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Tonight’s McCaskill-Hawley debate: a quick rhetoric post-mortem

18 Thursday Oct 2018

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This debate was televised; it’ll be repeated tomorrow at noon on NPR (I think) and most Missouri newspapers will touch on the high points. Consequently, I’m not going to get bogged down (much) in a critique of the substance in these quick notes, but rather offer my impressions of how each candidate performed in terms of  rhetorical effectiveness. Forewith:

Hawley

  • I learned that he’s the father of two little “guys” – it was, in fact, pounded into my brain via incessant repetition. Hawley seems to have no other go-to when trying to describe motivation.

CONS:

  • He lost on substance:
    • He’s obviously spent a lot of time memorizing campaign slogans and GOP talking points.
    • He’s wasn’t ashamed to repeat said slogans and talking points over and over; it’s was insulting to the intelligence of his auditors.
    • He’s wasn’t willing to get lost in the weeds of facts and figures; those he did summon were often incorrect or misleading
    • Since his answers consisted of lots of canned campaign hash, he had lots of time to leave the podium and show his interlocutors (and the TV audience) just what a nice, personable young man he really is.
    • He was perfectly happy to twist facts and mislead his listeners. For example, in answer to a question about whether or not he would support cutting Social Security and Medicare in order to address the Trump deficit, he answered that he would not support cutting these programs for current recipients or those who would receive benefits in the near future – a standard GOP dodge to avoid scaring current pensioners when they propose to privatize or whittle the programs away. He consistently misrepresented the impact of the ACA on insurance prices by failing to note that the growth in premiums is a response to efforts by the GOP congress and the Trump administration to sabotage the program.
    • He continued to repeat specific misleading points even after his facts had been corrected, e.g., he insisted a second time – even after McCaskill corrected his earlier statement – that she supported the “Waters of the U.S.” rule. In fact, McCaskill actually joined Republicans to vote to scrap the rule in its then form.
    • He seemed awfully studied and slick and determined to do the full George W. Bush – repeat dumb talking points over and over.
    • He was consistently on the attack – understandable since he doesn’t have a record of achievement to which he could refer.

PROS:

  • Hawley won on style:
    • He spent lots of time repeating campaign slogans. It may seem insulting to careful listeners, but rhetoricians tell us that to effectively persuade large numbers of people, we need to keep the message simple and repeat it over and over. Hawley’s got that routine down and he probably went over well with lots of viewers.
    • He’s not willing to get lost in the weeds of policy talk. We’re told that complicated, fact-filled arguments go right through both ears for many listeners, so this was probably a positive for Hawley who delivered answers that were simplistic often to the point of dishonesty – but with an air of authoritative conviction.
    • Since his answers consisted of lots of canned campaign hash, he had lots of time to leave the podium and show his interlocutors (and the TV audience) just what a nice, personable young man he really is.
    • He was calm, collected and cool as ice. If McCaskill got under his skin, he didn’t let anyone know except when he decided that a little high (or medium-high) dudgeon could be exploited for rhetorical effect.

Claire McCaskill:

  • She’ll soon be a grandmother for the 12th time – and, no, she only let that fact drop once – there was no serious effort to curry favor via grandchildren. Thank God. I don’t need my politicians “humanized,” just competent.

PROS:

  • She won on substance:
    • She had her facts down – and almost everything she says can be verified.
    • She devoted more time to describing her positions than describing her opponents shortcomings. This approach was notable in the concluding statements; Hawley spent used the statement to continue condescending to McCskill who is, he implied, past her use-by date – to paraphrase, a good enough person whose desiccated liberalism doesn’t resonate wth today’s Missourians.
    • She could concentrate on her achievements because she has a real of record of hard work and experience that informed her answers.
    • She didn’t condescend to her audience. She seemed to assume that they could deal with what goes into making policy and don’t have to be fed responses cribbed from TV ads.
    • She made it clear that she tries to represent all Missourians, not just a particular tribe, even if it means that she makes all Missourians angry at one time or another (not all at the same time, though).

