new voter photo "ID" flap in Missouri

Morning folks:

The Banana Republic of Missouri is once again attempting reform to the election laws. One hopes Governor Nixon vetoes this one called HJR 9 for its effect is not to make laws more fair, but to disallow voters in the State of Missouri from participating in elections. Failing that, time for lawsuits to block.

The resources devoted to getting voters propper id that is demanded by this bill opposed to the current systems is very limited and they could not get them out to the 200k plus individuals by next round of major elections in 2010 if they worked day and night, 24/7

How many and where one might ask (info from: http://www.firedupmissouri.com/content/connecting-dots-photo-id ):


St. Louis Co.: 51,708
St. Louis City: 29,949
Kansas City: 22,741
Greene Co: 10,043
Jackson Co: 8,866
Boone Co: 6,055
St. Charles Co: 5,903
Clay Co: 5,580
-----------------------estimated 230,000 voters in all and note the geographic locations and numbers.

Most elections in Missouri are determined by 25,000 votes or less by the way. Anyone think that disallowing 230,000 voters might have major impacts on election in this state?

Acorn folks against this bill and they are right to oppose this bill.

100 days

One hundred day markers: A lot of folks talk about the first "100" days of the Roosevelt administration and that is the measurement for presidents every since. Press and public mark this as the first "milestone" of an administration, how much progress on presidential project has been made.

For historians, hundred days is a referal the amount of time it took Napoleon to return to power in France from exile to Waterloo loss and the restoration of the King of France (note: it was actually 111 days).

In this case, Obama is not headed for a Waterloo yet (looks like GOP has that honor so far this administration). However, Obama is not accomplishing much of his agenda in that hundred day period and the congress is splinted into factions. GOP and Dems is the major division, but within the dems; blue dogs vs others and more and more divisions. Obama will have to crack the whip more than once on this group even with the defection of Specter to the dem ranks and the addition of Al of Minn to the folds of congress.

----

For our merry group: Obama is getting a C from myself. He has not pushed "our" agenda and in fact has excluded some of our allies for say, the healthcare summits. Nor has he pushed the Employee Free Choice act. The "on the todo list" of the president is very long and we all have the suspicion he will not be able to achieve much of his agenda. I am patient man, but not a fool; I do smell politics in the air.

Saying that, we still have to do the letter-writing, calls, spred the word thing. I fear the golden days for this group is very much in the future, no matter that $250 check for most at the end of May. Alas, no check for me or a couple others of my political action team. I guess Wall street needed the money.

One word to our allies that have flipped on positions, we all believe over hear at Soar 11-3 that trust is an "earned thing" and we do give folks a period of time to earn that trust. We are not in a compromise mode, and somewhat destest flip floppers, toadys and sycophants in general. We hold our elected ones accountable for what they do and importantly, what they do not do. Obama, has not earned our trust totally; but still early in his administration.

That this administration would treat with kid gloves Wall street folks and then help to smash workers at say the auto plants, anyone really believe that action would be thought highly? That this administration would seat the thieves and murders of the insurance/drug companies at his summit meeting and say exclude the Nurses organizations and other supporters of single payer healthcare reform would excape our notice? We could list more.

Friends and allies, got any explination for the preceeding paragraph? Is my observations and outlinings correct? Again, trust is an earned thing and should Obama keep this course; his grade will be D or F with this group the next hundred days.

Healthcare short vid gives some good advice to Obama

The vid below gives some good advice to Obama. So far in his 100 days, it looks like man has not kept his healthcare vows. Mr. President, excluding the single-payer folks from healthcare summits is politically a boneheaded approach to solving a very serious problem.

Appointing folks whom are part of the problem is boneheaded as well and not leadership for change. Anyone really believe that members of the same country clubs will actually take corrective action against their buddies? Really believe that politicans, whom accept millions plus of campaign monies from insurance companies/drug folks going to negatively impact those folk's cash flow? The theory is that Mr. Obama, you take charge and get things rolling for the American people; not cave into special interests like insurance/drug companies.

It appears if some of the allies of the "single payer" approach, notably Hr676 have flipped flopped and "multipayer" systems in the works. A word of advice to those folks, when one enters into talks; take not the cheap low road for you will always lose. Why have talks in the first place if you are going to roll over and play dead for powerful special interests like drug/insurance companies and their sycophants (no need dictionary, sycophant is a brown noser)

NYTimes pipe article

This is the article that the India media folks based their stuff in previous post. Copyrighted article and will withdraw if objections made:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/economy/16pipe.html

Pipe Made in India Incenses Illinois Town

April 16, 2009
Pipe Made in India Incenses Illinois Town
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

GRANITE CITY, Ill. — Jeff Rains, a retired steelworker at the sprawling mill here, made the discovery. Out walking a month ago, he waited impatiently at a rail crossing while a freight train slowly passed, its flatbed cars stacked with steel pipes, each wide enough for a child to crawl through. Then he noticed “Made in India” stenciled on the pipes.

That observation has made him a Paul Revere in the eyes of many townspeople. Hundreds of sections of imported steel pipe have been moving into Granite City for use in an oil pipeline. The steel mill, meanwhile, has been shut since December for lack of orders — the first time in its 130-year history — and nearly 2,000 workers are on furlough.

