WEAVE SAVES THE DAY

Story o' the day, courtesy of The Associated Press and KSHB-TV:

Kansas City police say a woman's tightly-woven hair weave probably saved her life. KSHB-TV reports that the woman's boyfriend fired a shot through the back window of a car late last night. Police say the woman's hair weave stopped the bullet, and she wasn't hurt.

Yet another reason to salute the weave.

DOWN AND OUT IN JEFF CITY

An interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal highlights the difficulties facing Missouri Republicans in November. Selected grafs:

For an insight as to why the GOP is down and out in Washington, take a look at Jefferson City. That's where Sarah Steelman, the state treasurer, is running in an Aug. 5 primary for the Missouri governorship. And it's where her reform campaign against earmarks and self-dealing is threatening the entrenched status quo, causing her own party to rise against her.

So bitter are House Minority Whip Roy Blunt and Sen. Kit Bond at Ms. Steelman's attack on their cherished spending beliefs that last month they rallied the entire Missouri congressional delegation to put out a public statement openly criticizing her campaign against six-term U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof. Joining them in their support of Mr. Hulshof has been the vast majority of the state Republican machine. Ms. Steelman is clearly doing something right. ...

Ms. Steelman's Republican colleagues were livid with her attempt to strip them of comfy pensions, annoyed with her "sunshine law" requiring them to be more open in their dealings, furious at her attacks on their ethanol boondoggles, appalled that she criticized GOP state Speaker Rod Jetton for moonlighting as a paid political consultant. The final straw was her temerity to make her primary race about her opponent's Washington earmarking record.

For Mr. Blunt, this is also just a wee bit personal. His son, Matt, is the outgoing governor, and has been on the receiving end of a few Treasurer Steelman blasts. Last year she stopped payment on a $70,000 secret check his administration cut to settle a sexual harassment suit against an official. Her demand for transparency blew the case into the open, infuriating GOP colleagues. ...

Mr. Hulshof has been able to tout his own history as an ethics reformer, though the fervor with which his party's regulars have embraced him has undercut that message. His real weakness is that despite conservative credentials on taxes or social issues, he's run wild with the GOP crowd that just won't relinquish the pork. Which is of course why Mr. Blunt (who pioneered House earmarks) and Mr. Bond (who sits at earmark central, the Senate appropriations committee) love him.

Happy happy joy joy for Jay Nixon, Missouri's attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor. Nixon's a terrible public speaker and uninspiring gubernatorial candidate. But in this campaign cycle, all he needs is a pulse to be competitive.

ANGEL HARVEY, 92

Real first name: Lynne. The First Lady of Radio. Wife of broadcaster Paul Harvey. Died Saturday of leukemia in River Forest, Ill. Radio and Records reports:

An official statement from the Harvey family said, "A director, writer and editor, she was the creative and administrative heartbeat behind the number-one-rated 'Paul Harvey News and Comment,' which reaches tens of millions of listeners." ...

Lynne's influence can be felt in many of the ways Americans consume electronic news media today. Her news related innovations include the concept of news features within hard-news broadcasts, humorous "kicker" stories, which became a Paul Harvey trademark, and news broadcasts at 10:00 p.m. to take better advantage of adults' leisure time. In television she created "Dilemma," a program which became a prototype for today's talk-show genre and "Paul Harvey Comments," a nationally syndicated show that aired five days a week for 20 years.

She was born in St. Louis, educated at Washington University. She met Paul Harvey when she worked at KXOK; they married in 1940.

He has lost his Angel, but their partnership endures. Especially in the program she developed and edited, the one he delivers with idiosyncratic style. It's a short, snappy little program, a story with a twist. She named it "The Rest of the Story." And now you know.

NOT-SO-SUPER DELEGATES

Racial politics at play, revealed by a Missouri congressman.

According to the KC Star's Prime Buzz blog:

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri said Thursday that black Democratic superdelegates who support Sen. Hillary Clinton have been “bludgeoned verbally” to prod them to switch to Sen. Barack Obama.

Cleaver, who is African-American and a superdelegate, has backed Clinton since last summer and this week re-emphasized that support. He said that he himself has not been pressured, but that black superdelegates from all over the country have been subjected to harassment, threatened with primary opponents and called “Uncle Tom.”

He said they have been told, “You’re not black if you’re not supporting Barack Obama. ... It is ugly.”

