A few weeks ago, I wrote that Phyllis Schlafly,  Missouri’s conservative grande dame, was arguing that the GOP had to stop all that unseemly outreach to the lesser, brown people and concentrate on building its white support. Recently, Sean Trende has attempted to do the demographic analyses that show that it’s possible that the GOP could retain political power until the 2040s by doing just that. Perhaps Trende’s right, but there are, nevertheless, some potential problems with his analyses. As Steve Benen notes:

How would the Republican Party increase its share of the white vote to 70%? I don’t know. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m not sure I want to know. But for Trende, that’s not really the point — if the GOP pulls that off, the demographic time bomb is put off until around 2040.

As a matter of statistics, I suppose it’s a reasonable enough argument, but there are some relevant troubles with the thesis.

For one thing, there’s the question of heightened polarization. The more the GOP takes deliberate steps to pander to white voters to boost white turnout — or as Kilgore put it, double down on being the “White Man’s Party” — the more it risks alienating everyone else, including moderate and liberal whites.

There’s also a generational issue — for Trende’s thesis to work in the coming years, white turnout would have to go up quite a bit, but younger whites tend to be more liberal and Democratic. In other words, the GOP would need more votes from the very folks who are, at the risk of sounding indelicate, dying off.

And don’t forget the white female vote, threatened by GOP embrace of evangelical social authoritarianism, the growing number of young Latinos born in the U.S. to parents already here and, consequently, able to vote, etc. and etc.

These and similar objections, however, haven’t stopped Schlafly from banging the “Whites Only” drum. Most of what she has to say is the usual conservative ho-hum to the effect that Latinos don’t have what it takes to understand Democracy and, hence, would never vote for Republicans. Of course, it might strike a perceptive individual that Schlafly has that particular contingency backwards. Most progressives, after all, are very familiar with the Bill of Rights and Constitutional democratic principles that Schlafly thinks too elevated for the Latino consciousness, and I think we can all agree that they’re none too apt to ever vote Republican.

As a matter of fact, an excellent and very clever letter to the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today suggested that the recent Missouri state legislative session indicates that our state legislators need to be tested on their knowledge of the Constitution before they’re allowed to take office. Given the writer’s main example of unconstitutional, time-wasting legislation – Brian “Maddog” Nieves effort to nullify federal gun laws – there could be no doubt that this writer has abandoned any illusions that conservatives revere or even understand the Constitution. Schlafly’s really got it wrong this time.

Schlafly is even more confused about the intersection of sexuality, conservatism and liberalism – at least as far it relates to childbearing:

I don’t [think?] they have Republican inclinations at all, […] They’re running an illegitimacy rate that’s just about the same as blacks are.

Is Schlafly implying that Democrats are all B*****ds? Or only African-American Democrats? Or does she think all Democrats are African-American? No matter which option you choose, I here to tell you Schlafly’s mighty confused and I’m mighty offended (and my African-American cohorts ought to take this very deeply to heart so that they don’t forget it if they’re ever inclined to endorse a Republican for public office).

No matter what she’s implying about me and mine, you and yours, what’s clear as day is that Schlafly is claiming the GOP for lily white, octogenarian racists, folks, come to think of it, just like Phyllis Schlafly. Fine and good. As Jordan Fabian of ABC News puts it:

The GOP has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections exactly by pursuing this type of strategy.

More power to ’em, I say.  

Outside a Hillary Clinton book signing on the Plaza in Kansas City, August 2003:

In 2003, on the Plaza – “Bill Married My Sister” and “Hillary Come Home!”

By 2016 it’ll be almost a quarter century of *CDS. It can’t be sustained that long, right? Either their heads will explode or we will finally achieve the Wingularity.

Come to think of it, that’s something to look forward to.

* Clinton Derangement Syndrome

If you’re into every possible right wingnut fantasy.

The people who are tasked with keeping the republican status quo as the republican status quo had a very good day today. At the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C091068 06/28/2013 HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE, INC Friends of Diehl 2404 White Stable Rd Town Country MO 63131 6/26/2013 $25,000.00

C091068 06/28/2013 HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE, INC UGas Inc 895 Bolger Court Fenton MO 63026 6/26/2013 $6,250.00

C091068 06/28/2013 HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE, INC Southwestern Bell Telephone LP – AT&T Missouri One AT&T Center Room 4200 St Louis MO 63101 6/27/2013 $20,000.00

C071094 06/28/2013 MISSOURI SENATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE Express Scripts, Inc. One Express Way St Louis MO 63121 6/27/2013 $12,500.00

C071094 06/28/2013 MISSOURI SENATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE Anheuser Busch Companies One Busch Place St Louis MO 63118 6/27/2013 $17,500.00

[emphasis added]

Yes, that HRCC.

