We've been getting quite a bit of traffic from right wingnuttia over a reference at one of their sites (no, we're not going to give them the linky goodness and ensuing traffic).
During the campaign, on July 10, 2008, Michelle Obama came to Kansas City for a town hall on the campus of the University of Missouri - Kansas City. We covered the event:
Right wingnuttia is quite obsessed by this portion of the transcript, claiming that it's proof that President Obama is illegitimate and this is further proof to be added to the convoluted birther pantheon of conspiracies:
...He understands them because he was raised by strong women. He is the product of two great women in his life. His mother and his grandmother. [applause] Barack saw his mother, who was very young and very single when she had him, and he saw her work hard to complete her education and try to raise he and his sister...
I kid you not. These are the kinds of people who memorize and obsess over every detail of The Brady Bunch as if the complete episodes were Shakespeare's plays. They just haven't figured out that there is a difference.
The Faux News Channel will pick this up in, three, two, one... And that's the problem with political discourse in this country.
Senators Mitch McConnell (r), John McCain (r), and Kit Bond (r) came to Kansas City on Monday for a closed (to the public) health care forum. They obviously weren't too interested in fielding questions from teabaggers.
The coverage in today's Kansas City Star was revealing. The dead trees headline in the Kansas City Edition, page B1:
HEALTH REFORM BLASTED IN KC: At Children's Mercy, three GOP senators say say compromise with Democrats hasn't been found
....The Republicans said they also were miffed at Democrats for not doing enough to include them in ongoing negotiations.
"So far, there's been no bipartisanship involved in reforming health care in America," McCain complained....
[emphasis added]
Okay, just hold on a minute there. Senator Claire McCaskill (D) stated in Jefferson City (and at three other town halls I attended):
....[18:40] And the other thing you can do there, which might be interesting, 'cause you're here and you obviously care very deeply, you might watch the live video, not live, it's taped video, of all the the mark up sessions in the [Senate] bill. Fifty-two hours of mark up sessions on the bill. Thirteen Democrats, ten Republicans. There were a lot of amendments, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds that were written up. There were about two hundred that were considered. Of the two hundred amendments that were considered and adopted on this bill in this fifty-two hours a hundred and sixty-seven of them were sponsored by the Republican members of the committee and thirty-one of them were sponsored by the Democratic members of the committee. So, there was [applause], there were really a bipartisan [crowd shouting], the interesting thing [voice, shouting: "What happened to the other thirty (inaudible)?"] there really was a bi, and you can watch it. You can go on and watch it. You don't have to read something that somebody else has written. You can go on and watch it live. You can see the Republican members offering the amendments. You can see the discussion. You can understand, maybe the, the thinking behind some of the amendments and why they were offering them. And it might be a way that you could see, face to face, what really happened in fifty-two hours of consideration on this bill, instead of some of the misinformation that's gotten out there [19:57]....
"...Of the two hundred amendments that were considered and adopted on this bill in this fifty-two hours a hundred and sixty-seven of them were sponsored by the Republican members of the committee and thirty-one of them were sponsored by the Democratic members of the committee...."
Someone other than a stenographer might try to reconcile those competing statements.
Monday, Senators Kit Bond, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and John McCain will be the featured guests at a "Health Care Reform Forum" at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
The 75-100 guests invited to the event have reportedly been "hand-picked" by Bond's office to hear about Republican plans for obstructing real health care reform.
The forum is closed to the public.
Heh. Maybe they're afraid the great unwashed would try to hold them accountable for Medicare Part D.
It's one thing to not do town halls because they've been going badly, it's quite another to hold a fake one and hand pick your crowd.
....Question: Wouldn't this battle be a lot easier if you guys would fix the problems with Medicare and Medicaid, the, the fraud and the over expenses and the, the new drug bill? Same thing. Wouldn't this battle be a lot easier if you fixed the problems that are right before you before you took on something totally new?
Senator Claire McCaskill: Well, this is not totally new. I mean this has been, I've said in some of the meetings, it didn't come up in this one, I can't remember a political campaign when there weren't TV ads saying we're gonna fix health care. And the irony is that even though politicians have been campaigning to fix health care for the last twenty or thirty years nothing's happened. The status quo has continued. We're workin' on bringing to justice the people who commit fraud in the Medicare program. In fact there's been great improvements made in that because of the ability of us to do better investigations through computers and data matches and those kinds of things. But we're not gonna fix the health care costs for the Medicare program if we don't fix the rising health care costs for all of health care 'cause they are interrelated. You can't fix the, the rising costs in, in the Medicare program and not have an impact across the board. I mean they, they are, they're kind of interwoven. The hospitals in terms of what they're charging and, and the doctors and what they're charging for Medicare. And that's part of the problem, is you got two or three or four different rates. So, we may end up, you know, who knows what we'll end up with? We may end up with something very incremental. I don't know. I can't tell at this point how much support there's gonna be [crosstalk]...
