Author Archives: willykay

Luetkemeyer, Wagner want to help Equifax roll consumers

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

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Immediately after the recent Equifax hack that potentially put close to 150 million Americans at risk for identity theft, I wrote about how the event proved that the bias of Ann Wagner against any regulation of the financial industry, and especially her vendetta against the oversight role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was contrary to the interests of the everyday Americans she ostensibly serves. Surely, I thought, these folks can be made to realize that enabling disaster in the wake of disaster may be going just a bit too far.

Well no. The concept of wise stewardship always seems to  be too difficult for the Republican brain, as evidenced by this little financial tidbit in the LA Times:

Even as millions of consumers grapple with fallout from the Equifax data breach, Republican lawmakers are quietly backing legislation to deregulate credit agencies and make them even less accountable for wrongdoing.

Bills are pending in Congress to limit class-action damages for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and to give credit agencies more latitude in profiting from identity theft protection products.

The legislation is part of sweeping efforts by Republican lawmakers to reduce oversight of banks and other financial-services firms, and to cripple or eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has notched a successful track record of holding industry players accountable for unfair and illegal practices.

And who’s the engineer steering this “quiet” anti-citizen effort? Why no one other than Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), a member, along with Rep. Wagner, of the House Financial Services Committee, and Chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, which just held hearings on the proposed legislation – possibly inspired by successful , and, for the profitable credit reporting agencies involved, expensive, oversight exercised by the CFBP in the recent past. Luetkemeyer declared that the new legislation would ” streamline regulatory requirements and eliminate inefficiencies” and “better allow financial companies to serve their customers.”

Sadly for Luetkemeyer’s credibilty, the response of the LA Times reporter, David Lazarus, is closer to the truth when he observes that what “the legislation would do is reward credit agencies with greater regulatory elbow room and diminished accountability for screw-ups.” As far as I’m concerned, they’ve got far too much of that elbow room already – as Lazarus notes:

Consumer advocates say the Equifax breach should serve as a wake-up call for Americans that the three leading credit agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — are focused primarily on earning cash from people’s personal information, not keeping such information under lock and key.

“Consumers are not customers of these companies — they’re commodities,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. “We have no say over what they do with our data.”

There are, of course, Democrats on on the Financial Services Committee and its various subcommittes; Missouri Rep. Lacy Clay (D-1) serves on Luetkemeyer’s subcommittee, for example. But they’re there as representatives of the minority party in a congress which Republicans have publicly determined to run solely in service of Republican druthers, and, given the amounts of cash that the financial industry throws at sympathetic members of these plum committee posts, the Democrats are not likely to be heard if they do stand up. Same reasons hold when considering the inevitable death march of a Democratic bill offered in response to the Equifax farce, the Freedom from Equifax Exploitation Act.

Actually, the proposed Democratic legislation, mild as it is, probably doesn’t go nearly far enough. Michael Kevin Drum who has long noted the essentially abusive nature of our credit reporting system and urged greater regulatory oversight of the credit reporting agencies, observesd last week that:

… The credit reporting agencies have gotten away forever with treating consumers like bothersome children: screwing up their credit records, ruining their lives, making it deliberately difficult and expensive to lock accounts, and making money off the whole thing by offering “insurance” against problems that they themselves cause. Someone in Congress who allegedly cares about ordinary working folks should introduce a bill to regulate the hell out of these folks. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it’s hard to think of any industry that more richly deserves it.

Well somebody in Congress does care – Democrats mainly – but a fat lot of good it’ll do us. Because financial industry toadies like Luetkemeyer and Wagner are sitting pretty in their well-funded catbird seats and they aim to keep that campaign cash cushion well-padded.

Ann Wagner praises police who “own” the streets

19 Tuesday Sep 2017

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Thesis:

The St. Louis Police Department doesn’t have a great record for  putting its best foot forward, but, really, these guys needs some competent PR advice – which they need to follow. And Ann Wagner needs a reality check.

Discussion:

A relatively small bunch of stragglers leftover after the day’s demonstrations against the Stockley acquittal went on a petty vandalism spree that, if the descriptions I’ve read are correct, was at a far remove from the serious violence that racked Ferguson. They were met by scads of armed police decked out in full riot regalia and raring to go. A bunch of protestors were arrested. The Guardian reported claims by demonstrators of “aggressive responses from police, including the macing and violent takedowns of compliant demonstrators.”

This mighty victory pumped up the interim police chief,  Lawrence O’Toole, to the point that next day he strutted around crowing about how proud he was that St. Louis was still “safe” and the police had “owned” the night.” His officers evidently shared that opinion since they reportedly celebrated brutally beating down a group protesting police brutality against black people by chanting “whose streets, our streets.” That chant was a step too far, even for some police, as The Guardian reports, “Sgt Heather King, president of the Ethical Order of Police, a group founded by African American officers, said: “That chant goes against the very code of ethics we swore to abide by.”

