Tag Archives: Ann Wagner

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.

 

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?

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.

The sufferings of Ann Wagner

17 Saturday Jun 2017

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There’s nothing like making hay while the sun shines. And for some Republicans, Missouri’s Ann Wagner (R-2) for instance, an angry shooter with frustrated liberal inclinations who went after Republicans a couple of days ago seems to have brought out the haymaking sunshine. She’s been taking heat for her adamant refusal to meet with constituents in a public forum. Now she’ll have an excuse – it’s just too risky.

Reading a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article where Wagner gives her account of the suffering she and the “twenty-nothing-year-olds” (??) on her staff have had to endure from maddened progressives made me wonder what it is with Republicans and the cult of victimhood. As far as I’m concerned the only victims in this instance are the folks mowed down on the playing field last week – and the issues behind the shooting go far beyond a progressive sympathizer’s attack on retrograde GOP politicians.

Wagner reports that she has received death threats. But, as one of her colleagues, Joe Barton (R-TX), observed, it goes with the territory: ” I am an adult” he remarked “and I made a conscious decision to run for Congress,” adding, somewhat ironically under the circumstances, that “nobody puts a gun to our head and says we have to run.”

Of course, Wagner makes it clear that she’s not  worried for herself. She’s just too selfless and caring. But she does unctuouslly emote about the travails of her staff of near children – those twenty-nothing-year-olds – and her neighbors, none of  whom I believe have reported any death threats, although I am very sure that her staff members are having to field some pretty angry calls. But again, it goes with the territory.

Wagner whines that protestors are “vandalizing my home, showing up with masks and gravestones, and laying down on my driveway and drawing chalk outlines of dead bodies. Picketing my church at 8 and 10 o’clock Mass.” A comment on the Post-Dispatch Website offered a different perspective, however:

…I think her descriptions of these events are largely overblown. The small group of people at her church held signs with biblical quotes about caring for the sick and poor. The chalk drawings on her street were not death threats, they were symbols of people who will die under the health care plan for which she cheered on national television. Police were present in her neighborhood and will tell you the protesters obeyed all of their directions. If there was threatening behavior I’m sure they would have known or stepped in. The town hall meeting she called “radical” was a group of well-behaved old folks at a community center talking about why they didn’t support that health care plan or her other decisions. …

While I’m not sure I’m totally happy to be characterized as part of a group of “old folks,” I have to accept the description as apt, as least in regard to me, and the “well-behaved” part is an equally apt description of the group as a whole. The account above fits better with what I know about the growing opposition to Rep. Wagner than her own rather obviously self-serving efforts to “go public” about the persecution she wants us to think she endures. It’s more than likely that the protestors pose less threat to Wagner’s well-being than she poses to their freedom of speech – a value Republicans seemingly espouse only when it comes in the form of a big check.

I’m sure that outlines of dead bodies in one’s driveway are distressing – but not as distressing as the prospect of real death for those of us who will be left with no access to healthcare if Wagner  has her way. The images are harsh, but the truth behind them is equally harsh and should fall heavily on Wagner’s shoulders. She needs to learn that very few individuals will kiss her feet for doing yeoman’s duty with the GOP wrecking crew.

Wagner’s histrionics aside, it is indeed a sad fact that politicians, like entertainment figures, make easy targets for the detritus of emotionally unmoored individuals inhabiting our increasingly gun-ridden and violent society. Ask Gabby Giffords. No sane person condones violence, but given the failure of Republicans such as Wagner to address the thriving gun-culture and their encouragement of the angry paranoia that feeds it, she ought to be one of the last to complain.

For my money Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo got it right when he wrote today that;

… People like James Hodgkinson don’t buy guns to attack politicians. They attack politicians with guns because they feel helpless, adrift in the world described above. Guns make them feel powerful again. Al Qaida? ISIS? Similar reasons, one suspects. […] Violence towards family members, politicians, and society at large is an outgrowth of an economic system that relentlessly transfers not only wealth upward, but democratic and personal power. …

In the next few days, until the event is safely forgotten, we’ll hear lots happy talk about “coming together,” a “return to civility,” and, of course, there will be the folks like Wagner, looking to escape responsibility for what they’ve done by falsely assuming the aura of victim. What we won’t hear is an intelligent discussion about the root causes of the anomie that animates the shooters.

