Carnahan Congratulates St. Louis and University City on Green-Lighted Loop Trolley Project

Press Release:

Today, Russ Carnahan (MO-3) congratulated residents of St. Louis and University City on news that $2.8 million of the $25 million federal grant has been committed for the trolley project planned for the St. Louis and University City Loop. These funds will help to manage the design phase of the project.

“Residents of St. Louis and University City worked hard on this proposal,” said Carnahan. “Their dedication and effective advocacy has secured the money needed to complete the Loop Trolley and make this vision a reality.”

The project was selected for a federal grant on a competitive basis from the Urban Circulator Program, and the project selection was first announced in March. Notice of the final award amount was given today, September 19, 2011. When finished, the Loop Trolley will serve as a fully-modern 2.2 mile fixed-rail streetcar system for passengers in St. Louis and University City.

Prop A Anniversary (Video)

Thanks to Damien Johnson for grabbing some video of the panel assembled for the anniversary of Proposition A, the ballot initiative that saved public transportation in St. Louis. My fellow panelists included Nancy Cross of SEIU, Dr. Suggs of the St. Louis American, Tom Shrout the former director of Citizens for Modern Transit, Rose Windmiller of Washington University, and John Nations, at that time the leader of the campaign and the Republican Mayor of Chesterfield. The panel was moderated by Eddie Roth of the Post-Dispatch. Unfortunately, it looks like Damien didn't catch my introduction from Eddie, which about knocked me off my chair because it was so nice, but you can catch a good chunk of my comments on the role of social media and student involvement here:

Damien also got some video footage of Nancy Cross from SEIU discussing how they helped out in the campaign:

And John Nations:

UMSL Professors David Kimball and Todd Swanstrom (along with Tom Shrout) put together a nice report analyzing the campaign and suggesting some lessons for the future.

Other bloggers in attendance: Justin Chick of Transit Turning Point, Court Sloger of NextStop STL, and Steve Patterson of Urban Review STL.

John Burns: Not Giving Bristol Palin $20,000 is Exactly Like Segregation

The tea party narrative of victimization is reaching new, unprecedented heights. If you recall, John Burns of American Majority and the St. Louis Tea Party tried to disrupt the free speech of LGBT activists, was involved in James O'Keefe's plot to sexually humiliate a CNN reporter on secret camera, and led a campaign against public transportation based on incessant lies that ended with a ridiculous publicity stunt where they claimed that the Mayor of Chesterfield was "harassing" them.

Burns also has a bizarre obsession with Washington University. He, along with James O'Keefe and Joseph Basel, secretly videotaped Washington University employees and then selectively edited the tapes to try (and fail) to convince people that the campus has an agenda against conservatives. He then accused the university of "malicious, retaliatory action" when the university asked his group to pay for the cleanup of hammer and sickle graffiti they sprayed around the campus as part of their gulag display. In paranoid rantings, he claimed that college administrators have "Stockholm syndrome" and that conservatives on campus have to be prepared for the university to come after them with "guns and night sticks and handcuffs..authorized to do violence against you." Considering his obsession with the belief that conservative free speech is somehow being oppressed it's also quite ironic that he has stated that one of the goals of the tea party is to purge all liberals from academia.

Anyway, since Dana Loesch has been made editor of Big Journalism, she uses the site as an opportunity to dole out Andrew Breitbart's money to her friends, no matter how disreputable those friends are. Enter John Burns. Burns, in an absurd rant, claimed that the decision by students at Washington University to not pay Bristol Palin $19,000 is exactly like the violent repression against African Americans that took place during the civil rights movement. Interspersing his Big Journalism post with photos from the civil rights movement, here's what Burns had to say:

So the message is, “Don’t bother coming, Bristol, or we’ll shout you down and riot because WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE!” This seems eerily similar to Southern intimidation and oppression of blacks during attempts to desegregate. It’s reminiscent of a scene from Forrest Gump, where a young black girl is harassed by a young white student and knocks her books out of her hands.

