Conventional wisdom has it that, given the unbalanced turnout that is expected next Tuesday, the Missouri effort to weaken health care reform, Proposition C, will prevail. A comment on my earlier post about the Missouri Hospital Association’s anti-Proposition C campaign noted that when it passes it “will not be pretty …, especially on Fox and hate radio.” Well, I’m here to tell you that the triumphalism has already gotten bizarre.

The St. Louis Beacon reports that State Senator Jane Cunningham believes that Proposition C is divinely ordained since its assured passage just goes to show that God “interferes in the affairs of men.” According to Cunningham, God doesn’t want all Missourians to have equal access to health care.

What I want Cunningham to ask God next time she and he get together for coffee is why he’s so worried about requiring individuals to take responsibility for their health care? She and the people she represents affirmed, after all, that they want a private rather than a public health care delivery system; did they do so only because they thought that they could push the cost of their emergency room visits onto the rest of us, helping to push health costs ever upward, and sending deficits spiraling?

Cunningham seems to imply that God opposes the individual mandate because it limits “personal freedom,” and requires people to spend money. But God doesn’t seem to be at all worried about mandates for the purchase of auto insurance. Nor does he seem to be worried about requirements for building standards, food safety measures, disabled access and a whole slew of “mandates” that have associated costs, but which make our country a decent place to live.

Cunningham and her pals also seem to think that God is all lathered up about “state’s rights” – which leads me to ask why he didn’t intervene more forcefully when that issue was settled at the conclusion of the American Civil War. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that a supposedly all-powerful God really gets too worked up about weak constitutional arguments.

All this leaves me with just one question.  If it isn’t God who’s working to deliver a victory for the Proposition C forces, who could it be?  Could it have anything to do with that force darker forces that manifest as apathy, stupidity and cupidity?  I don’t know about you, but that’s not exactly what I describe as divine intervention.

Earlier, I noted that State Senator Jane Cunningham attended Todd Akin’s kill-health-care-reform pep rally to push her Health Care Freedom Act. This bill would put a constitutional amendement on the Missouri ballot this fall that is based on fringewingers’ wistful reading of the tenth amendment, which they insist permits states, Civil War to the contrary, to opt out of federal legislation they don’t like – in this case, health care reform legislation.

The Beacon’s Jo Mannies reported that Cunningham got a standing ovation for this ill-conceived, last-ditch effort to subvert the will of the people who voted for Obama and his promises of health care reform. Do you wonder whether any of those fools applauding Cunningham had the teensiest, tiniest idea about what effect opting out of health care reform could possibly have on Missouri were it to prove possible?

Just take a look at this interactive map prepared by the Center for American Progress. Under the health care reform proposed by the Senate, 200,957 more people in Missouri would be newly eligible for Medicaid, individuals who will continue to be uninsured given the status quo.  The loss of federal funds for Medicaid that would result from “opting” out would mean that Missouri’s uninsured would continue to exceed 700,000.

Nor, as has been amply demonstrated over the past few years, can Missouri effectively address the problem of the uninsured at the state level.  As Ivor Volksy of the Wonk Room puts it:

Political considerations, special interest influence and budgetary strains have doomed previous state-based health care reform efforts and governors who believe that nullifying federal reform is in the best interest of their citizens are placing politics ahead of sound policy.

Substitute “legislature” for “governors”, and you have Missouri in a nutshell, with its 2008 nonelderly, uninsured rate of 14.5% – a rate that is probably quite a bit higher right now.

The Senate health care reform package would extend Medicaid coverage massively, providing subsidies that would reduce costs for state governments, employers, and individuals. It would also include incentives and reformulated payment systems that would work to make Medicaid more efficient. And yet there are people who will stand up and applaud a ideological nitwit like Jane Cunningham for her efforts to deny Missouri citizens needed benefits that give us good returns on our tax dollars.  

Since President Obama was to be in St. Louis today on Wednesday pushing for health care reform, Rep. Todd Akin (R – 2nd) thought he would jump the gun and rally the president’s right-wing foes via a video town hall in St. Charles. Attended by about 2,200 people, the event consisted of presentations of the same ol’ same ol’ talking points by Akin and a handful of other retrograde Missouri politicians, including Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, and, via video, Akin’s congressional fellow travelers,  John Shimkus, (R-IL) and John Shadegg, (R-AZ).

According to KSDK TV, Akin was in his usual obstructionist form:

I want to say and I want to be completely clear, … That the bill that we’re talking about today is the worst bill that I’ve seen in all my time in Congress.  In fact, it is so bad, it is at least two times worse than the next bad bill, which was the cap and tax bill to supposeably fix global warming.

