Before his rally at Union Station Friday, Presidential Candidate Barack Obama met with a group of local elected officials at his Washington Ave. campaign office.
Local electeds in attendance included: Congressman Lacy Clay; State Auditor Susan Montee; St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley; President of the Board of Aldermen Lewis Reed; License Collector Mike McMillan; Aldermen April Ford-Griffin and Frank Williamson; State Senator Rita Days; State Reps Rodney Hubbard, Robin Wright-Jones, and Ted Hoskins; Chairman of the City Democrats, Brian Wahby; U-City Councilwoman Hazel Erby; former St. Louis mayor Vince Schoemehl; and former state representative Betty Thompson.
During a panel discussion hosted by Congresswoman (and St. Louis native) Maxine Waters (D-CA) at the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference in Washington D.C. last weekend, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons made a surprise visit and jumped into a discussion about the use of words like “nigga,” “bitch,” and “ho” in urban music.
Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam Records and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, talked about his recent appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show, where he discussed the same topic. He said that appearance may have been a mistake because the audience already had their minds made up and weren’t hearing what he had to say. Simmons soon found some panelists and audience members in D.C. also had their own strong opinions on the subject.
Simmons received some opposition from some of his fellow panelists, including a spoken word artist and actor Hill Harper, who was recently in St. Louis at a St. Louis American Salute to Excellence banquet.
The head of the Democratic Party, former Vermont governor and Presidential candidate, Howard Dean, stopped by to say a few words at the annual Missouri Walk of Fame reception hosted by Congressmen Lacy Clay (St. Louis) and Emmanuel Cleaver (Kansas City).
At a 1st Ward neighborhood meeting this morning, Mayor Francis Slay broke the news of the arrest of three youths in the shooting death of police officer Norvelle Brown.
Earlier this week, State Representative Talibdin El-Amin and his wife, Committeewoman (and former state representative) Yaphett El-Amin hosted a town hall meeting at Wohl Community Center in north St. Louis. Here are a couple of videos from that event.
PubDef.net caught up with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean at the National Urban League Convention today. We asked him what he thought about the major Republican Presidential candidates choosing not to attend the convention.
“I’m not entirely surprised,” said Dean. “They didn’t show up at the NAACP. They didn’t show up at the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.”
“Our party is the party that includes everybody — in fact, it depends on everybody in order to win. And theirs doesn’t.”
Sources in the Missouri State Senate have told PubDef that the President Pro Tem of the Senate, Michael Gibbons, has relieved Senator John Loudon of his position as Chair of the Senate Small Business, Insurance, and Industrial Relations Committee following his deceitful actions on the Senate floor last Thursday.
See PubDef’s story on Loudon earlier today for background information.
