'thebestinmo'

President of the Board of Aldermen, Lewis Reed, is throwing a fundraiser at the 3rd Degree Glass Factory...<continue reading>

Fired Up! Missouri has chronicled a list of questionable behaviors on the part of Peter Kinder as well as pointing out his weaknesses when it comes to ethics.  Even more evidence is appearing showing how beneficial it is to be a friend of Peter Kinder. 

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So Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson, after taking his time and waiting nearly a year before filing any charges at all against child predator Eric Feltner, has now allowed Feltner to cop a plea to a charge that does not even reflect the heinous nature of his crimes.  Though initially charged with two counts of providing pornography to a minor, Feltner today pled to the far more innocuous sounding charge of "display of sexual materials."  Here's what that statute says:

Public display of explicit sexual material.

573.060. 1. A person commits the crime of public display of explicit sexual material if he knowingly:

(1) Displays publicly explicit sexual material; or

(2) Fails to take prompt action to remove such a display from property in his possession after learning of its existence.

2. Public display of explicit sexual material is a class A misdemeanor unless the person has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of an offense under this section committed at a different time, in which case it is a class D felony.

3. For purposes of this section, each day there is a violation of this section shall constitute a separate offense.

Doesn't really do justice to the acts in which Feltner engaged, does it?  Does that statute sound like the right offense for some creep who was trying to send sexually explicit and graphic messages to a 13 year old girl? 

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All's quiet the morning after the primary elections, like the calm after a hurricane. Now it's time to survey the status of things and pick-up the pieces. Rivals of yesterday, are now comrades-in-arms heading into the November general elections....<continue reading>

THIS JUST IN:

Rod Jetton's presser today addressing Peter Kinder's recent brush with "ethics" apparently threw some tough talk back at Poor ol' Peter.   Basically calling Kinder a hypocrite, Jetton revealed Kinder's attempt to hire Jetton on his short-lived gubernatorial bid.

More via Rosenbaum..
 

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.

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There was ample disgust and discontent when Republican Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson waited nearly a year to file charges against Eric Feltner, a staffer to Peter Kinder and Kenny Hulshof, for his attempts to send pornographic communications to a 13 year-old girl.

Yet Richardson seems not to have learned his lesson, as he is reportedly taking his sweet time with the prosecution of yet another sickening Cole County criminal case.

Republicans like Mark Richardson talk about being "tough on crime."  Wouldn't it be ridiculous then for Richardson simultaneously to hem, haw and hand-wring when it comes to laying down the law with a fellow GOPer?

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. 

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Yesterday Matt Blunt signed into law a bill intended to toughen some sex offender laws.  Among the changes to statute was one that would change a certain offense from a Class C misdemeanor to a Class A misdemeanor.  As summarized by Senate research, the bill changes RSMo. 573.040 thusly:

Under this act, attempting to furnish pornographic materials to a minor is a Class A misdemeanor in the same manner as actually furnishing the materials to a minor. It is not an affirmative defense to prosecution that the person being furnished the pornographic material is a peace officer masquerading as a minor.

This is interesting, since furnishing pornographic materials to a minor is precisely the charge faced by former Peter Kinder and Kenny Hulshof aide Eric Feltner.   Story Continued »

We learned more than a week ago that disgraced Peter Kinder staffer Eric Feltner's arraignment had been delayed, pushed back to July 7th, leaving Feltner still unprosecuted and out among the rest of us and our kids and their internet connections.

Cole County prosecutor Mark Richardson, a Republican, has already drawn the ire of angry parents in the community for the lackadaisical pace of his prosecution and the minimal charges that he's filed against Feltner.  Some are now saying the outcry could be much, much greater if, as many expect, Richardson allows Feltner to cut a plea deal that allows him to excape from having to register as a sex offender.­ 

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History has proved that there are few things more precious (Yahoo IM is probably one) to Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder and the staff who work for him than the Tour de Missouri French-style bicycle race.  In fact, it seems that even folks who leave his office have a hard time letting go of their connection to the Tour.  

Take Jerry Dowell.  According to reports, Dowell recently took an unpaid leave of absence from Lt. Gov. Kinder's office in order to run the Congressional campaign of Blaine Luetkemeyer (who was a key cog in the Tour de Missouri via his role as director of the state's division of tourism, natch).  But in some ways it's like Dowell never left.  In fact, Dowell is still listed as the Executive Director of the Tour de Missouri on the tour's website contact page.

So is the Tour de Missouri just slow to update its website and excise Dowell's name, or is Dowell retaining the executive director title and all the inexplicable sway that apparently comes with it in MOGOP circles, even though he's on a "leave of absence" from the state? 

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Kenny Hulshof has been locked in a battle with opponent Sarah Steelman over which GOP gubernatorial candidate can rightly claim the mantle of "fiscal conservative." 

But this is a strategy that Hulshof obviously hasn't been pursuing for very long.  Just last May, Hulshof cast a Congressional vote against an amendment that, among other things, would have prohibited the use of federal funds for research on "social relationships and reproductive strategies of Phayre’s Leaf Monkeys."

Quite odd for an anti-research Republican who claims to be in favor of slashing government spending to have voted to pay for studies on monkey sex. 

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Probably time to take this page down, I'm thinking. 
 

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.  

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Ever since Fired Up broke Friday's news about the pornography charges pending against Kinder chief of staff Eric Feltner, capitol observers have been quick to point out the unusual manner in which the charges against Feltner have been handled.

Specific critiques have focused on Republican Cole County prosecutor Mark Richardson's course of action regarding the Feltner case.  Among the good questions that have been asked...

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