“I was very mad when I saw they were imported; I wondered why this pipe had not been made in the United States,” said Mr. Rains, who is 61. Once the train passed, Mr. Rains, still active in union affairs, hastened to the union hall to spread the word.

The United Steelworkers union has been trying ever since to galvanize the Granite City story into national outrage over steel imports, raising suggestions of protectionism in the process. The union and its workers want steel pipe for future projects to be made in the United States, creating domestic jobs.

With the economy in tatters, top corporate executives often state privately that they fear this downturn will fuel public sentiment against foreign-made products. Indeed, in February — before Mr. Rains made his discovery — 5,000 people marched through the streets of this steel town in support of a strong “Buy America” clause in the $787 billion stimulus bill then before Congress.

The imported pipe has inflamed that sentiment. The union filed an antidumping lawsuit in Washington last Wednesday against tubular and pipe steel imported from China. A day earlier, Local 1899 staged a rally here, drawing more than 500 people to the same field where the lengths of “Indian pipe,” as the people here call them, have been stacked.

“The steel pipe behind us is a symbol of what has gone wrong in this country,” one of the speakers declared, arguing in effect that a lax Congress and greedy businesspeople, as in Wall Street, had brought three months of layoff, so far, to more than 10 percent of Granite City’s work force. The crowd cheered, and some chanted back, “No more greed.”

The union’s hope is that the Indian pipe episode will provoke a broad outcry, and similar finger-pointing, forcing Congress to tighten trade rules and pressuring companies that import steel to buy more from domestic suppliers instead.

The pressure on Congress is already evident. A provision in the stimulus package, signed into law in February, limits the hiring of foreign workers by any company receiving government bailout money. At least one institution, Bank of America, has rescinded job offers to foreign citizens otherwise eligible for H-1B visas.

The United Steelworkers asserts that free trade is not the issue. The union’s leaders endorse that, as do the chief executives of nearly every multinational company. What the Indian pipe represents, the union argues — and it is joined in this by steel industry executives — is a violation of fair trade. They contend that generous government subsidies allow Indian and Chinese manufacturers to “dump” steel in this country at prices below the fair market value.
“Other countries point the finger at the U.S. and say we are protectionist,” said Nancy Gravatt, a spokeswoman for the American Iron and Steel Institute, representing mill owners, “and then you look at the details in the other countries, and they are not playing by the rules at all.”
Such strong language aside, the episode here has not generated the broad public outcry of, say, the bonuses paid by the American International Group. That is perhaps because trade issues do not generate the same reaction as huge Wall Street bonuses, and perhaps because the steelworkers themselves, as they explained in interviews here, would not have objected to the Indian steel if they were still fully employed at U.S. Steel’s Granite City Works. But the industry has been operating at less than 50 percent of capacity since last fall.

Imports have accounted for a steady 20 to 25 percent of the nation’s steel consumption for a decade or more — and neither the union nor the steel mill operators challenged that inroad.
But now they are, partly through stepped-up antidumping actions, like the one filed against China last week. The union, in addition, is pushing for policies that would increase manufacturing in the United States, reversing a long decline. It favors, for example, tax credits that would encourage more domestic production of solar panels and wind turbines, replacing imports.
“I have seven children, and six of them need a job,” said Ricky Jankowski, a laid-off steelworker here. “If one of them gets a manufacturing job as a result of our protests, it will be worth it.”
The shrinking of American manufacturing was indeed a handicap when TransCanada, a giant Canadian energy company, agreed to buy 560,000 tons of large-diameter pipe in 2006 for its 1,600-mile Keystone Pipeline, now being built from Alberta to Oklahoma to carry oil to American refineries from Canada’s tar sand fields. A section of the pipeline will pass near this Mississippi River town, opposite St. Louis.

An American mill provided 30 percent of the pipe, Canadian mills 23 percent and a giant Indian company, Welspun, the remaining 47 percent, at a low enough price, TransCanada says, to compete with American-made pipe, even allowing for shipping.

“American and Canadian mills would have gotten more if they had had the available capacity to meet our requirements,” said Robert Jones, a TransCanada vice president.

Neither union leaders nor industry executives dispute that assessment. Indeed, neither is trying to stop construction of the Keystone Pipeline, now that all the steel pipe has been purchased. But the union, at least, is putting pressure on TransCanada to buy American-made pipe for a parallel pipeline soon to be built. In a letter filed with the Transportation Department last week, the union joined the Sierra Club in challenging, on environmental grounds, TransCanada’s request for a permit — one argument being that the walls of the pipe would be too thin.
Pipe made in America would “meet all safety requirements,” a union official declared, responding in part to the growing anger in Granite City, dominated as it is by a giant steel mill that has never, in 130 years, been so quiet and smokeless.

“People here use the word anger to describe their reaction to the Indian steel, but I’m not sure that is the right word,” said the Rev. Gene Fowler, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, who attended the rally with other clergy members. “I think the right description is, ‘slapped in the face.’ It is like an offense to the community.”

more on the Indian pipe story--from India

More news on the Indian pipe story--from India

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Pipe from India angers US steel workers: NYT

Washington, April 16 (IANS) Angry over import of Indian pipes for a Canada-US oil pipeline, the steel workers union is trying to galvanise a national outrage over steel imports and raising suggestions of protectionism.

Hundreds of sections of imported steel pipe have been moving into Granite City, Illinois for use in a 1,600-mile oil pipeline from Alberta to Oklahoma being built by Canadian energy giant TransCanada to carry oil to American refineries from Canada’s tar sand fields.

