Fired Up! Missouri

“Clearly, surely, they’ve got something credible that makes them think that there might have been something wrong go on there.”

Rod Jetton on the federal investigation of his handling of a 2005 anti-adult entertainment bill, as quoted in The Star

Renee Hulshof:

My husband is convinced that the dems will get healthcare passed. This educated prediction from him is freaking me out.

MediaMatters fact-checked Roy Blunt's appearance on CNN yesterday, and -- this will shock you -- Blunt chose to play fast and loose with the facts.  Talking about the House GOP's health care plan, he claimed that "the Congressional Budget Office said would have reduced coverage cost for every single American that was gonna buy insurance."

This isn't actually what the CBO said.  The CBO looked at average rates for people who would still be covered under the GOP plan (52 million children and working-age people would remain uninsured), and said there would be "a great deal of uncertainty" for individuals and families.  And because Blunt and Republicans refused to follow through on their promise to make coverage affordable for people with pre-existing conditions, folks in poor health would certainly see higher rates -- if they find coverage. 

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Related stories:

• Promises Broken: House GOP Plan Doesn't Bar Discrimination For Pre-Existing Conditions
• AARP Will Endorse House Democrats' Health Care Bill
• CBO: Senate Democrats' Bill Will Cover 94% Of Citizens and Reduce Deficit by $127B
• Even The Mind-Numbingly Dumb Talking Points Are Wrong
• A Record That Needs More Than A Band-Aid
• How Do You Know Your Health Care Proposal Is Totally Awesome?
• "A Doozy That Essentially Does... Nothing"
• Story On GOP Health Plan Removed From WSJ.com
• Ideas So Awesome, They Had To Be Released On A Friday
• Blunt Fibs Again About His Health Care Record

Not ridiculous in any way:

Some Missouri legislators disagree. Representative Todd Akin, of Town and Country, called the health care bill "a threat from within and a danger from Washington D.C."

Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder agreed. "This is Pelosi versus the people," he stated, "and we stand with the people." Kinder went on to say that he believed democratic measures [sic] for health care would turn the country "into something that is unrecognizable" from the country he and members of the assembled crowd grew up with.

What, exactly, does Kinder think he'll be unable to recognize?  The all-American joy of being uninsured?  Budget-busting insurance rate increases?

Usurper Barry Soetoro is in St. Louis.

Rod Jetton, lobbyist Travis Brown and former HRCC Exec Dir. David Hageman testified before a federal grand jury today.

AP: "Americans have come to detest Congress ever more deeply as it nears the end of a nasty fight over health care. But more than half still back President Barack Obama."

MoDOT will cut 400 salaried positions to save about $203 million over the next five years.

When it comes to passing legislation in the Senate via the reconciliation process, Kit Bond is wrong and a hypocrite.

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House Minority Leader Paul LeVota said it’s time to look beyond cuts and rein in some special tax breaks.

The discovery of long-hidden evidence in a 19-year old murder case fuels hopes of death penalty opponents that the state will declare a moratorium on executions for two years.

The League of Conservation Voters named Roy Blunt to their "Dirty Dozen" list and launched BigOilBlunt.com today to call attention to his "abysmal" lifetime LCV environmental score.  From the website: 

How did Big Oil Blunt earn this dubious distinction?

• By voting against 35,000 clean energy jobs for Missouri… three times (twice in committee and once the House floor).
• By taking more than $1 million in campaign cash from Big Oil and energy special interests.
• By voting to maintain tax breaks and subsidies for polluting corporations while Missourians paid record prices at the pump.

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• By voting against a Renewable Electricity Standard in 2007 despite broad public support for such a standard. (In fact, the next year, Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved a statewide RES at the polls).
• By earning a flat 0% on LCV’s National Environmental Scorecard (and earning 100% on Big Oil’s report card).

The full "Dirty Dozen" list hasn't been announced yet -- only Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), former Congressmen Steve Pearce (R-NM) and Richard Pombo (R-CA) have been named so far.

Details here.

KMBC's Michael Mahoney:

Jefferson City lobbyist Travis Brown testified for about [40] minutes today before a federal grand jury investigating how the Missouri Legislature does business, according to Brown’s attorney Steve Hill.

