Early in August I wrote that among other state-level strategies to derail Obamacare:

GOP lawmakers have learned a thing or two from their “War on Women” strategy of regulating reproductive choice almost out of existence, and seem to be using the same regulatory approach to sabotage the Obamacare exchange. Otherwise religiously anti-regulation GOPers have decided that they must rigorously regulate individuals, known as navigators, hired to help Missourians use the exchanges lest they engage in “fraud.” And if they manage in the process to slow the information stream to a trickle, well, what can you do?

A recent Salon article by Brian Buetler makes it clear that this effort to keep reliable information from those who most need Obamacare has become a coordinated national-level strategy, directed toward those states with the most to loose, those that have the largest uninsured populations. Prominent among these states is Missouri which is now on the receiving end of both state-level and national-level Obamacare obstructionism:

For the most part, Republican state elected officials have undertaken the most direct efforts to stand between uninsured people and Obamacare – refusing to launch their own exchanges and expand Medicaid – while Republicans in federal office fight a more symbolic fight.

But now a group of House Republicans has crossed that line – by attempting to bog down Obamacare enrollment specialists in states with the highest uninsured populations, according to a new Salon analysis.

Last week, as several other outlets reported, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to state agencies and nonprofit groups that received Obamacare “navigator” grants – organizations that will help educate people about the law and facilitate their enrollment – seeking an incredibly broad and difficult-to-compile range of information.

In order to do the most harm, the House Republicans directed their inquiries to organizations in 11 states with larger uninsured populations than in other states – including Missouri. As Beutler notes, claims that the inquires are meant to protect the privacy of those using the exchanges ring hollow since the Committee members seem unconcerned with protecting the privacy of Obamacare exchange users in any of the remaining 39 states, instead, he writes, the “targeting scheme was meant to maximize bang for their buck.” Supporting this contention is the timing of the inquires; Beutler quotes Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA):

“The timing of these letters is particularly suspect,” Waxman wrote in a letter to Upton protesting the investigation. “You are insisting on voluminous document productions by September 13, just when these groups need to be focused on their mission of helping uninsured Americans enroll for coverage. Indeed, it appears that these requests may have been sent solely to divert the resources of small, local community groups, just as they are needed to help with the new health care law.”

This latest bit of flim-flam is only the most recent in a long string of efforts to derail the healthcare delivery reforms we democratically authorized in the election of 2008 and reaffirmed in 2012. The Republicans who were sent to do the people’s business in Washington D.C. have even descended to the level of trying to intimidate national sports franchises to keep them from helping publicize Obamacare benefits. This level of opposition is beyond cynical; it’s truly vile.

I am a cancer patient. Last Friday, I learned that I am, after a lengthy and complex treatment process involving two surgeries and seemingly endless chemotherapy, in remission. I happen to have access to good insurance and received truly excellent care. I cannot imagine what would have happened if I had been uninsured – although one thing I am sure of, given the nature of my particular cancer symptoms, is that I would have been diagnosed at an even later stage of the disease and I would likely be dead now, rendering questions of my ongoing care moot.

From this perspective, I not only want to know what is being done to counteract this disgusting effort to hurt real, actual people in the name of a trumped-up, long-discredited, rightwing ideology that sees efforts to use collective resources for public benefit as some type of suspect “socialism” that must be stopped at all costs. I also want to know who is going to publicize the evil perpetrated by Republican Obamacare fraudsters during the past few years. I want their names and their crimes on a publicly accessible list.

I want the Republicans in Missouri who have participated in these and other Obamacare charades, who have promulgated disinformation and outright lies to be held accountable in a way that hurts them as much as they have hurt the citizens of the state. I have never been an eye for an eye kind of person. I have always scoffed at the whining of crime victims who carry on as if they and they alone have the right to determine what punishment is adequate to the crimes carried out against them, but this time I want to know that Republicans who have participated in GOP’s descent into evil will have to pay.

The fallout from the 2013 legislative session ought to give Missourians pause. To date, Governor Nixon has vetoed 23 bills that made it out of the session – and he still has 10 days in which to increase that total. And given that the infamous gun bill that seeks to nullify all federal gun legislation is still outstanding, we can only cross our fingers and hope that our governor will go for at least one more veto.  