He continues:

Let’s not kid ourselves, here. what has transpired at Wash U is nothing short of bigotry and hate. These students weren’t protesting Bristol because she’s some evil mass murderer. No, they’re protesting her because they hate her. Yes. Hate. They hate everything Bristol represents, and they hate the fact that proponents of abstinence and others that share Bristol’s family-oriented culture suddenly have a beautiful, popular advocate – who can dance! They hate the fact that she makes being a goody goody look attractive and desirable.

It's pretty amazing how idiotic Burns' assessment is, though it is entirely in keeping with his paranoid hatred of academia. The issue with Bristol was, from the beginning, the belief on the part of the students that (1) there was nothing to indicate that she was qualified to speak on the subject of abstinence to a college audience and (2) she certainly wasn't worth the $15,000+ that she was going to be paid. I can say unequivocally that students, and particularly liberal students, disliked Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales far more than they disliked Bristol Palin. In fact, I doubt most students actually dislike her. But there's a reason that Bristol was disinvited and Rove and Gonzales weren't: and that is that it's obvious to any clear-thinking person that she's not qualified to speak to a college audience about this issue. In fact, I've heard from multiple students that the College Republicans were opposed to paying Bristol Palin that much money to speak.

Burns also, as I predicted yesterday on Twitter, broke out the absurd conservative talking point: ZOMG, it was originally reported that Bristol would get $20,000 but it's actually less money!!!!! Actually, it sounds like it was $19,000, since the cost of the other panelists is less than $1,000. From the student newspaper:

On Tuesday evening, Treasury voted to approve SHAC’s $20,000 appeal to bring in Palin and the three other members of the panel.

According to SU VP of Finance Eliot Walker, SHAC will now have to return the $20,000 and resubmit an appeal to fund the new panel. If the group’s new appeal is less than $1000, as Walker said is expected, SHAC can take its request straight to Walker for approval, as opposed to going through another round of a Treasury vote.

So yeah. Only $19,000 from Bristol as opposed to $20,000, while the other three speakers cost a maximum of $1,000 combined. Great argument there.

Burns also falsely reported that Van Jones was paid $20,000. First of all, Van Jones is actually an expert in his field and is an amazing speaker. But second, Burns is completely wrong as usual. Jones's usual speaking fee is $20,000, but the Student Union Treasury only allocated $5,000 for his talk at Wash U, and refused to allocate an additional $2,500:

“The speech was only $5,000 because we were able to call in a personal favor.”

The tea party might be finding ways to propel their absurdist rhetoric to new heights, but it's comforting to see that their lack of commitment to facts remains the same.

h/t Eric Boehlert

Tea Party Asks People To Use The Light Rail They Tried to Destroy

Only a few months ago, the St. Louis tea party was screaming "SOCIALISM" and claiming that St. Louis did not have the population density to support light rail. They tried to block a sales tax increase that was needed to restore the public transportation system in St. Louis. Fortunately for them, their attempts to defeat EVIL SOCIALIST public transportation failed miserably, because they are now encouraging people to use MetroLink to get to the 9/12 rally:

And from the official website:

Glad to see they have rejoined the world of reasonable people, at least on this issue.

Tea Party Leader Pretends Prop A Didn't Happen

St. Louis Tea Party leader Bill Hennessy had an strange post yesterday. He referred to McGraw Millhaven of KTRS criticizing the Tea Party for not actively opposing the MO legislature bill that would require insurance companies to cover children with Autism (though Hennessy said he is against the bill) . He then said other people had criticized the local tea party for not working more on the Missouri Healthcare "Free Choice" Act.

What was really interesting about all of this is that Hennessy's response to the criticisms was to say:

In spite of our work on state and local projects, the Tea Party movement didn’t come about to address Autism or state referenda. The Tea Party was born, according to my records and memory, to change the federal government, first by resistance, then by changing Congress.

He also quotes himself in a different article saying:

While many local tea party organizations involve themselves in local or state issues and races, the movement’s primary interest lies in Washington.

Hmmm, really? So the St. Louis Tea Party is and has been from the start focused only on federal elections? That's funny, because I seem to recall a small group of the tea party leadership (Hennessy, Loesch, John and Gina Loudon, and John Burns) getting together in Nashville and decided to push the local membership, largely against their wishes, to lead the opposition to the Proposition A sales tax increase for Metro. They were quite proud of their involvement and were claiming that they would win even on the day before the election (they lost 63%-37%). In fact, check out this quote from John Burns, who Bill Hennessy hailed as a "star" for his role in the tea party's anti-transit effort:

"What happens on the local level is often a microcosm of what is happening nationally,'' Burns said. "The Tea Party will be meaningless unless they get involved on a local level."

