Lembke Supports Martin Over Spence

Surprise , surprise! One Tenther supports another for governor. Hey Jim, do you remember what Martin did during the Blunt administration?

Lembke Supports Martin Over Spence By .Sean at Fired Up on November 30, 2011 - 1:54pm

Sen. Jim Lembke wrote the following to the Draft Ed Martin for Governor Facebook group this afternoon: "We need a candidate for governor that embraces the constiution, knows the proper role of government and is not afraid to stand firm against the tyranny of the federal government. We need a leader at the top of our ticket that will take the fight to Nixon. This race is an uphill climb and will take a candidate that is seasoned, and has been around the block. I believe the right man for the job is ED MARTIN."

Be Thankful for Government

By Mark Sumner
Like many of you, I was lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving with my family. Big breakfast, bigger lunch. My son had to leave early so he could go to his night shift job, but hey, I'm thankful he has a job. I'm thankful for all of it—the family, the home, the food, the moments of peace and satisfaction. I realize how many people were missing family, missing homes, missing jobs, missing the chance to enjoy the day.

While I was being thankful, I gave my thanks for what made a good day possible. I gave thanks for government.

Thanks for the highways and railroads that brought my family swiftly and safely together. The need for an system of federal roads to connect the nation was so clear that the first major effort was commissioned by George Washington and the legislation signed by Thomas Jefferson in 1806. The value of the railroads so obvious that the acts to put lines across the nation were signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 and 1864 while the Civil War was underway.

Thanks for the safety of the food we ate. I'd like to say that everything we had was organic and locally owned, but I'm thankful that when a Midwesterner resorts to canned cranberries, he can do so with the assurance that the contents of the can will be cranberries, and not sawdust or simply garbage. For that I can think the Pure Food and Drug Act that Theodore Roosevelt signed in 1906. Roosevelt was a skeptic who didn't believe the horror stories that Upton Sinclair wrote in The Jungle. So he sent his own team out to investigate. Within weeks the legislation was passed. Thirty years later, another Roosevelt signed the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, strengthening the ability of the new FDA to make sure our food was safe and labeled correctly.

Thanks for the safety of the water we drank. Yes, there might be problems with that water we don't yet recognize, but I can drink it with some assurance that it won't hold raw sewage thanks to the Rivers and Harbors Act that William McKinley signed in 1899, and that it won't be laced with toxic chemicals thanks to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act that Harry Truman signed in 1948, and the Clean Water Act which a Democratic House and Senate passed in 1972 over the veto of Richard Nixon.

Thanks for the safety of the air we breathed. On Thanksgiving week in 1939, the area where I live was shrouded in a smog so thick that day and night were the same. Street lights glowed in the gloom of noon, and people passed out just walking along their sidewalks. This week we looked out on beautiful blue skies and the only smell in the air was the last autumnal hint of fallen leaves. For that I thank the Clean Air Act signed by John Kennedy in 1963 and the expansions of that law that came later, including the one Nixon had the sense to sign in 1970. I thank that same legislation for the beautiful woodlands out my window, woods that could easily have have died from pollution, acid rain, and disease were it not for the legislation that protects them.

Thanks for the teachers that went all out to see that we got good educations at public grade school, high school, and college. While I'm at it, some thanks for the fantastic national benefits of an educated populace, and to the incalculable rewards in dollars, health, and standard of living that have come from an extensive system of public research universities.

I give thanks for the system that saw so many travelers safely through the air this week. I know that you guys don't like looking in our shoes any more than we like taking them off.

I certainly give thanks for those in the military who are, let's hope, spending their last Thanksgiving away from their families. My brother-in-law who is actually older than me (such people exist) was still required to spend this holiday in Iraq; everyone in the family will give special thanks when that's no longer true.

Thanks for Social Security and for how it has transformed this nation from the place where the majority of the elderly lived in poverty.

Mostly I give thanks the words that Lincoln said: government of the people, by the people, for the people.

There are those who see government as the problem. As the enemy. They want to reduce government's role. There are candidates for president running on the idea of destroying the government as a tool to protect health, safety, and envionment; campaigning in the name repealing some of those same laws i just listed and eliminating the agencies that enforce them. The thing is, none of those laws exist because someone thought it would be a peachy idea. They exist because there was a need. Government is not a power grab by some outside force, it is the body of the people, acting in the people's own self interest.

I suppose it would be possible to live in a country were every road was a private road. Where only the children of the fortunate were educated. Where the elderly were on thir own. A country where the only law protecting your family's food was caveat emptor and clean air was available to those who could buy it in bottles. A place where safety was measured in the caliber of your weapon, and peace in the height of your walls. It might be possible, but it would be ugly. It wouldn't be America.

Our government exists for many purposes. These purposes include protecting the resources we hold in common, regulating the activity of business, protecting our health and welfare, and seeing that the people are given the information they need to make informed choices.

Says who? Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, McKinley, Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy... and that's just scratching the surface. America is only as good as its government, and that government deserves people who want to make it better, not worse.

I'll be thankful if eleven months from now we elect a few.

Oakville Gets New Pizza

From the STL Core

Joanie’s Pizza Opens in South County

By Mary Miller Cullins

St. Louis Core wants to give a shout out to our friend, Joanie Thomas! Last week, due to popular demand, Joanie Thomas and her staff opened a 3rd Pizzeria in Oakville. Many of you are familiar with Joanie’s Pizzeria and Joanies-To-Go located in the Soulard neighborhood near downtown St. Louis. But did you know that as of last week if you live in the South County/Oakville area Joanie opened a new location to serve you? That’s right, Joanies famous pizza, pasta, and sandwiches are now just a phone call away for south county residents.

The restaurant offers delivery and carry-out for now, but Joanie plans to make renovations next year and open a dining area that will seat 35-40 guests. Located at 5441 Telegraph Rd., Joanie’s Pizzeria Oakville is open Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday until 10:00 p.m. and is open until midnight on Friday’s and Saturday’s.

Congratulations Joanie! Good Luck to you and your staff from your friends at St. Louis Core. And from the South County News as well.

Tesson Ferry/21 Development

It looks like the Siteman project will soon be breaking ground on their new site here in South County.Delays in obtaining the state's certificate of need have pushed back the start of this 17 million dollar development. St. Anthony's Hospital opposed it. This is good news for area cancer patients, homeowners and workers in our community.

Have you heard much about it in the local media?

Siteman Plans New South St. Louis County Location

South_County_Map
The 16.28-acre site is immediately south and east of the intersection of Interstate 55 and Butler Hill Road, with access from Butler Hill Road. View a larger version of the map.

July 29, 2010 – Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital have signed a contract to purchase property and filed a Certificate of Need Letter of Intent to build a new Siteman Cancer Center location in south St. Louis County that will serve the Interstate 55 corridor and southern Illinois.

Upon completing obligations related to the sale, zoning and Certificate of Need application and obtaining final approval from Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital boards, construction is estimated to begin in spring 2011, with an opening anticipated in about two years.

The 16.28-acre site is immediately south and east of the intersection of Interstate 55 and Butler Hill Road, with access from Butler Hill Road. The site is generally construction-ready, having been cleared for construction of an apartment complex that went into foreclosure following the market downturn.

Currently, more than 4,500 cancer patients in the area near the new location come to the Siteman Cancer Center, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University for evaluation and treatment. This includes approximately 850 newly diagnosed cancer patients yearly.

The new outpatient center will provide the latest advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment to south county and southern Illinois patients in a convenient, comfortable setting closer to their homes. Barnes-Jewish Hospital will place a linear accelerator in the facility for state-of-the-art radiation therapy. Washington University will operate a chemotherapy infusion center.

Washington University medical oncologists and radiation oncologists will treat patients at the new location, and surgical oncologists will provide consults there. Medical staff at the new facility will be Washington University faculty physicians.

A 40,000-square-foot facility is planned, and Washington University programs will occupy about 70 percent of the space. The one-story outpatient center will operate during daytime hours Monday through Friday.

Siteman, through Washington University, has one of the largest cancer research programs in the nation, providing access to hundreds of clinical studies that greatly expand the options available to patients. Clinical studies also will be offered at the South County location.

Siteman, which encompasses the combined cancer-related programs of Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, is the only cancer center within 240 miles of St. Louis designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute.

Construction of the $17-million facility will generate nearly 300 jobs. Once open, the facility will create about 50 new permanent positions with Washington University’s departments of medicine and radiation oncology or with Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Siteman’s other locations are at Washington University Medical Center in the Central West End area of St. Louis, Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital and Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital.

Taxes

Corporate CEO: The Rich, ‘Including Me, Should Be Paying More’ In Taxes

By Pat Garofalo on Nov 18, 2011 at 10:30 am

Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris

Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength has been meeting with congressional leaders this week, continuing their push to raise taxes on the very richest Americans. “We want to pay more taxes,” said California millionaire Doug Edwards, a former marketing director for Google. “If you’re fortunate, and you make more than a million dollars a year, you ought to pay more taxes.” The group even told anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist that he should take his extreme positions and “move to Somalia.”

