Hermann Attempts Trojan Horse On Gov. Nixon

In a letter leaked to the press, northlandmayoral candidate Deb Hermann has formally asked Governor Nixon to host a summit on the E-Tax in both Kansas City and St. Louis.

There is no reason to have such a forum and Hermann knows this. Nixon has yet to take a public stance on Prop A which would phase out the E-Tax over 10 years and we agree with his position of neutrality to date. We will explain below.

Blue Chip Tip: We have received a lot of information from tipsters in the lead up to this letter. It appears Deb Hermann received a lot of pressure from her Republican support in the Northland over redistricting and the potential impact it could have on their power on the city council. Specifically, the fear is PIAC and TIF money would move south. Also the phase out of the E-Tax would force Kansas City to develop the urban core to compensate any loss of tax revenue.

To sum it up, she wrote this letter to catch the Governor in a hotbox on the E-Tax issue to appease those Republican supporters upset with her!!!

Playing politics with the Earnings Tax does not solve the very serious concerns facing Kansas City. The truth is, Deb knows this is not Governor Nixon's fight and for her to pull him into this street brawl is the best way for pressure to come off her as chair of the Finance Committee.

If Hermann is so concerned about Prop A passing and its impact on Kansas City then she needs to answer the following questions:

- Why has she not focused on fundraising to combat Prop A instead of fundraising for her own campaign?

- Most importantly, why has she not personally sent public letters demanding action to the Republican elected officials in the KC Metro area which have received tens of thousands from Rex?

Specifically Rep. Ryan Silvey (Northland), Rep. Jerry Nolte (Northland), Rep. Bob Nance (Northland) and Sen. Luann Ridgeway (Nothland).

(Blue Note: When looking at their MEC reports look for any committee with Jefferson City PO Box 1901 and the St. Louis PO Box 23200)

Deb Hermann's attempt at a trojan horse on Gov. Nixon, while failing to publicly challenge Republican leaders IN HER OWN COUNCIL DISTRICT, should be a red flag to every Democrat supporter in the Northland!! Look for her to have serious campaign problems. Her D.C. consultants just drove her campaign into road spikes!

Because of this we at The KC Blue Blog are calling on Deb Hermann to publicly answer these questions or this move will be seen for what it is.

Surprise. Surprise. Another "Anti-Gay" GOP Leader Comes Out of The Closet.

According to the Huffington Post, Ken Mehlman, who headed the Republican National Committee between 2005 and 2007, has come out in an interview with the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:

Once again we have another GOP leader, who worked against the equal rights of the LGBT Community, come out of the closet.

Congratulations Mehlman. Now explain why you spent the better part of your career limiting the civil rights of your community.

Glenn Beck Mocks The Civil Rights Movement

No surprise here. We have all watched as GOP has spent every minute of the last week crying on camera about how insensitive a group of people are for building a mosque near the 9/11 site.

So how is it that Glenn Beck and the GOP can cry about insensitivity in New York but hold an anti-civil rights rally at the site of MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech on the speech's very anniversary?

It doesn't get any more pathetic than that.

Jon Stewart takes on Glenn Beck here.

Kettle Meet Burke

In November of 2009 we stated that Mike Burke vs. Sly James could be a great Mayoral campaign "unless 7 others enter the race at which point it will turn into one of the best reality tv shows in history". Fortunately, we were correct that the candidate field will expand to 7 or more which we hoped would lead to an election cycle filled with great posts. Unfortunately, we didn't enter a formula that could have included some of the lamest candidates Kansas City has to offer.

Enter Mike Burke.

We know him to be a really nice guy, always smiling. What we didn't expect was for him to run one of the most coma induced campaigns to date. In fact, the only thing keeping Mike Burke from entering the Janice Ellis 2007 wealthy campaign abyss is Jim Rowland.

Jim Rowland for Mayor is the biggest Kansas City let down since Steve Deberg and Ventures. Those were horrible days.

Today the Burke Campaign issued a press release calling on Funkhouser to drop out of the Mayoral race because 2010 citizen surveys have declined since 2007. They then closed their release stating "join me in telling Mayor Funkhouser not to run again. We want to build our city together and not be witness to it torn apart through infighting, poor leadership and inexperience."

Normally we would allow for anybody in this city to trip Mayor Funkhouser because of his complete incompetence. So you can imagine how angry the KC Blue Bloggers were when we had to collectively decide to defend him for the very first time.

Burke has time to issue a press release attacking Funkhouser and send an e-mail in support of the Northland PIAC money but he only has time to make facebook statements on key issues facing Kansas City such as the close call regarding our KC based Ford Claycomo Plant, out of control crime in Kansas City and Hispanics disenfranchised during the redistricting process?

