“….the members of the Missouri House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth General Assembly, hereby insist that each member of the Missouri Congressional delegation endeavor with “manly firmness” and resolve to totally and completely repeal the Affordable Care Act….”

Not totally enlightened.

A might touchy:

Matt Wills ‏@gopmatty

Leave it Missouri Dems to pick on language and not substance. Newflash: this is why you continue to lose #moleg seats. 9:12 PM – 9 Feb 2015

Yeah, right. Words have no meaning.

With ‘manly firmness’: Lawmaker calls on members of Congress to repeal ACA, oppose replacement

By Rudi Keller

Monday, February 9, 2015 at 6:08 pm

JEFFERSON CITY – State Rep. Mike Moon wants the Affordable Care Act repealed and according to a House resolution he’s sponsoring, it will take the proper application of “Y” chromosomes to get the job done….

[….]

….Rep. Wanda Brown, R-Lincoln, said she opposes Obamacare because “it is truly just an expansion of Medicaid. Medicaid is a terrible system. It is a broken system and we need to look at fixing problems, not increasing problems.”

She could not be more firm in her opposition to the law, Brown said. When shown the “manly firmness” provision, she shook her head and walked away, declining to comment.

State Rep. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, said the language is unnecessary and insulting to Hartzler, Wagner and McCaskill. “It is a throwback to this idea of gender roles and I can’t believe anyone in 2015 talks like that. We have numerous female members of the congressional delegation, whether I agree with them or not they are capable of being strong people no matter what their gender is.”

We noted this a while back:

HR 99: Are those instructions good for Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r) and Rep. Ann Wagner (r)? (January 20, 2015)

[….]

“….WHEREAS, the Missouri House of Representatives agrees with the four United States Supreme Court justices about the unconstitutionality of the ACA, and finds that act to be most injurious of the basic freedoms Missouri citizens deserve….”

That and $1.50 will get you downtown on the bus. If your town has a bus.

And then there’s this call to action:

“….the members of the Missouri House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth General Assembly, hereby insist that each member of the Missouri Congressional delegation endeavor with “manly firmness” and resolve to totally and completely repeal the Affordable Care Act….”

We’re quite certain Representatives Hartzler (r) and Wagner (r) appreciate the sentiment behind the unfortunate use of language.

[….]

Right. Because four U.S. Supreme Court justices voting one way is more than five U.S. Supreme Court justices voting the other way.

Math is hard.

The sum total of campaign contributions in 2015 over $5,000.00 from Rex Sinquefield reported to the Missouri Ethics Commission (up to this point):

[no emphasis needed]

Was it something we wrote?

It’s possible that contributions under $5,000.00 are being made. They just don’t have to be reported within forty-eight hours by the candidate and PAC committees. All contributions are reported in the quarterly campaign finance reports to the Missouri Ethics Commission. We’ll be certain to take a look on April 15th.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: Do they want you to yawn? (December 23, 2014)

There are several petitions on vaccinations at the White House site:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Mandate childhood vaccinations for all children, with exemptions solely for legitimate medical reasons.

Medical exemptions should be the only childhood vaccination exemption allowed in the United States.

The medical profession has spoken, childhood vaccinations are safe and one of the greatest scientific innovations in human history.

Some parents fall victim to rumor and propaganda and decide to place other children’s lives at risk by refusing to vaccinate their children. These decisions are based on discredited research or biased opinions. This affects other children – not just the children of the parents making this decision. Given the recent Measles outbreak in California, a state with one of the highest % of unvaccinated children, along with outbreaks of other diseases in clusters of unvaccinated communities, the government must act now before this becomes a public health crisis.

Published Date: Jan 31, 2015

Issues: Health Care, Science and Space Policy

Signatures needed by March 02, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 99,532

Total signatures on this petition 468

[emphasis added]

And another:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Require all parents to vaccinate their children, or be charged with child endangerment.

Over the years, humans have been on this earth, we have developed a means to help us become immune to certain diseases, using one of our bodies most base functions of fighting off diseases our bodies have been exposed to previously. Vaccination is one of the most important things to keep us healthy and kill off deadly diseases.

Recently, however there have been many parents who are outright refusing to vaccinate their children, based on misinformation. These people have single-handedly managed to spread and bring back diseases such as whooping cough, polio, measles and mumps.