CONS:

  • She lost on style
    • She had all her facts down, lots of them – and tried to cram them all into short answers which can have the effect of making them seem less coherent or convincing. Also lots of people, we’re told, just don’t listen to or remember complex, detailed responses. (Although I personally was delighted with her command of facts and nuance – that, after all, is where the “truth” lies.)
    • She seemed to become agitated and uncomfortable much of the time which undercut her effectiveness
    • She seemed overeager at times which contrasted with Hawley’s relaxed demeanor.
    • Even though she clearly wanted to emphasize her centrism, she could have done so and still defended many of her past positions more forcefully, with less meandering explanation. There’s no need for her to be apologetic.
    • She can be good at being forceful and letting her tough side show – I’ve seen her do it. I wish she’d done it more tonight.

Summary

Tonight’s debate seemed like an exercise which was intended to show whether substance dominates style or vice versa,  the outcome of which we probably won’t know until November 6. You have also probably also noticed – particularly in regard to Hawley – that many of the “pros” are also “cons.” That’s because it’s all a matter of perspective.

* Slightly revised for style an clarity (11:43 pm, 10/18/2018).

State Rep. Derek Grier – not so moderate after all?

18 Thursday Oct 2018

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I first met my state representative, Rep. Derek Grier (R-100), when he was canvassing in my neighborhood prior to the 2016 primary elections. He seems to have sussed my proclivities, or, perhaps, realized that the formerly right-wing suburbs were changing. His argument to me was that he was a common sense moderate, far less extreme than Mike Allen, his GOP primary opponent and the husband of the former, term-limited incumbent, Sue Allen.

Grier won the primary, ran unopposed, got elected and that was about the last I heard from him apart from periodic “newsletters” that rarely did more than list new legislation or an occasional slap-dash constituent “opinion” survey. However, in a year that saw the success of right-to-work-for-less legislation, tax cuts for the rich, inroads against women’s reproductive rights, failed efforts to regulate legislators’ lax ethical behavior, and secure adequate funding for infrastructure and education – not to mention the resignation of a Republican governor on grounds of moral turpitude, I heard not a peep from Rep. Grier about where he stood on any of these contentious issues.

So imagine my surprise this week when I received a card listing the “accomplishments” of Rep. Grier’s two years in office, gathered under the rubric of “promises made, promises kept.” My first response: what promises? Could it have been that implicit promise he made during the 2016 primary to moderate the far-right agenda espoused by so many members of Misouri’s GOP?

Certainly, if one looks closely at Rep. Grier’s accomplishment list, at least two of the three highlights he selected to campaign on, such as the anti-human-trafficking bill, HB 1246, emphasize bipartisan appeal. What’s even more interesting is what he’s not drawing attention to. He certainly isn’t boasting about the fact that  his legislative voting record in its entirety lines up almost perfectly with the destructive far-right, anti-worker agenda of the state’s GOP majority. Evidently, he doesn’t want to dwell on votes that indicate support for right-to-work-for-less.  Or his support for restrictions on reproductive freedom – the list is long and not at all bipartisan.

Nor, do all of Rep. Grier’ selected legislative activities stand up well under scrutiny:

—  The main jewel in Rep. Grier’s crown, HB 1719 and HB 1710, legislation which he himself authored, in his words, “eliminated regulations [i.e. licensing standards] on professionals in Missouri.” The bills would respectively recognize professional licenses issued in other states, and change minimum age requirements for some professions. Unfortunately, the first bill also contains a provision that forbids any private licensing entity from using the words “certification” or “registration,” a provision that excited the ire of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFPB) and the Financial Services Institute. These groups pointed out that this provision could invalidate the credentials of many certified financial planners in Missouri. The Center for Association Leadership broadened the complaint, asserting that it would have a serious negative impact on a much larger range of professionals, including doctors, lawyers, etc.  Sloppy, sloppy.

— Rep. Grier co-sponsored HB 2540 which he claims “provided a tax cut to citizens and businesses.” It did cut taxes. For rich folks. Already I’m hearing complaints about ballot initiatives, etc. that would raise sales taxes that have already reached 10% or more. These taxes are being levied in order to pay for services that used to come out of general funds. And here’s Rep. Grier bragging about beggaring the state and forcing citizens to choose between regressive taxes or loss of vital services?

— Although he did not include it among his list of accomplishments but added it as an aside, Rep. Grier also takes credit for voting “to fully fund the education foundation formula.” That’s not much of a boast, though, given that the GOP-controlled legislature voted to change the formula to conform better to the amount of spending that they deigned to allocate to schools, rather than allocate the amount required by the earlier version of the formula.