Ping pong or tennis might be a bit genteel.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

031159 06/28/2013 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Burns & McDonnell PO Box 419173 Kansas City MO 64141 6/27/2013 $20,000.00

C031159 06/28/2013 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Cori Manor Healthcare & Rehab Center, LLC 560 Corisande Hill Road Fenton MO 63026 6/27/2013 $6,000.00

C031159 06/28/2013 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER The Cedars of Town & Country, LLC 13190 S. Outer 40 Chesterfield MO 63017 6/27/2013 $6,000.00

C031159 06/28/2013 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Grand Manor Nursing and Rehab Center, Inc. 3645 Cook Avenue Saint Louis MO 63113 6/27/2013 $8,000.00

C131060 06/28/2013 COMMITTEE TO ELECT TONY MILLER Davis, Ketchmark, McCreight, & Ivers PC 11161 Overbrook Road Suite 210 Leawood KS 66211 6/28/2013 $7,500.00

[emphasis added]

Smack. Well, this was certainly a very good day.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: ping pong or tennis, you pick (June 27, 2013)

Campaign Finance: a familiar amount, again (June 27, 2013)

Campaign Finance: volley (June 25, 2013)

“….None of these proposals deny a law abiding citizen gun ownership, nonetheless, I expect them to be met by some with vehement protestations and anger.  But fear not upset friends. Nothing that I have proposed is very likely to be enacted in Missouri. You see, the Missouri legislature has made it legally impossible for cities like Kansas City or St. Louis to do anything substantive to stem the tsunami of illegal guns into the hands of criminal idiots on city streets.

I don’t harbor any illusions that the legislative scheme will change anytime soon.  If Newtown didn’t wake this country up, my proposals won’t change our laws….

Kansas City Mayor Sly James (file photo).

Yesterday Kansas City Mayor Sly James addressed gun violence in Kansas City on his blog:

You asked. I’m answering: What are we doing about gun violence in KC?

Posted on June 27, 2013

….We can and should, as a city, have the ability to have laws and ordinances that address our specific circumstances.

My proposal is simple and designed solely to help make this city safer:

   Require universal background checks for all gun sales and transfers;

   Impose mandatory reporting and identification of stolen guns;

   Enact limitations on guns in cars;

   Create Gun Courts to vigorously and swiftly prosecute idiots who use illegal guns in criminal acts; and

   Ban assault weapons in vehicle passenger compartments in the city.

None of these proposals deny a law abiding citizen gun ownership, nonetheless, I expect them to be met by some with vehement protestations and anger.  But fear not upset friends. Nothing that I have proposed is very likely to be enacted in Missouri. You see, the Missouri legislature has made it legally impossible for cities like Kansas City or St. Louis to do anything substantive to stem the tsunami of illegal guns into the hands of criminal idiots on city streets.

I don’t harbor any illusions that the legislative scheme will change anytime soon.  If Newtown didn’t wake this country up, my proposals won’t change our laws.  Nonetheless, I can’t simply sit back and say and do nothing while we watch slow motion mass murder happen on our streets year after year.  I’m sick of it.  Families of murdered children, fathers, husbands, wives, and mothers are sick of it.

We may be limited in how we can regulate guns, but we are not limited in our ability to build strong relationships between the community and the KCPD. We also have a network of social services, like job training and drug treatment, that can go far in helping individuals find a life outside of crime.  KC NoVA does both of those things.  Today, the stakeholders of KC NoVA reaffirmed their commitment to fighting crime in our City.  This is about more than only throwing people in jail – it’s also about offering those individuals the option to reshape their lives so that we have more people contributing to the community and fewer shooting guns at each other.  We are not deterred by the recent violence we’ve all read about in the news.  On the contrary, we are emboldened by it.

Once again there is a huge gulf between what we KNOW and how we ACT in light of that knowledge.

That is our reality.  What we can do now is have a tough conversation about what to do going forward.  I have spoken openly and passionately about this before and I want to address everyone who asks what I am doing in the wake of all this recent tragedy….