That is why we petition the Obama administration to make it illegal to not vaccinate your children. When parents refuse to vaccinate their children, they are endangering their children’s lives and the lives of others.

Published Date: Feb 03, 2015

Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Disabilities, Human Rights

Signatures needed by March 05, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 98,480

Total signatures on this petition 1,520

[emphasis added]

And the anti-vaccine crowd has one, too:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

PROHIBIT ANY LAWS MANDATING THE FORCE AND REQUIREMENT OF VACCINATIONS OF ANY KIND.

No human being should be FORCED to be vaccinated against their will and/or personal/religious beliefs. I petition against making vaccinations of any kind mandatory. This includes forcing children to be vaccinated to attend public schools, activities, and daycare centers. This also includes adults working in the public or private sector.

Published Date: Feb 04, 2015

Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Health Care, Human Rights

Signatures needed by March 06, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 81,437

Total signatures on this petition 18,563

[emphasis added, title capitalization in the original]

There appears to be slightly more enthusiasm for the spread of contagion.

Interestingly the last petition doesn’t provide a rationale for refusal. “Because” doesn’t cut it when it comes to public health issues. It never has.

U.S. Supreme Court cases:

JACOBSON v. COM. OF MASSACHUSETTS, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)

ZUCHT v. KING, 260 U.S. 174 (1922)

It has been long established legally and morally that public health and science trump “just because”.

Previously:

Hillary (D): get your shots (February 3, 2015)

Previously:

HB 826: the wrath of grapes (February 4, 2015)

HB 826 : the wrath of grapes – part 2 (February 6, 2015)

Evidently Representative Joe Don McGaugh (r) reads Show Me Progress, but he doesn’t appear to understand how this Internets blog thing works. Last night he sent a follow up e-mail to the individual who made an inquiry about HB 826 (again, forwarded to us from the individual who it was addressed to):

Subject: Re: HB 826

Date: 2/6/15 7:02:50 PM

From: “JoeDon McGaugh” JoeDon.McGaugh@house.mo.gov

To: [….]

Next time you are going to publish our emails let me know and I will give you something good to drive traffic to your site.

Have a good weekend.

JDM

That seems to be a might testy.

Here’s the thing – Show Me Progress is not the blog or “site” of the individual who engaged Representative McGaugh (r). Show Me Progress does have registered users who can post (if they conform to our user guidelines) to this site – their posts usually appear in a column on the right. On rare occasions their posts may be promoted to the front page. If this occurs that still does not make it their site. Even then, in this particular instance, the individual who engaged Representative McGaugh (r) did not post the exchange here. This person did forward the e-mails to us and we in turn wrote a post (as we do) and posted it to our site.

The registered user model is quite common on the Internets. For example, the individual who engaged Representative McGaugh (r) did post the same e-mail exchange at the Great Orange Satan, a national blog:

Fri Feb 06, 2015 at 01:04 PM PST

A report from a Laboratory of Democracy: Missouri

by MoDem

[….]

My spouse of thirty-two years is not a “verified United States citizen.” I was interested in knowing why this representative wants to prevent my spouse from ever producing wine or harvesting grapes to produce wine.

I had to find out.

[….]

One might note that even though the individual actively posted as a registered user to that national blog it is still not their “site”.

Our Missouri elected representatives constantly engage with the people of this state. That’s as it should be. In this day and age an elected official who expects that any exchange with a citizen on a public matter will not become public is naive. Representative McGaugh tapped “send” more than once on e-mails  addressed to a citizen inquiring about a public issue. It’s the twenty-first century.

Finally, Representative McGaugh (r) still doesn’t appear too concerned about the effect of sloppy language in legislation. That inexact language in the bill was the point of the original post. The California egg stuff revealed by Representative McGaugh (r) in the e-mail exchanges was just a bonus.

Previously:

HB 826: the wrath of grapes (February 4, 2015)

….2. No domestic wine shall be sold at retail in the state unless it has been certified as having been produced by and with grapes harvested by verified United States citizens….

[emphasis in original]

At the U.S. Department of Homeland Security:

U.S. Citizenship

If you meet certain requirements, you may become a U.S. citizen either at birth or after birth.

To become a citizen at birth, you must:

   Have been born in the United States or certain territories or outlying possessions of the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; OR    

   had a parent or parents who were citizens at the time of your birth (if you were born abroad) and meet other requirements

To become a citizen after birth, you must:

   Apply for “derived” or “acquired” citizenship through parents

   Apply for naturalization

Okay.

