The Source

The Source's 2009 Clown Awards

The Source's Annual Clown Awards were founded to recognize truly meritorious contributions to political idiocy.

Without further ado...

Most Likely To Spend an Uncomfortable Amount of Time Writing His Own Wikipedia Page

Winner: Jason Grill

When Jason Grill isn't rocking the party, he's seeking immortality in another way: by writing and revising an exceptionally flattering wikipedia article for himself. His monument will surely last until someone deletes it.

One of many clues that Jason Grill had been in town

The following tidbits show how the darker corners of Wikipedia (which generally tries to be objective) can be dominated by narcissism:

The Summer of 2000 truly inspired Jason to think about giving back to Missouri and the Kansas City Northland Community in the form of public service...

Voters appreciated Jason's sincerity, ideas and outlook for the future, clear moral vision, and willingness to bring Republicans and Democrats together to get the job done...

Grill's attempt to turn his wikipedia entry into a shamelessly transparent piece of campaign literature shows why some candidates shouldn't venture onto the internet. Wikipedia summarized the situation nicely: "This article or section has multiple issues." So does Jason.

Least Likely To Go To Washington

Winner: Jeff Smith

Viewers of the Jeff Smith documentary "Can Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore" didn't know that behind the scenes, 'little guy' Jeff Smith was engaging in a conspiracy to violate election ethics laws. This unexpected plot twist would later lead to two felony counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice, and eventually, his imprisonment.

Watching the story unfold, we couldn't help but wonder if someone hadn't mashed together episodes of Prison Break and Gilligan's Island.

Around the time when Jeff Smith he realized expressing remorse might get him leniency, it came out in spades. And then after he was sentenced, it dried right up again. But hey, at least he's writing a book. Maybe they'll turn it into a movie. Click here for some casting suggestions.

Most Likely To Get Taken Down With Jeff Smith

Winner: Steve Brown

Okay, so maybe there weren't many contenders for this award.

Brown was attached to the Jeff Smith story from the beginning, but only later would it be confirmed that he wore a wiretap to help implicate his best friend.

To his credit he had enough remorse to actually do something, and down the line he'd take some flak from Smith about it.

Steve Brown also deserves mention for a secondary prize, "Most Likely To Be Howard Beale." Beale was the nom de plume for an anonymous Fired Up blogger who posted during times Steve Brown probably should have been doing his job at the office. We pegged his identity back in 2007, and Howard Beale's sudden disappearance coincides with the sharp rise of Steve Brown's political problems.

Most Bribe-able

Winner: Talibdin El-Amin

If you aspire to low-level corruption in government, your role model might just be Talibdin El-Amin. Caught soliciting and taking a bribe from a gas station, El-Amin proved that corruption and success don't always go hand in hand. We don't know how many bribes he took over the course of his short career, but it only took one to end it. We'd make a joke about being bribed with Slim Jims and Ho-Ho's but corruption is serious business.

57th District Democrats, proving that they had learned their lesson and desiring to change their ways, replaced him with a tax dodger.

Most Likely To Be Thrown Under The Bus By Jay Nixon (And Backed Over)

Winner: Joe Bindbeutel

Click the image for a political cartoon courtesy of MOPNS.

Joe Bindbeutel, a Jay Nixon appointee, was at the heart of E.Coli-Gate. He was one of the first to learn about dangerous levels of E. coli in the Lake of the Ozarks, and he played a pivotal role in holding the information from the public. After weeks of prodding by the public and the press, he eventually came out and said it was all his fault, taking sole blame for the fiasco.

At the time it was obvious that he was throwing himself under the bus and that he was being rewarded for doing so. Many others, including several key figures in the Nixon Administration, had been involved and were busily trying to avoid the public's attention. His confession was disingenuous, but Nixon had just given him a cushy new appointment with a six-figure salary. The reward was significant.

Then the Missouri Senate held up his appointment.

Nixon ended up protecting his aides Jeff Mazur and Jack Cardetti. But Bindbeutel? His misguided loyalty turned him into an outcast. His appointment was withdrawn and life went on for the Nixon Administration. We almost ended up feeling bad for him.

