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Hawley’s office calls funding allegations ‘frivolous act of political harassment’

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Missouri Republican Senator-elect Josh Hawley speaks to supporters in Winchester, Missouri (file photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI)

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley’s office has responded to allegations that Hawley illegally used public resources to help his U.S. Senate campaign. The allegations have been leveraged by the Democratic-leaning group American Democracy Legal Fund (ADLF).

The Kansas City Star first reported that outside political consultants directed and “gave guidance” to Hawley’s taxpayer-funded staff in the Attorney General’s Office. The newspaper said those consultants, who went on to run Hawley’s Senate campaign, continued to meet with the attorney general’s staff during business hours in his official offices in the state Supreme Court building in Jefferson City.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has launched an investigation into the accusations against the fellow Republican Hawley. Ashcroft is charged as secretary of state to investigate election violations.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (2017 photo)

In a letter to Ashcroft’s office, Solicitor General D. John Sauer says the ADLF’s complaint is a “frivolous act of political harassment”. Sauer goes on to say that Brad Woodhouse, who leads the ADLF, is a well-known Democratic operative for a leftist political organization.

He says the group regularly attacked Hawley during Hawley’s recent successful campaign for the U.S. Senate and has filed multiple legal complaints against the attorney general in various forums. Sauer says Woodhouse filed this particular complaint seven days before the General Election—well within the ordinary blackout period for campaign-related complaints under Missouri’s ethics laws.

Ashcroft has asked State Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat, to work together to investigate the case. In a letter to Galloway today, Ashcroft cites Galloway having subpoena power, unlike Ashcroft.

Nicole Galloway (D)

Galloway is scheduled to do a closeout audit of Hawley’s administration, since Hawley successfully defeated Democrat Claire McCaskill in last month’s election. Ashcroft is asking Galloway for records during her that are relative to the allegations against Hawley. He also wants his office to sit in on any interviews and depositions that Galloway’s office would conduct.

Galloway is reviewing Ashcroft’s request.

Copyright © 2018 · Missourinet

Missouri transportation hub gets $20 million federal boost

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The federal government plans to make a big investment at a transportation hub in Missouri.  The Southeast Regional Port Authority in Scott City has been awarded a $19.8 million grant through the Department of Transportation.

According to SEMO Port Executive Director Cary Harbison, the funding will go toward the construction of two 12,000 foot long loops of railroad track near the transportation hub.

Harbison says the new infrastructure makes it easier to transfer tons of product from rail cars to river barges, and vice versa.

“There are loops available in St. Louis and down by Memphis, but in our general area this would be the only public loop track facility available, such that any customer can come to us,” Harbison said.

Farmer Kevin Fennewald manages a grain bin complex in southeast Missouri’s Scott County.

He says the proposed railway loop at SEMO Port could lower his cost to transport rice and thinks it would, in turn, boost the region’s economy which is mainly driven by the agriculture industry.

“This is an investment that is going to help the agriculture community here compete on that global stage,” Fennewald said. “Because a buyer, they are looking at buying high-quality products at the lowest possible price. We get to sell all of our products here, therefore there is more money to flow through the rest of the economy here in Southeast Missouri.”

Harbison, says the loop track will SEMO Port the flexibility to unload unit trains, which can have more than 100 cars of one or two products.

From there he says they could put directly onto a river barge which Harbison says the cheapest way transport goods.

“One barge tow that is 25 barges will hold 45,000 tons,” Harbison said. “That is 3.6 units trains, that is 1,800 trucks. That is why it is more economical.”

Harbison says the local Port Authority moves up to 1.5 million tons of goods each year with all modes of transportation. He is optimistic they can increase that amount by using the loop track.

“And it might be a one-off train. It may develop into a once a month train,” Harbison said. “We hope those customers would continue to utilize us but you never know. I mean one train is one train, and it’s one more train than we have right now.”

Harbison said the Port can start using the $20 million federal grant after they complete the agreement process, which takes about a year.

But the transportation authority has already started grading work where the first sections of loop track will be built.

Missouri U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt-R and U.S. Rep. Jason Smith-R announced the grant last week.

Blunt called it an important investment for the state. “The Semo Port plays a critical role in our state’s economy, especially when it comes to moving our ag products to market,” Blunt said. “This project will help ensure the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority is able to continue building upon the steady growth they’ve achieved over the years.

Smith said the finished port loop track terminal would provide more efficient transfers between railroad trains and river barge transportation. “This investment in Southeast Missouri will allow our farmers, ranchers, and workers to move more of their products to market more efficiently and boost the local economy, said Smith. “I’ve always believed our area is home to the finest farmers and workers in the world, and I’m excited that more businesses will be attracted to southern Missouri as we continue to bring our infrastructure into the 21st century.”

