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Tea Partiers to gather in St. Charles and Washington D.C.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 2, 2009 - Area fiscal conservatives, and opponents of the Democrats' proposed health care changes, have a full schedule today.

At 5 p.m. in St. Charles, activists plan to hold another Tea Party at Frontier Park, just off of Main Street.

Dr. Bob Onder, a physician and former state legislator from Lake St. Louis, is to be among the speakers at that event, which will focus on opposition to the health-care proposals and support of states' rights.

Meanwhile, in Washington:

Americans for Prosperity, a pro-business group involved in some of the feisty congressional forums this summer, today is "delivering constituent statements recorded last month" to the Washington offices for U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill and U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Lexington.

As the group's state chairman, Carl Bearden of St. Charles, explained in a statement:

"Missourians want to make clear to Congressman Skelton and Sen. McCaskill their opposition to government-run health care.  They are asking to be involved in the discussion and we hope their representatives will actively listen to what they have to say," said Bearden.

"Also this Friday, leaders and activists from all across the country will meet on Capitol Hill (in Washington) for a rally to reinforce these messages with Congress: Spending is out of control, and personal liberties are being trampled on. Missourians are adding their voices to the defense of the American Dream."

Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.

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