Hillary Clinton picked up a key endorsement and co-chair for her Missouri campaign. 

The Hillary Clinton campaign announced today that Jackson County Missouri County Executive Mike Sanders has endorsed Hillary for President and the campaign has named him a Co-Chair of the Missouri campaign. 

“Hillary Clinton has the strength and experience to get our troops home safely from Iraq and tackle the tough challenges we face at home, from moving toward energy independence to establishing universal healthcare for every American,” Sanders said in his endorsement.  “Hillary is uniquely qualified to deliver the change this country needs.”

Sanders has a long record of public service.  He served as an officer in the U.S. Army before returning home to attend law school and enter into government.  Before he was elected to the County Executive position, he served two terms as the county Prosecuting Attorney, was elected Jackson County Executive in November 2006, after campaigning on a platform of transparency in government, fiscal responsibility and safe neighborhoods. 

“Mike has worked tirelessly to make Jackson County a safer and more livable community, and he gets results,” Clinton said. “I’m honored to have his support and delighted that he’ll help lead our efforts in Missouri.”

     
Hi all.  TomP here with the Edwards Evening News Roundup.
John Edwards released his Education Plan this week.  We’ll talk a little about that tonight.  I also have two short John Edwards’ videos about education: one is a clip from his speech in Des Moines introducing the Plan and in the other he answers questions on preschool and college. 
I also have a story showing that John Edwards fares best in Missouri in the general election.  Unlike his opponents,

Edwards crushes the entire Republican field. He wins by 5 against Giuliani (47-42), by 10 against Thompson (50-40) and by 24 against Romney (56-32).

This and a lot more, around the fold.

1.  Education.
John Edwards’ Plan will radically overhaul No Child Left Behind, expand early education, support teachers and create a “School Success Fund” to help struggling schools.
Go Here for details on the Education Plan
Teacherken, a kossack with both a deep interest in and expertise about education said this about Edwards’ Plan in a highly recommended diary today.  His title say sit all:

A very good Education Plan from John Edwards
snip
At this point I am neutral in the presidential contest.
snip
I am a professional educator, and for me education is as important as any other issue with the possible exception of protecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  I am not, in writing this piece, endorsing a candidate.  But I can say without hesitation that I view this plan as a remarkable document, a very good start at laying out the guidelines for making serious and positive changes that will sustain and improve public education in this country.  I have never met the candidate, although I was fortunate enough to be able to speak about education with his closest adviser, his wife, whom I found well informed and willing to listen. 
snip
Again, I have my points of contention, but they are more than outweighed by the overall excellence of what Edwards has put forth.

 
A very good Education Plan from John Edwards
Here are two videos of John Edwards talking about education this week.
John Edwards talks about the importance of teachers and his plans for public education in America. Edwards introduced his education plan at a middle school in Des Moines, Iowa on September 21, 2007.

John Edwards answers a question about his plans for preschool and college at a community meeting in Guthrie Center, Iowa on September 21, 2007.

2.  John Edwards fares best in general Election in Missouri:

Edwards continues running way ahead of his Democratic rivals
Survey USA keeps coming out with general election polls pitching major Democrats versus major Republicans, and John Edwards keeps running way ahead of his Democratic rivals. First came news from Alabama and Kentucky. Then came Ohio.
Now, SUSA has released a poll from Missouri:
Clinton wins two out three. She loses the marquee matchup against Giuliani, 48% to 45%. That is the only matchup of the nine the Democrat loses. Obama wins against Giuliani 46% to 44%.
Clinton and Obama have exactly the same numbers against Thompson and Romney. They both win 48-45 against the former and 51-40 against the latter.
Edwards crushes the entire Republican field. He wins by 5 against Giuliani (47-42), by 10 against Thompson (50-40) and by 24 against Romney (56-32).

Campaign Diaries
Go here for Results of SurveyUSA Election Poll #12620

3.  What’s going on tomorrow:
Live Webcast Here:
The Presidential Candidate Forums

The Presidential Candidate Forums, organized by the Federation of American Hospitals and Families USA, feature candidates being interviewed by a panel of prominent journalists from ABC News, National Public Radio, the Wall Street Journal, and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The forums, taking place at the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Barbara Jordan Conference Center, will be taped for broadcast by MacNeil-Lehrer productions and webcast by kaisernetwork, Kaiser’s health news and information service.

