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Top Stories: A man drowned in mid-Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks yesterday. 78-year-old Ronald Miller of Fenton fell out of a bass boat while on the main channel of the lake yesterday. And a St. Peters man from eastern Missouri died in a helicopter crash yesterday in mid-Missouri’s Callaway County. The Post-Dispatch 47-year-old Charles Prather appears to have been the sole occupant of the aircraft.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill’s campaign claims the right-leaning Project Veritas committed fraud in its production of hidden camera video of her and her staff.
Campaign manager David Kirby Wednesday called on the state Attorney General’s office to investigate the activities as a violation of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.
Kirby said Attorney General Josh Hawley should recuse himself from the probe because as McCaskill’s Republican challenger in the Senate race, he’s celebrated and circulated the videos in campaign emails.
Kirby further stated that a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate the allegations and noted the McCaskill campaign had retained an attorney.
Hawley quickly responded, saying that if McCaskill had any evidence of a crime to please come forward with it immediately, otherwise stop politicizing the legal process for political gain. Hawley also referenced the hidden camera videos, stating that McCaskill and her staff had been caught on tape telling the truth.
The secret video attempts to portray McCaskill as more liberal than her campaign implies through hidden camera recordings of her acknowledging her preference for gun laws and through footage of her staff embracing former President Barack Obama.
Campaign staff also appear in the hidden camera footage erroneously claiming that Planned Parenthood did not support her campaign. The organization has contributed to McCaskill’s campaign.
The videos were orchestrated by Project Veritas head James O’Keefe, who is known for his right-leaning hidden-camera-style investigations.
Kirby mentioned two people close to Hawley he said had previous knowledge of the video. One is conservative St. Louis radio talk show host and former state Republican Party chairman Ed Martin, who Kirby said is prominently featured in the video. The other is St. Louis based Republican operative Gregg Keller.
Keller said he had nothing to do with the production and distribution of the video, but wished he had.
Kirby claimed the hidden camera video was captured under false pretenses and misrepresentations, which he said is fraud under Missouri law and a violation of the state Merchandising Practices Act. He also said the campaign believes other legal violations occurred that are outside the scope of the attorney general’s office that may be pursued with the attorney the campaign retained.
McCaskill’s campaign backed off a Tuesday night statement implying that Hawley had played a role in fraudulently embedding someone on her staff. Kirby wouldn’t specify that Hawley took part in any alleged illegal activity but knew of its illicit nature and actively promoted it. He said, “That’s a question for Josh Hawley. What did he know? When did he know it.”
Kirby went on to say that the campaign has knowledge of when the fraudulently embedded person may have been functioning on behalf of Project Veritas.
He said Hawley, as attorney general, had failed to identify a fraudulent act, but instead had engaged in “gutter politics”
Hawley was a guest Wednesday night on the conservative Fox News cable TV show Hannity, the same outlet where the Project Veritas video first appeared in front of a wide audience.
The Republican challenger continued to attack McCaskill as misrepresenting herself as a moderate while host Sean Hannity said the video exposed her bragging about being anti-second amendment and lying to Missouri residents after embracing the policies of former Democratic President Obama.
Hawley appeared on the program with Arizona Republican Congresswoman and Senate candidate Martha McSally.
McCaskill and Hawley are locked in a tight battle for U.S. Senate seat that could determine which party controls the chamber after November’s election.
The Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA) director says technology is important in attracting young farmers.
State Rep. Curtis Trent, R-Springfield, speaks in committee on May 23, 2018 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)
MDA says the average age of a Missouri farmer is 58.
“Two of the top priorities the governor has is workforce development and infrastructure,” MDA Director Chris Chinn says. “And I think those play in very nicely to how we bring that next-generation back home.”
Chinn says high-speed internet is crucial to attracting those next-generation farmers.
She says the entire Cabinet is working closely with Governor Mike Parson, a Bolivar farmer, on getting high-speed internet to rural areas.
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R) told lawmakers in April that 51 percent of rural Missourians lack access to broadband. During that address to the Missouri House in Jefferson City, Blunt predicted that broadband will be just as important during the next 50 years as the telephone was over the past 50 years.
“We need to make sure that they (next-generation farmers) have the tools and the skills that they need to come back to the farm prepared and ready. The infrastructure is all about, you know, the high-speed internet,” says Chinn.
She says the aim is to make Missouri the best place for businesses to grow and to relocate.
