TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

Guy from the internet company is working on it. We’ll be out of the game for most of the afternoon probably. Check back soon.

Morning Briefing – March, 8 2010

• President Obama is holding a fancy-schmancy $2400-a-plate fundraiser in St. Louis this Wednesday, to better sympathize with the plight of those who, in this troubled economy, can no longer afford to attend $3000-a-plate fundraisers. [St. Louis American]
• If the federal government gets its way, cops will be outlawed in Lebanon, MO. (And socialized “health care” torture panels will pump napalm into nursing homes, presumably). [Springfield News-Leader]
• Missouri State Politics’s most disturbing party boy in recent memory, the oh-so-gross former state assembly speaker Rod Jetton, has agreed to talk to a grand jury about strippers and ball gags and illegal campaign contributions and stuff like that because he’s very concerned and just trying to help, thanks. [KC Star]
• While the state of Missouri may care if you live or die, don’t expect anybody to pony up any cash–Missouri ranks 50th in the nation in state health care funding [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Morning Briefing – March 5, 2010 (Mid-Afternoon Edition)

• Your kid’s school ain’t gettin’ get jack shit. [Springfield News-Leader]

• The idea of the Fair Tax is as stupid as it is resilient. [Springfield News-Leader]

• St. Louis County administrators are UN-FUCKING-AWARE of the feds’ investigation into their mini-fiefdom built from sweetheart contracts. In  politics, if you ignore it, sometimes it really will go away. [KMOX]

• Loony-Ass State Representative Chris Kelly (24th)  is set for a fierce re-election fight with Republican Laura Nauser of Columbia. Capitol Calling’s Jason Rosenbaum talks about the competitiveness of Missouri’s 24th state congressional district. [Capitol Calling]

NEW: U.S. ATTORNEYS THAT AREN’T DICKS!

Meet your new KC U.S. Attorney, Beth Phillips, before she is unceremoniously dismissed when President Romney receives his instructions in secret golden tablet form from the ghost of Joseph Smith’s 36th wife.

[KC Star]

Sam Graves Pushes Gipper for Fiddy

Reasoning that the Republican party hasn’t already been wasting enough time lauding a then-senile, now-dead recent president for cheap, easy political points lately, Rep. Sam Graves (MO-6) is co-sponsoring a bill to replace Ulysses Grant’s image on the fifty dollar bill with the visage of our nation’s most oblivious chief executive, 40th president and noted chimp-whisperer Ronald Reagan.

Graves, a GOP water carrier from the usually fairly hotly contested 6th district, is doing everything he can to ride the wave of national discontent with the current democratic leadership in congress while avoiding actually doing anything of real consequence.

We’re Back

The MOGossip blog is back from the dead! Keep checking this space for new daily updates about the latest and dumbest in Missouri state politics.

This blog is on a temporary hiatus. Posting will resume in the near future.

Re-launching soon.

Morning Briefing – July 9, 2009

• Claire McCaskill won’t be supporting the Waxman-Markely cap & trade bill that recently passed the House, and she doesn’t think very many other senate Democrats will, either. [Huffington Post]
• Don’t mince words, Kit Bond, tell us how you really feel. Jeez. Somebody’s not terribly concerned about political expediency anymore now that they’re not running for reelection. We wonder if Bond will no-call-no-show during his last week in the Senate, like we do with all our jobs. [The Hill]
• Ike Skelton may have survived the 1994 GOP whiteout, but could he really be in trouble in 2010? Roll Call looks at a group of Democratic representatives from districts in which John McCain won a plurality of the 2008 vote. [Roll Call]
• State Senator and brave bowl-cut holdover Chuck Purgason (R-Caulfield) is thinking about wasting some time and money in a primary fight with Roy Blunt for the 2010 GOP U.S. Senate nomination. [Political Fix]
• If Sarah Palin wants to salvage the tattered remnants of her political career, she should imitate… Missouri congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson? [The Hill]

Ashcroft Branches Out, Tries Hand at Fucking Up Other States Besides Missouri

Just when you thought his neutered ghost had finally disappeared into the ether once and for all, John Ashcroft, noted hater of free speech, civil rights, women’s rights—really any rights, anywhere—turns up again like a doddering old bad penny, singing out his general shittiness to the world  in obnoxious baritone vibrato.

Ashcroft’s consulting firm, The Ashcroft Group, recipient of a friendly-bordering-on-coital $52 million no-bid contract from then-New Jersey U.S. attorney, now gubernatorial candidate, Chris Christie (R), is suddenly the hot button issue in the NJ governor’s race.

Incumbent Governor John Corzine (D) had been very busy the past three months, using the tears of unemployed Jersey-ites and dirty Goldman-Sachs money to paper mache some new wallpaper in one of the quarter-square-mile bathrooms of his money fortress, but it seems that he must’ve looked down long enough to notice his reelection hopes swirling down the toilet. Though the questionable 2008 contract had been just lying there for months, waiting for someone be shitty about it and use it, Corzine’s people have only now jumped on it, making it the centerpiece of this new ad.

Ashcroft’s no-bid deal an issue in N.J. governor’s race [Political Fix]

THANKS FOR ALL THE PRETTY TWISTED-UP METAL. CAN I HAVE A JOB, INSTEAD?: The fallow husk of what once was St. Louis just opened its new 2.9 acre Citygarden sculpture park. All it takes to restore a once-proud midwestern business hub to its former glory is an acre of two modern industrial art. Who knew?

Sculpture to Invigorate a Shrinking City [NY Times]