Via a post on DailyKos, I learned that Organizing for America (OFA) is encouraging those of us who are concerned by the growing evidence of potentially disastrous man-made climate change to confront climate change deniers in our congressional delegation:

Climate change is real, it’s caused largely by human activities, and it poses significant risks for our health. Some members of Congress disagree with this simple, scientifically proven fact. We need to work to curb climate change, and a big step is to raise our voices to change the conversation in Washington. Call these deniers out. Hold them accountable. Ask them if they will admit climate change is a problem.

To this end OFA is putting together a Web page, “Call Out the Climate Change Deniers,” that details and sources statements made by congressional deniers.

The Missouri denialist contingent as enumerated by OFA includes the following:

–Sen. Roy Blunt:

“There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.”[source]

–Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4):

“Enjoying another beautiful global warming day in Missouri! Rep. Skelton and the UN Summit need to quit their dist. of wealth for a hoax.”[source]

–Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3) (who began his Washington career with a dim-witted but all-out attack on climate science):

Luetkemeyer’s legislation would prohibit U.S. contributions to the IPCC, which is nothing more than a group of U.N. bureaucrats that supports man-made claims on global warming that many scientists disagree with…. Meanwhile, our very own Environmental Protection Agency recently reported that we are undergoing a period of worldwide cooling. [source]

The OFA page, a work in progress, is, however, incomplete when it comes to Missouri climate change offenders. As you can deduce from the information presented on the Web site, On the Issues, Sam Graves (R-6), Billy Long (R-7) and Ann Wagner (R-2) aren’t any better when it comes to climate issues – just quieter. They have consistently voted against regulating CO2 emissions while wholeheartedly supporting the fossil fuel industry, subsidies and all. Both Long and Wagner, for instance,  signed the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity’s “No Climate Tax Pledge,” which states ” “I pledge to the taxpayers of my state, and to the American people, that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.”  Wagner has also gone on the record with the belief that cap-and-trade would have no impact on global temperatures.

According to the National Journal’s Coral Davenport, the willingness of so many legislators to do the bidding of big-bucks corporate donors in the fossil-fuel industries is beginning to grate on those conservatives who realize that the evidence for denialism is bogus:

Emanuel predicts that many more voters like him, people who think of themselves as conservative or independent but are turned off by what they see as a willful denial of science and facts, will also abandon the GOP, unless the party comes to an honest reckoning about global warming.

And a quiet, but growing, number of other Republicans fear the same thing. Already, deep fissures are emerging between, on one side, a base of ideological voters and lawmakers with strong ties to powerful tea-party groups and super PACs funded by the fossil-fuel industry who see climate change as a false threat concocted by liberals to justify greater government control; and on the other side, a quiet group of moderates, younger voters, and leading conservative intellectuals who fear that if Republicans continue to dismiss or deny climate change, the party will become irrelevant.

[…]

The goal of grassroots efforts is to persuade Republicans that they’ll be rewarded if they take a stand in support of climate action-and that they could doom their party to minority status if they don’t.

Consequently, it might very well be a good time for a strategy of confrontation such as that envisioned by the OFA. So your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to get your representatives unequivocally on the record – phone any of them, write them and ask them if they believe that climate change is happening and that it is caused by human activity that we must change in order to stave off disaster. Be sure to let our cadre of climate change deniers know that we’ll do what can to insure that their days in Washington will be numbered if they persist. It also wouldn’t hurt if you could write letters to the editor of your local paper about your representative’s denialist beliefs. No matter what you do, we need to make it clear that addressing man-made climate change is an urgent priority and that the GOP cannot sweep it under a fossil-fuel industry funded rug any longer.

*Edited slightly for style and to add inadvertent omissions.

It took Todd Akin’s infelicitous choice of words and his apalling biological ignorance to shine a great big flood-light on Republican anti-abortion zealotry. Yesterday, The Huffington Post pointed out that there are numerous congressional Republicans who share Akin’s anti-abortion fanaticism:

Each election cycle, the political action committee Republican National Coalition for Life submits questionnaires to GOP candidates about their positions on choice issues and then endorses candidates who advocate a strict no-abortion platform. Selected candidates must be “unconditionally pro-life” and “recognize the inherent right to life of every innocent human being, from conception until natural death, without discrimination.”

