Tag Archives: corruption

Who pulls Ann Wagner’s strings?

30 Sunday Sep 2018

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Who pulls Rep. Ann Wagner’s strings? Not the voters in Missouri’s 2nd district for sure, who have been complaining for some time that she’s missing in action. She’s held no town hall meetings with constituents apart from some hilariously stage-managed “telephone” events – characterized by pre-selected participants and questions – and appearances before employees at friendly business venues that often offer no chance for questions. In fact, she’s so allergic to demands for direct accountability that, according the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Todd Robberson, she has “repeatedly” refused to meet with the paper’s editorial staff in order to secure its endorsement.

Rep. Wagner does frequently send out an email “newsletter’ filled with treacly PR, news about her photo-ops and questionable claims that conform to GOP talking points. Claims, for instance, that the GOP tax cut for the rich has actually benefited working-class Missourians, which she put forward in her email newsletter of Sept. 3, are debatable – although we’re not likely to get the chance to debate them with the congresswoman herself.

So if Rep. Wagner is more interested in constructing a smoke screen than in finding out how her constituents really think about what she is doing in Washington, they can’t be blamed for wondering for whom she’s actually working when she’s in D.C. And it’s not too hard to figure out.

We all know about her huge campaign war-chest, currently ca. $3 million, made up of cash donated by “private donors hoping to influence or advance the people who do the public’s business.” And the cash rewards are not limited to “getting the message out.” The Post-Dispatch reported recently that “members of Congress use ‘leadership PACs’ – separate campaign fundraising entities from their regular political committees – to buy everything from rounds of golf to trips to posh resorts to tickets to Broadway shows.” These so-called “life-style enhancements” are on the pricey side, as indicated by some of the particulars pertaining to Wagner:

Wagner’s “leadership PAC, Ann PAC, spent $21,831 from 2015 through 2017 for event expenses, lodging, catering, and travel at various locations in Las Vegas, including the Venetian/Palazzo Hotel and expenses from Tao Restaurant Vegas, an ‘unparalleled Asian-inspired restaurant’ that is the sister to the ‘trendsetting’ Tao in New York. The payments to the Venetian/Palazzo in 2015 correspond with the Republican Jewish Coalition Spring Leadership Meeting.” Spokespersons for Wagner did not respond to a request for comment.

Who pulls Rep. Wagner’s strings? Tell me who is it who keeps Wagner in D.C. and shows her a good time while she’s there and I’ll show you who has her ear.

No, Chuck Raasch, nobody’s giving Eric Greitens’ scandals short shrift

22 Sunday Apr 2018

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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Washington correspondent, Chuck Raasch, occasionally indulges in the tired whinging about the Beltway’s (media) neglect of the good, solid folks in “flyover” country, a complaint we often hear, especially from Beltway journos intent on separating themselves from the herd by pretending to have a special line direct to the long-suffering, salt-of-the-earth folks hiding in the heartland (another tired designation for the center of the country). His latest complaint seems to be that, thanks to Eric Greitens, Missouri’s got an honest-to-god, big-time sex and corruption scandal and isn’t getting any credit for it:

For the record, on the day after a scathing legislative report on Greitens, one co-authored by five Republicans in which Republican Missouri House Speaker Todd Richardson labeled allegations against the Republican governor “very disturbing,” the Washington Post did not mention the report in its paper edition. It did, however, have four stories encompassing 140 column inches and five editorials or opinion columns on the resignation of House Speaker Paul Ryan.

For the record, the WaPo did report on latest in the Greitens brouhaha on the next day’s paper edition, just as they – and, as I can personally attest, numerous other national outlets – have reported regularly on the latest developments in the seemingly endless Greitens saga. (And shoudn’t Raasch be more interested in the digital version of the paper which likely has greater reach?)

If larger, coastal newspapers aren’t saturating their front pages with Greitens naughty behavior, as lamented by Raasch and Helaine Olen, whose WaPo article on the subject Raasch references, one of the reasons is that the practical considerations our Missouri scandal raises are probably of greater interest to the citizens of Missouri who will have to live with the consequences than it is to folks elsewhere. And who would expect anything else?