The local steel mill, meanwhile, has been shut since December for lack of orders - the first time in its 130-year history - and nearly 2,000 workers are on furlough, the New York Times said in a report Thursday titled “Pipe From India Incenses Illinois Town.”

Since a former union official noticed the Indian pipes loaded on a passing freight train, the United Steelworkers union has been trying “to galvanize the Granite City story into national outrage over steel imports, raising suggestions of protectionism in the process,” the Times said.
The union and its workers want steel pipe for future projects to be made in the United States, creating domestic jobs.

With the economy in tatters, top corporate executives often state privately that they fear this downturn will fuel public sentiment against foreign-made products, the Times said. “The imported pipe has inflamed that sentiment.”

The union filed an antidumping lawsuit in Washington last Wednesday against tubular and pipe steel imported from China. A day earlier, workers staged a rally in Granite City, drawing more than 500 people to the same field where the lengths of “Indian pipe,” as the people in the steel town call them, have been stacked.

The union’s hope is that the Indian pipe episode will provoke a broad outcry, and similar finger-pointing, forcing Congress to tighten trade rules and pressuring companies that import steel to buy more from domestic suppliers instead, the daily said.

An American mill provided 30 percent of the pipe, Canadian mills 23 percent and a giant Indian company, Welspun, the remaining 47 percent, at a low enough price, TransCanada says, to compete with American-made pipe, even allowing for shipping.

“American and Canadian mills would have gotten more if they had had the available capacity to meet our requirements,” said Robert Jones, a TransCanada vice president cited by the Times.
[LM1]

http://www.sindhtoday.net/south-asia/87318.htm
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note: if you feel strongly about Conoco buying foreign (and Conoco is an international corporation) here is contact information:

ConocoPhillips welcomes questions, comments and suggestions. The corporate headquarters' contact information is available below:
600 North Dairy Ashford (77079-1175)P.O. Box 2197Houston, TX 77252-2197
Phone: 281-293-1000
-----------------------
might wish to drop a dime and and let them know your position of buying foreign steel. It is beyond belief that they did not know their subcontractors were buying foreign steel.

Medicare scam again

This is a story of how some has "shilled" the Medicare advantage program yet again. This group used elderly folks to "front" Medicare advantage program.

One would wonder why the government does not punish fraud and some of us should ask our fearless leaders. Seems something like this should interest the Attorney General on either the state or federal level.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8339

More on the Dewey Square Medicare Scam
Source: The Eagle-Tribune (North Andover, Massachusetts), April 13, 2009

As the Center for Media and Democracy reported previously, the Dewey Square Group lobbying firm is sending newspapers fake letters to the editor. The letters promote Medicare Advantage, a private health insurance plan, and are sent in the name of local seniors. The Eagle-Tribune paper was tipped off when Noah, really "an intern at the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group," called about one of the letters, claiming he was the letter writer's grandson. But the woman whose name was on the letter doesn't have a grandson named Noah, and didn't send the letter. Dewey Square is sending the Astroturf letters "under the banner of 'The Coalition for Medicare Choices,'" and also "bringing seniors to 'Medicare Advantage Community Meetings,' featuring 'free food' and 'door prizes,' with congressmen and senators, and offering them sample letters to Congress or local newspapers."

Dewey Square's Mary Anne Marsh claimed, "no one's trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes." Instead, she suggested that "the time that elapsed between the meetings when the seniors saw the letters and the letters' arrival at the newspaper may have clouded some memories."

The campaign comes after Democratic proposals, backed by President Obama, to cut funding to Medicare Advantage and use "the savings to expand health care coverage for all."

----------------------from another site:http://www.prwatch.org/node/8312


Dewey Square Caught Astroturfing Again
lobbying
media
third party technique
Source: Halifax-Plympton Reporter (Marshfield, Massachusetts), March 27, 2009
The Halifax-Plympton Reporter received a letter to the editor urging "that people contact their congressman about the Medicare Advantage program," a "sort of privatized health plan paid for via the recipient's Medicare. Reportedly, there's some interest in doing away with the program." The actual, physical letter was in the name of a local resident, but it didn't mention any of the local Congressional delegation, which the newspaper's editor, Matthew Nadler, found strange. So, he called the man who had supposedly written and mailed the letter. "He had no idea what I was talking about," Nadler reports. Then, "I got a phone call Monday from a young man who said he was calling on behalf of the letter's non-writer. I told him what happened, and I think I had some pointed words about what was a pretty sleazy use of an elderly person. I asked the caller who he was and who he worked for. Which, not surprisingly, I suppose, he declined to tell me." However, Nadler could see his phone number, and traced it back to the Dewey Square Group, a high-powered, Democratic-associated lobbying firm. Nadler notes that "their Web site doesn't list their clients, but it doesn't take a genius, or a newspaper editor, to figure out they've been hired by someone with an interest in keeping Medicare Advantage in business." The firm's site "promises 'grassroots' communication," but, he concludes, "it looks more like Astroturf from here."

four pillars of health care reform

As you folks know, there are many voices in health care debate. Compare these folks to the Ronald Regan post for Ronald Regan these folks are not. Currently these ads are covering the airwaves on cable news stations.