Prominent among the 40 congressional candidates that RNC For Life has endorsed this year is Missouri’s Vicky Hartzler (R-4). I suspect that there would be more names here, but the organization doesn’t necessarily endorse in every race – nor are their endorsements for 2012 necessarily yet complete.

In 2010 the Missourians earned the RNC For Life’s imprimatur were: Roy Blunt, Todd Akin, Ed Martin, Vicky Hartzler, Jacob Turk, and Blaine Luetkemeyer. Most of these folks are still around, some safely in office, some up for reelection, and others running yet again for office. Jacob Turk, after failing to take Emanuel Cleaver’s 5th district seat in 2010 is trying again. Mr. Ed Martin, the perennial candidate, is, of course, running for something or the other – I believe that he eventually chose to try for Attorney General, just the place to put a radical anti-abortion zealot.

FiredUp! Missouri also tells us that the usually fairly circumspect (or at least quiet) Sam Graves has indicated his support for Brother Todd:

“It comes down to a decision between a rubber stamp for Obama and an independent thinker,” Graves said. “If he stays in the race, I’ll vote for him.”

Independent thinker, indeed! I guess you could think of many of the characters in Jackass films as “independent” thinkers – but would you really vote for any of them to represent you in Congress? Especially in preference to a solid, centrist Democrat who actually voted against Administration policies as often as she voted for them? (Not that that trait has endeared her to folks like me – but I’m tired of hearing idiots try to claim that poor, moderate-to-a-fault Claire McCaskill is some type of screaming liberal. We disowned her years ago. Her opponents ought to at least try to be honest.)

What this list of fellow travelers suggests is that Todd Akin’s beliefs aren’t really the issue. The real problem is that he has embarrassed the GOP establishment by putting the crazy on display at an inopportune time – and then he defied their efforts to sweep him under the rug. After all, any state where folks routinely vote radical GOP extremists into more than half of their elective offices probably isn’t going to be too finicky about one more whackaloon.    

Talking Points Memo informed us a couple of days ago that most of the GOP House contingent is willing to bring on a government shutdown in order to stymie the implementation of Obamacare:

In a letter (PDF) dated July 18, some 127 House GOP lawmakers urged Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) not to permit “any legislation” to come to the floor that includes Affordable Care Act implementation funds. The implied message: shut down the government unless Democrats agree to defund President Obama’s signature law.

Missouri House members who signed the letter (pdf):  Todd Akin (R-2); Vicky Hartzler (R-4); Billy Long (R-7); Sam Graves (R-6) and Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-9). Conspicuous by her absence on this list is Jo Ann Emmerson (R-8). Either she’s got more sense than the other GOPers or she was absent the day the letter was shopped around.

Of course last time that these clowns played the economic brinksmanship game they cost the country $1.3 billion dollars and damaged its credit rating – all to avoid raising tax rates a few paltry percentage points for our wealthiest citizens. Now they’re willing to do the same thing in order to indulge their spite against the Affordable Care Act.

But wait – these guys aren’t quite as stupid as they seem. Today, we learn that while they don’t plan on backing down in the long run, they are willing to delay their temper tantrum until after the election when they’ll no longer have to answer to the constituents their ideological rigidity would have quite correctly angered:

House conservatives urged Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to back a stopgap spending bill that would extend into 2013 and take the issue of government funding off the table during the election and the jammed lame-duck session this fall.

Odds are that Boehner will go along with this demand because, as TPM puts it, he “must either subdue his right-wing members long enough to get through the election, or place his party’s November hopes in serious jeopardy.”