Up Next:
Monday, September 24, 2007 at 11 a.m. ET
Former Sen. John Edwards(D-N.C.)

4.  A Good article you may have missed.
I found an article tonight on John Edwards in the Christian Science Monitor from September 20:

John Edwards: working-class values and a closely held faith.
While Christian beliefs help gird his antipoverty campaign, he believes that politicians who identify closely with one religion cannot be inclusive.
By Ariel Sabar | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
snip
For Mr. Edwards, a Southern Baptist-turned-United Methodist, faith is deeply felt but intensely private, a refuge after family tragedy and a daily source of wisdom, but not a platform for politics.
“It’s a very dangerous business – that intersection” of religion and politics, Edwards said in an interview with the Monitor. “I don’t like to talk about my faith openly. I do in answer to questions, but I don’t usually bring it up myself.”
snip
“My belief in Christ plays an enormous role in the way I view the world,” Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, said at a presidential forum on faith in June. “But I think I also understand the distinction between [my faith and] my job as president of the United States, my responsibility to be respectful of and to embrace all faith beliefs in this country.
“One of the problems that we’ve gotten into,” he added, in an apparent allusion to President Bush, “is some identification of the president of the United States with a particular faith belief as opposed to showing great respect for all faith beliefs.”
snip
Edwards’s embrace of working-class America is matched by sometimes sharp attacks on the country’s elite. He has vowed to end Bush-era tax cuts for well-to-do Americans, refuses campaign money from lobbyists and political action committees, and has taken bare-knuckled stances against big business.
snip
“There is a huge class consciousness to John,” a friend, US bankruptcy Judge Rich Leonard of Raleigh, who didn’t return telephone calls from the Monitor, told a North Carolina newspaper a few years ago. “I think it plays out in so many of his political decisions. I think his primary, overriding political view is to put the starting point in the same place for everybody.”

It is a long and fair articel.  Well worth reading in its entirety:
working-class values and a closely held faith
5.  Diaries. 
Finally, a quick call out of diaries you may have missed today that are about John or Elizabeth Edwards in some way:
  a.  By Nyceve:Can we talk?
  b.  By Wade Norris: Elizabeth Edwards on Labor, Unionization, Big Business and the future Edwards Administration
  c.  By Mantix: Defending John Edwards
  d.  By Teacherken: A very good Education Plan from John Edwards
  e.  By JeramiahFP: Susan Estrich, Fox’s Pet Democrat, Attacks Elizabeth Edwards Again
That’s it, for a long EENR.  If I missed your Edwards diary, I’m sorry.  These are just a few I saw.

You say you can’t keep track of all the health care plans for the poor popping up in Missouri lately?  You say that a news article about the pros and cons of them causes your eyes to cross?  You ought to be ashamed to find yourself in the lower … what? 98 percent? … of the citizenry.  That makes you–and me, until tonva brought me up to speed–dummies.

But now that she’s educated me, I’m here to do the same for you.  Succinctly.  Before your eyes glaze over.

When it was just Medicaid, we dummies could grasp the situation.  Essentially, the state paid 40 percent of medical bills for uninsured people below a given income, and the feds paid 60 percent.  Then a couple of years ago, Republicans knocked more than 100,000 poor Missourians off the Medicaid rolls.  Ah, but they promised to come up with something better than Medicaid in a year or so. 

Now–with an election looming and Matt Blunt polling under 50 percent–they’re offering two new programs to replace Medicaid.  And these programs would restore health care to many, though by no means all, of those who lost it in 2005.  Between the two programs, it turns out that some poor people who used to qualify for Medicaid will still be denied care, while others, who didn’t have it before, may get care. 

The two programs are MO HealthNet and Insure Missouri.  Here’s the difference between them in a nutshell: 

MO HealthNet is just Medicaid by a jazzy new name, and it still doesn’t restore those 100,000 people to the rolls.  The only important difference is that MO HealthNet will be administered through insurance companies.

Insure Missouri is for the working poor.  It will be funded partly by the state, partly by an existing tax on hospitals, and partly (it is hoped) by the federal government.  It too will be administered through private health insurance companies.

One good part of Insure Missouri is that some of those 100,000–if they’re working–will be covered again, but seniors and disabled people are out of luck. 