I’ve read reports on Facebooks from other folks who saw what went down. They seem to think it was harsh, as in excessive. But still, protestors vandalize private property, they get arrested. That’s fine. Throw bricks and “chemicals” at the police, police get mad. That’s life. Vainglorious boasting about how armed police beat the vandals down and gratuitiously hurt them – including folks who weren’t resisting – that’s another thing entirely. Don’t any of these fools realize how hairline delicate the situation is right now? Do they want riots?

I get the impression however, that now that the adrenaline high is fading, O’Toole realizes that he’s got to control the narrative a little better. The police chief is adamant that the only folks arrested were “criminals,” although they managed to haul in a presumably non-criminal Post-Dispatch reporter who was caught in the crush when the police moved in. You’ll also notice in many reports how, when O’Toole talks about his big victory, he’s careful not to mention that the “demonstrators” he put down were no more than a relatively small group who hadn’t heeded the call of protest leaders to desist for the evening. However, O’Toole was quite willing to whine about injuries suffered by his troops – injuries that he does not actually specify, but admits to have been mostly “moderate or minor.”

Wagner enters from the Right wing:

The merest hint of police blood shed, however, was enough to provoke Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) to paroxysms of praise for police. In her latest email newsletter, she informs us that, “on Saturday, I had the privilege of visiting the brave men and women of law enforcement who risk their lives every day to protect us. Their work this week has been nothing short of exemplary …”. This high praise followed the text of the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis, which she tells us she is offering “in light of the recent unrest in our community.” The Peace Prayer is supposed to embody “the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi’s simplicity and poverty,” two things I’m pretty sure Wagner doesn’t really know much about.

Punchline:

All this hyper-respectable, authority-loving piety is coming from a woman, who, so far as I  have been able to determine, has in no way indicated that she understands that there is any reason why some St. Louisians might legitimately be even a bit upset. Even her fellow Republicans, Senator Roy Blunt and Governor Eric Geitens, showed some sensitivity to the situation as well as a recognition that the issues are not cut-and-dried. Wagner, however, is carefully letting us know that for her, its a black and white situation and she thinks that the answer is, as it always has been, to color it blue.

Update (9/19): Well that didn’t take too long – Greitens’ restraint was too good to be true and now he’s back in prime form according to the Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger, playing to the deplorable gallery by poking an angry bee hive with a stick:

… we are following the lead of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who this weekend pinned a video atop his Twitter page of some of our officers in riot gear carrying a hog-tied prisoner through the streets of St. Louis. “Saturday, some criminals broke windows & thought they’d get away. They were wrong. Officers caught ’em, cuffed ’em, and threw ’em in jail,” he wrote.

I’m sure it’ll play well in the boonies and some suburbs, but shouldn’t the Governor be trying to help heal divisions, not make them worse?

Why does the GOP have it in for us?

18 Monday Sep 2017

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What does Senator Roy Bunt and my Representative, Ann Wagner (R-2), have against me? Or should I really be asking what the Republican Party has against the people of the United States (those, that is, who aren’t billionaires)?

I’ve had a chronic illness since 2012. So far Medicare and a supplemental policy have taken care of me. However, the GOP healthcare shenanigans in which Blunt, Wagner, and their partisans indulged themselves these past months could have resulted in my supplemental policy, which pays for a big share of my expenses, being priced out of my reach.

For a while it looked like they had decided to give up and leave me be. Killing several million people with a few pen strokes is harder work than it looks – especially when those folks start calling for the heads of compliant legislators.

But my relief has been short-lived. We all should have learned by now that the folks who pay the bills for today’s GOP will never rest until the peasantry learn to live with the low expectations that characterize their cohorts in other third world countries. And obedient senechals Blunt and Wagner are no doubt already on point, along with the rest of the Missouri pack of GOP running dogs, as we used to call their ilk back in the old days of the New Left and Chairman Mao’s vastly overrated little red book.

How do I know this? There’s a legislative abomination, the Graham-Cassidy-Heller bill, that has just been introduced into the Senate and which could easily pass if the Republican leadership can drum up 51 votes – which is looking more and more likely. Named for Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), this latest iteration of Obamacare Dump & Dupe is really, really bad:

As you can see, I and my fellow preexisting conditions sufferers are not the only ones Republicans like Blunt and Wagner want to work over. Graham-Cassidy-Heller would do a job on hundreds of thousands of Missourians. And nobody is even talking (yet) about the destabilizing effect on the private insurance industry.

