Comparatively. People just don’t write checks like they used to…

Catherine Hanaway (r) [2015 file photo].

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission for Catherine Hanaway’s (r) 2016 gubernatorial campaign:

C141055 09/11/2015 HANAWAY FOR GOVERNOR, INC Benjamin Rassieur III 10450 Whitebridge Lane St Louis MO 63141 Paulo Products Co Businessman 9/11/2015 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

It’s a familiar amount. Go figure.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: making a choice (October 15, 2014)

Every time Rex Sinquefield signs a check a twenty-something campaign consultant gets their wings… (October 22, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Oh, there is a difference… (February 20, 2015)

Campaign Finance: gone quiet (March 21, 2015)

Campaign Finance: back in business (April 5, 2015)

Campaign Finance: all in today (April 9, 2015)

Campaign Finance: trickling in (April 14, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still trickling in (April 20, 2015)

Campaign Finance: more than a trickle (May 8, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Did we call it, or what? (May 11, 2015)

Campaign Finance: inspiring confidence (May 26, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a Florida populist? (June 3, 2015)

Campaign Finance: $10,000.00 is a popular amount (June 4, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still awake (June 17, 2015)

Campaign Finance: they have the power… (June 19, 2015)

Catherine Hanaway (r) – July 2015 Campaign Finance Report (July 17, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a familiar amount (July 22, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Who’s buying the beer? (July 24, 2015)

PPP Missouri Poll: 2016 U.S. Senate and Governor – August 11, 2015 (August 11, 2015)

Relatively.

We’re never gonna get tired of that headline.

In the past two days at the Missouri Ethics Commission for Eric Greitens’ (r) 2016 exploratory (still) gubernatorial campaign:

C151053 09/10/2015 GREITENS FOR MISSOURI Tim Fogerty 18 Huntleigh Woods St Louis MO 63131 Bissinger’s CEO 9/10/2015 $10,000.00

C151053 09/10/2015 GREITENS FOR MISSOURI Rob Strang 5147 S. Farm Road 181 Springfield MO 65804 CoxHealth Neuro Surgeon 9/10/2015 $5,001.00

C151053 09/11/2015 GREITENS FOR MISSOURI Benjamin Durham 9260 Old Bonhomme Rd St Louis MO 63132 Self Marketing Consultant 9/11/2015 $5,001.00

These just doesn’t have the same pizazz as all those six figure contributions.

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)

Campaign Finance: but wait, there’s more (March 10, 2015)

Campaign Finance: that’ll help finance a whole lot of exploring (March 12, 2015)

Campaign Finance: it’s going to be a good quarter (March 16, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still exploring (March 17, 2015)

Campaign Finance: gone quiet (March 21, 2015)

Campaign Finance: not quiet at all (March 25, 2015)

Campaign Finance: eat mor chikin (March 26, 2015)

The stenographer: Ah, for the good old days… (March 28, 2015)

Campaign Finance: in under the wire (April 1, 2015)

Campaign Finance: all in today (April 9, 2015)

Campaign Finance: far afield (April 13, 2015)

Eric Greitens (r) – quarterly campaign finance report – April 15, 2015 (April 18, 2015)

Campaign Finance: not to be outdone (April 21, 2015)

Campaign Finance: not exactly spare change (April 23, 2015)

Campaign Finance: also in increments of $5,001.00 (April 23, 2015)

Campaign Finance: That’s Entertainment! (April 27, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still more (May 2, 2015)

Campaign Finance: just another harbinger of a populist awakening in Missouri (May 5, 2015)

Campaign Finance: You were expecting anything less? (May 19, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still exploring (June 6, 2015)

Campaign Finance: running for Governor, may run for Governor, exploring a run for Governor (June 13, 2015)

Campaign Finance: alrighty then (June 16, 2015)

Campaign Finance: we’d venture to say that’s a lot of capital (June 23, 2015)

Campaign Finance: pretty soon you’re talkin’ serious money (June 24, 2015)

Campaign Finance: you don’t need to play chess when you have friends like this (June 25, 2015)

Campaign Finance: fast approaching that first million (June 26, 2015)

Campaign Finance: getting closer… (June 26, 2015)

Campaign Finance: ever so close… (June 29, 2015)

Campaign Finance: blow right by it (June 30, 2015)

Campaign Finance: there is no end to it July 1, 2015)

Campaign Finance: also inexorable (July 11, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a talent for raising money (July 13, 2015)