Ann Wagner dances on what she hopes is Obamacare’s grave – with two left feet showing

30 Tuesday May 2017

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Maybe it’s just me, but Ann Wagner (R-2) seems a bit defensive about her “full-throated” support of the latest House health care abomination, the American Health Care Act (AHCA). In the latest, mostly anodyne, installment of Rep. Ann Wagner’s regular constituent email newsletter, she indulged in a little victory dance on what she evidently hopes will be one more shovelful of dirt on the grave of Obamacare:

Last week, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City announced that it is leaving the Obamacare exchange, leaving approximately 30,000 Missourians without health insurance. It is unacceptable that 25 counties will have no health insurance option next year. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report showing that because of Obamacare, monthly insurance premiums for Missouri families have skyrocketed 145% since 2013.

Obamacare has failed Missouri families, and politicians who continue to defend this broken system are ignoring their needs. Washington created this nightmare, and the solution is not more government health insurance from Washington, D.C. The answer is to make the American Health Care Act law and give Missouri families—not Washington bureaucrats—freedom and control over their own healthcare decisions.

You can quibble with her figures. Other sources say that only 19,000 people in Missouri stand to lose BCBS coverage.  – what’s a little GOP number fudging amount to in the Trump era after all – but Wagner’s right about the effect of insurers leaving the market. The situation for Obamacare isn’t good. But you already knew that. There are, however, a couple of points she and fellow GOP hustlers, such as Senator Roy Blunt, have neglected to mention.

  1. President Trump and Ann Wagner’s Republican Congress are actively trying to “blow up” the Obamacare exchanges. Republicans have opposed, and Trump, for his part,  refuses to commit to either ending or continuing the cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) that subsidize lower-income people who purchase insurance on the exchanges. In response, insurers have explicitly stated that, because of the resulting uncertainty about risk levels they will likely be raising premiums or, as in the case of BCBS,  leaving the exchanges altogether. Wagner has some chutzpah talking about the collapse of Obamacare when, as WaPos Greg Sargent observes:

… This whole dynamic shows that one of the leading GOP health care talking points is also complete nonsense. Paul Ryan loves to say that Republicans are performing a “rescue mission” by stepping in to save people from the allegedly collapsing ACA by replacing it, and that they don’t want any people to be hurt in the transition. As it is, their “rescue mission” would result in 23 million people losing insurance over 10 years, and in soaring premiums for sick people, with many priced out of the market. But that aside, if their own stated goal is to avoid hurting people during the transition, it’s unclear why they would not fund the CSRs, since the failure to do so is going to hurt untold numbers of them.

2. In The Atlantic Olga Khazan argues that “there is one thing Republicans usually leave out of their indictment of Obamacare, though: Insurers might have been less likely to exit if more states had expanded Medicaid under Obamacare.” The reasons behind this claim are complex and I suggest that if you’re interested, you should read the article which presents persuasive evidence that, as a Kaiser Family Foundation study on the subject asserts “state policy decisions – in particular, on Medicaid expansion and allowing transitional (“grandmothered”) plans to continue for a period of time – have had an effect on the risk pool in the private individual market.” Missouri, of course, was too ideologically blinkered or too spiteful towards President Obama to expand Medicaid. And the sins of the leaders are always visited on the citizens.

Given the dishonest pablum that we receive from elected representatives like Ann Wagner and the rest of the Missouri GOP contingent, somebody has to get the story out about what these heartless liars are up to. They don’t get to harm so many Americans without taking responsibility for what they are doing. In the words of Khazan, “Republicans might live to see the Obamacare “death spiral” they have long been prophesying. But insurance markets don’t just collapse on their own. Decisions by states, Congress, and the Trump administration can—and have—given them a hefty nudge.”

And maybe the day of reckoning will soon be coming for Wagner and her ilk:

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is also running six-second, non-skippable YouTube ads targeting 12 Republicans who voted for the House bill: West Virginia Reps. Alex Mooney and McKinley, Indiana Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer, Missouri Reps. Ann Wagner and Vicky Hartzler, Pennsylvania Reps. Mike Kelly and Lou Barletta, Rep. Pat Tiberi (Ohio), Rep. Evan Jenkins (WV.), Rep. Kevin Cramer (N.D.) and Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.)