Of course, there’s also the fact that sex sandals are a dime a dozen lately. When the President of the United States is implicated in paying off porn actresses and Playboy models – and stands accused of eleven (or is it more?) instances of sexual assault, Greitens’ efforts seemed to be, at least until the most recent revelations of abusive behavior, essentially subpar.  Olen speculates that Greitens isn’t getting his due measure of shaming:

… partly because the Trump presidency is a news black hole, sucking up so much of our attention that almost nothing else can break through. But it’s also because the Trump administration, by ratcheting up the bounds of what is acceptable — at least to President Trump — is ensuring that actions that would normally shock all of us fly under the news radar.

As for Greitens’ alleged corruption – isn’t corruption the Republican way of life nowadays?

None of which is to say that newspapers have actually failed to report on the ever more salacious Greitens scandal. The issue is that bad behavior, that of both Greitens and Trump,  doesn’t seem to result in serious outrage, no matter how many folks are reading all the sordid details of life in the political fast lane.

Nor should we ignore the judgemental fingers pointed by various pundits over the past weeks. Ruth Marcus, also of The Washington Post, compared Greitens’ situation to that of the scandal-ridden EPA head, Scott Pruitt – three days before Olen lamented the lack of coverage and four days prior to Raach’s article. Like Olen, Marcus credits Trump’s Little of Circus of Horrors for the lack of consequences, declaring, “that Greitens and Pruitt remain in office, as of this writing, says something — not just about them, but about the degraded state of our politics.” Yep. And about Republicans too – don’t forget the prime enablers.

Finally, if Raasch wants Missouri to get credit for it’s own brand of sordid, he’ll definitely be gratified by the fact that Talking Points Memo has awarded Greitens one of its weekly Golden Duke awards. The Golden Duke, “named for former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, is given to a political figure by TPM following an attention-grabbing display of corruption, abuse of power, or risible behavior.” TPM’s editor, Josh Marshall, after detailing Greitens’ offenses, asserts that he deserves the award, because of “his refusal to read the writing on the wall.” He adds:

It’s unclear if Greitens will change his mind and voluntarily step down, be impeached, or attempt to ride out the allegations. But it appears he’ll have to adjust his political ambitions; he will likely have little use for the ericgreitensforpresident.com domain name he registered.

One can only hope.

Which Missouri pols helped knife net neutrality – and how much did they get paid to do it?

16 Saturday Dec 2017

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Last Wednesday 107 members of the U.S. House sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to revoke net neutrality regulations that have guaranteed that the big ISPs must treat all digital content equally, whatever it is and wherever it’s hosted. Without such rules broadband companies such as AT&T and Comcast can favor one website over another and charge users more to view certain material—such as streaming movies. They can potentially even censor political material they don’t like. In short, net neutrality is the backbone of the open internet we have all come to depend on. Without it, the digital community faces bleak times.

And Republicans want to destroy our thriving Internet culture – so much so that they wrote a letter to Trump’s FCC head lackey urging him to get down to business.

The letter was made public by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Vice Media’s Motherboard has – so far- deciphered 84 of the 107 names (the writing is not always legible and a typed list of signatories was not included in the release) and listed them along with the amount of money each has received from the telecom industry over the years.

Two Missouri members are clearly listed among the telecom toadies who signed the letter:

  • Blane Luetkemeyer (R-3), total telecom payola: $105,000
  • Billy Long (R-7), total telecom payola: $221,500

Although there are only two Missouri House members whose signatures grace the letter, over the years, there haven’t been too many Missouri GOPers who have been very friendly to the idea of the open internet – and almost all have been liberally rewarded for toeing the telecom line when it comes to net neutrality.

GOP Senator Roy Blunt alone has received $1,283,416 from the big three telecoms over his career (yes, you read that right – over a million dollars). Only John McCain took a bigger payout. And Blunt delivered for his bosses in the past – spouting the usual unsupported twaddle about how net neutrality is bad for jobs and innovation. Jobs. You gotta give it to ol’ Roy – he’s more than willing to mouth whatever predigested magic formula Republicans have decided to use against everything their patrons tell them to oppose whether it makes sense or not.

To be fair, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has taken over $500,000 dollars from the same folks since she went to Washington. As a report prepared by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) has noted, “the industry’s attempt to gain favor with lawmakers is not partisan. Entrenched telecommunications companies liberally spread money and attention to everyone who holds office.”

So, what did they get from McCaskill? While she supported the nomination of Pai as FCC Chairman and has tried to straddle the issue in the past, she has, as of today, indicated that she will support legislation to restore net neutrality – which, of course, can only pass if Democrats succeed in taking back the Congress in 2018. In the long run, though, McCaskill knows that destroying the Internet is a bad deal – both for her constituents and for her politically – and she’s not nearly as mercenary as her GOP opposite number.