At the conservative website, they go over 16 plans including HR676. It even list Jindal's Lousiana's plan. http://www.conservativesforpatientsrights.com/plans.php

At this site, you can click up to four boxes and compare plans. Alas, this site does not list all the health care proposals; but one can get an indication where some of the conservatives are coming from. I urge my political action folks to review some of these and we shall talk about them shortly. I also urge folks to go to above site and watch the Fox news vid about this ad campaign---most informative.

I have looked at many of the listed plans and much more. HR676 is the superior program for the needs of the membership, the needs of America.

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Bill Maher's health care remarks 3-6-09

Bill Maher in his HBO program made some remarks about health care. This is copyrighted material and I will withdraw if protest made.

Remarks are very interesting. From March 06, 09 show (Real Time). Worth watching if one has the Charter "On Demand" feature on television. Bill was the host of the ABC show "Politically Incorrect" before he was fired. HBO then hired Bill to do hour long series in 03.

most brilliant anti-universal health care argument in history

Ronald Reagan made the most brilliant argument against universal health care in history. Below is that argument and some history and comment. His efforts has blocked healthcare for millions for 50 years plus and some today use the argument.

----------------from wiki
Operation Coffee Cup was a campaign conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) during the late 1950s and early 1960s in opposition to the Democrats' plans to extend Social Security to include health insurance for the elderly, later known as Medicare. As part of the plan, doctors' wives would organize coffee meetings in an attempt to convince acquaintances to write letters to Congress opposing the program. The operation received support from Ronald Reagan, who in 1961 produced the LP record Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine for the AMA, outlining arguments against what he called "socialized medicine". This record would be played at the coffee meetings.
Governor Sarah Palin quoted Ronald Reagan from the 1961 album during the 2008 Vice-Presidential debate, "It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free." [1]
The operation was described in 1999 by political scientist Max Skidmore.
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Paul Krugman did not have kind words for Governor Palin and this is what Palin said and it is a quote from the Regan lp below. (taken from his New York Times blog Oct 3, 2008 in article entitled Raising the White Flag)

"It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free. "

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This is from American Heritage in an article about public relations and American history.

American Heritage, May/Jun2000, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p77


Most Underrated Public Relations Campaign:
The most underrated PR campaign in American history--indeed an unfamiliar one to most people--was the 1949 effort that killed the possibility of guaranteed health care for all Americans. There had been attempts to establish a national health care system during the 1930s, and following the war the public demand for guaranteed health care continued to grow. By January 1949 national health insurance bills were pending in Congress, and the prospect of universal, federally insured coverage seemed bright.

Panicked that doctors' customary privileges would be compromised by such a system, the American Medical Association hired Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter, a California-based husband-and-wife public relations team, to bury the prospect of legislation. Postwar politics provided an ideal context for their efforts, and they had the AMA launch an aggressive smear attack linking national health insurance with communism.

The campaign downplayed public health care needs and spotlighted the evils of governmental intervention. Over an eleven-month period, fortified by the largest public relations war chest that had ever been assembled, Whitaker and Baxter waged a pervasive public assault on what they christened "Compulsory Health Insurance," and by November 1949 they had their target dead in the water.

Today, more than fifty years later, millions of Americans still lack adequate health insurance, and the problem is getting worse. Looking back, we have Whitaker and Baxter and the American Medical Association to thank for this predicament.
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Since it is estimated that 18000 Americans die from lack of medical care and some 83,000 die from insurance companies turning down folks each year, these folks over the last 50 years could be thought to be the most polific mass murders in North American history.

Do the math, how many Americans have died from lack of medical care and the insurance company saying no since Obama took the second oath of Office? Does anyone wonder why the supporters of HR676 have a dim view of some of the folks at the Obama healthcare group when HR676 folks are excluded?
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by the way, the medical program opposed here is Medicare. This launched Ronald Reagan's political career and this "effort" was thought well by Republicans. Reagan lied in presidential debates/campaign about this by the way.

Some simular tactics used by "Coffee Cup" folks used to kill Clinton Health care plan. You might see some of this shortly. Know your history, for sometimes some things repeat themselves. Do not believe the entire drug/insurance industry has suddenly decided to mend policies to help the American people

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New cable program to keep track Ed show on MSNBC

There are news shows and commentary shows on cable day and night. One working folks might wish to watch is the Ed Show. Ed's first guest is Leo Gerard This is from AFL blog site:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/04/07/ed-schultz-kicks-off-new-msnbc-show-with-usws-gerard/#more-12564
Ed Schultz Kicks off New MSNBC Show with USW’s Gerard

Popular progressive radio show host Ed Schultz, who now anchors ”The Ed Show“ on MSNBC television, hosted Leo Gerard, president of the Steelworkers (USW), on the program’s first installment Monday night.
Gerard told viewers: “We cannot put this country back on its feet by continuing to worship at the knees of the financial community that put us in this mess. We’ve got to go back to start to make things in America; we’ve got to put people back to work; we’ve got to save the auto industry.”
Gerard discussed the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States and what the demise of our auto industry would mean to other sectors. He stressed the need to reform health care and fix our trade policies with China. (Click here for the full interview.)
“The Ed Show” airs Monday through Friday from 6-7 p.m. EDT on MSNBC. Says Schultz:
I look forward to having a day-to-day discussion with fellow Americans on issues that really matter to all of us.
A 30-year radio veteran, Schultz is the top-rated progressive talker on radio and an avid voice for the middle class. His syndicated radio program, “The Ed Schultz Show,” airs live weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. (EDT) with a weekly audience of more than 3 million listeners on 100 stations across the country.
Says MSNBC President Phil Griffin:
Ed’s proven that he can connect with Americans….He has been the breakthrough talent in an industry dominated by conservative voices.