Pair this effort to gut Obamacare and drastically peel back healthcare funding by 2027 with the suspicion that Paul Ryan will use Trump’s tax “reform” mantra to further his goal of privatizing and ultimately crippling Medicare, and you’ve got the wherewithal to begin to finance the tax cuts GOP leaders have promised their wealthy patrons. Does anyone believe Blunt, Wagner and the Missouri GOP boyos in the House won’t go along? Even though it’ll leave folks like me out in the dead cold. And I do mean dead.

It seems like Republicans in Congress not only want to pull the healthcare rug out from under us, but kick us in oour collective ribs after we’re down. Were we getting a little too uppity what with our Obamacare and all?

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they don’t have it in for us. Maybe they just think we’re too dumb to notice how far they’re willing to go to give tax breaks to rich cronies.

All of which means that maybe it’s time to roll out the tumbrils again and start building that electoral guillotine – and, don’t forget, make some noise while you’re doing it: Senate Switchboard number: (202) 224-3121

Addendum: Remember how GOPers howled about how Democrats, who in reality bent over in the proverbial backwards direction to secure GOP input, rammed Obamacare down throats; well, read this and weep for what we’ve become:  Republicans go to ludicrous lengths to pass a ‘healthcare’ bill that deliberately harms blue states; (2)

The Stockley verdict: How we “converse” about race in St. Louis

17 Sunday Sep 2017

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Protests are roiling the streets of St. Louis. Again. A second act to the psychodrama that began to play out after Ferguson.

The story in a nutshell for those of you who have been asleep: After a car chase, a white cop named Jason Stockley, shot a black man he believed to have been involved in a drug transaction. This event took place in 2011. Evidence suggested the possibility that a member of our black underclass – individuals whose deaths rarely rate much attention – was shot in unprovoked, cold blood. Stockley was not held accountable until 2016 when he was finally charged with murder; he opted for a bench trial and was acquitted yesterday (9/15). While “all hell” did not break loose, protestors did make their response known with varying degrees of forcefulness during the rest of Friday – and will probably continue to stir of the pot of white St. Louis complacency in the weeks ahead.

Our elected officials have responded pretty well on the whole. Governor Eric Greitens, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill and Republican Senator Roy Blunt have all issued sympathetic statements (see here, here and here) that implicitly acknowledge that there is a reason for the distress so many are feeling after the verdict. They properly urge the protests, the legal legitimacy of which they do not dispute, to remain peaceful. Greitens stops there. Blunt and McCaskill, though, add a little fairy dust to the mix.

Blunt declares that ” if this verdict is met with violence and destruction, it will do nothing but reignite the fear and anger that law enforcement and community leaders have worked tirelessly to address since Ferguson.” McCaskill strikes the same chord, asserting that “The events in Ferguson shook our region to its core and forced us to face some tough realities. But since then, our law enforcement and the families and businesses they serve have begun talking and hearing each other. We can’t let today’s decision send us back to our respective corners.”

Both of these leaders express confidence that Ferguson represented a turning point, and that St. Louisians are in the process of addressing the endemic racism that seems to permeate so many aspects of the local culture. Protestors must be careful, they say in so many words, not to upset this kumbaya applecart.

So why, then, are hundreds of anguished folks parading in the St. Louis streets? Could it have something to do with the fact that they’ve been waiting to see just how much things have really changed and right now, given the same ol’, same ol’ that the Stockley verdict seems to represent, they’re not too impressed?

I’m not second-guessing the verdict. I understand the issue of “reasonable doubt.” Furthermore, I know that I only know what I read in the papers, hence my judgement is less trustworthy than that of the judge who has poured over all the evidence – even a judge who perhaps inadvertently seasoned his decision with a dollop of smug bias against those often unattractive folks who inhabit the underclass, declaring that questionable claims that the victim was armed are viable because, “an urban heroin dealer not in possession of a firearm would be an anomaly.”

But the verdict is still more than a little pungent. And I wonder if that stench doesn’t have lots to do with the fact that all that palaver our leaders think has taken place between law enforcement, business and local officials, all the people who they think matter, hasn’t had much to do with the facts on the ground for black folks in St. Louis.

Remember the Ferguson Commission Report? Remember all the recommendations? Can anyone tell me if two years later the region any closer to implementing even the 47 “signature priority” items? I sincerely don’t know.

An article published in the Huffington Post finds the much-vaunted changes in the corrupt municipal court system, a significant vector of local abuse that was singled out in the Report, to be “minor,” often little more than “whitewashing.” A local citizen is quoted as saying that people are “still wanting to see a conversation” – even though Senators McCaskill and Blunt assure us that that conversation has been ongoing.

The HuffPo article refers to the story of Fred Watson, a young man who was improperly arrested, lost his high paying job as a cybersecurity officer, and the middle class lifestyle he once had due to the expense of fighting the bogus claims leveled against him by Ferguson officialdom. Last week, five years after his arrest, two years after the Ferguson Report, and after a load of bad publicity for Ferguson, all charges against him were finally dropped. The implication is clear that this is still the way justice works for everyday black people in the St. Louis area – and few of them have the resources that Watson expended defending himself.