Eric Greitens (r) – July 2015 Quarterly Campaign Finance Report (July 15, 2015)

Campaign Finance: it’s getting boring… (July 20, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Who’s buying the beer? (July 24, 2015)

Campaign Finance: branching out (July 29, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Is this a trend? (July 31, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Ah, Springfield (August 17, 2015)

Campaign Finance: What else is new? (August 25, 2015)

But, but, Missouri’s centrifuge manufacturers are counting on the business (August 27, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a flurry, and it’s still Summer (August 28, 2015)

Campaign Finance: it’ll never end (September 1, 2015)

Campaign Finance: there goes the whole “it’s a populist grassroots campaign” ad package (September 3, 2015)

Campaign Finance: it’s like a campaign contribution, only smaller (September 9, 2015)

I wrote yesterday about the scrambled logic employed by former state Rep. Cynthia Davis to defend Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refuses to allow her office to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I found it hard to believe that anyone could be as obtuse as Cynthia Davis seems to be. However, as Michael Bersin pointed out earlier, current State Rep. Vicky “Running God’s Way” Hartzler is also an admirer of the Kentucky county clerk.

Hartzler not only speaks up for Kentucky’s premier religious bigot, she is, as Steve Kraske of the Kansas City Star notes, the only one of Missouri’s congressional delegation to publicly defend Davis. I suspect that the only reason that she doesn’t go as far over the top as Missouri’s Cynthia Davis does is because her pronouncements so far have been brief (and if she decides to say more, she’ll have her staff to keep her coherent – something that Missouri Davis lacks). Hartzler nevertheless, misfires just as badly when she focuses on freedom of religion without acknowledging the civil rights of those in Davis’ religious cross-hairs, declaring that:

I stand with Kim Davis. It’s a sad day when we imprison someone in America because of their beliefs. Freedom of religion is our first right.

However, both Hartzler and Missouri Davis have even more distinguished company in their desire to defend Kentucky Davis: GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. And unlike Hartzler, Huckabee doesn’t hold back. He’s as over the top and poorly informed as Davis (although a bit more fluent in English). He attempts to draw parallels with the 19th century Dred Scott decision, claiming that it is still the law of the land – even after being informed that it was overturned by the 14th amendment:

“I’ve been just drilled by TV hosts over the past week, ‘How dare you say that, uh, it’s not the law of the land?'” Huckabee said. “Because that’s their phrase, ‘it’s the law of the land.’ Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?”

After correcting Huckabee, Medved then asked the candidate if he would attempt to overturn the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling with a constitutional amendment.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Huckabee replied. “Because, in the case of this decision, it goes back to what Jefferson said that if a decision is rendered that is not borne out by the will of the people either through their elected people and gone through the process, if you just say it’s the law of the land because the court decided, then Jefferson said, ‘You now have surrendered to judicial tyranny.'”

“The Supreme Court in the same-sex marriage decision made a law and they made it up out of thin air. Therefore, until Congress decides to codify that and give it a statute it’s really not an operative law and that’s why what Kim Davis did was operate under not only the Kentucky Constitution which was the law under which she was elected but she’s operating under the fact that there’s no statute in her state nor at the federal level that authorizes her,” Huckabee said before Medved cut him off for a break.

That, I believe, is similar to the wannabe constitutional argument that our own Cynthia Davis is trying in her labored fashion to promulgate. So what does this mean about Huckabee – and by extension folks like Hartzler and Davis? As Steve Benen remarks:

… I don’t expect Huckabee to be a legal scholar. He’s not an attorney; he has no background in legal scholarship; he’s never even been an elected lawmaker.

But Huckabee is falling short of a junior-high-school level of understanding of the American constitutional system – which is generally not an appealing trait for someone seeking the nation’s highest office.

[…]

Huckabee’s bizarre mistake would be easier to dismiss if similar mistakes weren’t so common. The former governor and Fox News host has somehow convinced himself, for example, that federal “enabling legislation” is necessary in response to court rulings, or they don’t count. He’s also endorsed pre-Civil War nullification schemes and suggested he might deploy federal troops on U.S. soil to prevent women from exercising their reproductive rights.

It’s one thing to have a right-wing governing agenda, but it’s something else when a candidate invents his own brand of crackpot civics and pretends it’s real.

