Franklin County Democrats

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board makes an interesting observation:

Some six years ago, after lawyers for AmerenUE had written a bill making it easier for Missouri utilities to pass on costs to consumers, the company needed a state senator to sponsor it. It turned to Sen. John Griesheimer, R-Washington.

Mr. Griesheimer got the job done. Senate Bill 179 became law.

Last fall, as term limits closed in, Mr. Griesheimer ran for presiding commissioner of Franklin County and was elected in November. Because his predecessor, Republican Ed Hillhouse, had resigned to take over the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, Mr. Griesheimer took office right away.

And before Mr. Griesheimer could even get his chair warm, who does he see before him with a controversial piece of business for the Franklin County Commission but his old friends at AmerenUE?

The “controversial piece of business” the Post’s editorial refers to is the pending land use regulation that could allow Ameren to build its soon-to-be proposed toxic coal ash landfill in the Labadie Bottoms floodplain. So yeah, Griesheimer’s cozy relationship with Ameren is a problem. It seems pretty clear where his allegiance lie. But as the Post’s editorial rightly points out, thanks to the bill he sponsored, Senate Bill 179, the utility can now pass the costs of finding a safer way to store its waste on to ratepayers.

Nice job, John.

Our friends at LEO have notified us that there will be a public hearing with the Franklin County Commission, December 14th at 6pm at East Central College:

Collectively we own our national waterways and we should all comment on this decision. Franklin County MO is considering changing zoning codes to allow coal ash dumping and may allow Ameren Missouri to build a huge landfill right in the vulnerable floodplain of the Missouri River, upstream from intakes for St. Louis. We are asking our County to wait until EPA rules and to appoint an Expert & Community Interests Advisory Committee to write protective zoning laws on all landfills. We would like the Advisory Committee to provide input to the 3 County Commissioners before any decision is made.

Franklin County is inundated w/ streams and is home to a stretch of Missouri River that provides drinking water for millions and habitat for endangered species. Our message Tues night will be to consider the risks and be responsible. We hope you can assist by informing others, making comments to the Commission and potentially being there that evening to fill the room. For more information on what has transpired on this issue and our proposed solution, go to www.leomo.info and the website Blog from the Bottoms.

We encourage everyone who is able to attend.

The Missouri Democratic Party announced today that State Auditor Susan Montee was selected to be the new Chair of the Missouri Democratic State Committee by acclamation.

After her selection, newly-elected Chair Susan Montee released the following statement:

I look forward to working with Democrats in all corners of Missouri as we strengthen the Missouri Democratic Party. I know that 2010 was a challenging election cycle for Democrats in our state, and now, more than ever, we need to unify as we work towards a successful election in 2012. We have strong leaders like Governor Jay Nixon and Senator Claire McCaskill who look out for the best interest of our state, and I will work tirelessly to ensure they have the support they need to continue representing Missourians.

Today was the last day for our food drive that started during the election cycle.  Representatives from the St. Clair and Union food banks met with Central  Committee  members at Fink’s grocery store to fill their shopping carts with much needed  groceries.  All-in-all between cash donations and food donations,  approximately 1200  pounds of food and other essentials were distributed to the 2  food pantries. Combining food donations with cash donations permitted the  representatives to buy what they know they will need to help meet the ever increasing demand.

As you may be aware, Franklin County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the State and local food pantries are pressed to keep their shelves stocked.  A big “THANK YOU” goes out to all of  you who donated and/or helped with this project and especially to Central Committee members Becky Voelkerding, Becky Russell and the entire “Outreach Committee” for their work in organizing this event.

In October of this year the website Wikileaks released the largest classified military document dump in history, 391,832 documents in all. Regardless of what one thinks about the wisdom of such a leak, now that it’s out there it does provide us with some valuable (if not unsettling) statistics about the toll of civilian life “Operation Iraqi Freedom” took on that country.

Before Wikileaks was hacked by a denial of service attack this week, effectively shutting down access to it, the front page read in part:

The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 ‘civilians’; 23,984 ‘enemy’ (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 ‘host nation’ (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 ‘friendly’ (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period. For comparison, the ‘Afghan War Diaries’, previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivalent population size.

For comparison, there were 2,996 civilian casualties in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in total. It was enough trauma to persuade many Americans to willingly give up their civil liberties and allow Congress to pass laws that would have been unthinkable under any other circumstance. But as tragic as 911 is try to imagine the death toll being larger by a factor of 20, and that still would not equal the number of civilian casualties Iraq suffered per capita in our name. By my calculations it would take roughly 585,000 American civilian deaths during a three year period to equal the trauma Iraqis suffered as a percentage of their population. That’s roughly 40 times the population of Washington, Mo.

