Paul Krugman had some interesting things to say about the Republican Trump phenomenon a couple of days ago:

For while it’s true that Mr. Trump is, fundamentally, an absurd figure, so are his rivals. If you pay attention to what any one of them is actually saying, as opposed to how he says it, you discover incoherence and extremism every bit as bad as anything Mr. Trump has to offer. And that’s not an accident: Talking nonsense is what you have to do to get anywhere in today’s Republican Party.

Of course, as Krugman goes on to elaborate, the heart of the matter is how one says ridiculous things. Establishment GOP political operatives are sure the nonsense has to be hidden in smooth-sounding rhetoric or in the by-now almost proverbial “dog-whistles.” Trump’s sin is that he has said outright what other folks either present in coded form or in sympathetic, “conventional-sounding” boiler-plate. GOP politicians concerned with maintaining their viability think they can talk mush-mouth to hide the irrational and/or mean-side of the positions preferred by the rabid base they can’t afford to abandon but which is too small to be relied upon exclusively.

Know what that column put me in mind of? Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) who succeeded certifiably nuts Todd Akin, he of “legitimate rape” fame.  We’re told that Missouri’s GOP insiders believe she’s an antidote to Akin’s craziness, a respectable GOP establishment politician and a woman to boot. But is there really that much difference between the two?

Take the topic of women’s reproductive rights. Akin was not only opposed to abortion in all cases, but attempted to define contraception as abortion. As Amanda Marcotte observed in The Guardian, Akin and his Christian right cohorts:  

… believe that women controlling their own fertility is the equivalent of murder, and will distort the facts any way they can to rationalise that view. Indeed, prior to Akin’s rape comments, he was on record claiming that emergency contraception, which works by suppressing ovulation, is abortion. Presumably the same made-up doctors who told him that rape is contraception were the ones telling him that actual contraception is abortion.

In short, Akin was an anti-abortion fanatic who disregarded science and other inconvenient facts and who did not scruple to use spurious claims to further his aims.

Now take a look at Wagner. She’s on the record not only demanding that Planned Parenthood be investigated but denied federal funding based on videos that have been widely acknowledged to have been  heavily edited by the radical anti-abortion group that filmed them in order to mislead. There can be no doubt that Wagner also knows the videos are BS – she’s really not an idiot – but she’s still willing to characterize the falsified view of Planned Parenthood that they present as a depiction of “the most evil thing I have ever seen.”

If, as a result of cheerleaders like Wagner, Congress actually does cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, it will not affect abortions offered by the organization – it is already forbidden by law to use federal tax dollars to pay for abortions. Instead it will affect the organization’s ability to offer reproductive health care, including contraception – as a Washington Post article observed,  “Planned Parenthood practically invented contraception,” thus earning the persistent animus of the radical right. By going after Planned Parenthood, Wagner is allying herself with the same radical extremists who wish to roll back the clock on women’s right to control their bodies. Doing it by referring to doctored videos is just the cherry on top of the sundae.

If you look at the evidence, it seems that Wagner, like Akin, is also an anti-abortion fanatic who will disregard science and other inconvenient facts and who will not scruple to use spurious claims to further her aims. Remember that when you hear her spouting mumbo-jumbo about how she just wants to “protect” women and their “unborn children” from late term abortions – without mentioning that such abortions are exceedingly rare (1% of all abortions) and almost always undertaken for serious medical reasons. Same ole, same ole.

Make no mistake, Wagner wants Roe v. Wade to go away and take easy access to contraception with it. Like Akin, she’ll lie and obfuscate to achieve that end. Unlike Akin, she’ll smile and coo while she does it.

The Problem: Eric Boehlert at Media Matters sums it up:

This act is getting tired.

In recent years, conservative activists, under the guise of renegade journalism, have been churning out undercover “sting” videos supposedly capturing reprehensible behavior by their mostly liberal targets. Those targets have included low-level workers at ACORN, a fundraiser at National Public Radio, and now officials at Planned Parenthood, among others.

The activists release a series of videos in an effort to build a big takedown story, and the press usually plays along. Meanwhile, activists coordinate with right-wing media players and members of Congress to generate simultaneous outrage over the clips.