This is not a new concern or conversation for Mayor Sly:

Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 18, 2012)

Question: [….] Um, regarding your opinion on gun control. Instead of completely taking away our ability to buy guns at eighteen why don’t instead we give gun shops, you know, the ability to know who has a criminal record and who’s been in trouble in the past? Why don’t we give, let them have the ability to know that and do background checks and decide who they want to sell to? ‘Cause as store owners they are allowed to decide who they want to sell to.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James: Couple of reasons. First, I’m not talking about gun control, I’m talking about getting guns out of the hands of knuckleheads who shouldn’t have guns. If you want to call that gun control [applause] [inaudible][cheers]. Number two, they already have that ability to check backgrounds. But most people who are committing crimes don’t walk into a A-one gun shop and say, hey, mister A-one gun shop owner, here’s my driver’s license, I was convicted a couple of weeks ago of something and I’m kind of waiting to be sentenced here, but I want to buy a gun so I can kill some witness who testified against me [laughter]. And they’re, I mean, they’re getting them off the street, they’re stealing them out of homes, they’re buying them at gun shows. Gun shows are one of the biggest proliferators of illegal guns on the street of anybody and they don’t have to check. There’s a lot of states that don’t do the same thing across the board. And I’m sorry, I don’t see any reason why an eighteen year old ought to have an Uzi. I can’t think of any reason why a kid living at Thirty-ninth and Prospect in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri needs an AK-47. [applause][cheers]

Who’s next? [laughter]

The odds for change are not good.

PBS NewsHour had Missouri’s Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4) on this evening to talk about the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA. Her opposite number, the counterpoint to her rather dull point, was New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, who has distinguished himself by going after bad actors in the world of big finance. Given the brevity of the interview and its formal nature, both of which militate against real argument, it’s not fair to say that Schneiderman routed Hartzler – there’s an audience that sucks up the standard rightwing lines that she seems to have memorized. But Schneiderman did an excellent job pointing out that there’s no room to dither on questions of essential human rights. There’s  a transcript and video here if you’re interested. I include a few highlights (Schneiderman) and lowlights (Hartzler) below:

Hartzler seems to think we must act like bigots for the sake of the children: “it makes sense for children that we have and uphold marriage as between one man and one woman. It’s for the best for them, and we should be able to uphold that ideal for them.” While Hartzler smiled obliviously and blinked compulsively, Schneiderman neatly parried:

The only children that are being hurt by states that discriminate against marriage equality are the kids being raised by gay couples. There’s no harm to our families, straight families who have kids or want to be married or get divorced from authorizing and empowering same-sex couples.

Hartzler repeated a common accusation over the past two days: the Supreme Court’s ruling is anti-democratic because it voided California’s Prop 8. Here Schneiderman implicitly let the full weight of his contempt fall on poor Hartzler when he pointed out the obvious:

… there is a reason we have a Constitution in this country. There is a reason that there are some laws you just can’t pass. You can’t pass a law saying black people aren’t equal to white people or women aren’t equal to men.  […] . You can’t pass a law that discriminates against gay couples and gay people from — and that’s just in keeping with our American tradition. And I think, in 20 or 30 years, people will look back on this as we now look back on Loving v. Virginia and the days of prohibition of interracial marriages and say, what were they thinking?

The funniest thing that Hartzler said, however, was that the reason for DOMA was to avoid administering federal laws while navigating a patchwork of differing laws across the states:

Well, I think it speaks to why they passed that initially, that marriage at the federal level is between one man and one woman, because there’s over 1,000 different federal laws that have to do with marriage.

And so it was for a very practical reason. It wasn’t for — against — animus against anyone, as if [sic] Justice Kennedy portrayed. It was because of a very practical reason.

She’s essentially saying here that the federal government decided to enshrine bigotry in law because folks dedicated to a similar sort of bigotry have commandeered lots of statehouses and passed some nasty laws and to do differently would make life complicated for federal officials. Didn’t somebody once say that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Vicky Hartzler.  

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C031159 06/27/2013 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Dollar, Burns, & Becker, LC 1100 Main Street Suite 2600 Kansas City MO 64105 6/26/2013 $25,000.00

C031159 06/27/2013 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Eastern Missouri Laborers’ Educational and Benevolent Fund 3450 Hollenberg Drive Bridgeton MO 63044 6/26/2013 $12,500.00

[emphasis added]

Previously:

Campaign Finance: a familiar amount, again (June 27, 2013)

Campaign Finance: volley (June 25, 2013)

Who are the demonized 47 percent of Americans labeled as takers and who only “want free stuff”? Let me give you a portrait of one of them.

While traveling to Jeff City for a hearing, I stopped for a restroom break at Kingdom City. It was a little before six in the morning, and I was greeted with a pleasant hello from an employee cleaning the urinals in the men’s room. He is the face of the 47 percent, the working poor.

Unfortunately, right wing extremists would have you believe this attendant is a taker.  Instead he really is a hard working underappreciated contributor. He is joined by dirt poor share croppers like my grandparents, the waitress at your favorite restaurant, the immigrant who mows your lawn, and close to half of America’s population who are working below or close to poverty wages.

We want our 79 cent tacos, our lawns mowed and homes cleaned for as little as possible, and the cheapest price at the pump. In order to for that to happen, we have sanctioned the one of the lowest minimum wages in the world as a percentage of average income.

