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DEF is a non-partisan, independent political blog based in the
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The Instead of War Coalition, a St. Louis based peace organization, is holding a week-long rally called the "Days of Decision" Watch outside Senator Claire McCaskill's office, 5850 Delmar.
The rally is aimed at urging McCaskill not to support the $190 billion war funding bill currently being debated in Congress unless it is attached to a specific withdrawal timetable.
Senator Claire McCaskill wants to make drug companies' contributions to doctors public. McCaskill said today that she will introduce a bill next month requiring drug companies to list all gifts, promotional items, money and drug samples given to doctors online.
The information would be listed on a national drug registry website. Patients could use this website to find out if their doctor has received gifts from drug manufacturers.
McCaskill says gifts can lead to preferential prescriptions from doctors, and she hopes the drug registry website will cut down on this practice.
McCaskill made the announcement today at a meeting with St. Louis members of the American Medical Student Association at Washington University.
McCaskill Happy to See Gonzales Go [Updated with Video]
By Gabe Bullard
Not long after the news of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ resignation broke, Senator Claire McCaskill released a statement praising Gonzales' decision to leave.
"It was clear to me from the start that Attorney General Gonzales had been part of a political scheme and consequently should have been quickly removed from his position," says McCaskill.
"The delay is another failure of leadership and display of incompetence by the Bush Administration."
By a vote of 46 to 53, the U.S. Senate today refused to close debate and advance President Bush's controversial immigration legislation. Sixty votes were needed to end debate.
Both Missouri Senators, Kit Bond (R) and Claire McCaskill (D), voted against the motion. Both Illinois Senators, Dick Durbin (D) and Barack Obama (D) voted for the motion.
Senator Claire McCaskill will be in town for the grand opening of her new St. Louis office Saturday.
McCaskill's St. Louis office staff, including regional director Michelle Sherod, will be on hand from 10-11:00 a.m. for the opening of the new office at 5850 Delmar Blvd, Suite A.
McCaskill currently has offices in Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia, and Cape Girardeau.
An aide to Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) urged the White House to replace the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., months before Todd P. Graves's name was included on a Justice Department list of federal prosecutors the Bush administration was thinking of pushing out of their jobs.
A spokeswoman for Bond said yesterday that the senator's former counsel, Jack Bartling, contacted the White House counsel's office in the spring of 2005, without Bond's permission. According to the spokeswoman, Bartling said that Graves's replacement "would be favored," because the prosecutor's wife and brother-in-law had stirred ethics complaints in Missouri.
Last night, Graves issued a statement that said: "This would be humorous if we were not talking about the United States Department of Justice. First, you tell me that DOJ staffers were making secret hit lists and my name was on one of them. Then, you tell me that a staffer for Missouri's senior senator had a hit list so secret that not even the senator knew about it."
NEW TALENT -- Governor Matt Blunt has grabbed Sen. Jim Talent's former communications director to be his own. Rich Chrismer was announced yesterday as the governor's new mouthpiece.
Reports place Chrismer's new paycheck at around $92,000 ($22K more that the last guy, Spence Jackson). The Gov's office says Chrismer's new role will include more duties than his predecessor.
We hope that doesn't mean they're going to make him physically remove his own critics from press conferences. Spence was always very clear, that's what Capitol security was for!
SECRET AGENT MAN -- This whole "Senate shake-up" thing hasn't been all bad news for the old Republican guard. Senator Kit Bond just landed himself a nice spot as the new Number Two on the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee.
Bond's new assignment will place him in charge of overseeing, among other things, the nation's foreign and domestic spying operations. Just call him Bond, Kit Bond.
U.S. Senator-elect Claire McCaskill will serve on five Senate committees, including the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to the Associated Press.
From the AP: The newly elected Missouri Democrat also will have a seat on the Senate committees on commerce; homeland security and government affairs; aging; and Indian affairs...
Spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh said McCaskill would use her position on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to establish a "Truman Committee" to look into wartime spending.
Last Tuesday's elections have made our celebrity junior senator to the east even more relevant.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) today announced that next year he will serve on four influential committees: the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
"Keeping the American people safe should always be our top priority, and I pledge to work to secure our nation's chemical plants and to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission as a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs," said Obama.
"I also hope to continue working with Democrats and Republicans like Senator Tom Coburn to stop wasteful no-bid contracting abuse, and to pass meaningful ethics reforms as quickly as possible. As a member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, I hope to address the growing health care crisis in our country and focus on legislation that will help working families adjust to the ever-changing global economy.
“I look forward to working with Senator [Dick] Durbin, whose influence will greatly increase as the Majority Whip, to help improve the lives of our constituents.”
No word yet on Senator-elect McCaskill's committee assignments.
Talent, Bond Vote to Allow Bush to Broadly Interpret Geneva Convention
By Antonio D. French
Filed
Friday, September 29, 2006 at 8:25 AM
The U.S. Senate, by a vote of 65-34, has passed a controversial bill that gives broad authority to President George W. Bush to interpret (or re-interpret) the long-standing Geneva Convention standards on the treatment of prisoners of war as he sees fit. Missouri Senators Kit Bond and Jim Talent, both Republicans, both voted in support of the bill. Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama, both Democrats, voted against.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill yesterday that would make it a crime, punishable by up to a year in jail, to transport a minor across a state line to obtain an abortion.
Locally that means that teens from East St. Louis, Belleville, or Centralia, for instance, would have more limited access to St. Louis abortion clinics. Missouri senators Kit Bond (R) and Jim Talent (R) voted in favor of the law, Senate Bill 403, while both Illinois senators voted against it.
Senator Kit Bond's office made a series of announcements today pointing out millions of federal dollars the veteran lawmaker recently got earmarked for his home state.
Bond secured $77 million in funds for Missouri defense projects, including:
$2.5 million for the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri-Columbia, $5 million for Advanced Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies at the University of Missouri-Rolla, $3.5 million for the Center for Nano/Micro/Systems & Nanotechology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, $2 million for the University of Missouri-Rolla’s Steel Castings Program, $7 million for Clean Earth Tech., located in St. Louis, $2 million for Sage Tech., located in St. Louis, $4 million for Avant, located in Overland, $3 million for GE Energy Systems, located in Kansas City, $3 million for Engineering Software Research, located in St. Louis... the list goes on and on.
Bond secured another $8 million in funds for health care projects, including:
$500,000 for the City of Springfield to be used for program development and expansion, equipment and technology for the Ready to Learn Program. $875,000 for Missouri Highlands Health Care to be used for construction, renovation and equipment costs for a new facility in Popular Bluff. $1,000,000 for St. Louis Children’s Hospital to be used for construction and renovation costs for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Expansion. $750,000 for the United Inner City Services to be used to expand the early learning programs in Kansas City.
Bond and Sen. Jim Talent shared the credit for bringing $3 million to the state for public transportation and almost $7 million in federal funds for a Child Development Center on the Ft. Leonard Wood base.
Senator Kit Bond will be in St. Louis on Monday, June 5, to discuss the latest round of Republican tax cuts passed by Congress.
At a location "to be determined" later, Bond plans to make his case for how these tax cuts will help build a stronger Missouri by spurring economic growth and creating more jobs.
"This economy continues to grow and create jobs. Job growth remains strong and more Americans are going to work each day," said Bond in a recent press release.
"In the last three years, nearly 5.3 million jobs have been created. These gains are not by luck or accident. We are seeing the result of tax cuts enacted by Congress that allow families to keep more of what they earn," he said.
The St. Louis appearance wraps up a statewide tour by the senior U.S. senator. He will also be in Joplin, Springfield, Cape Girardeau, St. Joseph, Columbia, Kirksville, and Hannibal over the next two weeks.