Peter Kinder

Sam Page defeated Peter Kinder in second quarter fund raising according to the News Leader.

For a challenger with primary opponents to out-raise an incumbent is great news for the challenger and bad news for the incumbent.

In a related story, the News Leader reports that Kinder managed to spend more than he raised in the second quarter.

It seems that Peter Kinder has endorsed Kenny Hulshof. Considering that the success of Kinder's past endorsements have lead to the expression "Kinder's Kiss of Death" a Kinder endorsement can only be "bad news" for the person being endorsed. 

Of course Hulshof will lose to Jay Nixon anyway so maybe "Kinder's Kiss of Death" does not matter in the case of Kenny Hulshof's campaign.

In a story on the Jetton-Kinder ethics showdown, Rosenbaum writes...

Barklage noted that Kinder never agreed to hire Jetton and had had no idea whether he would have. A spokesman for Kinder said the first-term lawmaker would not have hired Jetton.

Ouch! From statewide elected office to freshman legislator in the space of one sentence.  Of course, we should be so lucky.­ 

Out of the ether floats word that Peter Kinder has decided on a replacement for Eric Feltner, the chief of staff forced out after being charged with furnishing pornography to a minor.

According to sources, Kinder will name Rich Aubuchon, currently of the Office of Administration, as the new chief of staff for the office of Lieutenant Governor.  Most of you will remember Aubuchon as the man who was made provisional point-person by Matt Blunt for purposes of destroying electronic records of emails from the governor's office and spearheading the campaign of public disinformation and lying to the media.

Aubuchon appears a curious choice by Kinder in replacing a staffer whose tenure in office ended in scandal, as Aubuchon remains embroiled in legal controversy himself.  Aubuchon is one of several named defendants in Scott Eckersley's lawsuit against Team Blunt and has been outed as the Blunt aide who delivered a message to the administration's IT chief that Blunt wanted electronic tape backups destroyed.

There was ample time for Republicans of all kinds --Congressional Republicans, statewide elected Republicans, legislative Republicans-- to stake out a position in opposition to Rod Jetton's clearly untoward political consulting business when the issue first arose a couple years ago.   Of course, none of them did. 

Not Sarah Steelman, not Peter Kinder, not Kenny Hulshof.  None of those moral midgets thought Rod Jetton's consulting arrangement, which was as inappropriate then as it was during this session, was something with which they should concern themselves. 

But now that Jetton is a lame duck, term-limited Speaker who has lowered the gavel on his last meaningful legislative session these prominent Republicans are falling over one another trying to find a podium or an open mic from which they can tsk at Jetton and feign outrage at a practice of his they've known about since early 2006. 

Over the last four years, there is a list longer than your arm of ethical improprieties in Jefferson City and across Missouri which Peter Kinder saw fit to ignore completely.  Kinder never, not once, piped up to talk about ethics in government during any of the following ethical lapses and scandals...

The fee office scandal

The Jewell Patek-Andy Blunt favored lobbyist strongarm

The Fred Ferrell sexual harassment scandal

The Blunt brothers' Show Me Ethanol escapade

The Nathan Cooper illegal immigration saga

The Carl Bearden lobbyist-and-legislator-at-the-same-time trick  

Catherine Hanaway's Sweetheart Deal for Nathan Cooper

The Scott Eckersley firing

The Governor's Sunshine Law violation and cover-up

The Randa Hayes fiasco

Rudy Farber's $50K Purchase of a Transportation Commission seat 

Mike Kehoe's illegal in-kind bus donation to the Matt Blunt campaign

Yet now, all of the sudden, Kinder is drawing a bead on Rod Jetton, rolling out an ethics package clearly aimed at the Speaker.  I wonder if Kinder knows something the rest of us don't that he's trying to get out in front of by throwing Jetton under the bus?

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder recently addressed the meeting of a Missouri lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.  When Kinder finished his remarks and opened the floor to questions from those assembled, one officer asked Kinder about the series of events in his office regarding the charging of his chief of staff, Eric Feltner, for furnishing pornography to a minor.

The question set off a rambling seven-plus minute response --the length of which exceeded his initial remarks.  Though audio of the entire event is available here, below is a transcript of a particularly compelling portion.  In the excerpt, Kinder seeks to enlighten his audience about the "nature" of the behaviors undertaken by people like his former chief of staff:

It is in the nature of these charges and these people who engage in that kind of behavior, I will further add, that it is located in a very dark and compartmentalized part of their life.  I consulted with a prosecuting attorney who's known to many of you with a statewide reputation who has prosecuted some of these cases and he said "Governor, we have priests, we have captains of industry, we have respected professionals --lawyers, doctors and CPAs-- we have ex-cops who we have charged and in most cases you will find that they have displayed wonderful judgment, excellent judgment, were reliable employees in every other facet of their work life and their daily lives."  And they've got this little dark thing going over here that no one else knows about, including in this case his wife.  And it's in the nature of these things that they are unknown to the rest of us.  So that's what I'm dealing with there, and it's in the courts and I await resolution to the case. 