(Missourinet media partner KFVS-TV contributed this report)

Missourinet 7 a.m. News 12-10-2018

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Top Stories:  Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff and former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens top political consultant will not be President Trump’s new Chief of Staff.  The two failed to come to an agreement yesterday after Ayers had been considered a shoo-in for the post.  And a man was hit and killed by a train while he was walking on railroad tracks in Springfield Saturday afternoon.  57-year-old Jeff Dade died in the incident that was ruled an accident by the State Highway Patrol.

 

 

 

 

Parson wants Missouri to be a national leader in preventing Medicaid fraud

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Missouri Governor Mike Parson, R, has announced the creation of a Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Task Force. He says safeguarding the integrity of the state’s Medicaid program is vital.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson (at podium) announces the creation of a Medicaid fraud task force on December 7, 2018. Incoming Attorney General Eric Schmitt (left) and State Medicaid Director Todd Richardson (right) joined him (Brian Hauswirth photo)

The governor was joined at the Statehouse announcement on Friday by incoming Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican, who says the program is intended for Missouri’s most vulnerable.

“Whether it’s the elderly veteran that’s receiving those (Medicaid) benefits or a disabled individual, it’s intended for them and it’s not intended for fraudsters. It’s not intended for criminals,” Schmitt says.

Missouri’s Medicaid program involves more than $10 billion of Missouri’s $28 billion operating budget.

Schmitt is expected to take over as attorney general on January 3.

The program, which is officially known as MO HealthNet, has a new director. Former House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, was appointed by Missouri Department of Social Services (DSS) Director Steve Corsi, and began the new job on November 1.

Richardson says Governor Parson wants the Show-Me State to be a national leader in addressing Medicaid fraud. Richardson, who also participated in Friday’s announcement, says this will be an important part of his office’s efforts.

“Our responsibility as stewards of taxpayer dollars is to make sure that every single one of those tax dollars is being treated like we would treat our own,” says Richardson.

He reiterates his focus is on having a sustainable program that produces better health outcomes, rather than expanding the program. Richardson also emphasizes that preventing Medicaid fraud is a top priority.

“We intend to lead the nation in making sure that our Medicaid program has integrity, and that we are preventing and prosecuting every bit of fraud that happens in the system,” he says.

Missourinet asked Richardson if his office has enough investigators to look for Medicaid fraud. Richardson says they’ll be examining their resources, both in terms of people and technology.

Parson says task force members will work to find ways to prevent fraud through data analytics and deterrence measures.

About 935,000 Missourians are currently on Medicaid, and there are about 60,000 MO HealthNet-enrolled healthcare providers.

Outgoing Attorney General Josh Hawley says Medicaid fraud investigations have led to criminal charges in 29 cases during the past two years.

The Missouri Attorney General’s office has a Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. You can report Medicaid fraud to that unit by calling 1-800-286-3932.

Copyright © 2018 Missourinet

Missouri Supreme Court considering whether lower court bungled man’s DWI plea deal

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The Missouri Supreme Court in Jefferson City is considering the case of a man who claims he was misled into a lengthy prison sentence for a DWI conviction. The high bench will determine whether a lower court should have struck down its original conviction against him because of a faulty plea arrangement.

Michael Williams is incarcerated at the Algoa Correctional Center in Jefferson City (Image courtesy of Missouri Department of Corrections)

Michael Williams pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated as a chronic offender in the Warren County Circuit Court in eastern Missouri in 2016.  In doing so he accepted a plea arrangement offered by the prosecutor and recommended by his attorney, which was a sentence of eight years in prison with long-term treatment.  Going to trial and being found guilty would’ve carried a sentence of between five and 15 years.

The treatment program is offered to offenders with substance abuse addiction and consists of between one and two years during a prison sentence.  Once the program is successfully completed, the rest of the offender’s sentence is typically suspended and replaced with a period of probation.

But after the trial court accepted the plea deal and sentenced him, Williams learned after being incarcerated in July of 2016 that he was ineligible for the treatment program.  Although he had four DWI convictions, he did not have the required three felonies to qualify for the treatment.

So, Williams filed a request under a provision in Missouri law that allows those who’ve pleaded guilty and claim their sentences violate the law to have their complaints heard in court.

The request was granted in Warren County.  And with a new attorney, Williams claimed his plea was involuntary because his original lawyer falsely told him he’d be placed in a treatment program.  He further claimed he was denied due process because the trial court that sentenced him did so without ensuring that he was eligible for the program.

Williams contended he would not have pleaded guilty if he knew he was ineligible for the treatment.

But the court charged with reviewing his conviction complaint concluded he failed to prove his case.   It found his contention that he would not have pleaded guilty had he known he was ineligible for the program lacked credibility.  The court determined Williams accepted the plea offer of eight years to avoid a potentially longer sentence – up to 15 years – while hoping to participate in the long-term treatment program.