I recently watched on Netflix an episode of the Australian TV series, Rake,  which presents the misadventures of a dissipated, renegade lawyer, Cleaver Greene. Greene asks at one point about an American politician, “So he’s a moderate Republican? He’s just a little bit pro-life, a little bit pro-gun, a little bit anti-gay?” What this series of rhetorical questions imply is that in the real world, when decisions have to be made, folks usually have to break one way or another, and I would suggest, based on his total voting record rather than campaign flim-flam, that Rep. Grier breaks to the not so moderate right whenever it really counts.

Jason Smith goes all Trump; lies about motor-voter laws and immigration

12 Friday Oct 2018

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Rep. Jason Smith (R-8) has decided to go all in on Donald Trump’s “signature issue” for the midterm and has sent out a press release decrying “the evils of immigration.” In the process he also copied Trump’s modus operandi by resorting to lies and conspiracy theories:

Cities in California, Illinois, and Maryland are taking the extreme step of disregarding their state constitutions and registering illegal immigrants to vote in elections.

This is the latest push by the radical left to give illegal immigrants the rights and privileges reserved for American citizens, without any respect to the rule of law and our immigration process.

What Smith’s on about is automatic motor-voter registration laws. Unfortunately for Smith, the conservative claim that these laws will permit non-citizens to vote has been thoroughly debunked. For instance, in reference to California – which has experienced difficulty in duplicating the seamless implementation that characterized the process in states like Oregon – non-citizens are neither automatically registered nor empowered to vote:

FactCheck.org

The false story, on dangerous.com and circulating on Facebook in recent days, is the latest in a series of such claims, which misrepresent a law designed to increase voter registration among U.S. citizens in California. Users of the social media site flagged the story as potentially false and rightfully so.

Snopes:

While it’s true that undocumented residents living in California can obtain driver’s licenses, the state has not passed any laws that also provide them the right to vote. The New Motor Voter Act was passed in an effort to improve voter turnout, and while this law does automatically register citizens to vote when they obtain or renew their driver’s licenses, that action only applies to citizens who have already attested and/or documented an eligibility to vote.

Smith’s diatribe is full of such dishonest assertions – he basically hits all the low points that Republicans are using to try and muddy the current sad state of our immigration policy in the U.S. – policy that the GOP, which controls the legislative and executive branch of the government, could have the changed to fit their preferences at any time in the past two years. Somehow, despite any evidence, Rep. Smith manages to conflate Democrats desire to enact a humane and functional border policy with advocacy for “open borders.”

But, of course, these specious claims have another truly evil purpose: to present Democrats as irrational radicals, Trump’s “angry leftwing mob,” perhaps even, as lyin’ Donnie would have it, evil. Democrats who are repelled by images of babies torn from their mothers’ arms are characterized as cynical and casual lawbreakers by a cadre of demonstrably cynical scofflaws with whom Rep. Smith has chosen to identify himself.

Will dishonest attacks on Democrats pay off? Will demeaning and lying about Democratic lawmakers and their efforts to solve the problems posed by desperate brown people trickling over the Southern border divert attention away from GOP failures over the past couple of years? Maybe – but there’s a good case to be made that the obvious racism that shores up the GOP immigration stance and the brutality that it attempts to justify might backfire come November. After all, most Americans are neither cruel nor stupid.

Roy Blunt defends the indefensible, a.k.a. Brett Kavanaugh

09 Tuesday Oct 2018

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Missouri’s junior senator, Republican Roy Blunt, has finally deigned to give us, via the GOP House organ, Fox News, his version of their Kavanaugh talking points:

The key comments here are his claims that “unfair” and “unrealistic” Democrats sat on Dr.  Blasey-Ford’s story  until late in the process and then declared Kavanaugh “guilty until proven innocent.” Since Fox’s Maria Bartiromo didn’t seem to want to push back on these assertions, I would like to offer the following  observations:

— Although evidence indicates that Senator Dianne Feinstein’s account of the reasons for the late timing is accurate, the entire question amounts to little more than a red herring. The real issue is whether credible claims of serious wrong-doing should be ignored and not be fully investigated because they didn’t emerge earlier during more general routine vetting; innocent until proven guilty presupposes that a fair and transparent effort to secure proof will take place.

