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Bipartisanship gone bad: The Israel Anti-Boycott Act

20 Thursday Jul 2017

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The Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.720 and H.R.1697) is very bad legislation. It’s also that rarity, a bill that truly has bipartisan support. It’s laws like this proposed legislation, I suspect, that gives being bipartisan a bad rep.

The bill essentially bans boycotts or economic sanctions against countries “friendly” to the U.S. , specifically, but not necessarily limited to, Israel:

The bill amends the Export Administration Act of 1979 to declare that it shall be U.S. policy to oppose:

  • requests by foreign countries to impose restrictive practices or boycotts against other countries friendly to the United States or against U.S. persons; and
  • restrictive trade practices or boycotts fostered or imposed by an international governmental organization, or requests to impose such practices or boycotts, against Israel.

The bill prohibits U.S. persons engaged in interstate or foreign commerce from:

  • requesting the imposition of any boycott by a foreign country against a country which is friendly to the United States; or supporting any boycott fostered or imposed by an international organization, or
  • requesting imposition of any such boycott, against Israel.

The bill amends the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 to include as a reason for the Export-Import Bank to deny credit applications for the export of goods and services between the United States and foreign countries, opposition to policies and actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with citizens or residents of Israel, entities organized under the laws of Israel, or the Government of Israel.

The legislation would levy significant fines not only for participating in boycotts or sanctions, but also for simply requesting information about such actions. Legislation like this would have precluded the boycott of South Africa that was at least partly responsible for the fall of apartheid. People on the left and on the right oppose this bill for much the same reason: it is improperly coercive, too broad in scope, and violates the Constitution. If its support is bipartisan, so is its opposition.

Who opposes the Israel Anti-Boycott Act?

The ACLU wrote in a letter to the Senate that “the bill would punish businesses and individuals based solely on their point of view. Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment,” adding that:

“… this bill cannot fairly be characterized as an anti-discrimination measure, as some would argue. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already prevents businesses from discriminating against customers based onrace, color, religion, and national origin. This bill, on the other hand, aims to punish people who support international boycotts that are meant to protest Israeli government policies, while leaving those who agree with Israeli government policies free from the threat of sanctions for engaging in the exact same behavior. Whatever their merits, such boycotts right ly enjoy First Amendment protection.

The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison, on the other end of the political spectrum, is in perfect agreement:

Whatever one thinks about the BDS [i.e., boycott, divestment, and sanctions] movement and related international efforts to pressure Israel to change its occupation policies, it is deranged to try to criminalize protected political speech and association. As the ACLU points out, that is what this bill does. This legislation is plainly unconstitutional, and I assume it would be struck down in court if it were ever signed into law, but the deeper problem is that so many elected representatives think it is appropriate and desirable to trample on the constitutional rights of Americans to defend another government’s illegal occupation. …

J-street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that advocates for a two-state solution to conflict between Israel and the Palestinians but which has stopped short of endorsing boycotts and sanctions, also opposes the legislation. In an email to congressional staffers, the J Street Vice President of Government Affairs, Dylan J. Williams, wrote that in its present form, the bill would:

…undermine decades of US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bolster the settlement enterprise and harm the prospects for a two-state solution. […]

[…] we recommended that Members consult with free speech experts on possible Constitutional concerns with the bill. Accordingly, I want to make sure that you saw the letters issued by the ACLU yesterday opposing both the Senate and House versions of the bill on the grounds that they would impose penalties in “direct violation of the First Amendment.”

So who does support this bill?

AIPAC. But that goes without saying.

Who else? At least 237 members of the House of representatives, 63 of whom are Democrats, are cosponsors of the bill, and 45 Senators, 13 of whom are Democrats, are also cosponsors . Others will probably, due to either conviction or the pressures of the prevailing political wisdom, help vote it into law.

Missouri Supporters

As for whom in Missouri supports this legislation, here’s the list of House cosponsors from our fair state: Rep. Wagner, Ann (R-2), Rep. Sam Graves (R-6), Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4), Rep. Jason Smith (R-8), and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3). And in the Senate, who else but that consummate bipartisan wannabe, Senator Claire McCaskill, has signed on. So far, at least, Senator Blunt is keeping his hands off this one. Do you think he might actually have a few Constitutional scruples?

McCaskill’s presence is the most easily explained. She’s good at the political calculus and you can bet there’s some payoff here, or at least she hopes there will be, in 2018. The woman’s great strength is her pragmatism. It’s also, alas, her frequent downfall.This case falls into the latter category.

What really bothers me, though, are all those Republicans in the House who support this bill. Don’t most Missouri conservatives get all teary-eyed about the right of bakers and the like to refuse to do business with the LGBT folks – or whoever else their personal Jesus tells them to dis? Yet they don’t want to let businessmen or individuals who have moral qualms about the activities of foreign countries refrain from doing business that supports those activities? It’s not exactly the same question – there’s lots of issues to unpack here – but, on the surface at least, it seems just a little hypocritical.