Sure seems to me like this is the exact opposite of only being focused on federal elections. The tea party has an extremely selective memory. But I suppose if I led a campaign where I could only get 37% of St. Louis County voters to vote against a new tax, I'd probably try to block it out of my memory as well.

More on the Massive St. Louis Tea Party Failure

Jake Wagman at the Post-Dispatch had a Political Fix post yesterday titled, "Passage of Metro transit tax fuels second guessing in Tea Party." Though I'm glad the story was written, leave it to the St. Louis media, who I've already criticized extensively for their tea party leaning coverage of the Prop A debate, to write a post questioning tea party organizing ability that relies enitirely on the testimony of members of the tea party! Thus, even when failing about as badly as possible, the tea party is given an exclusive platform to offer their spin on what happened. And, even worse, Wagman apparently buys it, inexplicably suggesting that the reason they did so badly was the general problem of voter apathy on elections that don't feature statewide or national candidates. He also apparently eats up their story that the whole reason Prop A won is because proponents spent, "hundreds of thousands of dollars."

But a closer look at some actual metrics shows just how wrongheaded the Wagman/Tea Party analysis is. First of all, check out the following list of local people who Tweeted pro-Prop A messages using the hash tag #propA :

@michael_ohare @FeteSociety @AllisonEBruns @keegan_hamilton @cshevlin @katberger11 @hetoldmeanyway @TriceDIVA @sarahescully @BetsyReznicek @chandlerful @nicejenny83 @urbanreviewstl @chamberjule @JRTappenden @Andrea_TheNerd @ryanwitt @lisarokusek @pwhoward @smcnally @loganalexander @yatesamanda @BillikenARon @iwhisperer @ContraYogini @bchao524 @PatrickRShaw @Kismatt @Mika_Tey @Trap_Jesus @sbolen @chriskingstl @MARTIN_CASAS @HilaryPerkins @markjzinn @simonyost @lindseyberger @jlangum @stlshellebelle @noelweichbrodt @ahawkcollinger @inmywardrobe @coreysmale @readingmachine @JustinEllis @elsicomoro @astx813 @Ericstl6 @DustinBoppAIA @daveElf @rhapsodynbloom @stlcolleen @docstar42 RT @edreggi @AndreaRenee87 @wecanchangeit @triadchiro_drj @tammyvent @deandrean @AdamHouston @ganeshaxi @MisterTubbs @michaeltomko @jpjernigan @slackadjuster @JonSimons @brynarc @deaconseps @innov8ion @drphist @maryb2004 @ehoffp @b_wiley @GoldenSombrero @peggy_adams @ecoabsence @lolololori @Sutcliff @katzpotter @andrewjfaulkner @toby1319 @neutralized @allyrulzno1 @trianglman @gracewoodard @stlcolleen @bkauling @threefourteen @stldotage @jenniferwhatnot @YoungDemsSTL @jesh1223 @milphy @russwhite59 @CraigMayhem @Patricialicious @GatewayStreets @fischooler @ajgmets @CMT_STL @thebizkramer @markedwards @STLTransitPlan @sethteel @STLTransit @Patricialicious @urbanSTL @jenniferwhatnot @Stllegend @Rencelas @u2acro

Now check out the number of anti-Prop A tweets using the hash tag #stoptheprop :

@whennessy @24thstate @stlteaparty @stlurbanspice @StLouisRE @bellez8 @stix1972 @Jimi971 @morecord @BetterTransit

Notice any difference? Apparently some people didn't. But the clear reality is that there was an absolutely huge enthusiasm gap between supporters and opponents of Proposition A, with supporters vocally expressing their enthusiasm (Worth noting: Jo Mannies of the Beacon acknowledged the supportive Tweets in an election day article). This wasn't because Advance St. Louis was paying people $5 a tweet; it's because the people of St. Louis want a good public transportation system! Any analysis that ignores this enthusiasm gap is woefully deficient.

