Of course you don't have to be nuts to be a right-winger. You could be an ignoramus, or just a greedy, thieving slimebag

by Ken

I know I put some noses out of joint the other day when I asked, in the headline to a post, "Is conservatism a mental illness?" The question, it should be noted, was offered in connection with an update on the activities of Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis, whose antics certainly suggest severe mental problems.

This is someone who chairs the state House committee that deals with children and families, and apart from her other wackadoodle obsessions, like the bill she's introduced to protect Missourians from the menace of energy-saving lightbulbs, she has actually said that the only issue of interest to her as committee chair is abortion. And then of course there's the Easter Sunday 2006 incident when one of her seven children was found abandoned wandering along a state highway. Don't they have child-protection laws in Missouri? (Perhaps not. Look who chairs the committee that would have to pass them in the state House.)

Obviously the people who waxed indignant haven't been paying any attention to what's going on in the world around them, which isn't all that surprising, because right-wingers never seem to have any clue what's happening anywhere in the world apart from the lies they've either been fed or made up themselves. If you spend any time listening to right-wingers in the media, in government, and in the Teabagger swamps, you can't possibly not wonder about the sanity of the participants, considering that every word, that comes out of their mouths is either psychotic delusion or a bare-faced lie. I thought I was offering the wingnuts a free pass by suggesting that this total, and I mean total, divorce from reality is a matter of mental incapacity, and thus beyond their ability to control. The alternatives are that they're either (a) too stupid to live or (b) diseased lying scumbags.

You spend enough time watching these public menaces, and you learn never to underestimate the "diseased lying scumbags" option. Can you spell gravy train? Here's Reid Wilson today on NationalJournal.com's Hotline:

Palin Spends More De-Icing Planes Than For Candidates

April 14, 2010 4:28 PM

By Reid Wilson

Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) spent more money to de-ice her private jets than she did donating money to candidates during the first 3 months of the year, according to new filings made with the FEC.

The filings show Palin's political wing, Sarah PAC, paid a FL-based airplane service company $14K to de-ice a private jet. The PAC spent more than $16K -- twice as much as it donated to individual candidates -- on hotels from New Orleans to New York City to Richland, WA.

And it's good to work on Palin's behalf. Consultants for the PAC made more than $233K through their contracts, the report shows. Ex-spokeswoman Meg Stapleton, who left the PAC last month, had a $10K per month contract. Randy Scheunemann, one of Palin's top advisors during the WH'08 campaign, also makes $10K a month; during the last 3 months, Jason Recher, another aide on the '08 campaign, made $50K.

The amount she pays her staff pales in comparison to the amount she gives to help GOP candidates win elections. Palin gave just $7,500 to candidates running for office this time. She handed $1K checks to Iraq war vet Vaughn Ward (R), who is running against Rep. Walt Minnick (D-ID); Iraq War vet Allen West (R), who faces a primary in his challenge to Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL); and ex-McLean Co. Commis./Iraq war vet Adam Kinzinger (R), the nominee against Rep. Debbie Halvorson.

Palin gave $2,500 to Ashland Co. DA Sean Duffy (R), running an uphill battle against Rep. Dave Obey (D-WI), and another $2K to ophthalmologist Rand Paul (R), the reports show. Meanwhile, she also gave $1K each to 2 PACs that support veterans running for Congress.

The $9,500 in checks represent just 2.3% of the money Palin brought in during the first quarter. Palin's PAC spent a total of $409,760 in the first quarter.

What's more, there is no evidence that Palin has kept her promise to donate money she earned from a Tea Party convention in Feb. Amid controversies surrounding the National Tea Party Convention, held in Nashville, Palin said she would donate her $100K speaking fee to campaigns, candidates and issues.

Palin did not contribute any money to her PAC, according to FEC filings. And in fact, it will be difficult for her to contribute the money this year. Palin, as an individual, would be able to give a maximum of $45,600 to different candidates -- maxing out to 19 contenders -- and another $69,900 to party committees, for a total of $115,500.

It has never made sense for Palin to contribute the money to political organizations. If she did that, she would still have to pay taxes on the reported $100K she earned from the speech; contributions to candidates and political parties are not tax deductible.

So far, while SarahPAC has given money to candidates, Palin herself has not contributed to any federal candidate this cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. A Palin spokesperson did not return an email seeking comment.

Note: A commenter points out:

To be fair she raises a heck of a lot of money with her appearances for candidate fundraisers and causes.

So the de-icing of planes and traveling to headline a fundraiser for a candidate is a heck of a boost for that specific candidate/cause that doesn't show up on paper.