A second good aspect of Insure Missouri is that it covers people with a higher income than Medicaid ever did.  Medicaid was for people who lived below the federal poverty level.  This program covers working people up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL).  (But if they earn more than 150 percent of FPL, they must pay premiums–which they’d have trouble affording.)

Now for the glitches with Insure Missouri.

• Since it’s partly a Medicaid program (covering people below FPL), Blunt is hoping for federal funds.  Those are by no means certain.
• Many of those who qualify live in rural areas where there are no HMOs to administer the plan.  Perhaps HMOs will spring up there if doing so looks profitable enough.
• And the big one:  the plan is administered through private health insurance companies.  Question:  WHY?  (Answer:  Insurance companies contribute to Republican campaigns.)

Both MO HealthNet and Insure Missouri could probably cover the same number of people for one third less money if they were simply administered through one of the state’s social agencies, such as the Department of Social Services.

Jack Cardetti, a Democratic spokesman, commented:  “‘Only Matt Blunt would call lining the pockets of the Missouri health insurance industry health care reform.'”

In the end, Insure Missouri may just be pie in the sky.  It might never happen.  Here’s why:  it will come in three phases, starting in February and at that time covering only working parents below FPL.  That money is already in the state budget.  But the other two, more expensive, phases will have to be voted on by the legislature, and quite a few Republicans are looking on it with a jaundiced eye.  They see budget shortfalls looming in 2010–as a result of their policies–and they’re already protesting that the state cannot afford those two phases of Insure Missouri.

Look for a lot of intra-party conflict.  But even if Blunt loses the battle for the expensive two-thirds of Insure Missouri, he’ll claim loudly that he fought the good fight to get health insurance for the poor in this state.  (Well, not for poor disabled people and poor seniors, but you can’t have everything, right?)

And most citizens won’t be able to make heads or tails of it all.  It’s too confusing.  Deliberately so.  Insurance companies and the politicians who cater to them like it that way.  They want our eyes to glaze over.  That makes it so much easier for them to hoodwink us. 

Rep. Jeanette Mott-Oxford, in a newsletter, reminds us of the Native American proverb:  The Earth does not belong to us. We borrow it from our children.  With that and global warming in mind, she offered these tips about not wasting energy in the winter:

Here are some tips that I gathered from the Earth 911 website:

– In the winter, turn your thermostats down to 68 degrees or lower. Reduce the setting to 55 degrees before going to sleep or when leaving for the
day. (For each one degree you turn down the thermostat in the winter, you’ll save up to five % on your heating costs.)

– Turn off and un-plug non-essential lights and appliances. The electricity generated by fossil fuels for a single home puts more carbon dioxide into the air than two average automobiles!

– Buy ENERGY STAR appliances, products and lights. ENERGY STAR® is a program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed to help consumers identify
energy-efficient appliances and products.

– Clean or replace filters on furnaces once a month or as recommended for the model you are using.

– Clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters, and radiators as needed; make sure furniture, carpeting, or drapes do not block them.

– Bleed trapped air from hot-water radiators once or twice a season; if in doubt about how to perform this task, call a professional.

– Place heat-resistant radiator reflectors between exterior walls and the radiators.

– Use kitchen, bath, and other ventilating fans wisely; in just one hour, these fans can pull out a houseful of warmed (or cooled) air. Turn fans
off as soon as they have done the job.

– During the heating season, keep the draperies and shades on your south-facing windows open during the day to allow sunlight to enter your
home and closed at night to reduce the chill from cold windows.

– Finally, in winter close an unoccupied room that is isolated from the rest of the house, and turn down the thermostat or turn off the heating
for that room or zone. However, do not turn the heating off if it adversely affects the rest of your system. For example, if you heat your house with a heat pump, do not close the vents – closing the vents could harm the heat pump.

Hello St. Louis County residents!!

Yes, Missourians for Honest Elections is inviting friends and members to gather at the St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners’ meeting this coming Wed., the 26th, at 2:40 or so if you want to sign up to comment in the public forum. From their website:

Meetings are held at the St. Louis County Board of Elections Office, 12 Sunnen Drive, St. Louis, MO 63143 The next scheduled board meeting date is Wednesday September 26, 2007 at 3:00 p.m.

