Today, republican State Treasurer candidate Cole McNary’s campaign benefited from the largesse of two related contributors. At the Missouri Ethics Commission:
C081190 10/24/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY David Humphreys PO Box 4050 Joplin MO 64803 Tamko 10/22/2012 $100,000.00
C081190 10/24/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY Ethylmae Humphreys 2505 E 11th Street Joplin MO 64801 Retired 10/22/2012 $25,000.00
[emphasis added]
Still, for now, they only get one vote apiece.
But wait, there’s more:
C081190 10/24/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY Citizens for Diehl 2404 White Stable Rd Saint Louis MO 63131 10/22/2012 $10,000.00
[emphasis added]
I don’t believe a campaign committee gets to vote in an election. The good thing for the candidate is that these contributions show a bit of geographic diversity. A bit.
It’s the end of the quarter. The big money elves in the republican campaign finance industrial complex have been busily propping up their fringe statewide candidates. Via the Missouri Ethics Commission.
In the Secretary of State race:
C061132 09/14/2012 SCHOELLER FOR MISSOURI Citizens For Diehl 2404 White Stable Road St Louis MO 63131 9/14/2012 $10,000.00
C061132 09/14/2012 SCHOELLER FOR MISSOURI Friends of Tilley 100 S. Jackson Perryville MO 63775 9/14/2012 $10,000.00
C061132 09/17/2012 SCHOELLER FOR MISSOURI The Lamar Companies 7108 East 48th Terrace Kansas City MO 6412 9/17/2012 $89,300.00
C061132 09/27/2012 SCHOELLER FOR MISSOURI Jerry Sumners PO Box 604 Aurora MO 65605 Service Vending Company Chairman 9/26/2012 $6,973.59
C061132 09/27/2012 SCHOELLER FOR MISSOURI Lewis and Clark Council of the Ozarks Mountain Forum 2974 E Battlefield Springfield MO 65804 9/27/2012 $15,000.00
C061132 09/29/2012 SCHOELLER FOR MISSOURI Parson For State Senate 940 N Redel Pl Bolivar MO 65613 9/29/2012 $7,500.00
C061132 10/01/2012 SCHOELLER FOR MISSOURI Menlo Smith 15009 Manchester Rd #284 Ballwin MO 63011 Retired Retired 10/1/2012 $15,000.00
[emphasis added]
Shane Schoeller (r) didn’t much impress Yael Abouhalkah:
Shane Schoeller is running to be Missouri’s next secretary of state. But being incompetent at recognizing real problems facing that office won’t encourage voters to support Schoeller, who faces Democrat Jason Kander on the Nov. 6 ballot….
After the headline it’s all down hill.
In the State Treasurer race:
C081190 09/20/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY Citizens for Timothy W Jones PO Box 434 Eureka MO 63025 9/19/2012 $5,005.00
C081190 09/21/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY Lewis and Clark Council Ozarks Mountain Forum 2974 East Battlefield Springfield MO 65804 9/20/2012 $15,000.00
C081190 09/29/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY Friends of Tilley 100 S Jackson Perryville MO 63775 9/28/2012 $10,000.00
C081190 09/29/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY Herzog Contracting Corp PO Box 1089 St Joseph MO 64502 9/28/2012 $25,000.00
C081190 10/01/2012 FRIENDS TO ELECT COLE MCNARY Citizens for John Diehl 2404 White Stable Rd Town and Country MO 63131 9/30/2012 $8,000.00
[emphasis added]
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Ed Martin (r) is in a whole other league of lunatic fringe.
There’s a distinct difference in the fundraising success of the two candidates for State Treasurer, incumbent State Treasurer Clint Zweifel (D) and republican challenger Cole McNary (r).
Few individuals would grudge the costs or inconvenience of childproofing cupboards to protect small children from stored poisons.* Most of us would laugh angrily at anyone who tried to tell us that poison is not really that dangerous when ingested by toddlers, that it might even be beneficial since repeated small amounts could create immunity, or that rational measures to protect our children will create weak and dependent individuals who can’t look out for themselves.
However, when the issue is anthropogenic global warming, which could effectively poison our children’s and grand-children’s future, many of us are willing to listen to climate change contrarians who tell us that global warming isn’t really all that dangerous, it costs too much to do what is necessary to stop it, and that we will destroy capitalism if we try to do anything about it.
This message is exactly what Reps. Sue Allen (R-92) and Cole McNary (R-86) are sending to their constituents as they attempt to gin up opposition to cap-and-trade legislation. In a follow-up e-mail to those who attended the showing of the film, Not Evil, Just Wrong, that they sponsored in October, they confuse climate issues that only science can authoritatively address with theoretical economic and political concerns:
It is our view that the best alternatives [i.e. to addressing climate change] lie in an understanding of science and history. How did the West, particularly the United States, become so much wealthier and cleaner than the rest of the world? Life expectancy has doubled since the beginning of the 19th century – truly remarkable. A political system that protects our individual rights to life, liberty and property has a lot to do with our progress. It’s a system that leaves scientists free to study and report their findings. It allows businessmen to innovate and produce, and it allows individuals free to buy and sell goods and services of value in a free-market.
Nor do they forget the right-wing strategy du jour which is to suggest that inconvenient scientific truths can be ignored or reformulated because they pose a threat to the American Way of Life (and wealth):
Sadly, we are eroding the very systems that have lead to such widespread prosperity especially for the average working man.
The concerns that Allen and NcNary raise have no bearing on the cause of global warming, and do not contribute to solving the problem. So, to provide a veneer of scientific respectability to their ideological rabble-rousing, they provide links to a talk delivered by climate-change skeptic Richard Lindzen, and to a panel discussion featuring presentations by astrophysicist Willie Soon, and physicist Keith Lockitch of the Ayn Rand Istitute.
Soon, whose research is funded by the American Petroleum Institute, clings to a thoroughly debunked theory that climate change is not man-made, but the result of variations in solar radiation. Lockitch, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights (ARI), approaches the climate change debate from an Objectivist perspective that reflects hostility to environmentalism rather than compelling scientific argument.
Richard Lindzen is a somewhat different matter. He is the only one of the three who is actually a legitimate climate scientist, and, although his persistent critiques have been roundly rejected, he still retains some shred of respectability. Scientists writing at RealClimate and LogicalScience offer critiques of his positions here, here and here. As his arguments fail to gain traction, he has increasingly resorted to individual and collective ad hominem attacks on his colleagues.
Why, we ask, are our State Representatives promoting the views of discredited scientists, fools and charlatans. One answer is money. In Missouri, the coal-industry has lots to lose if meaningful cap-and-trade legislation is enacted. And certainly, if you look at the source of campaign funds for both Allen and McNary, you will note that, electric utilities, energy and natural resources sectors were among their most generous contributors in the past, although the sums were relatively small overall. Of course, apart from past support, it obviously doesn’t hurt freshmen representatives to cultivate their friends with an eye to the future.
Another, and possibly more compelling answer is ideology – that same furious, simple-minded, fringe conservatism that is responsible for retarding economic and social development across Missouri. This time, however, the stakes are too large; we cannot afford to permit failed ideology to prevail at the cost of our future.
When I fume, I just sputter. WillyK spouts sense. Of course, it helps that she has a firm grasp of facts on a wide variety of topics.
At the end of the showing of “Not Evil Just Wrong” Wednesday night, a docufictionary pretending that there’s solid reason to doubt that humans are causing global warming, the three Republican state reps who sponsored the evening–Sue Allen, Andrew Koenig, and Cole McNary, all from West County in St. Louis–took questions. Willy, after listening to a few audience members make remarks indicating they trusted the film’s nonsense, raised her hand and succinctly skewered the movie’s–well, to be charitable–inaccuracies.
The filmmakers had painted a grim picture of job loss because of precipitate switches from good ole dependable coal to such will o’ the wisp energy sources as solar and wind. Indeed, Representative Allen remarked afterward that those sources would not work in Missouri because we do not have enough sun or wind.
Willy responded that part of the point of the new energy legislation (ACES) is to construct a nationwide, standardized grid so that energy could easily, efficiently be moved from, say, sunny Arizona to Missouri when we need it or from windy Wyoming to our state. What’s more, strides are being made at storing such energy for future use.