Couldn’t happen to better people. After years of trying to buoy up our Missouri Democrats to withstand such ads coming from conservative groups, it’ll be great fun to watch Wagner – and the equally reprehensible Hartzler – take some heat.

Ann Wagner wants to fool us with a shiny object

16 Tuesday May 2017

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Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) has been in the news recently over healthcare issues. And not in a good way.

First, she did a Howard Dean impersonation that was captured on video and widely circulated. Images of a harpy-like Wagner hoarsely screaming “freedom” after voting for the House Obamacare replacement bill which will, if enacted in the form Wagner endorsed, free millions of their healthcare and perhaps their lives, excited only disgust and derision.

Second, when constituents eager to talk to Wagner about her efforts to deprive them of their healthcare tried repeatedly to get her to come to a constituent meeting over the recent congressional recess, they finally reconciled themselves to going it alone in hopes she would pay long-distance attention. She not only remained true to her convictions however, by staying away, but, in the words of the Riverfront Times, responded by “deriding a bunch of old people attempting to hold a town hall at the Lodge Des Peres over the health care issue as ‘radical leftists.'”

I’m hoping that the criticism that Wagner’s “acting out” has received may give her some pause – reports are that she wants to take Claire McCaskill’s place in the Senate next year, and if any of those healthcare chickens come home to roost too soon, she may be out of luck. So I wasn’t too surprised when I received her email newsletter dated May 15 and read this paragraph describing what a caring person Wagner is when it comes to sick people, specifically, sick children:

During my time in Congress I’ve met with too many children suffering from debilitating and deadly diseases. Our country is on the forefront of innovative medical research, but more needs to be done to improve pediatric disease research. This is why I co-sponsored the Kids First Research Act which would transfer approximately $320 million in funds from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund to the Pediatric Research Initiative Fund at the National Institutes of Health. Recently, I met with 8-year-old Ava, who lost her twin brother Sam to rhabdomyosarcoma, and their mom to talk about the need for pediatric cancer research funding. Cancer remains the leading cause of death from disease among children, and I believe this bill can help lead to medical breakthroughs that will save lives and empower our children.

Helping children with cancer. Oooh and ahhhh. What better way to wash away the nasty taste of that AHCA Freedom yodel. Especially since, while it’s no doubt a goodish thing for children with cancer, it’s not really a big reach. The bill simply redirects funds allocated for another purpose. It does not require any new spending, but allows Wagner to pat herself on the back in constituent communications. And since the funds in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund are a total joke in these post-Citizens United days nobody is likely to protest too heartily about the loss. Politicians like Wagner know that as long as they secure a stable of generous corporate clients whose interests they can represent they’re good,

Of course the $320 million is a drop in the bucket when it comes to cancer research. And it is precisely this bucket that will be considerably reduced in size if Wagner’s GOP president, Donald Trump gets his way. The budget plan that Trump presented in March would cut $5.8 billion from the current cancer research funding, debilitating President Obama’s cancer “moonshot” initiative, and bringing cancer research to a near standstill – except for, perhaps, the handful of pennies Wagner and her other co-sponsors propose to redirect towards pediatric cancer research. According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, “cutting the [cancer research] funding in this way will have devastating and generation-long effects.”

Now, I may have missed it, but I don’t believe I’ve heard Wagner take The Donald to task for his effort to virtually eliminate new cancer research. She certainly didn’t address the issue in her newsletter when she tried to take credit for helping to halt the scourge of childhood cancer. So far, she’s lined up right behind Trump, voting with his position 96.6% of the time, so I don’t really expect her to take a radically different tack on down the line when it comes to his budget priorities.

Childhood cancer is indeed, a terrible thing. But so is adult cancer. Lack of research dollars is going to hurt all of us, children and adults. And a few pennies thrown at pediatric cancer research isn’t going to fix the problem for any of us. But – and this is the real issue – we’re also going to be hurt, children and adults, when the AHCA pre-existing condition provisions kick in and we can’t get or afford coverage. Even if we had all the research dollars for cancer in the world – and what Wgner is taking credit for giving us is a pittance – it won’t help us if we can’t afford the treatments that that research discovers. That inconvenient fact doesn’t seem to bother our freedom yodeler, Ann Wagner, at all.

Speaking as an adult with chronic cancer, as far as I’m concerned, Wagner’s endorsement of the Kids First Research Act is nothing more than a shiny object intended to direct our attention away from the meat cleaver she’s more than willing to apply to our health care. And I aim to tell her just that if she ever gets over her allergy to her constituents and manages to make it to a real town hall meeting instead of the stage-managed telephone jobbies she uses to divert our attention from her fear of real interaction with a diverse group of constituents.

*Last sentence slightly changed (5/17/2017, 12:17 am)

True believers

15 Monday May 2017

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There’s no such thing as a “moderate” republican.

FiveThirtyEight (Nate Silver’s place) is keeping a running tally of the votes in Congress and how they align with Donald Trump’s wishes:

Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump
An updating tally of how often every member of the House and the Senate votes with or against the president.

Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (r) [2014 file photo].

In the House of Representatives [How often a member votes in line with Trump’s position]:

Jason Smith R MO-8 96.6%
Billy Long R MO-7 96.6%
Sam Graves R MO-6 100.0%
Emanuel Cleaver D MO-5 12.0%
Vicky Hartzler R MO-4 100.0%
Blaine Luetkemeyer R MO-3 100.0%
Ann Wagner R MO-2 96.6%
Wm. Lacy Clay D MO-1 14.3%

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) [2015 file photo].

Representative Billy Long (r) [2013 file photo].

Voting for Donald Trump’s agenda 96.6% of the time is an unqualified endorsement. 100% is a true believer.

In the U.S. Senate [How often a member votes in line with Trump’s position]:

Roy Blunt R MO 100.0%
Claire McCaskill D MO 45.0%

Well, look at that, Roy Blunt (r) is no moderate.

Roy Blunt (r) [2016 file photo].

There’s no such thing as a “moderate” republican. They own Donald Trump (r) and his agenda.

“Freedom” Ann Wagner Style

06 Saturday May 2017

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Well, they did it. The Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives put Obamacare on the butcher’s block and started blindly hacking. The bloody mess that they’re now serving up would deny healthcare to millions of Americans, but, hey, at least, Big Orange got his ego stoked with a big “win.”

One of the prime ego stokers was Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) who celebrated – perhaps at Big Orange’s Rose Garden beer-bust victory lap? – by screaming the word “freedom,” which she identified as “the line of the day, out of Braveheart.” As you will note if you check out the video, Riverfront Times‘ s Paul Friswold aptly captured Wagner’s tone, declaring that “she preened and cooed,” and seemed “positively giddy with anticipation at ripping healthcare away from millions of American citizens.”

Tasteless, yes. But it also suggests that Wagner’s conception of freedom is very special. Enumerating some of the actual provisions of Trumpcare 3.0 (which I base on Paul Waldman’s thorough summary, quoting directly at times) gives us the following anatomy of Braveheart Annie’s idea of healthcare freedom:

  • Freedom from healthcare for everyday Americans:
    • Frees upwards of 24 million from their insurance coverage:
    • Frees states from the Medicaid expansion that covered a considerable portion of those 24 million Americans if their legislators are, like those in Missouri, inclined to say that only rich folks folks deserve healthcare.
    • Frees states from a big portion of their federal Medicaid funding by cutting $880 billion dollars from the program over 10 years.
    • Frees states to kick “otherwise eligible” people off Medicaid once federal funding becomes block-grants – which are likely to diminish over time.
    • Frees middle income people from the ACA subsidies, “replacing them with far more meager tax credits pegged not to people’s income but to their age. Poorer people would get less than they do now, while richer people would get more.”
  • Freedom for insurance companies to run wild:
    • Frees insurance companies from constraints that kept them from charging older people as much as five times more than they charge younger people for insurance.
    • Frees insurance companies to impose yearly and lifetime caps on what they will pay to cover illnesses – a provision that could also affect those who get their insurance through their employers.
    • Frees insurance companies – in states that seek waivers – from requirements that they offer plans that cover essential benefits guaranteed under Obamacare, things like “such as emergency services, hospitalization, mental health care, preventive care, maternity care, and substance abuse treatment.”
    • Frees insurance companies from having to give coverage to those with preexisting conditions and will allow them to charge them dramatically more if they do offer such coverage. It establishes expensive and inefficient “high-risk” pools for those with preexisting conditions while failing to offer adequate funding to cover the number of people who suffer from chronic illnesses.
    • Frees insurance companies to set higher deductibles for patients.
    • Frees insurance companies to reinstate medical underwriting so that when “you apply for insurance you’ll have to document every condition or ailment you’ve ever had,”  which in turn allows the insurers to identify your preexisting conditions and either deny coverage or charge you a fortune.
  • Freedom for rich people to sock it away:
    • Frees families making more that $250,000 a year from paying billions of dollars in taxes.