According to recently released state documents, GOP Attorney General candidate Mike Gibbons has asked the Missouri Development Finance Board to divert $5 million in job creation funds to Stages of Chesterfield, "a musical theatrical company that has four performance shows a year."

No word yet on whether MDFB President Peter Kinder is supporting Gibbon's bold jobs plan.

For some reason, Peter Kinder's office has removed from his website the photo that we'd put up to accompany this post.  You know the photo --the one with Peter standing with the Fair Queen, eyes bugged out, eating a hostess pie and giving the 'thumbs-up' sign.  Peter must be trying to lay low.   

Luckily a smaller thumbnail version of the photo is still hosted here, at least for now... 

A steady stream of tipsters and correspondents have weighed in on the child porn scandal in Peter Kinder's office, with a number of experienced state government managers and Jefferson City lifers pointing out some severe dissonance between the Friday self-exonerations from the Lieutenant Governor's office and the way state government ordinarily runs.  

These folks in the know point to the statements that were rushed out of Kinder's office late Friday afternoon, in which a Kinder spokesman stated...

"This morning, following the immediate resignation of Eric Feltner our office began a prompt review of Mr. Feltner’s time cards and request for leave forms.

“Office records indicate that Mr. Feltner was on compensatory leave for both days in question listed in court documents. May 25, 2007, Mr. Feltner took compensatory leave from 3:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. On July 5, 2007, Mr. Feltner took an entire work day of compensatory time."

As many have noted, Eric Feltner was an exempt management employee, a type not ordinarily entitled to or eligible for compensatory time.  

As reported by Dave Catanese on KY3 blog...

“As a result of a thorough review of his state computer and email, the Office of Administration has informed me that there is no indication that state resources were improperly used by Mr. Feltner pertaining to these serious allegations. Leave forms and time sheets for Mr. Feltner that have been provided to the media show that Mr. Feltner was on leave during the time frames listed in the prosecutor's charge."

Worth noting that this "thorough review" was conducted entirely between the hours of 11am and 4pm by the same Blunt Office of Administration that specializes in destruction of evidence, as witnessed during the Scott Eckersley episode.  Inspires a lot of confidence. 

As first reported here at Fired Up Missouri, Kinder Chief of Staff and former Kenny Hulshof District Director Eric Feltner has been charged with two counts of furnishing pornography to a minor.  

Observers note oddities in the timing of the charges.  According to the charging information, Feltner's criminal acts took place on May 25, 2007 and July 6, 2007 but no criminal charges were filed until May 21, 2008 --just days before the one year statute of limitations would have tolled on a misdemeanor charge.  The reason for the delay is unclear from court filings.

Fired Up Missouri has learned that the Chief of Staff to Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder has been charged with furnishing pornography to a minor.  Eric Feltner served as District Director for Congressman Kenny Hulshof before joining Kinder's staff in 2005.

Charging documents filed by the Cole County prosecutor indicate that Feltner was implicated via sting operation in which he engaged in explicit online exchanges with someone he believed to be 13 years old.

From Kinder's 2005 announcement of his hiring comes this bit on Feltner:

"I am very please to have someone of Eric's caliber and experience joining the staff. I look forward having him as an integral member of my team," said Kinder.

"Eric has been a very effective advocate on my behalf for over eight years," said Congressman Hulshof. "As one of my top advisors, he has played an integral role in both a political and official capacity since 1996. I thank him for his tremendous effort and wish him the best of luck."

Feltner is scheduled to be arraigned on June 27 in Cole County Circuit Court.

Jo Mannies reports on Peter Kinder's trip to the GOP State Convention (wonder if he rode his bike to Branson?) and comes back with some weak junk from the Lieutenant Governor.  From Jo's blogpost:

Kinder said in an interview Friday night that he doesn’t expect state Treasurer Sarah Steelman to follow suit. And when asked, he said he was not ready to endorse either her or U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof...

Kinder's lack of readiness is a bit odd considering that he was in attendance at the Kenny Hulshof fundraiser hosted by Andy Blunt in Jefferson City last week.   Story Continued »

The Blunt/Kinder axis decided to use The Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) as a political tool rather than allow the organization to serve the public interest by opening the doors of higher education.  Now, MOHELA will have to cut several critical student benefit programs.  The damage to MOHELA was not even the result of a tax cut or spending cut but the result of gross mismanagement of the program by the Blunt/Kinder axis.  Higher Education in Missouri suffers for  Story Continued »