Kit Bond

From The Star's David Goldstein: 

Two prominent Republicans were among three dozen civic and political supporters of Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill who met in Kansas City last Monday to hear her plans for re-election.

Both are top officials at Kansas City Southern, where the meeting took place. One was company Chairman Michael Haverty. The other was the meeting’s host, KCS Executive Vice President Warren Erdman, who used to be chief of staff to former Republican Sen. Kit Bond.

“I would like to see her back in the Senate,” Erdman said. “I don’t see her as a polarizing person. I see her as more of a pragmatist. I guess if you had to describe me, I’m a pragmatist. I like things that produce results.”

The man they called "Fed-Ex" for his ability to deliver on lobbyist favors was sentenced to five hours behind bars. Check out the Post Dispatch and AP write up: 

A former aide to Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond is spending an afternoon behind bars for taking a trip to the World Series paid for by lobbyists.

U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts sent 37-year-old Trevor Blackann to the Washington federal courthouse lockup for five hours Tuesday for failing to report the trip as income on his tax return.

Blackann, who also did work for then-Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri back in 2000-2001, pleaded guilty to the tax charge three years ago after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors investigating lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his practice of trading trips and other gifts for favors from public officials. One of Abramoff's associates helped organize Blackann's trip to Game 1 of the 2003 World Series at Yankee Stadium.

Blackann was forced out of public policy work after his guilty plea and now lives in Colorado.

Via JohnCombest.com: Former Senator Kit Bond delivered Congressman Todd Akin from wealthy/important person suite to wealthy/important suite at the Mizzou v. Miami football game two Saturdays ago, a move that would be hard to read as anything other than an implicit endorsement at this point in the game GOP Senate primary. Dave Drebes makes the call in his post on the escort: Kit Hearts Todd.

The Akin campaign is certainly happy to signal the support. In a Facebook photo album posted by the campaign after the game, we see this happy trio. 

Under further review, it's not hard to misread John Hancock's refusal to let the public meet client John Brunner, either. The man isn't ready for the bright lights and direct questions that come with a statewide campaign for the U.S. Senate. With each week of radio silence from the Brunner camp  Hancock's office, we shouldn't be surprised to see shows of public support like the one above for candidates who aren't afraid of the voters.

The League of Conservation Voters released its annual environmental voting scorecard today.  Eighty-one House members received "zero" ratings for their votes against clean energy and commonsense pollution safeguards -- and four of those zeros came from Missouri.  

Here's how the LCV summarizes their methodology:

“While the lack of progress in 2010 is highly disappointing, we applaud those members of Congress who fought to protect public health and the environment and reduce our nation’s dangerous dependence on oil,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. “Conversely, the 2010 Scorecard clearly exposes those members who put corporate polluters and other special interests ahead of the health and well-being of all Americans by opposing efforts to transition our nation to a clean energy economy, enforce commonsense pollution safeguards, and protect the environment.”

We interrupt your extended Ronald Reagan birthday party to bring you this video of the Gipper's Solicitor General, Harvard Law Professor Charles Fried, explaining to the Senate Judiciary Committee his thoughts about the Affordable Care Act's health insurance mandate.  "I am quite sure that the health care mandate is constitutional," he told the committee. "The mandate is necessary to the accomplishment of the regulation of health insurance."

It isn't exactly earth-shattering news that conservative legal scholars affirm the constitutionality of the bill -- Sen. Kit Bond, for instance, co-sponsored legislation in the 1990s that featured an individual health insurance mandate.  But facts haven't exactly gotten in the way of Republican grandstanding on the issue, as you know. 

Watch some of Friend's testimony, as posted by ThinkProgress:

In the second sentence of a farewell column published in the Columbia Business Times (and perhaps elsewhere), Sen. Kit Bond decries the "government takeover of health care."

Maybe Kit missed the memo about how this junk is PolitiFact.com's "Lie of the Year?"  Or maybe telling the truth wasn't the point in the first place?  Either way, he can stop now.  

Greg Sargent reports this afternoon that "even right-leaning commentators and political operatives are growing mighty uncomfortable with the Senate GOP's stance" against legislation to provide health benefits for 9/11 first responders.   Earlier this month, Sen. Kit Bond voted to continue a Republican filibuster of the bill.  (Yes, we're talking about the same Kit Bond who very recently advised his Senate colleagues to to "work together, play nice.")