At the conclusion of today's town hall in Kansas City Senator Claire McCaskill (D) held a press conference. She took questions from a gathering of print reporters, television reporters, and bloggers for approximately twenty minutes:
...Question: ...A lot of, what I hear from employers, including insurance companies, is this scenario, I just wanted to have you respond quickly. First of all, that a public plan would eventually be offered to every business, they're talking about right now just individuals and small businesses. But because of the lower price it would drive the insurers out of business and become a single player plan. At that point the Federal government would heap on more coverage mandates which would increase the cost and eliminate the flexibility employers have to control costs right now by raising the deductible and co-pays. What's just your general response to that argument?
Senator Claire McCaskill: Well, there can be dire scenarios painted with just about any situation as it relates to health care. It's a pretty dire situation if we do nothing. Businesses are, have a competitive disadvantage internationally because of the huge health care costs that they are saddled with in this country. And so, I think, doing nothing is a pretty dire situation and I know that there are many people who want to believe, especially the insurance companies, that any kind of public option would make the government an unfair competitor. And, and, it, what I've said to some of them is you can't have it both ways. You can't say the government is incompetent and delivers an inferior product and then say you can't compete with them. Especially if it's a constrained public option. That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about a constrained public option that is not going to be underwritten to the extent that we don't want to drive all the other private companies out of the market. That's not the goal here. The goal here is to have a constrained public option. And I think people feel pretty strongly that it remain an option and not be the kind of eight hundred pound gorilla that swallows up all the ability of private insurance companies to compete....
We're live at Senator Claire McCaskill's town hall on the campus of UMKC. Blue Girl will be posting via Twitter as the event proceeds. Meanwhile, here are a few photos of the crowd:
On August 13th SurveyUSA released an 800 sample poll of adults in the Kansas City DMA (television viewing area) taken on August 13th. The poll was sponsored by KCTV, Kansas City. The margin of error for the 800 sample portion of the poll ranged from 2.7% to 3.5% depending on the response results to various questions (as responses get closer to consensus the margin of error drops). The margin of error for the other portions of the poll of with smaller samples (for instance, those who have insurance) was somewhat larger.
Do you currently have any kind of health insurance coverage?
All Yes - 82%
No - 17%
Not Sure - 1%
Age 18-34 Yes - 69%
No - 29%
Not Sure - 2%
Age 35-54 Yes - 86%
No - 14%
Not Sure - 0%
Age 55+ Yes - 94%
No - 5%
Not Sure - 1%
Income less than $50,000 Yes - 69%
No - 29%
Not Sure - 2%
Income greater than $50,000 Yes - 96%
No - 4%
Not Sure - 0%
The younger you are the more likely it is that you do not have health insurance. The higher your income the more likely it is that you do have health insurance.
The crosstabulations by type of insurance people have are quite remarkable:
Somehow I don't see Mayor Slay or Mayor Funkhouser taking this step:
It's now time to meet the carbon challenge. Our second goal for the next four years is to put L.A. on a path to permanently break our addiction to coal. Coal currently accounts for roughly 40% of the DWP's power portfolio. Breaking the coal habit is a long term proposition demanding a long-term commitment. It's going to require investment from ratepayers. Our future depends on pricing power in relation to the environmental cost.
During my first term, we set high standards for green development and we've taken action to meet them. Los Angeles will get 20% of its energy from renewable sources by next year. We rolled out the most far reaching green building standards of any big city in America.
And this month, the largest city-owned wind farm will start delivering clean power to L.A.'s families. Moving forward we're aiming to get 40% of our power from renewable sources by 2020 and go 60% carbon-free by the end of the next decade.
Today, I am directing the CEO of the Department of Water and Power to take every action necessary to reach these goals and eliminate the use of coal by 2020. Meanwhile, we're going to move beyond the clean air action plan - the most aggressive effort to cut emissions at any port worldwide. We are going to electrify goods movement at our harbor.