It also rejected his claim that he was denied due process when the trial court failed to ensure he was eligible for treatment, concluding that he relinquished any standing to object to the trial court’s pre-sentencing actions once he pleaded guilty.

Before the Supreme Court, Assistant Attorney General Robert Bartholomew argued on behalf of the state, essentially meaning he was representing the Warren County Court.

He noted that Williams’ trial attorney informed him that he would’ve been eligible for parole early in his sentence regardless of whether he entered the treatment program. 

“He would be eligible for parole without the treatment within two years,” said Bartholomew.  “This was a (Class) B Felony, and generally that requires approximately 25% of a sentenced served before a defendant is eligible for parole.”

Attorney Ellen Flottman of the Public Defender’s Office in Columbia represented Williams in front of the high court judges.  She said the Circuit Court in Warren County broke the law when it failed to check on Williams’ eligibility for the treatment program. 

“What the statute says is that the court has to check to see if the defendant is eligible, said Flottman.  “And no one checked to see if he was eligible.”

Flottman later added that she has another case with the same set of circumstances as with Williams.  She said courts are failing to fulfill their responsibilities on a regular basis. 

“This is a gotcha,” said Flottman.  “They’re sentencing people to something that they’re not eligible for, and they’re never checking to see if they’re eligible or not.”

Flottman is asking the high bench to strike down the circuit court’s findings against Williams and cancel out his conviction.  Williams is currently incarcerated in the Algoa Correctional Center in Jefferson City.

The Supreme Court, which heard arguments last Wednesday, is deliberating the case and could hand down a decision at any time.

Copyright © 2018 · Missourinet

Missouri college develops new rice variety

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A new rice breed has been developed by Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau and the Missouri Rice Research and Merchandising Council (MRRMC). Dr. Mike Aide, professor of agriculture, says MM17 is the school’s first-ever release of a new rice variety and it has been about one decade in the making.


Missouri college develops new rice variety

“It is a cross between a variety from Italy and one of our own lines and it showed excellent characteristics for taste as well as yield as well as palatability issues,” Aide tells Brownfield Ag News.

He says MM17 rice will be available for the 2019 planting season.

Aide says the rice is beneficial for Asian cuisine, including sushi.

“We are very hopeful that restaurants from St. Louis to New York City will be buying Missouri rice,” he says.

The variety from Italy is medium grain, crossed with an experimental line from the Cooperative Uniform Regional Rice Nursery, a multi-state program.

According to Aide, Missouri has about 200,000 acres of rice – most being long grain.

By Julie Harker of Brownfield Ag News

President Trump addresses hundreds of law enforcement officers at national conference in Kansas City (AUDIO)

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President Donald Trump speaks at the Project Safe Neighborhoods conference in Kansas City on December 7, 2018 (photo courtesy of Joyce Boghosian at the White House)

 

President Donald Trump spoke to about 650 law enforcement officers and prosecutors Friday in Kansas City, at a national conference about violent crime. Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker was also on-hand, and former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft also made an appearance. Organizers say the Project Safe Neighborhoods conference brings people from across the country together to coordinate strategies for reducing violent crime.

Click here to listen to President Trump’s remarks:

Copyright © 2018 · Missourinet

Overhaul of airwaves for wireless expansion means Missouri TV viewers will have to re-scan sets

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The FCC is overseeing changes in television broadcast frequencies across the country and in Missouri in order to make more airwaves available for 5G and high-speed mobile broadcast services.

Those who watch free, over-the-air television using rooftop or indoor antennas are being impacted by frequency changes being made. About half of all full-power and Class A low power TV stations on channels 2 through 69 either have or will change their broadcast frequencies to accommodate the wireless media expansion.

Viewers are being asked to “re-scan” their TV’s to avoid any disruption in reception.

Jean Kiddoo, who chairs a task force with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), says technology exists so that the actual TV channel on the dial won’t change. “For the viewers who are used to tuning to channel 5 to get a program, it’ll still be channel 5 and it won’t be confusing,” said Kiddoo.

The FCC claims that making airwaves previously reserved for broadcast TV available for wireless broadband will ease congestion on wireless networks and lay the groundwork for “fifth generation” (5G) wireless services.

Congress authorized auctions in 2012 to re-purpose spectrum for new users. In March of 2016, the first of those activities took place.

A “reverse” auction allowed participating TV broadcasters to bid against each other in order to sell their spectrum to the FCC.  The agency purchased the spectrum from the broadcaster who bid the lowest selling price.  It says it’s paying the broadcasters a total of $10.5 billion for the wireless spectrum.

