COURTESY OF PAMELA MERRITT — Abortion rights activists making their point at a previous campaign in Jefferson City.

In July, the Missouri Democratic Party voted to add an amendment to its platform welcoming “a diversity of views on abortion.” But it didn’t leave the welcome mat out for long: On Saturday, the state committee reversed course, voting overwhelmingly to delete the controversial addition.

The July amendment, which was pushed by former state Representative Joan Barry (D-St. Louis County), had been a last-minute amendment to the work of the party’s platform committee. It was emailed to members one day before a scheduled vote on a new platform — and the vote ended up taking place on a day that many party activists had already committed to being at immigration protests. After its narrow 31-25 approval, anger ran high.

And perhaps that’s one reason the vote to strip the amendment’s language just one month later wasn’t even close. Even Barry voted abstained rather than voting no. (An unofficial tally live-tweeted by Planned Parenthood staffer Sarah Felts listed sixty-one in favor, two abstentions, and none opposed.)

Stephen Webber, chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party, said this in a statement:

Missouri Democrats are strongest when we fight together. We saw that on Tuesday when we worked together to resoundingly defeat Prop A and we saw that at our State Committee meeting today when our members stood united to pass a platform that clearly demonstrates our Party’s unwavering commitment to defend the right of all Missourians to access reproductive health care without interference from the government. Democrats will continue to fight [to] defend the full spectrum of women’s reproductive rights ensured in Roe v. Wade, including the right to safely end a pregnancy, to safely carry a pregnancy to term, and the right to raise your family in a safe and healthy environment.

The amendment approved in July read, “”We respect the conscience of each Missourian and recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing positions on issues of personal conscience, such as abortion. We recognize the diversity of views as a source of strength, and welcome into our ranks all Missourians who may hold differing positions on this issue.”

Today, the platform’s section on abortion reads, “A woman’s right to choose and the right of every person to their own bodily autonomy and to be free from government intrusion in medical decisions, including a decision to carry a pregnancy to term, and oppose any efforts to limit access to reproductive health care.”

Some party activists praised the reversal this weekend.

Doing the right thing is what we expect @MoDemParty . Good job on fixing what should never have been a problem. On to November! #TrustWomen — Crystal Williams (@crystalpolicy) August 11, 2018

When women organize, women win! Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make sure reproductive rights made it back into the @MoDemParty platform. #MDPReproRights https://t.co/lgpsMKXVbU — Alison Dreith (@alidreith) August 11, 2018

However, not all those running as Democrats have signed on to its tenets. Representative Stacey Newman (D-University City) estimates there are at least a dozen pro-life Democrats in the Missouri House alone. The group has continued to find success with voters. Just last week, in the primary race to fill the south city seat being vacated by Fred Wessels, pro-life Steve Butz beat a pro-choice candidate.

In a statement, the national organization Democrats for Life of America bemoaned the Missouri Democratic Party’s decision. “Missouri pro-life Democrats are real Democrats who support labor and helped to defeat the right-to-work proposition this week,” it said. “They support health care, a living wage, and a host of other issues on which all Democrats agree. We want to be in this party, and we will wait for a clear statement from Chairman Webber on where we stand.

“Pro-life Democrats have stayed in the shadows and have been taken for granted long enough. We must be recognized and heard. Right now, we are hearing that current leaders of the Democratic Party do not want us and we should look elsewhere.”

Editor’s note: We’ve updated this story to describe Joan Barry’s vote on the decision to delete her amendment. She abstained; she did not vote no. We regret the error.

photo by Jaime Lees — Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez going door-to-door.

OFFICIAL PHOTO — Rep. Lacy Clay (D-St. Louis) is headed to his tenth term.

Cori Bush had national buzz and powerful progressives supporting her, but it was not enough to topple U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay (D-St. Louis).

Final vote totals had Clay winning Missouri’s 1st Congressional District easily in what was supposed to be his toughest test in years, with 56.6 percent of the vote. Bush, a nurse whose political profile rose out of Ferguson protests, had hoped to outflank the nine-time incumbent from the left, but took 36.9 percent.