The evidence that the conversation that our Senators believe we are having is more one-sided than they think is everywhere in the St. Louis region. All one has to do is look around.

Ever since Ferguson and “black lives matter,” for example, numerous trees and postboxes up and down my street in a lily-white second ring suburb have been decorated with big blue bows and occasional signs letting us know that “blue lives matter” and “we support our police.” And off course “blue lives” do matter. But it’s still clear that my neighbors are intent on more than police boosterism; they are staking out their positions in a symbolic war, pointing out the opposition they believe exists between “blue lives” and “black lives.”

I never saw those ribbons until African-Americans had the temerity to proclaim that their black lives needed to be handled as carefully by those folks in blue as those of the white suburbanites now piously wrapping their trees and mailboxes in blue. What do you think it means about a place when the inhabitants are willing to tie a big blue bow around police brutality?

We all “support” our police – we just don’t believe that they have carte blanche when it comes to black people – pun intended. Many of us, including plenty of those folks out protesting I’m willing to bet, think that with the special authority that police enjoy comes the requirement that they be held accountable for its exercise. When that’s not the case, don’t you think maybe there might be some among us who are inspired to take to the streets?

With this in mind – along with the pronouncements of a President who urges police to “rough up” suspects, and a Justice Department that is withdrawing from Obama era efforts to reform police-community relationships – maybe it’s easier to understand why some folks think that the “conversation” won’t ever take place if they don’t become well and truly the loudest voice in the room – or in the streets.

Ask Ann Wagner why, after Equifax fail, she wants to gut the CFPB?

09 Saturday Sep 2017

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is, as it states on its Website, “a U.S. government agency that makes sure banks, lenders, and other financial companies treat you fairly. ” It was an important component of the the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), a law designed to protect Americans from the excesses that led to the financial crisis of 2008. To date the Agency has been very effective. In the few years since it was established, it has settled over a million complaints and has saved consumers more than 11 billion dollars.

So what’s not to like? An awful lot if you are part of a financial industry that got used to running wild during the Bush years. As The New York Times asserts, the CFPB may have been too effective. It has far too much independence for Big Banking’s tastes; it can operate outside the realm of strategically distributed campaign funding and lobbyist blandishment.

Needless to say, when it comes to the CFPB, Republicans have been more than willing to take up the cudgels on behalf of their patrons in the financial sector. And nobody’s been more assiduous in going after the CFPB than Missouri’s own Ann Wagner, who, not incidentally, rakes in a big part of her considerable campaign war chest from grateful banking types.

The reason I’m returning to what is now an old and, at this point, oft-told story is simple: Equifax. The Equifax data breach that has exposed at least 148 million consumers to potential ID theft, to be precise. Also the fact that Equifax botched its response to its big fail by revealing the breach belatedly, and then offering inadequate follow-up, even, according to some sources, attempting to make money off of the disaster.

But don’t worry. The CFPB is on the case:

In a statement provided to HousingWire, CFPB Senior Spokesperson Sam Gilford said the bureau is already looking into the situation.

“The CFPB has authority over the consumer reporting industry, including supervisory and enforcement authority,” Gilford said in the statement.

“The CFPB is authorized to take enforcement action against institutions engaged in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices, or that otherwise violate federal consumer financial laws,” Gilford added. “We are looking into the data breach and Equifax’s response, but cannot comment further at this time.”

Additionally, Gilford said the CFPB is looking into the arbitration clause inserted into Equifax’s credit monitoring.

As CNN points out, consumers who want to take Equifax up on its offer of free credit monitoring for a year have to waive their right to sue, something that the CFPB is currently battling over on Capitol Hill.

“Equifax’s credit monitoring product contains a mandatory arbitration clause that denies people their right to join together to sue the company for wrongdoing,” Gilford said.

True, the New York Attorney General is also launching an investigation, and Congress is promising hearings. I don’t know about you, though, but when it comes to who is more likely to be thorough and transparent, I prefer that the task be at least shared with an agency like the CFPB, whose independence is assured. Unlike some congresspersons I could name, it doesn’t have any favors to repay that might soften the zeal with which it goes after a bad actor.

The CFPB  went after Equifax and TransUnion earlier this year for deceiving consumers about the usefulness and cost of credit scores they sell. Given their record to date, I don’t need to add that the CFPB got results; it cost the credit agencies $5.5 million in fines and $17.6 million in restitution paid to consumers. The CFPB’s got a track record when it comes to Equifax and its ilk.

