Start/Stop the Steel 

Posted on by
Reply

President Trump’s steel tariffs are supposed to spur a steel industry renaissance in the United States.  He has bragged about the nation’s biggest-ever steel plant that will be built in Iowa but it doesn’t appear his tariffs have meant anything to a 120-year old steel company a day’s drive away in Wisconsin. Or the 25-year old steel plant across the river from St. Louis.

Earlier this year, Alton Steel announced it was closing, the company has announcing it’s going to sell its 381-acre plant site to a developer—–

—that is going to build a 200-megawatt data center there. And that’s just a start. TerraWatt is talking about building five data centers there that will add up to a one-gigawatt operations.

One might think such a project would generate a ton of jobs.  Nope. TerraWatt says fifty people could produce only FIFTY fulltime jobs.

Then there’s Trump’s big plans for Iowa and no plans for Wisconsin.  We’re not sure the creating of the big steel plant makes up for the problems Iowa farmers who voted for him two years ago are facing thanks to his various ill-considered policies.

Is he just spreading more bovine by product around to keep his Republican congressional majority?  For somebody who has no concept of agriculture, he is one of the world’s great byproduct spreaders. Maybe THE best.

Will the new steel plant provide jobs for workers who will get his $5,000 checks for voting for the GOP tomorrow.?

While he was Trumpeting great things for Iowa, reporters were telling about some folks in neighboring Wisconsin who were hearing Taps for their jobs in the steel industry.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Maynard Steel is shutting down after twelve decades in Milwaukee.  Sales dropped by about one-third last year and the company is losing more money this year.  At one time it had 725 workers. The newspaper says the 77 remaining employees will lose their jobs and their health care benefits on December 4.  A court-appointed receiver will sell the company’s assets after that. The company cites “business and industry circumstances” as reasons for he closure.

Maybe Trump needs to go to Milwaukee where he can perform the same miracle he performed in Indianapolis ten years ago when he saved all those jobs at the Carrier Air Conditioning plant.  Except he didn’t. The deal actually saved only about one-third of the jobs. Not mentioned in the Trump/Pence bragging about the deal was the Carrier went on to close a Carrier plant in another Indiana City, costing 700 more workers their jobs.

A little more than a year later, Carrier reported it was moving more than 600 other jobs to a new factory in China. In the end, Carrier moved more jobs out of Indiana than it kept.

Maybe the workers in Milwaukee can find jobs at the planned $15 billion big beautiful steel plant Trump has proclaimed will be built in Iowa, “the largest steel plant ever built in the United States,” proclaimed our President. His Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick said there was no doubt the plant would be built.

But it won’t be built by an American company.

There also is doubt, at least for now, about when the plant will be built. Trump said the plant already was under construction. Iowa TV station KWQC did some digging after thae announcement and found no significant property transactions this year in Lee County, where President Trump says it will be. No permit applications had been submitted.  No detailed plans had been sent to county authorities. Definitely no plant is being built right now, Trump notwithstanding. Some property owners, however, say a real estate agent has been snooping around.

Maynard Steel employees will have to go a long time without paychecks and health insurance if they think they can move to Iowa and get steel industry jobs.

Some skeptics think the announcement was a campaign stunt.  Critics think the original plans were for the plant to be built in Minnesota where Mesabi Minerals is developing a big mine and mill operation in the Mesabi Iron Range up north. The project has been delayed, the company complaining the delay is because of 2017 dispute involving a rival who cites “anti-competitive conduct” and charges Mesabi with antitrust violations.

The Des Moines Register has reported Mesabi and its parent company, Essar Group, have a troubled financial history (www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/10/01/mesabi-metallics-company-iowa-steel-plant-trump/92036812007/) in this country and in Canada.

Reporter Tyler Jeff has written, “In India, Business Today reported a few years ago that the Essar Group was one of the country’s most indebted companies and “notorious” for defaults dating back to 1999, when Essar Steel failed to pay $250 million to international creditors. In addition to the bankruptcies at the company’s U.S. and Canadian subsidiaries, the Essar Group restructured debt in Canada three times.”

He says the company has sold billions of dollars in assets and now has a big loan from a Russian state-owned financial institution behind its plans to mine taconite in northwest Minnesota and then transport it about 500 miles to Iowa’s southernmost county (Keokuk and Fort Madison area) for processing.

Once more, Trump seems to be doing something nice for somebody in Russia.

Trump’s announcement caused great excitement in Iowa, naturally.  It came at such a convenient time, too. One of Iowa’s seats in the U. S. Senate is very much in play this year with a Democratic challenger threatening to flip the seat now occupied by Joni Ernst, who is not seeking a third term.  The most recent poll shows Democrat Josh Turek, a state representative, and Congresswoman Ashley Hinson are close in a state Trump carried by 13 points two years ago. The Suffolk University poll says one-fourth of the voters Hinson has lost say her support of Trump is the reason.

So is Trump’s grand announcement just an effort to hold on to the traditionally red state of Iowa?   Or is it the real thing?  A Russian-financed Indian company with a rugged background is going to put $15 billion dollars into a steel plant about 500 miles from the place where the ore is mined.

The steel industry is changing but Trump’s campaign promise to return the industry to the United States certainly have an odd twist to it.

A Russian-financed company from India and the acquisition of U. S. Steel by Nippon Steel of Japan seem to be an odd way to go about  Making America Great Again in terms of the steel industry.

Will this deal turn out to be what Trump says it will be?  Or is it just another Carrier case?

He seems to be big on India and Japanese ownerships in the steel industry and doing favors for Russians. But for a 120-year old company in Milwaukee?   Where is he for those folks?

Maybe they don’t count because Minnesota is a blue state. And soon to be out of work steel company workers in Wisconsin and already out of work and already-unemployed steel workers in the St. Louis aren’t worth any attention when he’s desperately trying to keep Congress red.

-0-

 

Notes From a Quiet Hill 

Posted on by
Reply

(Being various wry comments I don’t have the energy to write more about)

I have come to the conclusion that Donald Trump is the most destructive force to hit Washington, D. C. since the British burned the Capitol in 1815.  The East Wing, the Rose Garden, the Kennedy Center, a garish arch in the middle of the dignity of Arlington, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, destruction of stately old trees in his quest for a golf course he doesn’t and won’t own—-

What vehicle best represents Donald Trump.?  A bulldozer, but it’s a close race with a manure spreader.