Missouri lawmakers approved a bipartisan bill this year from State Rep. Curtis Trent, R-Springfield, which enables the state’s rural electric cooperatives to make unused capacity available for residential and commercial purposes.
The bill also declares that the expansion of broadband service is in the best interests of Missourians.
Outgoing House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, noted earlier this year that Missouri ranked 40th in the nation in access to broadband service.
Click here to listen to the full interview between Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA) Director Chris Chinn and Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and Brownfield’s Tom Steever, which was recorded on October 15, 2018 at MDA headquarters in Jefferson City:
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The Republican candidate for State Auditor has had a rocky campaign due to some past legal and financial troubles. Saundra McDowell tells Missourinet affiliate KSSZ in Columbia that she went to court over a house she and her husband leased in Springfield.
Missouri State Auditor candidate addresses her legal and financial issues
“The furniture was included in that contract,” McDowell says. “We tacked on, I think, almost $50,000 for the furniture of the house. After we moved in about two months in, we found out that the owners didn’t have good title to the furniture.”
McDowell says they tried to renegotiate the contract. According to McDowell, the owners assured her they had good title to the furniture.
“We could see in the case that was filed by the person that said that they had title to it, there was a lien put on the furniture that they had title to it. We asked them to produce documents and they couldn’t do it,” she says.
McDowell and her husband, who have both practiced law, lost their case.
“I think that was a terrible decision by the judge. We had babies at the time all in diapers. It was just very stressful to go through that whole ordeal. So, we decided just to pay the debt and not appeal it,” she says.
After losing the court battle, McDowell says she offered a lump sum payment but is required to instead have her wages garnished with interest.
“It was a case that we lost based on a real estate contract,” she says. “As I’ve been talking to so many people across this state, I’ve realized how many people have had real estate issues that are similar to this. I understand. I believe I’ve been defrauded. As a victim of fraud, I can understand how the people feel.”
Democratic State Auditor Nicole Galloway, who is running against McDowell, has said McDowell cannot manage her own money, let alone audit the state’s finances. Galloway was appointed in 2015 to replace the late Republican Auditor Tom Schweich.
McDowell’s residency status has also been questioned. Missouri law requires the Auditor to be a resident of the state for at least 10 years. Based on her research of Missouri case law, she contends she would win on “intent”.
“I placed my foot in Missouri more than ten years before the election,” she says. “We got engaged, we got married, we took the Missouri bar, everything in Missouri. We got married at Washington University Chapel and then moved back to Missouri.”
She cites other residency challenges, including former Governor and State Auditor Kit Bond and former State Auditor James Antonio. Both Bond and Antonio won their cases.
Missouri’s midterm election is November 6.
Listen to the entire interview below:
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The Missouri Statewide ‘ShakeOut” earthquake drill is taking place on Thursday.
Jeff Briggs is the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) Program Manager. He says the state conducts the drill every year to keep residents aware that the danger exists. “There is an earthquake risk in Missouri,” said Briggs. “Because large earthquakes don’t happen frequently here some people don’t know that there’s a risk of it.”
New Madrid Seismic Zone (Image courtesy of the Missouri Department of Public Safety)
Briggs says the drill is also taking place to alert people about safety procedures because earthquakes strike without any warning such as weather patterns that precede tornadoes and floods. “If a flood comes, it’s raining, and you see the river rise,” Briggs said. “With a tornado, you usually get a few minutes of warning on your phone or with a siren. But in an earthquake, the shaking is going to start and you’re going to have no warning at all. People need to know what to do in advance.”
“ShakeOut” participants will practice the “Drop, Cover, Hold On” technique during the one-minute drill beginning at 10:18 a.m. Emergency management experts consider the method the appropriate action to reduce injury and death during earthquakes.
The procedure calls for participants to drop to their hands and knees, cover their heads and necks with their hands or by crawling under a table or desk, and then hold on until the shaking stops.
Missouri is not thought of as a location where major earthquakes take place. But in 1811 and 1812 the state was rocked by at least three of the largest earthquakes ever to hit the continental United States. They occurred in the New Madrid Seismic Zone in the southeast part of the state.
According to SEMA, the biggest of those quakes “altered the flow of the Mississippi River, turned rich farmland into fields of sand and destroyed countless structures.” The agency also claims people on the U.S. East Coast felt shaking, and church bells reportedly rang as far away as South Carolina.
Along with California, an area in Washington State surrounding Seattle and the northern portion of Oklahoma, the New Madrid Seismic Zone is mentioned by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGA) as an area with higher earthquake hazard than other parts of the country.