Of course, it’s the very independence of the CFPB that sticks in Wagner’s craw. It’s what lies behind the usual Republican charges of government overreach or, in a more grandiose vein, charges that it is not constitutional to have a government agency with so much power that is funded independently of congress and is led by an executive appointee who cannot be dismissed on the whims of various and sundry elected officials without substantial cause. So far, the courts, our constitutional arbiters, don’t agree with Wagner et al. when it comes to questions of constitutional overreach. (Do you, too, find “unconstitutional” kind of funny coming from GOP politicians who seem to be purposely blind to the constitutional issues that bedevil their current President?)

Wagner’s onus against the agency extends to its director. She has been in the forefront of trying to drum up an appearance of malfeasance on the part of CFPB director Richard Cordray, even going so far as to level poorly substantiated charges of workplace discrimination. Most recently, she and her anti-CFPB cadres have tried to besmirch the record of the CFPB investigation into Wells-Fargo’s financial malfeasance.

But right now, when a truly huge number of Americans are facing the potential of identify theft or worse, and the company responsible for losing their data is acting poorly, do you think Wagner could be prevailed upon to leave the CFPB alone and let it serve the people who need it? I’m not optimistic – it’s clear that Wagner sees the Trump presidency as a lifeline when it comes to her heretofore ineffectual crusade to re-empower our financial overlords, but maybe, nevertheless, we should ask her to “can” it? Or else.*

*Note to Ann Wagner: No, Ann, “or else” is not a threat of anything worse than an election. I know that many of your grey-haried constituents scare you silly, but you don’t need to be worried about anything worse than losing their votes.

Which Missourians voted for or against the Trump-Schumer/Pelossi deal

08 Friday Sep 2017

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The House of Representatives voted today to pass a bill authorizing 15.25 billion dollars in emergency relief aid for the victims of hurricane Harvey; it was attached to a continuing resolution that would raise the debt-ceiling and fund the federal government through Dec. 8. The vote tally was 316 yeas and 90 nays. All ninety nays were Republicans including the five six Republican members of the Missouri House delegation.

The Senate voted on the measure on Thursday and passed it on a 80-17 roll call vote. Both Missouri Senators, Republican Roy Blunt and Democratic Claire McCaskill, voted for the measure.

McCaskill’s vote is no surprise, but ol’ Roy? Maybe no surprise there either. It’s not necessarily a case of the the tiger changing its stripes – it’s just that some of those stripes are more attractive than others. In short, Blunt is a pragmatist, a corrupt, power-seeking, self-interested pragmatist, true, but he does understand what’s involved in raising the debt ceiling. And he knows that the economic nightmare that would result from a default would not serve anyone’s interest.

In 2013 Bunt indicated that he couldn’t support using the urgent need to raise the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to deny funds to Obamacare, remarking that “I think holding the debt limit hostage to any specific thing is probably not the best negotiating place.” So now he’s reversed himself, showing admirable flexibility; the new circumstances, he implies, justifies the contingency. He observed that that tying the debt ceiling to Harvey aid is “one way to do it, ” i.e., raise the debt ceiling, a crucial must-do, adding that the need to address the destruction left in the wake of the hurricane is “another reason as to why you’d want to keep the government open.” Even though it looks like a flip-flop, Blunt’s consistent about one thing. No debt ceiling default. Ever.

Sadly, the other members of the Missouri GOP delegation don’t get it. Perhaps it’s because they don’t actually understand that extending the debt ceiling has nothing to do with increasing Government spending, but simply permits Treasury to pay the bills Congress has already run up.Or maybe they want their constituents to believe that they had a “fiscally responsible” reason for voting to leave Harvey victims high and dry (so to speak), while undermining the functioning of the federal government and maybe even wrecking the heretofore sterling credit worthiness of the United States.

Here’s a sample of the debt flim-flamming we’re hearing from our Missouri congressional representatives:

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2): “I promised the people of St. Charles, Jefferson, and St. Louis counties that I would go to Washington to cut up the government’s credit card and put a stop to wasteful federal government spending.”

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), also thinks that raising the debt limit so that Treasury can pay the bills that he and other congressmen have already run up represents a failure to “curb future spending.”

(You’d think that folks who’ve worked so assiduously as Luetkemeyer and Wagner to assist the financial industry would understand what the debt ceiling is and how it works. But, evidently, you’d be wrong.)

Rep. Billy Long (R-7) explained his “no” vote by declaring that “simply raising the debt limit is not the answer to fixing our nation’s fiscal mess. (Note to Billy: nobody said it was. The answer, that is, to a supposed fiscal mess. Different topic totally).

Give Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4) points for originality: she purports to think that extending the debt ceiling for three months “freezes defense spending at current levels and ties the hands of our Defense Department, preventing them from making desperately needed investments to meet the threats we are facing.” Nu-uh, Vicky! Talk about deflecting from the actual topic.

What really puts these excuses to the lie is the fact that House and Senate leadership wanted to go for an eighteen month extension of the debt limit. They were hoping to avoid the inconvenient messiness that would be sure to ensue when the limit has to be negotiated again at the very beginning of the midterm political season come December. Are you willing to bet good money that had that deal come down the line, all of these GOPers – even go-along-to-get -long types like Wagner – would have oppposed it?

And, in case you are persuaded by occasional claims that these folks were willing to vote “yea” on Harvey relief, but balked at voting on the debt ceiling because they believe the debt ceiling vote ought to be “clean,” with no need-to-pass riders, just think back to the behavior of almost all of these stalwarts when it came time to take debt ceiling hostage during the Obama years. Dead-enders, every one of them.

Addendum (9/9/2017, 11:56 am): You will notice that there’s nothing in the post above about the positions of Jason Smith (R-8) and Sam Graves (R-6). That’s because I couldn’t find anything. Too early? It struck me that the absence of online info about these two lawmakers actions is pretty predictable. Takes them a while to issue a statement if they ever do. Don’t their constituents care? Do folks in their districts just reflexively vote Republican, relieving them of any obligation to take care with their votes or to explain them? Do I need to subscribe to their newsletters? Do they have newsletters? Guess I’ll have to check it out.

Does Claire McCaskill really care about federal fiscal abuse?

31 Thursday Aug 2017

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Donald Trump visited Missouri this week to deliver a thinly disguised campaign speech in which he tried to sell a tax cut for rich folks and corporations as “reform” that would benefit the middle-classes. And he did it in the middle of a major national disaster, yet. But hey, we already knew we weren’t dealing with a class act here.

But that’s not all Trump did in Missouri. He dumped a truckload of the patented Trump slime on Missouri’s Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill – which, incidentally, may have oversteped the legal line between thinly disguised campaigning and the straight-out real thing:

Speaking at an industrial-fan factory in Springfield, Trump singled out McCaskill, a Democrat who is up for reelection next year in a state the president won decisively in 2016.

“We must — we have no choice — we must lower our taxes. And your senator, Claire McCaskill, she must do this for you, and if she doesn’t do it for you, you have to vote her out of office,” Trump said to loud applause and whistling from the audience. “She’s got to make that commitment. She’s got to make that commitment. If she doesn’t do it — we just can’t do this anymore with the obstruction and the obstructionists.”

Ethics experts said the main issue raised by the president’s comments is whether he was ad-libbing or whether White House aides planned for him to urge McCaskill’s defeat..

In case you’re in doubt about whether or not Trump’s partisan jibes overstepped the line, bear in mind that taxpayers paid for him to come here and dishonestly take out after a senator from the opposite party, a senator moreover who’s made it clear that she’s willing and eager to participate in a discussion of real tax reform, as long as it’s really a cooperative process, rather than simply an invitation to mindlessly rubber stamp proposals that reflect the desires of those rich folks who serve to profit most.

What should McCaskill do in response to this unprovoked attack from the Republican’s president? It’s not always effective to respond to slime with a shovel – especially when the slime machine’s so hyperactive. But it occurs to me that there’s an available and potentially effective “shovel” that might fit right into McCaskill’s persona as a lawmaker who always watches out for her constituents’ fiscal interests.

Ask yourself who, off the top of your head, really needs to have his fiscal shenanigans spotlighted right now? If you said Donald Trump, give yourself an “A.”

Trump, among other abuses, has beggared the Secret Service with his regular $3 million weekend retreats to his own luxury hotels. And a big part of that $3 million in taxpayer cash flows straight into Trump’s own pocket since he’s declined to comp the Secret Service accommodations in return for the free protection he and his family receives. Wouldn’t that be the least that a man who claims to be a billionaire could do if he really has to spend almost every weekend at his own properties? And I may add that he takes these golfing weekends away in spite of the fine, big, white house the taxpayers have loaned him, a house where nobody has to pay extra for his protection.

If this isn’t an abuse that needs to checked, I don’t know what is.

What’s more, some intrepid lawmakers agree and are on the ball. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has introduced an amendment to the 2018 spending bill that would prohibit allocations to the Secret Service from being used to ” purchase, rent, or otherwise acquire goods or services, including hotel rooms, office space, or golf carts, from entities that are owned or operated by the President or the immediate family of the President.” And Schiff isn’t the only member of the House who’s appalled by Trump’s cavalier appropriation of federal money for himself: Rep. Steven Cohen (D-Tenn.) introduced sixteen appropriations amendments that would “prohibit federal spending at Trump-owned hotels, resorts and other Trump-owned businesses.” No more tax-money going to further enrich America’s wealthiest and – incidentally? -most corrupt President.