Hill says Brown talked to grand jury for “about 40 minutes”. Brown made no comment to reporters after his testimony and left [the] Federal Courthouse quickly, escorted by his lawyer.

Brown is believed to have been the lobbyists for a group of adult business in 2006.

Brown has a number of high-profile lobbying clients in Jefferson City, including conservative financier Rex Sinquefield.  Brown is also a business partner with House Majority Leader Steve Tilley (R-Perryville). The pair own in Mid Missouri Aviation LLC, a "Columbia-based company that owns a six-seat turboprop plane." 

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An anonymous "Dear Colleagues" letter printed in December by The Star focused on the many connections between Tilley and Rod Jetton, the focus of the grand jury investigation. From that letter:

Our Missouri Republican House is full of hard-working, industrious legislators who are doing their best for Missouri.

But our attempts to build a better and stronger party are being held back by the waste and greed of select individuals who have directed the party's resources to advance their own agendas. It began with Rod Jetton, and continues today with Steve Tilley...

Speaker Jetton has blurred the lines between lobbying and consulting, deservedly attracting negative attention that unfortunately has fallen on our party as a whole. We owe each other loyalty but we should not allow our trust to be abused. It is our responsibility to disavow these actions, as well as the manner in which they continue today through the HRCC...

Through their multiple political connections, Tilley and Jetton are inexorably connected. After Jetton left the HRCC, his leadership committee was given a jump-start of $15,922.00 by a PAC connected to Tilley. Tilley has directly employed Jetton's consulting services, and their indirect relationships are too numerous to count here. Through them, Tilley has been linked to many of the same controversies that have embroiled Jetton.

Emphasis added. Also note that Tilley's current legislative director used to be a top Jetton staffer.

As Star columnist Barb Shelly wrote in January, "Jetton's thumbprints will never be removed from House business as long as his team remains in charge."

Todd Akin sure is confident that God is on Todd Akin's team. This morning:

[Todd Akin] credited divine intervention with the January election of Scott Brown, R-Mass., which deprived Democrats of the 60-seat majority needed to block fillibusters [sic]. Akin said he hoped God would intervene again in blocking the bill.

The Associated Press:

U.S. attorneys are pursuing allegations of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud as part of an investigation into former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton, according to court documents received by a former lawmaker summoned before the grand jury Tuesday.

Former Republican Rep. Bob Johnson, of Lee's Summit, said U.S. attorneys quizzed him about whether he knew of a $35,000 political contribution by the adult entertainment industry, and whether that money played a role in Jetton's decision to assign a 2005 bill regulating sexually oriented businesses to a committee Johnson led.

The same article notes that Jackson County Circuit Judge David Byrn and Chris Benjamin spoke to the grand jury in February. 

Bryrn was treasurer of the Committee for Honest Campaigns PAC that received the $35,000 from the People of Private Enterprise PAC in April 2005. The Star reported in January that Rep. Doug Ervin (R-Kearney) said Don Lograsso "told him that the Committee for Honest Campaigns was organized specifically to discreetly funnel donations that could be politically damaging to fellow Republican candidates."

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Benjamin was Jetton's chief of staff from 2005 to 2007.

Jetton is scheduled to testify before the grand jury today.

The Associated Press: "U.S. attorneys are pursuing allegations of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud as part of an investigation into former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton, according to court documents received by a former lawmaker summoned before the grand jury Tuesday."

Kit Bond and Roy Blunt have a new logo.

Reason #412,234 why comprehensive health care reform is a good idea: Rush Limbaugh says he'll leave the country if it's passed.

A bipartisan supermajority ended a GOP filibuster of legislation to extend unemployment benefits through the end the year today.  However, Kit Bond voted against the cloture motion to end debate on the bill. The Associated Press summarizes the proposal:

Legislation to give additional months of unemployment benefits to people who have been out of a job for more than half a year has won key GOP support that means it will soon pass the Senate.

The sweeping bill also would prevent doctors from absorbing a crippling cut in Medicare payments and extends health insurance subsidies for the unemployed through December.