Addition to Claire story

I forgot to add in original, Claire did not hold out hope for "single payer" plans. HR676 is a single payer plan.

Appearently we have some more work to do. Again, this will be discussed May meeting.

McCaskill Kitchen Table Talk St. Charles, Missouri 4-09

This is from the Suburban Jornal of the Claire McCaskill "kitchen Table Talk". Ralph and I attended this yesterday morning. This will be topic of discussion next meeting in May.

Ralph did get to briefly talk with Claire.

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2009/04/07/stcharles/news/doc49db9a278c6f7130262263.txt

NEW: Bailouts are big topic at McCaskill forum
By Latreecia Wade
U.S Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., visited St. Charles Community College in Cottleville Tuesday morning as part of a series of open forum meetings throughout the state.
McCaskill’s "Kitchen Table Talks" are designed to give constituents a chance to discuss topics of interest with the senator.
"I’m glad you care," McCaskill told the crowd of more than 300 in the SCC College Center gymnasium.
McCaskill drew submitted questions from audience members from a glass bowl, then read the questions aloud and answered them.
Most questions focused on pending legislation, government bailouts and the stimulus package.
"I get it. People are tired of the bailout," McCaskill said. "The banks have to pay the money back with interest, and we’ve already collected hundreds of millions of dollars back."
McCaskill said "none of us wanted" to bail out investment banks.
"Someone has to do it even if it is not politically popular," she said.
McCaskill answered questions about the nation’s rate of incarceration, which she said is "out of control" compared to the rest of the world. She said she supports government-sponsored drug programs for non-violent inmates who have a history of addiction."I’d rather spend $10,000 creating taxpayers than $15,000 supporting them in prison," McCaskill said. "We need to take people out of prison and turn them into a viable part of society."
=

healthcare roundtable St. Louis University April, 09

Ralph and I attended a healthcare roundtable this last monday at St. Louis University. Some things were of interest. This will be item of discussion at our May meeting.

Jerry Tucker was "union" guy at the table.



Michael Mancini

Healthcare Reform Roundtable Scheduled

Event Details: 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., April 06, Il Monestero

Learn about the current healthcare reform policy landscape at an upcoming healthcare reform roundtable from 6-8 p.m. Monday, April 6, at Saint Louis University's Il Monestero Center, 3010 Olive (just east of Compton).The event is free and open to the public, however reservations are appreciated. A light supper and refreshments will be served and free parking is available at Il Monestero.

The roundtable will focus on healthcare reform policies at the federal and state levels and feature a panel of experts that includes local advocates, activists and community organizers from multiple sectors. Michael Mancini, associate professor in the School of Social Work, will serve as moderator of the panel of experts which includes:

Kirsten Dunham, Paraquad
Ruth Ehresman, Missouri Budget Project
Jacqueline Lukitsch, National Alliance on Mental Illness-St. Louis
Amy Smoucha, Missouri Healthcare for All; Missouri Jobs with Justice
Julie Terbrock, Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition
Jerry Tucker, Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare
Sidney Watson, Saint Louis University School of Law, Center for Health Law Studies
Join us to strategize, collaborate and organize around local efforts to secure quality, affordable healthcare for all.
The event is co-Sponsored by School of Social Work, The Doerr Center for Social Justice and the Department of Public Policy Studies

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By the way, Jerry Tucker is considered trouble-maker UAW fellow. The following is from the New York Times last weekend which quotes him. It also quotes Leo Gerard


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05greenhouse.html

April 5, 2009
In America, Labor Has an Unusually Long Fuse

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The workers and other protesters who gathered en masse at the Group of 20 summit meeting last week in London were continuing a time-honored European tradition of taking their grievances into the streets.

Two weeks earlier, more than a million workers in France demonstrated against layoffs and the government’s handling of the economic crisis, and in the last month alone, French workers took their bosses hostage four times in various labor disputes. When General Motors recently announced huge job cuts worldwide, 15,000 workers demonstrated at the company’s German headquarters.

But in the United States, where G.M. plans its biggest layoffs, union members have seemed passive in comparison. They may yell at the television news, but that’s about all. Unlike their European counterparts, American workers have largely stayed off the streets, even as unemployment soars and companies cut wages and benefits.

The country of Mother Jones, John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther certainly has had a rich and sometimes militant history of labor protest — from the Homestead Steel Works strike against Andrew Carnegie in 1892 to the auto workers’ sit-down strikes of the 1930s and the 67-day walkout by 400,000 G.M. workers in 1970.

But in recent decades, American workers have increasingly steered clear of such militancy, for reasons that range from fear of having their jobs shipped overseas to their self-image as full-fledged members of the middle class, with all its trappings and aspirations.
David Kennedy, a Stanford historian and author of “Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945,” says that America’s individualist streak is a major reason for this reluctance to take to the streets. Citing a 1940 study by the social psychologist Mirra Komarovsky, he said her interviews of the Depression-era unemployed found “the psychological reaction was to feel guilty and ashamed, that they had failed personally.”
Taken together, guilt, shame and individualism undercut any impulse to collective action, then as now, Professor Kennedy said. Noting that Americans felt stunned and desperately insecure during the Depression’s early years, he wrote: “What struck most observers, and mystified them, was the eerie docility of the American people, their stoic passivity as the Depression grindstone rolled over them.”