Seems to me that this and other fiscal abuses by the president – of which there are many – might be an excellent focus for hearings in the Senate, not to mention a profitable way for our fiscally-excited Senator McCaskill to deploy her energies. At the very least, she could start lending her vocal support to the House’s efforts to rein in Trump’s corruption. After all, nobody can work that fiscal shovel like Claire McCaskill.

Of course, as constitutional law professor Jacob Weisberg observed in a Slate interview, the best way to deal with presidential corruption is impeachment. Although impeachment has to originate in the House, McCaskill might profit from keeping the possibility in mind. Even though she’s tried to make it clear to pinkish citizens of red state Missouri that she doesn’t intend to “fight” the president, the time might come when fighting for Missourians means doing just that. And, of course, he’s already thrown the first punch; it might be time to see what kind of counter-punches our Senator is capable of delivering.

Tell me, who needs to be expelled from the legislature?

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Recap:

State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-14) posted on her personal facebook page that she wished somebody would assassinate Donald Trump.

Predictably, her Republican colleagues, the Governor and others began to call for her resignation or expulsion from the Senate. State Democratic officials joined the call.

Currently Chappelle-Nadal is standing firm, but the pressure’s still on.

Today

State Rep. Warren Love (R-125) today entered the Chappelle-Nadal zone and went way further:

Rep. Warren Love, R-Osceola, posted a link to an article describing vandalism discovered Wednesday to a Confederate monument in Springfield National Cemetery. “This is totally against the law,” Love wrote. “I hope they are found & hung from a tall tree with a long rope.”

That’s right. Hung from a tall tree with long rope. You know, like they used to do back in Jim Crow days when the POC got uppity? Lynching, I think they call it.

Context is all:

In self-defense, Nadal claimed that she was reacting to the fear and panic that the president’s comments after Charlottesville had excited among her predominantly African-American constituents, asserting that:

There are people who are afraid of white supremacists … . There are people who are having nightmares. There are people who are afraid of going out in the streets. It’s worse than even Ferguson.

And today Warren Love gave us a picture of the kind of thinking that inspires such fear. Based on the ease with which he reverted to the narrative of lynch law, it looks like Chappelle-Nadal and her constituents might have some serious justification for extreme reactions to a president who not only gives cover to white supremacists, would-be practitioners of vigilante brutality against black Americans, but who actively incites racist resentment.

Conclusions.

Initially, I was neutral about whether or not Chappelle-Nadal should resign. I understand the fear and revulsion excited by the spectacle of an amoral, racist in the highest office in the land. But there’s still no denying that the post was a bad idea, both morally and politically.

We have other means to stave off or mitigate the evil that Trump can and will do, and, as long as our democracy can withstand his authoritarian impulses, that will be the case. Our politicians, and this includes Chappelle-Nadal, have to stand firm to uphold those means no matter how debased the presidency has become or we will all be lost.

However, when a man who holds elective office in my state calls for lynching in response to nothing more than petty vandalism; vandalism, moreover, directed at a triumphalist symbol of human bondage, a slap in the face to every African-American who is forced to confront it, Chappelle-Nadal’s offense doesn’t seem so epic.

As far as I’m concerned, if she goes, Warren Love has to go too. If she’s censured, he needs to be censured – doubly. She’s apologized – I want Love to apologize to the whole damn state, really apologize, and while he’s at it, he can apologize for the drivel he dished up to explain his actions:

That was an exaggerated statement that, you know, a lot of times is used in the western world when somebody does a crime or commits theft. … That’s just a western term and I’m very much a western man. You know, I wear a coat. You know, I dress western. And, you know, I’m the cowboy of the Capitol.

This lethal jackass evokes lynch law and explains it by insulting “western” men who wear coats (?) and/or “dress western,” not to mention cowboys? Words fail.

Welcoming Trump with open arms

29 Tuesday Aug 2017

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David Brooks, conservative pundit at the New York Times, captures the essential point when it comes to the nastiest issue swirling around Donald Trump, the use and practice of “white identity politics” by politicians on the right:

White identity politics as it plays out in the political arena is completely noxious. Trump … established his political identity through birtherism, he won the Republican nomination on the Muslim ban, he campaigned on the Mexican wall, he governed by being neutral on Charlottesville and pardoning the racialist Joe Arpaio. Each individual Republican is now compelled to embrace this garbage or not. The choice is unavoidable, and white resentment is bound to define Republicanism more and more in the months ahead.

Hold that in your mind, particularly the part about “completely noxious” – coming from a principled conservative yet – along with the part about “each individual Republican is now compelled to embrace this garbage or not.” And then read the unambiguous welcome GOP Senator Roy Blunt has extended to Donald Trump on the occasion of his visit to Missouri:

“I’m glad that President Trump will be in my hometown of Springfield to highlight the economic benefits that tax reductions and other pro-growth policies will have for Missouri families, farmers, and small businesses,” Blunt said. “The president and the Senate have taken important steps to roll back burdensome regulations and create a stronger foundation for economic growth. I look forward to continuing that effort by pursuing changes in our tax code that will increase U.S. competitiveness, boost wages, and expand opportunity for Americans.”