Cleaver thinks he's gotten a pass from the arm twisters because Obama won Missouri narrowly, and only thanks to GOP crossovers and independents.

SUPER, THANKS FOR ASKING

The tornado is already here, so close you can hear the mother throwing shingles from someone else's roof onto your back deck, and the pressure on the eardrums is brutal. No way to outshout it. Not enough gusto in the lungs. No willpower in a tapped soul.

Duck and cover and pray to the gods or whatever for next Wednesday morning. That's when the storm lifts. Until then the horrible shrieking of the Super Duper Tuesday storm -- a freak and twisted twister if ever we saw one -- only grows.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ads up in Missouri. The Republicans can't be far behind, meaning Mitt Romney, John McCain and (maybe) Mike Huckabee. Four, perhaps five misfits, all claiming they're the only person on Earth worth having as president. Millions of dollars given to them to spend on ads and bumper stickers, yard signs and gurus. Hopeless craziness.

The polls say Missouri is Hillary Country, and if that holds, Sen. Claire McCaskill -- an Obama backer -- will come close to matching Sen. Christopher Bond for bad endorsement judgment. He's a Rudy Giuliani guy, even went down to Florida last week to stump for Hizzoner, and by Feb. 5 Giuliani's campaign will be an unpleasant memory, a smear worthy of its creator.

Even if Rudy limps into Missouri and SD Tuesday, he's nothing. Pollster Rasmussen has it Huckabee and McCain in Missouri, with Romney in third. That same pollster has Missouri Democrats going for Hillary over Obama.

Another new poll has Clinton 13 points ahead of Obama in Missouri. He wins men (38-33), she wins women (55-24). He leads among blacks in Missouri, 45-34. Her lowest support among Dems is in southwest Missouri, and still she leads Omaba, 40-30 (the Ozarks has the biggest share of undecided Democrats in Missouri, at 13 percent).

According to the Research 2000 Missouri Poll, the Republican side of Missouri supports McCain over Huckabee and Romney, but not by much -- 31 percent for McCain, compared to 25 percent for Huckabee and 21 percent for Romney. But that's not so in the Ozarks. Here, Huckabee is the choice of more than one in three southwest Missouri Republicans, according to the poll.

Huckabee, the weird Lokai to Bill Clinton's Bele -- two men from the same small city, both superficially affable, both capable of warped debaucheries most of us could never imagine, crazed excesses that would make the Marquis de Sade flinch.

Huckabee, the former big man who shed more than 100 pounds in a year -- and says he relied only on diet and exercise. It's either steel will inside his brain or he had gastric bypass surgery. We'd rather believe he's crazy.

Huckabee, the Arkansan who told Rolling Stone:

"Science changes with every generation and with new discoveries, and God doesn't," he says. "So I'll stick with God if the two are in conflict."

And the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. God, but the twister feels good right now, swirling and shrieking as it blasts out the windows.

MATT BLUNT'S FUTURE

At 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt did the unthinkable and announced he would not run for reelection. And while the announcement caused heads to explode in some deadline-minded newsrooms across the state, your typing pals at CHATTER were not surprised.

In November 2006 we predicted that Blunt wouldn't run for a second term as governor. We made a similar prediction in December 2006.

(Granted, most of our other predictions fell flat. But we'll take being a Blunt seer.)

There was no way Blunt was going to run for another term. Too many signs pointed the way:

•He's never held an elective office for more than one term. He was a state representative for a single two-year term. He was secretary of state for one term. Why change stripes just because you're governor?

•He's been solidly unpopular for most of his time in the governor's office. Blunt's 2005 cuts to Medicaid made him a huge target for Democrats -- so huge that Jay Nixon, the attorney general (and governor wanna-be) has been running on that single issue for more than a year.

•He never said anything about a second term in office. Any politician with an eye to the future would outline what he'd like to do in the next four years. Blunt's silence on that front was loud.

So what does Matt Blunt do with the rest of his life? Here's one scenario:

He spends a lot of time this spring shaking the trees for Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor running for president. Blunt and Romney are friends, and Republicans need Missouri if they want to retain the White House. Now that Blunt's not running for reelection, his approval rating will surely go up -- important for a competitive showing in November.

If Romney wants to rattle the political world, he'll name his choice for veep in advance of the convention -- and he'll pick Matt Blunt.