Willy felt that the film’s misrepresentation of the intent in the cap-and trade legislation echoed its misrepresentation of climate and environmental concerns in the film, one of the most egregious examples being the claim that DDT had been banned for purposes of malaria eradication. In the U.S. legislation banning the use of DDT and in the later Stockholm convention, DDT was banned only for agricultural uses but its use was permitted for “medical vector” purposes, and indeed its use has continued outside the U.S and Europe where other factors had made use of DDT unnecessary. One of the reasons that DDT is not used more widely at present is that because of its overuse, mosquitoes are becoming resistant.
Willy suggested that if the elected officials conducting the discussion really wanted to discuss cap-and-trade in a fair way, rather than mislead in the same way that the film misled about global warming and DDT use, they should have also mentioned that the cap-and-trade provisions will take place slowly in order to allow people to transition to alternative energies. Furthermore, the legislation offers subsidies to help states with high coal use adapt to other kinds of energy.
Rep. McNary accepted her remarks graciously, urging her to send him links by e-mail to verify her claims. Later, though, when she made a second, briefer comment, he ran out of patience and suggested that perhaps she should rent a hall and arrange to hold her own event. Oops. He was finding her facts inconvenient. The liberal bias of reality can be annoying.
Despite that and other minor tensions between us and the organizers, Willy and I spoke to Representative Allen at the end of the Q & A, and Willy expressed her concern at seeing Rep. Allen associating herself with a film so riddled with inaccuracies. It’s a fair admonition, but I don’t hold much hope that she and the other two representatives will shun such bad company.
Wednesday night, State Reps. Sue Allen (R-92), Andrew Koenig (R-88), and Cole McNary (R-86) presided over a gathering of about 50 mostly true believers at a presentation of the film Not Evil Just Wrong. The showing, at Maryville University in West County, was clearly meant to set the stage for an attack on the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) now pending in Congress.
Cole McNary effectively established the evening’s tenor, declaring in his opening remarks there is no need to be misled by claims of a scientific consensus that confirms anthropogenic global warming, because, after all, the scientific method is not consensus, but the process of verification and duplication of results. (He also, shades of Todd Akin, offered up the rather obvious fact that he is no scientist – though he has studied science – which leaves one wondering how he thinks all those scientists reach a consensus.)
Not Evil Just Wrong was, as one might expect, just more of the same, although somewhat more sophisticated in its presentation. In an interview on Fox with Neil Cavuto, one of the film’s creators, Irish filmmaker Phelim McAleer, speaks of the movie as the emergence of “the cinematic wing of the tea party movement,” so you would be correct if you expected lots of high dudgeon and little substance. A fuller account of its contents and methods can be found here.
The real evil that this film does, though, was only fully on display when the three state lawmakers lined up at the conclusion and attempted to use the misrepresentations and fuzzy equivalencies presented by the filmmakers to trash ACES. The gist: cap-and-trade (which Koenig seemed to think equivalent to a carbon tax), will hurt working families, result in lost jobs, higher taxes, all to no purpose, and alternative energy sources, with the possible exception of nuclear, are non-starters.
Of course none of these contentions can be accepted at face value – although most of those present seemed prepared to do just that. Comments ranged from references to the Heritage Foundation’s flawed analysis of ACES costs, to libertarian contentions that, while anthropogenic global warming may or may not be real, it is not proper for the government to play a role in mitigating its effects. Doubtless, many of those present will respond to the request to phone and write their congresspersons to express their opposition ACES.
Too bad that the audience did not get to hear their representatives discuss the actual content of ACES, explain to them that the cap-and-trade provisions are designed take effect gradually, that there are provisions for alternative energy research and development, and funds to soften the transition to clean energy for coal-dependent states like Missouri.
Too bad that their representatives, who are so concerned about the hypothetical evils of environmental extremism, don’t see fit to inform themselves and their constituents about those third world citizens who actually will suffer if global warming continues on its current trajectory. Why weren’t our lawmakers, on whom we rely for intelligent policy, talking about the effect of global warming on the Maldives, for instance? Or, to really bring it home, why no discussion of Missouri’s future in a warmer world? Why was there no mention of the security implications of global warming that our military have identified?
Perhaps it is because they were too busy trying to help energy industries paint a false picture of what is entailed in clean energy policy? Can we perhaps agree that such irresponsibility is both wrong and just pure evil?
As I reported in a related post, State Reps. Sue Allen (R-92), Andrew Koenig (R-88), and Cole McNary (R-86) did their little bit for Missouri’s coal and electric industry Wednesday night by trying to make a case against the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) with a showing of the film Not Evil Just Wrong.
The film, created by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, who describe it as the advent of “the cinematic wing of the tea party movement,” is so full of factual errors that it would be impossible to catalog them all. Take a look at the trailer in the video above if you want an idea of the atmospherics.
As you might expect, the film pulls out the tried, if not so true, arguments of climate change skeptics: the earth is actually cooling; the analysis of the data supporting global warming is flawed; Greenland was once warm, which is how we know global warming is part of an inevitable, natural cycle that we might just as well sit back and enjoy.
However, the real aim is to trivialize the claims of those who worry about the effects of anthropogenic global warming and present them as dangerous to the well-being of the poor and down-trodden. Although not quite as hyperbolic, the argument is akin to Glenn Beck’s claim that progressives are equivalent to “slave owners.”
To present the global warming “scare” as overblown, the film suggests that worries about climate change are similar to the sensational media hype surrounding the Y2K problem, and the British mad-cow disease (BSE) epidemic of the mid-80s. The film ignores the fact that these were legitimate issues, and that their impact was lessened by government action – which is why BSE resulted in few deaths and Y2K caused only minor snafus. Of course, to bring up that fact would be to admit that global warming disasters might be averted by appropriate action as well.
It is in their presentation of the old, right-wing DDT fiction, however, that the filmmakers pull out all the stops. DDT regulation is meant to be understood as parallel to that of carbon emission regulation. To make sure we don’t miss the point, we are bombarded with images of dying, malarial children, disconsolate mothers and miserable, third-world living conditions that, it is implied, might be ameliorated if only DDT could be used. Juxtaposed are carefully selected and edited clips of fatuous-seeming, first-world environmentalists.
On one side you have an American “environmentalist”(?) living in comfortable circumstances in fertile, warm Uganda, who applauds the DDT ban, comparing the potential destruction of Uganda’s birds to “Elton John without his piano.” On the other, an Ugandan mother exclaims, “You’d rather save the birds and lose the people.”
Cute filmmaking, but unfortunately the premise is false. DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972 for agricultural use only, and in 2004 it was banned worldwide for agricultural use only. Although controversial, its use has never been banned for disease vector control and its overuse has resulted in DDT resistant mosquitoes.
False though it may be, this bit of film chicanery is important since it sets the tone for the gist of the movie: Al Gore, and by extension, the entire green energy community are elites promulgating bad science at the least and a cruel hoax at the worst (cue images of Hollywood actors, mansions, and poor Gore’s well-fed face). Their callous, environmental extremism, we are told, will have immediate negative, consequences for working Americans who depend on coal energy for their livelihoods (cue images of small town main street, children playing with kittens and running to catch a school bus, poor but honest and loving parents).
Enough to bring a tear to the eye if any of it were true. Perhaps those who wish to piggyback on this film to make the corporate case against ACES should familiarize themselves with the validity of its claims as well as the actual content of ACES first.
Few individuals would grudge the costs or inconvenience of childproofing cupboards to protect small children from stored poisons.* Most of us would laugh angrily at anyone who tried to tell us that poison is not really that dangerous when ingested by toddlers, that it might even be beneficial since repeated small amounts could create immunity, or that rational measures to protect our children will create weak and dependent individuals who can’t look out for themselves. 
When I fume, I just sputter. WillyK spouts sense. Of course, it helps that she has a firm grasp of facts on a wide variety of topics.
Wednesday night, State Reps. Sue Allen (R-92), Andrew Koenig (R-88), and Cole McNary (R-86) presided over a gathering of about 50 mostly true believers at a presentation of the film