More importantly, weren’t lots of these chuckleheads elected during the Tea Party “uprising” by voters who went around in tricorner hats waving pocket copies of the Constitution? It was pretty clear, even at that time, that few Tea Partiers had actually bothered to read the document and fewer still understood it, but don’t you think that the folks they sent to Washington ought to at least show a little deference to the legal underpinnings of of our great Democracy?

*2nd to last paragraph slightly revised for clarity (12:03, 7/21/17).

Ann Wagner – voice of the vulnerable?

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

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Got the latest email newsletter from my congressional representative, Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2). And just about fell out of my chair laughing. First sentence: “Since I first came to Congress, I have dedicated myself to being a voice for the most vulnerable in our society.”

This, coming from the woman who giddily warbled “freedom” after she helped pass an Obamacare replacement that would throw over 20 million people off their health insurance, is too rich for words.

Coming from the woman whose main raison d’etre as a legislator has been to deprive elderly retirees of financial safeguards that would prevent unethical investment counselors from taking dishonest advantage, it’s nothing less than shameful. (Of course, she’s now got a $3 million campaign pot in large part thanks to grateful bankers, financiers and investment professionals so I guess duplicity is its own reward.)

What Wagner’s on about is her work to put a halt to advertising Website Backpage.com’s illegal sex ads and against its role in human trafficking – a worthwhile target for legislators. Wagner, along with the many Democratic and Republican lawmakers, notably Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who have worked on this issue, deserve credit for their efforts. Most recently, Wagner has written to the Justice Department to try and get them investigate potential criminal activity on the part of the Website. So has Claire McCaskill.

Of course, if you only read Wagner’s newsletters, you’d think she invented the struggle against sex trafficking. Is the only time GOPers use the word “bipartisan” when they want to attack Democrats for not being bipartisan enough? I can only attribute the self-applause to the fact that maybe Wagner thinks that if she doesn’t grandstand, her rare effort on behalf of the vulnerable might be overwhelmed by her more typical advocacy for the comfortable.

 

Roy Blunt thinks the BCRA is just fine, thank you

15 Saturday Jul 2017

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I know, I know – it seems like it’s the summer of piling on GOP Senator Roy Blunt. But what can you do with a politician who tries to pretend that policies are nothing more than procedural exercises that parties win or loose, the welfare of everyday citizens, people who depend on him, be damned?

The latest example of Blunt’s approach to legislating is the Senate’s newly reworked version of Trumpcare, the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). Our Roy thinks that “it’s in the best shape it’s been in so far […] Now that members actually have paper in their hand they can look at what is likely to be very close to the final bill we’ll be voting on and move forward.”

In the best shape it’s been so far. Indeed. And what does “best shape” mean in this context”? Is Blunt really saying that he thinks it’s actually better as a healthcare bill than it was before? Or is he just optimistic about the fact that it’s been taken into back rooms and worked over as fully as is possible in order to buy the votes of craven GOPers who want to have their cake (win their next election) and eat it too (not get primaried)?

My money’s on the second option. Why? Blunt isn’t dumb enough to believe the first.

Today we learn that even insurers who, as a group, have mostly kept quiet on the topic, are appalled at what the GOP is proposing to foist off on Americans as a substitute for the flawed but functional Obamacare. Specifically, the Cruz Amendment, formally known as the Consumer Freedom Option, has them in a tizzy. The Cruz Amendment would permit insurers that sell Obamacare policies to offer plans that don’t conform to the Obamacare standards mandating minimal levels of coverage, including protections for those with preexisting conditions, as long as they include at least one offering that is conformant.

The CEOs of America’s Health Insurance Plans and the BlueCross BlueShield Association let it all hang out in a letter released today,  the Cruz amendment “is simply unworkable in any form” they write, “and would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions, increase premiums and lead to widespread terminations of coverage for people currently enrolled in the individual market.”

The insurers are far from placated by the pretense that the bill would create “high risk pools”:

… We also firmly believe that the dedicated funding included in the bill to address the cost of plans that cover people with pre-existing medical conditions is insufficient and additional funding will not make the provision workable for consumers or taxpayers

As healthy people move to the less-regulated plans, those with significant medical needs will have no choice but to stay in the comprehensive plans, and premiums will skyrocket for people with preexisting conditions. This would especially impact middle-income families that that are not eligible for a tax credit. Taxpayers will pay more to finance federal tax credits for the individuals in comprehensive plans and these costs will continue to increase, even with dedicated funding. Risk adjustment is also critical to making the individual market sustainable, but can only work when there are uniform benefit requirements across the market.