But Republican Trump Blunt wasn’t alone. Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill issued a statement “welcoming” Trump to Missouri and signaled that she is also more than willing to chill with a Putin-loving demagogue, whose true metier is spewing racist “garbage” intended to rile up an angry white base, as long as Missouri “moderates” will applaud her good manners – no matter how badly he disses her in the process.

Here’s what she had to say during her recent tour of the state when asked about an effort to censure Trump’s Charlottesville circus-of-the-damned performance:

“Listen, I’m disappointed and discouraged and worried about some of the things that president has said and the tone he’s taken on some issues. But my job out there is not to fight the president. My job is to fight for you,” McCaskill told the crowd about 100 gathered at the American Legion post. “My job is to work as hard as I can representing Missouri families and doing the things that I think will make a difference in your lives. I’m going to stay focused on that.”

Who’da thunk it. McCaskill and Blunt, siblings in political pragmatism. Or should that be cynicism. These responses amply illustrate the point David Brooks was trying to make about he dilemma facing Republicans – except in Missouri it seems to pose a problem for Democrats as well. It has to do with facing up to the fact that “fighting” the president is just exactly what is called for in order to fight for the full range of ones constituents, not just the white, old and angry segment.

What we got from Blunt is what we expected. Slick twaddle over a layer of corruption. So big whoop.

But what we got from McCaskill? A failed balancing act … so thumbs down. But only because we care.

I understand the need to keep the eye on the prize. The little one that comes after the next election, not the big one that has to do with the long-term survival of American democracy. I get the part about focusing political energies on the possible – and non-controversial – good one can actually do. But even from that point of view, would it have really hurt McCaskill too much to just have kept her mouth shut. Did she have to make with the cheery official welcome extended to a de trop sleaze-bag intent on destroying American political and civil norms?

*2nd and 3rd from last paragraph slightly edited; text added (5:51 pm. 8/29).

Can’t Trump get anything right?

28 Monday Aug 2017

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Among his stream of (per usual) incoherent tweets, Donald Trump tried today to trash talk Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill while touting his dominance in the state: “I will also be going to a wonderful state, Missouri, that I won by a lot in ’16. Dem C.M. is opposed to big tax cuts. Republican will win S!”

However, as Steve Benen notes, Trump is “slamming Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) for opposing a tax-cut plan that does not currently exist.”

Even The Donald’s Wall Street minions, such as Chief Financial Advisor Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, don’t try to pretend that they have managed to come up with anything but a “skeleton” that walks and talks a lot like former dum-dum tax proposals emanating from the direction of Donald the wanabe Dominator.

Also, McCaskill, currently touring the state in an effort to establish (or re-establish) her “moderate” bona fides,” has made it clear that she’s happy to welcome Trump to Missouri and quite willing to cooporate on tax reform:

“I’ve talked in a lot of my town halls about my support for simplifying the tax code by cleaning out loopholes and goodies for special interests, and lowering the corporate tax rate – as long as we’re doing it all through the lens of strengthening Missouri’s working families,” McCaskill said in a statement on Friday. “So I welcome President Trump to Missouri, and I’m looking forward to working with him to make bipartisan tax reform a reality.”

Of course McCaskill added that she’s all for tax reform as long as we’re doing it all “through the lens of strengthening Missouri’s working families.” That could pose a problem Trump-wise.

What’s worse, though, is that McCaskill’s most likely GOP opponent in 2018, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, is planning on cutting Trump cold. Instead of greeting and meeting Trump, the titular head of his party, when he visits, Hawley is going to be away on a “family vacation.” Not really a surprising turn since Hawley’s mentor and most important supporter, former U.S. Senator John Danforth, has called on Missouri Republicans to repudiate the “hateful” Trump.

So obviously this little partisan-twist shows that Trump is an oblivious fool whose words should be disregarded because, no, as the title implies, he can’t get anything straight.

But perhaps it does suggest that Hawley is more principled than McCaskill?

No, my friends, it does not.

Hawley bills himself as a strict constitutionalist. But he has not, so far at least, allied himself openly with those honest conservatives who are appalled by the danger that Donald Trump poses to our constitutional system of government. Until he decides to stop using a lame excuse to avoid attending Trump’s Missouri do, and makes a public statement repudiating him, he’s no better than the ostensibly respectable woman whose upkeep is paid for by a classless vulgarian she refuses to acknowledge in public.

It also suggests that Hawley may not even be as smart as McCaskill. Does he think that Trump’s rabid Missouri supporters won’t realize that he’s dissed their boy?