In a speech before the U.S. Council for International Business yesterday, Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris joined the tax-me-more crowd, saying, “I can tell you the highest taxpayers, including me, should be paying more“:

“Come on, everyone over a certain threshold of money — and you can define what it is — but I can tell you the highest tax payers, including me, should be paying more,” Liveris said during a speech on Wednesday night…”Come on, we are underpaying for our future.”

CNN Money noted that “while his speech did garner applause a few times, his call to raise taxes was not applauded.”

Poll after poll has shown that the American people favor higher taxes on millionaires, while several ultra-wealthy citizens like Liveris, Edwards, and investor Warren Buffett have all said that they should be paying more to support the country. A survey by the Spectrem Group found that “68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more) support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income.”

We can’t lose sight of the fact that Liveris’ company, Dow Chemical, makes its money flaunting environmental rules and corrupting the EPA. But when it comes to taxing the rich, Liveris is on the right side of public policy, along with a majority of both his income cohort and the American people. In fact, the only ones adamantly standing against such an increase at the moment are congressional Republicans.
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* Taxes

He's Back.

That's right. I'm back and you are better for it. I must warn you, I've changed. No, I haven't gone batshit crazy and started voting with the Tea-Party or anything like that. But I'm older, wiser and I'm much better looking. That last part may have been added strictly for humor. Seriously, I plan to get back to discussing issues in South St. Louis County that I feel aren't being discussed in our local media. I do plan to keep it more civil. That includes censoring of comments. I'll welcome differing points of views but I need to keep out the mean.

One other thing. Many people tell me I should write about this or that. I have a suggestion for you. You can write about it and send it in. If you don't like to write, ask someone else to send it in. Alright.

Destroy the Sweatshops: Buy Alta Gracia

(by: Yellow Dog
Thu Nov 03, 2011 at 17:00:00 PM CDT
By @KYYellowDog

Yeah, capitalism sucks. But you don't have to destroy it to eliminate the suckiness; you can beat it at its own game.

Peter Drier at The Nation:

Aracelis "Kuky" Upia, a 39-year-old factory worker in the Dominican Republic, is participating in an experiment that, if successful, could help end sweatshops as a staple of the global economy.

A single mother of four, Upia has been sewing in factories since she was 15. For years she earned less than $50 a week. Some employers simply refused to pay her. At one point she was so deeply in debt, the local market stopped extending her credit.

Today Upia sews T-shirts for $2.85 an hour, a leap in income and nearly three times the country's minimum wage. She has paid off her loans and can shop again at the grocery store. She has purchased a refrigerator, plans to add rooms to her home to rent out for additional income and has paid for her son Nisael's long-postponed dental work. Her son Yacer is studying accounting at the university.

Upia was among the first workers hired by Alta Gracia, an apparel company named after the town where she has lived all her life and where the factory is based. One of 120 nonmanagement employees-mostly sewing-machine operators, but also cutters, packers and maintenance staff-Upia, like her co-workers, earns a living wage, plus at least 35 percent overtime for more than forty-four hours of work a week, and more on weekends and holidays. Alta Gracia's T-shirts and sweatshirts are sold mainly at US colleges and universities at about the same prices as clothing made by Nike, Russell and other brands.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, students on American campuses used various forms of protest to pressure universities to adopt "codes of conduct" as a condition of allowing companies to use their names and logos. But implementing these standards was extremely difficult. College-bound goods are only a small fraction of the products made by the thousands of apparel factories around the world, and monitoring all these workplaces would be impossible. For years campus groups like United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) refused to support companies claiming to make "sweatshop-free" clothing, because they couldn't be sure the companies would keep their commitment. Today, USAS, as well as the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which was founded in 2000 to help enforce the "codes of conduct" drafted in the '90s, have embraced Alta Gracia as a model that proves socially responsible clothing production is not only possible; it's profitable.

SNIP

Can the Alta Gracia label compete with Nike's swoosh? Are consumers willing to look for the Alta Gracia union label? These questions, too, will determine its success. If clothing companies can make profitable merchandise under humane conditions and sell it at competitive prices, it will challenge the basic race-to-the-bottom economics of the apparel industry and prove that conscientious consumers can have an impact on humanizing the forces of global capitalism.


Read the whole thing.
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