— One might also note that whether or not Kavanaugh is, as Senator Blunt asserts, one of the “most vetted candidate in the history of confirmations” is not a real answer to credible claims by his Democratic colleagues that the very curtailed and limited investigation into this specific allegation was inadequate.

Sen. Blunt is to be commended for not picking  up on the shameless GOP whine about how Blasey-Ford’s credible accusations endanger those poor, quivering, white males who might be falsely accused of sexual assault. Yes, false accusations of rape are made – in, it is estimated, only 2 – 10% of cases. It follows that that 90%+ rape allegations are verified. And, of course, the way to verify the truth of any allegation of sexual assault is a full and unbiased investigation of the sort that the GOP-controlled senate and the White House did not allow to take place in the Kavanaugh case. Wonder why, anyone?

Finally, Blunt, riding high on the results of a Marist poll from last week, that found GOP enthusiasm for voting heightened after the Kavanaugh hearings, predicts that if Democrats continue to raise issues about the legitimacy of Kavanaugh’s appointment, the “strategy” will backfire. In other words, the GOP wants to put down a potential on-going firestorm before it blows their narrative out of the water – and they’re counting on past Democratic spinelessness in the face of conservative attacks to do the job.

However, today a CNN poll which, unlike the Marist poll, was taken after the confirmation of Kavanaugh, should give Senator Blunt pause when it comes to trying to scare Democrats out of demonstrating their anger about a stolen Supreme Court appointment: in response to a question about voting enthusiasm, 62% of Democrats say they are “extremely or very enthusiastic to vote, up seven points since September.” In contrast, 52% of Republicans reported enthusiasm about voting in November, a result that is only 2% higher than in September.

Maybe Senator Blunt ought to help his senate leadership cronies retool some of that nasty, Trumpian Kavanaugh spin they’re spewing. It’s possible that even a few Republicans are embarrassed to belong to a party that elevates misogynistic,  biased, lying, judicial hacks to positions of power and prominence.

*Edited slightly for clarity (6:20 pm, 10/9/2018)

 

Josh Hawley smells blood in the water and attacks Dianne Feinstein

01 Monday Oct 2018

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GOP Attorney Josh Hawley got some bad news today when CNN’s latest polling numbers put him 3 percentage points behind Democrat Claire McCaskill whom he hopes to replace in the Senate. The poll shows McCaskill with 47 percent to Hawley’s 43 percent. The new poll reverses the last polling that put McCaskill 2 percentage points behind Hawley.

Senator McCaskill and Hawley are still within the poll’s margin of error, but those of us who have been thoroughly turned off by the bible-thumping GOP boy wonder are nevertheless cheered by McCaskill’s upwards trajectory. We were particularly pleased after reading about Hawley’s crude effort to prove that he’s not too prissy to be a good little team player:

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley (R), who’s running against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), is calling for a special counsel to investigate Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and her staff over the handling of sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“It raises very troubling ethical question … and that’s why I’m calling today for a special counsel to investigate the conduct of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, her staff and all other relevant party for violating the confidentiality of Dr. Ford and obstructing the work of the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Hawley told reporters on a Monday conference call, referring to the first woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

Nothing like jumping on a leaky boat in one’s haste to get in on the action and get a share of the booty. Hawley should probably think it over very carefully before he spews more of this sort of righteous rhetoric; the effort to deflect attention from an ethically very flawed SCOTUS candidate to Senator Feinstein’s hypothetical misbehavior has the stench of pure desperation – not to mention stupidity. Bogus investigations don’t impress anyone but the terminally dim-witted anymore.

Just think about what Hawley is proposing: Imagine that a man, hearing anguished cries, trespassed by entering a vacant building where he discovered a serious crime in progress which he reported. Now imagine that the perpetrator of the crime was ignored by the police when they arrived – apart from a few officers who apologized for causing him distress – and instead the putative trespasser was denounced, investigated and punished for the crime of trespassing, which was described as a serious ethical lapse.

Wouldn’t you want to know why the law refused to focus on the real criminal and instead pursued a possible minor miscreant? Similarly, don’t you want to know why Hawley won’t focus on finding the truth about the SCOTUS nominee, particularly if, as he claims to believe, that, lacking a thorough investigation, the “corroborating” evidence is currently insufficient?