-0-

Nothing like a 40 degree windy morning to make a convincing argument that summer’s gone.

-0

One of the loneliest sights at this time of year is a park board baseball diamond.

-0-

Nancy and I don’t stock up on trick or treat candy and we often hide out when costumed urchins are going round and demanding people give them sugary rewards for doing nothing more than knocking on the door.  Sometimes we have gone to movies but the last time we did that, the sound was so loud that I turned to her midway through and said, “I can’t wait to see this on television so I can turn the volume down enough to know what they’re saying.”

-0-

One year in college when my roommate and I forgot about Halloween and kids came knocking, we sent them away with the only thing we had.  Several moms and dads probably wondered later who gave them slices of baloney.

-0-

We’ll be watching returns election night to see how far down the ballot the blue wave rolls in Missouri, particularly to see if the grassroots citizens eliminate the Republican two-thirds majority in one or both chambers.  Majorities are fine. Two-thirds promotes arrogance and laws that require rejection sometimes.

-0-

My monthly guest column for the Jefferson City News-Tribune on Sunday refers to the ballot next Tuesday as a “Hypocrisy Ballot” because one proposed amendment asks voters to ban something another amendment proposes.

-0-

If you were having trouble putting food on your table, would you open a 401K that will never benefit you.  Or your great grandchildren.  Or theirs?  That’s the sovereign wealth proposal, offered at a time when the state budget office is warning agencies to expect at least ten percent reductions in their budgets for the next fiscal year.

-0-

Drove to Linn the other night for a River Region Library board meeting.  If I hadn’t traded in my points from Nancy’s grocery shopping for cheap gas a day earlier, I would have tanked up in Linn, where the prices were about twenty cents cheaper.

-0-

Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend.  It began as a system to conserve coal during World War I. We borrowed the idea from England.  Why conserve coal?  Well, in those days our steamships were coal-powered. The trains that moved war materiel and troops were steam=powered and coal fired.

-0-

As we grudgingly admit that summer is gone, we sometimes ponder the seasons as defined by author Kurt Vonnegut in a 1978 graduation speech at Fredonia College in New York. Four seasons, he said, make no sense.  We should have six.

To him, spring was May and June. July and August constitute summer. September and October are autumn. The next two months, November and December, are “Locking.” They are pre-winter but people start locking down to stay warm. Winter is January and February. Unlocking happens in March and April.

In a few days we will enter Locking. We’d probably fire up the fireplace for he first time if we could.  In our new place we just turn it on.  It has three speeds.  I’m not sure which is more exciting—our fire place or he YouTube videos of a fireplace.

The cats are fascinated by our fireplace, by he way.

Sports: Chiefs collapse; Bolton Record;  Tiger BB starts, etc.

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—Seattle’s coach says his Seahawks “conducted a clinic” in their 20-3 win over the limited them to fifty plays (Seattle had 69) and kept the ball for eleven more minutes than Kansas City had it.

The Chiefs never were able to establish a rhythm as they went three for eleven on third downs and accumulated only 213 total yards.

Sixteen rushing plays netted the Chiefs only 41 yards. Kenneth Walker III gained 36 of those yards but it took him 14 carries to get them.

Harrison Butker’s season continued to struggle on field goals, missing two more. He’s 11 for 16, almost twenty percentage points below his career average.

Patrick Mahomes was 19 for 32 passing but his longest completion was only 19 yards. He finished with 165 yards.  But for the first time in his 152-game career, says ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Chiefs never got to the red zone.

The Chiefs after a lackluster win against the Chargers and the failure on both sides of the line in the loss to Seattle meet Denver next weekend. Face Denver next weekend. The loss marked a historic low for Mahomes, whose offense failed to reach the red zone even once.

 

CHIEFS2)—Every time former Missouri Tiger Nick Bolton makes ten or more tackles in a game, he’s breaking his own record set against the Chargers. Sunday night he did it again, this time against the Seattle Seahawks with eleven more. It’s his 27th ten tackle (or more) game. Former Chiefs Derrick Johnson held the previous record at 25. He was with the Chiefs for thirteen years. This is Bolton’s sixth year.

The Seattle game was the fourth time this season that he has racked up ten or more tackles in a game. The Seattle game he had 59 total tackles, including 24 solo tackles this year.  He broke the record in his 79th game.  He now has 671 career tackles , 391 of them solo takedowns.  He’s had a half-dozen sacks, three forced fumbles and a handful of interceptions. He’s been inand 4.5 stuffs.

(MIZ)—Missouri meets Arkansas for the Tigers’ first game after their mid-season break. They’re still in the top 25 but lost a position in each of the major polls.  Arkansas is 3-4, Missouri is 5-1 and needs one more win to be bowl-eligible.

(MIZBB)—Dennis Gates’ team picked up an exhibition win against a quality opponent, 71-67 against Kansas State, in Manhattan.  Missouri had a 14-point lead in the second half but went dry for six minutes before holding off the Wildcats.

Freshman Jason Crow finished with 21 points to lead all scorers.  Mark Mitchell, who will play as long as the courts let him play this season, was scoreless in 16 minutes on the floor.

One more exhibition game, against Cleveland State a week from tonight in Mizzou Arena.

(CARDINALS)—A couple of St. Louis Babybirds are tearing up the Arizona Fall League, which is headed into its closing days. Tai Pete, who was in double-A last season

Peete is the first AFL player to triple in fourth straight games in more than 25 years. In his first eleven games in Arizona he has hit .348 with one homer, six RBIs, seven stolen bases and four doubles to go with his four triples.

Also particularly impressive is relief pitcher Tekoah Roby who unscored on in  9.2 innings. He’s given up no runs and has a 13-1 strikeout to walk ration.

(ROYALS)—Royals catching prospect Brooks Bryant, who spent much of the summer on the injured list is showing good power in Arizona.  In his first six games he has homered three times (he hit that many in 33 games in single-A this past regular season). He is showing Caglianone-type distance with his blasts.  He was hitting .296 in those first six games, sporting a .704 slugging percentage. He also is learning how to play first base. He seldom played that position  before going to the AFL.

Motoring along—

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson didn’t lock up his third Cup championship at Talladega Sunday, but his dramatic run to the finish line puts him on the verge.