If Mike Burke is concerned about "infighting" and wants to display leadership, where was he criticizing Northland supporters that threatened to secede from Kansas City?

Bottom line when it comes to holding Northland campaign supporters and residents accountable for their actions, Mike Burke remains silent.

Other questions he could answer would be the alleged $800,000 received by his law firm King Hershey for their role in a development deal involving millions of tax dollars. In fact, the KC Blue Blog has received several tips and documents that we will be combing through regarding Burke's role in numerous TIF contracts with the city.

If the Mayor were wise (Blue Note: He is not) he would respond stating taxpayers are tired of their dollars being wasted by the many TIF projects and unchecked spending that this individual and his law firm have defended over the years, running our city into record deficits and leading to the decline in morale by residents.

Kansas City deserves more leadership and less cheap shots at a Mayor that is already down the toilet. Unless that individual is worried about Mayor Funkhouser spoiling his/her party? Which is the more likely scenario.

In an anti-incumbent environment Mayor Funkhouser still stands a strong chance at making it to March simply due to the field having so many geographically clumped candidates. Anyone that is willing to write off Funkhouser now for Burke, James or Rowland is either from the Northland or has the last name Glorioso.

We have purposely left Hughes and Hermann off this list as he is the only candidate not from the Plaza or Northland (though he has yet to raise serious money) and she is the only female placing both in their own catagory.

Blue Note: The best news for Funkenstein in over two years is having a development attorney tied to failed TIF projects attacking him. Mayor Funkhouser should consider sending a chocolate TIF bar to Burke for jumping his poll numbers five percent following this press release today.

KC Blue Blog Warning: If the Mayor actually tries to do this his staff should consider hiring a stunt Mayor to purchase the chocolate and deliver it to the post office in order to avoid him screwing it up.

Like The 80s We Are Back By Popular Demand!!

After many e-mails from our beloved Blue Readers, a few trials now complete, a brief stint climbing the Andes Mountains, a few successful businesses launched, sixty pounds lost between us and amazing vacas to the Bahamas, Italy and Alaska , our KC Blue Bloggers have reunited together like The Eagles and are back by popular demand!

All things 80's have nothing on this blog. We have more dish than Tony Botello's ex-girlfriends and we are locked and loaded for another election season!

What we have accomplished to date speaks for itself. We initiated the nickname Ed "Bunch of Mexicans" Martin onto the national scene forever placing him into the racist hall of fame. We successfully forced Ed "Bunch of Mexicans" Martin, the Chief of Staff to Gov. Matt Blunt, to resign. We warned Kansas City in March of 2007 about the disaster that would be a Funkhouser Administration in our post titled "If you want the funk, drive past Front Street". We broke the story on Mayor Funkhouser's campaign mismanagement purchasing numerous I-Phones and using a city hall office for a campaign line. We even led the fight to bring a national boycott to Kansas City until Semler was removed; and along with TKC (who was key to this story) in the end successfully removed France Semler.

But that's not all.

We placed on the national scene the names Bradley Schlozmen, Thor Hearne, voter caging and the fake St. Louis based GOP group "American Center for Voter Rights" that was deeply involved in the purging of voters under the Bush Administration. We broke the news regarding the Texas based Missouri Political News Service, which seeks to push GOP agendas in Missouri and highlighted the influx of Texas oil money financing the MOGOP under Matt Blunt. We coined the nickname "Hong Kong" Hulshof for his votes in support of flooding Chinese imports into Missouri while exporting Missouri jobs during the 2008 Governor's race--a post which led to a commercial showing a Chinese flag flying behind "Hong Kong" Hulshof. We even highlighted the amazing story of a military veteran and candidate named Jason Kander who defied the political elite to win his district when others said he didn't stand a chance.

That is just some of what we have done. Now we start a new chapter. Hopefully it is one that is just as fun as previous election cycles but we doubt it. In the end, we will just settle for Tony's Kansas City finally making us our sammich.

Prayer Vigil for Nieves After Demon Posessed Him to Beat Up Staffer

A prayer vigil at Riverfront Park was held this evening by supporters of right wing lunatic Republican Brian "Nutjob" Nieves.

The vigil was put together by a group of supporters in order to remove the demons from Republican Nieves after he allegedly choke slammed a former House Republican staffer against a wall and used him as a human mop across campaign headquarters into his office.

The victim then reported that Nieves pulled out a pistol and placed it on the desk and made the staffer call his wife to apologize.

No word on whether the staffer had to apologize for being forced to take his shirt off in the office or for the many alleged affairs Nieves had in Jefferson City.

This would have to be the only reason any group of individuals would come together in prayer for someone like Nieves. It has been reported Nieves did attend the vigil, not to pray for himself but possibly as a "vigil crasher" in order to pick up more women in the name of the Lord.