College Democrats Speak Out Against Apathy

The Mizzou College Democrats hosted a display called "The True Cost of War." It featured about 1900 fake tombstones, each with the name of an American soldier killed in Iraq and the name of a dead Iraqi civilian. The display was erected on the Carnahan Quad Tuesday morning and taken down that evening.

"We had a lot of great responses," President Mark Buhrmester said. "People are really appreciative that we are presenting them with such a visual display of what the War is costing America."

The display was covered in the Columbia Tribune where College Democrats emphasized that the target of this display is apathy.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act

And voila.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Bill to Reappear?

The Free Exchange on Campus Coalition is rallying the troops to oppose round two of the Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Bill, which they expect will be resubmitted in the next legislative session. The Current reported on a field organizer of the Coalition that came to UMSL to discuss the bill.

The Brooker bill caused a firestorm of controversy last year as it worked its way through the House. Its sponsor, Jane Cunningham, who is now running for State Senate is expected to gain some media coverage from the bill again, but it remains to be seen if it will be the banner issue it was last year.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Kelley-Johnson Win MSA Election

While the election might have taken place in early November, the victors of the Missouri Students Association were only declared late last week. The Maneater reports that Kelley-Johnson beat out the Barker-Ekhoff ticket by 16 percent.

The College Democrats favored Kelley-Johnson, although they did not make an endorsement. Rather, President Mark Buhrmester sent a message that said that Democrats should keep in mind that Jim Kelley was an active member of the College Democrats.

The College Republicans on the other hand quite forcefully endorsed Barker-Ekhoff with the following message from their Vice President Marcus Bowen:

Current MSA President, Rachel Anderson, is an avid
Hillary Clinton supporter and the leader of a Hillary Clinton campaign
group at Mizzou. Liberal Rachel Anderson has chosen her successors, she
supports the Kelley/Johnson ticket. Many of the College Democrats have been vocal supporters of Jim Kelley and Chelsea Johnson.

SAY NO TO HILLARY CLINTON LIBERALS LIKE RACHEL ANDERSON, JIM KELLEY AND CHELSEA JOHNSON!!!

Vote Now for Barker/Ekhoff!!!

I
know that Dustin Barker and Jessica Ekhoff are reliable and trustworthy
conservatives. I know that they believe in our conservative principles
and will use these principles to govern our school. I would ask all
College Republicans to stand with me in support of the Barker/Ekhoff
ticket. Vote now at http://vote.missouri.edu/

Your vote really counts, it just takes a moment to make a difference. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.

The next day Bowen apologized for the strongly-worded message and simply encouraged everyone to vote.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Football = Funding?

We'll see if the Tigers exceptional football season will yield a friendlier audience in Jefferson City. In the meantime, though, it is yielding more alumni donations and increased new student applications.

Powered by ScribeFire.

WashU Employees favor Obama; Trustees go with Romney

I thought this was interesting.

Half of all Washington University employee donations went to Barack Obama, followed by John McCain at 22%. WashU employee donations totaled $15,437. (Hillary Clinton did not receive any donations from employees.)

On the other hand, the Board of Trustees donated $54,400 with Mitt Romney leading the pack at 31% off that sum, followed by Clinton at 22%.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Speaking of...

Speaking of student groups supporting Presidential candidates, there is an article in today's Maneater about these groups.

Notice the conspicuous lack of any groups touting Republican candidates.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Mizzou Dems Host Forum

The Mizzou College Democrats are hosting a Presidential Candidate Forum tomorrow. The forum will be moderated by Mark Buhrmester, and will feature student groups representing Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. The Facebook event currently has 56 RSVPs which could make it one of the more widely attended events of the semester for the chapter.

Powered by ScribeFire.

A techy update

I just installed a program called ScribeFire to my beloved Firefox. This will make it more convenient for me to post, which means I will be making more regular posts in the future. Thanks for sticking with me through my dry patch!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Recap from YDMO Fundraiser

The Young Democrats of Missouri (YDMO) held a fundraiser a week ago to accumulate funds for an Executive Director for the state organization. I have a short update on that event. Since it's Thanksgiving (Happy Thanksgiving!) I'll keep it short.

There were about 40 people in attendance, including Rep. Judy Baker and Rep. Sam Page. The event netted about $1700. Their goal for this position is $10,000. So they still have a ways to go.