Her campaign got a big boost from another underdog, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who stunned an establishment Democratic heavyweight in New York.

Bush and Ocasio-Cortez were both backed by Brand New Congress, an organization created by former Bernie Sanders staffers. The two became friends, and when Ocasio-Cortez suddenly became a progressive star, she worked to widen the spotlight to Bush.

The two campaigned together in St. Louis , and an insurgent movement in the Democratic party hoped they might have another giant-killer on their hands. Bush pushed a platform that included a $15 minimum wage and free college tuition. If she was successful, national watchers were ready to see it as a sign Ocasio-Cortez’s victory as the beginning of a wave, instead of a political anomaly.

But Missouri was always going to be a tough test. Clay has a powerful hold on his district, which covers western parts of the city and stretches of north county, including Ferguson. His father, Bill Clay, was one of the founders of the Black Congressional Caucus. Between father and son, they have represented the region for half a century.

After today’s vote, Clay is headed for his tenth term.

SCREENSHOT VIA TWITCH — Jason Gargac, currently suspended livestreamer and Uber driver.

SCREENSHOT VIA DISCORD

A St. Louis Uber and Lyft driver who filmed hundreds of passengers without their knowledge won’t be livestreaming any time soon — or at least, he won’t be doing it on Twitch.

This afternoon, Twitch issued an indefinite suspension against Florissant resident Jason Gargac, 32, who’s been filming his rides since March under the username “JustSmurf.” The livestreaming company cited\ “a review of community reports” that alleged Gargac was using the company’s services for “harassment.”

It’s not clear whether the suspension is due to Twitch’s automated reporting feature, which tallies strikes for user-submitted reports of alleged harassment, or whether the company has taken direct action against Gargac for turning passengers into content for his online audience.

The suspension comes less than a day after Gargac was exposed in a deeply reported article by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ‘s Erin Heffernan, who apparently reviewed dozens of hours of Gargac’s stream going back months. Heffernan’s story — which, if you haven’t, you should really read right now — is full of details indicating that Gargac intentionally misled passengers about the nature and purpose of his in-car recording operation.

The Post-Dispatch also managed to track down several of those passengers. One told Heffernan, “I feel violated. I’m embarrassed.”

It’s worth noting that when it comes to recording people, Missouri is a “one party” consent state, meaning that consent is only required by one party in a conversation to make that recording legal. In this situation, Gargac is arguing that his stream fell within the bounds of the law, since he was one of the people being recorded, and he certainly knew about it.

But Twitch apparently took a different view of things.

This afternoon, Gargac announced his suspension from Twitch in a post to his channel’s Discord chatroom. (Discord is a third-party chat client widely used by Twitch streamers to host dedicated chat communities around their channels.)

Gargac, who claims that that he’s never used his stream to harass anyone, then posted the email notice from Twitch itself:

In an earlier posting on the Discord thread, Gargac defended his streaming channel and called the Post-Dispatch story “bullshit.” He also complained that he’d only participated in the story because he knew it was going to be written anyway.

It’s not as though Gargac totally ignored the issues raised in the article. Today’s suspension followed a short-lived moment in which Gargac seemed to admit that he’d crossed a line with his stream. Early this morning, Gargac tweeted that he had decided to delete the stored videos on his Twitch page.

However, hours later, on his Discord page, Gargac walked back that decision, writing that he regretted deleting the videos:

“The main point of the cameras and the stream is to be able to protect myself from either criminal activity or fictitious claims from riders,” he wrote in a chat timestamped 11:19 am.

Gargac repeated his argument that his Twitch stream had not created a platform for harassment — a claim he also made in the Post-Dispatch story. But in that story, Heffernan noted that while Gargac had stated that his livestreaming was motivated by security concerns, he also couldn’t seem to keep his story straight.

Heffernan wrote: “In the same interview, however, Gargac said he started driving Uber and Lyft for the purpose of creating the livestream. Not the other way around.”