Cynthia Davis is a small time political has-been who has to resort to her own Internet talk show to try to peddle her silliness and Vicky Hartzler is basically just another lack-luster GOP hack. But Mike Huckabee is running for president – president of all of us, not just evangelical Christian fanatics.

Of course, on the other hand, why am I surprised that a GOP presidential candidate sounds a lot like a dim-witted local ex-politician? These individuals are members of a party in which Donald Trump is a viable presidential candidate, and which tried to make Sarah Palin Vice-President. They’re members of a party that has turned its back on science, that denies the reality of climate change, that would subjugate foreign policy to partisan political considerations, that endorses discredited Voodoo economics, that would enable tax-cuts for the rich and impose greater tax-burdens on the poor, that is willing to suppress voting rights in the name of non-existent “voter fraud,” that denies that contraception is a health issue, that tries to rewrite history books to support present day ideological druthers, and that has no compunction about trying to impose a myriad fantastical theories and beliefs on the rest of us. Davis, Hartzler and Huckabee are maybe just a little less subtle than some of their other colleagues.

Assigned reading for today: Huffpost article on the pros and cons of publicly subsidizing wealthy NFL team owners’ desire for new stadiums. Along with other stuck-in-the mud cities, the article cites otherwise impoverished St. Louis’ current pathetic efforts to retain a NFL team (any NFL team). The money quote:

If the benefits aren’t flowing to cities, they are instead going primarily to NFL owners. A 2012 Bloomberg analysis found that since 2000, new stadiums had helped double team values across pro sports, and Baade noted that while it appears NFL teams are now putting more of their own money in than they used to, they are doing so primarily out of revenue streams — luxury boxes, personal seat licenses and other in-stadium revenues — that either wouldn’t exist without a new stadium or are larger because of it.

“The public sector is underwriting most of the risk,” Baade said, “while most of the benefits that accrue, accrue to the teams.”

No real news there, but the point of view still seems to be too revolutionary for set-in-their-ways Missouri political elites represented by Governor Nixon and St. Louis Mayor Slay.

I do understand that Mayor Slay and Governor Nixon like the idea of union jobs that would probably result from a stadium project along with what they possibly hope would be some concomitant North Side development. But there are other ways to spend infrastructure dollars and create jobs that would actually benefit the city’s citizens instead of ripping off taxpayers. In this regard, the article notes that a new report “links the subsidization of new stadiums to higher poverty rates and lower median incomes in their home cities, and it found that most NFL cities fared worse by both measures after paying for a new stadium.”  

This morning in west central Missouri:

Relatively.

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission for Eric Greitens’ (r) 2016 exploratory (still) gubernatorial campaign:

C151053 09/09/2015 GREITENS FOR MISSOURI Evergreen Investments, LLC P.O. Box 1600 Lebanon MO 65536 9/9/2015 $25,000.00

[emphasis added]

$25,000.00 isn’t what it used to be. We’ve certainly been desensitized…

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)

Campaign Finance: but wait, there’s more (March 10, 2015)

Campaign Finance: that’ll help finance a whole lot of exploring (March 12, 2015)

Campaign Finance: it’s going to be a good quarter (March 16, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still exploring (March 17, 2015)

Campaign Finance: gone quiet (March 21, 2015)

Campaign Finance: not quiet at all (March 25, 2015)

Campaign Finance: eat mor chikin (March 26, 2015)

The stenographer: Ah, for the good old days… (March 28, 2015)

Campaign Finance: in under the wire (April 1, 2015)

Campaign Finance: all in today (April 9, 2015)

Campaign Finance: far afield (April 13, 2015)

Eric Greitens (r) – quarterly campaign finance report – April 15, 2015 (April 18, 2015)

Campaign Finance: not to be outdone (April 21, 2015)

Campaign Finance: not exactly spare change (April 23, 2015)

Campaign Finance: also in increments of $5,001.00 (April 23, 2015)

Campaign Finance: That’s Entertainment! (April 27, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still more (May 2, 2015)

Campaign Finance: just another harbinger of a populist awakening in Missouri (May 5, 2015)

Campaign Finance: You were expecting anything less? (May 19, 2015)

Campaign Finance: still exploring (June 6, 2015)

Campaign Finance: running for Governor, may run for Governor, exploring a run for Governor (June 13, 2015)

Campaign Finance: alrighty then (June 16, 2015)

Campaign Finance: we’d venture to say that’s a lot of capital (June 23, 2015)

Campaign Finance: pretty soon you’re talkin’ serious money (June 24, 2015)

Campaign Finance: you don’t need to play chess when you have friends like this (June 25, 2015)

Campaign Finance: fast approaching that first million (June 26, 2015)

Campaign Finance: getting closer… (June 26, 2015)

Campaign Finance: ever so close… (June 29, 2015)

Campaign Finance: blow right by it (June 30, 2015)

Campaign Finance: there is no end to it July 1, 2015)

Campaign Finance: also inexorable (July 11, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a talent for raising money (July 13, 2015)

Eric Greitens (r) – July 2015 Quarterly Campaign Finance Report (July 15, 2015)

Campaign Finance: it’s getting boring… (July 20, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Who’s buying the beer? (July 24, 2015)

Campaign Finance: branching out (July 29, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Is this a trend? (July 31, 2015)

Campaign Finance: Ah, Springfield (August 17, 2015)

Campaign Finance: What else is new? (August 25, 2015)

But, but, Missouri’s centrifuge manufacturers are counting on the business (August 27, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a flurry, and it’s still Summer (August 28, 2015)

Campaign Finance: it’ll never end (September 1, 2015)

Campaign Finance: there goes the whole “it’s a populist grassroots campaign” ad package (September 3, 2015)

Poor Cynthia Davis. She’s no longer in elected office so perhaps it’s not fair to take potshots, but she’s still opinionating in public … and besides she’s such a fun target. It’s hard to believe anyone is as confused by logic as Davis (and bear in mind that, unless I remember incorrectly, this woman homeschools her children – which really underlines the fact that homeschooling in Missouri needs some serious regulating)

On the topic of Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis who won’t issue marriage licenses to folks she disapproves of on religious grounds, Missouri Davis is predictable in an oddly entertaining way. She thinks Kentucky Davis is being persecuted – defined by Missouri Davis as ” the infliction of pain, punishment or death upon others unjustly, particularly for adhering to a religious creed or mode of worship, either by way of penalty or for compelling them to renounce their principles” – for her religious beliefs.

So far as I know they didn’t waterboard Kentucky Davis or otherwise inflict pain on her, and last I heard she’s alive and kicking. She did go to jail, but it was because she wants to collect a $80,000 yearly salary while doing her job selectively. She wants to decide all by herself, based on her intuitions about the druthers of her personal Jesus, who deserves to get a civil marriage license. Note, a civil marriage license does not entitle anyone to a religious marriage ceremony. Nor, Missouri Davis, is Kentucky Davis being asked to renounce her religious beliefs. Kentucky Davis went to jail because she defied a court order that she carry out her duties to issue civil marriage licenses to those entitled legally entitled to receive them.

According to Davis, demands that Kim Davis perform the duties she swore to do, means that “the radical Left is trying to create a new country—one where the Christians are banished from all public offices.” Radical left? The loudest demand that Kentucky Davis do her job seems to have come from a ridiculously conservative Supreme Court and has the approval of many conservative legal authorities.

Oh, and while she’s at it, Missouri Davis should talk to all the Christian office holders who don’t have any problem exercising tolerance of those who are different, along with the few objectors who realize that they bear the onus to resign from government jobs they can’t see their way clear to perform. Didn’t Jesus, after all, say something to about not judging lest you be judged? Something for the thrice married Kentucky Davis to keep in mind – along with Missouri Davis who is so sure that Kentucky Davis is a deserving martyr.

Of course, Missouri Davis has to try get all constitutional on us – she became a member of the Constitutional Party, if I remember correctly, when the Republicans proved to squishy for her sensibilities, so talking about the constitution is probably understood to be mandatory. Unfortunately, she’s definitely not clear on the Supremacy Clause and what it means for state vs. federal law in case of conflict nor about the reach of Supreme Court rulings:

The US Supreme Court rendered an OPINION related to the facts of a different case in another state. While this Court has the power to declare a law unconstitutional, it does not have the power to make new laws. The OPINION states it is not illegal for homosexuals to put on the facade of marriage, but it doesn’t create new laws. Nowhere in the US Constitution does it say that the Supreme Court OPINIONS are to replace the laws of our land. We cannot substitute litigation for legislation. It is up to each individual state to create. To do anything less is equivalent to abandoning our Republic to a dictatorial oligarchy.

 

Apart from the logical word salad, does the fact that Missouri Davis capitalizes the word “opinion” when referring to the Supreme Court ruling imply that while the Court may have its opinion, it has no more meaning than any other opinion? You know, you have your opinion and I have mine and the Supreme Court has another?  If so, poor Missouri Davis is in for a rude awakening when she gets to the point where she schools her kids on civics and American government.