Powered by ScribeFire.

YDMO Fundraiser on Thursday

The Young Democrats of Missouri have a fundraiser lined up in Columbia on Thursday evening. The event is hosted by such community and political leaders as Rep. Judy Baker, former state representative candidates Jim Ritter and Sid Sullivan, former (and future?) Congressional candidate Duane Burghard, MU professor Herb Tillema and Missouri Democratic Committeeman Stephen Wyse. Not a bad line-up.

Tickets to the event are $10 for students, $30 for adults and $50 for couples. They are receiving matching funds from the Young Democrats of America for the purpose of hiring an executive director.

To have a professional in charge of YDMO would be a huge boon to their organization as well as the state Democratic Party. Last year, young people heavily favored the Democrats on the national level, but in Missouri young people only barely favored McCaskill over Talent. An Executive Director would help them out in pulling young people to the Democratic column.

DEMSTOCK III Recap

DEMSTOCK III seemed to be quite the success for the College Democrats of Missouri. Jason Rosenbaum made my day and recorded Jeff Harris singing Johnny Cash. The video is below. You can't see it too well, but it sounds alright. Apparently they raised somewhere between $800-900 at the event.

DEMSTOCK III Tomorrow

DEMSTOCK III, the twice-yearly music festival hosted by the College Democrats of Missouri, is happening tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers that Jason Rosenbaum attends and videotapes Harris singing with the Cotton Mollies. Here are the details from Facebook:

Come watch four great bands at the Blue Fugue, see presentations by other liberal-minded groups, and hear our Democratic leaders rally the College Democrats!

Bands:
THE GOLDBUGS! (9:00)

THE COTTON MOLLIES ft. Rep. JEFF HARRIS! (10:00)

THE HOTTEN HOLLERS! (11:00)

FREE COLLECTIVE! (Midnight)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Democratic Leaders:
Rep. Judy Baker (8:45)

Rep. Jeff Harris SINGS FOLSOM PRISON BLUES w/ THE COTTON MOLLIES (9:45)

The Honorable Chris Kelly! (10:45)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Liberal student groups:
Students for Clinton (9:45), Students for Edwards (10:45), Students for Obama (11:45)!!!

STAND Mizzou! (9:45)

Teach For America! (10:45)

Peaceworks! (11:45)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
18 and up! $5 admission for the College Democrats of Missouri!

DRINK SPECIALS:
Double draws (2 for 1) until 9 pm, then $2 wells!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Out-of-towners:
Let me know if you're carpooling in and I'll find you a couch.

Reaction from Chuck Graham Demonstrations

As you might know, the College Democrats and College Republicans both held demonstrations at Sen. Chuck Graham's fundraiser last Friday. The College Democrats argued that Graham had a strong record of defending the University, while the Republicans said that Graham's DWI arrest harms his ability to represent the district effectively.

There's a blog called YDANews.com (YDA as in Young Democrats of America) that picked up this story. The author of the blog criticized the College Dems for defending Graham. Granted, the author didn't come across as particularly intelligent, but it's still interesting to see Young Dems criticizing one of their own.

Truman Anti-War Rally Recap

I mentioned last week that the Truman College Democrats and The Stonewall Group (a GLBT equality organization) were hosting an anti-war event.

The auditorium (capacity: 200) was at times standing room only, although it thinned out a bit towards the end of the two-hour event. The College Republicans came sporting their club t-shirts with a box full of newspapers. They planned to undertake a form of civil disobedience and read the paper during the event, although that was largely thwarted as they took an interest in the speeches that were made.

Also of interest is that the Democrats undertook an extensive chalking campaign to create publicity for the event. However, in several places where they chalked, there were other messages added, such as "This event brought to you by Osama bin Laden."

Ah yes. You're either with us or against us.

Colleges and Universities are the 2nd Most Dangerous Organization in America

Bet you didn't know that.

Jason Rantz, a radio talk show host from San Diego, published this ditty on the Family Security Matters website a couple days ago. (In case you didn't know, FSM is the "national security resource for American families.) To Rantz's credit, he included some real crazies like the Family Research Council and CODEPINK, but seriously. Colleges and Universities? Get real.

LTE Regarding the Debate

Here's a letter by MU Freshman Aimee Koon. Look for more letters in the days to come:

"The Democratic debaters made the best of a bad situation and gave audience members an excellent opportunity to learn about the party’s platform through mutual discussion. Tonight, I am proud to be a Democrat. It must be a dark day for Republicans."

The Show Went On.... Kinda

Rick Puig, one of the College Democrats debaters,
fields questions from the audience.

The debate that was supposed to happen between the Mizzou College Democrats and Republicans didn't go as planned. Mark Buhrmester, President of the Mizzou College Democrats, made an opening speech in which he had "bad news" for the audience of a shade more than 100. In its place, they would host an open forum on the Democratic Party in which audience members could ask any question they want.

“Last night, at about 6 p.m., the vice president of the College Republicans called me and told me that College Republicans would not be coming tonight,” Buhrmester said, adding that that was pretty short notice of an event that had been planned two weeks prior.

Marcus Bowen, the Vice President of the Mizzou College Republicans, said that “the College Democrats thought that if they publicized enough, they could bully us into going against our principles,” Bowen said. “We never gave them any reason to put together this debate.”

But Buhrmester said he believes that the College Democrats and College Republicans have an obligation to the campus community to provide an open discussion of ideas and issues.

You can check out the full story in The Maneater here.

The 411 on Tonight's Debate

The debate tonight at Mizzou between the College Democrats and the College Republicans may not happen afterall. I thought it was strange that the CRs would accept a debate after turning it down for months, so I inquired of their Vice President, Marcus Bowen, what was up. He told me:

"I have heard a few rumors that the the Democrat group at Mizzou has planned an upcoming event which uses our name in the title, but as I said earlier, we are not affiliated with, nor have we helped plan, nor have we accepted any invitation to said event. College Republicans are a very busy, professional organization, and we certainly don't have time to police the the Democrat group on wheather [sic] they choose to use our name in the title of an event that they are hosting."

Iiiiiiinteresting. I got a response from Mark Buhrmester, President of the Mizzou Democrats as well.

"Their assertions that they've only heard rumors, or that they don't have the time to check up on what we're doing are very misleading. I've invited them directly numerous times. They had no reason to rely on rumors nor did they have any need to check up on my organization. I will forward you the emails that I've sent them."

Buhrmester emailed the CR leadership the invitation on October 11, two weeks ago, and sent two follow-up emails as well. Buhrmester argues that the only reason he got from the CRs for not debating is their busy schedule. The idea, he said, was to organize and publicize it to make it as easy as possible for them to attend. As of a couple days ago, he was still hopeful that they would come.

Bowen shot back, saying, "Once again I will say that Thursday's event is a hoax, and it has been a disgusting publicity stunt from the beginning."

It seems to me as though this was not a publicity stunt, but an honest attempt to create a debate. The follow-up emails prove that, in my opinion. I can see how someone could construe this as a publicity stunt, but this was not a stunt of any sort until the CRs declined the invitation. And it has not been made apparent to me whether they actually declined the invitation or ignored it.

At any rate, the "debate" is scheduled to begin in less than 2 hours. We'll see what happens, if anything.

A Litany of Interesting Campus Events...

There are a lot of interesting/controversial campus events coming up.

• This week is the National Students of Concealed Carry on Campus Empty Holster Protest. The Evangel College Republicans are getting in on the action.
• Monday also marks the beginning of national Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. This idea was sparked by David Horowitz. The Washington University Republicans are kicking it off with a showing of a film called Suicide Killers. This event has caused some controversy, and has resulted in a Teach-in for Tolerance that is co-hosted by a number of groups including the College Democrats. One national response to the Horowitz-hosted week is the encouragement of students to wear green on Wednesday to protest the "Islamophobic campaign."
  
• Tuesday the Associated Students of the University of Missouri are hosting a panel discussion on higher education with a researcher from the Show-Me Institute and the Missouri Budget Project.
• Thursday there will be a debate between the Mizzou College Republicans and the College Democrats. There are, so far, about 130 confirmed attendees. I'll try to find out how this came about, as the College Republicans had repeatedly refused a debate. We shall see how it goes.
• Finally on Thursday, there is an anti-war event planned at Truman State that features a number of professors speaking out against the war.