But of course Princess Sarah's appearances have nothing to do with the candidates she claims to be supporting. Like everything she does, it's always about her, and planting her puss in the spotlight, spreading the glory of her sociopathic self. Right now she and the political barnacles who've attached themselves to here are fattening up on all those bucks flying her way.

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Is conservatism a mental illness? We catch up with Missouri ConservaLoon Cynthia Davis

Doesn't anyone worry about the well-being

of this woman's seven children?

by Ken

Last June Howie introduced us to State Rep. Cynthia Davis, describing her as "the Michele Bachmann of Missouri." It was sort of like the old joke format where A says, "Senator So-and-So took a strong stand on hunger," and B says, "For or against?" Count our Cynthia squarely in the "for" column on hunger, as she declared that it "can be a positive motivator."

"For" hunger, and definitely "against" the government spending anything to deal with hunger, which in her view isn't really a problem anyway. She allowed as how, even though there's no hunger in her district, maybe there were a few folks someplace else who were hungry, and she offered them tips, like educating parents to provide nutritious meals rather than "waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream or Twinkies"; encouraging laid-off parents to "adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat"; and making sure people know that "if you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break." And voilà, no more hunger!

This might be pretty funny, except that the woman chairs the Missouri House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. Hunger, it appears, isn't on her radar as an issue for Missouri children or families. And apparently not much else is. In fact, the only issue she seems to have any interest in, children- and family-wise, is abortion.

Most recently, Cynthia -- who's term-limited out of her House seat and is challenging fellow Republican Scott Rupp for his State Senate seat -- is in the news for turning a deaf ear to the family whose three-year-old, according to the St.Louis Post-Dispatch report, "died in February 2009 from a non-accidental head injury, while in the care of a babysitter," and is supporting legislation that "would block unlicensed childcare providers from continuing to care for children if criminal charges are pending against them" and "would also direct the Department of Health and Senior Services to investigate those childcare providers."

“There was a tragedy, but realistically, we can’t pass a law every time there’s a tragedy,” Davis said.

Davis said she opposes the bill because it could have negative consequences for the state’s childcare providers.

“I have a lot of sympathy for the family, but I don’t have the confidence that making government intervene more in people’s lives will bring back the child.”

Davis also said her committee’s main purpose is to deal with abortion issues and that Sam’s Law might have been better off if it had been referred to a judiciary committee.

The plight of victimized children doesn't interest Cynthia, so what does? I mean, besides abortion. Well, in the face of the menacing onslaught of energy-efficient light bulbs, she recently introduced a Missouri Freedom to Own Lightbulbs Act, and her heart is known to go out to pharmacists who are traumatized by having to fill prescriptions for emergency birth control:

Pharmacists whose consciences will not permit them to dispense emergency contraception need to be protected by our government. We all must answer to God, and it is not appropriate to ask people to perform acts that will traumatize them. Our government needs to secure the rights of people to stay true to a higher law.

Of course we not only ask but expect people sometimes to perform acts that may traumatize them. I'm not aware of any law that has been written with a "non-traumatizing exemption" -- something that really is beyond government purview. As a society, we really have no control over what may traumatize individuals. Hunger, for example, can be extremely traumatic. I would argue, indeed have argued, that becoming a pharmacist involves acting as an agent in the government's control of controlled drugs -- nobody forces you to become one, especially if aspects of the job may traumatize you.

We do know that our Cynthia has trouble with the ins and outs of the law, for example when it comes to using campaign funds for personal expenses, which is strictly forbidden by Missouri law. In 2005 the Missouri Democratic Party filed an ethics complaint against her alleging that on a series of occasions in 2002, 2003, and 2004 she did indeed pay property taxes and other personal expenses with campaign funds.

And then there's this: Here we have Cynthia Davis, grand vizir of all issues of faith, family, health, and conscience, mother of seven, Missouri's leading expert on the causes and cures for hunger as well as all matters relating to the family. Let's flash back to Easter Sunday 2006:

Easter Eggs in the Median? The Hard-Knock Life of Cynthia's Kids

Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) claims to be devoutly religious, regularly invoking tortured theological reasons for introducing anti-science and regressive legislation. Yet even on the holiest day on the Christian calendar, she apparently doesn't value the safety of her own offspring enough to keep one from wandering around her town's busy streets.

Police in the town of O'Fallon reportedly responded Sunday to a call regarding a female child wandering aimlessly on and around Highway K. Motorist passersby, it seems, thought it unusual that a youngster would be wandering the busy roadway by foot, alone on Easter Sunday, and called the authorities to look into the matter.

When police arrived on the scene, they identified the child and determined where she lived and who she was. Reportedly, the state Department of Social Services also became engaged in the matter, since it involved the safety and welfare of a child. When the relevant agents looked into the situation, they also learned that the absentee parent responsible for the child's safety was none other than rabid "family values" proselytizer Cynthia Davis.

