Yesterday, via Twitter, a response to Representative Scott Fitzpatrick (r):

Sean Nicholson @ssnich

.@FitzpatrickMO You’ve tweeted a bit today about HRC emails. Do you think #MOLeg should remain exempt from MO Sunshine Law? 3:31 PM – 10 Mar 2015

That’s a really good question. Heh.

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C151053 03/10/2015 GREITENS FOR MISSOURI Monu Joseph 1218 Coronado Dr. Laguna Beach CA 92651 Fund Manager 3/9/2015 $15,000.00

C151053 03/10/2015 GREITENS FOR MISSOURI Gray Arch Income Property 1218 Coronado Dr. Laguna Beach CA 92651 3/9/2015 $10,000.00

C151053 03/10/2015 GREITENS FOR MISSOURI Eric Karlovic 477 Kassle View Court Des Peres MO 63122 HLK Agency 3/10/2015 $25,000.00

[emphasis added]

Still an exploratory committee for “statewide office” in 2016.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: There is another? (February 25, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a little bit more (February 26, 2015)

Campaign Finance: A new bandwagon? (March 6, 2015)

And that doesn’t mean good.

At the White House petition site:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

File charges against the 47 U.S. Senators in violation of The Logan Act in attempting to undermine a nuclear agreement.

On March 9th, 2015, forty-seven United States Senators committed a treasonous offense when they decided to violate the Logan Act, a 1799 law which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years.

At a time when the United States government is attempting to reach a potential nuclear agreement with the Iranian government, 47 Senators saw fit to instead issue a condescending letter to the Iranian government stating that any agreement brokered by our President would not be upheld once the president leaves office.

This is a clear violation of federal law. In attempting to undermine our own nation, these 47 senators have committed treason.

Published Date: Mar 09, 2015

Issues: Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement, Foreign Policy, Government Reform

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 25,529

Total signatures on this petition 74,471

[emphasis added]

Update:

That’s a lot of signatures in a few hours…

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 0

Total signatures on this petition 102,756

[emphasis added]

Update II (6:56 a.m. 03/11/15):

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 0

Total signatures on this petition 136,300

[emphasis added]

Update III (8:02 p.m. 03/11/15):

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 0

Total signatures on this petition 183,600

[emphasis added]

Update IV (7:27 a.m. 03/12/15):

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 0

Total signatures on this petition 209,731

[emphasis added]

But wait, there’s more:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Senator Tom Cotton’s letter to Iran is a direct violation of the Logan Act and should be prosecuted.

Senator Tom Cotton and 46 others have written an Open Letter to the Iranian Government as an attempt to influence and interfere with our President’s current negotiations.

This is a violation of the Logan Act, a United States federal law that forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. It was passed in 1799 and last amended in 1994. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years.

Published Date: Mar 09, 2015

Issues: Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement, Defense, Foreign Policy

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 92,400

Total signatures on this petition 7,600

[emphasis added]

We petition the Obama Administration to:

File charges of treason against the 47 Senators who sent letter to Iran.

Attorney General of the United States of America please file TREASON charges against the 47 Republican Senators who sent a letter to Iran. Too undermind the President’s dealing to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program. They are risking the security of this nation by their underhandedness and should be charged accordingly. All 47 Senators including Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). Should be formally charged and prosecuted by the laws of this land and the United States of America’s Constitution.

Published Date: Mar 09, 2015

Issues: Defense, Foreign Policy

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 96,302

Total signatures on this petition 3,698

[emphasis added]

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Immediately file charges against the 47 Senators who have sent a “warning letter” to Iran, under the Logan Act.

A call for criminal charges to be filed for the 47 Senators who are undermining the President’s ability to conduct negotiations with Iran to PREVENT war.

Published Date: Mar 09, 2015

Issues: Defense, Foreign Policy, Government Reform

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 97,337

Total signatures on this petition 2,663

[emphasis added]

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Address and prosecute the clear violation of the Logan Act by the Republican senators’ March 9th open letter to Iran.

The open letter to Iran’s leaders by 47 senators of March 9th, warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with the Obama administration won’t last after Obama leaves office, is a clear and direct violation of the Logan Act and is treasonous. This action must not go unaddressed. We petition the White House and the Justice Dept. to take immediate and decisive action.

Published Date: Mar 09, 2015

Issues: Foreign Policy

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 98,439

Total signatures on this petition 1,561

We petition the Obama Administration to:

File charges against the Senators who sent a letter to Iran.

On March 9th 2015, members of the Senate of the United States sent a letter to the leaders of Iran urging them to go against the Obama administration over a nuclear deal. The letter was organized by Senator Tom Cotton and had the signatures of a total of 47 Senators. This was a clear violation of law and those Senators crossed a huge line when they tried to sabotage the negotiations of the Administration. Foreign policy should be dealt by the executive branch, not the legislative. Not only does the letter attempt to undermine negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, but it is written in a condescending tone that could do great harm to the United States’ security. That is why we urge the Administration and the Justice Department to file charges against those Senators who signed the letter.

Published Date: Mar 09, 2015

Issues: Defense, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security and Disaster Relief

Signatures needed by April 08, 2015 to reach goal of 100,000 99,372

Total signatures on this petition 628

[emphasis added]

It’s in the republican majority’s nature. Everybody else gets the grotesque overreach. They probably don’t.

Previously:

Sen. Roy Blunt (r): Next! (March 9, 2015)

Is Roy Blunt a “traitor,” “reckless and feckless,” or simply an embarrassment? (March 10, 2015)

Talking Point Memo’s Brian Beutler takes issue with the New York Daily News on the topic of the open letter signed by 47 GOP Senators, spearheaded by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, and intended to undermine the United State’s nuclear arms negotiations with Iran. And in the process, he undermines the past, mostly successful efforts of Missouri’s Republican Senator Roy Blunt, who, along with the other members of the Senate GOP leadership, signed the letter, to present himself as thoughtful and moderate – at least in the context of the increasing radicalism of the rest of his party. Blunt has tried to do the political equivalent of talking out of both sides of his mouth for a long time – cozying up to the crazies when it’s useful and placating the moderates when he can do it without making a stir. Perhaps, though, his unwise decision to sign this dangerous letter might open some eyes about just how far he’s willing to venture into crazyland.

As Beutler noted earlier in The New Republic, the intent of the letter amounts to nothing less than sabotage:

Republicans have made no secret of their desire to sabotage multilateral negotiations over the Iranian government’s nuclear capabilities. That was the near-explicit purpose of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress last week. It’s what Senator Tom Cotton was getting at several weeks ago, when he said, “the end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence.” And it’s supposedly the purpose of an open letter Cotton wrote-and that 47 Republicans signed-advising the Iranian government that the U.S. political system probably won’t sustain any deal they reach with the Obama administration.

[…]

The hope, as Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin explained, is that “the Iranian regime might be convinced to think twice.” Put another way, Republicans want Iran to abandon negotiations and get to work on a bomb, thus inviting harsher measures. The administration and its allies in the non-proliferation community are predictably aghast, but their anger stems mostly from the Republican Party’s recklessness and its abandonment of political norms-which generally don’t include lobbying foreign governments to undermine a U.S. administration’s diplomatic undertaking.

The Daily News, which ironically is a consistently conservative, militantly pro-Israel, paper, reacted to the letter by labeling the 47 senators who signed it, including Senator Blunt, “traitors” on the front page. According to the editorial explaining their stance:

Regardless of President Obama’s fecklessness in negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, 47 Republican U.S. senators engaged in treachery by sending a letter to the mullahs aimed at cutting the legs out from under America’s commander-in-chief.

We join GOP signatories in opposing the pact as outlined, but we strenuously condemn their betrayal of the U.S. constitutional system.

The participants represented the bulk of the Republicans’ 54-member senatorial majority, vesting their petulant, condescending stunt with the coloration of an institutional foreign policy statement.

They are an embarrassment to the Senate and to the nation.

I have to admit that when I read about the letter, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, the word “treason” presented itself to me as well – and I’m thrilled that somebody else recognizes that Senator Blunt and his cohorts are an embarrassment. However, there’s some merit to Beutler’s argument that the act falls short of actual treason. He observes that the letter “would have been a terrible, tedious op-ed. Its subversiveness might have caused a stir. But I can’t imagine anyone would have called it treasonous.”

Beutler adds:

Cotton’s execution here was reckless and feckless in equal measure. And yes, it’s unconventional for a partisan congressional caucus to undermine a sitting president’s foreign policy like this. But you can’t untangle his tactics from his goals unless you’re willing to accept a certain level of congressional abdication from foreign policy under all circumstances. What makes Cotton reckless isn’t so much that he’s willing to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve his purpose. Its that his purpose is extremely unwise.