Even though Democrats have benefited from telecom efforts to buy congressional votes, it is nevertheless still true that, as the CRP observes, “alignment with the ISPs is currently drawn along party lines.” Republicans take their obligations to their donors seriously, probably because they get lots more money from them. If you’re curious about how many pieces of dirty silver your Missouri GOP House member has received from the telecom industry as the price for selling out their constituents, you can check the CRP tally for every House and Senate member.

Depressing, no?

Roy Blunt uses the GOP tax bill to give a Christmas present to his lobbyist son

04 Monday Dec 2017

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Most Americans, even conservative Americans whether or not they admit it, know that the big tax cut Christmas gift President Moron has promised will be delivered directly to the fat cats who support the GOP, while the gifts the GOP pretends to be giving most other Americans will metamorphose into gigantic lumps of coal either immediately or by 2027 when the crumbs tossed to the hoi polloi will vanish into the realm of Christmas past. The easy – and true – explanation is that the Republicans who preach fiscal responsibility were long ago purchased by the beneficiaries of a system that increases the growing inequality among Americans.

However, the extent to which some GOP pols are indulging in a little personal gift-giving on the side has been mostly ignored. As an article in The Intercept makes clear, some elected Republicans have used the tax cut baloney to enhance their or their families’ bottom lines – and one of the most notable examples is Missouri’s own always-on-the-take politician, Roy Blunt:

The tax plan before Congress, though sold as broad legislation to reduce rates and end favoritism in the tax code, contains targeted provisions designed to benefit special interest groups, many of which maintain close ties to senior Republican lawmakers.

Take the special tax cut for the alcohol industry hidden in the bill.

The tax cut legislation includes a provision that cuts taxes on beer, wine, and liquor produced or imported into the country, saving companies involved around $4.2 billion over 10 years. The provision mirrors language from the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, or S. 236, introduced by Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri and a member of the Senate GOP leadership team. (While the legislation does benefit craft, or small breweries, it extends the cuts to larger companies and the industry as a whole.)

Key GOP lawmakers maintain close ties to individuals connected to the booze industry.

Sen. Blunt’s son Andy Blunt is a registered lobbyist for MillerCoors, a brewing company that has worked to build support on Capitol Hill for the exact same targeted brewer tax cuts now included in the tax bill. …

For the record, Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, whose wife’s fortune comes from Hensley Brewing and Sen. Ron Portman, who has close ties to a lobbying firm that represents the industry, are also implicated as per The Intercept. Might go a long way to explaining why McCain, who objected to the procedure used to concoct and attempt to force passage of the ill-fated Republican healthcare demolition effort, was far more obliging this time around. It seems that procedure can be damned as long as the sweeteners are liberally bestowed.

Meanwhile, back at the working folks’ ranch, the Community Oncology Alliance warned Congress that the tax cut bill will mandate a huge cut in Medicare spending:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has warned that “pay-as-you-go” rules require a 4% sequester cut to Medicare to offset the deficit increases triggered in the current tax bill. This would double the ongoing 2% sequester cut to Medicare payments implemented when Congress was unable to solve the nation’s budget deficit in 2011.

Policymakers in Washington should note that blunt budget cutting gimmicks like the sequester cut backfire. They have terrible unintended consequences and do more harm than good for patients and taxpayers. According to the 2016 Community Oncology Practice Impact Report, in the five years since the last Medicare sequester went into effect, 91 cancer treatment clinics have closed and 130 independent community cancer practices, typically comprised of multiple treatment sites, have been forced to merge into hospitals.

Community oncology practices are where the majority of Americans with cancer are treated. Closing them creates problems with access to cancer care and consolidation into more expensive hospital systems, driving up costs for seniors with limited mobility and fixed incomes, as well as all taxpayers who fund Medicare. The actuarial firm Milliman found that the consolidation of independent community cancer practices with hospitals cost Medicare and taxpayers $2 billion in 2014 alone. In addition, Medicare beneficiaries responsible for the 20% copayment saw their bills rise by $500 million in that same year.

As a person suffering from chronic cancer, I owe my survival over the past few years to Medicare and my excellent Medicare supplement. Now, however, since the barbarians have stormed the gates of Washington and the looting has started, I can’t helping wondering how long it can last – which is another way of asking how long I can last. I also know that I’m not in the worst position among my fellow-suffers – who won’t have to worry about what is going to happen because there’s only one answer: treatment will definitely soon be put out of reach for them if this bill in finally enacted. It’ll be a grim December for lots of us.