The FCC then held a “forward” auction in which it sold the spectrum it acquired from the over-the-air TV broadcasters to the highest bidders.  It announced the biggest winners in that event last year as T-Mobile, Dish Network and cable giant Comcast.  AT&T and Verizon also made bids as did Dish Network.

The auction yielded $19.8 billion in revenue with the FCC claiming that more than $7 billion would be deposited to the U.S. Treasury for deficit reduction.

Kiddoo, who is the agency’s chair of its Incentive Auction Task Force, said the FCC is now focused on the transition to get the spectrum realigned for the wireless carriers to be able to use it, and for the broadcaster to move to a consolidated portion of the airwave band.

The agency has a page on its website to assist consumers in re-scanning their TV’s in order to avoid disruption when local stations make frequency changes   To re-scan, viewers will need to find “auto-tune” or “re-scan” in the “setup” menu of their TV or converter box remote control.

Kiddoo says it’s a good idea to re-scan TVs on a regular basis because broadcasters are adding more content on their digital sub-channels.  “We’re seeing a lot more of that, so if a viewer hasn’t re-scanned in a while or since they bought their TV, and they re-scan, they may find that there are a lot more channels available than they thought they had,” Kiddoo said.

Consumers are able to see which stations in their market are changing frequencies and at what point in time on another page at the FCC website.  A quick look and typing in of a zip code brought up a list of 14 TV channels that reach into the St. Louis market.  Six of those channels will be moving frequencies.  One, KETC, a PBS station on channel 9, has already done so.  The five others will change their frequencies between January and June of 2020.

Kiddoo notes TV stations are going to be notifying viewers prior to the change of their frequencies by airing public service announcements and on-screen messages.  “There are important services that local television stations provide, local emergency alerts and news programming and other local programming that we want to make sure that the viewers aren’t inconvenienced or left without it,” said Kiddoo.

The frequency change process has recently started and will affect the tens of millions of U.S. households who watch over-the-air television during a roughly a year-and-a-half time period.

 

Former northwest Missouri college wants to reopen as technical school

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Efforts to reopen Tarkio College as a two-year technical institution took a step forward this week. At a special presentation inside Thompson Hall on the Tarkio College campus, assistant to the college president, John Davis, says an application for certification has been submitted to the Missouri Department of Higher Education. Davis says the decision to open the college’s doors now lies in the state’s hands.

Photo courtesy of Tarkio College Alumni Association

“We believe it will take anywhere from 45 to 90 days,” Davis says on the state’s application process. “We will keep the pressure on the state. One of our board members, who actually is kind of our chief engineer when it comes to the buildings, lives right outside of Jefferson City. He’ll be going in on a regular basis to visit and make sure they are moving along on that. We’re optimistic it will be closer to 45 (days) than the 90.”

To finalize certification, the state requires the college to have $150,000 in escrow. Davis says a “Founder’s Fund” campaign was kicked off in June and has raised $212,000 toward a year-end goal of $250,000. Those funds will help keep the college open for the first year and maintain lower costs for students.

In the meantime, Davis says work will continue to shore up a few facility needs inside Thompson Hall, which already has an entire floor of classrooms fully equipped for student use.

“We have some classrooms identified on the first floor for some of our technical programs that still need to be outfitted with the equipment to teach those classes,” Davis says. “We’ll also need to clean them up and paint them. The biggest hurdle right now is that we have a fire alarm system that was built in 1968 that has to be updated.”

Davis believes regional businesses need workers with specialized training and skills, which led to the idea for Tarkio College to become a two-year technical institution rather than a four-year college.

“The programs we’ve identified for our application are plumbing, wind energy, and computer technology,” Davis says. “Also, we’ll have a series of academic development courses for students that do not have the skills to compete at a two-year or four-year college.”

Various regional businesses and manufacturers attended this week’s presentation about plans to reopen the school, which closed in 1992. Davis says it was important to host a wide variety of employers to gauge expectations from students entering a technical institution.

“It was really a combination of two groups today,” he says. “One group was business and industry, and the other group was different economic development groups. We had the Missouri Department of Economic Development here, Northwest Development, and Atchison County Development Corporation. All of those groups have access to funding for some of the repairs we have to do, and some of the money we need for startup costs.”

Pending the state’s decision on certification, Davis says the vision is to reopen Tarkio College sometime during 2019, specifically the summer semester. Within five years, the goal is to offer technical and career-oriented certificates in five areas to 200 students a term.

By Brent Barnett of Missourinet affiliate KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa

Missourinet 7 a. m. News 12-07-2018

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Top Stories:  Missouri now has a nearly $170 million budget deficit that has developed since the current fiscal year began in July.  Revenue collections for November alone were $67 million behind the same month last year.  And President Trump is speaking at the Project Safe Neighborhoods national conference in Kansas City today.  The closed event part of a Justice Department effort to curb crime.  Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will be at the event.