Here's video from this morning's Joe Scarborough show:

Yesterday, 65 senators -- including 8 Republicans -- cast a huge vote to end the nation's discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Sen. Claire McCaskill voted for equality, and Sen Kit Bond voted against.  President Obama is expected to sign the legislation next week, and then:

the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Obama must work out an implementation plan and officially certify that the military is ready to allow its gay and lesbian servicemembers to come out of the closet. Sixty days after that, DADT is "officially" repealed. Such is the language of the bill the Senate passed today and the House passed earlier in the week.

But repeal could effectively be in place far earlier than that. Following the cloture vote today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on the Pentagon to suspend all DADT discharges and investigationsimmediately, something gay rights advocates say Defense Secretary Robert Gates can order whenever he wants.

As you may recall, Kit Bond has voted for the Republican filibuster of the 9/11 first responder legislation in question.

h/t Juan Cole

The $858 billion tax cut and benefits legislation to extend Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits easily passed the Senate this afternoon.  Both Sen. Claire McCaskill and Sen. Kit Bond voted for the bill, which passed 81-19.

A great segment. Hypocrite Kit Bond appears at the 5:15 mark as an example of Republicans "using 9/11 as the date when magically all of your policies became right."

The good news for folks who dislike Sarah Palin is that there are a few billion different ways to talk about why she's unfit for...anything.  Kit Bond's beef?  That little fact that she quit her job as Governor of Alaska after just two and a half years in office. In the Star this weekend:

Asked to name his choice for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, Bond didn’t mention current front-runners such as Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Instead, he listed a trio of dark horses: South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.

“Those are people I think might be good,” Bond said.

Of Palin, the former Alaska governor, he said, “I have reservations about anyone who quits as governor halfway through the term.”

By way of comparison, Jay Nixon will pass Palin's mark for time as Governor in August 2011. If Nixon had been picked to run for Vice President at the same point in his term, that announcement would have come on October 8 of this year.

"That's the principled pledge you want to stand by? 'Bros before heroes?'"

h/t TPM

Sen. Kit Bond has attached his name to an amicus brief with several other Republican Senators claiming that the new health care reform law is unconstitutional "dramatically oversteps the bounds of the Commerce [Clause]."

This is just a wee bit incredibly hypocritical for Bond, who co-sponsored legislation in the 1990s that featured individual health insurance mandate.

I see in the Star's new profile of Roy Blunt that the Congressman "has a sense of history."  This isn't all that surprising, I suppose.  Even the casual Washington historian knows that an honest discussion of his history in Washington is bad news for Blunt, which is why the man doesn't want to talk much about his time in the disgraced House Leadership team with Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert, the many disturbing connections to the scandal of his friend, felon Jack Abramoff, all the things he did to be named one of the "Most Corrupt Members of Congress," etc.

But I spit out my coffee this beautiful Saturday morning when I read the following:

Now his political opponents are trying to tag him the opposite — the consummate Washington insider, a friend of lobbyists linked to the tarnished old guard of Capitol Hill.

Those who’ve known him all these years know better.

“I’ve not seen that Washington has changed Roy,” said retiring U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, who was a newly elected, 33-year-old governor when he signed off on the Greene County Commission’s selection of Blunt as clerk. “When we talk, we talk about what’s going on in Missouri, not what’s going on in Washington.”

Ha!  Maybe Bond missed those stories about how his humble Ozark friend just happened to become the #2 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, trade up to a $1.5M mansion in Georgetown and become with his new wife "part of the old-school Georgetown social establishment, which keeps them in the pages of Washington’s glossy society magazines?" 

Of course, Bond has been very busy serving in the U.S. Senate since 1986, so it's completely reasonable for him to not understand that Blunt wasn't a major player in Washington just a couple of years ago, before his own party booted him from leadership because of his failures and ties to "the tarnished old guard of Capitol Hill." As printed in the Post-Dispatch, February 3, 2006.

FRESH FACE ISN'T BLUNT'S

In a surprise turnabout, House Republicans rejected Roy Blunt's bid for House ajority leader Thursday, opting to put a new face at the leadership table amid a sea of discontent, desire for reform, and election-year jitters.

GOP members picked Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as their No. 2 leader in a topsy-turvy election that Blunt, R-Mo., had been expected to win. Buffeted by a widening corruption scandal and sagging public approval ratings, GOP lawmakers itching for change rejected Blunt's pitch that he was a proven leader who would provide vital continuity and legislative results at an already tumultuous turning point for the party...

