It seems that House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) is worried that undocumented immigrants are driving up our murder statistics:

SESSIONS: Every day, all along border states, maybe other places, there are murders by people who have been arrested coming into this country, who have been released by the Obama administration, I believe in violation of the law, who are murdering Americans all over our cities.

We hold the Democrat Party and the President accountable for this action.

Of course, surprise, surprise, Sessions is, so to speak, dead wrong. Worse, he’s using what are probably purposely skewed statistics. As Think Progress observes:

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker ranked Sessions’ statistics with four Pinocchios, the highest rating given for inaccurate statements. They found no evidence that undocumented immigrants who benefited from the president’s immigration policies were responsible for the deaths of Americans on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, Sessions approach to the issue – blame the President and the Democratic party – suggests that we need to take a look at who or what is really, verifiably, killing Americans and assign blame accordingly.

Let’s start with the number of poor Americans who will die in those states that have failed to expand Medicaid. A study published early last year puts the number of deaths in Missouri that will result from lack of medical attention at between 218 and 700 people a year. The estimated number of deaths each year in all of the states combined that have opted of Medicaid will fall between 7,115 and 17,104. By Sessions logic, the folks responsible for these deaths will be the Republican lawmakers who refused to hold their nose and endorse a conservative health care reform offered up by a black, Democratic president. How will we hold the GOP contingent in Jefferson City accountable for all those dead Missourians? Who will hold the Republican lawmakers in the other recalcitrant states accountable for what they have done in the service of rampant conservatism run amok?

Then let’s move to the King vs. Burwell Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare itself. If the justices uphold the challenge, the result could be the unraveling of the entire healthcare reform and a return to chaos in the healthcare system. People will lose their healthcare. The result will will be dead Americans:

A brief filed on behalf of multiple public health scholars and the American Public Health Association, estimates that “over 9,800 additional Americans” will die if the justices side with the King plaintiffs. It reaches this conclusion by starting with an Urban Institute study showing that 8.2 million people will become uninsured in this scenario. As other research examining Obamacare-like reforms in the state of Massachusetts found that “for every 830 adults gaining insurance coverage there was one fewer death per year,” that translates to between 9,800 and 9,900 deaths if the justices back the plaintiffs in King.

So using the Sessions rule, who do we hold responsible for these deaths? Maybe start with the rightwing lawyers who, working under the aegis of the rabidly conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and the Koch brothers-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), spent a couple of years scoring the Act looking for a opening for an attack – and found it in a typo -you’ve got that right, a typo. Add in Republican lawmakers who vociferously support the lawsuit and who, they assure us,  will refuse to correct the typo that forms the basis of the challenge. Will anyone hold the rightwing think tanks, their corporate underwriters and their tame Republican politicians accountable for these deaths?

How about the estimated 24,000 lives that are lost in the U.S. as a result of lax regulation of coal particulates in the air? How about the thousands of coal miners who die yearly – according to Wikipedia, 3,200 miners died in 2007 alone – due to lax regulation of the mining industry? Shouldn’t the party of no regulations along with their corporate funders be held accountable for these and other deaths related to the failure to enact and enforce appropriate regulations?

I could go on and on counting off the various mechanisms of death for which the Republican party should be held accountable – we haven’t even touched on the wars pushed by Republican neo-cons in the past or their desire to embroil us in another similar war in Syria, Iraq, Iran, or what-have-you, or the massive die-offs that will result from climate-change ignored – but space and patience forces me to curtail the list.

There are two main implications to this death narrative. The first is that the GOP’s major operative principle is, “Give me market liberty or death,” and the inevitable resulting deaths are palatable to the Republican power-brokers and their underwriters because they are usually limited to the helpless and hopeless. That does not mean that the rest of us are helpless or hopeless to act or, at the very least, make sure that the blame is justly allocated.

Second, the potential deaths enumerated above are especially obscene just because they are potential. They could be avoided. But because of the willful obduracy of a few power-mad ideologues, the cynicism of and greed of other politicians, along with the equally willful ignorance of the people who vote for them, that’s probably not going to happen. Or it won’t happen if those of us who are appalled by the current and potential death-toll don’t get off our duffs and do something right now.

*Cross-posted to DailyKos with a few alterations.

From Catherine Hanaway’s “How to become Governor of Missouri” checklist:

1. Goal: Find a simpatico billionaire to pave the roads with gold.

Achievements to date:

— Nearly $1 million dollars from one donor, megabucks political meddler, Rex Sinquefield.

Next steps:

— Ask Rex what he wants; submit bill.

2. Goal: Make nice with GOP crazy wing.

Achievements to date:

— Channeled the spirit of Todd Akin; attributed poverty, depravity and pedophilia to female sexual autonomy.

— Kudos from Constitutional Party, holly-rollier-than-thou, Cynthia Davis who responds to the Akin imitation with thanks to “brave women, like Catherine Hanaway, for having the courage and moral fortitude to speak the truth” about the sluts who “who have been beguiled into making their bodies available to men outside of Holy Matrimony.”

Next steps:

— Continue talking about keeping the sluts barefoot, pregnant and under Big Daddy’s thumb.

— With the understanding, of course, none of that talk applies to educated, rich Republican women who run for office.

3. Goal: Make nice with Missouri GOP power-brokers.

Achievements to date:

Endorsements:

— Former Missouri Governor and U.S. Senator Kit Bond – will put loyalty to former employees and friends over policy differences.  

— Former GOP National Committee Missouri member Ann Dickinson – goes where Kit Bond leads.

— Very connected U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner – all in for Hanaway – and why not since she’s the GOPs A-1 talent scout for women who can mouth the Republican anti-women line without retching.

— State Rep. Ed Emery, ALEC’s main man in Missouri.

Next Steps:

— Take a loyalty oath to ALEC.

— Hit the country club circuit.

4. Goal: Squash the other main GOP primary contender, Tom Schweich, like a bug.

Achievements to date:

— Long Version: Read former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth’s eulogy for Tom Schweich to get the whole story.

— Short Version: Read TPM’s description of the way the old, political one-two works – or what Hanaway supporters and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bill McCellan want to call politics as usual.

— Issued statement after announcement of Schweich’s suicide about what a mensch he was … oops! Make that what an “extraordinary man with an extraordinary record of service to our state and nation.”

Next Steps:

— Suspend campaign, lie low and maybe State GOP Chair and former Hanaway oppo researcher John Hancock will take all the heat.

* Edited slightly; inadvertently omitted text added back under achievements on 4th point.

On the topic of the alleged GOP whisper campaign against Tom Schweich:

The Post-Dispatch reports Schweich believed Republican Party chairman John Hancock, elected last weekend, was saying Schweich is Jewish to hurt him politically in the gubernatorial primary race, as many Republican voters are evangelical Christians.

So what are all these reporters trying to say about evangelical Christians? Think maybe they should broaden the target? Narrow it? Tell it like it is? You already know what I think.

After thoughts: Do you think saying evangelicals might not vote for a Jew is an effort to make anti-Semitism sound respectible? As if it’s just a crazy foible of the religious which is to be expected and tolerated?

Rudi Keller ‏@CDTCivilWar

.@gopmatty says there will be no #RLD2015 straw poll; ballot box went missing Friday night, returned stuffed. 8:02 PM – 21 Feb 2015

I visited the Web pages of the entire Missouri Republican House delegation, Reps. Ann Wagner (R-2), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), Vicky Hartzler (R-4), Jason Smith (R-8), Sam Graves (R-6), and Billy Long (R-7). I wanted to see what they had to say about the President’s State of the Union Address (SOTU).

So how did the Missouri arm of the carping and always obstructionist Party of No react to the President pointing out a few facts. Are they embarrassed about how they behaved in the past now that Obamacare seems to be performing as intended, the United States economy is ginning up and putting the lie to the austerian economic policies still advocated by the GOP although they are failing dismally in Europe, slow and cautious foreign policy is showing signs of succeeding in a dangerous world where  military bluster of the sort advocated by the GOP has proven disastrous, and French economist Thomas Piketty has shown us that we need to rescue the middle class with a big dose of redistributive religion, which is just what the President has ordered?

The answer is not much. There was only one notable coinage; Rep. Wagner has dubbed the new GOP Congress The New American Congress. I think she hopes it’ll catch on. Otherwise our Republican guys and gals in Washington followed the rulebook and kept their statements short, simple, and on the tried and true message. The basic themes: Washington is the source of all bad, they are only going there to clean it up. Then they all thumbed their collective noses at the President’s hubris in suggesting that he could initiate any new programs since the Grand Old Poobahs have said no, and they were elected by the majority of the 33 percent of Americans who bothered to vote in 2014, an overweening mandate in their eyes. They conveyed this message with lots of repetition, using the same words and phrases almost interchangeably, with only minor stylistic fillips to distinguish them from each other. For instance:

— Phrases used to describe Obama, his goals and policies:

“expand the reach, size, and scope of the federal government”

“tax and spend”

“redistribute ” (i.e., income, prosperity, etc.)

“trying to divide us along class and income lines”

“same old, tired, Washington-based ideas”

“a top-down economy controlled from Washington”

“politics as usual”

” big-government policies”

“ill-conceived vision”

” failed policies”

“the American people deserve better.”

“political score-keeping”

“my way or the highway”

“the president wants to go at it alone”

“hurt our nation’s family farmers and small businesses”

“burdensome regulations”

“health-care costs are skyrocketing”

“premums skyrocket”

“Americans are struggling to find jobs”

“ignore the will of the people”

“policies and proposals that the American people rejected”

Phrases used to describe GOP, their goals and agenda:

“Government must get out of the way”

“job creation”

“a new direction”

“grow America’s economy – not Washington’s economy”

“remove burdensome regulations like Obamacare”

“unleash America’s energy resources”

“get Americans back to work”

“placing America’s priorities first”

“a healthy system marked by a legacy of opportunity”

“we can get Washington out of the way”

“we can do better”

“forge a new direction”

“a pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda”

“bipartisan solutions”

— Phrases used to describe what Republicans want from the President:

“work with us”

“work with this Congress ”

Obama must “stop issuing veto threats before common-sense pieces of legislation even get to his desk”

Given the relevant context it isn’t hard to interpret those last points. Translate “work with” into “roll over” and you’ve got the gist. As for the rest, I know, I know. You’ve heard them all before. And there’s lots of obvious fibs, misrepresentations, and wrong-headedness. Obamacare is doing just fine, jobs are being created faster than since before Bush, healthcare costs are going down, etc., etc. I’m sure you’re all getting as tired of trying to set these folks straight as I am, especially since it doesn’t do any good.  

I’m tempted to suggest that the GOP needs to convene some new focus groups, get some new material. They don’t have to make it complicated; we know slow, simple and familiar works with the folks they try to please. But do they have to be so predictable? But then, who reads press releases anyway – apart from bloggers with OCD.

*Corrected; last item from 2nd list moves to last list.

Ferguson went up in flames last week when a grand jury decided that there was not sufficient evidence to hold accountable the white police officer who killed unarmed, black teenager, Michael Brown. It was the finding that the most seasoned and, hence, cynical observers expected, although there was also a tiny, but persistent hope that those expectations would be disproved. No one should have been surprised that the reaction to that disappointment resulted in what the Guardian characterized as “one of the worst nights of race-related rioting in the US for a generation.”

Angry people act out in the way they did last week when they feel powerless to affect events and to make themselves heard in less violent ways. It’s de rigueur for folks like me to piously declare that we don’t condone the violence and that it only hurts the innocent. The first point is obvious and the second only partly true, but the fact that violence is usually bad should not be used, as seems to be the case locally, to obscure the nature of the provocation. It would be great if we could all emulate the Ghandis and Martin Luther Kings of world, but Malcom X had a point when he observed that “the chickens would come home to roost.” That given, there’s no way I’ll overmuch criticize Michael Brown’s stepfather who greeted the grand jury decision with exhortations to “burn this bitch down.”

Nor does it help that after the transcripts documenting the Grand Jury deliberations were made public, they suggested a flawed process which news sources often politely referred to as “exceptional.” There are by now many analyses of the problems with this particular grand jury. (I’ll try link to some of those that I’ve read in a separate post.) The upshot seems pretty clear: It starts with a prosecutor who should have either recused himself or been replaced in order to insure that the local perception of his bias against African-Americans and in favor of the police not be allowed to taint the process. It continues with a grand jury supervised by that prosecutor in such a way that, as the Guardian concludes, it looks like he “conducted what amounted to a secret trial with no adversary to challenge what was presented to the jurors.” Did anyone ever doubt what the response to the failure to indict would be from those who live with a sense of ongoing injustice and who are now told that the grand jury has done its job and they need to just suck it up and get on with business as usual?

Meanwhile, those of us who have observed the level of incompetence that has characterized the handling of this situation by all levels of state and local officialdom are expected to devote our energies to hand-wringing about the damage done by the the more volatile elements that rampaged through the streets of Ferguson. Sure, the refrain goes, it’s bad for hair-trigger cops to shoot unarmed young black men – a relatively common event, incidentally – but let’s spend our time talking about the riots because damaging property is so bad that it mitigates our need to take the anger over the death of Michael Brown seriously.

Oddly, however, when another group of mostly white folks threw a far more prolonged – and still continuing – temper tantrum, one that has had vastly more negative consequences than the rioting in Ferguson, it hasn’t generated nearly the same degree of pious sermonizing.  I am referring to the ongoing social and political tantrum that got rolling about the time of the election of the first African-American president.

The fear that Barak Obama’s election has inspired has been both instigated and exploited by the Republican party and the various corporate funded right-wing groups for whom the GOP does due diligence. No matter how many indignant denials it elicits, it’s pretty clear that among the 20% of Americans that form the hard-core Republican base, racism is an animating force. These are the folks for whom code words and phrases such as “welfare-queen,” “black-on-black crime,” Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment, and Newt Gringrich’s “food-stamp president” dig were devised. The success of these race-baiting dog-whistles has created an environment wherein some politicians feel empowered to make overtly racist comments of the type that would have forced them from office just a few  years ago.

But our angry conservatives have gone even further down their furious rabbit hole. These are also the folks who began arming themselves against their fellow citizens, the ones they consider “other,” the liberals (just as frequently designated communists, socialists, or, in defiance of logic, facists or Nazis) along with the various dark-skinned people who, in the mind of many such people, make up Romney’s 47 percent. After Obama’s election, they rushed out to buy more and more guns, and, in increasing numbers, join right-wing “patriot” groups in response to the paranoia inspired by a liberal black president. The increasingly triumphalist gun culture has encountered little opposition and so terrified any politician inclined to oppose it that it has entrenched itself to the extent that we may never recover.

Worse yet, the rage against President Obama that these people express also provides both the motivation and the cover for the GOP’s corporate-serving obstructionism – never doubt that ALEC types were first and foremost among the people funding the incipient efforts to stir up what became the undeniably racist Tea Party. They’re the reason we cannot have a rational response to energy and climate-change, or address issues of income inequality that are destroying our middle-class. They’re the folks who, in the name of discredited free-market theology, have restrained economic growth with their failed austerian policies, and who scheme to destroy Social Security and Medicare, not to mention their continuing hysterics about Obamacare. It is true that they are bought and paid for by the big money boys, but they get away with it because of the enthusiasm of the overtly and covertly racist Obama-haters whose fear and fury they placate manipulate and occasionally share.

When the local columnists and op-ed writers, news show hosts, and average Joes spend as much time decrying the destructive GOP-enabled gun-culture that surrounds us, the refusal of Republican politicians to address our welfare while instead fighting against Obamacare, which is, sorry folks, fait accompli, I’ll take seriously their far too self-righteous condemnation of angry, hopeless, and ultimately helpless people in Ferguson, Missouri. When local media tries to make Roy Blunt accountable for telling racist jokes about “monkeys” in order to please the “family values” crowd, I’ll express some indignation about a few nights of rampage. We all know that lots of innocent people were hurt by the fire in the streets last week, but why does that trump the many more innocent people who have been devastated by injustice and the complacency of the well-off and powerful – and why is it more important than the political ravages the right-wing has perpetrated in their quest to neutralize the black man in the white house and render powerless the black men in the streets.

Michael Bersin ‏@MBersin

What are Missouri republicans going to do when Rex Sinquefield stops propping them up with his money? Just asking.

7:18 AM – 7 Nov 2014

Via the Missouri Ethics Commission, for 2014:

C101046 03/27/2014 MISSOURI CLUB FOR GROWTH POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 3/27/2014 $973,000.00

C141055 04/01/2014 HANAWAY FOR GOVERNOR Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Self Retired 3/31/2014 $50,000.00

C010265 04/25/2014 CHRISMER FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 retired 4/25/2014 $25,000.00

C121045 04/25/2014 TEACHGREAT.ORG Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 4/24/2014 $750,000.00

C131097 05/15/2014 GROW MISSOURI Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 5/13/2014 $1,500,000.00

C141179 06/06/2014 ASHCROFT FOR MISSOURI Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 None Retired 6/6/2014 $25,000.00

C121488 07/02/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 retired 6/30/2014 $100,000.00

C071320 07/03/2014 SCHMITT FOR MISSOURI Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 7/2/2014 $250,000.00

C131097 07/19/2014 GROW MISSOURI Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 7/18/2014 $250,000.00

C010265 07/25/2014 CHRISMER FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 7/25/2014 $25,000.00

C061248 07/28/2014 FRIENDS OF RICK STREAM Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 7/25/2014 $100,000.00

C121488 08/05/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 retired retired 8/5/2014 $250,000.00

C131097 09/12/2014 GROW MISSOURI Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 9/11/2014 $2,500,000.00

C101046 09/14/2014 MISSOURI CLUB FOR GROWTH POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 9/12/2014 $1,200,000.00

C010265 10/10/2014 CHRISMER FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 10/10/2014 $25,000.00

C141055 10/15/2014 HANAWAY FOR GOVERNOR Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 None Retired 10/13/2014 $750,000.00

C081145 10/15/2014 CITIZENS TO ELECT KURT SCHAEFER ATTORNEY GENERAL Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 retired retired 10/15/2014 $250,000.00

C041029 10/16/2014 CITIZENS FOR WILL KRAUS Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retire 10/15/2014 $100,000.00

C141374 10/16/2014 FRIENDS FOR JENNIFER FLORIDA Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut St Louis MO 65085 retired 10/14/2014 $25,000.00

C141055 10/28/2014 HANAWAY FOR GOVERNOR Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 None Retired 10/27/2014 $10,000.00

C141374 10/31/2014 FRIENDS FOR JENNIFER FLORIDA Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 retired 10/30/2014 $15,000.00

C141055 11/04/2014 HANAWAY FOR GOVERNOR Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 None Retired 11/3/2014 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Yeah, big deal, there’s an “independent” in the mix, too. And money’s gone to Democrats. Just check the amounts and the agendas – the question remains.

It’s an interesting exercise watching republican PACs move money around. Yesterday, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C071094 10/22/2014 MISSOURI SENATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE Eastern Missouri Senate PAC 3220 West Edgewood Ste E Jefferson City MO 65109 10/21/2014 $150,000.00

[emphasis added]

Well then, let’s follow the money. First, from the Eastern Missouri Senate PAC:

CONTRIBUTIONS AND LOANS RECEIVED

EASTERN MISSOURI SENATE PAC [pdf] 4/14/2014

Missouri Senate Campaign Committee

PO Box 754

Jefferson City MO 65102

2/11/2014

$100,000.00

Southwest Missouri Senate PAC

3220 West Edgewood Ste E

Jefferson City MO 65109

3/31/2014

$99,825.00

[emphasis added]

Okay, some of the money found it’s way back home. Where did the Southwest Missouri Senate PAC get its money?:

CONTRIBUTIONS AND LOANS RECEIVED

SOUTHWEST MISSOURI SENATE PAC [pdf] 4/14/2014

Missouri Senate Campaign Committee

PO Box 754

Jefferson City MO 65102

2/11/2014

$100,000.00

[emphasis added]

That’s funny. Why bother?

Maybe the legacy gets the next move.

What is it about Republicans. Seems like I’ve been reading accounts of numerous GOP incumbents who are unwilling to debate their opponents in the upcoming midterms. Here in Missouri neither Rep. Billy Long (R-7) or Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) will agree to meet their challengers in front of an audience that would, presumably, include media reporting on how well they managed to defend their performance in Congress as well as their lock-step support of GOP policies. Both seem to be conveniently unavailable to attend any of the traditional debates sponsored by the League of Women Voters (in Long’s case, co-sponsored with the Missouri State University’s Center for Community Engagement).

Wagner’s more pressing commitment, which conflicts with the debate scheduled on October 22, consists of campaigning for the Republican candidate in Northern Virginia. Evidently, Wagner’s status as an up-and-coming member of the GOP House leadership doesn’t leave her enough time to stand up before her constituents and deal with their bread-and-butter issues in a forum where there might be some push-back. One is hard put to view her potential absence at the candidates’ debate as anything more than strategic, however, since, according to a spokesperson for the League, Wagner can’t seem to find any other time on her calendar to meet with her challengers, Democrat Arthur Lieber and Libertarian Bill Slantz. She wants us to believe that she’s just too busy being important elsehwere to stand up and take responsibility for her part in the past two years.

Billy Long, though, has gone Wagner one better. He’s not only refused to debate his Democratic challenger, Jim Evans, and the Libertarian Kevin Craig, but, as of last Wednesday at least, his campaign staff were unwilling or unable to let anyone in on Long’s whereabouts or the timing and locations of any potential campaign events. But not to worry. According to a Long staffer, he will be “out and about meeting with people in the district.”

Wagner seems to be offering a similar “walking” defense (like walking pneumonia perhaps, manifesting silently?). Her staff person noted that “Ann has been walking neighborhoods and meeting with voters across the district, […] the people of the Second District know they can talk to Ann when she is out in [sic] about in their neighborhoods, visiting local businesses, at church or other community events.” I’m Wagner’s constituent, and she has yet to appear at my door, or in my supermarket, or at any community events I’ve attended. And I wouldn’t want to make book on such encounters, were they to take place, resulting in a substantial exchange. In my experience, candidate walkabouts rarely waste much time on anyone who doesn’t seem to be a sure thing.

Which is why I would love to hear from any undecided voters or Democrats out there. How many have managed to meet and greet either of these perambulating candidates? Did they entertain your questions seriously? Or did you get the glad-hand along with a vague and dismissive response to anything even slightly confrontational? Wouldn’t it be good for folks who think they know what these individuals stand for to hear them defend their positions in a real give-and-take with the other side? What are Wagner and Long really afraid of?

The answer is, of course, that there are many reasons for these candidates to skip the debates. Would you want to justify your support for last fall’s government shutdown which cost the taxpayers billions for no reason except to indulge a fit of Tea Party pique – an event for which Wagner served as one of the chief GOP cheerleaders. Both she and Long might have to explain why they went along with the endless votes to repeal Obamacare while 7.3 million individuals now have insurance thanks to its provisions. Or they could try to explain why they were so willing to support the Ryan budget and its efforts to privatize Medicare and cut Social Security benefits. Questions about all those “achievements” and many, many more might be raised in a debate with informed and articulate challengers.

And then there are those issues specific to each candidate. Billy Long, for instance might be asked about how he managed to spend about $100,000 from his campaign kitty over the last year mostly to finance meals in pricey restaurants. Or he might perhaps be called to task for trying to demagogue the topic of Ebola while doing nothing to take responsibility for voting for Republican cuts to the U.S. public health health and health research agencies that bear the brunt of protecting us from epidemics like ebola.

As for Wagner, she might not want to have to deal with questions about how she justifies pushing long discredited information about how abortion can cause breast cancer. This is especially relevant, since it seems likely that Wagner’s rising star in the GOP hinges on wishful thinking about her ability to make the mostly older, white, male party more palatable to women.

So, all in all, there’s probably no mystery about why Republicans don’t want to face the music in an open venue. Many commentators have noted the GOP tendency to lie outright when confronted with past positions they now wish to disavow (see Colorado’s Cory Gardner and his “personhood” disavowals), or the consequences of past positions that it isn’t politic to disavow (see Bownback’s defense of his Kansas tax cuts). But damm! It’s  hard to lie in a situation where your opponent, God forbid, might lay the facts out right in front of you.

Edited slightly for clarity.

More propping up of (a) republican candidate(s) is on the horizon. Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C051039 10/12/2014 RSLC-MISSOURI PAC Republican State Leadership Committee 1201 F Street, NW Suite 675 Washington DC 20004 10/10/2014 $100,000.00

[emphasis added]

And the winner is [stay tuned]!

Previously:

Campaign Finance: Who is getting propped up this time? (October 3, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Now we know…

…who’s getting propped up.

[….]