The agency notes Oklahoma has been subject to induced earthquakes in recent years. Some of those tremors have been felt in Missouri. Induced earthquakes are triggered by human activities, with wastewater disposal being the primary cause.
Wastewater from oil and gas operations can be disposed of by injecting it into deep underground wells. Injected fluids cause pressure changes that can weaken a fault and therefore bring it closer to failure. The USGA notes most injection wells do not trigger felt earthquakes, suggesting a combination of many factors.
Oklahoma saw its average of two earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.7 or greater a year spike to about 2,500 in 2014, 4,000 in 2015 and 2,500 in 2016. The USGA says the decline in 2016 may be due in part to injection restrictions implemented by the state. In 2016, Oklahoma experienced, 21 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 4.0 and three were greater than magnitude 5.0. Some of those tremors could be felt in portions of Missouri.
More than 492,000 Missourians are taking part in the “ShakeOut”, led by more than 400,000 individuals at elementary, middle and high schools. There’ll be almost 29,000 participants from colleges and universities and nearly 19,000 at healthcare facilities across the state.
Missouri is part of the Central U.S. multi-state region taking part in the “ShakeOut”. Participation varies widely in the region from 405 participants in Iowa to 520,000 in Tennessee. The Central U.S. region has the second highest number of participants in the event – 2.85 million. California dwarfs the rest of the country as it’ll have 9.9 million individuals taking part in Thursday’s drill, representing nearly of the country’s 19.9 million participants.
Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill and GOP Senate nominee Josh Hawley will debate Thursday night in St. Louis.
The debate will be moderated by PBS Newshour’s Judy Woodruff, and there will be a live studio audience of Missourians at the KETC-TV studios. There will be questions from the audience and questions from social media, which will allow Missourians to participate.
The “Missouri 2018 Senate Debate” is being presented by Nine Network (KETC), St. Louis Public Radio and KSDK Channel 5. KETC is St. Louis’ PBS affiliate.
Thursday night’s debate begins at 7, and the election is November 6.
Some analysts believe Missouri’s McCaskill-Hawley race could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate in January.
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Missouri’s 2018 graduating class earned an average composite score of 20 out of a possible 36 on their ACT test. The exam is used to help determine how prepared students are for college. According to the ACT organization, 22% of Missouri graduates met all four ACT college readiness benchmarks in 2018, compared to 23% in 2017 and 29% of 2014 graduates.
About 22% of Missouri students are ready for college
Nationally, 55% of the class of 2018 took the ACT, with a composite score of 20.8.
In math, 33% of 2018 graduates met the college readiness benchmark, 56% met the English benchmark and 41% reached the Reading benchmark.
The average composite scores for Missouri students are:
English – 19.5
Math – 19.7
Reading – 20.5
Science – 20.0
Students who took more advanced math and English classes had higher average scores than those who did not. About 65% of students who took at least four years of English met the benchmark, compared with 35% of students who took less than four years of English.
In math, 41% of students who took three or more years of math classes met the benchmark, compared with 4% who took less than three years of math.
Interestingly, 47% of students who took three or more years of social studies met the reading benchmark, in contrast with 31% of students who took less than three years of social studies.
The data also shows that the racial gap in student achievement continues. Asian students have the highest average score of 23.2, followed by white students with 20.9, Hispanics earing an 18.7 and African Americans with 16.5. All of the scores are slightly lower from the previous year.
The ACT office says 82 Missouri students in the 2018 graduating class received a perfect score. A list shows the perfect scores were earned by students in every region of the state.
More than 68,000 Missouri students took the ACT as 11th graders. Missouri was among 17 states in which 100% of the graduating class took the exam. Missouri’s composite score of 20 was the sixth highest among those states, tying with Montana and Wyoming.
Nearly half of the Missouri class of 2018 took the ACT more than once. More than 34,000 graduates in 2018 took the ACT two of more times for an average composite score of 22.6, compared to an average of 17.6 for graduates who took the test only once.
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Top Stories: Police swarmed over Kansas City’s upscale Country Club Plaza shopping District yesterday after reports of as many as five shots fired. Two suspects were taken into custody after parking garages were put into lock-downs. Investigators say human remains were in place for weeks before a woman taking a shortcut through woods stumbled them in eastern Missouri’s Jefferson County this week. Deputies say the bones are so badly decomposed an autopsy couldn’t reveal whether it’s a man or a woman.
