Tour de Missouri

Lt. Governor Peter Kinder took to the KMBZ airwaves this morning to promote his new website, SaveTheTourOfMissouri.com. In the last 24 hours, Kinder's staff has been furiously promoting the website and its corresponding Twitter feed to generate calls into the Governor's office.

Yesterday, Deputy Lt. Gov. Jerry Dowell and Communications Director Gary McElyea refused to [publicly] discuss the ownership of the website with the News-Leader's Chad Livengood, or explain why the Tour's previous Twitter pages were suspended.  [Paragraph updated w/ new details via Twitter]

Much has been written on Fired Up! about the Tour of Missouri bike race.

The enduring central question: with so many unmet needs in education, health care and public safety, why were taxpayers footing the bill for a bike race?

Now comes word that the state's darkening fiscal position may result in the elimination of $1.5 million in race funding.

It's time for race promoter and alleged fiscal hawk Peter "Every Dollar Counts" Kinder to do what he should have done from the beginning--- raise money for an "elite bike race" from elite private donors.

Last year, Kinder raised and spent over $3 million for personal political pursuits.  If he can do it for himself, why can't he do it for taxpayers?

Your tax dollars at work.

Peter Kinder's Tour of Missouri website has been blocked by The Google as an "Attack Site!" for fear that it will install unauthorized programs on users' computers and steal private information.  (see attached warnings from The Google)   

No doubt "an all-out attempt [by The Google] to embarrass [Kinder] and to try to make him look bad."

Yesterday, Peter Kinder's Communications Director, Gary McElyea, was pooh-poohing low interest loans for small businesses. 

“Two-million dollars wouldn’t go very far in helping Missouri to create jobs,” said Gary McElyea, a spokesman for Mr. Kinder.

Today, McElyea returned his focus to more important things, like making a new promotional video for Kinder's french-style bike race on government time.  

Just finished an awesome Tour of Mo Fanzone video with Danene Beedle @mowinegirl showcasing MO wineries. We brought sexy back...

Republicans and Democrats around the state are all shaking their heads at Peter Kinder's decision to show-case disgraced biker Floyd Landis at the taxpayer funded Tour of Missouri bike race.

Here is what Kinder had to say about Landis and his Team OUCH:

“Team OUCH adds to the event’s appeal to race fans, biking enthusiasts and anyone who enjoys watching elite athletes compete,” said Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder. “This team is considered one of the strongest teams in the world, and we look forward to the respect and attention that such a group will attract to the event.”

Even in the face of a deep recession, Kinder is promoting Landis and his race with state job creation money.  Now more than ever, Kinder has some explaining to do.

Peter "My Bicycle Race" Kinder announced today he had landed disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis for the 2009 Tour of Missouri.

As most voters will recall, Landis was famously stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone.  After that scandal, Landis declared that the testosterone in his body was "natural and produced by my own organism" and brought on by whisky drinking.

It remains unclear why Kinder invited the whisky boozing, testosterone oozing biker to his race.  Perhaps some enterprising reporter should ask Kinder why Landis is an appropriate role model for Missouri's youth.

As he has in past years, Kinder will personally oversee biker drug testing in 2009.  And he will no doubt have his hands full with the testosterone enhanced Landis.

Much has been written on Fired Up Missouri questioning the expenditure of taxpayer funds (including job creation money) for Matt Blunt and Peter Kinders' bike race, the Tour of Missouri. 

And apparently, much of it was read (repeatedly and late at night) by Blunt, Kinder and their staffs.

Newly released emails from the Blunt-Kinder Administration paint a picture of deep insecurity and paranoia about the Tour of Missouri within the Executive Suite.

And no document better illustrates Blunt and Kinders' consuming pathology than a press release attacking critics of the race that was apparently aborted at the last moment.  It is presented here for review by the public and future generations of mental health professionals.  This is not a parody; this is a genuine public document (attached and excerpted).   