Only one fly in that salve. Can the nation stand a Mitt-Matt ticket? For those who giggle at the sing-song sound, the answer is self-evident.

Tuesday's news brings bad tidings for Missouri Democrats. They've lost the boogeyman at the top of the ticket. Jay Nixon has spent his time running against Matt Blunt; he's done very little to tell people why they should vote for him. That worked fine when Blunt was the incumbent opponent. Now it's just a dated, jaded strategy.

Missouri Republicans could select Treasurer Sarah Steelman or Rep. Ken Hulshof to run for governor. Either candidate would have more appeal than Blunt did with moderates -- and Nixon would have a much harder time demonizing them.

Democrats wanted Matt Blunt out of the way. Now that they have their wish, they may be sorry.

IKE TURNER, 76

A big deal in St. Louis before he became a big deal as a brutal Svengali to wife Tina. Knew enough not to get in Phil Spector's way during the making of River Deep - Mountain High" in 1966.

The Associated Press reports:

There was no immediate word on the cause of death, which was first reported by celebrity Web site TMZ.com.

Turner managed to rehabilitate his image somewhat in his later years, touring around the globe with his band the Kings of Rhythm and drawing critical acclaim for his work. He won a Grammy in 2007 in the traditional blues album category for "Risin' With the Blues."

His middle name was Wister.

SELECTING A JUDGE

Judicial retention. Say it enough and it starts to sound like a nasty blockage, the sort of malady that might lead to swelling and stones.

But there is little funny -- and a lot to ponder -- with the current fight over Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan.

In a nutshell, the plan takes pains to bleach politics out of the way appeals-court judges are appointed in Missouri. When an appellate-court seat goes empty, a seven-member commission appointed by the state bar and the governor sends three nominees to the governor. He chooses. Judge run to retain their seats, and do so as nonpartisan candidates.

Some activists want to ditch the Missouri plan; not surprisingly, their plans would fill the judicial-selection process with juicy political goodness. They also want to make this a constitutional amendment and put it before voters in November 2008 (no doubt after an air-wars campaign based on simplistic idea reduction).

The Columbia Missourian has the good read on an issue too serious to reduce to a few sound bites. Worth your time, especially now that three lawyers -- two of them locals -- have been nominated for a spot on the Southern District Court of Appeals. Did the selection commission choose wisely?

AN OBSCENITY OF ITS OWN

A grand jury in Wyandotte County, Kan., has indicted three Kansas City-area businesses on obscenity charges. The adult-entertainment industry says Philip Cosby is to blame.

According to AVN:

Cosby heads the Kansas City chapter of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families (NCPCF). Earlier this year, he organized a petition drive calling for grand jury investigations of 32 adult businesses in Kansas and Missouri for promotion of obscenity. Enlisting the help of church leaders and community activists, Cosby's group delivered the petitions to six county courthouses in May.

Guys like Cosby are the scariest culture warriors.

MISSOURI LAST IN WORK-LICENSE BIZ

In California there are 177 different jobs that require a license.

In Missouri, there are 41. The Show-Me State is dead last in the 50-state rankings.

Reason has the story. Supporters say licensure is required to keep people safe. Or is it just a way for states to suck money from people in certain professions? You tell us.

SCOMO: NO MORE SKY'S THE LIMIT

An update to our earlier post about the riches being gathered by the two leading candidates for Missouri governor:

The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated campaign contribution limits. The ruling was unanimous, and written by Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. The Associated Press reports:

The court, in a unanimous decision, overturned a lower judge who had thrown out a fundraising ban for elected officials and challengers during the legislative session but kept intact the overall repeal of Missouri’s individual contribution limits.

The Supreme Court said the legislative history of the bill indicated lawmakers would not have repealed contribution limits if the donation blackout period was not in effect.

The court noted that when the measure was debated by the Senate, it considered — and rejected — an amendment that would have allowed unlimited contributions without a blackout period.

“That the two provisions were inseparably connected and dependent upon each other is conclusively proven by the fact that the Senate amendment to decouple the provisions failed,” the Supreme Court said.

Still in the air: What happens to the big bucks already collected by Matt Blunt and Jay Nixon?

Also without answer: Is Stephen Limbaugh an activist judge?

SKY'S THE LIMIT

This is the first campaign season in Missouri without limits on campaign contributions. No more caps on how much you can donate to a candidate. Last year the most you could give to someone running for governor was $1,275. This year? Matt Blunt and Jay Nixon both list six-figure donations from individual donors.

Springfield-based Prime donated $50,000 to the governor. The contributions were spread over five companies with the same address on North Mayfair.

AT&T in St. Louis donated $50,000.

The former Burlington Northern -- now known as BNSF Railway -- has given the governor $51,200.

Springfield businessman Gerald Cook contributed 50 grand this quarter, upping his total to nearly $52,500.

Silver Eagle Distributors of Houston donated $50,000, via the company and its owner. According to its web site, Silver Eagle is the nation's second-largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products.

Burgers and beer are a good pair at the table -- and on the campaign trail. CKE Restaurants -- that would be Carl's Jr. -- gave $25,000 to the governor.

Harold Simmons, founder of Dallas-based Contran Corporation, had given $50,000 to Blunt. He did it in two payments -- 10 grand on June 11, the rest on June 29.

The biggest Blunt backer is Bob Perry, owner of Perry Homes in Houston -- known in political circles for being the money man behind Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the 2004 presidential election. Perry and his wife have so far contributed a combined $300,000 to Matt Blunt.

Attorney General Jay Nixon has plenty of deep-pocketed contributors, too. His campaign finance form lists a 25-cent donation from a retired rancher in South Dakota -- but it also includes $50,000 in contributions from Springfield attorney Tom Strong and his law firm.

The biggest Nixon donor is the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees -- the nation's largest union for public-sector workers. It contributed $100,000 to Jay Nixon on May 18.

Another union group -- the Ironworkers Political Education Fund -- gave 25 grand. The United Food & Commercial Workers Union has given more than $16,000. So has Taxpayers Unlimited of Kansas City, another union front.

Kansas City Councilman Bill Skaggs gave 10 grand -- as did his son, state Rep. Trent Skaggs. They made their contributions on the same day. Very handy.

HAMRA'S HUBRIS

Springfield developer Sam Hamra is at it again. It wasn't enough that an April report showed Hamra wanted tax credits from the Missouri Housing Development Commission, and he wasn't above threatening Gov. Matt Blunt -- in writing -- that no tax credits might mean no political (and financial) support from Hamra come election time.

Hamra wrote the governor to remind him that he had raised $400,000 for Blunt, but if the tax credits didn't flow Hamra's way, the developer might have to support Jay Nixon, the Democratic attorney general running for governor. Many local political watchers remain astonished at Hamra's hubris; it's one thing to grouse about helping pols and getting the cold shoulder, but quite another to actually put the complaint in writing.

Sunday, the Columbia Tribune joined the media coverage with a piece detailing how Hamra got the stiff arm from Blunt:

Blunt rejected Hamra’s letter, saying it was "the most offensive and improper communication I have ever received." In a written response, the governor said the letter asked him to do things "I would never consent to do."

Blunt wrote that if he and Nixon were opponents for the same office, "I suggest you support him."

"I am not for sale," Blunt said. "Perhaps he is."

In an interview, Hamra said he later apologized to Blunt. "I didn’t intend to cast any adverse reflections on anyone," Hamra said.

The News-Leader's Tony Messenger picked up on the Trib story, writing Monday that the paper "continues to lead the way" in reporting on the Hamra-Blunt dust-up.

Unmentioned by Messenger is the unfortunate lack of local print coverage on this story. Both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Columbia Tribune have each devoted dozens of column inches to the controversy. The News-Leader has not, even though the story is about a local developer, a governor from Springfield -- and another developer making plenty of money from the tax credits. That developer happens to be the mayor of Springfield.

SCHLOZMAN BEATEN TO PULP

The Senate Judiciary Committee took testimony in the Justice Department scandal from Bradley Schlozman, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Schlozman was pummeled by Sen. Pat Leahy, chairman of the committee. Talking Points Memo has the vid. It's worth a looksee and a listen, if only to hear Schlozman's incredible voice, and his sudden loss of all intelligence.

GRAVES, SCHLOZMAN TO TESTIFY

Two former U.S. Attorneys for the Western District of Missouri will testify today before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the continuing scandal inside the Department of Justice.

Todd Graves and Bradley Schlozman are due to testify Tuesday afternoon. Coverage will likely be on the ghetto known as C-SPAN 3.