A video by a team known as Project Veritas has been attempting to expose Missouri’s Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill as more liberal than her campaign implies. Veritas is led by James O’Keefe, who may be best known for his right-leaning hidden-camera-style investigations. Two of his high profile projects aimed to discredit ACORN, the former low-income advocacy organization, and Planned Parenthood.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill speaks to reporters at Missouri Farm Bureau headquarters in Jefferson City on August 10, 2018 (file photo from Jason Taylor)
This week, O’Keefe, who is a self-described guerilla journalist, targeted McCaskill, who is in a tight re-election fight against Republican challenger and state Attorney General Josh Hawley. O’Keefe’s organization claims it has video of McCaskill revealing more liberal positions on policy issues than she’s expressed to the public. The footage was featured on the conservative cable TV program “Hannity” Monday night.
McCaskill was interviewed Tuesday in Springfield, where she countered that she’s always been transparent about her views and said Veritas was trying to dupe her into making insincere comments.
“’I’ve been very upfront about all my positions,” McCaskill told KOLR-TV. “In fact, now I remember that very individual talking to me, trying to get me to say, trying to get me to tell him to say something different than what my positions are. And I said ‘No, you’re just going to tell the people in the doors it is what it is,” she said.
The Veritas video attempts to reveal McCaskill and her staff hiding her views on guns and former President Obama from Missouri voters.
The two-term Senator said her preference for gun safety is well known and expressed dismay over the tactics used by Veritas.
“I’ve made no secret that I think we can support the second amendment, and universal background checks, and banning bump stocks. My gun record is out in the open for everyone to see. What’s really telling about this is how far they’re willing to go to fraudulently embed somebody in my campaign,” said McCaskill. “That’s startling. I’ve never seen that in a U.S. Senate campaign before in the state of Missouri.”
The impact the video footage will have on McCaskill’s re-election is unclear.
After the footage ran on conservative cable news network Fox News Monday night, Hawley featured the Veritas video in a campaign email.
McCaskill and Hawley are locked in a statistical tie in the Senate race that’s drawn nearly $50 million in spending from outside groups, the most of any political contest in the midterm election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Missourinet media partner KOLR-TV contributed to this report
Missouri Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe told business leaders in Columbia on Tuesday that a proposed gasoline tax increase is receiving bipartisan support.
Missouri Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe addresses the Columbia Chamber of Commerce about Proposition D on October 16, 2018 (Brian Hauswirth photo)
Missourians will be casting ballots in November on Proposition D, which is a ten-cent gasoline tax increase.
Kehoe delivered a presentation to the Columbia Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, noting the measure has support from groups ranging from the Teamsters Union to the Missouri Chamber of Commerce. He says roads are not a Democratic or Republican issue.
“Trying to keep our roads safe and trying to make sure our bridges are intact for our school buses and families to drive over, that’s a non-partisan issue,” Kehoe says.
Governor Mike Parson, a Republican and U.S. Sens. Claire McCaskill, D, and Roy Blunt, R, are among leaders in both parties supporting Proposition D.
If approved, the tax increase would be phased in over four years, at 2.5 cents annually. Kehoe says Proposition D would mean more than $2 billion in new state funding for roads and bridges.
He says there’s a contractor in southwest Missouri’s Joplin who goes to Texas and Arkansas to work because there aren’t enough projects in the Show-Me State.
“The estimate is after full funding in ten years it puts about an additional 20,000 Missourians to work,” says Kehoe. “And those are the people you go to church with, those are the people you see in the grocery store.”
Missouri’s 17-cent gasoline tax has remained the same since 1996. Proposition D supporters say that because of inflation, the 17-cent gasoline tax is worth just seven cents of the value it had 22 years ago.
Proposition D would also establish an “emergency state freight bottleneck fund”. Columbia Chamber of Commerce President Matt McCormick notes the bottleneck fund would address locations like heavily-congested I-70 and Highway 63 in Columbia.
“It is a massive bottleneck in our community and it’s probably one of the worst, I would say it’s probably one of the worst on I-70 right now,” McCormick says.
Traffic is especially heavy on I-70 and Highway 63 during morning and afternoon rush-hour traffic and during Mizzou football Saturdays.
Kehoe tells the audience there’s also a major bottleneck at Interstates 70 and 64, near Wentzville.
Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) Director Patrick McKenna says Proposition D is crucial for Missouri, adding that MoDOT has about $8 billion in unfunded needs.
The Columbia Chamber of Commerce has endorsed Proposition D.
Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe, which was recorded on October 16, 2018 at the Drury Plaza Hotel Columbia East:
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