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Eight Republicans voted with Democrats to defeat a GOP filibuster of the measure, setting up a final vote later today.

The bill also extends a variety of tax breaks for businesses and individuals that are popular with senators in both parties.

The final vote in the Senate is expected in the next few days; it has not yet passed the House.

ThinkProgress has a great video today of Sen. Kit Bond and other Republicans Senators rallying their colleagues to pass legislation with simple majorities in recent years. The filibuster "is the product of a rule of the Senate passed many years after the ratification of the Constitution. This rule does not derive from the authority of the Constitution," Bond says in the video. Watch:

As The Plum Line reported last week, Bond has voted to pass legislation via the reconciliation process at least 11 times since 1989.

Speaker Ron Richard has a message for all the haters who didn't like the way he blocked a House vote on autism legislation last year: Kiss his grits.

Speaking Friday with The Globe, The Most Powerful Man in Missouri cited to the recently-passed autism insurance legislation (HB1311) as evidence that he has been on the right side of the debate all along. "We were right, as usual. The House.  As usual, I was right,"  he says. Listen:

Last year, there was a consensus that something should have been done. There wasn't a consensus in the House, and I was somewhat criticized throughout the state that I just didn't ram something through.

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It's always been my goal, is to, to work through the process and make sure that we can get, number one, 82 votes, and make sure that we can get something that go through the Senate and get signed.

And, we had a number of communities working against that -- insurance community and what have you.

As it worked through, I got Kevin Wilson, one of my more respected regional leaders from Neosho, put together a program working from last summer all the way up to this year.  Put together a program. It passed in really good shape out the House.  It's on it's way to the Senate. The Senate believed that they had the plan, but they can't get it out of their body.

So it looks like we were right, as usual. The House.  As usual, I was right.

And our program is probably gonna be what is gonna be the model. And we're looking for, get the plan in the Senate, then go to conference and work out some differences.

Wrong. Richard was not criticized because he "didn't ram something through."  He was criticized because he didn't allow a vote on legislation that would have passed without his personal efforts to kill the bill.

The 2009 bill was supported by an overwhelming majority in the Senate; it passed by a 29-2 vote.  According to everyone not named or employed by Ron Richard, it enjoyed broad support in the House. GOP Sen. Scott Rupp:

Rupp said informal polling revealed the bill had 110 votes in the House, more than enough for passage. He said he thought Speaker of the House Ron Richard and other House leaders blocked the bill.

"We had overwhelming support from rank-and-file members, but key House leadership did not want it to come to fruition," Rupp said.

And indeed, it was Richard's great concern with the interests of the "insurance community and what have you" that prevented the vote. GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt:

[Schmitt] explained that in 2009, the autism bill was voted out of the Senate by a 29-2 vote. However, it was bottled up in a House committee and never made it onto the floor for a vote.

According to Schmitt, insurance lobbyists can take credit for stopping progress on the bill in 2009.

Yet in Richard's mind -- at least when he's talking to friendly hometown reporters -- this is hogwash. 

After months of being "somewhat criticized throughout the state," Richard spokesperson Kristen Blanchard said the whip counts of their GOP colleagues in the Senate were wrong because House Republicans were lying to their constituents and colleagues about their support for the bill.  Seriously. 

And now, in March 2010, Richard says he's just not uninterested in "ram[ming] something through." 

As usual, Ron Richard is right.

What did you do last night?  If your name is Roy Blunt, you were among the "Washington superstars" rubbing elbows with executives from Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Marathon, Valero and other corporations on Embassy Row in Washington, DC. 

The Washington Times reports today that Blunt was among the VIPs at the 2010 Kuwait-America Foundation Gala Dinner that "rivaled the Academy Awards celebration going on at the same time." The Hill paints us a picture:

The 144 guests at the intimate affair were also treated to musical selections by Motown singer-songwriter duo Ashford and Simpson, singing hits like “Solid as a Rock” and “You’re All I Need to Get By.” They ended their set with “Aint’ No Mountain High Enough,” which got the normally serious Washington crowd bobbing their heads and singing along.