Finally, this provision will lead to far fewer, if any, coverage options for consumers who purchase their plan in the individual market. As a result, millions of more individuals will become uninsured.

But, hey, Roy Blunt thinks that giving goodies to a few moderate Republicans so that they can try to save face with the folks they’re planning to shaft, along with the addition of this Cruz amendment, has insured that the bill’s in the “best shape” ever.

Roy Blunt sees no evil, hears no evil and says nothing of substance about PutinGate

15 Saturday Jul 2017

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Senator Roy Blunt (R) is a piece of work.  Donald Trump, the leader of his party, is demonstrably, publicly corrupt, and almost surely owes his slim election victory, at least partly, to the machinations of a hostile and equally corrupt Russian autocrat. Yet now that the evidence of Trump campaign collusion with said autocrat is all but undeniable, thanks to the missteps of president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., Senator Blunt still wants to equivocate.

With a straight face Blunt declares that he believes that the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which he is a member, should indeed ” follow wherever the facts take them, including the possible involvement of President Donald Trump’s campaign with the Russian government.” Nothing wrong with that statement in itself, but did you note the use of the qualifier “possible” to weaken its impact? At this stage of the game yet? And he almost immediately qualified his dedication to finding the truth in three ways that, parsed carefully, make it clear that he is not really interested in what Trump actually did or didn’t do:

Roy Blunt sees no evil if it comes wrapped in dollar bills:

First, Blunt asserted that, although the entire situation with its suggestion of unsavory business contacts reeks of ill-gotten gains, money laundering and influence peddling,  “following the money”  should be off limits:

Blunt told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Wednesday afternoon that the Intelligence committee, which he sits on, shouldn’t examine financial ties between Russian and the Trump campaign organization.

“I wouldn’t think so” said Blunt. “I would think that the intel committee, when we get this more pressing issue of Russian involvement in the election, and any involvement that others had with them, if that turns out to be the case, I thinks that’s got to be the top priority.”

Blunt, evidently, doesn’t think it’s remotely possible that there’s a financial angle to the corruption of our electoral process by Russia, and, if there is, it shouldn’t be of interest to the committee investigating said corruption. Whose leg is Blunt trying to pull anyway? Given his glory days in the House of representatives where he served to great renown as corruption meister, Tom DeLay’s, chief GOP bagman, he surely recognizes the stench that often arises at the intersection of money and power.

It’s now well-established that the powerful President of Russia directed an extensive and sophisticated intervention in the 2016 U.S. election. This intervention was intended to aid the candidacy of Donald Trump, a man who has shown himself willing to use the Presidency to line his own pockets, hides his tax returns, and who, according to all indications, has had shady dealings, likely of a financial nature, with the new, gangster-style Russian oligarchy. Evidently Roy Blunt hasn’t heard of kompromat. Yet Roy Blunt sees no potential in pursuing the financial issues.

Roy Blunt would prefer to hear no evil:

After asserting that exploring the relationship between Trumpian corruption, possible Russian extortion, etc. should be off limits in the Intelligence Committee’s RussiaGate investigation, Blunt managed to declare that he wanted to cut off the information spout that led to the investigation in the  first place:

Blunt wants the committee to expand its inquiry to find out who in the federal government is leaking classified and confidential information to the press.

“It’s within our responsibility as the intel committee in the Senate to look at the leaks, to look at how secure our own national security structure is” Blunt told MSNBC. “That’s probably where we expand to.”

A number of Republicans have accused career government employees of trying to sabotage the Trump presidency with a flood of leaks.

Can  you imagine folks so devoid of a moral center they think that it’s okay to ignore the crime and go after the whistleblowers – no matter that the “presidency” they may be “trying to sabotage” is clearly sinking under the weight of its own corruption and ineptitude? I can. We call them Republicans and that fact goes a long way toward explaining Blunt’s investigative druthers.

Roy Blunt will, though, speak a little backhanded evil :

Blunt was, however, unable to resist indulging in a little Schadenfreude on the topic of Trump, Inc. troubles. The consummate insider just couldn’t resist having a little fun at the expense of the bumbling reality star and his stable of incompetents who are mucking up the business of government after bad-mouthing pros such as Blunt:

Blunt doesn’t think the Trump campaign had the political experience to entertain the notion of collusion. “What you had in the Trump campaign was a candidate who had figured out the exact communicating spot to be with the American people in 2016, and a campaign around him that I was never sure had the capacity to collude with the Republican National Committee, let alone anybody else” said Blunt on MSNBC.

Well of course they  didn’t. That’s why they’re in the hot seat now. The New York Post said it best when it proclaimed in an editorial headline that Donald Trump  Jr. is an idiot. Apropos of which, it’s  clear that Trump Jr. is his father’s son, and that, as far as their team goes, like attracts like. Neither incompetence or stupidity, however, is a defense.