But hey, we can be sure that it’ll be a jolly Christmas in the Blunt family home. Sen. Blunt will have contributed to a “major victory for hardworking Missourians,” by his own account. And he may not be entirely dishonest. Andy Blunt is a Missourian and I’m sure that it’s possible that he’s truly a hard-working lobbyist. And there are probably a few more like him.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Roy Blunt to speak truth to power

25 Wednesday Oct 2017

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By now, unless you’ve been hiding from the omnipresent “Trump did-what?” porn that floods the news daily, you’ve heard that several Republican lawmakers, along with former GOP president George W. Bush, have expressed their concerns about the intelligence, mental stability and general demeanor of the Republican’s sitting president.

The policy differences these folks have with Trump, if any, lie the areas of foreign relations and trade policy – otherwise they’re more than simpatico with his domestic depredations. Viewed from this vantage point, their forthrightness is even more praiseworthy and the dangers posed by Trump seems all the more serious. It takes personal integrity as well as a strong perception of the threat he poses to speak out against a dangerous, dimwitted, but powerful official who is amenable to enacting policies compatible with one’s beliefs along with furthering the domestic druthers of one’s political benefactors.

Which brings us to the topic of Missouri’s Republican Sen. Roy Blunt. The St. Louis Post-dispatch political writer, Chuck Raasch, had this to say about the so-called GOP “civil war,” specifically as articulated by soon-to-be retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona:

Politicians should assess their counterparts’ hearts, Flake said, “and always look for the good. This spell will eventually break. That is my belief.”

When, how? Blunt could be a key. He has, so far, tried to be the ultimate team player, asserting he’d rather be without drama but not directly criticizing Trump, whom he had said in January would bring a fresh “synergy” to a capital used to doing things certain ways.

On almost all things policy, Blunt and Trump are simpatico. Blunt is a clarion of “regular order” in the Senate, a historian in its ways and traditions and collegiality and a consummate Republican team member. If he would ever take the road of Corker, Flake and others and take on Trump more directly, Washington would take notice.

I haven’t found Raasch to be a consistently persuasive political analyst, but he does a decent if not compelling job. However, he’s really missed the boat if he thinks that Roy Blunt will ever do anything motivated by personal integrity. Blunt, after all, is Montsanto’s man in Washington, Tom DeLay’s bagman, pater familias to a gaggle of lobbyists and CREW’s most corrupt politician of 2010 – and while that may be old news, there’s no evidence to indicate that Blunt has somehow become a “clarion” of anything that does not further the interests of his big donors or any position that would muddy his special pandering to the social resentments of the folks who have been persuaded to elect him so that he can further interests that yield such a big payload.

If Blunt ever speaks out, he’ll only do it when he thinks it’s safe to do so, probably only after more prominent Republicans, the folks who hold the key to committee and leadership appointments, lead the way. And I don’t expect that to happen soon – at least not until gigantic tax cuts for the rich have been insured, Social Security and Medicare decimated, and the courts have been packed with suitably retrograde legal minds.

But somehow Raasch thinks Blunt might come to the rescue of all the Americans endangered by the dementia-crazed charlatan in the White House. Dream on.

Addendum: More cold water on Raasch’s hopes for emergent signs of decency from Roy Blunt: a Washington Post analysis dates the willingness of GOP legislators to go public about their disgust with Trump to Charlottesville when Trump displayed his overt racism. But Blunt has a history of go-along-to-get-along soft racism himself. He’s not likely to be motivated by the affront to decency represented by Trump’s Charlottesville comments. For Blunt it’s all just politics.

Vicky Hartzler: True believer or dumber than a stone?

29 Friday Sep 2017

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The Trump administration has put forward a nine page  tax cutting “proposal” that analysts agree is specific only about the great big tax cut it’ll give folks like Donald Trump. You want to know what we know about it at this point: it’ll cut taxes mightily for the wealthy, it’ll raise taxes for many in the middle class, it’ll explode the deficit. And, as is now the norm under Trump, it’s being sold to us by means of bare-faced lies.

All of which makes the response of Missouri GOPer, Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4) so intriguing. She sums up her “hopes” for the proposed tax cuts thusly:

I hope we can quickly pass this legislation and get it on the President’s desk so that we can create more jobs, simplify the burdensome tax process, and put more money in the wallets of Americans.

Which, in the light of what we are learning about the Trump skeleton proposal and what it will or will not do, leads one to ask whether or not she really believes this twaddle.

Surely Harzler, and the stampede of GOPers who will almost certainly follow her example and endorse the Trump desiderata list, realize that there are some serious questions that have to be answered before any legislation reaches the president’s desk:

  1. How will GOPers like Hartzler propose to pay for the mammoth cuts they are giving to the wealthy and to corporations? The plan is very sketchy about retaining or eliminating deductions that benefit the middle classes – although it is far more detailed when it comes to the benefits that will be awarded to the 1%. Do Hartzler and her pals really think that they’ll be able to “quickly” hash out the extensive details that are currently TBD to everybody’s satisfaction?
  2. Does the Hartzler contingent really buy the “voodoo,” trickle-down economic theories that are being used to justify the burden these tax cuts will put on the deficit? In spite of the consistent failure of this theory over past decades? Or in spite of the warnings of conservative economists like Bruce Bartlett, one of the first proponents of the claim that tax cuts spur growth, who declared in response to the Trump proposal that it is ” wishful thinking,” adding that “there’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth”?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then the answer to the question posed in the title of this post is “both.” These folks are the truest of misguided true believers and they’re likely dumber than a whole heap of stones.

Of course, there’s another alternative. These days most GOP lawmakers finance their political careers by the grace of the generous and wealthy 1%, the folks who have for years been positioning themselves to be able to buy a tax code just like the one Richie Rich-pants Trump is flogging. Perhaps our Republicans aren’t star-struck, naive or dumb. It could be nothing more than that old-time D.C. swamp water that everybody promises to drain while it creeps ever higher and which, under Trump, may have finally reached a level high enough to drown decent politicians.

Does Claire McCaskill really care about federal fiscal abuse?

31 Thursday Aug 2017

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Donald Trump visited Missouri this week to deliver a thinly disguised campaign speech in which he tried to sell a tax cut for rich folks and corporations as “reform” that would benefit the middle-classes. And he did it in the middle of a major national disaster, yet. But hey, we already knew we weren’t dealing with a class act here.

But that’s not all Trump did in Missouri. He dumped a truckload of the patented Trump slime on Missouri’s Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill – which, incidentally, may have oversteped the legal line between thinly disguised campaigning and the straight-out real thing:

Speaking at an industrial-fan factory in Springfield, Trump singled out McCaskill, a Democrat who is up for reelection next year in a state the president won decisively in 2016.

“We must — we have no choice — we must lower our taxes. And your senator, Claire McCaskill, she must do this for you, and if she doesn’t do it for you, you have to vote her out of office,” Trump said to loud applause and whistling from the audience. “She’s got to make that commitment. She’s got to make that commitment. If she doesn’t do it — we just can’t do this anymore with the obstruction and the obstructionists.”

Ethics experts said the main issue raised by the president’s comments is whether he was ad-libbing or whether White House aides planned for him to urge McCaskill’s defeat..

In case you’re in doubt about whether or not Trump’s partisan jibes overstepped the line, bear in mind that taxpayers paid for him to come here and dishonestly take out after a senator from the opposite party, a senator moreover who’s made it clear that she’s willing and eager to participate in a discussion of real tax reform, as long as it’s really a cooperative process, rather than simply an invitation to mindlessly rubber stamp proposals that reflect the desires of those rich folks who serve to profit most.

What should McCaskill do in response to this unprovoked attack from the Republican’s president? It’s not always effective to respond to slime with a shovel – especially when the slime machine’s so hyperactive. But it occurs to me that there’s an available and potentially effective “shovel” that might fit right into McCaskill’s persona as a lawmaker who always watches out for her constituents’ fiscal interests.

Ask yourself who, off the top of your head, really needs to have his fiscal shenanigans spotlighted right now? If you said Donald Trump, give yourself an “A.”

Trump, among other abuses, has beggared the Secret Service with his regular $3 million weekend retreats to his own luxury hotels. And a big part of that $3 million in taxpayer cash flows straight into Trump’s own pocket since he’s declined to comp the Secret Service accommodations in return for the free protection he and his family receives. Wouldn’t that be the least that a man who claims to be a billionaire could do if he really has to spend almost every weekend at his own properties? And I may add that he takes these golfing weekends away in spite of the fine, big, white house the taxpayers have loaned him, a house where nobody has to pay extra for his protection.

If this isn’t an abuse that needs to checked, I don’t know what is.

What’s more, some intrepid lawmakers agree and are on the ball. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has introduced an amendment to the 2018 spending bill that would prohibit allocations to the Secret Service from being used to ” purchase, rent, or otherwise acquire goods or services, including hotel rooms, office space, or golf carts, from entities that are owned or operated by the President or the immediate family of the President.” And Schiff isn’t the only member of the House who’s appalled by Trump’s cavalier appropriation of federal money for himself: Rep. Steven Cohen (D-Tenn.) introduced sixteen appropriations amendments that would “prohibit federal spending at Trump-owned hotels, resorts and other Trump-owned businesses.” No more tax-money going to further enrich America’s wealthiest and – incidentally? -most corrupt President.

Seems to me that this and other fiscal abuses by the president – of which there are many – might be an excellent focus for hearings in the Senate, not to mention a profitable way for our fiscally-excited Senator McCaskill to deploy her energies. At the very least, she could start lending her vocal support to the House’s efforts to rein in Trump’s corruption. After all, nobody can work that fiscal shovel like Claire McCaskill.

Of course, as constitutional law professor Jacob Weisberg observed in a Slate interview, the best way to deal with presidential corruption is impeachment. Although impeachment has to originate in the House, McCaskill might profit from keeping the possibility in mind. Even though she’s tried to make it clear to pinkish citizens of red state Missouri that she doesn’t intend to “fight” the president, the time might come when fighting for Missourians means doing just that. And, of course, he’s already thrown the first punch; it might be time to see what kind of counter-punches our Senator is capable of delivering.

Roy Blunt could teach Trump a thing or two

27 Thursday Jul 2017

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Seems that the Trump apparatus, in the person of the Secretary of the Interior, Ran Zinke, decided that Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) needed to be reminded who calls the shots. -She was showing a little too much independence when she joined with Susan Collins (R-ME) as the only Republicans who refused to vote to advance the horrible, terrible Trumpcare bill to the floor of the Senate for debate.

Had opponents – Murkowski, Collins, and every Democratic Senator – prevailed we would have seen the end of the GOP efforts to take healthcare away from millions of Americans. This show of gumption got Trump and his minions all in a swivet because for some reason they think they have to keep their stupid propaganda promises to repeal that black man’s healthcare plan – although Trump, evidently, feels perfectly entitled to ignore the second part of his campaign promise – that it would be replaced with something “wonderful.”

Anyway, Trump sent his lackey Zinke to let the two Alaska Senators know that, thanks to Murkowski efforts to act like an independent agent accountable to her constituents rather than to his Orange Majesty, he’d be inclined to take it out on Alaska, which, because of its dependence on energy extraction, has close relations with the Department of the Interior. Didn’t do too much to scare Murkowski, though. She responded in a measured, but firm way – and, reportedly, thanks to her role on an important Appropriations subcommittee, put a hold on hearings for some of Zinke’s nominations for Interior Department posts.

What’s most amusing for those of us from Missouri, though, might be the reaction of our GOP Senator:

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, on Thursday chimed in to say that any threats from the administration likely won’t work.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve seldom seen threats be very effective,” he told reporters when asked about Zinke’s reported threat to the Alaska senators.

I’m sure he’s right. The fact that both Senators went public immediately about the threat itself indicates that they’re not quaking in their boots.

If, however, the administration weapon against the Senators were being wielded by wealthy campaign donors waving their checkbooks, Blunt, one-time House bagman for Tom Delay, might feel differently. This is the guy who “built a formidable political machine by transforming lobbying cash into industry-accomodating legislation.” Just ask Monsanto what has worked with Blunt, the carrot or the whip?

But then again, Trump probably isn’t smart enough or temperamentally inclined to deploy those carrots with the subtlety carrot deployment demands.

 

Roy Blunt sees no evil, hears no evil and says nothing of substance about PutinGate

15 Saturday Jul 2017

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Senator Roy Blunt (R) is a piece of work.  Donald Trump, the leader of his party, is demonstrably, publicly corrupt, and almost surely owes his slim election victory, at least partly, to the machinations of a hostile and equally corrupt Russian autocrat. Yet now that the evidence of Trump campaign collusion with said autocrat is all but undeniable, thanks to the missteps of president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., Senator Blunt still wants to equivocate.