By the mid-1930s, though, worker protests increased in number and militancy. They were fueled by the then-powerful Communist and Socialist Parties and frustrations over continuing deprivation. Workers also felt that they had President Roosevelt’s blessing for collective action because he signed the Wagner Act in 1935, giving workers the right to unionize.

“Remember, at that time, you had Hoovervilles and 25 percent unemployment,” said Daniel Bell, a professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard. “Many people felt that capitalism was finished.”
General strikes paralyzed San Francisco and Minneapolis, and a six-week sit-down strike at a G.M. plant in Flint, Mich., pressured the company into recognizing the United Automobile Workers. In the decade’s ugliest showdown, a 1937 strike against Republic Steel in Chicago, 10 protesters were shot to death. That militancy helped build a powerful labor movement, which represented 35 percent of the nation’s workers by the 1950s and helped create the world’s largest and richest middle class.

Today, American workers, even those earning $20,000 a year, tend to view themselves as part of an upwardly mobile middle class. In contrast, European workers often still see themselves as proletarians in an enduring class struggle.

And American labor leaders, once up-from-the-street rabble-rousers, now often work hand-in-hand with C.E.O.’s to improve corporate competitiveness to protect jobs and pensions, and try to sideline activists who support a hard line.

“You have a general diminution of union leadership that was focused on defending workers by any means necessary,” said Jerry Tucker, a longtime U.A.W. militant. “The message from the union leadership nowadays often is, ‘We don’t have any choice, we have to go down this concessionary road to see if we can do damage control,’ ” he said.

In the case of the Detroit automakers, a strike might not only hasten their demise but infuriate many Americans who already view auto workers as overpaid. It might also make Washington less receptive to a bailout.

Labor’s aggressiveness has also been sapped by its declining numbers. Unions represent just 7.4 percent of private-sector workers today.

Unions have also grown more cautious as management has become more aggressive. A watershed came in 1981 when the nation’s air traffic controllers engaged in an illegal strike. President Reagan quickly fired the 11,500 striking traffic controllers, hired replacements and soon got the airports running. After that confrontation, labor’s willingness to strike shrank markedly.

American workers still occasionally vent their anger in protests and strikes. There were demonstrations against the A.I.G. bonuses, for instance, and workers staged a sit-down strike in December when their factory in Chicago was closed. But the numbers tell the story: Last year, American unions engaged in 159 work stoppages, down from 1,352 in 1981, according to the Bureau of National Affairs, a publisher of legal and regulatory news.

Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University, said that while demonstrations remain a vital outlet for the European left, for Americans “the Internet now somehow serves as the main outlet” with angry blogs and mass e-mailing.

Left-leaning workers and unions that might be most prone to stage protests during today’s economic crisis are often the ones most enthusiastic about President Obama and his efforts to revive the economy, help unions and enact universal health coverage. Instead of taking to the streets last fall to protest the gathering economic crisis under President Bush, many workers and unions campaigned for Mr. Obama.

Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, said there were smarter things to do than demonstrating against layoffs — for instance, pushing Congress and the states to make sure the stimulus plan creates the maximum number of jobs in the United States.
“I actually believe that Americans believe in their political system more than workers do in other parts of the world,” Mr. Gerard said. He said large labor demonstrations are often warranted in Canada and European countries to pressure parliamentary leaders. Demonstrations are less needed in the United States, he said, because often all that is needed is some expert lobbying in Washington to line up the support of a half-dozen senators.
Professor Kennedy saw another reason that today’s young workers and young people were protesting less than in decades past. “This generation,” he said, has “ found more effective ways to change the world. It’s signed up for political campaigns, and it’s not waiting for things to get so desperate that they feel forced to take to the streets.”
----------------------
both Leo and Jerry do make it into the New York times from time to time.

further AARP vs Ameren UE

I was at this demonstration. This is from the St. Louis business journal.

My take: bad idea at bad time. Ameren has not even applied for permit nor are any detailed plans given to the public. I do not mind a pig in the poke type deal once in a while, but this plan as written is foolish.

Alas, if Ameren smart; they would redraft and resubmit. Missouri leglislature has fine record of overturning voters and they would have no problems ignoring the voters. This sort adventure was defeated soundly years ago.

Presently, Missouri house about to overturn recient voter will on the miminum wage/tips law. Who says the democrats won?

two stories here one is the business journal and the other gives a tad more details. Decide which is a little more "informational"
----------------------------------

St. Louis Business Journal - April 6, 2009/stlouis/stories/2009/04/06/daily6.html


Monday, April 6, 2009, 11:31am CDT Modified: Monday, April 6, 2009, 12:30pm
AARP protests Ameren bill
St. Louis Business Journal - by Kelsey Volkmann
Missouri members of the AARP protested Monday outside AmerenUE in St. Louis to rally against legislation that would allow the utility to charge customers for the construction costs of a nuclear power plant in Callaway County.

Seven volunteers and an AARP staff member braved the wintry mix to protest Monday outside the utility's headquarters, said Anita Parran, a spokeswoman for AARP.