Several commentators have also brought up the lack of a “moral compass” when discussing Trump’s campaign machinations. Perhaps congressmen like Senator Blunt, who clearly understand how huge the stakes are for the country, might be said to lack the same accoutrement as well when they show themselves willing to hedge and deflect serious issues surrounding our openly compromised president in order to preserve the advantages of partisan power

*First two paragraphs revised for stylistic and clarity reasons.

 

 

Jay Ashcroft gets an earful

08 Saturday Jul 2017

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I’ve previously noted that Missouri GOP Attorney General Jay Ashcroft has been one of only four AGs to warmly embrace Trump’s pet Election Integrity Commission – in spite of the partisan voter suppression record of many of its members and the dubious nature of its charge. Based on Ashcroft’s record as an enthusiast for standard GOP voter suppression measures, this stance seemed consistent with expectations.  This week he even went so far as to declare his personal  investment  in the commissions results in a CNN New Day segment :

“Well, first of all, it seems to me this is an investigation as to whether or not vote fraud occurs and how prevalent it is. And we in the state of Missouri regularly see instances of pretty much every conceivable type of vote fraud you can imagine, from documented cases of voter impersonation to people trying to slip multiple ballots into the ballot box, voting multiple times; people voting where they’re not registered.

“We actually have a state legislator that was elected. It was proven. Two members of his family pled guilty in a court of law to illegally putting him over the top. He won by one vote, and now he serves in the legislature. So we know that vote fraud occurs. The problem is…”

To which I can respond with two words, one beginning with “B” and the other with “S.”

So, in essence, did CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who forcefully called Ashcroft on his BS and left him scrambling and, metaphorically at least, red faced.  In fact, Voter fraud in Missouri is so rare as to be statistically nonexistent.

Ashcroft may be flagrant about his voter suppression sympathies – even in the face of such a public spanking, but he isn’t immune to public pressure. According to an AP report, “Missouri voters have flooded Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office with calls expressing concern about his decision to give some voter registration information to a national commission investigating alleged voter fraud.”

And to my jaundiced perceptions, it seems as if Ashcroft may have moderated his enthusiasm for the Trump/Kobach initiative since the television  slap-down and the public outcry here at home. He has issued a new official statement and the story he is now telling is that he has no choice, the Big Law Daddy made him do it, and besides the other kids (e.g., Jason Kander and Robin Canahan) did it first. He also implies that maybe he doesn’t even want to do it:

My willingness to comply with the request for publicly available data is not a political or personal choice. It’s a decision based on the laws governing my office and the information we have.

For the time being at least, he’s no longer beating the drum about voter fraud in Missouri, and has described his current opinion on the work of commission in significantly less approving terms:

Do I think that this is a case where there are politicians grandstanding? Of course,” Ashcroft said. “As a statewide official, I am not allowed to apply the law differently because I like you or dislike you.”

Just goes to show that dishonesty and pusillanimity often go together.

Ann Wagner implies that she’s afraid to run for the Senate – but not for the House

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

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In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a couple of days ago Ann Wagner announced that she won’t be the Missouri Republican who will face Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill in 2018, but will instead run to retain her 2nd district House seat. It has been widely assumed that she was persuaded (forced?) by Missouri Republican luminaries to stand down in favor of another candidate – Attorney General, Josh Hawley seems to be the current fair-haired child of many of Missouri’s big GOP money and influence wielders.

Wagner offered the usual pablum about family considerations and, in typical treacly Wagner style, “love” for her 2nd district, as reasons for not taking up the cudgel against McCaskill – even though her intentions to do so had been obvious for some time. As the Post-Dispatch observed, she had already hired interns to handle the the added demands of the campaign.

Wagner also, however, seems to have hinted at another reason; the Post-Dispatch article implies that in the wake of the shooting of the Republican House Majority Whip, Rep. Steve Scalise, by a deranged individual a couple of weeks ago, Wagner intimated that she fears violence that could be directed at her and her family. This fear, it is implied, was the “significant event” that precipitated her decision not to run for the Senate:

The source said that Wagner was told after her decision that no one would believe that it was made solely on family considerations, “but that is what happened.”

And a significant event last week led up to it

Wagner visited Scalise, her close friend, in a hospital Wednesday, the source said. Scalise was shot and badly wounded while practicing for the annual congressional baseball game in Alexandria, Va., on June 14.

In an interview with the Post-Dispatch days after the shooting, Wagner said Scalise’s shooting had greatly affected her, and she spoke about threats made against her and her family.

Do you see the problem with this suggestion? Why, if Wagner is really worried by the possibility that a run for the Senate might lead to violence against her and her family, is she still planning to run for the House? Are House candidates magically exempt from threats faced by candidates for the Senate?

