic Party News
  • Eric Schmitt
  • Healthcare
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Interview
  • Jason Smith
  • Josh Hawley
  • Mark Alford
  • media criticism
  • meta
  • Missouri General Assembly
  • Missouri Governor
  • Missouri House
  • Missouri Senate
  • Resist
  • Roy Blunt
  • social media
  • Standing Rock
  • Town Hall
  • Uncategorized
  • US Senate

Meta

  • Log in

Blogroll

  • Balloon Juice
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Digby
  • I Spy With My Little Eye
  • Lawyers, Guns, and Money
  • No More Mister Nice Blog
  • The Great Orange Satan
  • Washington Monthly
  • Yael Abouhalkah

Donate to Show Me Progress via PayPal

Your modest support helps keep the lights on. Click on the button:

Blog Stats

  • 773,082 hits

Powered by WordPress.com.

 

Loading Comments...