“AARP Missouri is opposed to this legislation that would allow electric companies to begin raising electric rates to pay for projects that fundamentally tilts the ratemaking system against consumers,” said Jim Clemmons, AARP volunteer state president, in a statement. “Rates would be dramatically raised during construction periods and would remove any incentives for cost overruns and force consumers to pay the costs of a cancelled plant.”

The legislation under consideration in the Missouri General Assembly would repeal a 30-year-old ban on “construction work in progress.”
AmerenUE’s proposed nuclear power plant in Callaway County is estimated to cost between $7 billion and $14 billion and take seven to 10 years to build.
Ameren officials and supporters say that charging customers for the construction costs would save customers $3 billion.

St. Louis-based Ameren Corp. (NYSE: AEE) provides electricity to about 2.4 million customers and natural gas to almost one million customers in eastern Missouri and Illinois.
AARP represents more than 40 million members over age 50 worldwide.
kvolkmann@bizjournals.com
All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.

-----------------------------------------another source prior to the demonstration-----------


Power play AmerenUE's ambitions face scrutiny.
Source: Columbia Daily Tribune March 1, 2009


Terry Ganey
Mar. 1, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- JEFFERSON CITY

-- Public Counsel Lewis Mills Jr. won a victory last week before the Missouri Public Service Commission that might help illuminate the dark corners of AmerenUE's plan to build a second nuclear-powered electricity-generating unit in Callaway County.

Mills, who represents the public in rate cases before the PSC, won approval on a 4-1 vote to compel the St. Louis-based utility to turn over its financial analysis for the new plant, which could cost anywhere from
$6 billion to $9 billion. Up until now, lawmakers, regulators and consumer advocates have complained there wasn't enough information available to judge AmerenUE's plan.
The issues of whether there should be a second unit and whether ratepayers should pay for it as it is being built -- if it gets built -- are unfolding in two arenas: the PSC and the General Assembly.
The utility has asked lawmakers to repeal a law adopted by voters in 1976 that prohibits a utility from recovering new plant construction costs until it is generating power. Without repeal, the utility's officers have said, AmerenUE cannot put together the financing necessary to launch the massive project.
Although there have been three lengthy hearings in House and Senate committees to seek answers, a common consensus is more specifics are needed for lawmakers to thoughtfully weigh an issue that will increase customers' electric rates. Information that Mills' office might unearth could go far in providing the basis for making a decision, which one commission member said last week might be the biggest ever made by lawmakers now in office.
In late January, Mills asked the commission to order AmerenUE to answer data requests Mills had filed with the utility in the fall. That is what the agency approved last week. Separately, Mills has also asked the PSC to open a formal investigation into AmerenUE's plans for a second nuclear unit.