Graves was ousted as the local U.S. attorney in 2006. Schlozman, a functionary from the Justice Department, took his place and pushed "voter fraud" as his mandate. Missouri plays a pivotal role in the U.S. Attorney scandal; expect Graves to play the victim.

Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee wants John Ashcroft to spill on his Don Corleone-type dealings with the Bush Administration. The committee is scheduled to meet today to decide when the former attorney general can testify in private, according to Newsweek.

MATT BLUNT'S TIES TO JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SCANDAL

Journalist Murray Waas has written the definitive, for now, piece on the Justice Department scandal as it relates to Missouri and Arkansas. You will find it here at National Journal.

Remember the uproar over the awarding of fee-agent offices by Gov. Matt Blunt's administration? Turns out that story plays a crucial role in what has become a national scandal.

Some grabber grafs from Waas:

In the closing weeks of Missouri's tight 2006 U.S. Senate race, the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., took the unusual step of revealing that his office's investigation into possible state government contracting abuses in Missouri had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Republican Gov. Matt Blunt. ...

Last year's neck-and-neck Senate race in Missouri between Republican incumbent Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill was a high-profile contest for both political parties. Democratic and Republican operatives were looking for any edge they could find in the race, which McCaskill ended up winning narrowly.

Republicans feared that an investigation of the Blunt administration by the U.S. attorney in Arkansas, Bud Cummins, could tar Blunt and hurt Talent and other GOP candidates on the ballot. Blunt himself was not up for re-election. The investigation was spurred by allegations that the Blunt administration had improperly awarded state contracts to political contributors to run privately operated bureaus where Missouri residents obtain driver's licenses and register their vehicles. Because of potential conflicts of interest, the U.S. attorneys in Missouri weren't handling the investigation.

Cummins said in an interview that a former senior Justice Department official from the Bush administration, William Mateja, repeatedly contacted him during the investigation and asked whether Blunt was implicated in the corruption probe. Cummins said he was unaware at the time that Mateja was making his calls at the behest of [Thor] Hearne, whose law firm had retained Mateja on Blunt's behalf. ...

Waas explains it better than anyone, and what he reports should be read by every Missouri voter.

BLUE HAIR IS BACK, BABY

After a two-month hiatus, the blogger known as Branson Blue Hair has returned, and not a moment too soon.

Click, read, enjoy. Welcome back, BBH.

K.C. MAN BURNS BOOKS

He says he did it in protest. Tom Wayne runs Prospero's Books, a used-book store in Kansas City. He says he has too much stock, and no one would accept his donations of free books.

On Sunday, Wayne showed his frustration with the decline of readers in the United States. He set fire to thousands of used books. The Associated Press reports:

"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.

The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit for burning.

Guy Montag did not show up, and no mechanical hounds were released.

KID DESTROYS SAND PAINTING

Ah, those goofy kids, always up to mischief, this time in Kansas City. The Associated Press reports:

The little boy spotted the pretty pile of colored sand on the floor of the vast hall and couldn't resist. Slipping under a protective rope, he danced all over the sand, ruining the carefully crafted picture.

Never mind that it was the creation of eight Tibetan monks who had spent two days cross-legged on the floor of Union Station, meticulously pouring the sand into an intricate design as an expression of their Buddhist faith.

They were more than halfway done with the design -- called a mandala -- on Tuesday when they ended their work for the day and left. The little boy showed up sometime later with his mother, who was taking a package to a post office in the hall.

"He did a little tap dance on it, completely destroying it," said Lama Chuck Stanford, of the Rime Buddhist Center in Kansas City.

The monks' reaction? No big: "We didn't get despondent," said Geshe Lobsang Sumdup, leader of the group from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in southern India. "We have three days more. So we will have to work harder." Just keep those meddling kids behind the ropes.

NEW INFO ON FIRED U.S. ATTORNEY

Did Todd Graves feel heat before he left his post as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri?

Monica Goodling, the former Justice Department official, testified Wednesday that Graves was being investigated by the department's inspector general, an internal watchdog.

You can see it here. Goodling never clarified the reason for the alleged investigation, but said Graves' firing "related more to the fact that he was under investigation by the inspector general, and there were some issues being looked at there."

Graves told the Kansas City Star that Goodling's allegation was "outrageous." He'll get his turn to tell a tale on June 5, when he testifies before Congress.