We received copies of the following e-mail conversation from the individual who initiated it:

On Feb 5, 2015, at 10:52 PM [….]

Dear Representative McGaugh,

Why do you want to make it impossible for my spouse, who lives in the US legally, to produce wine that can be sold in Missouri?

[….]

We wondered about that concept, too.

The first response from Representative McGaugh (r):

Subject: Re: HB 826

Date: 2/5/15 10:58:17 PM

From: “JoeDon McGaugh” JoeDon.McGaugh@house.mo.gov

To: [….]

If your spouse lives legally in the US I don’t see what the issue is. If you are using unverified workers to produce wine and pick grapes that will be another issue.

Thanks. JDM

A follow up of the inquiry:

On Feb 6, 2015, at 6:50 AM [….]

Representive McGaugh,

You have not read the language of your bill.  Reread it again and tell me how your bill excludes my spouse who is not a US citizen.

[….]

That’s what we read, too.

But wait, there’s more from Representative McGaugh:

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 6:56 AM [JoeDon McGaugh]

If she is here legally she would be verified. That is my intention. Verified workers covers lawful permanent residents and if not we will change it.

If California can tell us how to humanely raise our livestock we can tell them how they must produce their wine.

I am sure Chris Koster will be supportive given his federal lawsuit challenging California’s actions.

Thanks again.

JDM

Wait a minute, the bill [pdf] language makes no reference to “lawful permanent residents”.

This is all about egg retaliation? Really?

And still more in the inquiry

On Feb 6, 2015, at 9:05 AM [….]

Here is the language in your legislation:

2. No domestic wine shall be sold at retail in the state unless it has been certified as having been produced by and with grapes harvested by verified United States citizens.

My spouse is in this country legally, but she is NOT a “verified United States citizen.”

With all due respect, do you understand what “citizen” means?  Do you understand there are people living and working in the US, legally, and are not citizens, verified or not verified?

I appreciate your responding to my inquiries.

[….]

And the final response from Representative McGaugh (r):

Subject: Re: HB 826

Date: 2/6/15 10:00:16 AM

From: “JoeDon McGaugh” JoeDon.McGaugh@house.mo.gov

To: [….]

http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify

My idea was to have the Dept of Ag verify like the E-verify system.

Again my intent is to not disqualify any lawfully present citizens. Only those businesses who are bad actors.

JDM

What on earth is a “lawfully present citizen”? Anyone? Anyone?

A bill, filed yesterday by Representative Joe Don McGaugh (r):

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 858 [pdf]

98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE MCGAUGH.

2008L.01I D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To amend chapter 491, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to the disclosure of news sources and information.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

Section A. Chapter 491, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 491.003, to read as follows:

491.003. 1. For the purposes of this section, the following terms shall mean:

(1) “Covered person”, any person or entity that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means, and that meets one of the following three criteria:

(a) Publishes, in either print or electronic form, a newspaper, book, magazine, pamphlet, or any other periodical; or

(b) Operates a radio or television broadcast station, a network of such stations, a cable system, a satellite carrier, or a channel or programming service for any such station, network, system, or carrier; or

(c) Operates a news agency or wire service, or a news or feature syndicate.

A “covered person” shall also include: a parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of any entity described in this subdivision, if such parent, subsidiary, or affiliate is engaged in news gathering or the dissemination of news and information; or an employee, contractor, or other person who gathers, edits, photographs, records, prepares, or disseminates news or information for any person or entity described in this subdivision;

2) “Unpublished or nonbroadcast information”, information not disseminated to the public by the person from whom disclosure is sought nor by any entity described in this section, including but not limited to, any notes, photographs, tapes, film, outtakes, or other data, regardless of whether information based upon or related to such information has been disseminated.

2. No covered person shall be required to disclose, in any federal or state proceeding, including but not limited to any criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding, the source of any published or unpublished, broadcast or nonbroadcast information obtained in the gathering, receiving, or processing of information for any covered person. No covered person shall be required to disclose, in any federal or state proceeding, including but not limited to any criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding, any unpublished or nonbroadcast information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving, or processing of information for any covered person.