"Can the PSC gather information and produce analysis that can and should inform the legislative process? Yes, absolutely," Mills said.
So far, all five of the commissioners agree a case should be opened. The two Democrats on the commission want the case launched now. The three Republicans prefer to wait until after the legislature has a chance to act on AmerenUE's request for a change in the law.
The political atmosphere at the PSC is in a state of flux, with an overhaul in the commission's makeup coming in the next few months. On April 28, the term of Commissioner Connie Murray, a Republican, will expire. Murray cast the lone dissent last week on the issue of whether the public counsel was entitled to data from AmerenUE. Her departure will give Gov. Jay Nixon the chance to appoint a Democrat who might be eager to vote to open an investigation into AmerenUE's plans.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, have begun unraveling the bill AmerenUE originally filed. A group of senators, which includes state Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, plans to go over the 24-page measure this week. At the same time, Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savannah and chairman of the committee considering the bill, has told AmerenUE to supply models of what its rate charges would be to large industrial customers who have come out to challenge the bill. Lager hopes to have some agreements worked out by March 12, when lawmakers go on spring break.
Sen. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City and sponsor of the bill, predicted it would change significantly by then.
"It will get a new nuclear plant but provide protections for consumers," Scott said.
But Nixon's office sent a signal last week that even if the complicated legislation reached his desk, it's doubtful he would sign it. Jack Cardetti, a Nixon spokesman, said the governor wants to make Missouri an energy exporter and that nuclear power might be crucial to make that happen. And Cardetti said Nixon believes AmerenUE should move forward with getting a federal permit for the plant.
"This is a two-step process that involves both procuring a license and then deciding whether to build," Cardetti said. "It is premature at this time to saddle ratepayers with potential construction costs before regulators have awarded a permit and Ameren has made the decision to build."
SHIFTING RISKS
The law AmerenUE is trying to repeal was approved by voters after an initiative petition drive. The law prohibited customers from being charged for an electric plant's construction while it was in progress. Only after a plant is producing power would ratepayers be charged for it.
In December 1975, the PSC allowed Union Electric Co. (OOTC:UEPEN) to charge customers for the costs of financing construction work in progress on the nuclear power plant being built in Callaway County. The motivation for the ruling was based on the size of the massive project and the length of time it took to complete.
A group called Citizens for Reformed Electric Rates launched a petition drive to put Proposition 1 on the ballot, seeking to block the PSC's decision. Alberta Slavin, a consumer advocate from St. Louis County, was a leading proponent of the issue. She said, "Either power companies are capitalists or they aren't. They should be willing to take the risk along with the profit." Slavin said investors should pay the financing costs, not the consumers.
On Nov. 2, 1976, Proposition 1 was approved overwhelmingly, 1,132,664 "yes" to 663,486 "no." Boone County voted 21,388 "yes" to 11,868 "no." It didn't stop the utility from completing the plant, and AmerenUE's 1240-megawatt single-unit nuclear plant in Callaway County began operating in 1984.
Slavin died in October, but a group called Missourians for Fair Electric Rates still opposes repeal of the 1976 law on the same ground -- that the financing costs and the risks accompanying them would be shifted to consumers.
AmerenUE has 1.2 million customers in central and eastern Missouri. Coal-fired plants feed most of its base-load capacity, providing about 77 percent of the utility's output.
A planning document on the utility's Web site shows that through 2025, demand for electricity will grow, while the utility's power supply will remain static and eventually decline because of the retirement of aging coal-fired plants. Thomas Voss, president and CEO, said in the 2018-2020 time frame, the utility will need to build a new plant. Voss said the utility's preferred plan for adding electric generating capacity includes the option of building a new nuclear unit.
Voss has said it's only an option and that there is a chance the nuclear plant would never be built. The utility has already sunk $60 million into the process of applying for a license for the second nuclear-powered unit.
But the bill AmerenUE filed with the legislature goes far beyond merely repealing the prohibition against charging customers for construction work in progress. The bill contains a schedule that determines how quickly the PSC must act on the utility's application, it shortens the window of time in which regulators could review a proposal, and it limits what courts could do in terms of reviewing decisions.
The costs of plants started but not completed, including coal-fired generating facilities, could also be charged against customers if it could be demonstrated that the utility acted prudently.
"The staff's effectiveness and role will be limited by this bill," said Robert Clayton, PSC chairman, during an appearance before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment.
Clayton suggested a formal record should be compiled with evidence and sworn testimony from AmerenUE as to whether it's necessary to change the law.
'GOING BALLISTIC'
Several state senators, Schaefer included, support the notion of building the nuclear plant because they believe the future of burning coal to produce power will be risky and expensive given environmental concerns. But the issue of what the nuclear plant will cost consumers has yet to be resolved.
There is a substantial spread between what AmerenUE and the Office Public Counsel say the new plant will cost consumers over the six years it would take to build it. Richard Mark, AmerenUE's senior vice president for energy delivery, said the difference stems from the fact that the OPC based its projections on a 1600-megawatt unit, while AmerenUE is saying it would own only 900 megawatts and other utilities would control the rest.
The OPC estimates rate increases for the 1600-megawatt plant after six years at a low of 29 percent to a high of 40 percent. AmerenUE's estimated rate hike of the 900-megawatt portion of the plant is about 18 percent.
"I don't think either side is making full disclosure as to the rates that will occur," said Jeff Davis, a member of the PSC.
Florida Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano suggested in an interview last week that Missouri lawmakers carefully weigh the issue of "upfront recoveries." Argenziano was a member of the Florida Senate in 2007 when an energy bill was approved that allowed utilities to recover money spent on new nuclear plants. She was later appointed to the state's PSC.
Just last month, the Florida PSC allowed a utility there to recover $34 million in pre-construction costs associated with a coal project that was later canceled.
"People are going ballistic because of the increase in rates," Argenziano said. "These are big numbers coming at the wrong time, and many legislators who voted for it are starting to understand the ramifications."
Reach Terry Ganey at 573-815-1708 or e-mail tganey@columbiatribune.com.
Newstex ID: KRTB-0037-32442746

Ameren bill

It pleased me to participate in a demonstration this week opposing the proposed rate hike by Ameren. AARP was sponsor. I will post some more info on the bill and the AARP position.

This is the most recient developments:

Senate heats up over utilities bill
By Terry Ganey
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Advertisement
JEFFERSON CITY — Charges and counter-charges flew on the Senate floor Tuesday evening as lawmakers debated whether AmerenUE could charge customers for a nuclear-powered generating plant before it produces power.
Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, and Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, questioned each other’s motives on the most controversial bill of this session. Schaefer suggested Crowell was representing Noranda Aluminum, AmerenUE’s largest electric customer, in opposing the bill that allows Ameren to collect rates on its plant while it’s under construction.
“Is Noranda paying you?” Schaefer asked Crowell at one point.
“What’s Ameren paying you?” Crowell replied.
“I have not taken a dime from Ameren and I never will,” Schaefer responded.
The exchange took place about four hours into the debate over legislation that Schaefer wrote in a bid to repeal a prohibition that voters approved in a statewide referendum in 1976. Voters banned any utility from charging customers for a power plant’s construction until that plant was producing power.
AmerenUE filed a bill this session that repeals the prohibition and sets up a procedure in which the Public Service Commission would allow utilities to charge customers for construction work in progress. Schaefer said his bill included customer protections that were not part of the legislation that the St. Louis-based utility introduced earlier this year.
Ameren officers have said the existing prohibition places too great a financial obstacle in the path of the utility’s plans to build a second nuclear-powered generating facility in Callaway County. More than 20 amendments were prepared for attachment to the bill, a signal that debate on the measure could go late into the night.
The Senate turned back 22-9 an attempt by Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, to submit the repeal to a vote of the people in a statewide election in November.
Reach Terry Ganey at 573-815-1708 or e-mail tganey@columbiatribune.com