With a straight face Blunt declares that he believes that the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which he is a member, should indeed ” follow wherever the facts take them, including the possible involvement of President Donald Trump’s campaign with the Russian government.” Nothing wrong with that statement in itself, but did you note the use of the qualifier “possible” to weaken its impact? At this stage of the game yet? And he almost immediately qualified his dedication to finding the truth in three ways that, parsed carefully, make it clear that he is not really interested in what Trump actually did or didn’t do:

Roy Blunt sees no evil if it comes wrapped in dollar bills:

First, Blunt asserted that, although the entire situation with its suggestion of unsavory business contacts reeks of ill-gotten gains, money laundering and influence peddling,  “following the money”  should be off limits:

Blunt told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Wednesday afternoon that the Intelligence committee, which he sits on, shouldn’t examine financial ties between Russian and the Trump campaign organization.

“I wouldn’t think so” said Blunt. “I would think that the intel committee, when we get this more pressing issue of Russian involvement in the election, and any involvement that others had with them, if that turns out to be the case, I thinks that’s got to be the top priority.”

Blunt, evidently, doesn’t think it’s remotely possible that there’s a financial angle to the corruption of our electoral process by Russia, and, if there is, it shouldn’t be of interest to the committee investigating said corruption. Whose leg is Blunt trying to pull anyway? Given his glory days in the House of representatives where he served to great renown as corruption meister, Tom DeLay’s, chief GOP bagman, he surely recognizes the stench that often arises at the intersection of money and power.

It’s now well-established that the powerful President of Russia directed an extensive and sophisticated intervention in the 2016 U.S. election. This intervention was intended to aid the candidacy of Donald Trump, a man who has shown himself willing to use the Presidency to line his own pockets, hides his tax returns, and who, according to all indications, has had shady dealings, likely of a financial nature, with the new, gangster-style Russian oligarchy. Evidently Roy Blunt hasn’t heard of kompromat. Yet Roy Blunt sees no potential in pursuing the financial issues.

Roy Blunt would prefer to hear no evil:

After asserting that exploring the relationship between Trumpian corruption, possible Russian extortion, etc. should be off limits in the Intelligence Committee’s RussiaGate investigation, Blunt managed to declare that he wanted to cut off the information spout that led to the investigation in the  first place:

Blunt wants the committee to expand its inquiry to find out who in the federal government is leaking classified and confidential information to the press.

“It’s within our responsibility as the intel committee in the Senate to look at the leaks, to look at how secure our own national security structure is” Blunt told MSNBC. “That’s probably where we expand to.”

A number of Republicans have accused career government employees of trying to sabotage the Trump presidency with a flood of leaks.

Can  you imagine folks so devoid of a moral center they think that it’s okay to ignore the crime and go after the whistleblowers – no matter that the “presidency” they may be “trying to sabotage” is clearly sinking under the weight of its own corruption and ineptitude? I can. We call them Republicans and that fact goes a long way toward explaining Blunt’s investigative druthers.

Roy Blunt will, though, speak a little backhanded evil :

Blunt was, however, unable to resist indulging in a little Schadenfreude on the topic of Trump, Inc. troubles. The consummate insider just couldn’t resist having a little fun at the expense of the bumbling reality star and his stable of incompetents who are mucking up the business of government after bad-mouthing pros such as Blunt:

Blunt doesn’t think the Trump campaign had the political experience to entertain the notion of collusion. “What you had in the Trump campaign was a candidate who had figured out the exact communicating spot to be with the American people in 2016, and a campaign around him that I was never sure had the capacity to collude with the Republican National Committee, let alone anybody else” said Blunt on MSNBC.

Well of course they  didn’t. That’s why they’re in the hot seat now. The New York Post said it best when it proclaimed in an editorial headline that Donald Trump  Jr. is an idiot. Apropos of which, it’s  clear that Trump Jr. is his father’s son, and that, as far as their team goes, like attracts like. Neither incompetence or stupidity, however, is a defense.

Several commentators have also brought up the lack of a “moral compass” when discussing Trump’s campaign machinations. Perhaps congressmen like Senator Blunt, who clearly understand how huge the stakes are for the country, might be said to lack the same accoutrement as well when they show themselves willing to hedge and deflect serious issues surrounding our openly compromised president in order to preserve the advantages of partisan power

*First two paragraphs revised for stylistic and clarity reasons.