Dr. Fareed Zakaria served as master of ceremonies during the four-course meal, which included: smoked salmon and sevruga caviar, a wild mushroom and foie gras terrine, New York sirloin strip steak, asparagus spears and wasabi mashed potatoes, salted caramel ice cream with chocolate crunch cake, and traditional Arabic coffee and sweets.

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The ballroom in the residence was decorated with tall, cascading floral centerpieces and brown and turquoise china at each table.

How glorious.

President Obama will continue to pressure Congress to pass his health care reform package in a speech Wednesday at St. Charles High.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, House Budget chair Allen Icet, Sen. Jane Cunningham and Eric Schmitt are headlining a health care town hall with Rep. Todd Akin on Wednesday to celebrate the status quo.  It's sure to be a fact-filled event.

Rod Jetton will appear before a federal grand jury Wednesday in Kansas City.  He is also scheduled to be arraigned on felony assault charges at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning in southeast Missouri.

In a short 24 hour-span last weekend, House Speaker Ron Richard (R-Joplin) declared and then denied a desire to be on a "short list" of Republican candidates for Governor in 2016.  Such plans were not welcomed by Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, who fancies himself a viable challenger to Jay Nixon in 2012.

The story seemed to be over as quickly as it had come, until Richard was asked about it by reporters for his hometown paper, The Joplin Globe.  At the end of the interview, Richard deviated from the blanket denial he gave The Beacon last Saturday, and again said he was interested in running for governor.  But to make the math work (and not hurt Kinder's tender feelings again), Richard says the Post-Dispatch's Tony Messenger made up the fact that he was thinking about running in 2016.

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GLOBE: You are a straightforward shooter, so the next question is, what are your -- what are your aspirations beyond the second [state senate] seat?

RICHARD: Well, when you called the other day, there was -- When we was at Lincoln Days, one of the Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked, and, the question got a little bit mixed. He asked, "Is it ever a dream of yours down the road, what would you like to do?"

And I said, "Well someday, I'd love to be at the table on the short list running for governor if there's ever an opportunity." 

Well, he took that one step farther and kinda put in a date. That's probably not gonna happen. But, you know, I didn't ever think I'd run for House either or the Senate.  I'm very fortunate.

But, you know, it's always nice to be at the short list, at least you can say, "No."

Southwest Missouri is at the forefront. We have a large number of votes. We're conservative to middle-of-the-road people down here.  I think that's what Missouri needs and requires. And I think we need a gray-haired guy once in a while to run the show.  And I've got plenty of gray hair. 

Missing words in the original.  Listen:

Richard's accusation that he'd been misinterpreted would be a lot more believable if he'd clarified them for the Post-Dispatch last Friday, for the salivating reporters the next day, or at any point last week. 

Image credit: St. Louis Beacon

Mike Carey, president of the American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy, was on KMOX's Hancock & Kelleyshow last week to talk about new billboards his organization is financing in the St. Louis area.  The American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy is a Washington, D.C.-based group financed by coal companies created to protect companies' ability to pollute at their current unsustainable levels.

In the interview, Carey was unable to provide the name of a single funder or supporter unconnected to the coal industry, and struggled to explain why his organization was not running similar ads in any other areas of the country. And just in case you thought the ads weren't political in nature, Carey admitted on air that his organization has only tried to purchase ads in one other Congressional district in the country: Arkansas's Second.  But when Democratic Congressman Vic Snyder announced that his retirement in January, Carey and ACARE lost interest.

Carey was last seen in St. Louis at the November 2009 "Tea Party" as a keynote speaker, along with the recently-arrested James O’Keefe.  The St. Louis Tea Party wrote at the time that Carey created his organization last year "when he saw that misinformation and lies were beginning to shape the political landscape on coal and global warming." Before serving as president of the ACARE, Carey was president of the Ohio Coal Association.

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Listen to the full interview here:

"I just haven't made up our mind."

Speaker Ron Richard, speaking with The Joplin Globe about what the House Republicans want to cut from the state budget.  The day before, Richard told reporters that he and "House Republicans" had a plan to "reform [government] top-to-bottom," but would not release said plan until Governor Nixon "stands with them to announce it."

Listen: