The Case Against Hawley - Statist Is As Statist Does
Our Attorney General Josh Hawley has been very tight lipped about his platform and ideology during his campaign for US Senate, which has been turning a lot of voters against him. But it's the best strategy he has for his campaign. When his primary opponent Austin Petersen is being so transparent and open about his positions, playing the part of mystery man would be the only way of differentiating from the pack. There's just one problem with his strategy - the informed voter.
I have been paying attention to Hawley's reign as AG, and subsequently his Senate campaign he claims to never have wanted to launch. Although he has been quiet on his philosophies to the voters, his actions as AG speaks volumes as to the type of politician he aspires to be. Let's take a look at those.
His first action after taking his oath of office was to ignore a constitutional requisite for his position. As it states plainly in the Missouri State Constitution, the Attorney General "shall reside at the seat of government and keep his office in the Supreme Court building." Any born and raised Missourian can immediately tell you where our state's seat of government is. That's Jefferson City, in northern Cole County, as marked by the State Capitol Building on the banks of the Missouri River.
It took 2 months of open criticism from the state's Democrat Party for Josh to even try to meet this requisite by renting an apartment in town. But it became clear the apartment was just a ruse when Hawley voted in a special election in Columbia, located in Boone County, 6 months after he supposedly declared his residency in Jefferson City. In Missouri, it's an act of voter fraud to vote in any county you're not a resident of, which spawned his argument that "reside" doesn't mean living there but living at a close enough distance to there, and his constitutional reinterpretation is what allows him to be documented working out at a gym in Columbia in the middle of work days, when he is supposed to be at his office in the Supreme Court Building. Why is he getting away with this blatant disregard for the rule of law? We have since learned that only the Attorney General or the elected County Prosecutors can hold the Attorney General accountable for these actions.
Josh Hawley also ran his 2016 campaign for AG with a promise that he would crack down on and clean up public corruption & pay-to-play practices in Jefferson City. However, upon further inspection, cleaning up pay-to-play appears to be a deception as well, as evidenced by donation contributions from a co-founder of PayPal totalling over $300,000 dollars, with the last of those contributions being given days before Hawley opens an investigation against Google.
His promise to crack down on public corruption also seems to be a humbug. As defined by the Wex Legal Dictionary (cited by Cornell University), public corruption is a breach of public trust and/or abuse of position by federal, state, or local officials and their private sector accomplices. Josh's recent actions suggest he feels that public corruption should be cleaned up when it's politically beneficial to him but corruption should be protected when in all other instances.
An obvious abuse of position is, of course, Hawley's reinterpretation of constitutional requisites for self-serving purposes as we discussed above. Another obvious one is pre-judging our former Governor Greitens before the system of due process can run its course & using his position of power to sway public opinion. A principled chief law enforcement officer would keep any opinions out of the media and stick to the rule of law (not necessarily Josh's forte).
http://amp.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article210794364.html
A not as obvious abuse, but even more egregious, is Josh's meddling in the tragic case of Carl DeBrodie. Carl was a resident at a privatized group home in Fulton, MO who died in the care of that group home. But, state supervisors and nurses are required by law to make one on one visits with these residents, and these state employees filed fraudulent reports about their visitations with DeBrodie, which the group home used to pretend Carl was still alive and in their care for months after his death. As of now, no charges have yet to be brought against any state employees.
Josh Hawley has also since attempted to prevent any state employees from being implicated in a wrongful death lawsuit in which the plaintiffs have proposed that Carl's civil rights were violated repeatedly with no intervention by the state supervisors. There's nothing else to say about Josh's despicable behavior in this instance except - ISN'T THAT THE WORST KIND OF PUBLIC CORRUPTION?!
Josh Hawley's statist actions aren't limited to protecting and expanding the centralized power of government at the cost of the people but also stretch into the realm of limiting and suppressing the rights & enterprise of the people, not just in Missouri but even other sovereign states. The first I bring to the table is the most ridiculous move made by Hawley from his seat as AG - the egg lawsuit.
http://amp.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article188416614.html
Aside from the fact that this same lawsuit was already introduced by the former (Democrat) AG and dismissed by a federal court, this suit is EXTREMELY statist and corporatist by nature. The claim that California's state standards for humane treatment of chickens costs all consumers and farmers extra is a falsehood, in my opinion. I live 25 minutes away from a local farmer who raises free range chickens and has for decades. The average Missouri chicken farmer has met California's state standards since before California even had a standard, and for no other reason than healthy chickens are more profitable. No additional costs are being passed on to the average farmer.
The corporate factory farms, who keep their chickens stacked 10 cages tall, are the ones incurring extra costs to remain a competitor in the California egg market. And Josh Hawley wants to limit the market potential of compliant locally owned farms to favor the corporations. This lawsuit is, in essence, corporate welfare. And the tax payers are footing the litigation bill to sabotage our own small farmers.
Just to put this extra cost into perspective, corporate farms had to increase their price for eggs that resulted in an estimated 1 cent per egg increase in prices at the store. The average Missourian pays an extra $2.36 per year for eggs to make sure corporations have the upper hand against small farmers.
Now, we come to Josh's stand on gun control. He hasn't said another word about it since filing for the Senate run, but it's terribly concerning coming from a supposedly pro-gun Republican.
Not only has he said the government should move swiftly to ban accessories with executive orders (circumventing the protections of our unalienable rights offered by the Bill of Rights), Hawley has also expressed favor of restricting gun ownership by the people based on a broad definition of mental health. He then criticized our State Patrol for NOT providing MORE information than what is required by law to the FBI in NICS background checks. He stated, "they should have to. But that's not their fault." You can see for yourself what information the State Patrol already provides here:
Although the progressive Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill shares similar views as Josh Hawley in some of these areas, none are more similar than their mirroring stands on blaming pharmaceutical companies for the opioid crisis and prescription drug monitoring, which essentially treats innocent people as if they're criminals for their prescription drug needs. The drug monitoring programs do nearly nothing to stop abuse, as the cough syrup monitoring program has already proven itself to be ineffective in curbing the manufacturing of meth amphetamines.
These two authoritarians also share the same view on FISA and the renewal of Sec. 702 allowing warrantless surveillance of American citizens. Enough said about that...
Oh ya, did I forget to mention Josh Hawley's accusations against women who participated in the sexual revolution and women's liberation movements, suggesting they're responsible for sex trafficking?
http://amp.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article197603534.html
Please keep in mind this is all that has transpired just in the last 2 years since he has taken office as Attorney General (which isn't a full term, as Hawley promised to serve). Needless to say, Josh Hawley's record as AG suggests he wouldn't be a better alternative to Claire McCaskill in the Senate, but perhaps even more damaging than the Queen Mum's reign. Missouri deserves better than both.