Finally, why is Hawley ignoring the rather strong evidence that Judge Kavanaugh has lied to the members of the Judiciary Committee on numerous occasions during the past weeks? Isn’t perjury at least as serous as Senator Feinstein’s effort to respect the wishes of Dr. Ford? And, incidentally, doesn’t the fact that, Dr. Ford has indicated that she’s not at all bummed out by Senator Feinstein’s actions indicate that Feinstein’s lapse, if any, is pretty damn trivial?

Shouldn’t Hawley try to be a little more honest with us about what he’s really doing? Do you think it could have something to do with those very close polling numbers? Just asking.

Who pulls Ann Wagner’s strings?

30 Sunday Sep 2018

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Who pulls Rep. Ann Wagner’s strings? Not the voters in Missouri’s 2nd district for sure, who have been complaining for some time that she’s missing in action. She’s held no town hall meetings with constituents apart from some hilariously stage-managed “telephone” events – characterized by pre-selected participants and questions – and appearances before employees at friendly business venues that often offer no chance for questions. In fact, she’s so allergic to demands for direct accountability that, according the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Todd Robberson, she has “repeatedly” refused to meet with the paper’s editorial staff in order to secure its endorsement.

Rep. Wagner does frequently send out an email “newsletter’ filled with treacly PR, news about her photo-ops and questionable claims that conform to GOP talking points. Claims, for instance, that the GOP tax cut for the rich has actually benefited working-class Missourians, which she put forward in her email newsletter of Sept. 3, are debatable – although we’re not likely to get the chance to debate them with the congresswoman herself.

So if Rep. Wagner is more interested in constructing a smoke screen than in finding out how her constituents really think about what she is doing in Washington, they can’t be blamed for wondering for whom she’s actually working when she’s in D.C. And it’s not too hard to figure out.

We all know about her huge campaign war-chest, currently ca. $3 million, made up of cash donated by “private donors hoping to influence or advance the people who do the public’s business.” And the cash rewards are not limited to “getting the message out.” The Post-Dispatch reported recently that “members of Congress use ‘leadership PACs’ – separate campaign fundraising entities from their regular political committees – to buy everything from rounds of golf to trips to posh resorts to tickets to Broadway shows.” These so-called “life-style enhancements” are on the pricey side, as indicated by some of the particulars pertaining to Wagner:

Wagner’s “leadership PAC, Ann PAC, spent $21,831 from 2015 through 2017 for event expenses, lodging, catering, and travel at various locations in Las Vegas, including the Venetian/Palazzo Hotel and expenses from Tao Restaurant Vegas, an ‘unparalleled Asian-inspired restaurant’ that is the sister to the ‘trendsetting’ Tao in New York. The payments to the Venetian/Palazzo in 2015 correspond with the Republican Jewish Coalition Spring Leadership Meeting.” Spokespersons for Wagner did not respond to a request for comment.

Who pulls Rep. Wagner’s strings? Tell me who is it who keeps Wagner in D.C. and shows her a good time while she’s there and I’ll show you who has her ear.

Dr. Gina Loudon – a Missouri Tea Party (not so) golden oldie defends Trump’s mental fitness

14 Friday Sep 2018

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Remember Missouri’s would be Tea Party “glamour couple,” former State Senator John Loudon and his wife, Dr. Gina Loudon? After John was term-limited out of the state legislature, the couple moved to San Diego where Dr. Gina continued to opine on right-wing radio and occasionally opines on national cable news. Apart from a surprising turn on TV’s sleazy “Wife-Swap,” where the ostensibly evangelical Loudons’ “swapped” spouses with a free-living “polyamorous” family, the couple have been relatively quiet.

Quiet, that is, if you ignore the 2,000 word essay Dr. Gina published, analyzing her responses to her adolescent daughter’s relationship with a 57 year old D-list celebrity. There’s been just a little local right-wing rabble-rousing also, which, cognizant of the themes that are most popular with Trumpies, have emphasized immigrant-baiting and sanctuary city slamming in their new home town.

But it would have been too much to expect that a chancer like Dr. Gina would not try to cash in on the Trump phenomena sooner or later. Armed with nothing more than an online Ph.D. in something called human and organization systems, and without any training or certifications in clinical psychology, she has published a book in which she devotes an entire chapter to claims that Trump might be the “‘most sound-minded’ president in history.” To give you a taste of her methodology in assessing Trump’s mental soundness, consider the following assertion:

Citing “anecdotal research,” Loudon writes that one key to Trump’s mental fitness is the fact that he is the fourth of five children. “Birth order seems to be the foundation for all other factors that create and define the psychology of the person” she writes, citing the book Life’s Fingerprint by Robert V. V. Hurst—a trained dentist who studied his dental patients.