The Supreme Court doesn’t, as Missouri Davis affirms, create new law, but their decisions can invalidate unconstitutional laws and when they found prohibitions on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional, their ruling (a.k.a. opinion) rendered all such laws, including Kentucky’s little exercise in bigotry, invalid. And no, Missouri Davis, it’s not necessary for “marriage” to be explicitly mentioned in the Constitution for justices to rule against unequal application of laws, even laws that affect marriage. In the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges a state law that denies equal treatment in regard to marriage is unconstitutional no matter how hard you try to parse it to mean something else.

The best part of Missouri Davis’ efforts to take down those whom she perceives to be the persecutors of Kentucky Davis comes when she asks those pesky homosexuals just why they want to get married in the first place and make problems for good fanatics like Kentucky Davis. After all:

In case you weren’t aware of this. YOU DON’T NEED A LICENSE TO FORNICATE. So why would someone already living a perverted lifestyle need a license? Can a piece of paper take care of their consciences or alleviate the guilt that comes from being physically self-destructive? Is it possible for a man-made law to alter the reality of a natural law?

Quick, somebody tell this fool that the desire to marry rarely has much to do with fornication, or guilty consciences – except maybe in the imaginations of sexually repressed fundies – but about the advantages conferred on committed couples by a “man-made” marriage law. You know, all those things that we heterosexual couples can take for granted once we get married. Oh, and while you’re at it, explain to her that lots of us take exception to her conception of “natural law.”

 

Yesterday:

….In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, the Senate Democratic leader [Harry Reid] said no one with “any degree of intelligence” should agree with the former vice president [Dick Cheney], who strongly opposes the agreement.

“I’m sorry, I cannot hold back a smile,” Reid said just hours after Cheney delivered a stinging rebuke of the deal. “There are a lot of good reasons for this deal. But the best is that Cheney’s against it. I mean, think about this: The architect of the worst foreign policy decision in the history of America – to invade Iraq. Look what it has done. Why would anyone with any degree of intelligence agree with him?”

[….]

Indeed, why?

Meanwhile, Missouri 4th Congressional District Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) can’t help herself:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Congress votes this week on the President’s #IranDeal. Read why I am against this bad deal. #NoNuclearIran [….[ 12:01 PM – 8 Sep 2015

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): it all depends on which questions you choose to ask (May 13, 2015)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): on the Iran nuclear deal – Harrisonville, MO – August 14, 2015 (August 15, 2015)

Working people.

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission for Chris Koster’s (D) probable 2016 gubernatorial campaign:

C031159 09/08/2015 KOSTER FOR MISSOURI UAW-V-CAP 8000 East Jefferson Avenue Detroit MI 48214 9/8/2015 $100,000.00

[emphasis added]

You could call that an enthusiastic answer.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: inexorable (July 7, 2015)

Campaign Finance: I’ll see your managed care and raise you a home health service… (July 14, 2015)

Chris Koster (D) – July 2015 Campaign Finance Report (July 18, 2015)

Campaign Finance: no surprise here (July 21, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a different constituency (July 29, 2015)

Campaign Finance: no rest (August 3, 2015)

PPP Missouri Poll: 2016 U.S. Senate and Governor – August 11, 2015 (August 11, 2015)

Campaign Finance: rolling in (August 15, 2015)

Campaign Finance: hoist one or two (August 22, 2015)

Campaign Finance: on the phone (August 27, 2015)

Campaign Finance: If this keeps up (and it will) we’re gonna run out of snappy headlines… (August 28, 2015)

Which citizens matter in Missouri? (August 29, 2015)

Campaign Finance: there’s no place like homes (August 31, 2015)

Last week at the Missouri Ethics Commission, for a campaign finance initiative:

C141592 09/04/2015 RETURNING GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE Fred N Sauer 454 Hammersmith Road Saint Louis MO 63141 Orion Investment Company 9/4/2015 $40,000.00

[emphasis added]

That’s $252,000.00 from one individual since mid July. Think about that for a minute.

Previously:

The world we live in (July 21, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a vague sense of an impending populist groundswell (August 7, 2015)

Campaign Finance: all we really have left is irony (August 24, 2015)

Campaign Finance: a single minded sense of purpose (September 1, 2015)