And the questions just keep popping up. Has any politician anywhere ever tried to get so much mileage out of a few protesters who are properly disturbed by her failure to acknowledge their concerns? Will Wagner be using this excuse retroactively? Did she, for instance, refuse to debate her last Democratic opponent, Bill Otto, or appear at open constituent meetings because she, delicate creature that she is, was afraid for her life? Will we be hearing endlessly about her fear of the naughty “leftists” during her future congressional tenure – however long that may be – whenever she is challenged to explain her policy preferences?

If Wagner is really that frightened about the consequences of holding public office, shouldn’t we work really hard to bring her home from Washington and let somebody, preferably a brave Democrat, go to Washington in her place? Seems like we’d really be doing her a big favor.

Finally, Does anyone else find this mock-subtle effort to leverage tragedy into political gain as tasteless and disgusting as I do?

Promises, promises …

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

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At this point, Republicans have been reduced to trying to justify stripping healthcare from millions of Americans, including large numbers of working class Republicans, by claiming that they are helpless to do otherwise; they have to “repeal” and – maybe – “replace” Obamacare because they’ve spent the last seven years promising their base they would do away with all such remnants of that black Kenyan’s presidency.

As if the only voters that matter are the so-called base – voters who represent a largish segment of the smallish 30% of Americans who currently identify as Republicans. Anyway, it isn’t as if the members of the Grand Old Party have had any problem breaking other promises. They usually just figure out a way to reframe it or divert attention, and their compliant base mostly goes along.

It’s a fact that repealing Obamacare doesn’t fare well when the full range of actual public opinion is taken into account. Obamacare’s popularity has been growing since the election of Donald Trump put it in peril, until, finally, by March, one could safely say that Obamacare had become more popular than Donald Trump. By the end of June 51-53% of poll respondents said that Congress ought to leave Obamacare in place and/or fix its very fixable problems. Republicans are still negative, but their disapproval, ginned up as it was in the first place, by politicians seeking to sabotage an elected Democratic president, is showing signs that it may waver once the real repercussions are felt.

Replacing Obamacare, in the form of the various Trumpcare iterations produced by Congress, does even worse. In a poll produced at the end of June, just 12% of those polled supported the replacement plans. Other polls find approval ranging from the aforementioned 12% to 18%. Given those numbers, there have got to be lots of even “base” Republicans who don’t think that the GOP is going in the right direction in their efforts to replace the bill.

So much for repeal and replace and promises.

Yet the GOP is going full-throttle toward repealing an imperfect, but functional healthcare plan and replacing it with a widely loathed disaster because … they promised.

So what gives? Do Republicans have a political death wish?

Maybe not. Stop and think: just who plays the bills for Republicans in congress – who are the the people dropping million dollar campaign donations and funding secretive super PACs?

Maybe the promise that Republicans are so hot to keep has nothing to do with the easily manipulated read-meat base, but the people who, in these Post- Citizens United days, pay the bills, the Richie Riches, otherwise known as the oligarchy. The very people who will benefit from the tax cut that Trumpcare funds by slashing Medicaid, one of the most significant components of Trumpcare. The tax cut that many – including Trump – believe to the the first stepping stone to a tax code that only a billionaire can truly love.

Fine. But, please, could the rest of us stop treating the blather about promises and the Republican base as if it has anything to do with reality.

*First sentence in the penultimate paragraph slightly edited.

Ashcroft one of only four AGs to endorse fraudulent Election Integrity Commission

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

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Remember the president’s Election Integrity Commission? To date 44 AGs have refused to comply, either in toto or in part, citing state election laws and concerns about the security of the data which is to be delivered to an online portal where it will be, according to the Chair of the Commission, noted voter-suppression specialist Kris Kobach, made public. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer that a commission charged to examine any kind of data “integrity” not go to such lengths to enable identify thieves.

No matter, though, how sloppy, clueless and potentially malevolent this particular clown-commission is revealing itself to be, according to CNN, our very cooperative Missouri Attorney Jay Ashcroft is only too delighted to hand over the goods:

Just three states — Colorado, Missouri and Tennessee — commended Kobach’s attempt to investigate voter fraud in their respective statements.

“We are very glad they are asking for information before making decisions,” said Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican. “I wish more federal agencies would ask folks for their opinion and for information before they made decisions.”

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, also a Republican, echoed Williams’ sentiment in a statement Friday: “The commission’s questions are fair and we will be glad to assist in offering our thoughts on these important matters,” he said. “I look forward to working with Sec. Kris Kobach and the commission on its findings and offer our support in the collective effort to enhance the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the elections process.”

I can see agreeing to hand over publicly accessible components of the information Kobach demanded, as long as he requests then via the channels required for other members of the public and pays any attendant charges – none of which, by the way, seems to have occurred to Kobach as a potential contingency.

As an aside,** I wish someone would let the Colorado AG know that demanding sensitive citizen information so that a panel of acknowledged voter suppression experts can play with it does not comprise a request for anyone’s “opinion” – a point that seems to have also escaped our own AG, Jay Ashcroft, who is more than willing to kiss the iron heel of federal authority as long as it serves the goal of Republican electoral hegemony.

Finally, to give you an idea about just how really low Ashcroft’s willing collaboration is, consider the fact that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed suit yesterday to stop this illegitimate and potentially dangerous information grab:

“[T]he Commission had already committed two egregious security blunders,” EPIC said in a statement on its website. “(1) directing state election officials to send voter records to an unsecure web site and (2) proposing to publish partial SSNs that would enable identity theft and financial fraud.”

In its suit requesting a temporary injunction against the commission’s data collection activities, filed in the D.C. District Court, the group called the request for partial Social Security numbers “both without precedent and crazy.”
It also accused the commission of violating the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires a privacy impact assessment be completed and made available to the public before the collection of personal information by the federal government using information technology. No assessment was conducted before requesting voter data, the suit alleges.

The commission’s broad request for data combined with the lack of any privacy assessment could “cause irreparable harm to EPIC’s members,” the suit alleged.

“Once data has been leaked, there is no way to control its spread,” it continued. “With a data breach, there is literally no way to repair the damage, once done.”

At the very least we ought to demand that our Attorney General respect the strictures of the E-Government Act of 2002 and cease and desist in his effort to empower the GOP election fraud sham. If you want to let him know about it and perhaps register a few choice comments on his behavior, the number is 573-571-4936 and ask for the Elections Division.

** Addendum (7/5/2017): I should have also added here that Ashcroft’s statement that the commission’s “questions” are fair defies belief. How is it fair for an “independent commission,” run out of the President’s office – a president who has already started his 2020 campaign – to ask states for information about how citizens have voted since 2006 along with identifying information? On a deeper level, how is it fair to use tax money to investigate a problem for which the only evidence is the pulled-out-thin-air fantasy of partisans and a seriously unstable president? I might just as credibly convene a panel to explore the possibilities that Donald Trump has used arcane magic to control weather patterns. Or whether or not Barack Obama was born in Kenya. One might be tempted to ask what planet Ashcroft inhabits except that the reasons for his glee in assisting this sham commission are obvious.

(Editorial cartoon removed 3:57 pm 7/4/2017)

Why is Ann Wagner bowing out of the Senate race?

03 Monday Jul 2017

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Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) laid to rest the wide-spread speculation that she would challenge Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill next year when she announced that she planned to run instead to retain her 2nd district House seat. Wagner’s explanation:

The 2nd District is my home,” the third-term congresswoman added. “It’s where I grew up, went to school, have worked and volunteered, raised my kids, and attend church every week — there is no greater honor than representing a place and people that I love.”

Since there are many who would dispute Wagner’s assertion that she represents “people that I love,” given that she is known to treat her constituents as if they are the carriers of infectious disease and assiduously avoids all but the most controlled contact with them, her mommy-dearest statement leaves the questions about her motivations up in the air.

In recent months influential Missouri GOP figures like John Danforth and money-man Sam Fox have conspicuously snubbed Wagner while trying to persuade the new state Attorney General, Josh Hawley, to enter the Senate contest. Since Hawley is relatively inexperienced and lacks Wagner’s political contacts, many have assumed that the effort to recruit Hawley reflects nothing more than Missouri Republican sexism.

I would suggest, however, that, while sexism may play a role in the considerations that animate the GOP power-brokers in Missouri, what we are seeing is a coherent, hard-headed political strategy intended to optimize the chances to keep Wagner’s House seat safely in GOP hands and capture the Senate seat. It’s all a matter of plugging the right people into the right slots at the right time.

Wagner stays where she is – Republican lock on the 2nd remains strong

Wagner would not necessarily be a shoo-in in a state-wide race. As an elitist, corporate Republican she would likely not generate too much enthusiasm among out-state, red-meat conservatives – the same folks who often take exception to the equally corporatist GOP Senator Blunt. Being a woman may not go over as well with that particular constituency either – which is where sexism takes its obligatory bow as part of the political calculus.

On the other hand, Wagner is still the best bet for the 2nd district House race. She has consistently outperformed former Democratic challengers by a large margin. However, although the district retains a strong Republican bias, the last redistricting introduced a more moderate element into the mix. Add to that the fact that, in contrast to former years, three potentially viable Democratic candidates for the 2nd district have come forward and the state party has indicated that they will be offering more support than in past years – suggesting that folks are smelling blood in the water, and another reason that an erstwhile heavy-hitter like Wagner may have been suborned into staying where she is, for the time-being at least. Bringing in a GOP newcomer to run against a well-funded and attractive Democratic candidate could make retaining the seat quite a bit more iffy.

Hawley goes to Washington

Josh Hawley is not only a male, he’s an ultra conservative lawyer who is described by The Washington Examiner as “a conservative dream candidate ” who is “young, energetic, attractive, an outsider — a Federalist Society down the line intellectual.” His public rhetoric and participation in a rightwing religious “discrimination” Supreme Court case have established his evangelical, God-centered-government credentials. All gold I would suppose, at least in the minds of his advocates.

As for finance, one of Wagner’s strong points, given Hawley’s growing list of supporters in GOP power circles, when it comes to the filthy lucre, he shouldn’t have too difficult a time equaling or exceeding her stockpile. And, of course, there’s the fact that McCaskill, who will be running to defend her seat, is widely perceived to be among the most vulnerable Democratic senators. This could be the right time to bring a newcomer into the GOP Washington stable.

Reality check

Of course, such a strategy depends on lots of variables, some of which might just constitute the proverbial monkey wrench in GOP expectations: Trump’s plunging popularity, possible negative Obamacare repeal & replace blowback, and the degree to which Trumpian and Republican excesses have energized Democratic voters. In April, for instance, Politico noted that Democrats who have been assumed to be particularly at risk are posting “eye-popping fundraising numbers,” including Senator McCaskill whose “$2.8 million haul […] shattered fundraising records in Missouri, raising more than any other senator or Senate hopeful in her state during the first quarter of an off year.”

You know how the old saying goes: you shouldn’t count your chickens until they’re hatched. You can’t blame Missouri Republicans, however, for trying to set up the best hatchery that they can – and that effort, more than misogyny, probably accounts for Wagner’s decision. She’s always been a good little GOP trooper.

Jay Ashcoft hearts Kris Kobach

02 Sunday Jul 2017

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This last week the childish vitriol emanating from the White House – and you know I mean the infamous Mika-Joe tweet tantrum – finally just did me in. It struck me that surely nobody, but nobody, outside his crowd of dim-witted sycophants, could take the clown-in-charge seriously, and perhaps we could all just start ignoring him and concentrate on the real threats presented by the usual GOP suspects who are plugging along, doing yeoman duty on behalf of the oligarchy. But no such luck. The problem with venal crazy in high places is that it puts out tendrils and if you’re not careful, it’ll leave its slimy trails all over your own backyard.

In this case the slime trail leads from Trump’s ironically named Election Integrity Commission, which is headed up by noted voter suppression guru, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and, nominally, by Vice-President Mike Pence who, as Governor of Indiana, had his own voter suppression scandals. This commission is ostensibly an outgrowth of Donald Trump’s conviction that he would surely have won the popular vote instead of losing by three million votes were it not for voter fraud – especially voter fraud involving “illegal aliens” illegally voting. However, the commission, given its personnel and the nature of its charge, also provides an excellent tool for furthering GOP voter suppression goals, not an insignificant consideration for a president with a seriously negative approval rating who’s already holding fundraisers for his 2020 presidential run.

It’s interesting that the Election Integrity Commission’s charge is not, as one might expect if it were legitimately concerned with election integrity, to look into the very real possibility that Russia hacked election machines in 2016, but to “to protect and preserve the principle of one person, one vote” – in spite of the fact that there is no evidence that that principle is in any way at risk. In essence, its members will ignore the biggest threat to election integrity that we’ve seen for over a hundred years in order to concentrate on unsupported accusations of domestic voter fraud.

As a first step, the Commission has demanded the voter registration rolls of all 50 states, including full names, address, DOB, military status, criminal history, political party affiliation, voter record from 2006 forward, and the last four Social Security number digits of every voter. Kobach has implied that this information will be used in conjunction with other databases to determine whether or not (1) non-citizens have voted, (2) citizens have voted fraudulently via duplicate registrations; and/or (3) whether there are large numbers of moribund names on the voter rolls – which would not indicate fraud per se, but which could trigger demands for voter roll purges that, incidentally, are one of Kobach’s hallmark voter suppression tricks.

Given Kobach’s past performance, you can be sure that the Commission will likely affirm all three possibilities – he has, after all, notoriously used just this type of data to produce what experts in data analysis describe as spurious results that he has nevertheless used to disenfranchise thousands of voters. According to one analysis, the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, the analytic tool promoted by Kobach to compare voter rolls, “disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters.” His probity is such that he was recently fined a thousand dollars for lying in court about documents concerning voter eligibility requirements.