Wouldn't you say that whoever had the gall to install this woman as chair of a committee on children and the family has some explaining to do?

I should note, in case you haven't followed all the links, that most of them are to a blog called Fired Up! Missouri, which I'm pleased to say has taken a personal interest in our Cynthia as she has worked so hard to make herself a clear and present danger to Missouri children and families. I'm sure she regards the blog's chronicling of her crazinesses as left-wing persecution, but of course that's how right-wingers always react when anyone has the indecency to simply report what they've said or done. In the unreality-based community, this is considered unconscionable negativity. (Remember "Borking"?)

I got a chuckle when I first heard about Cynthia Davis and her belief in the inspirational value of hunger. I'm not laughing anymore.

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Missouri Republican Loon Honors Reagan With An Update of "Ketchup Is A Vegetable"

Meet Rep. Cynthia Davis, the Michele Bachmann of Missouri

Lou Reed turned me on to a homeopathic supplement that has helped both of our memories, Juvenon. One of the doctors on the company's Scientific Advisory Board, Ben Treadwell, writes a kind of a newsletter that comes with my monthly supply. The last one was all about how healthy caloric restriction is.

The most documented method for increasing lifespan in animals is through caloric restriction (CR). Scientists have known for decades that if they cut out a third of the normal diet (caloric content) fed to rats, worms, yeast and other organisms, the animals live longer. More recent studies with primates are demonstrating effects similar to those found with rodents... [C]aloric restriction increases the efficiency of energy production and reduces blood pressure, triglycerides levels, blood glucose levels, and body temperature. The animals on restricted diet also appear to have fewer chronic diseases, and their cellular proteins and DNA show less damage caused by free radicals. Caloric restriction also decreases insulin levels and increases insulin sensitivity, two important indicators of a healthy, non-diabetic physical state.

In an environment of food scarcity, cells appear to go into a self-preservation state involving the production of substances to protect structures vital for cell survival. The net effect is an efficient machine that produces a minimum of toxic substances (free radicals) and is protected from attack by toxic metabolites. The overall effect of caloric restriction is to redirect the cell from non-essential activities and focus it on those most important for maximum health and longevity.

Someone needs to rush this research to right wing sociopath (and Missouri state Rep) Cynthia Davis of O'Fallon. Davis is best known as a religious nut, the crackpot who first started demanding that people who work in pharmacies shouldn't have to sell anyone birth control. Here she was in 2006: "Legal is not necessarily the same as right. Pharmacists whose consciences will not permit them to dispense emergency contraception need to be protected by our government. We all must answer to God, and it is not appropriate to ask people to perform acts that will traumatize them! Our government needs to secure the rights of people to stay true to a higher law." Wow! Would she ever be comfortable living under the Taliban where they think exactly the same way!

A couple of weeks ago Davis, the GOP Majority Floor Whip, made an even bigger jackass of herself declaring, in relation to childhood hunger, that "Hunger can be a positive motivator." The editorial board of the St Louis Post Dispatch seems embarrassed to point out that this kook is in favor of childhood hunger in a recent editorial.

More precisely, Ms. Davis is against summer feeding programs for poor kids. They are an excuse “to create an expansion of a government program,” she says.

Ms. Davis chairs the House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. In that position, she might be expected to have insight into child hunger in our state.

She might know, for instance, that about one in five Missouri children lives with hunger. That ties us with Louisiana for the nation’s seventh-highest rate, according to a report released last month by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America.

Or that the recession has pushed the number of poor Missouri kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches by 8.3 percent this year, well above the national average.

Apparently not.

”While I have not seen this as a problem in my district, it is entirely possible that the (summer feeding) program is designed to address problems that exist in other parts of Missouri,” Ms. Davis says in her newsletter.

“The right way to solve this is with more education. If parents … don’t know how to serve nutritious meals, let’s help them learn to do that.”

In that spirit, she offers some helpful hints:

• “Families may economize by choosing not to waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream or Twinkies.”

• “Laid-off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat.”

• “Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.”

About 100,000 more people are unemployed in Missouri today than were jobless in 2007. Food pantries across the state are struggling to meet increased demand. The United Way of St. Louis and more than 100 area companies are participating in a food drive this week.

And the plain, tragic fact is some children have parents who aren’t particularly interested in caring for them. Ward Cleaver and Cliff Huxtable are off the television airways.

But Ms. Davis is skeptical about the need to feed poor children during the summer when schools are closed.

If-- if-- there really is one, she says, “churches and non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer.” ...

• Tip: When you chair a state special committee on children and families, you probably ought to learn something about the needs of children and families.