Best Out-of-State Fundraising

Winner: Tommy "Two-Tones" Sowers

You're a Congressional candidate with a great bio, but nobody in your district is supporting you because they like the incumbent. What do you do? If you've got the connections, head to New York, meet up with your banker friends and get big checks. Then, if you have the mental flexibility of an Olympic gymnast, you position yourself as a populist with deep district roots. 

Sowers got an astounding 11.1% of his first quarter financial support from within his district, compared to 67.70% for Jo Ann Emerson in the same time period. Sowers willingly embraced the dubious honor of raising more money from New York than he did from Missouri, which is exactly what someone would do if they were campaigning from the wrong state. This theory has yet to be disproved.

Sowers has showed his commitment to hard policy solutions by telling 8th District voters he would have an opinion on cap-and-tax only after he was elected.

Tommy Sowers' deeply hypocritical campaign earned him the name Tommy Two-Tones.

Farewell and Good Luck to Dave Catanese

You might have heard that Missouri reporter Dave Catanese of KY3 news is moving upwards to the national publication Politico - and if you've read or watched his coverage over the years, you will know that it is long overdue.

Catanese is one of the brightest of Missouri's journalistic talents. Few of our reporters share his capacity for "moving the needle" in state politics, and constant news updates on his blog (ky3.blogspot.com) have been invaluable to those who wanted to stay informed.

Click here to listen to a thirty minute interview with Catanese.

We're sad to see him go, but this is something he has earned many times over. His departure will leave a significant void in Missouri political journalism.

Tuesday Round-Up

The Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC) is looking into whether its former director Pete Ramsel and subordinate Mary Murphy were justified in using MHDC funds to fend off an FBI investigation. The two approved each other’s reimbursements for legal fees – a bizarre arrangement, given that they were both being investigated. State Treasurer Clint Zweifel is requiring that they further explain their expenses.

24th State, which recently got a face-lift, has done an extensive roundup on the Jefferson County Dispatch 911 story.

Meanwhile, Bill Lambrecht at the St. Louis Dispatch is writing fluff pieces about McCaskill. 

Former AP Employee Rises to McCaskill's Defense

Earlier this month Claire McCaskill complained that health care reform threatened to interrupt her Christmas plans. Not being able to spend time with your family before Christmas is unfortunate - but did she honestly believe that she deserves the sympathy of the public?

She was elected, ostensibly, to represent the people of Missouri: who oppose the health care reform bill by a 57:40 margin. She stayed in D.C. to force the passage of a bill that her constituents didn't want. And she complained to them about having to do it.

Joy Freeland got to the heart of the issue in a letter to the KC Star:

I’m sure the millions of Americans who are still unemployed or underemployed are sad that McCaskill supported the disastrous, massive $787 billion pork bill that has done nothing to help them be able to participate in their family’s traditions at Christmas. I’m sure the hundreds of thousands of service men and women stationed in the United States and around the world who are defending McCaskill’s rights and freedoms are sad that they can’t participate in their family’s traditions at Christmas.

Who better to rush to McCaskill's defense than a 25-year AP reporter? Cliff Schiappa, who was an Assistant Bureau Chief before becoming the Midwest Regional Photo Editor (until this position was restructured) decided it was time to take a stand.

So this is the level of political discourse that we are wallowing in. Letter writers Joy Freeland and Marijane Green are so upset with Sen. McCaskill’s comment that she is sad not to be home with family at Christmas time.

May I assume that if the senator said, “Oh, I’m thrilled to be away from my family at Christmas time” it would have made Ms. Freeland and Ms. Green happier?

Sort of misses the point, right? It's not surprising to see a retired reporter standing up for an elected Democrat, but there's more to it than that. After being restructured out of the AP, Schiappa joined a multimedia production company created to help "green" non-profits. Here's part of their mission statement: "We are journalists with a sense of the greater good. We let our work tell the truth allowing the viewer to be inspired and moved, leading them to action and resolve."

Journalists with a sense of the greater good? Maybe we're old fashioned when we say that journalists should strive to be objective voices, fairly approaching both sides of an argument. It doesn't happen a lot in Missouri or elsewhere in the country, and Schiappa helps demonstrate why. Sometimes journalists decide that journalistic standards and things like neutrality get in the way of the "greater good". It's a curious justification for advancing partisan journalism that at the end of the day doesn't do much to inform the public.

Nixon: "You're Responsible For A Lot of Things"

Yesterday Dave Catanese interviewed Jay Nixon and hit a touchy subject: E.Coli-Gate.

Nixon told Catanese that he learned that he was "responsible for a lot of things" - but avoided answering if he had any regrets about how E.Coli-Gate was handled.

Let us get this straight:

One of his appointees (Joe Bindbeutel) helped conceal a health risk at the Lake of the Ozarks, disingenuously assumed the role of a scapegoat and was rewarded with a new $100k appointment. This appointment was only withdrawn once Senate confirmation put it dead in the water. Two of Nixon's aides lied to the public and the press about their knowledge of the test results (Jeff Mazur and Jack Cardetti). When they eventually released the information, Jeff Mazur tried to limit its release, even though the Lake of the Ozarks is a major state tourist donation.

Not only did Nixon refuse to discipline any of the involved parties (barring one two-week suspension), his administration engineered a probably unnecessary reorganization of the DNR that (1) protected everyone involved in E.Coli-Gate (2) fired lots of non-political, career employees who did their jobs properly.

In all this mass of information, Nixon can't find one thing that maybe he regrets a little bit? We can think of one or two things.

The source of the original problem, an unfortunate mix of incompetence and dishonesty in the DNR and Nixon Administration, is still there. Nixon's in a hurry to avoid a politically toxic issue, but we shouldn't be ready to move on until we know that real and responsive action has been taken.

That hasn't happened yet.

Carnahan Irony, Democrat Wins Another Fee Office

Courtesy of the Missouri Political News Service, Congressman Carnahan eating his own foot:

Carnahan earned some infamy for claiming that opponents of Obamacare were "attacking our representative form of government." It was one of many signs in recent years that he needed to be sent back to high school civics class.

MOPNS has pointed out that according to the latest Rasmussen poll, 57% (a majority) of Americans think the current health care plan should be scrapped. So now he's in the unenviable position of (a) being in the minority and (b) imposing policies the majority doesn't want.

Well done, Russ.

Meanwhile, the Nixon Administration hasn't changed its course on license offices. The Missouri GOP has criticized the award for the Clayton license office, which ...surprise... went to Democrat donors.

Nixon has focused Democrat success on only the larger and more profitable fee offices. Doing so has allowed him to maximize profits for Democrat donors and simultaneously claim that Blunt appointees and Republicans are still winning offices. But really, how important is the award for the Elsberry fee office (2008 transactions: $18,998) compared to the Liberty fee office ($545,511)?

All you have to do is follow the money. If the bidding process was truly competitive, Republicans and Democrats would have a roughly equal chance to win. But the results are skewed to the extreme. Narrowing the sample down to fee offices that earn over $400,000 (there are 19 of them) turns the bidding results into a laundry list of Democrat donors.

Everywhere you look there is still evidence that the bidding process has been corrupted. When Alternative Opportunities had 10 of its fee office contracts revoked, that was only a slice of the problem.

Tommy Sowers: Too Good For The Law?

We've stated several times why we believe Tommy "Two-Tones" Sowers is a paper tiger. Sowers has a great biography on paper, but a blatantly hypocritical campaign, a lack of any substantive policies and anemic support within his district all stand in the way of a successful challenge to Jo Ann Emerson.

Connections to New York bankers and Democrat insiders can only carry a campaign so far. At some point he'll have to go before the voters... but before then, he'll have to start obeying the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Tommy Two-Tones is far past a December 2nd deadline to file a Personal Financial Disclosure Form. The form offers a basic insight into a candidate's financial interests, and is designed to alert the candidate and the public about conflicts of interest. The penalty for not filing a personal financial disclosure form can be as high as $10,000.

It's the sort of issue candidates for Congress need to take seriously, if they think things like accountability and trust are important. But instead of fulfilling his ethics requirements in a timely fashion, he's been spending his time on out-of-state fundraising trips.

Two-Tones shouldn't just fill out the form because the law says he's required. If he really possessed the leadership qualities he's always telling people about, he would understand the merit of public disclosure and embrace it. Instead, he runs and hides from the rules that everyone else obeys.

All too often we see people throw their morals into the wind when they run for office, but they rarely do it with the gusto of Tommy Two-Tones.

Committee Investigating E.Coli-Gate: Officials Should Have Been Fired

The Senate committee investigating the circumstances behind the concealed E. coli tests at the Lake of the Ozarks, headed by Sen. Brad Lager, told the Columbia Tribune "You don’t fire low-level employees and protect political cronies.”

Nixon's press conference at the Lake of the Ozarks was marked by evasion

Lager was referring to the startling disparity in punitive measures taken in the Department of Natural Resources. Great efforts were taken to protect politically connected individuals like Jack Cardetti, Jeff Mazur, Mark Templeton and (initially, at least) Joe Bindbeutel.

Jack Cardetti and Jeff Mazur were both caught lying to the public about their knowledge of the test results - the most blatant instance of deception during E.Coli-Gate. They both escaped punishment completely, while numerous others were disciplined or fired. Even more were caught up in the DNR's 're-organization', mass firings of people who actually did their jobs. Remarkably, politically connected employees managed to keep their jobs, regardless of job performance.

If we apply the same standards used to punish non-political employees to Nixon’s aides and appointees, they would have been fired. When Nixon protected them he sent a clear and unequivocal message to the public: His cronies have no obligation to be honest to you, even when it means risking public safety. The image of his administration is more important.

The Nixon Administration offered a non-response to Lager’s statement, which included this gem: "For the first time, people at the DNR are being held accountable for those issues." Never mind that most of the characters involved either worked in Nixon's office or were Nixon appointees, and they were the ones trying to keep the DNR from being held accountable.

The Nixon Administration repeatedly lied to the public. When they got caught, the people who should have lost their jobs didn’t, and people who should have kept their jobs got fired. No problems have been solved. If the only reason the Lake of the Ozarks was cleaned up is months of press scrutiny, how do we know that this sort of issue won’t happen again? How do we know that it hasn’t already?

That’s the underlying problem: we can’t trust our Governor’s administration. If it can’t admit that it lied, even when everyone in the room knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that its representatives intentionally misled the public, there is absolutely no chance that it has reformed itself.

Jay Nixon's Budget Shuffle

When Nixon announced $204 million budget cuts in late October, was he supposed to be fixing our budget problems? After cutting $8,141,271 from higher education and $19,462,314 from elementary and secondary education, he announced yesterday that he was creating a $12,000,000 initiative to fund community college job training programs.

Recession? What Recession?

How many jobs will that create? Nixon doesn't know yet. When will it start creating the jobs? Probably around the time the recession is over.

Add in a biotechnology funding program that will cost "tens of millions of tax dollars" and a $15 million dollar giveaway through the Missouri Housing Development Commission, and we really have to wonder what Nixon's objectives are.

Next year Missouri will face a $1,000,000,000 budget shortfall compared to this year. That's on top of everything the state is already dealing with. The scale of the problem is hard to understate.

Watching budgets getting cut is an ugly process, and one reason not to let them get so big in the first place. Another reason is what we're seeing now: Nixon's conflated objectives (no doubt produced by his declining polling numbers) have his budgetary policies working in two opposite directions. The taxpayers end up getting the worst of both worlds.

Missouri's top priority should be balancing the budget, and it should act quickly. Adding tens of million dollars of liabilities the state can't afford is exactly the wrong idea.

Nixon Flails, Food Stamps and Jefferson County Dispatch 911

 Despite earning a B+ weekly grade from Dave Catanese, Nixon's poll numbers are still slipping. In what appears to be another attempt to stem the tide, Nixon is hyping the announcement of a "major" economic development plan. If he runs it like he did E.Coli-Gate and the fee office bids, we're sure the recession will be over in no time at all.

    On another note, after earning the dubious honor of having the country's highest food stamp participation rate (among those eligible) in the country, Missouri has been stripped of its title. The participation rate has been reduced from 98 percent to 70 percent. The announcement was prompted by the discovery of a computer glitch, which officials say only affected reporting, not how food stamps were actually issued. Nevertheless, scratch one up for government efficiency.

    If you haven't already seen it, 24th State is following a very interesting paper trail surrounding Jefferson County Dispatch 911. The posts stretch back a bit, go here to start at the beginning.