We will present some hard-hitting questions/comments, and hope we will see a good turnout of the citizenry, letting the Commissioners know we are becoming impatient.  Signs such as “NO DREs!!” or “WE WANT PAPER BALLOTS FOR EVERY ELECTION!!”  might help! (Do keep them polite. ;->)

FYI,  a FAQs page is added to our updated website, on this page.

Can you answer all the questions?  I think the most difficult one is #11, LOL.!!

My next “chore” is to write up the answers, which will be posted on a subpage. It will be a beginner’s crib-sheet for the heart of this issue, hopefully.  Probably it will be posted over the weekend.

BTW, people are still working to block HR 811.
http://coalition4vi sibleballots. homestead. com/MarkAdams01. html

My take on it at this point is to call or send an email to your congressperson and senators just telling them you want your vote counted and this bill does not help that happen.  DREs must be banned.

IN ANY CASE, SHOW UP AT THE COUNTY BEC MEETING ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON TO SUPPORT PAPER BALLOTS!!

Patricia M. Berg

Of course, GWB is threatening to veto the compromise legislation to provide reauthorization and expansion of SCHIP. (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) 
And of course he is setting the stage to pin the rose of infamy on the Democratic Congress.  The big question is whether the Democrats are agile enough to sidestep the Bush bushwhack and lay the responsibility back at the Decider’s own feet. 

With authorization for the current program due to expire on September 30, Bush, while promising to veto the compromise legislation, is calling for Congress to extend the current SCHIP legislation or otherwise it will be Congress’ fault that millions of children will lose health coverage until an agreement is reached. (the Dems capitulate) An extension of the program would literally kick kids out of doctor’s offices all over the country because the current funding is insufficient to maintain the present participation numbers.  Even the $5 billion increase over the next five years that the Decider will endorse will not cover the present number of children in the program. Some will have to go. 

This from Bush:

He said that while he and Congress work out the issues with the reauthorization, Congress “has an obligation to make sure health insurance for poor children does not lapse” (Schor, The Hill, 9/21). Bush said that if Democrats do not pass an extension of the program, “more than a million children could lose health coverage,” and “coverage for these children should not be held hostage while political ads are being made and new polls are being taken” (Freking, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/21).

Bush said, “Instead of working with the administration to enact this funding increase for children’s health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill that they know will be vetoed” (Chicago Tribune, 9/21). He added, “Members of Congress are putting health coverage for poor children at risk so they score political points in Washington” (USA Today, 9/21).

Why is the Decider so sure he must veto the legislation before even studying it, without contemplating the consequences?  He claims that it is because it is a step toward the federalization of health care but what he doesn’t say is that it is because it might represent a step away from the deep pockets of insurance corporations. 

More from Bush;

“Democratic leaders in Congress want to put more power in the hands of government by expanding federal health care programs,” adding, “I have a different view. I believe the best approach is to put more power in the hands of individuals by empowering people and their doctors to make health care decisions that are right for them.”

So it is time for Congressional Democrats to step up. It is time for Harry Reid to do more than make a bland statement to the effect that “we did everything we could”.
He must actively campaign within the Senate to ensure Republican as well as Democratic support, enough support to override a veto.  Democrats and some Republicans who have worked hard for this compromise bill are up in arms at the Presidential Attitude.  Republicans are also concerned about the potential political fallout from voting against health insurance for kids. As Rahm Emanuel states, “Health care on the domestic side is what Iraq is on the foreign policy side. It is a top issue.  When you veto it, you own it”.

On September 20th SurveyUSA released a 600 sample poll taken in Missouri from September 14th through the 16th which shows that “baby” Blunt and dubya (separate reports) do not have stellar approval ratings in Missouri. The margin of error is 4.1%.

The poll was sponsored by KCTV in Kansas City.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Matt Blunt is doing as Governor?

All
47% – approve
48% – disapprove
5% – not sure

Democrats [35% of sample]
24% – approve
71% – disapprove
5% – not sure

republicans [30% of sample]
77% – approve
19% – disapprove
4% – not sure

Independents [30% of sample]
42% – approve
53% – disapprove
5% – not sure

“baby” Blunt’s numbers improved among republicans, but remain unchanged among Democrats and Independents.