Second, the tea party has been continuously whining that they were outspent. But the reality is that they were incapable of raising money for their extreme position on this issue. They sent out a message to all of their supporters calling for a "money bomb" to raise $10,000. They had the support of Dana Loesch, who has 8,500 followers on Twtter and her own 2-4 PM radio show. Gateway Pundit, who gets nearly 1.5 million unique visitors a month, put out a direct appeal for John Burns money bomb. Yet despite the ability to reach a huge audience, at the end of the day, they were only able to raise $750 from 25 people:

This is a puny number for a county-wide election and does not show any ability to organize. In fact, I'm quite confident that I would be able to raise more money than this for a similar cause. Yet far be it from the creators of the media narrative to look for the demonstration of actual organizing ability, fundraising ability, or even arguments that aren't' completely dishonest when they decide how important the tea party is. They have their "Tea Party = Political Juggernaut" narrative, and they're sticking with it, no matter what voters or the facts say.

Mapping Tea Party Failure

Gateway Streets has some awesome Prop A maps uploaded on Flickr. This one shows the percentage increase in the yes vote compared to the 2008 election by township:

As you can see when comparing this election (with the tea party as the primary opposition) and the last election (when the tea party did not yet exist in its current form), every single county increased it's support for the sales tax! The tea party considered this across the board loss "not too bad," and claimed that John Burns did a "remarkable" job.

Let's hope they continue to run "remarkable," "not too bad" campaigns for a long time to come!

Despite Media Hype, The St. Louis Tea Party Has No Clue How to Organize

Proposition A, the ballot initiative to restore and expand public transportation in the St. Louis region via a 1/2 of 1% sales tax, won a landslide victory yesterday. Many, many people in the media were predicting throughout the week that the initiative would fail. Despite the fact that the opposition to the initiative showed absolutely no signs of organization, and despite the fact that polls showed that a majority of people in St. Louis County supported the initiative, the St. Louis media apparatus created their own narrative based on their "gut feelings" of what St. Louis County is like, and then started to believe the narrative that they in fact created.

For example, yesterday, Jake Wagman wrote that critics of Prop A had offered "a spirited opposition." Here's what I replied in the comments:

Spirited opposition? Really? The Stop the Prop group tried to raise $10,000 and only raised $750. The largest rally they’ve had was 25 people. The only sense in which they’ve been “spirited” is that they’re good at getting media attention, but that’s just because of the local media’s willingness to give equal time to right wing opposition, no matter how coherent that opposition actually is.

I think the election vindicated my comment. The St. Louis Tea Party never had to produce any people or any money in opposition to Prop A in order for the local media apparatus to treat them like a large movement making good faith arguments. In fact, yesterday, Charlie Brennan and the Beacon were willing to push a hoax by John Burns and Gina Loudon where they claimed that Chesterfield Mayor John Nations was oppressing them. The only thing the tea party did well during this whole campaign was get published in media venue after media venue, and get more airtime on local radio than the people who support Proposition A, largely because KMOX hosts Brennan and Reardon were wholly opposed to the initiative.

On some level, I can understand the media going out of their way to give the anti-Prop A group a chance to express their opposition. But in large part the media completely failed to fact-check the ridiculous and often blatantly false claims made by the tea party opposition. Furthermore, it's not cool for the media to then believe their own echo chamber so much that they start announcing that Prop A will lose before the election based on nothing more than their own gut feelings. I think the excellent ground game is what ultimately won the election for Proposition A, but if we didn't have a really strong pro Prop A presence on social media like Twitter and Facebook, my guess is that the "it's going to lose" media narrative would have spun out of control and probably determined the election by causing transit advocates to give up hope.

So much for the media, but how badly did the Tea Party lose this campaign? Pretty amazingly badly. They put their full weight against it. The official St. Louis Tea Party site railed against it. Dana Loesch came out against it on her blog and on her radio show. Gateway Pundit, one of the most read political blogs in the country, wrote against it and regularly gave a platform to John Burns. Furthermore, as I tweeted yesterday, and as Clark at Show Me Progress wrote about in more detail, the St. Louis Tea Party loudly announced on multiple occasions that their opposition to Prop A was going to be a demonstration of their organizing ability. And they were right. Proposition demonstrated clearly that the St. Louis Tea Party doesn't have a clue how to organize.