It seems that every Missouri Republican present  in the House of Representatives today voted for Paul Ryan’s budget. They voted to:

— destroy Medicare as we know it;

— gut the safety net – food aid, Medicaid, educational grants, etc.;

— increase defense spending beyond the amount sought by the military chiefs;

— offer big-time tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

On top of this, because of the tax cuts and the increased military spending, they also effectively voted to increase the deficit. I repeat, they will increase the very deficit that they’ve been incessantly braying about for the past three years.

While it’s true that this budget probably won’t make it through our (endangered) Senate, it does break the agreement between the White House and the Republican leadership that was struck last year, and it will likely bring us a replay of the big government shutdown drama. The people putting this budget forward know that it is a nonstarter, and they know that it will be costly and destructive to our political processes, but they just don’t care. The all games, all the time, GOP prepares to strike again.

According to House Speaker John Boehner, the budget proposal is a “‘real vision'” of how Republicans would govern if they had more control of Washington.” And the folks here in Missouri who will continue to help realize that “vision” if they make it back to Congress when their terms are up: Todd Akin, Vicky Hartzler; Sam Graves, Billy Long, Jo Ann Emerson, and Blaine Luetkemeyer.  

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal, which seems to have morphed into Rubert Murdoch’s effort to recreate Fox News in print, ran what Ed Kilgore calls the “climate-change deniers’ greatest-hits edition”:

In these turgid lines can be found a treasure trove of prevarications. You’ve got your impressive-sounding list of scientists agreeing with the Journal (with no corresponding list of those who disagree; the newsprint or bandwith necessary to publish those would bankrupt even the WSJ). You’ve got your quote marks around the term global warming. You’ve got your allusions to the silly “Climategate” kerfuffle. And you’ve got your unsubstantiated allegations of “persecution” of the brave “heretics” who dare stand with poor, puny Industry against the awesome power of academics.

Well and good. Most of us know where the editorial page at the WSJ is coming from. For those who don’t, who think that this contrived tripe means that scientists are really “uncertain” about human caused climate change, a couple of articles in yesterday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggest that they’ll be in for a rude awakening sometime over the next couple of decades.

The first article in the Post-Dispatch confirms the impression of many of locals that  the St. Louis area really has been getting warmer. The USDA has kicked the region up a notch on its planting zone map. While the article describes this change as positive – gardeners can now overwinter more delicate subtropical plants – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that there could also be negative implications for traditional crops as well as for crop pests that can thrive when winters are warmer, especially if this is only the beginning of a warming trend.

The second article notes that the on-going drought in the Southwest is one of the reasons for rising beef prices. Many climate scientists believe that such droughts, which have afflicted the area since 2001, will become the norm over time as warming accelerates.

These two casual pieces of reporting should not only concern those lulled into complacency by climate denialism, but those as well who acknowledge that warming is taking place, but think it is too expensive to do what is necessary to mitigate its effects. For instance, on the topic of drought, scientists warn that:

… climate warming will exacerbate water sustainability problems, the Southwest is likely to experience some of the highest economic expenses and environmental losses.

Nor are the risks of drought confined to the Southwest. Many climate-change models predict that as many as 87% of Missouri’s counties “will face higher risks of water shortages by mid-century as the result of climate change.” The new USDA map is one of the first indications that the process of warming is underway.

Senator Claire McCaskill often claims that she opposes meaningful efforts to control carbon emissions because of the it might increase energy costs and stress economically challenged Missouri families. Politicians like Blaine Luetkemeyer work hard to keep farmers worried over probably baseless threats that controlling carbon emissions will increase costs. No Missouri politicians seem to be worried about just how expensive doing nothing could very well be.

Even if dire claims about increased expense that will follow from effort to mitigate carbon emissions aren’t, at the very least, highly exaggerated, they still represent short-term thinking in the face of a long-term march to disaster. I hope that the same Missouri families and farmers remember who misled them when they have to pony up to deal with the far more expensive problems attendant upon escalating climate change.

*Inadvertently omitted text restored to first sentence of last paragraph.  

Remember Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the infamous Koch founded and funded organization that, among other achievements, got the Tea Party organized and on track? Want to know just which legislators in Missouri are most in tune with AFP goals? Well, you need wait no longer. The AFP has just issued a scorecard for the 112th Congress.  The grades received by Missouri legislators, listed below (name, party and grade), is about what one would expect:

Roy Blunt (R): B

Claire McCaskill (D): D

Todd Akin (R): A+          

Russ Carnahan (D): F                          

Wm. Lacy Clay (D): F

Emanuel Cleaver (D): D-  

Jo Ann Emerson (R) B      

Sam Graves (R): B        

Vicky Hartzler (R): B  

Billy Long (R): B  

Blaine Leutkemeyer (R): B

If you want a vote breakdown, check out AmericansforProsperity.org/Scorcard. According to the DailyKos’ Meteor Blades:

AFP chose to grade congressmembers based on their votes on repealing President Obama’s new healthcare law, blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, supporting the demolition document known as the Paul Ryan budget, ending ethanol subsidies and several Congressional Review Act resolutions as well as the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills.

This rationale explains just why Republicans get high marks and Democrats get low marks – as a progressive, I’d be very disturbed if any Democrats scored higher than they did. That said, I do have to admit that I was surprised that most of Missouri’s GOP legislators can’t get better than B grades – only uber-winger Akin qualifies for an A grade (A+ actually). They sure talk a good game and one would have expected that they would reap a bigger reward. Perhaps ethanol subsides plays a role in their scores? Also of interest is the fact that no matter how far right she tries to list, poor Claire McCaskill can’t do better than a D. I would have pegged her at C- (for centrist wannabe) myself – if only because of her efforts on behalf of Big Coal.

H.R. 3035, the Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011, which was introduced by Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry and cosponsored by Missouri’s Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-9) among others, seeks:

To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to permit informational calls to mobile telephone numbers, and for other purposes.

In other words, this bill would permit businesses to send spam robo-calls about their products to your cell phone, using the minutes you pay for.

It’s been illegal for telemarketers to initiate contact via cellphones since the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991. H.R. 3035 attempts to circumvent TCPA provisions by specifying that businesses can phone (or robo-call) your cell phone “for informational purposes” as long as the call does not “constitute a telephone solicitation.” If this bill were to pass, you could end up paying for minutes that some random stockbroker , say, might use to “inform” you a few thousand people, via a recorded message, about a new offering (without, of course, specifically soliciting a purchase).*

The folks pushing this bill, which includes entities like the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, contend that the probibition on the use of cell phones enacted by the TCPA is outdated because

Congress intended this restriction to protect consumers against the then-daunting per-minute costs and privacy concerns associated with unsolicited incoming calls from telemarketers. But this restriction applies equally to informational calls. In addition, most wireless consumers are now covered by flat-rate plans, and even for those who are not, technological advances and increased competition have greatly reduced per-minute charges.

Hunh? Do you want to waste your minutes on mechanized telephone spam? Do you just love the idea getting dozens of robo-calls daily? If you do, fine. But if you don’t, let your congress person know that fact. Make some noise so that folks will know that if they vote for this they’ll generate enough ruckus to more than outmatch the “good will” that they will earn from businesses eager to use our phone billing plans for their own ends. For what it’s worth, MoveOn.org also has a petition you can sign.

Finally, for those of you who can’t figure out what this does for anyone besides the 1%, if you live in the ninth congressional district, maybe you should let Rep. Luetkemeyer know that you don’t appreciate being sold out. Or, even if you don’t live there, if  you know someone who does, maybe you could let them know what their representative is plotting. I wonder how many of his constituents actually know what he’s up to when he isn’t busy trying to thwart those damned climate scientists and their pesky theories about global warming?

*Sentence edited to clarify the meaning.

Take a look at the video of Elizabeth Warren talking about taxes that Michael Bersin posted today if you want to understand why the Buffet rule involves the issue of fairness. Then consider the following fact about anti-tax crusaders Vicky Hartzler, Sam Graves, Blaine Luetkemeyer and Billy Long:

Just a few of the small-minded, mean-minded and very wealthy Missourians who are busy working middle class Missourians over. As for the case that Elizabeth Warren makes for asking these folks to finally pay their fair share, I echo Steve Benen’s longing for principled, articulate Democrats:

… if more Democrats were able to make the case for the underlying social contract as effectively, our discourse would be vastly less mind-numbing.

To quote Michael Bersin: “Any questions, Claire?”  

Folks, fair warning. This is going to be a rant. I just saw a post at FiredUp! that got me worked up. The gist:

Roy Blunt, who declared during his U.S. Senate campaign that “there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth,” has cosponsored legislation to completely eliminate the Environment [sic] Protection Agency.

Why am I so exercised by this same ol’, same ol’ posturing? I just finished reading Hot: “Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, by long-time climate reporter Mark Hertsgaard. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it broke it all down, tracing the trajectory of changes that are already taking place, that cannot now be stopped, only mitigated. It painted a clear picture of the world my dear nieces and nephews and all the lovely children and grandchildren of my friends will have to face.

So what’s the world, literally, coming to? Nothing is absolutely, picture-perfect sure, of course, except that the world I know, that formed the experience of my father and his father will disappear. My beautiful California, the incomparable Central Coast where I grew up, is likely to dry up and blow away as the Sierra snow pack that waters the state continues to disappear. Low lying cities such New York and Miami will have to hustle to ward of the flooding that threatens them as sea level continues to rise. You doubt me? It’s already beginning to happen along the Atlantic seaboard. Island nations in the South Pacific are  already disappearing.

We will see more extreme storm activity, floods like this spring’s will be more commonplace – but may well alternate with equally debilitating droughts. You think Missouri farmers who oppose cap-and-trade have a point about somewhat higher immediate energy costs? When their farms are part of the new dust bowl, ask them if they maybe should have listened to the scientific Cassandras who carried the warning, instead of politicians on the energy industry dole, or those quislings who worry that climate change isn’t a winning political issue.  

Plants and animal species will die out or migrate, upsetting a biological equilibrium that has endured for millenia. Think there’s a problem with economic migration right now? Wait until whole populations are displaced by drought, flood, and loss of land mass. Think about starvation, disease and war in the underdeveloped areas, and diminished quality of life in the richer countries – nobody will get off free.

Do I really believe this or something like it will happen in the next 50 plus years? Absolutely – although the effects may be lessened if people begin now to plan on how to adapt to the coming changes – and to mitigate the rate of change. The weight of genuine authority, the word of people who have made the study of this issue their life’s work, is overwhelming.

For example, take the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, in the words of the Washington Post, “the country’s preeminent institution chartered to provide scientific advice to lawmakers.” A new report released by the National Research Council presents findings that indicate that:

Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.

Guess ol’ Roy just decided to ignore these experts charged with making their expertise available to guide his decisions. But that’s par for the course – stop and think about who always disputes the effects of climate change and the need to address it? As the Washington Post observes, we have been misled, and the most prominent culprits are just too dumb to hide:

None of this should come as a surprise. None of this is news. But it is newsworthy, sadly, because the Republican Party, and therefore the U.S. government, have moved so far from reality and responsibility in their approach to climate change.

Seizing on inevitable points of uncertainty in something as complex as climate science, and on misreported pseudo-scandals among a few scientists, Republican members of Congress, presidential candidates and other leaders pretend that the dangers of climate change are hypothetical and unproven and the causes uncertain.

To put it in local terms, think about ex-insurance shill, Blaine Luetkemeyer, and his war against the IPCC. Or good ol’ boy auctioneer Billy Long and all the other clowns who, get this, voted to refute the fact of climate change.

And then there’s always the oil exec’s best friend, Roy Blunt. I hope he enjoys the thirty pieces of silver he got from his big oil cronies – because if there is actually something like an afterlife, I’m sure he’ll get a very warm, make that blistering, reception.