Some of these bills are truly, horrendously dangerous and the governor had no other option but to veto them. I’m mainly thinking here of the corporate tax cut bill that aimed to take us down the same road as Kansas – which just had its economic development credit rating downgraded as a result of its tax “reform.” Others, while potentially harmful, are little more than exercises in fantasy. Here I’m referencing bills like those that sought to ban Sharia law or Agenda 21, you know, major threats that keep us up at night – at least those of us who’re both brain dead and paranoid.

Some bills, however, failed the smell test because they were, as the Governor noted, “shoddily drafted.” In other words, the whiz kids we sent to Jefferson City can’t manage to write legislation that doesn’t overshoot its goals or isn’t so carelessly crafted that it could withstand a legal challenge. I guess it’s just too hard to write laws when you don’t have some outside lobbyist or the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) handing you model legislation you can crib off of.

So far, I’ve just been describing what the Republican majority in the legislature actually did. What they didn’t do is equally remarkable. Transportation infrastructure funding, tax credit reform, the state’s outstanding education needs, you name it, they couldn’t deal with it effectively – and given their favored solutions, we should all probably hold our tongues and hope the stalemate continues.

Finally, in addition to what the legislators did that they shouldn’t do, and what they couldn’t do, there are the things they wouldn’t do. Foremost in that category is make sure that over 260,000 uninsured Missourians get health care. In order to keep these folks uninsured, our brilliant lawmakers had to turn down big wads of federal money – money that Missouri tax payers send to the federal government that would have been returned to the state. And that money would not only have helped the uninsured, but would have boosted the health care industry and created jobs.

To be fair, House Speaker Tim Jones has appointed some study groups to consider “Medicaid reform” prior to the next session. There are those who think that this action may be a ploy to escape the possibly very bad consequences of not taking the Feds’ Medicaid offer. What these groups will manage to produce, though, remains to be seen and if there’s a way to punish those who have to rely on Medicaid and to pare benefits to the minimum, I’ll bet Jones’ pals will manage to find it.

So all this leaves us with the question: Why do you suppose that our lawmakers are working to destroy the quality of life in our state? Why do they want Missouri to be a laughing stock? Do you think it might have something to do with the Republican majority in Jefferson City? Michel Cohen of the Guardian, speaking of the national level GOP, suggests that there could be some truth to that answer:

What is the single most consequential political development of the past five years? Some might say the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama; others might point to the passage of the most important piece of social policy (Obamacare) since the 1960s; some might even say the drawing down of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in reality, it is the rapid descent of the Republican party into madness.

Never before in American history have we seen a political party so completely dominated and controlled by its extremist wing; and never before have we seen a political party that brings together the attributes of nihilism, heartlessness, radicalism and naked partisanship quite like the modern GOP. In a two-party system like America’s, the result is unprecedented dysfunction.

Add comically ignorant and it sounds like Missouri’s GOP to me.

Today Ed Kilgore summarizes Sean Trende’s analyses suggesting that the GOP can forget minority outreach, deep-six the immigration bill with impunity, and win elections from now until 2040 with the white vote alone. However, if the GOP does decide that more rather than less racial polarization is the way to go, they’ll need every white vote that they can get. Sadly, there’s evidence that their policy positions on social issues are turning off younger white voters and white women, two groups with whom they’ll need to do a little better if they’re to realize success with the whites-only strategy.

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Reince Priebus seems to have decided to work on roping those wandering female voters back into the GOP corral. Evidence? Today marked the announcement of the formation of a Women on the Right UNITE project:

This Friday, six Republican committees will come together to launch “Women on the Right UNITE” – a joint project to promote the recruitment of and support for Republican women and women candidates – at a press conference in Washington. The committees include the Republican National Committee, Republican Governors Association, National Republican Senatorial Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, Republican State Leadership Committee, and College Republican National Committee. Each committee will announce substantive plans to promote the role of women within the party and encourage more women to get involved and run for office.

According to the Atlantic Wire, Republicans claim to be concerned that only 8% of the GOP members in the House of Representatives are women – and, of course, they also want to figure out how to present “a more streamlined and packaged message about why Republican policies are beneficial to women.” Don’t laugh. After all, if the GOP and its corporate allies can persuade a significant number of Americans that man-made climate change is a hoax, they just might pull this off.

Among the nine elected women from the House of Representatives who will be talking up women in the GOP as part of the project will be Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2). Wonder why not Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4)? Could it be that she and some of the remaining ten GOP women in the House might not have mastered the “nicer language” with which the GOP hopes female officials like Wagner will cloak the party’s anti-women policies? Could it be that she cuts a little too close to the fringewing home to be a safe participant in a PR effort to disguise the GOP war on women? I am assuming that the candidate for the “new Michele Bachmann” is not what Priebus wants out front.

It is worth noting, though, that women have actually been out front in the GOP for awhile and it hasn’t done the party much good when it comes creating distance from the war on women rhetoric:

In fact, Republican women have been involved in lots of controversies that helped portray the GOP as anti-woman. Reps. Diane Black and Marsha Roby have sponsored legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. Rep. Michele Bachmann portrayed Texas’s requirement that teens get an HPV vaccination – it prevents cervical cancer – as some kind of weird sex thing: “And to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong.” That famous Virginia bill that would have required transvaginal ultrasounds before abortions last year? It was sponsored by a woman, Del. Kathy J. Byron. Byron defended the transvaginal ultrasound requirement, saying, “if we want to talk about invasiveness, there’s nothing more invasive than the procedure that she is about to have.”

While it will be interesting to see if the GOP can obfuscate and confuse women about what they really stand for, Republican women are still Republicans – and that includes Ann Wagner. When push comes to shove, there won’t be a hair’s breadth between the way Wagner and Hartzler perform.  

Stage Buisness:  Small actions … Used to fill time, create character, and sometimes to make the action “more realistic.”

Today Ann Wagner delivered the GOP Weekly Address. Although Wagner is running against Democrat Glenn Koenen for the 2nd district House seat formerly occupied by Todd Akin, we don’t hear much from her apart from an occasional mailer. She and to all appearances everybody else seems to take it for granted that she’s going to cakewalk into congress given the makeup of the district, the lack of Democratic party support for Koenen, and her enthusiastic Republican party support.

Wagner’s foregone winner status is just one of the qualifications that might have led to her selection as the GOP spokesperson of the week. She’s well-connected when it comes to Republican  party movers and shakers, of course, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s the GOP’s Missouri anti-Akin. While her votes in congress probably won’t differ too very much from what Akin’s would have been, unlike Akin she’s no dummy. It’s an understatement to say that she has the über-respectable patina that characterizes the successful members of the corporatist GOP establishment. No need to fear crude statements about legitimate rape or bullshitsus from Wagner.  

Wagner’s theme was Obama’s “Failed Presidency.” What else. She hit all the requisite bullet points. She started with the obligatory doom and gloom designed to deflect attention from the recovery – folks are hurting, debt is exploding, Obamacare scares small businessmen, and obstructs doctor-patient relationships, yada yada.

Nary a mention of the slow but steady job growth, improving housing market, increased consumer confidence, strong stock market performance, all the indicators that the economy is at last finding its legs after the battering it took at the hands of folks espousing the policies advocated by the current GOP presidential standard bearers. As Steven Kornacki notes in Salon, the irony of our current situation vis-a-vis naysayers like Wagner, is that an economic recovery set in motion by President Obama will likely be attributed to whoever wins the election this November.  

What else did she have to say? Wagner wants more domestic fossil fuel energy and claims that Obama has obstructed its development in spite of the fact his policies have increased coal and natural gas production to the point that the U.S. is now a net energy exporter. Nor has the Obama administration neglected green energy industries which are exploding – a true all-of-the-above approach to energy to which even the new moderate Mitt pays lip-service. Far from waging the “war on coal” that Wagner invokes, under Obama coal mining has expanded – to the dismay of many of his supporters. It is true that the Obama EPA has moved to regulate the toxic byproducts of coal-sourced energy – and as an exile from the clean ocean winds of the California coast who is now trapped in a city that can’t manage to meet minimal EPA standards, I, and every asthma-afflicted, lung cancer-ridden denizen of St. Louis, say more power to them.

I’m sure that Wagner performed as expected. The purpose of such set pieces, after all, is simply to disguise the artificial nature of the Republican political project. Given the emptiness of GOP policy proposals, and the fact-free assertions about what has transpired over the past fourteen years, such stage business seems to be in constant demand. Fortunately, there are numerous Republican actors in the political theatre who specialize in delivering their well-rehearsed lines right on cue. Looks like Missouri’s going to send one of them to the House of Representatives.  

Seems like Todd Akin isn’t the only member of his family who has problems understanding simple linguistic concepts. Just consider the following statement from Todd Akin’s wife (National Journal via Talking Points Memo):

Lulli Akin said that efforts to push her husband out of the race threaten to replace elections “by the people and for the people” with “tyranny, a top-down approach.” She added, “Party bosses dictating who is allowed to advance through the party and make all the decisions-it’s just like 1776 in that way.”

She cited colonists who “rose up and said, ‘Not in my home, you don’t come and rape my daughters and my … wife. But that is where we are again. There has been a freedom of elections, not tyranny of selections since way back. Why are we going to roll over and let them steamroll us, be it Democrats or Republicans or whomever?”

Perhaps, given that all actions, incuding Todd Akin’s, have consequences, his treatment by members of his party could be viewed as “legitimate” rape? I can see where the RNC might be inclined to say he was asking for it.

Tasteless jokes aside, though, it seems to me that what has happened is that the national party asked Akin to consider the good of his faction, he declined and they washed their hands of him. Actually, I’m sympathetic to the claim that that Akin is the legitimate candidate, but it doesn’t seem to me that anyone is contesting that fact. However, it also seems to me that withdrawing support for a damaged candidate is the prerogative of a national political organization that has to spend its dollars wisely. And now Akin’s wife is comparing the action to rape? She thinks that the GOP doesn’t have a right to be concerned about losing what is for them a crucial Senate seat?

Aside from the sheer joy of playing victim in such a grandiose way – even Brother Todd noted that comparisons to 1776 might be a little over the top – lots of this rhetoric seems to stem from nothing more than basic confusion about the actual meaning of words. Of course, this linguistic confusion may be the best thing that Akin has going for him since lots of Missourians seem to be equally unclear on many of the same concepts that cause Akin difficulty. It’s not just rape, but the way that Akin and his supporters use words like religion, socialism and freedom that reflect today’s strangely twisted right-wing logic. Do you think the explanation for the right-wing effort to revisit and reinterpret history, science and even language itself might be as simple as the exhausted and worn-out nature of conservative ideology itself?  

When I was about thirteen years old, I used to faithfully watch the TV series Leave it to Beaver. The series centered on a family, the Cleavers, who, according to Wikipedia, exemplified “the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century.” I, however, watched because I thought Beaver’s big brother, Wally, was the cutest boy ever. My crush didn’t last too long, but I can still remember all the characters on the show. Which is why I had a real aha moment when Jonathan Bernstein noted the resemblance between a character on the show, Eddie Haskell, and GOP Veep candidate Paul Ryan. After some thought, it occurred to me that both Eddie and his sidekick on the show, Lumpy Rutherford, foils to the too-good-to-be true Cleaver boys, have a lot in common with many members of today’s Republican Party.

For those of you who are too young to have watched Leave it to Beaver, which aired between 1957 and 1963, this description of Eddie captures the critical points:

Eddie’s two trademarks are his unctuous politeness to adults and his weasly, sharp-tongued meanness to everybody else. He is a model white-collar delinquent, a creep who goads people into trouble rather than perpetrating the crime himself. He was a born shirker, not worker, and a strain on any parent, especially his own long-suffering mother and father, Agnes and George. […] but really, when it comes to Eddie, when you’ve said “creep,” you’ve said it all.

Just think of Ryan trotting his 78 year old Mother out before the old folks in Florida, talking up the need to keep Medicare safe from Obama, with nary a word about his plan to destroy the program in all but name. Or think about all his smarmy lies during the Republican convention. Pure Eddie. Missouri’s Roy Blunt also has his Eddie Haskell moments, kissing up to rich, corporate types, sidestepping the hard questions with GOP talking points and pious bromides, delivering a swift kick in the behind to those who have nothing he wants, while pretending, after years as a Washington socialite, that he’s still a down-home boy. Romney, himself, the etch-a-sketch king of mendacity, surely qualifies as the archetypal Eddie.

Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford, the second Leave it to Beaver character that comes to mind, is an equally common type in the GOP. Lumpy has been described as follows:

… he is the first bully that the Cleaver boys must deal with. Pretty soon his true cowardly, lumbering self shows through, and they see him for a kind of harmless buffoon. As he continues to “swell up,” everybody gets a good laugh at Lumpy’s expense, but as long as he’s getting his three squares and a few snacks in-between and his father is not yelling at him to much, he’s a happy enough boob, sporting a silly sort of dodo’s grin. When things are going poorly, which is most of the time, he still whines for his “Daddy.

Although Lumpy happily carried out Eddie Haskell’s mean-minded schemes without a thought, he never really understood the goals of the underlying plan. He just wanted to hang with the guys and be accepted.

We’ve got lots of Lumpys here in Missouri. If Ed Martin were fictional, I’d have suspected that the author based his character on Lumpy. Jim Lembke? Maybe. Brian Nieves is perhaps a tad too angry, potentially violent and unstable, but otherwise he fits the criteria – although on second thought, he’s actually more like a Lumpy who thinks he’s an Eddie.

On the national scene, I’d suggest politicians like Joe Walsh, who thinks the way to answer Sandra Fluke’s critique of the GOP is to tell her to get a job, and Steve King. They’re both mean, not too bright, and more than willing to do the dirty work that comes their way. King actually tried to come to Todd Akin’s rescue until he figured out that the big guys weren’t heading in that direction and it was wiser to back off. Romney recently endorsed his re-election effort, declaring that “I want him as my partner in Washington!” Eddie and Lumpy, together again.

There are, of course, folks in the Republican Party who aren’t conniving or bullies, people more like the Cleaver boy’s parents. They’re conventional, kind, if a bit smug, not at all evil, but just somewhat blinkered when it comes to reality. For example, just like Wally and the Beaver’s dad who was always kind to the hapless Lumpy, elder GOP statesman John Danforth endorsed Ed Martin. While these folks seem to find the Eddie Haskells and Lumpy Rutherfords in their party distasteful, they are also mostly unwilling to risk the wrath of these new GOPers who have usurped the more genteel Republican party of yesteryear.      

Talking Points Memo, which seems totally captivated by Todd Akin – Brother Todd’s potential for generating a laugh is no longer a local secret –  today reports that he thinks that not only has he not harmed the Republican party, but that:

…  the race in Missouri has changed and that, at least according to his view, his bid for the Senate now has more appeal from independent voters who look down upon establishment figures such as “party bosses.”

In other words, Akin thinks that among the so-called independents there are voters so disgusted with the top-down structure of political parties – a structure, incidentally, that caused him little or no problem for over ten years – that they’re willing to vote for any batcrap crazy wingnut who’s got nothing to lose by defying party leadership.

On the surface this seems absurd. However, I actually heard someone interviewed on the radio yesterday who claimed that he voted for Obama in 2008, but was disappointed by the lack of “hope and change” and was considering Romney this time around. This indicates to me that there are at least some people out there who aren’t capable of actually understanding the overwhelming philosophical and policy differences between the two parties right now.

Because Obama didn’t kiss the boo-boo and make it go away right away, they’ll take whatever else is on offer, even the guy who wants to take us right back to the bad old Bush days. They seem to have forgotten just what change it was we were hoping for. Nor do they understand that change takes work and persistence over time, especially when you’re dealing with a world-class mess while fighting the obstructionism of the dead-enders who created the mess in the first place.

Would these same folks not really worry about what Akin stands for as long as he rails against the establishment? And does this mean that there really are people who vote for slogans, not substance? If so, who’s to say that Brother Todd’s strategy, railing against “party bosses,” might not lend itself to some telling one liners.  

And by giving him his due, I don’t mean snickering, giggling, or snorting. The guy’s got chutzpah. And, as far as principle goes, I’m not sure he doesn’t come off better than the party he represents. Consider the comments of Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee Chairman, who believes that Akin has an obligation to be pragmatic and put the party before his own ambitions (video at TPM):

… What I do love about some people in politics is they’re in it for the cause. They really do believe this is about liberty and freedom and the future of our country. If that’s really where you’re at and you have an opportunity to put someone else in pace who has a better chance at winning than you do,well then, you know, you’re not always the person who has to be the guy and I just think that the people who want to do something special are always better than the people who want to be somebody special …

Then, when asked if the Republican Party would consider acting in an equally pragmatic way, putting the good of the party before spite directed at Akin,  Priebus reacts vehemently, exclaiming that, “No, no. No. He could be tied. We’re not going to send him a penny.”  

Who would be hurting the Party most in this scenario? Evidently, when it comes to forgiving Akin, whose main sin, apart from bad biology, was to publicly enunciate the set of beliefs that are written into the GOP party platform – and that, incidentally, matches the policy prescriptions of the Vice-Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan – the Party is willing to cut off its nose to spite its face.

And, after hearing Mr. Priebus going on about the GOP liberty and freedom brigade, I can’t forbear adding that, in the unlikely scenario where one had to choose the GOPer who really believes the nonsense the new, extreme right-wing Republican Party dishes up, I’d take Todd Akin, repulsive as he is, over corporate toady Roy Blunt and pork king Kit Bond just about any day.