Larson surged from 11th place on the last lap to win by 41-hundredths of a second over teammate William Byron. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Ross Chastain were running under the same blanket to finish third and fourth..  With two races left, he has a 73-point lead over Denny Hamlin, the regular season points leader. Christopher Bell, who started the day only five points behind Larson, crashed early and is now third, 74 points out, and Chase Briscoe who had launched a late season charge of his own, was caught up in one of the big crashes and trails by 77.

{Photo Credits: Bolton—Reddit; Peete—Facebook; Talladega finish—Sean Gardner, Getty Images)

MEMO 

Posted on by
Reply

To: J.D. Vance

From: Me, concerned citizen

If you have not already started—although I am sure you have—you need to be thinking of how you would serve as the interim President of the United States until the 2028 elections and how you might deserve to be considered for an extension.

I am sure you have watched your boss’s deteriorating poll numbers and the inter-party defections, especially among those Republicans who hope to resurrect their own candidacies for the House or the Senate by turning on President Trump. Unfortunately, theirs seems to be a case in several instances of “Too soon old; too late smart.”

You are, I am sure, cognizant of the possibility that the blue wave will continue to build and have started thinking of what would happen if Democrats and some badly-disillusioned Republicans provide the needed votes to let President Trump transition to being a fulltime golfer.

What will you do or advocate doing to separate yourself from a President you have so slavishly followed for a couple of years but who now is a lead weight for the party?

You’re in a tricky position. You know you cannot be Trump 2.1 after the Original Trump is banished if you want the job fulltime in 2028 or not to face the same removal movement that deposed him sooner.  Two years is a short time to wash the Trump stain from your credentials and to create a new you-image.  You will inherit what is charitably called an international train wreck. You must be thinking how to end military and tariff wars without a total admission of grievous error but acknowledging serious mistakes for which you will accept no blame while emphasizing the things you will do to promote national and international healing.

Remember this: A mob, having enjoyed the thrill of hanging one, might not be satisfied with hanging only one.  The crowd might still be quite restless when you make the oval office your own. You must be thinking and assembling others from outside the present executive team who will find ways for you to look good digging out from under the rubble of this president’s disaster.

Renewing domestic and international trust and respect in such a short time might be beyond your best efforts, but it is important that you tell us what you will do if you are going to make sincere efforts and achieve some improvements.

If doing what you have to do means throwing Trump under the bus to join all of those he has thrown there, so be it. You must be prepared to show a major shift not only in ideology but also in style. You are, after all, the Hillbilly Eulogy guy, not the rich big city guy whose life experience has been far from your own and has no relation to the lives of most Americans.

You must be carefully lining up cabinet members who are not amateurs in their roles. Some of those replaced by the current administration might be good choices to return and be your guiding team. Start now to establish back-door relationships with Iran, China, North Korea, Russia and Israel that could be useful after you are sworn in as the successor to President Trump.

Make plans to dump the FCC Chair who seems all too willing to be the mini-Trump in the war against the media. In fact, you should announce as soon as you are in office that the war against the media is over, that you recognize the importance of a free and independent media, that the role of the media is not to be your friend and mouthpiece but to be an observer and when necessary be a critic.

Make your new Director of Homeland Security someone one with a Spanish surname and put ICE on ice.

Make a personal commitment to give late night talk show hosts something to talk about other than you. But understand that making fun of people in power is a very old matter of human nature. Poking fun at politicians probably began before written language was created.

Be strict with yourself about this: Nights are for sleeping. Days are for talking and acting. Do not try to mix the two. Remember that verbal temperance even in disagreement is more likely to engender respect than irrational attacks will.

If you wish to call someone a derogatory name, do it in your shower, not in public.

Find someone who knows and has the respect of and for the military to be ready with a mop, a broom, and a carpet cleaning system to replace Pete Hegseth. It should be someone who doesn’t measure military competence in terms of color, gender, or testosterone level. Before he goes, report on HIS testosterone levels.

Have somebody with some honor in the medical field replace Health Secretary Kennedy, who undoubtedly will complain he is a victim of a conspiracy. Admit he’s right and then vaccinate yourself from his influence.

Don’t be afraid to keep some of the competent people President Trump accidentally appointed to top positions. Would Rubio be more effective without Trump above him?  Of course, letting him stick around leaves him poised to be one of your challengers in the 2028 primaries.,

Prepare a list of executive orders to immediately roll back Trump’s plans for—

—-well, just about everything he has proclaimed.

Be thinking about the points you will earn with the public by cancelling the EgoArch, by restoring a sane board to the Kennedy Center, and announcing you are ending all efforts to etch the name Trump on any buildings he did not earn the right to rename, which would be none.

And restore the proper names to one of the Great Lakes and to The Gulf.

You’ll need to emphasize that you are not trying to erase President Trump’s name from history but are restoring our history to its accurate place in telling  ALL of the nation’s story, including his. Do not volunteer to speak at the dedication of his presidential museum and lie-brary.

Unsticking yourself from Trump might be difficult because of the tar baby he has been. But you need to give it your best efforts. Otherwise, your long-term future in what is left of the White House will be brief.

Retire attack dogs such as our Senators Schmitt and Hawley to a political kennel. You don’t need their kind to be distracting the public from the good works you do to restore a modicum of confidence in our country.

When President Trump was elected in 2016 without my approval, I was among the many who hoped he would grow into the office. But he has proven accurate an observation President Woodrow Wilson made: “Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.”

President Trump is an example of one who swelled excessively and constantly. And look what it got him. Hire people who won’t be afraid to tell you before it’s too late that you’re looking a little puffy.

Good luck with your contingency planning. Do not be wasting time in making preparations. Your future is at stake, by 2028 if not sooner.

Citizen Bob

First Christmas Catalogue

Posted on by
Reply

I should have expected it.  A few weeks ago I was at Sam’s Club and there already were Christmas decorations on display.

Right next to a 10-foot high skeleton to put in your front yard for Halloween.

(We have some folks in our neighborhood who leave their skeleton up year around. They dress it as Santa Claus for Christmas.  I think during the summer it had a bandanna and one of its bony hands was holding a plant-watering can.)

Our first Christmas catalogue arrived last week.  Maybe it was the second one after the Vermont Country Store.

Well, it was ONE of the first.

One of the things for sale in some of the Christmas catalogs is t-shirts.

Think about that.

It’s December, headed to the worst month of the year, January, and they’re peddling t-shirts!

Most of them in this particular catalog have clever things but one must be careful spending too much time reading them when worn by certain people, if you get my drift. We get some catalogs that have t-shirts that I am embarrassed to see people wearing in public. They’re the kind that you wear only to a boisterous late  party that ends with a lot of people driving home who shouldn’t be driving.