Want to know what effect the Tea Party has had on American political life? Just consider that even the traditional media types are having trouble not snickering about the GOP presidential lineup, which ranges from the possibly insane Michell Bachmann, to clownish panderers like Donald Trump, and pathetic panderers like the once serious Mitt Romney. As Steve Benen remarked today:

It’s problematic that a ridiculous reality-show host is leading some national polls, but it’s also troubling that the Republican presidential field is so ridiculous, every few weeks we find ourselves wondering, “Do we really have to take _____ seriously?

With the speculation that Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer may be getting ready to wade into the GOP senatorial pool, it struck me that we have much the same situation here in Missouri with regard to the 2012 senatorial race. With the exception of Ann Wagner, about whom there’s been very little recent buzz, it seems like most of Missouri’s senatorial hopefuls have been dredged up from the stale leavings at the bottom of the Tea Party kettle.

Both Sarah Steelman and Ed Martin have gone way beyond just flirting with the Tea Party, alhough it doesn’t seem to be doing them much good. Both have had abysmal fund-raising luck so far, which doesn’t bode well for their chances. Could this be Tea Party blow-back? Certainly, lots of erstwhile Tea Partiers seem to be either too tired or too embarrassed to keep turning out in their silly costumes – or, my theory, they’re a little taken aback now that they’ve had a chance to see just what the Tea Party darlings they sent to Washington and to statehouses all over the country really want to do.

There may be other reasons, though, for the poor showing from the intrepid Tea Party duo. Martin certainly carries loads of negative baggage from his days in the Blunt administration, and his cheerfully aggressive style suggests nothing more than a determined con. These negatives may have combined with his laughable – and losing – antics in his recent House campaign to besmirch any Tea Part gloss he’s picked up.

In Steelman’s case, I’m tempted to wonder if the good ol’ GOP boys and their Tea Party pals, in spite of all their nay-saying, might not be put off by a tough, aggressive female candidate. Steelman certainly doesn’t have the respectable – and manageable – country club aura cultivated by old-line GOP women – an Ann Wagner, for instance – and there does seem to be a palpable distaste for her that is based on style rather than substance. Remember Mark Reardon’s “not the sharpest fork in the drawer” remark, which was occasioned by an interview in which Steelman, by any objective standard, actually did a creditable job regurgitating the talking points delivered by almost all GOPers? Not exactly an IQ test to start with, yet she alone was deemed to have failed on the basis of delivering the standard GOP boiler plate that, otherwise, seems to be de rigeur.**

Rep. Todd Akin could, of course, be regarded as the elder statesman of Teahadists, sort of a joke among the jokes. A charter member of the House’s Tea Party caucus, there isn’t an absurd right wing position that he hasn’t been able to render even more ridiculous. Health care? Akin says leave it to charity. Medicare? Akin says it saps our character, leading to a “sniveling” entitlement state. Social Security? A “terrible investment” that he “doesn’t like.” Religion? Akin, an advocate for David Barton’s Christian Nation, says bring it on; there’s enough Christian Sharia for everybody.

If Luetkemeyer, the only other Missouri House member to join the Tea Party caucus, chooses to enter this select group – and David Catenese thinks that “whether it’s Luetkemeyer or Akin who runs could ultimately be determined by which member is more unsatisfied with the final (redistricting)* lines signed into law – he will bring his own special schtick. Luetkemeyer has most memorably made his bones as a climate denialist. Just what Missouri needs in the senate – another crackpot, anti-science, energy industry stooge to stand in the way of green industrial development and new jobs.

What does it mean that almost all the declared – and possibly soon-to-declare – Missouri senatorial contenders are tea-partying far out on the right wing of an out-of-control GOP plane? Does it maybe indicate that the prospect of paying more than lip service to the Tea Party’s extreme and often contradictory demands has frightened off the saner GOPers in the state? Perhaps there are also some implications for what’s going to happen to that wildly veering GOP plane itself.

Another question would arise should any of these loonies manage to defeat Claire McCaskill in 2012.  That question would pertain to the intelligence of the average Missouri voter and the answer would be to too depressing to contemplate.

*”redistricting” added to text.

** Sentence edited for clarity.

Picture from Wikimedia Commons