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I was reading conservative, Michale Gerson’s, OP/ED column in the Washington Post about how the last two years have proved liberalism is dead. Gerson makes some pretty lame arguments to support his thesis. In fact, the comments section was more enlightening to me than the column itself.

This comment in particular struck a chord:

I don’t care what liberals think of us conservatives.

We’re going to drive them into political oblivion anyway.

We’ve had enough of their sneering, snide Jon Stewart-type contempt for us.

Now it’s our turn.

And we’re going to wipe that smirk off Jon Stewart’s face. His show won’t be anywhere near as funny after we control all 3 branches of government.

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Remember Reagan’s theory of “trickle-down economics”? The idea that if we “soaked the rich” with tax breaks and “got government off our backs” there would be more investment in the means of production and all the taxes collected from all the new jobs would more than offset the breaks given to the well off. What riches awaited us all in this worker’s paradise!

Well, here’s how it really played out:

American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms [...]

Corporate profits have been doing extremely well for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history. As a share of gross domestic product, corporate profits also have been increasing, and they now represent 11.2 percent of total output. That is the highest share since the fourth quarter of 2006, when they accounted for 11.7 percent of output.

This breakneck pace can be partly attributed to strong productivity growth — which means companies have been able to make more with less — as well as the fact that some of the profits of American companies come from abroad. Economic conditions in the United States may still be sluggish, but many emerging markets like India and China are expanding rapidly.

And there you have it. The final outcome of Reaganomics. For decades big business and the rich got all the breaks (and continue to) and they took their record profits and invested them in the means of production — in other countries — and said screw America. Simultaneously, technological advances made it possible for industry to increase their profits even more with even fewer workers.

It was always about cheap labor. Nothing was ever meant to trickle down.

This is a rare and poignant bit of television. Former top executive of health insurance giant CIGNA, Wendell Potter, and filmmaker, Michael Moore, have a genuine conversation on national TV about the opposition research and PR campaign Potter, and the industry he worked for, waged against Moore to discredit him and his film SiCKO. It’s well worth a look. Here is part I:

Part II is here. A full transcript is here.

The level of news media collusion with industry and government to advance the corporate line de jour is unsurprising to me. It’s one of the main reasons I burned my journalism degree. What still amazes me, though, is how so many Americans keep falling for it. Pick a topic, health care, climate change, alternative energy, the same tactics are used to smear the opposition, manipulate public opinion, and ultimately prevent American progress in the name of unbridled greed. And the saddest part is, it works.

Truthout is publishing a chapter each week of Thom Hartmann’s new book, Rebooting The American Dream.  This week is Chapter 2 – Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts.

Be prepared to have some of your economic perceptions challenged.  With this chapter alone, you will learn that much of the conventional wisdom is wrong and why we have come to believe it.  Below is a brief excerpt,

Beyond fairness, holding back the landed gentry that the Founders worried about—America had no billionaires in today’s money until after the Civil War, with John D. Rockefeller being our first—in and of itself is an important reason to increase the top marginal tax rate and to do so now.

Novelist Larry Beinhart was the first to bring this to my attention. He looked over the history of tax cuts and economic bubbles and found a clear relationship between the two. High top marginal tax rates—generally well above 60 percent—on rich people actually stabilize the economy, prevent economic bubbles from forming, prevent the subsequent economic crashes, and lead to steady and sustained economic growth as well as steady and sustained wage growth for working people.3

On the other hand, when top marginal rates drop below 50 percent, the opposite happens.

It’s pretty clear from comments made by Brian Nieves in the Washington Missourian he has no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to tax reform or the unfortunately-named Fair Tax, saying, “I think our current taxing system is regressive, not progressive in all of the fair tax studies that I have seen.”

Oh, really? Well, there is a reason why millionaire, Rex Sinquefield, bankrolled Speaker-Elect, Steve Tilley’s, campaign to the tune of $200,000, and it’s not so he could push through progressive tax laws that benefit middle-class working people at the expense of the rich. Last time I checked that was more or less the working definition of a progressive tax.

And when Missourians start to realize how eliminating Missouri’s individual income tax would cost the state about $6 billion, when the state is already facing a nearly $1 billion shortfall for its 2012 budget there are going to be some unhappy voters.

Republicans are clueless, don’t know how to solve problems, and have no idea how to govern. Need more proof? Behold the stupid from Nieves on tax reform:

“Right now there are tons of people earning income who never pay taxes,” Nieves said. “Like a drug dealer who might make $100,000 and never pays a penny of income tax.” Those people making money illegally still spend and many actually spend more – this would create a more fair environment, and recoup the tax dollars of people making money illegally.”

Is Nieves advocating making drugs legal in Missouri or is he suggesting that Missouri taxpayers behave more like illegal drug dealers? Perhaps the more important question is, why do Franklin Countians keep electing this asshat?