3. If any person or entity claims the privilege provided by this section, the person or entity seeking the information may move the circuit court of the county in which the proceeding is located for an order divesting such privilege and ordering the disclosure of the information sought. The motion shall allege the name of the person or entity claiming the privilege, the entity with which that person or entity was connected at the time of obtaining the information, the specific information sought and how it is relevant to the proceedings, and the necessity of disclosure of the information.

4. In granting or denying divestiture of the privilege provided in this section, the court shall consider the nature of the proceedings; the merits of the claim or defense; the adequacy of any remedy otherwise available; the possibility of establishing by other means that which it is alleged the source or information will tend to prove; the public interest in protecting the confidentiality of any source as balanced against the public interest in requiring disclosure; and the relevancy of the source or information.

5. Any order granting divestiture of the privilege provided by this section shall issue only if the court finds in a written order or in recorded proceedings that:

(1) The information sought does not involve matters or details necessary in any proceeding that are required to be kept secret under federal or state law, and that all other available sources of information have been exhausted; and

(2) Disclosure of the information is essential to the protection of the public interest involved in the proceedings.

6. If the court orders divestiture of the privilege provided by this section, it shall also order the person to disclose the information it has determined must be disclosed, subject to any protective conditions the court may deem necessary or appropriate.

7. The privilege provided by this section shall remain in effect during the pendency of any appeal.

[emphasis in original]

It’s all in the details, isn’t it?

“….Covered person”, any person or entity that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means, and that meets one of the following three criteria: (a) Publishes, in either print or electronic form, a newspaper, book, magazine, pamphlet, or any other periodical [….] (c) Operates a news agency or wire service, or a news or feature syndicate….”

Hey, that’s us.

“…No covered person shall be required to disclose, in any federal or state proceeding, including but not limited to any criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding, the source of any published or unpublished, broadcast or nonbroadcast information obtained in the gathering, receiving, or processing of information for any covered person. No covered person shall be required to disclose, in any federal or state proceeding, including but not limited to any criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding, any unpublished or nonbroadcast information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving, or processing of information for any covered person….”

Can they dictate the federal part?

It seems that the State Senate is doing something to try to put the kibosh on all the recent talk about corruption in the Missouri legislature. Wednesday they approved a bill (SB11) that would close a loophole that allows lobbyists to “wine and dine” groups of legislators without reporting the individuals who drank and dined on their dime. If the bill makes it to and through the House in its present form, it would also prohibit legislators from going to work as lobbyists until after a two-year “cooling” off period.

Efforts to amend the bill to eliminate or control lobbyists gifts and to cap campaign donations were discarded via procedural means or defeated through voice votes, both mechanisms that allow lawmakers to avoid going on the record in support of corrupt practices. So essentially, the Missouri Senate voted only for “transparency,” which is Missouri legislative speak for saying that now we will probably get to know more about who has bought our politicians although we can’t do much about it. Whoopeee! Oh, and special interests have to wait to buy statehouse influence in the form of ex-pols.

There is, though, one more provision that is especially interesting. The bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard, would prohibit out-of-state travel paid for by lobbyists with the exception of “a nonprofit organization hosting an educational event.” Sounds benign, doesn’t it? But think again.

I suspect entities like the corporate funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) qualify as such a nonprofit organization. But ALEC also offers a “corporate-funded scholarship program” that flies “politicians across the country for ALEC conferences at luxury hotels, where they are wined and dined by lobbyists.” These meetings are often justified as “educational.” Would ALEC’s non-profit status protect the relationship it has with many Missouri legislators?  The organization claims it has ties to at least 57 Missouri lawmakers. According to NPR:

ALEC is sort of almost a dating service between politicians at the state level, local elected politicians, and many of America’s biggest companies. It brings them together much as a dating service would do. It sits them in rooms behind closed doors where three times a year they come together to think about what should be the next wave of state-based legislation and they have presentations from the companies that say what they would like to see done legislatively in states right across America. Then they have a vote and the legislators begin. Hundreds of state legislators across America belong to ALEC and come to these meetings.

ALEC pays for legislators to attend meetings where, as Progress Missouri puts it, “corporations hand Missouri legislators wish lists in the form of ‘model’ legislation that often directly benefit their bottom line at the expense of Missouri families,”  and  our representatives then “pass-off the bills as their own ideas and important public policy innovations without disclosing that corporations crafted and pre-voted on the bills at closed-door meetings with legislators who are part of ALEC.”

Two such ALEC-type bills have just been introduced into the Missouri House. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-133) and Rep. Courtney Curtis (D-073) are fronting classic ALEC right-to-work bills. Both bills would “disallow labor unions from charging non-union members fees for representing them when workers collectively bargain.”

Burlison mouths the standard ALEC line; he claims that he’s interested in saving “jobs” and contends that asking non-union workers to pay their share for their union-secured benefits scares off those elusive and fragile job-creators conservatives keep telling us about. He does  have a novel if somewhat logic-challenged response to the charge that right-to-work depresses wages: he asserts that his right-to-work  “might cut those wages that are ‘artificially inflated’ by unions, but denied the policy might hurt an employee’s bottom line.” Hnnnh? Curtis, on the other hand, claims that his interest in right-to-work stems from concerns about racial discrimination by unions – in spite of the fact that in hearings on the bill African-American labor union members contested his assertions.

Neither of the sponsors acknowledge a debt to ALEC. However, Progress Missouri analyzed both bills, HB116 and HB569, along with similar ALEC model legislation and the resemblance is notable. Burlison has been explicitly identified as one of the Missouri ALEC acolytes.

If my reading of the provision concerning out-of-state travel is correct in regard to corporate-funded entities such as ALEC, the legislation that the Missouri Senate just passed would do nothing discourage lawmakers like Burlison who are willing to shill ALEC wares in our statehouse. The 47-57 Missouri lawmakers with ALEC ties will continue to attend ALEC meetings, often on the ALEC dime, and bring home ALEC’s wishlist which they will then visit on the unsuspecting citizens of the state.

Apropos of the efforts to amend his legislation to make it strong enough to be meaningful, Senator Richard asserted that “ethics bills had died for the last four years because they attempted to cover too many issues.” If that is the case then his bill should pass easily since it does practically nothing except possibly, in some cases, shine a little more light on who’s making it big at the corporate swap-meet in Jefferson City.

*Paragraph beak added between 2nd and 3rd paragraph from the bottom.

   

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission for Attorney General Chris Koster (D) who is probably a candidate for Governor in 2016:

C031159 02/05/2015 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Thomas A McDonnell 4909 Sunset Drive Kansas City MO 64112 Retired Retired 2/3/2015 $10,000.00

C031159 02/05/2015 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Telephone Contact, Inc. 7700 Forsyth Boulevard Suite 1050 Saint Louis MO 63105 2/3/2015 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Still keeping up. One has to wonder if this contributor generosity would have something to do with this.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: the giant chess piece in the room (January 15, 2015)

Tom Schweich (r) versus Catherine Hanaway (r) in 2016 (January 28, 2015)

Campaign Finance: kings to pawn $361,506.00, check (January 29, 2015)

Campaign Finance: keeping up with the Schweichs (r) and Hanaways (r) (January 31, 2015)

The Stenographer: ignoring the obvious (January 31, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Where’s Rex? (February 2, 2015)

Almost eight years ago:

Brian Williams On Bloggers:”I’m Up Against A Guy Named Vinny In An Efficiency Apartment.”

By John Amato

4/11/07 3:27pm

[….]

“You’re going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe. All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I’m up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn’t left the efficiency apartment in two years” — Brian Williams, anchor of the “NBC Nightly News,” speaking before New York University journalism students on the challenges traditional journalism faces from online media.

[….]

Was Judith Miller there, too?

Rex Sinquefield’s pet candidate for governor, Catherine Hanaway, fired off a volley in the GOP war on women Saturday. And PoliticMo’s report of the incident tells us lots about how this war is going to be fought:

There are 644 days until Election Day, 2016, but already, Democrats in Missouri are hoping to define a Republican candidate for governor as the next Todd Akin, the former Republican U.S. Senate candidate who earned national infamy for his comments about “legitimate rape.”

What PoliticMO is talking about are Hanaway’s remarks at a conservative Educational Policy Conference in St. Louis last Saturday. And no, Democrats aren’t “hoping” to pass off innocent bon mots as Akin-like, as PoliticMO implies, since Hanaway’s speech could have been given by the Toddster himself. She donned the Akin crazy hat all by herself of her own free will and now she gets to wear it without any overt Democratic help – which doesn’t mean that we can’t laugh ourselves silly at the spectacle.