Here is how our perverse welfare system works: Big business, especially agri-business, has convinced too many of us to drink their Kool-Aid laced propaganda claiming they cannot possibly survive without the lowest possible minimum wage coupled with almost zero benefits. Because their employees cannot survive on these wages, society is forced to supplement their pay with compensation for food, housing, and medical care.

So, who’s really on welfare? The employee who is willing to clean urinals at six in the morning? His employer whose poverty wages have to be augmented by our tax dollars? Or us? After all, we’re the ones clamoring for lower and lower prices.

It is disingenuously to call the low wage workers ‘takers’. We’re the ones who want a 79 cent taco and a burger for dollar.  In fact, our welfare system is really best described as a pay me now or pay me later system.  Low consumer prices demand low wages, which begets more people unable to survive on their salary, which leads to higher taxes to provide the working poor with a livable income.

As if low wages weren’t bad enough, America stands virtually alone among industrialized countries by not providing universal healthcare. Missouri’s legislature has been locked in a bitter and divisive political battle over whether or not low income workers should be provided healthcare.

Omamacare says: If you are employed but making less than 135 percent of poverty you are eligible for Medicaid. Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled each state can opt in or out of this expansion of Medicaid.

State after state, including conservative ones like Florida and Arizona, has lined up to finally bring healthcare to the working poor. Sadly even though the federal government will fund 100 percent of the cost for the first three years and 80 percent thereafter, Missouri has opted out.

Opponents say they are worried the federal government won’t keep their promise, but that’s a red herring. Other states have put in codicils saying they can withdraw from the Medicaid expansion if the feds don’t keep their word. Governor Nixon has offered the same proposal; yet, Republicans have stubbornly held fast.  

Thousands of St. Charles County working poor will be unable to afford medical care while Missouri needlessly loses out on billions of dollars of federal revenue. In addition, our local hospitals will be major losers.

Ronald Reagan setup a system of over 2000 hospitals which were mandated to care for indigent Americans. These hospitals draw from a federal fund of over $19 billion a year to compensate them for their losses. Missouri hospitals currently receive over $700 million in what is called Disproportionate Share Care. Under Obamacare this DSC money goes away, because the low wage workers will be covered under Medicaid. Unless our legislature does the right thing, St. Joseph’s two hospitals in St. Charles County stand to lose almost $90 million a year.

It’s time to stop the political pandering and the demonizing of the working poor and Obamacare. Those who mow our lawns, cook our food, pick our fruit, carry our bags, wait our table, and clean our restrooms deserve better. We can never call ourselves a great country while leaving so many without hope of achieving the American dream.

What is it with this number? It’s gotta be some sort of secret club handshake. Yesterday, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C111150 06/26/2013 FRIENDS OF TOM SCHWEICH Kevin Beckmann 1784 Stifel Lane Dr. Town and Country MO 63017 Trident Steel Owner 6/26/2013 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Previously:

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

Campaign Finance: pocket change (April 23, 2013)

From the executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention:

Response to the Landmark Supreme Court decisions

Decisions June 26 by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding California’s Proposition 8 and a key provision in the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) do not sound the death knell for the marriage debate, according to John Yeats, executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention….

“The Court’s decisions do not surprise us, but they disappoint us for at least two reasons,” said Yeats. “First, the branches of our federal government continue to chisel away states’ rights to carry out the will of their people. Second, and more disturbing, they reflect the fact that a growing number of Americans increasingly embrace behaviors that violate natural law and biblical truth. The Supreme Court had the opportunity to uphold marriage and return authority for marriage policy to citizens and their elected officials but chose instead to legislate from the bench.”

Even so, the marriage debate continues, said Yeats. Instead of casting rocks at the Court or bemoaning the advances of the gay agenda, Christians should stand on Scripture and search their own souls. One reason Christians seem to be losing the debate is because our lives don’t show evidence that morality truly makes a difference.

“Our divorce rates, sexual immorality, and other worldly pursuits mirror those of society in general,” he said. “Our words about God’s power to transform lives ring hollow because too often our actions show we don’t really believe it. Our example should always be Jesus. He showed the deepest compassion for the greatest sinners, yet He never compromised on the truth of human sinfulness and the need for God’s forgiveness….”

Previously:

Ding, dong, DOMA’s dead (June 26, 2013)

Last plaintiff without standing (June 26, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): but, but, the Supreme Court ignored all the children (June 26, 2013)

Rep. Ann Wagner (r): forget the children, it’s all about states’ rights (June 26, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): “Now that Michele Bachmann is leaving it’s my turn…” (June 26, 2013)