I mean, Peabody Energy's HQ is in Saint Louis. So is Arch Coal's. They are the number one and number two private coal companies in the entire world.
Take Wing! - at an entrance to the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine - on Hospital Hill in Kansas City.
...Take Wing is a bronze sculpture cast from a small carving made in 1952 by E. Grey Dimond, MD, Provost Emeritus for the Health Sciences, from a piece of driftwood he found on the beach while visiting Carmel, Calif. His daughter, Lark, had the sculpture enlarged and cast in bronze. That sculpture now stands in front of the UMKC School of Medicine encouraging students and alumni to "Take Wing" and soar to new heights in their careers after they leave the school.
"In that first stay at Carmel, I found a small piece of redwood drift and, there on the beach, carved from it a wing, a free-form wing. Forty years later, this carving was cast in bronze, large-size, and placed in front of the medical school. The wing, the memory of the moment of finding the wood, the beauty and free spirit of the location - all these things made me name the piece Take Wing, and hope that it stands there as a symbol of the life I wish for each graduate." - E. Grey Dimond, MD
From his autobiography, "Take Wing! Interesting Things That Happened On My Way To School"
On Thursday Governor Jay Nixon (D) visited the School of Nursing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City for the launch of Caring for Missourians, a new program that "will train more than nine hundred additional Missouri students to enter high-demand, critical-need health care fields."
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D) at the School of Nursing at the University of Missouri - Kansas City.
After Governor Nixon's announcement statement there was an opportunity for the media to ask the Governor questions:
...Governor Jay Nixon: ...That being said, I'll take your questions, the press [garbled].
Michael Mahoney, KMBC: Governor, one of the big problems you're not addressing with this is the fact that in many small Missouri towns, as you well know, hospitals are probably the main employer and they don't have the resources to hire anybody else. Nurses, doctors, or anything. How do you address that?
Governor Nixon: The demand for these jobs is out there. Clearly [crosstalk]...
Michael Mahoney: Is it? [crosstalk]
Governor Nixon: ...and obviously [crosstalk]...
Michael Mahoney: But they don't have the money for it. [crosstalk]
Governor Nixon: ...obviously this year I would have wished that the, that the legislature would have gone ahead with our expansion of health care that we laid out at no cost to Missouri taxpayers that would have put a hundred fifty million in additional dollars in.
We think the jobs are there. We know, I know that jobs are going unfilled now. And that, that, that has been told to me direct straight up by administrator after administrator in hospitals and clinics across the state...
We previously posted the full transcript of Congressman Emanuel Cleaver's speech for the Saturday night dinner at Truman Days. But transcripts, while searchable on the Internets and useful to others doing research and for "quotable" quotes, don't always do justice to or provide the full measure of the speaker's impact. Congressman Cleaver is a virtuoso. This short excerpt of his speech shows just that:
...And the nation now realizes we are right and they are wrong. I mean John Boehner [R-Ohio] is a good guy, actually he's a, he's a good guy. He said on television, he said, "Well, you know these Democrats they just think different." Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. [laughter] I mean, right on soul brotha, I mean. [laughter] Of course we do. [laughter] I've been trying to tell 'em, "We're right, they're wrong. If you're right you think differently." [laughter] [applause] [voice: "Yeah!"] They've been wrong for eight years. [applause] And the nation is tired of wrong. [applause] [cheers]...
Emanuel Cleaver's speeches are legendary. He always gets his message across vividly, in terms everyone can understand. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Saturday night's keynote speaker:
...But, it's so great to hear you. Thank you for that honor. I've never heard you speak before, and so you've said some really great stories that I want to poach. If that's okay, mister congressman [Emanuel Cleaver]...?
Other speakers at the dinner expressed their usual relief in not having to speak immediately after Emanuel Cleaver.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm was the keynote speaker for Truman Days at the Saturday night dinner held at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in Kansas City.
[applause] Thank you all. Thank you senator [McCaskill]. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for allowing me to come. It's five minutes to nine. [laughter] All right, so, I'm not, I promise I'm not gonna go very long. But there's just a few things that I want to tell you. Are you okay? Just wait, just a little bit. [cheers] [applause] I promise to not go long. [applause]
But, it's so great to hear you. Thank you for that honor. I've never heard you speak before, and so you've said some really great stories that I want to poach. If that's okay, mister congressman [Emanuel Cleaver]? And Jay, excuse me Governor Nixon [laughter], great to be in your state. Great to see all the things you have done. And great to see all the love that there is for you and for all of you, for all of your statewides [office holders]. The love that [garbled] [applause]
So, I have, I have never, I've never been to Kansas City before. [voice: "Welcome!"] So thank you. I'm so pleased to be here and as we were flying in I was noticing how green it was and the hills. This is a beautiful place. And [applause], and then, here all of you all. Isn't this a beautiful place? And, you know, the feel of Democrats in the evening. And this [laughter], this is really a beautiful place. So here's what we're doin', you know, as we, as we drove in I was noticing, 'cause I think Kansas City was probably, you know, built up at around the same time Detroit was. And so there's a lot of brick buildings. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of emphasis, I think, reinvigorating some of the old buildings. You see lofts and sort of the brick blending with the steel and glass. There's a great blend of old and new. There's a real sense of, of invigoration. And I, I just, I, I felt like there is this sense of renewal just in watching what was happening...
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver spoke at the Saturday night dinner for Truman Days held at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center.
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D) at Truman Days in Kansas City.
...[applause] [cheers] Thank you. [cheers] I think it's important to know, it is important to know that had Jay Nixon not won the governor's office we would be in terrible trouble. Missouri has nine members in the United States House of Representatives, four Democrats, five Republicans. All five, all five. One, two, three, four, five. All five. Five, four, three, two, one. [laughter] All of them opposed, voted against trying to stimulate the economy. All of them. And had he not been in the governor's office we would have suffered the same fate as Texas. Texas, where I was born and I'm ashamed of [laughter] tonight. They're turning their money back in. With record unemployment. With a devastating economy. And they don't want the money. And so I hope everyone understands how gratuitous we are to have Jay Nixon come in to office as governor at such a time as this. [applause]
We are right now in the, in the beginning stages of a new, sweet spirit in Washington. It is a can do spirit. It is infinitely more compassion than it was before. I was there. I experienced it. It is different. One of the sad things is that our opposition party has concluded that they lost, not because of bad ideas, not because of a bogus excuse to go to war, but because they were not right winged enough. [laughter] And it's, it's kind of sad to see what has happened. All of the moderates that were in Congress are gone. There's not a single Republican member of the House of Representatives in New England. They've all been wiped out.
Because they have bad ideas. We tried their ideas for eight years. And as a result Barack Obama ends up in the White House during the great recession. The nation was and still is in trouble. We're expecting about three million more foreclosures around the nation. And the commercial real estate market is already in trouble, and no one knows exactly what's going to happen there.
But the good news is that we have a new, bright, articulate, visionary leader in Washington. [applause] And there are those who criticize him because they say he's trying to do too much. There are many, many ways of being a failure. Doing nothing is the most successful. [laughter] And that is one thing you don't have to worry about experiencing. We are doing a lot...
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) was introduced by Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders at the dinner held at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center last night:
Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders: ...We always knew that Chris Koster was an extremely effective politician. And we really knew that was the case when he switched parties and joined the Democratic Party. [applause] We knew how smart and brilliant this man was. [applause] We knew he was a great politician in winning, obviously the race that he ran and the races that he'd run before, but what we're also now discovering about Chris, things that we knew and many of the people in this room know, is that he is a great administrator, a great person, a great leader.
One example. Two thousand nine looks like it's going to be a record year in the State of Missouri for recovery of money on Medicaid and Medicare fraud. [applause] [cheers] Fifty million dollars [applause] that through Chris' leadership is going to be returned.
Mike Sanders and Chris Koster
Now these are all the things that we can talk about, we can read about in the paper, Chris is in the paper. We can see the great things that he is doing in the Attorney General's office, but I wanted to just end with a little brief thing. And that is, in 1996 I left the Jackson County Prosecutor's office, I was a criminal defense attorney, and one of the first, the first case I got hired on was a gentleman who was ultimately wrongly convicted out of Cass County, Missouri. Let me tell you this. The man that I called was this man right here. The thing that amazed me about Chris Koster was when I called him, as a defense attorney/prosecutor you expect an adversarial relationship, what stunned me, what amazed me about Chris Koster was he was as agressive towards finding the truth about that case as anyone that that gentleman could have hired. But for him, but for him a wrongly convicted man could still be in prison today in the State of Missouri. That's a personal story. [applause]
Chris Koster is a man who doesn't just talk the talk. He walks the walk. He's a man of high integrity, high character, a great leader, and your Attorney General, the top law enforcement officer for this State of Missouri, Chris Koster. [applause] [cheers]
Attorney General Chris Koster: Thank you very much.
Thank you to the Jackson County Democratic Party, for all your support. Congratulations Steve [Bough] on hosting another great Truman Days event. And to all of you in this room for the chance, the chance that you have given me to serve. It's good to be back in Kansas City and among friends.
Missouri Democrats had a banner year in two thousand and eight. And we're going to have another banner year in two thousand and ten when we take back this Missouri House of Representatives [applause], when we re-elect Susan Montee [applause], and when we send my friend Robin Carnahan to Washington. [applause]
If you told me ten years ago that I would be here tonight [laughter] speaking at the Truman Days dinner [laughter] I might be a little surprised. [laughter] The path that I took and the path that led me here tonight reaffirms my belief in the openness of a great political party and in the power of change. In November we saw what the power of change could do for this entire nation.
We saw young standing up with the old. We saw the rich standing with the poor. And we saw Americans of every different race and creed standing behind a common desire for change. Right here in Missouri millions stood behind the call for change that was voiced by Jay Nixon and Democrats from St. Joseph to Cape Girardeau. And these Missouri Democrats will not let this state down.
We are seeing the kind of leadership in the first few months of the Obama-Biden administration that is finally reconnecting our government and our people, and our nation to the entire world. In Jefferson City Governor Nixon is offering a true breath of fresh air, honest leadership, and open government. [Dutch Newman: "Yes!] [applause] He's a man of progress. [applause] He's a man of progress and not partisanship. He's as plain spoken as Harry Truman and leads with the same common sense Democrat values. It was an honor to stand on the steps of the state capitol with him last January to be sworn in as Attorney General. Jay Nixon left big shoes to fill. Every day when I walk in that office I sit behind his desk, sixteen years, and I recognize the responsibility that he has left to me. But it is my goal to make him proud.
I happen to think that I have the best job in state government. My job isn't to be a show horse. We've got a lot of talented people in this party to showcase, and in our government. I recognize that I am the low man on the Democratic totem pole. And I tell you tonight that there is no place that I would rather be.
Law enforcement has been my life's work. And I'm proud to serve the people of this state and of this party every day...
Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel spoke at the brunch at Truman Days this morning.
Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel
Good morning.
[audience: "Good morning."]
It's amazing how we all look after November [laughter]. Feel better, at least. I tell ya, I just want to first say thank you and, you know, Steve Bough is one of the first people that I had the opportunity to say hello to in Kansas City during my journey here. And I think he represents a lot of what I thought, as a guy coming from the other side of the state, some of the great things about Kansas City. Open minded, willing to give a new candidate an opportunity to prove themselves and the warm embracement that I feel like you all gave me early on, year ago that I was here, that sort of struggling early on in that process. Every time I came here I left feeling a little bit better about that effort. Didn't know if we were going to win for sure, but we felt a little bit better about that effort. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me that chance to serve. Thank you. [applause]...
A late night view from the 40th floor of the Hyatt Regency Crown Center, site of the Hospitality Suites for Truman Days.
We got to see a lot of good Democrats we've known for years, we got to meet a lot of new people, and we got to hear a good bit about the insanity of the republican majority in the Missouri General Assembly from people who are witnessing it up close during the present session.
The view from the 40th floor of the Hyatt Regency Crown Center, site of the Hospitality Suites for Truman Days.
Leila Medley, Missouri NEA, former DNC member (left); Doug Brooks, DNC member and member of the Missouri State Democratic Committee (center); Courtney Cole, member of the Missouri State Democratic Committee (right).
President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary LaHood Call for U.S. High-Speed Passenger Trains
Vision for a New Era in Rail Entails Clean, Energy-Efficient Option for Travelers
President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Biden and Secretary LaHood, announced a new U.S. push today to transform travel in America, creating high-speed rail lines from city to city, reducing dependence on cars and planes and spurring economic development.
The President released a strategic plan outlining his vision for high speed rail in America. The plan identifies $8 billion provided in the ARRA and $1 billion a year for five years requested in the federal budget as a down payment to jump-start a potential world-class passenger rail system and sets the direction of transportation policy for the future. The strategic plan will be followed by detailed guidance for state and local applicants. By late summer, the Federal Railroad Administration will begin awarding the first round of grants...
That sculpture now stands in front of the UMKC School of Medicine encouraging students and alumni to "Take Wing" and soar to new heights in their careers after they leave the school.