In case, you’re wondering, it’s not so, according to a meta-analysis of sibling and birth order studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But junk-science theories applied with a total unawareness of nuance is only one of Loudon’s tools. She also filled out the Meyer-Briggs Personality Inventory selecting those answers that she thinks best describe Trump (who is not a close personal friend, but who is an an acquaintance), and concludes that he must have “mad presidential skills!” since the test-by-proxy identifies Trump as “ENTJ,” dubbed “the commander” on Personalities.com. Personalities.com yet!

Loudon doesn’t confine her analytical insights to Donald Trump, however. She also asserts, in her role as Dr. Gina, Ph.D, that the recent anonymously-authored New York Times Op-ed showed clear signs of “Trump derangement syndrome.” Stop and think. It’s one thing for a toady to produce a lick-spittle assessment of Trump from afar – and still yet another to go on national TV, as the unqualified Loudon did while hawking her book, and pretend to diagnose a completely unknown individual.

To give Loudon credit, she admits that she lacks the requisite training to substantiate her pronouncements; instead she contends that her ” gut instincts, which have nothing to do with my professional training, are pretty solid.” Remind you of someone else who relies on his (substantial) gut to conduct foreign policy? And indeed, while attempting to refute the commonly held belief that Trump suffers from narcissistic personality disorder – in terms that show she does not actually understand the behavioral characteristics of the condition – she reveals that testing has put her on the “narcissism spectrum.” Quelle surprise.

The book is titled Mad Politics: Keeping Your Sanity in a World Gone Crazy, and it looks like it might be a laugh a minute. Of course, I’m not recommending that anyone buy it, no need to enrich Loudon for producing a book described by one authority on psychological testing as “frankly idiotic” – but libraries were made for books like this. Or, if it’s too embarrassing to check it out,  just skim it over the proverbial liberal latte at your local bookstore cum coffee shop.

Is Josh Hawley a theocrat or an intolerant fanatic. Or are they the same thing?

06 Thursday Sep 2018

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The English Oxford Living Dictionaries defines a fanatic as one who exhibits “excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause.”

So what’s a theocrat? According to Mirriam-Webster, it’s “one who rules in or lives under a theocratic form of government,” which is defined as “government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided.” In other words, a theocrat is a religious fanatic who wants to make sure we all defer to his God and jump to order when he legislates what he believes to be his God’s preferences.

An example of a wannabe theocrat here in Missouri is our current Attorney General and Republican Senatorial candidate, Josh Hawley.

Many have noticed that Hawley is just a bit uninspired when it comes to his regular duties as AG – such as fulfilling promises that he would fight against Jefferson City’s culture of corruption. But Hawley doesn’t always run on empty; what gets the the boy’s blood primed is any perceived slight to the power of the state to insist that we we all defer to his brand of Christianity.

Hawley calls it defending religious liberty. Others have pointed out his religious liberty amounts to repression and a license for bigotry. But judge for yourself; here’s a few examples of our AG’s religious crusades:

  • Hawley’s current bête noire is the Johnson Amendment which he wants to eliminate. so that churches can make official political endorsements and still retain tax-free status. He seems to believe that it violates his and like-minded folks religious liberty and freedom of speech if I, a nonbeliever, don’t have to subsidize their political views via a tax exemption for their politicized churches – a point of view, by the way, with which most Americans and numerous religious bodies disagree. And, of course, GOP candidates like Hawley are salivating over all the dark money that will be funneled into campaigns via donations to churches once the Johnson Amendment is history and the total politicization of religious life – along lines they favor – has been achieved.
  • Hawley, while running for AG, advocated for state legislation to “ensure that churches and businesses will not be compelled to “participate” in same-sex marriages” – a bit bizarre since the Fist Amendment clearly protects churches from such coercion already, and, since Missouri does not provide anti-discrimination protection for LGBT people, there could be no possible legal grounds to try to force the issue. He may have finally figured this out since, so far as I know, we’ve not heard about it since he won the AG race.
  • Hawley also claims credit for his somewhat nominal participation in the famous Hobby-Lobby case which gave “closely-held” businesses permission to refuse to provide their female employees with insurance that paid for birth-control if doing so clashed with the owners religious or “moral” beliefs.
    • He attributes his support for this decision to his belief that “abortion is not a right,”[… .] It is a violent act against the defenseless. It violates every principle of morality and should be barred by American law.” Immoral? Yes. Because Hawley’s believes his God says so.To hell with my God.