The problem for the activists, and the problem for journalists who excitedly treat the clips as news, is that the videos invariably turn out to be doctored, filled with deceptive edits, and missing context in an effort to manufacture scandal.

The whole cycle has become a media cliché, but it’s one that conservative partisans cheer. And they’re cheering again this month as the Center for Medical Progress releases edited clips to claim Planned Parenthood officials have been caught discussing how the organization “sells the body parts of aborted fetuses” and “haggling” over prices for “baby parts.”

The Evidence: Both Planned Parenthood videos have been edited in order to offer a false narrative. If you want the details, take a look at one or more of the following sources: Media Matters, or FactCheck.org. Media Matters also links to and summarizes the responses of the media outlets that have pushed back against the dishonest videos.

The Experiment: So what do members of Missouri’s congressional delegation have to say about the situation? I searched their Webpages looking for formal statements on the topic. This is what I found on the pages of those who had prepared statements available:

From Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s (R-4) press release:

Last week and this morning, new videos were released detailing how Planned Parenthood harvests and sells the body parts of aborted children.  For decades Planned Parenthood employees have tried to diminish the humanity of the unborn by belittling them to blobs of tissue. […] This is human life we’re talking about.  We cannot stand by while aborted baby parts are being sold for profit [Emphasis added].

Rep. From Ann Wagner’s (R-2) press release:

[…] I rise today to express my continued outrage at now two abhorrent videos that have been released in the last week, in which two of Planned Parenthood’s senior doctors describe the process by which they and their coworkers kill unborn children and harvest their organs for sale. […] Yet here we stand on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, to discuss whether the sale of human body parts harvested from aborted children violates basic human dignity and perhaps even the law. [Emphasis added]

From Rep. Jason Smith’s (R-8) press release:

This week, Congressman Jason Smith cosponsored two bills to block all federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. The action comes after two disturbing videos were made public showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing selling body parts of unborn babies, potentially in violation of federal law.  […] Smith went on to say,  “I have never wavered from my firm belief that life is precious and must be protected. Americans deserve a full-scale investigation into Planned Parenthood’s immoral, potentially criminal conduct. Taxpayer money should be spent on taxpayer priorities, not unethical, unaccountable, unreasonable actions.  I will continue to fight against Planned Parenthood and its affiliates until they shift their priorities and work to protect the miracle of life.” [Emphasis added]

From Rep. Sam Grave’s (R-6) press release:

… after the two gut-wrenching videos of Planned Parenthood executives discussing their tactics were released, it is clear that the organization is much more radical than we ever could have thought,” Rep. Graves continued. “The fight against Planned Parenthood and its affiliates will continue until they show they can respect the lives of all people – born or unborn.[Emphasis added]

Conclusions:

1. Nobody at Planned Parenthood is “selling baby parts.”  

2. Our Republican representatives, who have the same access to the evidence discrediting the videos that we all do, are blatantly lying every time they repeat their catchphrase “selling baby parts” or use other provocative language to gin up misplaced outrage.

3. Since “baby parts” are not being “harvested” for sale, they must justify congressional hearings based either on either or both of the following:  (a) they don’t like the way that doctors talk about their everyday work, or (b) they disapprove of abortion – which, last I heard is still legal, a status that is supported by a large number of Americans.

4. Fetal tissue from abortions is being utilized to help find cures (pdf) for disease. Thank fetal tissue research for polio, rubella and varicella vaccines. It is also being used to explore cures for such diseases as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Down’s Syndrome, SIDs, and heart disease.

5. Missouri’s congressional Republicans have so little real respect for the “unborn human life” they endlessly carry on about that they are willing to have it incinerated along with garbage rather than being utilized to save actual living “born” people.

Future Actions: First, Don’t let these liars waste legislative time and taxpayer dollars on another big propaganda circus that is clearly calculated to help provide immunity for an attack on women’s reproductive health during an election year. Second, if hearing go ahead, make sure they are as discredited as the videos that inspired them. Third, hold our Missouri politicians, the folks we sent to Washington, accountable for their lies.

Edited slightly post-publication, content added in last paragraph.

