May Program Meeting – Are We Better Together? City-Council Merger – What now?
Guest Speaker – Tony Messenger
Metro Columnist
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Our meeting will feature Pulitzer Prize winning journalist – Tony Messenger who will provide an overview of the Better Together City-County merger proposal. Mr. Messenger has written a number of columns on the issues and presented the pros and cons as more information has become available to the public.
Tony Messenger is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s metro columnist, a position he’s held since Sept. 2015. Previously, he had been the editorial page editor from July 2012 to Sept. 2015. He joined the P-D in 2008 as a capital correspondent and political columnist in Jefferson City.
He began his career at a small weekly newspaper in Colorado, where he was born and raised. He has worked in Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, South Dakota and Missouri at weeklies, dailies and magazines.
Tony Messenger Columns on “Better Together Plan”:
Messenger: Better Together plans to file a new initiative petition — Stenger won’t be king
Messenger: Better Together is a tax cut Trojan horse, St. Louis municipal leader says
The City-County Governance Task Force recommends the creation of a new class of local government in the State of Missouri called a metropolitan city that embodies four core principles:
- A unified approach to government economic development
- A unified approach to public safety
- More efficient use of tax dollars
- Maintained community cultural identities and a structure that supports more equitable access and delivery of government services to everyone
Source – Better Together Website
Tuesday, May 14th
6:30 p.m. – Doors Open/Social Time
7:00 p.m. – Meeting Starts
Room 1
Daniel Boone Branch
St. Louis County Library
300 Clarkson Road
Ellisville, MO 63011
Please Bring a Friend!
Membership Not Required
April Program Meeting Report – “Mr. Smith Goes to Prison”
On Tuesday, April 9th the Chesterfield Township Democrats membership meeting featured a presentation by Jeff Smith, Ph.D., former Missouri State Senator and author of Mr. Smith Goes to Prison. Jeff gave a personal view on the realities and first-hand experience of life in a federal prison in Kentucky. The presentation was given to about 35 guests and members and gave those attending his perspective on the state of prisons and the state of prison reform as well as the complete lack of efforts in the prison system to prevent recidivism. If you missed his talk to our group, check out this YouTube video of a presentation he made at the Clinton School of Public Service. At our March meeting we heard from Samantha Stangl, M.S.W. who represented the Clark-Fox Family Foundation working toward prison reform in Missouri. The combination of these programs gave our membership and guests a comprehensive view of both state and federal prisons.
Additionally, we had announcements about showmeintegrity.org. This is a bipartisan group working to preserve the provisions of Amendment 1, Clean Missouri that was passed by Missouri voters last November. The group is lobbying the MO state house to prevent passage of legislation that would overturn the voter’s referendum. Jim Moore briefly presented portions of the “People, Poverty and Public Policy” highlighting senate bills, and SB 4 and MO house bill 183 which mandate work requirements for those MO citizens on Medicaid. He also discussed SB 208 that will repeal the circuit breaker tax credit for seniors and the disabled who rent and HB 584 that will allow online sales tax to be used to reduce highest income tax bracket (originally from 1938). Details and more information on Jim’s presentation can be found on the CTD website.
The Chesterfield Township Democrats continue to grow and consistently host informative and timely presentations about politics at the state and national level. Please join us on May 14th when our guest speaker will be local journalist Tony Messenger. Stay informed and be a part of progressive, positive change.
America’s Prison Crisis – April Meeting
Guest Speaker – Jeff Smith, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Missouri Workforce Housing Association
Former – Executive Vice President of Community Engagement & Policy
at Concordance Academy, a St. Louis-based nonprofit
that provides comprehensive re-entry services
to individuals returning to the community after prison.
“The fall from politico to prisoner isn’t necessarily long, but the landing, as Missouri State Senator Jeff Smith learned, is a hard one.
In 2009, Smith pleaded guilty to a seemingly minor charge of campaign malfeasance and earned himself a year and one day in Kentucky’s FCI Manchester. Mr. Smith Goes to Prison is the fish-out-of-water story of his time in the big house; of the people he met there and the things he learned: how to escape the attentions of fellow inmate Cornbread and his friends in the Aryan Brotherhood; what constitutes a prison car and who’s allowed to ride in yours; how to bend and break the rules, whether you’re a prisoner or an officer. And throughout his sentence, the young Senator tracked the greatest crime of all: the deliberate waste of untapped human potential.
Smith saw the power of millions of inmates harnessed as a source of renewable energy for America’s prison-industrial complex, a system that aims to build better criminals instead of better citizens. In Mr. Smith Goes to Prison, he traces the cracks in America’s prison walls, exposing the shortcomings of a racially-based cycle of poverty and crime that sets inmates up to fail. Speaking from inside experience, he offers practical solutions to jailbreak the nation from the financially crushing grip of its own prisons and to jumpstart the rehabilitation of the millions living behind bars.” – St. Martin’s Press
Tuesday, April 9th
6:30 p.m. – Doors Open/Social Time
7:00 p.m. – Meeting Starts
Room 1
Daniel Boone Branch
St. Louis County Library
300 Clarkson Road
Ellisville, MO 63011
Please Bring a Friend!
St. Louis Women’s March for Action
Date: January 19, 2019
Time: Program starts at 10 a.m.
Where: Meet in front of Union Station, in the park known as Aloe Plaza. An Event map will be available on our Facebook page 48 hours prior to the event.
March: Program will being at 10:00 am with a march to begin at 10:30 and head down Market. It will end in Poelker Park (*pending). The event will conclude with a selection of speakers, each with a specific message unique to creating change in the St. Louis community. We invite all attendees to remain in the area to turn their inspiration into action at our STL In Action Fair.