Blunt's downfall was not solely due to his status as an incumbent.

Lawmakers said that his deep ties to the lobbying effort, his status-quo agenda, and his close relationship with ex-House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, helped doom his bid. DeLay was forced to step aside after a Texas grand jury indicted him last year; he also is under scrutiny in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

When DeLay was the GOP whip, he tapped Blunt -- then just elected to his second term -- to be his deputy. And Blunt had taken over a key DeLay initiative to coordinate the GOP agenda with Washington lobbyists.

Blunt "is part of the team that people wanted a break from," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who supported Shadegg. "People were ready for more reform than (Blunt) was offering."

Check out Kit Bond's argument in this Missourinet story about ending the Bush tax cuts for household income above $250,000 a year. 

President Obama is asking Congress to let tax cuts put in place by the Bush administration expire, but only for those making $200,000 dollars or more or couples earning $250,000 or more.

Bond says the cuts need to stay in place across the board...

Bond says four democrats and one independent voted against the measure on the Senate floor. The White House says 3 percent of Americans would be impacted...Bond says it’s closer to 25 percent.

Reasonable people disagree about the wisdom of allowing the tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest families.  Is now the right time?  How long should they be extended before addressing the deficits they are causing and will cause?  But the idea that 25% of Americans make $200k on a year (or $250k as a family) is crazy. 

Sadly, Missourinet doesn't provide any information to listeners or readers to help sort through the huge discrepancy between the White House and Bond talking points. In fact, it's entirely possible (likely, even) that the Missourinet story misrepresents a carefully crafted GOP talking point about the number of people who are "impacted" by a potential tax increase on the very wealthy.  The White House is talking about the people actually impacted.  And Bond may be talking about people once- or twice-removed from the wealthy taxpayers who would actually see their tax rates return to previous levels.   Or maybe Kit Bond is really off the rails here....

CNNMoney took a look at this dispute last week:

How many small business owners would President Obama's plan affect?

Obama wants to raise income tax rates on individuals making more than $200,000 and joint filers making $250,000 and up. That would affect 3% of all taxpayers who report business profits (known as "net positive business income") on their individual tax returns, according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax gurus on Capitol Hill.

All told, we're talking about approximately 750,000 individuals.

How much small business income does that small minority generate?

Next year, an estimated 50% of all business income reported on individual returns will be generated by that small minority of taxpayers who file at the top two rates, the JCT estimates.

That comes out to nearly $500 billion. (The Bush tax cuts: What you need to know.)

The Washington Post: "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a Democratic plan to encourage companies to bring jobs back from overseas, as a united GOP caucus voted against a motion to debate the measure on the Senate floor. The motion failed 53 to 45. The legislation would have raised taxes on corporations that shift operations overseas, costing U.S. jobs. It also would have awarded companies that bring jobs back from abroad by offering a two-year hiatus from payroll taxes for those positions."

Sen. Kit Bond voted against the cloture motion, which requires 60 votes before the full bill can be brought up for a final vote.  Sen. Claire McCaskill supported the motion.

Politico: "Senate Democrats fail[ed] to break a Republican filibuster of a defense authorization bill that also would have allowed the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces. The bill was defeated on a largely party-line vote, 56-43, as Democrats failed to find a single GOP senator to agree to open debate on the bill. The filibuster ends what gay rights advocates had believed was their best hope of nixing the 17-year-old policy. "

Sen. Kit Bond voted to sustain the filibuster.  Sen. Claire McCaskill voted to end the filibuster and move the bill forward.

Via the Pitch, here's some quality video of McCaskill questioning Admiral Mike Mullen about the current policy.

Roll Call: "Senate Democrats beat back nearly unified GOP opposition to a $26 billion education and Medicaid funding measure, winning a key procedural vote Wednesday with the help of Maine Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe."

The legislation will provide crucial Medicaid and education funds to help balance Missouri's budget (and other state budgets), and actually reduces the federal deficit, but Republicans opposed it en masse because...well, that's what they do.

Count me among the folks who didn't find the humor in this story from the Alzheimer's Association roast of Kit Bond on Saturday night.

A video montage of Bond's on-air gaffes also showed an interview in which Bond said of water boarding: "It's like swimming, there's different types like freestyle or the backstroke." The video then showed synchronized swimmers in a pool.

"Maybe we should make water boarding an Olympic sport," [Kenny] Hulshof said.

Torture isn't funny.