   

We don’t hear so much about the Tea Party these days, but it’s had a good run in Missouri, dominating the political narrative for a few years and managing to elect a slew of John Birch Society retreads who have joined forces with the rest of the GOP to work their backwards magic in Jefferson City. Although I would argue that many if not most of the Tea Party adherents were a bit confused about just what they stood for apart from the resentment occasioned by the first black president, some did talk the talk when it came to big banks and big money corruption in government. As recently as the last election, Virginia’s Tea Partying David Brat was able to defeat incipient GOP congressional star Eric Cantor in part by harping on big banks and the bailout.

Missouri’s Tea Party also vented about banks and bailouts. Nevertheless, when it came to selecting their representatives, Tea Partiers sent Wall Street’s dream team to Washington, Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3). Both are charter members of what the Center for Public Integrity has dubbed the “Banking Caucus.” According to Alison Fitzgerald writing in Slate:

The group has been central to efforts […] to undo many of the financial reforms enacted in the Dodd-Frank law of 2010. At least 30 bills have been proposed to the House during the 113th Congress, aimed at chipping away at aspects of Dodd-Frank. Members of the banking caucus sponsored or co-sponsored 20 of those laws, […]

Wagner has done an especially enthusiastic job for Wall Street – most recently she got so worked up over a proposed Department of Labor rule that would require financial advisers to put their client’s welfare before their own bottom line that she proclaimed at a meeting of brokers and financial advisers that “we are at war.” And she quickly jumped into battle, introducing a bill, the Retail Investor Protection Act, to take the rule-writing ability away from the Labor Department and give it to the more easily swayed (by Wall Street) SEC.

In return, Wagner has been well paid by banking giants like Goldman Sachs, Oppenheimer Funds and big insurance trade groups. Between 2011 when Wagner was first elected to office and 2014, she took in $776,511 from the financial industry. I’m willing to bet that when you add in this year’s take, well over a million dollars of the reported $1.88 million] she now has in the bank come from similar sources, making her the “most prolific money-raiser” among the members of Missouri’s congressional delegation.

Luetkemeyer, for his part, hasn’t been a slouch. Not only does he carry water for Wall Street, he’s a go-to guy for the sleazy payday lending industry. His Clear Relief Act, has been characterized as a “sweeping deregulation bill for community banks.”He has also proposed several bills intended to chip away at the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren’s brain-child, which was created under Dodd-Frank to protect consumers from the worst depredations of the financial industry. For these Herculean efforts he reaped $788,181 from the financial industry between 2010 and 2014.

While Wagner and Luetkemeyer are working hard for Wall Street, they clearly aren’t working for everyday Missourians or any of the millions of Americans hit hard by the financial crisis of 2008 – unequivocally the result of the type of wholesale deregulation our dynamic duo are now peddling. Nor do their priorities seem to line up with the rhetoric of the Tea Partiers who helped elect them.

Jeff Spross suggests that the solution to this seeming contradiction may lie in the relatively privileged status of many Tea Partiers:

Much of the American right’s understanding of economics and its relationship to government is characterized by a lack of desperation. The idea that questions of security or starvation, dignity or destitution, could trump the abstract principles of “how capitalism works,” is just absent. The Tea Party arguably views Wall Street not as manipulative overlords, but as competitors in the sport of capitalism. Richer and more powerful competitors, obviously. But competitors still. And while they don’t want their competitors getting unfairly bailed out by the referees, they don’t want the game to be changed, either.

It is for less fortunate and less privileged Americans that the game itself is the problem.

Essentially, crony capitalism doesn’t mean the same thing to Tea Partiers that it means to you and me. As David Weigel has observed, “the Tea Party, after all, is not wholly set against the GOP’s business class. It’s just the latest populist movement funded and fueled by the Big Business.”  He implies that the Tea Party has functioned as an unwitting front:

[…] What’s the business-friendly label that’s going to be more potent than the Tea Party? Every successful movement of economic conservatives has been led in public by the non-rich, from the anti-tax farms of the 1920s to the property-tax-hating suburbanites in the 1970s to the “family farmers” who are, we’re told, the real victims of the estate tax. How do you make Rove-ism or Goldman Sachs-ism as popular as the Tea Party is, even now?

In an earlier post I noted that the efforts to gin up outrage over a heavily edited video purporting to catch Planned Parenthood officials out was likely part of a strategy to help insulate Republicans from Democrataic war-on-women rhetoric while they go after reproductive health rights. Missouri politicians wasted no time proving me right. And, as is often the case, Missouri Democrats are lending a helping hand.

Although Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Springfield, which is the sole Planned Parenthood abortion provider in Missouri, has pointed out that, in accordance with Missouri State Law, they do not participate in the organ donation program, rendering questions about the heavily edited video “moot,”  droves of Republican pols have jumped on the bandwagon, calling for investigations of imagined “atrocities.” Just to make sure that everyone knows what’s going on, State Rep. Sue Allen (R-100) is even sending her constituents via e-mail a copy of the misleading video earlier distributed in the same way by Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2). Way to whip those ponies into a lather!

This angsty GOP urgency is escalating in spite of the fact that the unedited, three hour version of the video is easily available and, according to reputable sources who have viewed it, fails to substantiate the claims of illegal activity made by the extreme anti-abortion group responsible for the tape. It seems that one of the two videos released explicitly mentions St. Louis Planned Parenthood as an offender. But would  you trust fanatics with a track record of dishonest harrassment of Planned Parenthood? Consider the source.

However, the real news isn’t the entirely predictable behavior of Republicans, but the haste of our ostensibly Democratic Attorney General to get in on the investigation circus, thus making the faux-scandal big-time – or at least as big-time as Missouri can get. AG Kris Koster is joining with the baying Republican hounds in the legislature who have decided to, in the words of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Jordan Shapiro, “propel Missouri into the forefront of a national uproar caused by the video.”

Koster’s decision to investigate resulted in a front page article in the Post-Dispatch today – and, doubtless, lots more publicity for a bogus video for a lot longer than would have been generated by the frothings of the usual suspects alone. In effect, Koster has endorsed what the evidence indicates rather conclusively to be a put-up job, endowing it with the pseudo-legitimacy of an “investigation.”  

It’ll be interesting to see how other state Democrats come down on this issue. So far as I can tell legislative Democrats are huddling in terrified silence; no one seems to have what it takes to publicly point out the obvious fraudulence of the entire episode – including the genteel “horror”generated by the frank discussion of what doctors actually do when they try to preserve donated tissue so that it can be effectively utilized. So far nothing from senatorial candidate Jason Kander. Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill is commenting, though at this juncture she is sounding fairly neutral, ready to jump to either side:

I’m sure that there will be many hearings about it, and I’ll continue to try to be engaged and involved in understanding exactly what occurred. Obviously, if they’ve broken the law, that’s a problem. But the law says they cannot sell any tissue for profit and they’re assuring the public they have not done that.”

What our Democrats do right now is important. Remember Acorn? Remember when Claire McCaskill, along with other Democrats fearful of the power of disinformation, basically endorsed an equally obviously manufactured video? Remember what happened to Acorn? We can’t afford to let that happen to Planned Parenthood. What can we do? Write Koster – say shame, shame on you. Write your state and federal representatives and our senators. Let them know we don’t want to watch this charade any longer. And right about now might be a good time to send a donation to Planned Parenthood. They need our support.

When Missouri’s GOP delegation traded the perpetually foot-in-mouth Todd Akin for the unctuously smooth Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2), they were undoubtedly hoping that she would help to mute all that “war on women” talk. The hope seems to have been that Wagner, who is quite a bit smarter than the Todster, would be able to paint hard GOP policies in soft terms that would be more acceptable to women. No surprise then that Wagner is taking a leading role in demanding congressional hearings on the Planned Parenthood video that was recently released. Who could be more effective expressing outrage over what the GOP clearly hopes will be perceived as atrocities than a smooth-spoken female professing her determination to confront the horror.

What better way to shift the narrative from one dealing with the suppression of women’s right to control their own bodies to one dealing with what folks like Wagner hope to paint as distasteful abuses stemming from legalized abortion. And finally, what better time to do this than during an election year when the unvarnished truth abut GOP policies dealing with women might alienate female voters.  

On the surface, the noise generated by the video, which shows a Planned Parenthood doctor talking abut the mechanics and financial aspects of donating fetal tissue to researchers, along with demands that it needs to be “investigated” by Congress, seems purely silly. Consider the following points that would seem to relegate this “scandal” to the trash bin:

— It is entirely legal for Planned Parenthood to supply researchers with fetal material and recover the costs of doing so. Staff of the PBS Newshour viewed the unedited three hour video and confirmed that the official was very clear about the legalities.  

— Fetal tissue research has contributed significantly to improvements in human health over the years and donating such tissue – and insuring that it is  usable – strikes many of us as an excellent thing.

— The Planned Parenthood participant in the video has been criticized for her “flippancy.” However, doctors that I know are often quite matter of fact about physical details that they deal with routinely. Folks who have to put their hands where many doctors do, can’t afford an overly precious attitude about bodily parts and functions.

— It is because the full video does not suggest either illegal activity or “disrespect” for the unborn  that it was only released in a heavily edited form designed to upset the squeamish.

— The group that made the video is both deceptive and has ties to an extreme anti-abortion group, Live Action, which has contrived video sting efforts in the past.

But wait there’s more. It seems that Republicans have known about this video for some time, including one GOPer who tried to deny that he had just admitted that this was old news. This fact raises some serious questions. And the answers may lie in some observations by Steve Benen. Maybe what we are seeing is not the real outrage of anti-abortion zealots, but the unfolding of an election year strategy intended to blunt the effective war on women rhetoric of the Democratic party. Benen quotes a Politico article:

Republicans on Capitol Hill are betting the secretly filmed Planned Parenthood video – depicting an executive allegedly discussing the sale of fetal organs from terminated pregnancies – will give them cover to more aggressively push abortion issues without the political ramifications that have haunted the party in the past. […]

To which Benen adds:

Ah, there it is. Republicans don’t have proof of Planned Parenthood wrongdoing, but rather, have a desire to claim a “scalp.” When the GOP went after women’s healthcare in 2012, it backfired on the party, so Republicans hope a misleading video will offer new opportunities to try the same move again.

That’s the point of the GOP calls for investigations, hearings, and probes. That’s why Republicans are trying to use this story to raise money and advance their personal ambitions.

It’s very likly that Wagner’s and other GOPers’ plans for a congressional investigation is designed to keep the story fresh well into 2016 where it can be utilized to undercut discussion of the entire range of anti-choice GOP policies as well as giving them cover to push more abortion and contraceptive restrictions. Ann Wagner, as a member of the Republican House leadership, will be well placed to push “baby parts for sale” lies. Move over Benghazi; we’ve got another faux-scandal to keep GOPers occupied – unless Democrats grow some backbone and push back full force against the lies.

Bill Otto (D) has announced he’s a candidate for Congress in the 2nd Congressional District. The seat is currently held by Ann Wagner (r).

Bill Otto Announces Run for US Congress

Bill Otto, a two-term State Representative (D-70th District), three-term Bridgeton councilman, Navy veteran, and retired air traffic controller, announced today that he will seek the Democratic nomination for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District.

Governor Jay Nixon, Senator Claire McCaskill, and Secretary of State Jason Kander carried this swing district in 2012. This district includes portions of St. Louis and St. Charles counties, and is currently represented by Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R). As a state representative from this area, every day Bill Otto fights for the clean-up of the burning nuclear waste in the Bridgeton landfill, an out of control situation that has greatly impacted the citizens of the 2nd District.

Otto believes that American is full of promise for those who reach for it. When he was 15-years old, his mother died and the state placed Bill in a boys’ home. On his 17th birthday he aged out of the state care system and found himself on the street – no family, no place to go, a homeless teen.

“It was a tough start, but with the encouragement and support from some amazing teachers and mentors, I attended college,” said Otto. “Later I joined the Navy where I served for seven years and learned a profession that would last a lifetime.”

As a state legislator, Otto fights every day for issues that matter to the hard working men and women he represents: defending the rights of citizens who live around the burning radioactive landfill, ensuring workers’ rights, making sure veterans get the respect and benefits they deserve, and protecting the American Dream for families, a dream that is being severely eroded.

“Congresswoman Wagner has simply dropped the ball in representing us,” Otto continued. “We need a representative who understands our needs and puts us ahead of their personal political ambitions, a person who is more concerned about the people of our District than their political party, a person who can truly work across the aisle, make the hard decisions, and then is willing to come home to explain their actions.

“The working men and women of this District deserve better representation in Washington, and I will work day and night to give them just that,” Otto emphasized.

[….]