A lot of the more civilized t-shirts focus on family and pets and soft stuff like that. This catalog was long on family values.

“My secret ingredient is TAKEOUT” says the first one.  Another quotes a non-religious scripture: “I’m Cold  Me 24:7”

Here are some other messages, personal billboards that we can wear, if you will.

In my defense, I was left unsupervised

Some see a weed. Others see a wish

Baking is my favorite sport

Sarcasm: It’s how I hug

A day without a book is like (just kidding, I have no idea)

Books: the original hand-held device

Fishing rods are like potato chips. You can’t have just one

Engineer: solving problems you didn’t know you had in ways you can’t understand.

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup

Being a trophy husband is exhausting.

I survived the 60s twice

Emotional support husband. Do not pet

Either you love dogs or you’re wrong.

If you think I’m short you should see my patience

Being a functional adult everyday seems a bit excessive

Underestimate me. That’ll be fun

Often mistaken for an adult because of my age

I don’t want to go through things that don’t kill me but make me stronger anymore

It’s weird being the same age as old people

Bigfoot saw me, but nobody believes him

Glossary of Engioneering terms: Percussive maintenance (whack it with your fist); high impedance air gap (it’s not plugged in); Cycle power to the panel (turn it off, then on again); Thermally reconfigured (it melted); Kinetic disassembly (it blew up)

Just because I’m awake doesn’t mean I’m ready to do things

Please be patient, I’m form the 1900s

The garden is calling and I must go

(for the next day):  Dirt nerd

90 percent of being married is yelling, “WHAT?” from the other room

When I woke up this morning I had no plans to be AWESOME. This just happened.

Medicine heals the body. Dogs heal the soul

My birthstone is a block of cheese

I’ve lost my mind. I’m pretty sure the kids took it

Always hike in groups. Bears like options.

There are several plaques but my favorite one says. “Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says ‘Oh crap. She’s up!’”

(The catalog in this instance is called “Signals,” and it comes to many people who support public broadcasting.)

 

Sports: Toothless Tigers, Adequate Chiefs, Kicker Kicked Out; Mitchell and Gunn, Are In, For Now

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs remain undefeated after a workmanlike 22-6 win over the still-winless San Diego Chargers. The Chiefs are 5-0, undefeated in three games in the AFC West. The Chargers.  The Chargers are still looking for their first win after six games.

The Chiefs take on the Seatle Seahawks next weekend in Seattle. The Seahawks, with Kenneth Walker III on their side, won the Super Bowl this year. They’re split their first six games. Walker is now in the red and yellow, leading the league in rushing and giving a dimension to Kansas City’s offense that it hasn’t had in several years.

Parick Mahomes went 23/29 for 272 yards and one interception. The game was one of the rare times he did not pass for a touchdown. Walker added 128 yards to his year’s producito on 19 carries. He scored twice. He’s averaging 6.2 yards per carry—537 yards so far.

Harrison Butker was three for four in field goals; he has yet to hit one from 50 or more yards out. He missed half of his extra point tries.

(MIZBOO)— Saturday was one of those any give Saturdays.

We’d like to see the Ole Miss scouting report on the Missouri Tigers. They had them cold.

Missouri was not upset—Mississippi was a top-10 team–but the beat down the Tigers took was surprising. Clearly, Ole Miss had figured out a way to bottle up Missouri’s rushing game and how to riddle the Tiger Defense with both runs and passes. Missouri got the first three points of the game. Mississippi got the next 31, let Missouri runners get only 34 yards and kept the Tigers from scoring on ten straight possessions.

Missouri assisted in its misery with a badly kicked field goal and an interception at the goal line. The missed second-quarter field goal was the last time Missouri made it to red zone until the last part of the game when the goal line interception happened.

The Tigers ground game was grounded. Runners gained only 39 yards. The Tigers converted only six of 17 third downs, most of which were long. On average, Missouri was third and 7.8.

“You’ve got to figure out how to score,” said coach Drinkwitz, who also thought Missouri never got into “the rhythm of the game.”  The defense did but it wasn’t until the third quarter. But, “offensively, we were just pressing, we were pressing, we were pressing and we just weren’t able to do it.”

The loss might not be as severe as it seemed at the end of the game because Auburn upset #1 Georgia and #14, Unranked Florida toppled 7th ranked Texas, Tennessee beat sixth-ranked Alabama. LSU, ranked 22nd, dumped 16th ranked Mississippi State.

Missouri drops to 2-2 in the conference, one of eight teams with two losses. Georgia, Kentucky, and Texas have one loss apiece. Alabama and Florida are 3-2. Missouri, LSU, Auburn, and Mississippi have split their four games. Texas and Oklahoma are 1-2.

Arkansas (3-4) is next up for Missouri after the bye week. Then it’s Texas and Georgia. Kentucky and Oklahoma will finish the season for Missouri.

(RATINGS)—ESPN dropped Missouri out of its top 25 after the loss to Mississippi but the AP and the Coaches put them back where they were two weeks ago—21st and 22nd.

(MIZHARDY)—Coach Drinkwitz says Ahmad Hardy still hasn’t started the two-week ramp-up to get on the active Tiger roster and he’s tired of being asked when Hardy will be ready.  Hardy is still in rehab for his off-season gunshot wound as Missouri heads into the seventh game of its 12-game season.  Drinkwitz says he’ll let everyone know when Hardy starts practicing.

It appears the earliest Hardy could be back would be for game ten.  As far as we know, Drinkwitz has not been asked bout red-shirting Hardy.

What Hardy’s role will be if he does come back this season is a matter of speculation with the emergence of Jamal Roberts, who ranks second in the national rushing statistics—by just seven yards.

(KICKED OFF)—Harrison Mevis, who stabilized the Los Angeles Rams’s field goal  kicking last year, has lost his touch…or his golden foot….and his job.  Mevis missed two field goals in last week’s Rams loss in overtime to the Buffalo Bills and the day afterwards, the Rams booted him off the team. He missed two field goals in a 37-34 Rams loss. The second one would have been a game winner. The second one, in overtime, was blocked.

Mevis, who was 12 of 13 last years is only five for nine this year and missed on 7 of 9 kicks from and 3 of 7 from forty yards or more. The Rams have called Blake Grupe off the practice squad to take his place.  Grup, who also has played for the Saints and the Colts is 18 of 27 in field goals in his career.

The Rams got one field goal out of his replacement, Blake Grupe, before Grupe injured a knee tackling a runner on a kick return. He had kicked a 44-yard field goal to give the Rams a 3-0 lead without ten minutes left in the first quarter. He’d been signed off the practice squad when Mevic was let go.

Grupe was the fifth kicker for the Rams in their last 57 games.

(MIZBB)—Tiger forward Annor Boateng has been ruled out for the season as he recovers from a knee injury suffered last January when he slipped going tor a dunk. Coach Dennis Gates thus has an opening in his lineup for Mark Mitchell if Mitchell keeps his court permission to play a fifth year.

Mitchell had committed to spend his fifth year with Kentucky before deciding to return to Missouri where he made the SEC All conference team twice. Nonetheless, a judge in Kentucky has ruled, for now, that he is eligible for a fifth year and has issued an injunction against the NCAA that sought to sideline him.

Gates, who testified for Mitchell in his most recent court case, says he did not discuss the return with Mitchell but he’d be glad to get him back. He said at the SEC Media Days, “When we were 0-19 (in 2023-24), that young man stepped foot on our campus, and the last two years, we were able to go to the NCAA Tournament. Call it what you may—sure, we lost in the first round the last two years—but I’ll always be here for Mark Mitchell, man. Without a doubt. That’s what it’s about. It’s not about using these young people; it’s about stepping foot in lockstep with them, every step of the way.”

Another NIL transfer, C. J. Gunn, has won his court case to be on the roster.

Gates says he did talk to Mitchell but did not recruit him to return. “When you have a kid for two years, you don’t have to recruit anybody. … When you do things the right way, you don’t have to recruit. You just hold your arms open and give them a hug when they return.”

(SOCCER)—We rarely cover pro soccer in these columns but when a record is involved, it’s particularly newsworthy. The St. Louis Soccer Club played to a scoreless draw against the Vancouver Whitecaps last Wednesday to remain unbeaten for 21 straight games, breaking the record of 19 by the Red Bull New York team in 2016. . The tie also guaranteed St. Louis will be in the playoffs. St. Louis is 14-6-9 overall.  The streak has guaranteed St. Louis a spot in the MLS playoffs.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals have released some new views of their intended downtown baseball park. The project location is a partnership with Hallmark Cards, owners of Crown Center, near the proposed ballpark. The Kansas City architectural firm, Populous, is designing the stadium.

The new four-deck stadium built on part of an 85 acre space that will include a ballpark district (for example, Ballpark Village in St. Louis).    that also will include residential and entertainment space will hold 34,000 fans, about four-thousand fewer than fit into Kauffman Stadium. There will be space for about 3,000 more to stand.  About two thirds of the fans will be shaded by a canopy.

The stadium actually will be in a big hole in the ground. Builders will have to carve a 90-foot deep hole in he Kansas City limestone before actual stadium construction can start.

It will have a lot of fountains, a reference to “The City of Fountains” that Kansas City calls itself.  The city owns 48 fountains with more than 150 additional ones in private hands. The city says it has more fountains than any other city except for Rome. Fans will be able to ride streetcars to get to it. Groundbreaking is expected next June. The Royals’ lease on the K runs out in 2031.

Cost: $1.9 billion.

To the Track—-

(NASCAR)—Tyler Reddick, the hottest driver in NASCAR at the start of the season is heating up again just in time to make the chase to the Cup Championship hotter as the season roars to its end.  Reddick won the first three races of the year and added two more to go five for the first nine. Since then he has settled back into the field.

 

Reddick won his first race since April 19 at Kansas City and when he led the field across the finish line in Phoenix Sunday he went from 114 points out of the lead to just 56 behind Kyle Larson with three races left in the season. He still has six drivers ahead of him, though.

Christopher Bell, who finished fourth, also closed on Larson, is only five points back.

Larson was never in the picture. His car never ran well at Phoenix and he eventually finished 24th after a blown tire send him into the wall.

Ahead next week is unpredictable Talladega, always a crap shoot for everybody.

-0-

(INDYCAR)—Alexander Rossi and Alex Palou, the test drivers for IndyCar’s new chassis due to go into serious competition in 2028 wrung out the new deal on the Sebring Road Course last week. Rossi was in a Chevrolet-powered car. Palou’s engine was a Honda.The runs were the first for the IR-28 chassis on a rough road course after early tests on the smooth asphalt at Indianapolis. The Sebring runs were the first durability runs intended to learn how the cars handled under extended street-course conditions.

Perhaps as an indication of what’s to come came while Palou was on the track at the same time other drivers were doing some off-season tire testing with the current cars.  Palou “accidentally” passed Kyle Kirkwood in one of the current cars.  His runs also showed a weakness in the new car when a fueling system cropped up. It was quickly fixed.

(Photo credits:Palou and Kirkwood—Chris Owens, IndyCar; Ole Miss wins—Instagram; Royals Stadium—Populous

 

Missouri’s Botched Execution

Posted on by
Reply

More than three decades ago, Missouri made headlines with a botched execution. It’s so long ago that it’s largely forgotten. It was not nearly as tragic as the Tennessee case but it caused quite a stir and it presented a Missourinet reporter with an ethical dilemma.

Emmitt Foster and an accomplice broke into the St. Louis County home of Travis Walker and his girlfriend De Ann Keys at 2 a.m. on November 20, 1983. Both men shot Walker, who died, and Keys, who survived to identify Foster as his accomplice.

Both were convicted. Foster drew a death sentence. The other man got life.

Foster’s time and appeals ran out on May 31, 1995.

The Missourinet had a policy from the time the death penalty was reinstated that we would witness all executions.  We felt that any time the state exacted its utmost penalty, it should not be done secretly and that representatives of the media had to be present.

I sent my reporter, Brad Farrell, to Potosi to cover Foster’s execution. At the time, the Missourinet was offering a wire service to our affiliates and the editor went with him.

Missouri had a problem when it re-enacted the death penalty because it had no facility capable of administering it in the state penitentiary old penitentiary.  The gas chamber gasket that sealed the chamber closed had deteriorated so badly that the chamber could not contain the cyanide gas that was used, provoking fears that everybody else would die, too.

Until a room could be modified into a death chamber at the Potosi prison the gas chamber was modified with the removal of the two chairs inside, creating enough room for a gurney on which the condemned prisoner would lie. Equipment was installed for the administration of the drugs.  So the first death penalty inflicted after re-enactment of it was done with drugs in the gas chamber.

At Potosi, as is the case now at Bonne Terre, there are three glassed-in areas around the execution chamber. Media and other state witnesses sit in one area while friends, relatives and spiritual advisors of the condemned sit across the chamber. The third area is for other witnesses with interests in the case.  When the prisoner on the gurney raises his head and looks past his feet, he can see those witnesses. In one instance, a man who killed a highway patrolman looked up and saw the area packed with men in the blue uniforms of the patrol.

Foster’s execution, the 12th by drugs in Missouri, was a routine event until something went wrong.

The blinds covering the windows of the witness areas were always closed while the preparations are underway inside the chamber and are not opened until all prison and medical personnel have departed, leaving the inmate tightly strapped to the gurney and able to move only his head and his feet.

The blinds were opened as the first drug began to flow into Emmitt Foster’s veins at 12:03 that morning. Normally the inmate has only a minute or so to find his witnesses and mouth any words to them, as they mouthed words to him—there is no public address system in the chamber.  It usually does not take long for the first drug to knock out the inmate, for his head to drop to the pillow. The other two drugs that paralyzed breathing and stopped the heart usually produced a couple of gasps and then stillness. In four or five minutes, the blinds were to close and the announcement would be given in the witness areas that the procedure had been completed.

But not for Foster. When things did not appear to be going the usual way, Brad, who had witnessed three other executions saw him “gasping and slightly convulsing and I could see that he was still breathing,” as the St. Louis Post-dispatch reported. Brad remembers turning to his Learfield colleague and saying “Something’s wrong. This isn’t what I’ve seen before.”  When Foster was still alive seven minutes into the procedure, the blinds were closed.

When the Washington County Medical Examiner entered the chamber about 12:27 to find out why Foster was still alive he noticed that a strap on Foster’s arm was fastened too close to his elbow while the needle allowing drugs to into his veins was closer to his wrist, the strap serving as something of a tourniquet. He told other officials to loosen the strap and after that, “things happened quickly.” Foster’s heartbeat quickly fell and stopped within three or four minutes.

The blinds remained closed for twenty-six minutes, three minutes after officials had gone back into the chamber to figure out what was wrong, correct it, and then complete the execution. He was pronounced dead at 12:33.  The blinds were reopened so witnesses could see that Foster was dead.

The witnesses filed out. “We didn’t see him die,” Brad told me a few days ago from his home in Alexandria Virginia. He’s now an attorney for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He and our Learfield wire service editor refused to sign the warrants attesting that they had witnessed the execution. “I didn’t know what had happened. They could have put a pillow over his face,” Brad said.

The medical examiner later called the incident “a little error” and commented, ”It’s not like the guy suffered,” he said.

We had a discussion with State Corrections Director Dora Shriro a day or two after the event to resolve issues related to the refusal to sign the document. Somewhere in the state archives, probably, is that document.

The Post-Dispatch commented, “Why shouldn’t the public’s representatives get to see what happens when the best laid plans for killing a prisoner go awry?  The state tries to make executions seem so clinical and so painless that the harsh truth of what is happening recedes into the background. The government is premeditatedly lowering itself to a criminal’s level by taking yet another life. Emmitt Foster’s slow death and the state’s frantic reaction bring home once again what capital punishment really means—and make one more argument for no more executions.”

The Death Penalty Information Center, has counted at least 65 botched executions, 1982-present, most involving lethal injection in Tennessee, Idaho, Alabama, and Ohio because of problems hooking up intravenous lines.  Foster is twenty-second on the list, the only one from Missouri

Missouri has executed 90 more men since that night without a repeat of Foster’s death.

(Photo Credit–Missouri Department of Corrections)

Posted on by
Reply

Execution UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE

President Trump has overruled our offensive Defense Secretary and says there will not be a publicly-broadcast of the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.  He still will be shot to death but not with a worldwide audience watching.

While there are some parts of the world that think it’s a mistake not to make the execution public, most not only don’t want the death penalty at all.

The Death Penalty Information Center reports only 17 countries executed people last year, up from a record low fifteen in 2024.

Four countries (Japan, South Sudan, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates) resumed executions after a hiatus, while two countries (Oman and Syria) which carried out executions in 2024 did not in 2025. Of note, the United States was the only nation to execute people in the Americas for the 17th consecutive year.

In addition to Iran, which carried out at least 2,159 executions in 2025, significant increases were recorded in several other countries. Saudi Arabia carried out at least 356 executions, exceeding their historic high of 345 executions in 2024. Together, Iran and Saudi Arabia accounted for 93% of all executions worldwide. Egypt (13 to 23), Singapore (9 to 17), Yemen (38 to 51), and the United States (25 to 47) all approximately doubled their prior year execution totals, and Kuwait nearly tripled (6 to 17).

Paralleling global trends, the increase in the United States was attributable to a regional rise in executions in Florida, which accounted for nearly half of all executions. Amnesty International notes that this rise in U.S. executions occurred as “officials at the federal level and in some states promoted inflammatory and flawed narratives on the death penalty and its effect on crime, advocating for an increase in its use.”

Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were global outliers in execution methods with the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation and beheadings, respectively. As in previous years, the 2025 execution total does not include the thousands of executions estimated to be carried out annually in China, regarded as the world’s leading executioner. Both China and Vietnam classify data on the death penalty as a state secret. Restrictive state practices in North Korea, Laos, and Belarus also result in little to no information being available for those countries.

President Trump maintains Hasan deserves the several bullets that will be coming to him and admits to having some misgivings about cancelling the public event.  However,

“Nidal Malik Hasan, a former U.S. Army Major turned traitor, is a very bad and evil man, who killed 13 people, including a pregnant soldier, who died, along with her unborn son, and injured, very seriously, 32 more innocent people. Barack Hussein Obama’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) intercepted electronic communications between Hasan and the radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki. When reviewed by his FBI terrorism task force, investigators concluded that Hasan’s emails were not a threat. This assessment of the Obama Administration’s actions was later considered to be a key intelligence failure. With all of that being said, I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device. He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed. That said, the execution may be viewed in person by the immediate families of the victims, if they so choose. They deserve to witness JUSTICE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Trump’s obsession with blaming President Obama (and his constant cheap shot mentions of his middle name) is well over-stated.

NPR’s Mark Memmott reported in November, 2009:

Author Jerome Corsi, who was among the group that “Swift Boated” Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election and more recently penned The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, has another eye-catching story at the conservative World Net Daily website.

The headline reads: “Shooter Advised Obama Transition; Fort Hood Triggerman Aided Team On Homeland Security Task Force.”

And the story begins with this:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday’s massacre at Fort Hood, played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama’s transition into the White House, according to a key university policy institute document.

Here’s what NPR national security/intelligence correspondent Tom Gjelten tells us about Corsi’s conclusion:

This claim is so exaggerated as to be without merit.

Nidal Hasan was one of 308 people whose names appear on a list of “participants” in a series of public roundtable meetings organized by the “Presidential Transition Task Force,” a project of the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University. Hasan was not himself a member of the Task Force.

Frank Cilluffo, the HSPI director, says the participants’ list, published as an appendix to the Task Force report, was no more than a tally of those people who RSVP’d to a notice of the roundtable meetings, which took place between June 2008 and February 2009. “Hasan joined as a member of the audience,” Cilluffo says.

When Cilluffo saw a picture of Hasan, he remembered him making a public comment during one of the roundtable meetings. “I had to cut him off, because he was going on too long,” Cilluffo says. He says he can not recall what Hasan was saying.

Corsi’s report, by the way, does something of a U-turn about midway through. “While the GWU task force participants included several members of government, including representatives of the Department of Justice and the U.S Department of Homeland Security,” he writes, “there is no indication in the document that the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition, other than to serve in a university-based advisory capacity.”

And an “editor’s note” attached to Corsi’s story after its publication says “Hasan is being reported as a participant in the GWU Homeland Security Policy Institute’s Presidential Transition Task Force, not as a member, noting the group was a university think-tank, not part of the Obama administration official transition team.”

So, he begins with a sure-to-shock conclusion — that Hasan played a “homeland security advisory role” in the transition. Then, at a point in the story that many readers won’t reach or hear about, Corsi reverses course.

NPR is not, as we all know, a source of information for our president.

Some cynics might be surprised Trump passed up a golden opportunity to market the Official Donald J. Trump Execution Rifle. As with the Trump Bible, it could be issued in various editions, one of which would be the “Pete Hegseth edition.”

The sad thing is that a lot of people would buy the things. We wonderful if one of the weapons that will be used someday will be on display in the Trump Liebrary and Museum.

At least we are spared the sad spectacle of this event being streamed into our homes and into too many children’s cell phones.

The Descent into Barbarism

Posted on by
1

Two more stories about executions have made headlines in recent days for different reasons.

The story of the botched execution in Tennessee reminds us of a botched execution in Missouri. The other story is about plans for a public execution—the livestreaming of a firing squad carrying out a federal death sentence.

Before we get to the story of a botched Missouri execution, I have to get something off my chest about Pete Hegseth’s plans for a public firing squad for Fort Hood killer Nidal Hasan who murdered 13 people and wounded thirty others in the 2009 Fort Hood shootings. If Hegseth gets his way, the internet will show the public the firing squad execution at 1 p.m., our time, on December 3. Something to watch while we’re having lunch. President Trump has okayed the first military firing squad execution since the execution of Private Eddie Slovick in 1945 for desertion.

I cringe even at giving you the time and date of Hegseth’s planned public spectacle.

I covered 22 executions.  All were accomplished with heavy overdoses of three drugs. Missouri now uses one giant overdose of just one drug, as has been used in recent botched executions in other states. It seems to have worked here.

It should be no surprise that Hegseth, an oily testosterone waving narcissist, wants a public execution. Apparently he thinks his self-righteous outrage about a man who killed thirteen members of the military should be displayed by letting ghoulish viewers see a man be shot to death.

It smacks of the old-time executions in the counties when large crowds gathered—some executions even sold tickets to them—with children to watch someone drop through a scaffold floor.  It was a social occasion, presumably an object lesson particularly for the children in the audience.

That’s what Hegseth wants with his sordid plan. He said on a television show last week that people need to see the execution because they have to understand serious crimes merit “serious consequences.” Is there anybody who does not understand that if you kill someone, you will not face “serious consequences?”

We suspect Hegseth wants a public execution to show how tough HE is. It’s an execution that is more about him than it is about the man who will die and his victims.  Death by testosterone.

If he’s so hot to have this done, why doesn’t he be part of the squad?  If our president thinks it’s such a great idea, why doesn’t he join him. After all, one is the commander in chief of all of our military forces and the other head the department that oversees all of them?

And just think how impressive President Trump’s weapon would look in his presidential iebrary.

Former Labor Secretary, now blogger and podcaster Robert Reich asks whether the firing squad will teach any watchers a lesson or will it “just degrade our sense of being human beings.?”  He refers to Hegseth’s plan as “cruel,” and “public sadism” and “barbarism.”

How excited do you think they would have been if they’d watched Christa Pike’s execution. Firing squad executions are over in an explosive second. Her struggle would have been a much better show.

Ultimately, public revulsion of public hanging carnivals led to Missouri and other states taking over executions from local jurisdictions  and holding them within prison walls with only the media, prison officials, and some friends of the person in the gas chamber or in the electric chair or on the gurney in the drug-execution chamber looking on.

The last public execution in this country is believed to have been a hanging in Kentucky in 1936.

Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who murdered 167 people and injured 684 more with the 1995 blast at the Murrah Office Building died on a gurney at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana in 2001. Ten members of the media looked on as did some people he had invited to watch. Some survivors of the bombing saw it on closed circuit TV inside the prison because there wasn’t enough room in the citizen witness area.

McVeigh killed more than ten times more people than Hasan did yet died with as much dignity as an executed mass murderer could expect.

There are those who think Hasan’s public execution will put this country in the same category of two countries we consider cruel, barbaric, and cradles of terrorism. Amnesty International counted seventeen public executions last year. Eleven were in Iran.  Six more were Taliban events in Afghanistan.  Trump and Hegseth want to lower our nation to that level.

Death is not a circus. Executions are double tragedies.  The first is the death of the victim(s) and the grief of their families and friends, memories and longings that never completely disappear.  The second is the death of the killer, a recognition that a person threw away their life long before they threw away their future.

I sometimes caught myself wondering as I watched the drugs flow into the veins of those 22 men what turned that person on the gurney into what he became. When did he or she make the choice to live a life that turned out to be wasted, a life most remembered for its end than for its worth.

And then I watched them die and sometimes I wondered where they went at that instant.

In the end, they died alone. And no matter how awful their crimes, their death was not some kind of public spectacle nor should it ever be. Justice is too precious to be cheapened by people like Hegseth and Trump.  It is not a game show. It is not an ultimate firing.

Having seen as many executions as I have, do I believe in capital punishment? I am not alone in thinking some crimes are so heinous that the perpetrator forfeits his or her own right to life. But I also sometimes think spending every day waking up to the smell of Lysol or some similar disinfectant used in institutions, living among many who have nothing more to lose, going to a menial job every day, hearing a steel door lock behind you every night, never walking down a street, never having a beer with friends or seeing your grandson play a football game or your granddaughter being a bride, never seeing anything beyond an electrified fence, and eventually knowing the few family members you ever see all have died is better.

Christa Peck spent ninety percent of her thirty years in solitary confinement. Death was to be her only relief, her only escape.

I was interested in what my reaction would be when I watched my first execution.  My reaction was no reaction at all.  I watched a man go to sleep, went back to my motel and filed my stories for the next morning’s newscasts, and then I went to sleep, too, and I did not dream. The next morning I came back to my newsroom and went on with my life as if I had not been up most of the night in Potosi.

Reporters often report on things they wish they didn’t have to report about. Sometimes it’s the events of a life. Sometimes it’s the event of death. The plans of Trump and Hegseth might be the most despicable things this administration has thought up—-and that’s saying a great deal.

I think we’ll save the botched Missouri execution story for another entry. I’m not feeling too well after telling you these stories.

Sports:  Big Win, New Heart; New Bird and Are They or Aren’t They Tigers?

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZFB)—No letdown for these Tigers, not last weekend.  Missouri stifled Texas A&M defensively and battered them with the running game in a 27-6 win that has moved them into 13th place in both the AP and the coaches polls.  Mississippi State, next weekend’s opponent is 19th and 16.

More important than that is this:

Only The Ohio State University Buckeyes have a tougher schedule ahead of them for the rest of the season than Missouri does. The gauntlet begins with Ole Miss Saturday night. The University of Mississippi is ranked ninth. After that it’s Texas, Georgia, Kentucky and Oklahoma. Only Oklahoma and Arkansas are unranked going into this weekend’s play.

Their only common opponent is Florida which won 52-28.  Missouri goes in with a statistical advantage. Mississippi’s top rusher is Kewan Lacey who has only 230 yards. Quarter backs are within a yard of each other passing.

Here’s another interesting statistic:  Missouri’s defense has recorded 13 sacks in the second half of the games, second best in the country. Offensively, Missouri is averaging 36 points a game, Mississippi is averaging 38.

Tiger running back Jamal Roberts became only the third SEC running back in the last two decades to rush for 200 yards or more in two straight games last weekend.  He averaged better than six yards a carry.  In his last two games he has gained 433 yards.  His 828 yards puts him only seven yards behind the nation’s rushing leader, Dylan Riley of Boise State.  He had ten runs of seven yards or more.

The only two others were Derrick Henry from Alabama. and Leonard Fournette of LSU. Fornette’s NFL career was shortened to seven years with injuries. Henry is the only player to have run for 2,000 yards in high school, college, and in the NFL.

Missouri has led the SEC in rushing three of the last five years.

(MIZHEART)—One of the University of Missouri’s top signees this year probably will never play a down for the Tigers.  But he’ll be alive.

Johnnie “D. J.” Jones was diagnosed with a heart problem during freshman intake and last week suddenly was put on a transplant list.  A donor heart was located within a couple of days, and was implanted in an eight-hour operation in Columbia Wednesday night.

He went to Mizzou as a four-star prospect, 161st best player in the country, and number 16 at the offensive tackle position.

(MIZBB)—The Missouri Tigers basketball team plays its first game in ten days.  It’s an exhibition game in Manhattan, Kansas.  There’s a pretty big problem, though.

They don’t know who will be on their roster.  Two guys involved in lawsuits against the NCAA hope their eligibility for a fifth year will be granted.

The Tigers held their first Pro Day Sunday afternoon. Mark Mitchell and C. J. Gunn both took part although their lawsuits seeking eligibility for a fifth season are still in the courts.

Coach Dennis Gates wishes they had been able to decide on a fifth year as soon as last season ended but the rule that would have let them do it wasn’t made until they had moved on to pro development leagues. “My job is to make sure they’re developing and gaining the opportunity without knowing what tomorrow looks like, “said Gates.

Gunn will be in court this afternoon in Boone County asking for a permanent injunction allowing him to play this season.  Mitchell had filed earlier lawsuit in Kentucky but now has one in Boone County.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs had a bye week last weekend. They’ll face the Chargers in the late afternoon game Sunday. The Chargers remain winless in five games. The Chiefs are 5-1).

Kansas City has brought back wide receiver Justin Watson and have signed him to their practice squad. He was with the Chiefs for three seasons, played 50 regular seasons, caught 64 passes for 1,064 yards.

(BLUES)—Hockey season has crept onto the scene while we weren’t looking.  The St. Louis blues are 2-2-1 in their first five games. They play the Ottawa Senators tonight.

(CARDINALS)—We are gaining a new peculiar bird species in Missouri.  Joining the St. Louis Battlehawks, whatever they are, next year will be the Ozarks Springbirds, another species John James Audubon never painted.

The Cardinals Double-A affiliate says it’s making the change to reflect “our city, our region, and our birds.”  The new uniforms will look like these outfits modeled by obviously excited ballplayers.  The first time the new uniforms will be used in a game that counts is next April 2.

The people behind the name change say it identifies their region, their city, and the team whose minor league system includes them.

Changing Gears:

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson has expanded his championship points lead although he finished sixth at Charlotte.  Instead of seeing his lead cut to thirty points by Christopher Bell, had Bell won, Larson nine points and is 49 points ahead with four races to go

Bell was despondent after finishing second to teammate Chase Briscoel, who picked up his second straight win and moved from sixth to fourth in the standings. Bell finished less than three-tenths of a second behind Brisco after running him down on the last lap and drawing even on the last turn when the two touched.

Bell has finished second eight time this year. NASCAR takes its show to Phoenix next weekend.

(Image credits: Roberts—Instagram; Jones— Threads; Springbirds—MLB;