Again, my favorite approval numbers come from the different reality based and fantasy based communities:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Matt Blunt is doing as Governor?

Global warming is real [71% of sample]
40% – approve
55% – disapprove
5% – not sure

Global warming is made-up [22% of sample]
69% – approve
28% – disapprove
4% – not sure

The numbers for “baby” Blunt compare to those in the July 20 SurveyUSA poll. He’s improved over his August numbers.

Dubya is doing just plain awful in Missouri:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as President?

All
39% – approve
58% – disapprove
3% – not sure

Democrats [35% of sample]
12% – approve
87% – disapprove
1% – not sure

republicans [30% of sample]
76% – approve
22% – disapprove
2% – not sure

Independents [30% of sample]
36% – approve
60% – disapprove
4% – not sure

dubya’s numbers are propped up by republicans, but are abysmal among Democrats and Independents.

The numbers for dubya from the different reality based and fantasy based communities:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as President?

Global warming is real [71% of sample]
29% – approve
70% – disapprove
1% – not sure

Global warming is made-up [22% of sample]
71% – approve
25% – disapprove
4% – not sure

The numbers are almost exactly opposite. Fancy that.

The hardest working man in the Missouri blogosphere, Antonio French, is looking for video footage from any St. Louisan who traveled down to the protest in Jena, LA on Thursday:

Post them online (you can use YouTube, Blip.TV, Vimeo, or any other video hosting site) and then send us the link to editor@pubdef.net and we’ll post them here on PubDef.net.

Although he calls only for video from St. Louisans, I don’t think it would hurt to submit your video if you’re from elsewhere in the state.

Speaking of PubDef, Antonio is also fighting local TV station KSDK. KSDK took offense at PubDef’s use a KSDK newscast in one of his many videos (which falls completely under the Fair Use provision, by the way.) Instead of complaining to Antonio and reaching a reasonable settlement, KSDK filed a formal complaint with YouTube and had his entire account of over 500 videos suspended. Of course, KSDK took action immediately after PubDef criticized their coverage. Antonio has filed a countercomplaint.

I know we have some lawyers among our readers here at Show Me Progress. Anyone care to help Antonio out?

If there’s one thing Republicans know, it’s that chutzpah pays.  I swear to god, they’re missing the embarrassment gene.  The most recent example is their attack on the Missouri Ethics Commission for failing to have a public discussion before ruling that candidates should return their over-the-limit campaign contributions unless they can prove that doing so would be a hardship.

“THE COMMISSION VIOLATED THE STATE’S SUNSHINE LAW!” Republicans screeched in voices that rose to a range above the hearing of bats, frothing and flailing at the injustice of it all–this just a couple of days after the governor’s office blithely defended deleting thousands of e-mails as a matter of course.  The Sunshine Law they’re so eager to pounce on forbids doing that, and they know it too, because Matt Blunt signed the requirement into law.

There’s a word for that … starts with “H”, I’m pretty sure.  “Hyp”? … It’ll come to me.

The Ethics Commission, horrified as they were to have the issue of returning over-the-limit campaign contributions dumped in their lap, made a misstep.  So now they’re rescinding their letter notifying candidates of their decision, and they’re planning a public comments opportunity at their Oct. 4 meeting.  They’re not convinced that their private meeting was illegal, but they’re cowed by the fury of the Republican reaction and the lawsuit that the GOP filed in a nanosecond:

“We find ourselves in a mess, in my opinion,” said commissioner Ken Legan, of Halfway, who made the motion essentially calling for a do-over. “We probably ought to rescind our actions of Sept. 11 — not that we made a mistake, but because of things that have happened.”

Everybody’s afraid of being a Republican target.  The Supreme Court really ought to have ruled on this question, but, quailing at the concerted campaign to label them “activist judges”, they tossed the hot potato into the only available lap.  And now that the members of the Ethics Commission have bloodied noses, they’re likely to be more malleable than they ought to about what constitutes “hardship”.  (Let me just mention that finding an envelope and a stamp do not constitute “hardship”.)

Matt Blunt et. al. have gotten their bluff in, and they intend to swagger away with their swag. 

Meanwhile, our gubernatorial candidate, Jay Nixon, as well as both Democratic Attorney General candidates–Margaret Donnelly and Jeff Harris–have said they are returning over-the-limit contributions.