That’s not the only example of Gargac trying to argue both sides of the issue, and it appears that he’s been willing to bend the truth in the past when passengers confronted him about whether he was recording them. From the Post-Dispatch story:

In dozens of hours of footage reviewed by the Post-Dispatch, very few people seem to notice the camera. A few who asked were told by Gargac that he was recording for safety. He doesn’t always specify that he is streaming live.

In his Discord chats this afternoon, Gargac seemed to be trying to walk that same narrow line: defending his actions while admitting that, ideally, he’d prefer that his passengers not know that he’s recording them.

For instance, Gargac does have a sticker on the rear window of his vehicle stating, “Notice: For security this vehicle is equipped with audio and visual recording devices. Consent given by entering vehicle.”

But in his attempts this afternoon to address criticism that he’s generating attention and entertainment for his viewers by exploiting his passengers’ ignorance, he also seemed to undercut that argument. On the Discord thread, he brought up the fact that the Post-Dispatch had mentioned the sticker on his car warning passengers that he was recording. So, the argument seemed to go, the passengers should be aware, and everybody should just chill.

But then Gargac went the other way, writing of the sticker, “[G]ranted it was fucking TINY on purpose, but it was there.”

Gargac has also had his Uber account suspended, a measure first reported by

Mashable reporter Kellen Beck.

“The troubling behavior in the videos is not in line with our Community Guidelines,” a spokesperson for Uber told Beck. “The driver’s access to the app has been removed while we evaluate his partnership with Uber.”

On the Discord chat, Gargac confirmed that he’d been suspended from Uber, though he contested that it had anything to do with alleged harassment.

“I am deactivated at the moment,” he wrote, “but its not from livestreaming. Its something that should be fixed soon.”

Gargac is an Army veteran and is a licensed peace officer in Missouri. He’s apparently looking for his first gig as a police officer. For more info on this guy and his stream, go read the Post-Dispatch story. Update, Sunday 9:30 a.m.: According to a morning tweet from Post-Dispatch reporter Erin Heffernan, Gargac has also been booted from Lyft.

And now @lyft has deactivated Jason Gargac too. (Still no response to larger question on livestreaming policy though.) Statement: pic.twitter.com/1jglSYnepv — Erin Heffernan (@erinheff) July 22, 2018

Follow Danny Wicentowski on Twitter at @D_Towski. E-mail the author at [email protected]

DOYLE MURPHY — Cori Bush on the protest lines last year.

DANNY WICENTOWSKI — Cori Bush, shown at a 2016 candidate forum, is seeing new interest in her 2018 race.

Last night, as election returns from New York City’s outer boroughs suggested that a community organizer might topple a sitting Congressman, few people were more excited than Cori Bush , the activist and organizer who hopes to have the same impact on Congressman William Lacy Clay Jr. (D-St. Louis).

It wasn’t just that Bush saw the echoes of her own campaign — although that was certainly part of it. It’s also that she and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had become friends as they mounted their quixotic challenges.

They’d spoken that very afternoon, and Bush says Ocasio-Cortez was philosophical: “We did the best we could do” — the sort of things people say when they’re staying hopeful, but assume they’ll lose. And who wouldn’t make that assumption? Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t just taking on a high-ranking member of Democratic leadership in his own backyard; she’d been outspent 18 to 1.

Yet the returns didn’t lie. “I kept refreshing my screen,” Bush recalls. “When the AP called it, I was so overjoyed I couldn’t stop crying.”

It wasn’t just Bush thinking of Ocasio-Cortez. In her moment of victory, Ocasio-Cortez was also thinking of Bush. In one of her first tweets after being declared the winner, the 28-year-old tweeted, “There are more of us, too: @CoriBush, @Chardo2018, @AyannaPressley & more. We need to elect a corporate PAC-free caucus if we’re going to get things done.” The tweet drew more than 11,000 likes.