"The Tour of Missouri has quite honestly surpassed all expectations, leaving any question of the premier cycling events' value and benefits far, far behind the pack. In fact because of the Tour of Missouri of Missouri's outstanding showing ridiculous, transparent and sloppy criticisms did not even make it to the starting line," said Gov. Matt Blunt...."

House Republicans have finally shared their budget bills with the public, and they're ugly:

In short: the House budget is smaller than [Governor Nixon's proposal] by more than $260 million. It removes several of Nixon's signature proposals. It directs serious federal stimulus money to education, but none anywhere else. It contains cuts to social services totaling $389 million and increases funding to K-12education by nearly the same amount.

[...]

Social services are hit, and hit hard. Nixon's plan to increase Medicaid eligibility to 50 percent of the poverty level -- at a cost of $143 million -- is axed. Likewise his $82 million plan (which would've cost the state just $22 million) to expand health-care coverage for children.

The Medicaid cut is especially galling for Democrats because they say it wouldn't have cost the state general revenue fund a dime. The federal government would pick up nearly $92 million of the cost, and hospitals in the state have pledged to pick up the rest, including $14 million that typically would be the state's responsibility.

Beyond the cuts to Nixon's proposals, the House budget slices deep into existing programs as well. $3 million for alcohol and drug addiction treatment services, gone. $2.5 million for meals for seniors, cut. $1.3 million and nearly $1 million for public health inspectors, slashed.

Read More »

Good: Economic recovery money started to flow.

• Federal economic recovery money is on its way. 
• The Governor launched a new website to collect economic recovery ideas -- 1,357 have been submitted to http://transform.mo.gov at last check.

Bad: Republicans stuck it to Missouri's kids and the unemployed, but fought to keep a fat advertising budget for Chicagoans.

• Peter Kinder called new federal money to help the unemployed a "bribe." Fear not: Kinder has assured us that he has no interest in helping the record number of jobless.
• Republicans on the House Budget committee refused to fund $939k for children's health care. Budget chair Alan Icet cited remarkably unconvincing "protocols" that limit what can be done in a supplemental budget request.
• Then, the GOP stood up for $900k in advertising for the Chicagoland area.  No, these backwards priorities don't make any sense to us either.

Ugly: Blunt continued to re-imagine the world around him, Steelman continued to fuel the speculation that she'll join the race soon.

• Roy Blunt is now a transparent budget hawk who has always worked in a bipartisan manner. Please update your files.
• In a remarkably dumb move, Roy voted against a Congressional pay freeze. Days earlier, he called for a federal spending freeze. Oops!
• Republican insiders listed 3,234 reasons why Blunt will have a tough row to hoe, but still believe he's a better choice that Sarah Steelman.
• Blunt surrogates fired back at Steelman, attacking Steelman's professed status as an outsider.
• Steelman was a jerk. And then she wasn't.
• Only 521 days to go.

Other Notes:

• Bill O'Reilly told Ed Martin to stop wasting people's time and money.
• Cynthia Davis said that fathers aren't natural nurturers. No she didn't!  Yes, she did.
• The Tour de Missouri shall henceforth be referred to "My [Peter Kinder's] Bicycle Race"
• The noodlers are back.
• Speaker Ron Richard still hasn't given the public a good reason for kicking Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford off the House Children and Families Committee.
• Nathan Cooper is back at home.
• Mizzou is the #8 team in the land.

GOP gray beards are growing increasingly concerned that Peter Kinder may be heading for a political pile-up over his bike race.  

In a bizarre obsession, Kinder has taken to referring to the Tour of Missouri as "My Bicycle Race," signaling to anyone who will listen that it is the one thing in Jefferson City that he controls.  He has essentially merged the race with his political persona.

At that same time, Kinder's staff has been raising expectations that Lance Armstrong will participate in "My Bicycle Race."

These two converging factors have senior GOP strategist increasingly fearing the following no-win scenarios for Kinder and their party:

1. The pro-research and cures Armstrong will boycott the race over its chief patron's opposition to stem cell research and cures.

2. Armstrong will participate, but convert the race into a seven day rolling rebuke of Kinder and the GOP over its anti-cures dogma.

3. The pile-up will drive corporate sponsors of Kinder's bike race heading for the exits, forcing Kinder to divert additional job creation money from state coffers to cover his race's red-ink.

4. Sponsors who share Kinder opposition to stem cell research (the Drury Family and the Missouri Farm Bureau) may find themselves in the remarkably awkward position of helping to pay for Armstrong's pro-stem cell soap box.   

Struggling to justify the diversion of millions of dollars in job creation money to bail-out his french-style bike race, part-time Lt. Governor Peter Kinder has taken to shovel-ready spin.

Yesterday, in front of journalist from around the state, Kinder criticized the President's economic stimulus initiative, even though it's already improving roads and bridges in Missouri.

Instead, Kinder held up "My Bicycle Race"as a model for job creation in our state, citing economic numbers from the Missouri Federation of Independent Businesses the Missouri Bicycle Federation.  

Kinder's economic plan is creating a handful of jobs in California, Missouri.  This week Kinder's taxpayer funded staff is on the job in San Francisco spending taxpayer money enjoying VIP access to the Tour of California bike race.

Peter Kinder announced today a re-branding of his french-style bike race, the Tour of Missouri.

A red-faced Kinder decreed that, from this day forward, the race shall be knows as, and may be cited as, "My Bicycle Race."

The re-branding raises troubling new questions about why Kinder has not recused himself from voting on his own requests for taxpayer bailouts of "My Bicycle Race" before the Kinder chaired Missouri Development Finance Board.

Part-time Lt. Governor Peter Kinder is using his full-time taxpayer-funded staff to star in an on-line video show called "Fan-Zone.

On Friday, official Kinder spokesman Gary McElyea was in Kansas City shooting an episode of the Tour of Missouri "Fan Zone" show.  McElyea recently posted the episode on the Fan-Zone website. 

McElyea's work for Fan Zone renews questions about Kinder's use of taxpayer money to subsidize the Tour of Missouri bike race.  In addition to McElyea, Deputy Lt. Governor Jerry Dowell is the Executive Director of the Tour of Missouri.  It's unclear if Dowell and McElyea are drawing salaries from the Tour of Missouri in addition to their full-time state salaries.  Perhaps legislative budget committees reviewing Kinder's budget requests could resolve that issue.

What is clear is that Kinder has repeatedly used his position on the Missouri Development Finance Board to use taxpayer monies to pay-off the red ink from his novelty, French-style bike race--- all the while ignoring calls for MDFB to support small businesses.

According to the Post-Dispatch, Peter Kinder is not yet on board with Governor Nixon's plan to provide low-interest loans to small businesses through the Missouri Development Finance Board (MDFB).

By statute, Kinder sits on the MDFB.  And he  has never missed an opportunity to pad his personal pet projects with MDFB largess.

At Kinder's insistence, the Board has paid off the debt from his french-style bike race (The Tour of Missouri) and is set to do the same thing for 2009.

And yet, Kinder is apparently unsure if job-creating small businesses are worthy of loans (let alone debt clearing grants) from MDFB.

Kinder might look to the third floor of the Capitol Building for guidance on the issue.  In a show of bi-partisanship, House Speaker Ron Richard has given Nixon the green-light on his small business job creation plan.

The MDFB is set to meet on January 20th.  We will be watching to see if Kinder sides with Missouri's small businesses... or not.

Peter Kinder is set to push for $25 million in additional sports stadium funding at today's Missouri Development Finance Board meeting.  Today's earmark will benefit the Kansas City Chiefs.

This is Kinder's latest push for taxpayer financing of sports facilities and events.  Consider these other Kinder initiatives:

• Taxpayer funding for a new Cardinal's stadium in St. Louis
• Taxpayer funding of a new pro-soccer stadium in Kansas City
• Taxpayer funding for the Tour of Missouri bike race

Some GOP observers are expecting State Treasurer Sarah Steelman to attack Kinder for leading the Missouri GOP in the wrong direction on "sports earmarks." 

Stay tuned.­­