Not exactly the most profound or relevant analysis – but then this was Todd Akin speaking and we all know that unsubstantiated invective and slogans like “cap and tax bill” seems to work very well with his support base. Other speakers hit the grace notes; State Senator Jane Cunningham, for instance, pushed her tenther legislation “which could potentially stop socialized medicine mandate at the state level.” The real knee-slapper, though, came when Akin:

… credited divine intervention with the January election of Scott Brown, R-Mass., which deprived Senate Democrats of the 60-seat majority needed to block filibusters. Akin said he hoped God would intervene again to prevent a health care bill from getting through Congress.

Amazing how small and parochial the God of some of these so-called Christians seems to be.

It is instructive – and sad – to compare this event to the President’s appearance, and to think that there are people who are happy to be led down the garden path by fools like Akin and pals. Sadder still to think about what we all stand to lose because we live in a place where this type of idiocy is taken seriously by anyone.  

UPDATE:  Today (Mar. 12) on the Dianne Rehm show, a caller from St. Charles reported that Akin went even further out onto the thin ice of tasteless absurdity by comparing the passage of health care to that good old Republican fall-back,  9/11. The response, from even the conservative commentator, was to condemn Akin’s excess as insane, childish and, at the least, manipulative. Rehm seemed to have trouble believing that there were people present at that rally that cheered Akin – I have trouble believing that there people in my district that voted for him.

Okay, it’s late and I am admittedly fit for nothing serious, but when I came across this TPM review of the new Michele Bachmann comic, a crudely drawn electric bulb lit up in the psychic balloon that is always floating above my head just in case I get an idea. The latest issue of the Bachmann comic series is filled with actual statements about gays made by Bachmann, the current Queen of Crazy Republicanland – and, while tragic, they’re also a scream. Earlier issues emphasize her other pseudo-political preoccupations to equal effect.

Starting from the premise that ridicule is the best way to neutralize folks who are both obscene and absurd, wouldn’t it be just loverly if somebody put out a series of comic books about some of our Missouri crazies? Wouldn’t you buy titles like, say,  Calamity Jane Cunningham Hunts the Disappearing Constitution, Cynthia Davis at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, Todd Akin’s Fantastic American History,The Godfather Blunt, or Strange Climate Science with Blaine Luetkemeyer? There are almost unlimited possibilities.  

Alternatively, following the example of baseball cards, one could just print the most outrageous statements made by our fringewing celebs on collectible cards – or maybe put together a flash card game where one would have to guess who said what. So much of what these folks say manages to be so appalling and yet so amusingly fantastical at the same time that I can’t understand why some enterprising soul hasn’t already done something along these lines – perhaps, as a handy campaign aid?

* Communis rixatrix: a common scold, “a species of public nuisance – a troublesome and angry woman who broke the public peace by habitually arguing and quarreling with her neighbours.”

Do you sometimes wonder about the mental state of the fringiest of our Republican legislators?  Consider the following recent examples of shrill and clueless scolding on the part of two of the people elected to represent us:

–At a hearing on anti-abortion legislation, State Senator Jane Cunningham felt it appropriate to ask witness Michelle Trupianio, a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, if she had ever had an abortion. When Trupiano appropriately responded that it was none of Cunningham’s business, Cunningham proceeded to badger her until Senator Matt Bartle “reminded her to allow witnesses to answer the questions asked of them.”

–A couple of weeks ago, Rep. Cynthia Davis rudely and aggressively questioned an African-American witness at a hearing before the House Health Care Committee about the nutrition practices of “your people,” and “your community.” Davis also quizzed the witness about her religious background as if it were relevant, and brought up her own personal opinions about the choices she believes food stamp recipients make.

Both of these women used their relatively powerful positions to bully and belittle people whom they clearly consider to be not only different from themselves, but threatening and inferior. What should have been dispassionate forums to explore issues were perverted into irrelevant personal inquisitions by a couple of two-bit Torquemadas.

All of which came to my mind when I read a recent column by Nick Kristoff in the New York Times. Kristoff described research that suggests that people whom we commonly classify as “liberal” or “conservative” may have significantly different cognitive structures from each other. Research that looked at startle responses and other neurological markers lined up with  earlier research that found that conservatives:

tend to see the world in stark, black-and-white terms, perceive the social order as vulnerable or under attack, tend to make strong distinctions between “us” and “them,” and emphasize order and muscular responses to threats.

Sounds about right, doesn’t it?  The more offensive people like Cunningham and Davis seem, the more they are really playing defense. What this research implies is that they represent extreme degrees of a common neurological bias. When you mix their biological inclination to respond with fear or disgust with simple-minded religious or political ideology, you get holy warriors (jihadists?), bent on running roughshod over all the infidels who don’t see the world just like they do – a conclusion that is not too encouraging for those who believe in rational give-and-take, but it could add an important dimension to theories of persuasion such as, for example, Lakoffian “framing.”

I’ve spoken slightingly on this site of State Senator Jane Cunningham’s stand on health care reform:

[I]f you can’t build on last year’s lunacy, you’re a shark that doesn’t keep moving: politically, you’re dead. So now Cunningham has promised:

to sponsor a state constitutional amendment to protect Missourians “against attempts to socialize health care through the ‘public option’ health care mandate currently under consideration by Congress.”

(…..)

Her proposition would put us among the dozen looniest states in the country.

I figured, why not have fun at her expense? After all, such a challenge ignores the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution. The first judge it went to, in whatever podunk district, would laugh it out of court. But our laughter might be premature. No, I’m not saying that such a challenge will get anywhere in the legal system. But consider this:

Those who argue that these challenges have little legal merit are missing a larger point.  This strategy is first a political one, and only secondarily aims to change the course of the short-run health care debate.

First, given the pace of implementation, the Presidential election of 2012 becomes pivotal.  A change of administration that year would likely cripple implementation, perhaps fatally.  Campaigns being developed now are largely geared toward building a base of activists for 2012.

Even if they are unable to unseat Obama, Republicans see health reform as a wedge issue they can use to regain control of Congress.  Failing that, by defeating some vulnerable and prominent supporters of reform, opponents hope to create a chilling effect that will dampen the willingness in Congress to pursue further reform.

What this means for reform supporters is that-far from final negotiations curtaining the show-a new act in the saga of U.S. health care reform  is about to begin.

Uh oh.

In an article in the New York Review of Books last October Michael Tomasky predicted that if  health care reform becomes fait accompli, the follow-up strategy of the fringewing opposition would be to rally under the “Tenther” banner. Tentherism refers to one of the more amusing distortions of the constitution current in right wing circles; Tenthers hold that the ninth and tenth amendments allow states to nullify any federal legislation they don’t like.

Although the Tenther premise is assuredly negated by the Constitution’s supremacy clause along with other considerations, the more feckless of Missouri’s fringer pols have been quick to jump on the bandwagon. As Hotflash noted last October, state Senator* Jane Cunningham has promised to introduce nullification legislation. Not to be outdone, the witless but very energetic Cynthia Davis (R-19*) has already started the ball rolling to amend the State Constitution and nullify the provisions of federal health care reform legislation.

The Tenther movement,  however, like the related Tea Party anger orgies, is not quite as natural a development as would-be constitutional defenders such as Davis and Cunningham would like us to think – or may actually think themselves. According to Lee Fang of ThinkProgress:

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), founded in 1973 by conservative activist Paul Weyrich, is a DC-based front group which helps state lawmakers craft corporate-friendly legislation. As the Atlantic has noted, ALEC developed template health care “states’ rights,” legislation to declare aspects of health reform unconstitutional. ALEC has promoted this “tenther” legislation using its network of mostly far right Republican state lawmakers. The bills, which have been adopted in some form in 24 states so far, aim to invalidate federal regulations of health insurance, the public option and the individual mandate using the Tenther Amendment.

To take the chain of influence one step further, one of the main architects of the ALEC Tenther strategy is Joan Gardner, Executive Director of State Services with Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s Office of Policy and Representation. Is the picture becoming clearer?

Jane Cunningham and Cynthia Davis may be the face of Tentherism in Missouri, but we should remember who is pulling the strings. Bleat as they may about “freedom,” Cunningham and Davis are doing nothing more than providing a sham patriotic facade for the insurance industry’s war to save its profit margin.

* Corrected

What kind of odds you want to lay me that Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, subscribes to the newsletter of the far-right Family Research Center (FRC)? I’m laying my money down only if I get to bet that she does, but I’ll give you whatever odds you like. And on the assumption that I’m correct, she’s been hearing that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) currently in Congress and being pushed by Obama, will “impose homosexuality” in workplaces.

No, the FRC doesn’t claim that straight employees will be forced to watch gay porn until they convert to the LGBT lifestyle. But it does claim that businesses, even religious businesses, would be forced to hire gays. The newsletter points out that “[t]his law would punish anyone in the workplace who dares oppose homosexual behavior, cross-dressing and other unhealthy behaviors” and that Obama is trying to “impose homosexuality and silence Christianity in workplaces”–even to the point of forcing workers to remove those offensive (to gays) Bibles from their desks.

Such an imagination these folks have.