What are the implications for regular people if their AG – or, God forbid, their senator – is a religious zealot? Consider the following:

A 34-year-old painter is suing Dahled Up Construction, a company based south of Portland, Ore., for allegedly firing him after he refused to join a Christian Bible group for employees. [… .]

Coleman told The Washington Post that when he explained to the company’s owner, Joel Dahl, that he had different beliefs, Dahl said: “If you want to keep your job, everybody needs to attend. If not, I’m going to be forced to replace you.”

Where do you think AG Hawley would come down? Do you trust him to understand what we’re supposed to be in America?  Theocrats want the power of a specific religion to be pervasive and all-encompassing – and bear in mind that the desire of persecuted religions – those not endorsed by the ruling theocrats – to escape theocratic rule is one of the reasons that our country exists.

 

Immigration: Trump says jump; Hawley leaps into the muck

24 Friday Aug 2018

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Josh Hawley, we are frequently reminded, went to Stanford and Yale. He’s supposed to be a smart man. He also claims to be a religious man and as such is supposed to be compassionate toward those who are needy and persecuted.

As a consequence, Hawley faces a serious dilemma. He clearly believes he has to stick to Trump like a burr lest the deplorables be aroused – no matter how absurd, dishonest, cruel, or destructive Trump reveals himself to be. This dilemma is especially evident when it comes to Trump’s favorite hobby, keeping dark complexioned people from sh*****e countries out of the U.S.

It’s obvious that it’s a difficult slog. When Trump announces that we must deport immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers “with no Judges or Court Cases,” Hawley does his best to evade the issue. He has refused to tell us whether or not he supports constitutionally mandated due process for immigrants, a question that ought to be a no-brainer for a guy with his background. In the words of one of his primary opponents, Austen Petersen, “Josh Hawley is an ivy-league educated, constitutional lawyer, who is either constitutionally illiterate, or too much of a coward to admit what he knows is true. The 14th Amendment is clear.”

When it comes to family separation, an almost universally denounced policy, Hawlely  tried to deflect. A the Kansas City Star put it, he “stopped short of calling for the policy to end immediately and put the blame on McCaskill” (WTF!) Even Mr. Test-the-Wind Mumblecore himself, Roy Blunt, managed to do better than that.

Sad as it it, these efforts represent the extent of Hawley’s self-assertion – he’s mostly a good little Trump trooper. He calls for “securing the border and building the wall,” while blaming Claire McCaskill and by extension Democrats, for failing to fix a broken immigration system in a Congress totally dominated by risk-averse Republicans. Hawley evidently doesn’t seem to know that his fellow GOPers have refused again and again to consider bipartisan immigration efforts, including those in which McCaskill participated. As for that storied wall – the one that could cost billions and do little or nothing to protect the border, well, we all know baby knows better, but, hey, talk is cheap.

Seriously, though, isn’t it kind of sad to see a guy endorsed by that supposed moral arbiter, former Senator John Danforth, go along to get along? I guess Danforth’s hoping he’ll clean up good after the election. In case he can’t get it together, though, I offer the following list of what I have learned about immigration over the past couple of years. Perhaps, after he’s washed off the Trump filth, Hawley might find it informative:

  •  Conditions in the Central American Northern triangle and in the Middle East from which so many are fleeing are truly horrific.
  • That horrific situation is in many respects the result of past actions by the United States:
    • In the eighties the United States backed vicious right wing dictatorships in Central America and helped train death squads while we participated in or instigated civil wars that displaced thousands.
    • Later, the U.S.-led war on drugs “succeeded” in South America by pushing violent cartels north, into Central America.
    • Lax U.S. gun laws also factor into the levels of violence; an estimated 200,000 guns purchased in the U.S. are annually smuggled into Central America.
    • The violent MS-13 gang that Trump uses to scare his immigrant-averse base was, in the words of one writer, “made in America” and exported to back to Central America.
    • I’m pretty sure I don’t need to detail the role played by the U.S. in destabilizing the Middle East, an area from which another group of demonized immigrants hail?
  • Immigrants do not contribute to crime in the U.S. at a higher level than native born citizens.
  • The Washington Post notes that studies have shown that “states with larger shares of undocumented immigrants tended to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares in the years 1990 through 2014.”
  • Anecdotes about specific immigrant wrongdoers do not substantiate the assertion that an entire group is crime prone. Numbers tell the true story.
  • Immigrants do not “take” jobs from native-born Americans.
  • Currently, several industries are threatened by worker shortages that have resulted from the Trumpian anti-immigrant jihad (see here, here , here and here).
  • Legal immigrants pay taxes.
  • At least 50% of undocumented immigrants also pay state and federal income taxes and contribute to the Social Security trust funds – to the tune of billions of dollars.
  • The taxes paid by immigrants help makeup the shortfall in tax revenues and Social Security reserves in the U.S. where the birth rate has been slowing for decades.
  • Anti-immigrant sentiment has been highly racialized in response to political demagoguery – which has also encouraged already existing anti-immigrant, racist, hate groups.

Given the facts listed above, maybe Hawley ought to answer these questions next time he’s asked about one or another of Trump’s immigration tirades:

  • As professed a Christian doesn’t Hawley have a moral responsibility to generously respond to “the least of these,” which today’s Central American and Middle Eastern refugees surely are?
  • Wouldn’t Hawley, were he to be elected to a powerful national position, have an equally heavy moral responsibility to help clean up after foreign policy blunders and try to undo the harm we have done to these people?
  • Wouldn’t Hwley be endangering our future by catering to racial and cultural fears and ignoring the important role immigrants play in our economy and could continue to play if he were to to act in good faith to try to “fix” our immigration policy?
  • Does Hawley really want to be allied with white supremacists, neo-nazis and other hate groups?

How about it Josh Hawley?

Josh Hawley: Not as smart as they thought?

16 Thursday Aug 2018

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So what about Josh Hawley? There’s this little morsel (as noted by Michael Bersin here) which indicates that perhaps the guy just isn’t working with all the lights burning:

In Missouri’s U.S. Senate race, Josh Hawley (R) slammed Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) this morning for “hiding out” in Washington, D.C. For the record, the Senate is in session, which means McCaskill just went to work.

One twitter commentator suggested that Hawley might need a tutorial on how government works. In fact, lots of folks have been wondering this summer if Hawley’s really up to speed when it comes to “work,” and “politics” stuff – an impression that this post-primary awkwardness reinforces. Perhaps a tutorial would be just the thing.

Want more evidence that our hero is a little slower on the uptake than we’d expect from a Yale and Stanford graduate? How about Hawlely’s inability to let us know what he thinks about major issues in Missouri politics like the ballot initiatives that will come before the voters this November: we’ll vote on a higher minimum wage, clean government measures, including fair redistricting reform, increases to the gas tax to pay for sorely needed infrastructure improvements, and legalization of medical marijuana.

“Yes” or “no” stuff for any thinking politician, right? But Hawley seems to be a little worried that he might get somebody’s dander up if he expresses a real opinion on possibly controversial topics, which may be why he’s so willing to temporize. He declares that:

… he needs to read through all of the proposals and is still making up his mind. He said he’s inclined to support medical marijuana, but he said he wants to make sure there are enough protections to limit it to medical uses.

We’ve known that these initiatives would probably be on the ballot for some time – and even if we hadn’t, each of them is important enough, and most have been swirling around in the national conversation with such force, that we should be able expect a serious candidate for statewide office to have well-thought out opinions.

Senator McCaskill, I notice, is able to discuss the propositions straightforwardly without obfuscation or withdrawing into a shuddering heap. What we get are clear cut answers about what she believes will work best for Missourians. She likes all the propositions – expressing serious enthusiasm about clean government measures, something that all ethical politicians should be able to endorse. She even approves of the gas tax – a position that takes courage in these days when a sizeable section of the electorate has been brain-washed to think that you don’t have to pay for what you get – or that the other guy doesn’t deserve what you get.

There is one aspect of the questions raised by the ballot propositions that Hawley is willing to commit to. Our prim, proper and very religious AG is pretty clear that no one should be able to toke up who isn’t suffering from an agonizing or terminal disease. Easy-peasy decision if you’ve got your priorities straight.