Which brings us to Missouri and its Secretary of State, Republican Jay Ashcroft, the man charged with safeguarding the state’s voter rolls. While as many as a dozen states have refused to comply with the demand for their voter’s private information – including five deep red states that went heavily for Trump – around twenty have indicated that they will only comply with the demand insofar as they are permitted to do so by their respective state laws – they will only deliver information that is otherwise available to the public. Ashcroft has put Missouri among the latter group. He posted this statement on the Webpage of the Office of the Secretary of State:

For 40 years under Missouri law (Ch. 115.157, RSMo) certain data is publicly available. The commission’s letter asks for ‘publicly-available’ information, which we would share with any person or organization making an open records request. We will protect Missourians’ private information. The laws of each state are different, and in Missouri, some of the data requested by the commission is open to the public. We plan to comply by providing publicly-available information per state law.

The commission’s questions are fair and we will be glad to assist in offering our thoughts on these important matters. I look forward to working with Secretary Kris Kobach and the commission on its findings and offer our support in the collective effort to enhance the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the elections process.

Personally, I’ve got nothing against sharing publicly available data with the commission provided that they pay any charges that other members of the public might be expected to pay. But did you notice how conciliatory Ashcroft’s statement is? Butter wouldn’t melt, as they say.

Of course, as Tony Messenger has ably pointed out, Ashcroft’s friendly response is more than a little hypocritical coming from the representative of a Missouri Republican party that has been throwing hysterical fits about the violation of privacy represented by the federal Real ID requirements and a proposed state-wide opioid database, as well as efforts to make campaign spending a bit more transparent. All well and good, but it strikes me that the real story is the welcoming tenor of Ashcroft’s response along with the fact that, so far at least, I’ve not heard of any anguished squeals coming from the state’s erstwhile fervid GOP defenders of privacy or states’ rights.

Ashcroft certainly is in stark contrast to many other Secretaries of State, even many of those who have also agreed to turn over the pieces of data that are otherwise publicly available. Many have voiced concerns about the security of files that contain sensitive information, as well as propriety of participating in what rather obviously seems to be, in the words of Kentucky’s Alison Grimes, an exercise that is “at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country.”

If you have any doubts abut the goals of the commission, Richard Hassan describes its slap-dash nature:

There is no professional staff, a B-list of token Democrats to give the commission a bipartisan veneer, and the work is being done out of the Executive Office of the President. (Given that Trump is an announced candidate for the next presidential election, he’s hardly a person who can be counted on for a fair and impartial review.)

Most importantly, the commission includes a rogue’s gallery of the country’s worst voter suppressors. Not just Kobach, but former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who was notorious for rejecting Ohio voter registration forms because they were not printed on heavy enough paper. And on Thursday, Trump added Hans von Spakovsky, one of the original leaders of what I termed the Fraudulent Fraud Squad.

And yet our Secretary of State looks forward to collaborating with a panel that all but proclaims it’s intention are anything but election integrity.

Ashcroft’s stance, though, may not really so surprising. He is, after all, a staunch advocate the state’s new Voter ID law which most of us know is no more than a subterfuge meant to depress Democratic voting turnout.  Just consider Ashcroft’s implementation efforts so far if you are still inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. It is his job to ensure that Missourians are prepared for the changes in voter requirements which went into effect in June. Significantly, according to an editorial in the Kansas City Star, days before the effective date there was still “much confusion.”

Ashcroft has done little to change that situation and it doesn’t appear likely that his educational campaign will ever rise above the perfunctory. To date, Ashcroft seems to be actively trying to get the word out to as few as possible. He has pooh-pooed the need to allocate adequate funds to send mailers out to educate the public about the new law. Instead he has opted to hold a spate of meetings across the state, often, according some attendees, involving no more than 20-30 people – meetings which are supposed to inform millions of Missourians about a major change in voting requirements. Nor has anyone I’ve talked to been able to tell me if Ashcroft’s informational meetings have involved any effort to target audiences that are most likely to be affected negatively by the new law. Finally, according to reports about the contents of his “informational” meetings, he is so uninterested in alleviating the potential negative effects of the law that he is often unable to answer pertinent questions about how the law will work.

To summarize, Ashcroft has done the bare minimum to educate Missourians about the new law, a law with the potential to disenfranchise many legitimate voters. He has made a quick speaking tour and posted some informational documents on the Webpage of the Secretary of State’s Office. The Head of the Springfield NAACP has noted that “the law and its rollout remains complicated and confusing,” adding that “we also believe the plans for notification for all who may be affected to be insufficient.”

Do any of these facts help you understand why Secretary of State Ashcroft isn’t worried about violating your privacy in this instance? Do you think he might be serving a “bigger,” more partisan, cause? Doesn’t it seem obvious why our Secretary of State is so willing to run in tandem with Kris Kobach’s voter suppression machine?

If you think you know the answers to those questions, and you don’t like what you know, you can always call one Maura Browning, the Communications Director in the Office of the Missouri Secretary of State and register your objections. The number is: (573) 526-0949