The legislation would not force anyone to be hired. It would only mean that it would be illegal “to fire, refuse to hire, or fail to promote employees simply based on sexual orientation,” as it is currently illegal to do in cases of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Additionally, as the Human Rights Campaign points out, current ENDA legislation “exempts small businesses, religious organizations and the military.“

But do you think Cunningham will ponder those fine points of the law once she hears from the FRC? Bear in mind that at the Educational Policy Conference of the Constitutional Coalition last winter, she spoke on the topic “the homosexual agenda in our public schools” and introduced her good friend State Rep. Sally Kern of Oklahoma, who:

achieved brief national notoriety when Ellen DeGeneres played a tape of Kern saying things like:

You know why they’re trying to get early childhood education? They want to get our young children into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them. …. And they’re going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.”

Ooh, earth to Sally Kern and Jane Cunningham.

And don’t try to tell me I lost that bet.

The Post-Dispatch always refers to Senator Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, as Calamity Jane. Fair enough. After all, she’s the lady who could tell Professor Harold Hill what the pool tables of 2008 were, because she spoke at a right wing “educational” conference last year on the topic of the “homosexual agenda in our public schools” and introduced her good friend State Rep. Sally Kern of Oklahoma, who believes that:

You know why they’re trying to get early childhood education? They want to get our young children into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them. …. And they’re going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.”

But if you can’t build on last year’s lunacy, you’re a shark that doesn’t keep moving: politically, you’re dead. So now Cunningham has promised:

to sponsor a state constitutional amendment to protect Missourians “against attempts to socialize health care through the ‘public option’ health care mandate currently under consideration by Congress.”

If approved by the Legislature and state voters, Missourians would be allowed to opt out of any health care reform passed by Congress. If you don’t want be forced to buy insurance under an “individual mandate,” that would be OK. You don’t want to provide your employees insurance, that would be OK, too.

Her proposition would put us among the dozen looniest states in the country.

The P-D editorial does a fine job of explaining Cunningham’s rationalization for ignoring the federal government. She and other tenthers believe that the tenth amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants the federal government the right to do only what the Constitution specifically mentions. Everything else is the province of the states. Never mind that:

Article VI, paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution – the so-called “supremacy clause” – says that federal laws and treaties are “the supreme law of the land” and that state judges should uphold them, even if state laws or constitutions conflict.

This is why we no longer have separate but equal schools and separate water fountains and rest rooms. It is why we have voting rights and all of the other heinous incursions into states’ rights brought about by the civil rights movement. George Wallace and Lester Maddox are dead.

The Post confines its critique of tenthers to health care. But don’t try telling me that Jane Cunningham doesn’t believe the rest of their malarkey, doesn’t oppose Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the GI Bill, even the federal highway system.

If we could just get her on record about that federal highway exclusion, it would be a hoot to film her driving down Interstate 70 to Jeff City next January.

Mothers of River City,

heed this warning before it’s too late

Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption

The minute your son leaves the house

does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?

(….)

Well if so, my friends…

Ya got trouble

Oh, we got trouble

Right here in River City Missouri.

Senator Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, could tell Professor Harold Hill what the pool tables of 2009 are. A couple of years ago when she was still a state rep, Cunningham spoke at “Educational Policy Conference 18,” an annual event sponsored by The Constitutional Coalition. That may sound like dry stuff, but only till you get a load of the speech titles, like: “Totalitarianism in Drag: The Connection Between Globalism, Phony Academics, Covert Data Collection & Mental Health Screening”. Cunningham spoke on the topic of “the homosexual agenda in our public schools” and introduced her good friend, Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern, who achieved brief national notoriety when Ellen DeGeneres played a tape of Kern saying things like:

You know why they’re trying to get early childhood education? They want to get our young children into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them. …. And they’re going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.”

Ooh. Earth to Sally Kern.

Well, that’s my reaction, but Kern is not alone in her paranoia about what the government wants to do to our kids. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, is sponsoring a constitutional amendment to prevent the U.S. from signing a U.N. treaty about children’s rights. (Only we and Somalia have refused.) Hoekstra’s take is something to the effect that no godless diplomat’s going to tell him he can’t paddle his own children!

Jon Stewart has one of his priceless commentaries.

Anyway, Hoekstra’s gathered the Congressional wingnuts around him. His list of co-sponsors includes … no, see if you can guess which Missouri representative would go for that nonsense.

And back at the state level, we have Representative Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon, sponsoring HB 13161:

This bill declares that parents of an unemancipated child younger than 18 years of age have the right to make all decisions regarding their child’s health care and education; however, parents will not be given the authority to require their child to have an abortion.

A parent or guardian who home schools or sends his or her child to a private school will be allowed reimbursement upon providing satisfactory evidence of the schooling costs up to the amount of the county property taxes he or she paid that would have been given to the school district.

I’ll bet she wishes she could sign on to co-sponsor Hoekstra’s constitutional amendment, she and Jane. But, short of that, she’d like me as a taxpayer to subsidize a private education so that her children won’t become queers.