STL In Action Fair: BE the change you wish to see in your community! After the march concludes in Poelker Park, vendors, non-profits and community organizations will be set up to offer volunteer and outreach opportunities here in St. Louis. These March Partners will represent a variety of issues and will be as diverse as the local population. In the transformative spirit of the march, we challenge each attendee to commit to at least one hour of action in the next month.
Accessibility: Attendees in wheelchairs are welcome. The march path is accessible and ADA compliant restrooms will be stationed along the route. Interpreters will be available at each stage for our attendees who speak ASL as their first language. A viewing area close to the stage will also be reserved for these patrons.
If you would like to join your neighbors in Chesterfield and march together, please use this sign-up form.
Missouri Photo ID Rules Blocked by Court
We’ve got some fantastic news to share with you!
We received notice that Judge Callahan of the Cole County Circuit Court has blocked key parts of Missouri’s photo ID rules. Please find the full decision attached and view this article for more information.
The Judge’s ruling includes:
1. A prohibition on requiring voters who present valid, non-photo forms of identification from signing an intimidating and confusing affidavit under penalty of perjury,
2. A prohibition on any state advertisements that suggest that a photo ID is required to vote or that voters will be asked for a photo ID at the polls, and
3. A requirement that future advertisements from the Secretary of State explicitly mention that non-photo forms of identification are acceptable to vote.
This ruling will be appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. But, you can bet we’ll be ready for them! And if we win, then our voting rights landscape will be restored to what it was pre-HB 1631/pre-Amendment 6, which is awesome!
This significant ruling is a consequence of the work of the many, many volunteers – including so many of you all – who participated in efforts to educate voters, monitor implementation of these rules, and speak out against voter suppression. This is also a consequence of the plaintiffs and witnesses who bravely testified about their experiences, despite having been disenfranchised and intimidated by the photo ID rules.
In short, the People took on those who sought to disenfranchise voters, and The People prevailed! The work continues, but this is a moment to celebrate, for sure!
Cheers,
Trish and Jake, on behalf of WE CAN’s Voting Rights team
Events of Interest…
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Bread for the World Sunday |
A moment when we can come together to pray for those who struggle with hunger—and rededicate ourselves to advocate for legislation that will help achieve the international goal of ending hunger by 2030
Sunday, October 21 (or any Sunday in October))
COMING SOON!
NOV 8, POVERTY, PEOPLE AND PUBLIC POLICY—
How to lobby your legislator
Scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 8th at St. Clare of Assisi Church (15642 Clayton Road. Ellisville), The event presents an opportunity to learn how public policy affects all in our region, and what you can do to ensure the needs of all people are considered by law makers. Featured speakers will be Ms. Tamara Kenny (Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement at Catholic Charities) and Father Christopher Martin (Pastor, St. Clare of Assisi). The meeting is scheduled from 6:30-8:30 with pizza and soft drinks provided. Please RSVP to Ms. Sally Kellogg (314-256-5901 or skellogg@ccstl.org so that we have an estimate of attendees which will help with plans for food and drink).
Housing Empowers 2018 Annual Conference
The theme of this 117th annual conference is the impact of affordable housing
Saturday, November 17 | Time TBD – Columbia, Missouri
SLATE – If You’ve Been Enjoying All the Donald Trump Subtweets at John McCain’s Funeral, You’ll Love This Anti-Trump Film the U.S. Government Produced in 1943
SLATE – Brow Beat
By
It’s been a big day for former government officials speaking out against Donald Trump: Ex-presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush both used their eulogies for John McCain as an opportunity to draw an implicit contrast between the late senator and our current president, while McCain’s daughter Meghan, although not a former government official herself, explicitly invoked Trump’s loathsome campaign slogan. By doing so, they joined a grand tradition of former government officials speaking out against the depravity of Donald Trump, from Jimmy Carter, who called him “a disaster” to Abraham Lincoln, who aptly described him as a “highwayman” in his legendary Never-Trump Cooper Union Speech. But perhaps no current or former employees of the United States government have been as vociferously opposed to Donald Trump’s presidency as the staff of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1943, when they released their blistering anti-Trump film, “Don’t Be a Sucker.” A clip from the film went around Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the “Unite the Right” disaster, but here’s the full video, which spares Trump nothing:
It’s a sad day when people who have given their lives to public service, like the filmmakers behind “Don’t Be a Sucker,” feel the need to speak out against a sitting president. It’s even sadder when Felix Bressart, the Lubitsch stock player who plays the professor in “Don’t Be a Sucker” feels the need to look into the camera with gentle disapproval. There’s no shortage of sick burns aimed at Trump here, from the reference to his “oldest and most persistent enemy, the truth,” to the prediction that his “pure-blooded supermen [will be] defeated by the mongrel armies he despise[s].” But for all the swipes, the film ends on a positive note, speaking to the ideals we continually fall short of, but should continually aim at:
You have a right to be what you are and say what you think, because here we have personal freedom. We have liberty. And these are not just fancy words: this is a practical and priceless way of living. But we must work at it. We must guard everyone’s liberty, or we can lose our own. If we allow any minority to lose its freedom by persecution or by prejudice, we are threatening our own freedom. And this is not simply an idea, this is good, hard, common sense. You see, here in America, it is not a question of whether we tolerate minorities. America is minorities.
It’s the most powerful indictment of the president and his stooges since the actual Stooges spoke out against him. At press time, inquiries to the White House about how they would respond to this unprecedented attack from the staff of the U.S. Army Signal Corps circa 1943 went unanswered, as did requests about other anti-Trump films The Great Dictator, Inglourious Basterds, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and, of course, They Saved Hitler’s Brain