Beutler then gives us the old shoe-on-the-other-foot routine – and it’s damned convincing:

Not everyone in Congress has such bad ideas. In 2003, too many Democrats voted to grant President George W. Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq. This was a generational error. We’d all be better off today if they’d refused, and that wouldn’t have violated any vaunted foreign policy norms. But what if convincing fellow Senate Democrats to resist the Bush administration required extraordinary interference? If a Democrat had read conflicting weapons of mass destruction intelligence into the record on the Senate floor and warned the British government and other allies that Bush was manipulating them into war. This would’ve ruptured the normative foundations of foreign policy like an earthquake. It also would have been protected by the Constitution, and worth the damage.

But to recognize that signing this letter is not an act of treason is not to say that the signatories should not be held responsible for the harm they are doing. First, they are willfully undermining the government of the United States, and they’re arguably doing it in the service of partisan politics. Second, they  have also indicated that they support increasing the instability and violence in the Mid-East – worse, that they want the U.S. and our American soldiers stuck up to our necks in that violence once again.

Beutler notes that a few Republicans, individuals he identifies as ” moderates and experienced foreign policy hands,” could not bring themselves to do so sign the letter. The rest of the GOP Senate herd put pen to paper and in the process thumbed their nose at the large majorities of Americans who rejected the Bush foreign policy, which reflected Bush’s “gut” feelings, what economist Daniel Kahnerman identifies as “system 1 thinking,” fast, instinctive and emotional – and which pushed us into near disaster. Instead we opted for just what the Obama administration is giving us, Kahnerman’s “system 2 thinking”, slower, more deliberative, and more logical, thinking that is also pragmatic, capable of processing complexity, and geared to the realities of the world, rather than Bush’s childish games of cowboys and Indians that cost us so dearly.

So, in conclusion, while Roy Blunt may not be a clear-cut traitor, he is surely reckless and feckless, and always an embarrassment. And somebody has to bring this home to a crucial segment of the people who have voted for him in past years, people who always voted Republican long before the party went off the rails, people who’ve decided Blunt’s just a good ol’ big-money, status quo Republican who can be trusted to be responsible when push comes to shove. He can’t. He may not be a traitor, but he’s flirting with actions that have come perilously close to treason and that endanger us all.

*Edited slightly for clarity.

That’ll stop the bleeding for sure.

Representative Caleb Rowden (r) [2013 file photo].

A bill, introduced today by Representative Caleb Rowden (r):

HB 1139

Creates an income tax deduction for certain penalties assessed under the Affordable Care Act and paid on a federal return

Sponsor: Rowden, Caleb (044)

Proposed Effective Date: 8/28/2015

LR Number: 2496L.01I

Last Action: 03/09/2015 – Introduced and Read First Time (H)

Bill String: HB 1139

[….]

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 1139 [pdf]

98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE ROWDEN.

2496L.01I D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To amend chapter 143, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to a deduction for certain federal tax payments.

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

Section A. Chapter 143, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 143.845, to read as follows:

143.845. In addition to all deductions listed in this chapter, a taxpayer shall be allowed a deduction for amounts assessed and paid under Section 5000A of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended. As used in this section, “deduction” shall mean an amount subtracted from the taxpayer’s Missouri adjusted gross income to determine Missouri taxable income for the tax year in which such deduction is claimed.

[emphasis in original]

So, Missouri taxpayers are currently only paying for Medicaid expansion in other states because the republican controlled General Assembly won’t do anything to address the issue of the uninsured in Missouri. And while they’re at it, in their infinite wisdom, they want to reduce Missouri’s revenue (and, think about the cascading effects, while increasing Missouri’s health care costs) while their inaction on Medicaid continues to siphon Missouri taxpayer dollars to other states.

What a clown show.

A bill, introduced today by Representative Andrew McDaniel (r):

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 1136 [pdf]

98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE MCDANIEL.

2517L.01I D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To amend chapter 171, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to school privacy.

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

Section A. Chapter 171, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 171.195, to read as follows:

171.195. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, every school in this state which is supported in whole or in part by public moneys shall ensure that each student restroom which is designed to serve more than one student at a time contains at least one toilet with a separate compartment with a door and walls or partitions between fixtures sufficiently high to assure privacy. Stall doors shall not be removed, except temporarily for maintenance, repair, or replacement.

[emphasis in original]

Interesting. Nothing in there about the water pressure.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Same process, different letter.

Angry White House and G.O.P. Senators Clash Over Letter to Iran

By PETER BAKER

MARCH 9, 2015

WASHINGTON – The fractious debate over a possible nuclear deal with Iran escalated on Monday as 47 Republican senators warned Iran against making an agreement with President Obama and the White House accused them of undercutting foreign policy.

In an exceedingly rare direct congressional intervention into diplomatic negotiations, the Republicans sent an open letter addressed to “leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” declaring that any agreement could be reversed by the next president “with the stroke of a pen….”

Senator Roy Blunt’s (r) signature on the letter. [pdf]

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D) had a few choice words:

Senator Harry Reid (D): As I speak here today President Obama and his administration are engaged in negotiations to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. This negotiation is unprecedented and very critical to our country and the world. The stakes really couldn’t be higher. We as leaders should do everything we can to help these negotiations succeed. When it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb we should put partisanship way to one side.

Sadly, though, the judgment of my Republican colleagues seems to be clouded by their abhorrence of President Obama. Today Republican senators actually sent a letter to the Iranian leadership aimed at sabotaging these negotiations. Let’s be very clear. Republicans are undermining our commander in chief while empowering the ayatollahs.

Just last week President Benjamin Netanyahu was here in the capitol decrying the evil intent of Iranian leadership. Republicans at that speech, which took place down the hall where we all stand today in the House chambers, stood, applauded, stomped their feet and yelled supporting what the Prime Minister of Israel had to say.

Now, today, these same Republicans are trying to negotiate with these very same leaders in Iran that Netanyahu said we shouldn’t be negotiating with. This simply doesn’t make sense.

The outcome of the negotiation between the United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia and the entire world is so important. The main participants in this negotiations are the United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia. Even though we’re the negotiators, one of the negotiators, the negotiation affect the entire world as I’ve said.

This letter is a hard slap in the face of not only the United States, but our allies. This is not a time to undermine our commander in chief purely out of spite.

We should always have a robust debate about foreign policy. But it’s unprecedented for one political party to directly intervene in an international negotiation with the sole goal of embarrassing the President of the United States.

Throughout the eight years of President Bush’s presidency Democrats, I, disagreed with his foreign policy. I spoke about it here on the floor lots of times. We know the disaster of that war in Iraq. But even at the height of disagreements with President George W. Bush senate Democrats never considered sending a letter to Saddam Hussein or other Iraqi leaders at the time. Never considered it. It would have been an embarrassment to the commander in chief, George W. Bush.

So I say to my republican colleagues, do you so dislike President Obama you would take this extraordinary step? Obviously so.

Barack Obama is the President.                

This is an extraordinary step. And why it was taken I really don’t understand, other than the dislike of the President.

Barack Obama is President. I’ve agreed with him on certain things and I’ve disagreed with him on certain things. But he is my president and he’s all of our president.

It’s time for republicans to accept that the citizens of our country twice elected President Obama by large margins as president of the United States

Obviously, Republicans don’t know how to do anything other than attempt these seemingly juvenile political attacks against the President.

Congressional republicans don’t know how to get things done. They don’t know how to govern. And if you don’t believe what I just said, look at the press today. Read a newspaper, look at the news. The pundits all agree that the Republicans are in a state of disarray here in the Congress of the United States. They don’t know what to do or how to do it.

Today’s unprecedented letter originated by a United States Senator who took his oath of office sixty-two days ago is a kind of pettiness that diminishes us as a country in the eyes of the world.

Republicans need to find a way to get over their animosity of President Obama. I can only hope they can do it sooner rather than later.

“…Today’s unprecedented letter originated by a United States Senator who took his oath of office sixty-two days ago is a kind of pettiness that diminishes us as a country in the eyes of the world…”

Evidently they get to printing the letterhead pretty quick.

“…I can only hope they can do it sooner rather than later.”

They’re incapable of doing so.

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C131051 03/09/2015 TAXPAYER PROTECTION PAC Platte County Republican Central Committee P.O. Box 29131 Kansas City MO 64152 3/9/2015 $5,200.00

[emphasis added]

Apparently supporting their party candidates hasn’t been sufficient to turn the ideological tide.

It seems that House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) is worried that undocumented immigrants are driving up our murder statistics:

SESSIONS: Every day, all along border states, maybe other places, there are murders by people who have been arrested coming into this country, who have been released by the Obama administration, I believe in violation of the law, who are murdering Americans all over our cities.

We hold the Democrat Party and the President accountable for this action.

Of course, surprise, surprise, Sessions is, so to speak, dead wrong. Worse, he’s using what are probably purposely skewed statistics. As Think Progress observes:

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker ranked Sessions’ statistics with four Pinocchios, the highest rating given for inaccurate statements. They found no evidence that undocumented immigrants who benefited from the president’s immigration policies were responsible for the deaths of Americans on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, Sessions approach to the issue – blame the President and the Democratic party – suggests that we need to take a look at who or what is really, verifiably, killing Americans and assign blame accordingly.

Let’s start with the number of poor Americans who will die in those states that have failed to expand Medicaid. A study published early last year puts the number of deaths in Missouri that will result from lack of medical attention at between 218 and 700 people a year. The estimated number of deaths each year in all of the states combined that have opted of Medicaid will fall between 7,115 and 17,104. By Sessions logic, the folks responsible for these deaths will be the Republican lawmakers who refused to hold their nose and endorse a conservative health care reform offered up by a black, Democratic president. How will we hold the GOP contingent in Jefferson City accountable for all those dead Missourians? Who will hold the Republican lawmakers in the other recalcitrant states accountable for what they have done in the service of rampant conservatism run amok?

Then let’s move to the King vs. Burwell Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare itself. If the justices uphold the challenge, the result could be the unraveling of the entire healthcare reform and a return to chaos in the healthcare system. People will lose their healthcare. The result will will be dead Americans:

A brief filed on behalf of multiple public health scholars and the American Public Health Association, estimates that “over 9,800 additional Americans” will die if the justices side with the King plaintiffs. It reaches this conclusion by starting with an Urban Institute study showing that 8.2 million people will become uninsured in this scenario. As other research examining Obamacare-like reforms in the state of Massachusetts found that “for every 830 adults gaining insurance coverage there was one fewer death per year,” that translates to between 9,800 and 9,900 deaths if the justices back the plaintiffs in King.

So using the Sessions rule, who do we hold responsible for these deaths? Maybe start with the rightwing lawyers who, working under the aegis of the rabidly conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and the Koch brothers-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), spent a couple of years scoring the Act looking for a opening for an attack – and found it in a typo -you’ve got that right, a typo. Add in Republican lawmakers who vociferously support the lawsuit and who, they assure us,  will refuse to correct the typo that forms the basis of the challenge. Will anyone hold the rightwing think tanks, their corporate underwriters and their tame Republican politicians accountable for these deaths?

How about the estimated 24,000 lives that are lost in the U.S. as a result of lax regulation of coal particulates in the air? How about the thousands of coal miners who die yearly – according to Wikipedia, 3,200 miners died in 2007 alone – due to lax regulation of the mining industry? Shouldn’t the party of no regulations along with their corporate funders be held accountable for these and other deaths related to the failure to enact and enforce appropriate regulations?

I could go on and on counting off the various mechanisms of death for which the Republican party should be held accountable – we haven’t even touched on the wars pushed by Republican neo-cons in the past or their desire to embroil us in another similar war in Syria, Iraq, Iran, or what-have-you, or the massive die-offs that will result from climate-change ignored – but space and patience forces me to curtail the list.

There are two main implications to this death narrative. The first is that the GOP’s major operative principle is, “Give me market liberty or death,” and the inevitable resulting deaths are palatable to the Republican power-brokers and their underwriters because they are usually limited to the helpless and hopeless. That does not mean that the rest of us are helpless or hopeless to act or, at the very least, make sure that the blame is justly allocated.

Second, the potential deaths enumerated above are especially obscene just because they are potential. They could be avoided. But because of the willful obduracy of a few power-mad ideologues, the cynicism of and greed of other politicians, along with the equally willful ignorance of the people who vote for them, that’s probably not going to happen. Or it won’t happen if those of us who are appalled by the current and potential death-toll don’t get off our duffs and do something right now.

*Cross-posted to DailyKos with a few alterations.

Yesterday at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C031159 03/06/2015 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Four Corners Development, LLC 3556 S. Culpepper Circle Suite 7 Springfield MO 65804 3/4/2015 $15,000.00

[emphasis added]

Previously:

Campaign Finance: continuing… (March 1, 2015)

Campaign Finance: steady wins the race (March 4, 2015)

Campaign Finance: steady wins the race – part 2 (March 5, 2015)