First of all, consider this: Proposition A won with 63 % of the vote and 37% opposed. Can anyone honestly imagine a bill for a new tax getting less than 37% in St. Louis County in the current economic climate? I certainly can't. And this strongly suggests that the Tea Party, despite all of their bluster and media attention, did not affect the vote in any significant way. Unless, of course, the absurdity of their opposition actually increased the the winning percentage.

Only yesterday, the Tea Party was claiming that they were going to win. Now, they're whining about how they were outspent. Unfortunately for them, they undermined their own whining a few days ago when they said, "nearly every transit tax in the region has been defeated despite similar funding imbalances." According to their own view then, this means that they must have been an especially bad opposition. Furthermore, the tea party attempted to raise $10,000, but their position was so extreme they could only raise $750, probably from all of the usual suspects! So the fact that they didn't have any money wasn't the cause of them losing; it was a symptom of the real reason they lost: they took a position that was so extreme that no one (other than the media) could take them seriously.

Clark cleverly referred to the Tea Party opposition as the Underpants Gnome plan. For those who aren't familiar, the underpants gnomes' plan to make money in a South Park episode was the following: "1. Steal underpants. 2. ?? 3. Profit!" The Tea Party plan was just about as inane. They seemed to literally believe that just blogging, tweeting, and milking their right wing radio connections was sufficient to convince the public to vote for a crazy position. They spent last Saturday driving around St. Charles County (which didn't vote on Prop A) in trucks with anti Prop A messages scribbled on them. Twice. Their election day plan was to stand on street corners with signs. They literally are completely clueless about how to win elections. And just to clarify, unlike Dana "literally stomping on the constitution," Loesch, I do in fact understand the meaning of "literally."

One last thought: Clark also reference that this is the group former Matt Blunt Chief of Staff Ed Martin is counting on to win in November. In fact, Ed Martin signed up for the Drive Around St. Charles with Anti-Prop A Signs facebook event along with only 19 other people:

As far as I know, Ed Martin did not actually make it out to the event. But can anyone doubt that Martin, the ultimate political opportunist, would have been trumpeting up and down how everyone hates taxes if Proposition A had failed? Martin is trying to run as a St. Louis Tea Party candidate. But Proposition A has shown just how far away from normal people's views of good government the Tea Party really is.

St. Louis Activist Events for the Week of the Prop A Vote!

This week's events:

Monday, April 5, is a great day to change your profile picture to remind people to Vote for Proposition A.

Also Monday, there will be a discussion of Urban Planning as a Public Health at the Kemp Auditorium Room 110 of the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts from noon to 1 PM.

Also Monday, a national tea party group is passing through St. Charles from 1 to 4 PM, and some good people have organized a counter-protest..

Also Monday, there will be a fundraiser for Alderman Antonio French at the Sub Zero Vodka Bar (308 N. Euclid) at 4 PM.

Tuesday, April 6, St. Louis County Residents: Vote Yes On Prop A! St. Louis City Residents (or residents from other counties), Volunteer to Help Prop A! When? Anytime from 6 AM to 7 PM.

Also Tuesday, make sure NOT to sign ballot initiatives to eliminate the earnings tax in St. Louis. This ballot would create a permanent state of instability for city workers! Also, don't sign ballot initiatives to tamper with the court system in Missouri. But, the good news is, you should sign the ballot initiative to eliminate puppy mill cruelty.

Also Tuesday, Parkway Central will be putting on Pennies for Peace from 11:10 AM until 1:20 PM.

Also Tuesday, Terri Williams andDon Calloway are asking people to volunteer with their campaigns.

Also Tuesday, the Beehive Collective will be at the Community Arts and Media Project (CAMP: 3026 Cherokee) from 7:30 to 9 PM performing The True Cost of Coal.

Wednesday, April 7, if you voted or volunteered for Prop A, you can rest easy knowing that you are a quality human.

