2005

By Peter DownsNovember 22, 2005 –– Last Friday, David Welch, director of gifted education programs for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, gave representatives from metropolitan area school districts the news they had…

October 24, 2005 -- Approximately 40 people showed up to hear from Mayor Francis Slay and Alderman Jennifer Florida tonight at the Carpenter Branch Library for a town hall meeting in the 15th Ward.Questions primarily…

December 15, 2005 -- Congressman William Lacy Clay (D-MO) joined his collegue Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to introduce legislation to abolish the federal death penalty yesterday.Kucinich's bill, The Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2005, is…

According to the Missouri Ethics Commission, Steve Brown, treasurer for Jeff Smith 2006, has "bad PM". For some struggling to read Brown's chicken scratch on Jeff Smith's latest campaign finance reports, bad PM means bad…

According to campaign finance reports electronically filed by Amber Boykins' campaign for state senate, the four-term state representative (D-60) made a $15,000 no-interest loan to her campaign.It's not uncommon for candidates to do this to…

Here's the right-leaning National Review's John J. Miller's assessment of the Talent/McCaskill Senate race:The Democrats didn’t recruit their best candidate to challenge GOP senator Jim Talent -- that probably would have been secretary of state…

[The following editorial, published in last week's print edition of PUB DEF Weekly, was the focus of some discussion on 'Collateral Damage' on KDHX Monday night. In the interest of public discourse, we are making…

In case you missed it, below is an op-ed by Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Mel Martinez (R-FL) on comprehensive immigration reform. The op-ed ran in today’s (Dec-15) Wall Street Journal, Page A18.Like millions of…

I'll be chatting it up tonight on Collateral Damage with hosts DJ Wilson and Fred Hessel at 7:00 on KDHX 88.1 FM. I'll be joining Steve Patterson from UrbanReviewSTL.com to discuss the latest happenings in…

November 9, 2005 -- St. Louis Schools Watch has a redesigned blog. Stories from the newsletter published by Peter Downs, parent and former school board candidate, can now be seen online at www.SLSWatch.PUBDEF.net