“The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.” – @AyannaPressley . Vote her in next, Massachusetts. There are more of us, too: @CoriBush , @Chardo2018 , @AyannaPressley & more. We need to elect a corporate PAC-free caucus if we’re going to get things done. https://t.co/M2tF5cedTs — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 27, 2018

The combination of the high-profile tweet and the clear similarities between the races were enough to put Bush on the best kind of blast this morning. “Oh my goodness, my phone, my Facebook, my Twitter, my Instagram — it’s all blowing up,” she says. “I can’t keep up!”

When Bush first met Ocasio-Cortez more than a year ago, Bush already had one campaign under her belt, a long-shot run in hopes of taking down Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri). Jason Kander beat her in the primary, but the race put Bush on the radar of various national groups. Last year, Brand New Congress , which had been founded by former Bernie Sanders’ staffers, reached out and ultimately made Bush its first 2018 endorsement.

And so when the group was looking at other races, and Ocasio-Cortez was on the fence, its staffers connected her with Bush. The two women clicked.

The two shared a commitment to progressive values — and, like Sanders, to saying no to donations from corporate PACs. “That’s something that’s very important to me,” Bush says. “I’ve been offered plenty, but I’ve turned them down.”

The reason, she says, is simple. “When corporations are your main donors and have been for many years, you have a particular loyalty because of that. You may not even realize that’s what’s happened. But you lose the voices of the people who are actually voting you in.” Of Clay, she says, “That’s what I’m hearing and seeing in the first district.”

But while Ocasio-Cortez was running against a white male, a symbol of entrenched party power, Bush has a more complicated fight. Congressman Clay isn’t just black — he’s the son of a civil rights icon.

Bush doesn’t shy from addressing that. “At first, I would hear that: ‘We are loyal to Lacy Clay’s father,’” she says. “Well, if you’re loyal to his father, then you’d think the legacy of that would be to vote for someone like him, someone from another generation following in the same footsteps. That, to me, is the legacy.”

A prominent face during the protests that broke out after Jason Stockey’s acquittal last fall, Bush is also an ordained minister and a gifted public speaker. At 41, she’s a bit older than the 28-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, but still very much an outsider, and a member of a different generation than the one in power (and in bed with big donors).

She notes that Missouri has never elected a black congresswoman, but thanks to the shot in the arm from her colleague’s upset in New York, she’s convinced this will be the year.

“What people just witnessed in New York, that’s doable here if we do it together,” she says. “It’s time to stop looking at it like it can’t happen.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story referred inaccurately to the party affiliation of Senator Roy Blunt. He is, of course, a Republican. We regret our very bizarre mental lapse.

DANNY WICENTOWSKI — St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.

First the St. Louis Board of Aldermen voted to handle marijuana possession more like a traffic ticket than a criminal case — deciding in 2013 that anyone caught with 35 grams or fewer would be adjudicated through the city’s low-level courts, not the circuit attorney’s office.

Then, in March, the aldermen reduced the fine assessed for such citations from $100 to $500 to just $25 .

And now St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner says her office won’t prosecute cases involving 100 grams of marijuana or less unless there are aggravating circumstances. In an email to staff yesterday first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , Gardner said her staff would begin reviewing and dismissing past cases.

“Effective immediately we will no longer issue possession of marijuana cases under 100 grams as the lead charge!” Gardner wrote.

Is it fair to say marijuana is now effectively decriminalized in St. Louis? Well, maybe not so fast.

Gardner’s administrative decision follows an effort at the Board of Aldermen, led by Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green, to do just that legislatively. Green’s proposal, which ultimately failed, would have barred city staff from expending any resources on the possession of two ounces of marijuana or less — which translates to about 56 grams.

Gardner’s new plan, obviously, goes even farther, but Gardner’s decision only affects her office: The city counselor’s office would still be able to issue citations. As the RFT reported earlier this year, despite the 2013 “decriminalization,” police have continued to cite large numbers of people for possession , the vast majority of them black . The only difference is that their cases were then adjudicated by the city counselor’s office, not the circuit attorney — and did not result in “criminal” charges but rather citations.

Those citations are not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Some attorneys warned that those citations still cause trouble on background checks. “People think this is nothing, but if you plead guilty to it, even in a municipal court, it would show up in a criminal background check. It doesn’t matter how low the fine is,” explained attorney Andrea Story Rogers.

Still, getting a mere citation when you’re carrying a large quantity of marijuana would surely feel like a relief — although the U.S. Attorney’s Office may prove a wild card. The Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions may not smile on the idea of suspects in St. Louis being turned loose after being arrested with 99 grams of marijuana — and the office has recently shown a willingness to prosecute cases in the city that would normally be handled by the Circuit Attorney’s Office. (One example: a robber who roughed up a clerk at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams might normally have been charged by Gardner’s office with aggravated assault. Instead, federal prosecutors charged him with “interfering with state commerce.” He’s now looking at up to twenty years in federal prison.)

So, the ramifications of this could take awhile to sort out. But it’s safe to say this should be good news for potheads — good enough, even, to light up a celebratory bowl. Just make sure you don’t pack it with more than 100 grams.

Update:

Jeff Jensen, the U.S. Attorney for Missouri’s Eastern District, tells us in an email, “Our office will continue to prosecute violations of federal law. Prosecution is based upon the sufficiency of the evidence and the prudent use of federal resources.”

Worth noting: As states have decriminalized marijuana, federal prosecutors have in some cases picked up the slack. A report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that marijuana offenders comprised 93.8 percent of all simple possession cases charged by the federal government in 2013 — and that prosecutions for marijuana possession had risen 803.8 percent since 2013. And that was under President Obama.

The median sentence for those charged with simple possession by federal prosecutors at that time, the report found, was six months in prison.

SnapChat — Tabitha Duncan, shown in a screenshot, was recorded saying terrible racist things on video.

Update: The U.S. Air Force is investigating after people identified the woman as a new enlistee. In a statement, a spokeswoman said, “We have been made aware of a video online of an alleged reserve Airman who made racially insensitive comments. We are looking into the matter and we appreciate this being brought to our attention.”

The full statement is posted at the bottom of the story.

Guess she’ll be hunting for a new job.

A Jefferson County woman filmed in one of the most racist, redneck Missourah scenes imaginable was fired from her south county waitressing gig today after the video went viral.

In the clip, twenty-year-old Tabitha “Tabbie” Duncan, Michelob Ultra in hand, rides atop a truck as it rambles down a dirt road in the dark. It’s pretty standard small-town idiocy, until a mostly off-camera narrator starts in with some jarring racism.

Narrator: “So we going n****r hunting today or what?”

Another idiot in a baseball cap: “We’re going n****r hunting.”

Narrator: “We’re fucking n****r hunting right now, uh?

And then Duncan chimes in: “You get them n****s.”

Warning: the following video contains unedited sound clips of the same conversation. Listener discretion is advised.

That’s a lot of terribleness for a fifteen-second SnapChat, horrifying enough that someone snatched the video and unleashed it on Facebook. Social media sleuths quickly identified Duncan as a waitress at Social Bar and Grill (4265 Reavis Barracks Road, 314-833-3241) . That led to a pretty energetic social media campaign to fire Duncan.

Social, a breastaurant based in south St. Louis County, had previously featured Duncan prominently in a number of its social media posts. Shortly before lunch, the bar pulled down those Facebook posts and issued a statement, announcing Duncan had been canned.

Social Bar & Grill and it’s owners have recently become aware of a vile, disgusting, and offensive video made by one of its employees. Upon learning of this, Social Bar & Grill immediately terminated this employee as soon as they could reach her! The incendiary comments made by this employee absolutely does NOT represent the views, opinions, and policies of Social Bar & Grill and it’s owners. Nor will they be tolerated in any fashion. Social Bar & Grill and it’s owners continue to encourage and seek diversity in its restaurant.

Duncan’s personal Facebook page previously included some pro-Trump memes and a meme bashing NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem. Yesterday, she shared a quotation about everyone making mistakes. The quotation, which apparently originated on a different page, reads, “Everyone makes, mistakes in life, but that doesn’t mean they have to pay for them the rest of their life/sometimes good people make bad choices/It doesn’t mean they are bad.”

Soon after posting it, she shut down her page.

Here is the full statement from U.S. Air Force:

We have been made aware of a video online of an alleged reserve Airman who made racially insensitive comments. We are looking into the matter and we appreciate this being brought to our attention. The U.S. Air Force values diversity and inclusion; our Airmen come together to produce an incredible team that can accomplish any mission and overcome any challenge. We believe that our greatest asset is our diverse, innovative and technically-savvy workforce. Our Airmen come from all backgrounds and remarks such as these do not fall in line with our culture. We take incidents like this very seriously and action will be taken upon further investigation as necessary.

FLICKR/ PAUL SABLEMAN — Gravois Park is one of the city’s more integrated neighborhoods.

Of the 50 largest metros in the United States, St. Louis has the sixth highest rate of minority residential segregation, a new report has found .

Researchers at housing search and research company Apartment List examined the intersection of factors such as median rent, median income and homeownership with racial composition in census tracts in more than 900 metros across the country. While urban America continues to inch toward increased diversity, its report concludes, all of the nation’s cities maintain some level of residential segregation.

Between 2009 and 2016, St. Louis metro’s overall segregation index, defined as the percentage of minorities who would have to relocate to new neighborhoods to achieve equal distribution across the metro, fell from 0.60 to 0.57, a marginal but promising decline. The specific segregation indexes in St. Louis for black, Hispanic and Asian populations were 0.72, 0.38 and 0.50, respectively.

In 24 of the top 25 largest metros, black populations were the most segregated minority group. In Phoenix, Hispanics earned that distinction. Milwaukee, Cleveland, New York City, Detroit and Buffalo were the top five for overall minority segregation indexes, with rates of 0.61, 0.59, 0.58 and 0.58 respectively.

These patterns of inequality serve as living artifacts of a pre-Fair Housing Act America. The legislation , which will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, prevents discrimination in housing purchases, rentals and financing. The Fair Housing Act has exerted its most potent effects in the metros that have experienced the most growth most since its passage. In these areas, minorities tend to be more evenly distributed. Conversely, metros that were well-established before the act — like St. Louis, which saw population growth of just 10 percent between 1970 and 2016 — tend to exhibit the most extreme residential segregation.

Segregation remains associated with greater rent burdens and low home ownership rates in concentrated minority tracts. This is particularly true in St. Louis. Across the metro area, home ownership rates for white, black, Hispanic and Asian residents are approximately 77 percent, 41 percent, 51 percent and 57 percent respectively, the study says.

Nationally, in census tracts containing 75 percent or more minority residents, renters tend to have lower incomes than the metrowide median. However, they do not pay proportionally lower rents, leaving them with greater rent burdens. In St. Louis, median renter income in concentrated minority tracts is $25,431, 24 percent below the metrowide median. Yet median rent is $850, just three percent lower than the metrowide median.

The study mentions that modern residential discrimination was born from such past policies as redlining, exclusionary zoning and restrictive covenants. Institutionalized residential discrimination has a long history in St. Louis, and most often targeted African Americans. A 1916 St. Louis ordinance prohibited buyers from obtaining property in a neighborhood already 75 percent filled by another race. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ordinance a year later, restrictive covenants, which prevented property buyers in certain neighborhoods from reselling or leasing to certain groups of minorities, surged in popularity. These covenants remained legal until another Supreme Court case in 1948.

While such practices may seem part of a bygone era, this study indicates they continue to shape residential patterns today, which in turn shape metropolitan America’s future.

“This issue has broad implications, since the neighborhoods in which we grow up play an important role in our success as adults,” the report says, noting that childhood neighborhoods are related to health outcomes, intergenerational mobility, rates of college attendance and even income as an adult.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said St. Louis’ race-restricting 1916 ordinance was the first in the nation. It appears we were beat by Baltimore. We regret the error.