So much freedom. This version of Trumpcare isn’t too likely to survive the Senate. But we better never forget that Rep. Wagner tried to give us freedom Donald Trump style. Someone, somewhere (I can’t recall where) called her freedom scream her “let them eat cake moment.” Me, personally, I think of the Howard Dean scream – if her opponents don’t play this nasty little performance over and over again in TV ads next year, they’re fools.

Maybe Trumpcare might just help free Ann Wagner too. Free her from her current job, that is.

Predicting the future: After the Trumpcare 3.0 vote

03 Wednesday May 2017

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There are rumors that the 3rd iteration of the Obamcare repeal and replace bill, GOP Dump& Dupe, will be voted on this week – perhaps tonight, and – brace yourselves – this totally terrible, cruel bill might pass the House and be sent to the Senate. It’s likely that it won’t pass in the Senate, at least not in its current incoherent form, but, who knows? As Steven Benen observes, lots of us cheered when Big Orange got the GOP presidential nomination – no one thought such a clown could ever in a million years win the general election.

But console yourselves. There are some existential bedrocks you will always be able to count on:

After she votes for the revised bill – and she’s not currently counted among the holdouts – those of us who subscribe to Rep. Ann Wagner’s (R-2) email newsletter will get a gushing account of how she battled to save us from that bad, old Obamacare. And she won’t even ask for thanks – she just wants us to stop phoning her about the damn thing, please, and, for god sakes, quit asking her to come to an in-person town hall and actually listen to random concerns of the hoi polloi. Mama did what she had to do to save us from ourselves and no matter how many time we’ve asked her to leave Obamacare alone, she knows that we really don’t mean that at all. After all, St. Louisians stop her in the grocery all the time to tell her to keep on keeping on. At whatever she keeps on at. Working to help bankers, I think.

GOP Senator Roy Blunt will hem and haw in order to persuade us he isn’t as dumb as the rest of his party, but he won’t even require that push comes to shove to make him go along with GOP leadership when/if the bill comes to the Senate – when the inevitable fallout begins, though, he’ll remind you about the hemming and hawing.

Rep. Billy Long (R-7) will carry on about how he held out until he got a dinky little pittance as a down-payment for ineffective high risk pools (along with a in-person goosing from the Big Guy in the White House). He’ll try to persuade you (using standard talking points developed by somebody else ) that this particular thirty pieces of silver makes up for voting to take away protections from folks with preexisting conditions. Nobody but the terminally stupid will be fooled. Oh wait, those are the people who vote for Republicans like Billy Long.

And Vicky Hartzler (R-4) will let us know that Jesus told her to vote for Trumpcare 3.0. She’ll do it indirectly, as befits a congresswoman who has to pretend to serve the heathens too. She runs with Jesus after all and Obamacare was just full of provisions that were hurtful to the Christian Taliban members who worry that they’ll go to hell if they contribute to a common insurance pool that also funds contraception for those who don’t share their beliefs.

Sam Graves (R-6) and Jason Smith (R-8 ) will vote as expected. And if they say anything about it all, they’ll do it in the usual way which consists of whispering over in the corners with safely like-minded supporters. Nobody else actually knows who they are, so no big deal.

But It’s good to know that you can rely on Republicans to be Republicans. Isn’t it?

*Third sentence of 2nd paragraph edited slightly for clarity (5-3-1, 9:51 pm)