Hanaway’s target: Female sexual liberation which she blames for out of wedlock-births, poverty and a host of problems such as pedophilia and pornography (which she unequivocally defines as a problem). Hanaway, like Todd Akin, condescends to women whose sexuality she implies must be officially controlled for the good of women themselves not to mention society as a whole:

So, the liberals want to talk about conservatives waging a war on women,” said Hannaway, who is running in next year’s race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. “But, think about what they’re talking about. When their chief criticism of conservatives, the chief criticism is that we stand up for the sanctity of life. That because we are pro-life we are somehow against women. I am here to say that their culture of permissiveness towards sexual activity is the real war on women. Let’s start with the notion, well it’s not a notion, it’s a fact, that the fact that the culture of sexual permissiveness has led to record levels of out of wedlock births.”

“And what has that done for women? It has impoverished women,” Hanaway continued. “It has reduced their access to educational opportunities. It has impoverished and endangered their children. It has forced those children to grow up in households where their mothers have to work, to make it economically viable for them to exist and with no fathers. How is that culture good for women and children?”

Hanaway proceeded to charge that this “liberal framework,” by affirming “every sexual preference,” fosters pedophilia and child porn.

Remember Akin defending his anti-abortion fanaticism with remarks to the effects that he was fighting against “ideas that leave people in bondage, in slavery, in poverty,”  or identifying liberalism as one of the greatest threats to America’s prosperity. Isn’t Hanaway here defending the “sanctity” of fetal life in terms almost identical to those used by Todd Akin and other devotees of dim-wittery. Remember nutty Cynthia Davis, a close acolyte and admirer of the Toddster, who defended his legitimate rape gaffe, characterizing GOP calls for him to drop oout of his Senate race as “bullying”? Her oft-expressed views on the topic of marriage and poverty:

… Despite Herculean efforts and massive expenditures, the majority of citizens still end up trapped in low-income, marriage-absent lifestyles.  Never before have we had more consequences of marriage-absence such as crime, violence, poverty, and lack of upward mobility.  Taxpayers are weary of taxes.  Now Missouri’s social expenditures are the largest line-item in the budget – 50% more than what we spend on education.

Admittedly it’s one of the standard articles of conservative dogma that poverty is the result of out-of-wedblock births and single-parent families rather than the complex of economic and social policy issues that also seem to figure into the equation. And there is actually evidence of a linkage although it’s not as simple a linkage as conservatives wish it were – poverty is a complex subject and when it comes to the role of out-of-wedlock births, it’s the old chicken vs. egg question all over again, along with the addition of lots of other variables that the conservative fixation on marriage ignores.

One can understand, though, why Hanaway chose this particular chestnut to respond to the GOP war on women meme. She’s got a base to placate. Rightwingers like to blame the victim – and since 70% of out-of wedlock births occur in African-American communities, it is especially appealing to elderly, white Republicans – the current GOP base – to blame “those” particular victims. It’s the GOP way, right? Hanaway has evidently decided that if she wants to get elected, she has to serve up what her public wants. As Michael Tomasky observes in an article on the simple-minded positions advocataed by members of what he terms “still the party of stupid”:

… Let me put it this way. The greatest cardiologist in the world could move to town. But if everybody wants to eat chili-cheese fries all day and nobody wants to have bypass surgery, there’s still going to be a lot of heart disease.

In other words, the GOP is nowhere without the angry dim bulbs of its base. But still, isn’t blaming pedophilia on female sexual autonomy going just a little too far – no matter how many Pavlovian drool-puddles its mention might elicit?  Pedophilia is a classic sexual disorder that has been around a lot longer than the pill and the sexual revolution it initiated. For that matter, pornography, poverty, and prostitution, including child prostitution, were flourishing in Victorian England where rigid mores and female subjugation of the sort Hanaway seems to be advocating were officially enforced.

The worst part of Hanaway’s diatribe is the hypocrisy. It’s galling to hear the representative of a party that opposes making birth-control easily accessible, and who visited us with the expensive failure known as abstinence-only sex education, regurgitating poorly digested and mostly fantastical talking points about the relationship between liberalism, liberated women, illegitimacy, and poverty, while pretending to be advocating for women’s welfare. It’s not just chili-cheese fries, it’s chili-cheese fries gone seriously rancid. At the very least, given her million dollar price-tag, Sinquefield might have procured a better quality meal.