Also Wednesday, Wash U students will be having a town hall to discuss the future of the Environmental Studies program from 5:15 to 6:15.

Also Wednesday, there will be an informational meeting about the Coalition of Immokalee workers at the Longbranch Coffee House (100 East Jackson Street) in Carbondale, IL from 7 to 8 PM.

Also Wednesday, this month's Black and Green Wednesday at Legacy Books and Cafe (5429 Delmar) at 7 PM will focus on the Mexican Labor Movement.

Also Wednesday, Dr. Robert Archibald of the Missouri History Museum will ruminate on the special exhibit RACE: Are We So Different?" at 7 PM at the Webster Groves Presbyterian Church (45 West Lockwood).

Also Wednesday, the St. Louis Gender Youth Group will be meeting at the SPOT (4169 Laclede) from 7 to 8:30 PM for their monthly meeting.

Thursday, April 8, Diane Starr, matriarch of the people living in community in the Tucker Tunnel downtown that is in the process of being closed by the City of St. Louis, will share her experience of being homeless in St. Louis at St. Francis Xavier Church (Grand and Lindell) at 7 PM.

Friday, April 9, the Beehive Design Collective will be presenting The True Cost of Coal from 4 to 6 PM in January Hall room 110 on the Wash U campus.

Also Friday, Cocktailing for a Cause will raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society at the Pujols 5 (342 Westport) from 6 to 9 PM.

Also Friday, there will be a Commemoration of the Rwandan Genocide from 7 to 9 PM at the Mazara Wine Bar (7923 Forsyth).

Also Friday, there will be a benefit for Chile at Doxa Arts (13250 S. Outer 40, Town and Country) from 7 to 9 PM.

Also Friday, the College Queer Straight Alliance will be taking over the City Museum from 8:10 to 11:10 PM.

Saturday, April 10, the Missouri State NORML Conference will be at CAMP (3022A Cherokee) from 9 AM to 6 PM.

Also Saturday, the Literacy for Social Justice Group will be holding a discussion of Education and the Media from 10 AM to noon at the Julia Davis Branch Library.

Saturday is also the day for Wash U's annual Pow Wow.

Also Saturday, Missouri House Candidate Deb Lavender will be canvassing from noon to 4 PM: meet up at 1133 Colonade Center in Des Peres.

Also Saturday, there will be a performance of the Vagina Monologues from 2 to 3:30 PM at the Emerson Studio Theatre at Webster University.

Also Saturday, there will be a Pub Crawl for Charity in The Grove from 6 PM until 3 AM.

Also Saturday, check out Pepapalooza with Celia, the Northwoods, and FireDog, from 8 to 11 PM at Antartica (5226). Proceeds go to the Peace Economy Project, a national think tank based here in St. Louis.

Press Advisory on High Speed Rail

Press Advisory from MOPIRG and the Sierra Club:

   *For immediate release
*Contact: Andrew Bailey, transportation advocate*

*Phone:  314-454-9560
E-mail:  abailey@mopirg.org

*The Right Track: *

*Building a 21st Century High Speed Rail System for America*

*Who:* Andrew Bailey, transportation advocate, MoPIRG

Ginger Harris, Transportation Chair, Missouri Sierra Club
           Thomas Shrout, Executive Director, Citizens for Modern Transit

*When:*  Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2:00 pm

*Where:* Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center

MoPIRG, the Missouri Sierra Club, and Citizens for Modern Transit will
hold a press event at Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center to
discuss the future of high speed rail in Missouri and to release /The
Right Track/, a new MoPIRG research report which quantifies the benefits
of high speed rail and sets 11 recommendations for future investment.

Last month, the Obama administration announced that 31 states will
receive a portion of $8 billion in funding to build and plan for high
speed rail under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Missouri
received $31 million for rail from Kansas City to St. Louis and will
also benefit from a $1.1 billion grant for high-speed rail from St.
Louis to Chicago.

High speed rail in Missouri has the potential to create tens of
thousands of jobs, alleviate congestion, and reduce oil use and carbon
emissions.  The new MoPIRG report will highlight these benefits and
recommend further commitment to high speed rail development.
And speaking of public transit, check out the cool new TV ad from Citizens for Modern Transit: