Monthly Archives: October 2025

Redistricting and You—and Me

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You and I have no business questioning the Missouri Legislature’s quick obedience to an order from President Trump to redraw our congressional districts so longtime incumbent Democrat will have to leave his congressional office and presumably give President Trump an additional Republican seat in the House of Representatives.

At least that’s what the latest occupant of the Attorney General’s office thinks.

A group called People Not Politicians is gathering referendum petition signatures to put the legislature’s Trumpmandered congressional district map to a statewide vote. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says they have no business doing that. Congressional redistricting, she says, is sacred to the Missouri legislature.  She issued a statement to St. Louis Public Radio saying her lawsuit to block the referendum on the map drawn by the legislature is an effort to “stop out-of-state dark-money groups from hijacking Missouri’s electoral process and silencing the voices of Missouri voters.”

That is a stunning statement. Absolutely stunning.  A politician, especially one whose party has a chokehold on state government, saying “out of state dark-money groups” should be prohibited “from hijacking Missouri’s electoral process” is a landmark statement.  Since when is out of state dark money something either of our political parties is against?

We will believe accepting out of state dark money is a political sin when we see the state Republican party pass a law outlawing it. We expect Democrats would be excited to work with their GOP colleagues to take that step.

But all of us know the Sun will go dark before that happens.

As for “silencing the voices of Missouri voters:” Doesn’t her lawsuit keeping Missouri voters from having a say on the issue doing exactly that?

Did I even need to ask that question?

Missouri’s constitution allows its citizens to propose laws  and to question actions by the General Assembly. There is no carve-out for congressional redistricting.

Congressional redistricting is, indeed, the job of the legislature IF IT IS DONE LEGALLY AND THE DISTRICTS MEET LEGAL STANDARDS. The petition campaign represents the people’s voice expressing concerns about the legality of what the legislature did.

We have a character in Washington who believes he is above the law and above the U.S. Constitution and he’s looking around and seeing a lot of the public has come to the realization of how dangerous he is to our country—and he is scared to death that voters next year will elect a Congress that is not afraid of him.

His solution is to do everything he can to rig next year’s elections. Unfortunately, Missouri has said “Yes, sir (“sir” is one of his favorite words) how high do you want us to jump?”

It’s one thing for the legislature to pass a law protecting him.  But to say the people who elected the legislators to protect their interests have no right to object when those legislators choose, instead, to protect the interests of one individual who is deathly afraid of facing voter consequences for his actions is flatly un-American.

At least, it used to be—-

back when being an American was not anti-American.

Sports: Chiefs Roll; Tough Losses for MU Football; A Glimpse at Basketball; A Speedy Final Four

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—-The Kansas City Chiefs’ offense sputtered in the first half against the Washington Commanders last night but outran them with three touchdowns in the second half. The 28-7 win moves them to 5-3 for the year. Washington drops to 3-5, equaling last year’s loss total when the Commanders made it to the playoffs.

Patrick Mahomes, who had only two interceptions in the first seven games this year threw two picks in the first half against Washington.  Mahomes, who turned 31 on September 17 after breaking Peyton Manning’s record for young quarterbacks, connected for two touchdown passes in the second half.

One of those touchdown passes went to Travis Kelce, giving him 83 TDs to tie Priest Holmes for mot all-purpose touchdowns. Kelce finished with 99 yards receiving. Rashee Rice had nine catches for 93 yards and rushed for twelve more as Mahomes came up one yard short of 300.

Kareem Hunt has the other two touchdowns for Kansas City.

The Chiefs are one game behind Denver in the division standings. They’re at Buffalo next weekend. They’ll play the Broncos two weeks later.

(MIZFB)—The Missouri Tigers have the next weekend off before facing Texas A&M, ranked third in both major polls this week.  When they take the field against the Aggies they will be without Beau Pribula and likely will not have him back for the rest of the regular season. Pribula tore three ligaments in his left ankle when it was dislocated during a tackle in last weekend’s game against Vanderbilt. In most cases, such injuries result in broken bones but not in Pribula’s case.  No surgical repairs are needed.

Recovery from the ligament injury generally comes after six weeks of being in a cast and/or a boot to immobilize the injured area and then rehabilitation sessions.  The Tigers play their last game before that recovery period is over. After being off this week, Missouri has five games left, making his return more likely for a bowl game than for a regular season game.

Before exiting, Pribula had passed for eleven touchdowns and 1,685 yards and had run for five more TDS.

His replacement, true freshman Matt Zollers, has played impressively in the limited time he has had, most of it in the closing minutes of the Vanderbilt loss. He has two weeks to take snaps as the number one quarterback. His performance in the last five games could determine how deeply into December the Tigers will go in the bowl schedule—and whether Coach Drinkwitz will have a difficult decision to make on who will start the bowl game.

Missouri is 19th and 20th after the tough loss to then-number 10 Vanderbilt, one of those games that often hinges on which team gets The Big Play.  Vanderbilt got it with the 80 yard touchdown run by Makhilyn Young that put the Commodores up 10-3 in the third quarter. Mizzou tied the game before Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia got the winning score on a one-yard plunge.

The win moved Vanderbilt up to ninth in one poll and dropped it to 11th in the other.

(MIZ BIG QUESTION)—-With Mizzoui’s third-string quarterback now number one, who slots in as his backup. None of the other four quarterbacks listed on the pre-season roster have ever played a down in college. The two most likely number one backup to the number three quarterback are Tommy Lock, cousin Drew and nephew of Andy, who is 6-feet-3 and from Lee’s Summit, and Brett Brown, a Tennessee native who is 6-1, 185.  Both Lock and Brown are graduate students who got their degrees in August.

(MIZBB)—The game didn’t count but it was hardly the typical pre-season game we often see teams play as exhibition contests.  Missouri’s basketball exhibition against Kansas State had the look and the feel of a regular season game built on the rivalry intensified by Missouri’s defection to the SEC a long time ago.

It had a familiar feel—a full tilt race to get more points at the end that the other team got. The two teams combined for 105 points in the last twenty minutes.

The point total should not have been a surprise. Missouri has three returning starters and seven lettermen back from last year’s team that was ninth nationally in scoring (83.6 ppg).

The tendency in a 100-91 game is to wonder who was playing defense.  In this game, Missouri played enough defense to keep Kansas State down by double figures most of the way and  it looked pretty impressive offensively doing it.  Missouri shot 54.8% from the field, scored 54 points in the paint and got 29 points off of fast breaks. Missouri was also good at the free throw line, going 26 of 34.

The game was the 238th between the Missouri and K-Sate but the first one that doesn’t count in the season standings. Missouri and Kansas State were rivals through the Missouri Valley, Big Six, Big Seven, Big Eight and finally the Big 12. They’ll play another exhibition game against each other in Manhattan next year. (ZOU)

(THE BASEBALL)—a phrase used by Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea.  By this time next week, the season will be over and players and money will be moving.  Until then, the Royals and the Cardinals are watching prospects in the Arizona Fall League.  Anne Rogers with her Royals Beat newsletter has been keeping tabs on KC’s seven players.

Right-handed pitcher A. J. Causey, impressive in his first season out of the Universitys of Tennessee in High-A has found the AFL more challenging. Four appearances, seven runs in 4.2 innings, but with seven strikeouts.

Righty Dennis Colleran, who moved up three levels to Double A this year, pitching 66.1 innings with a combined 2.85 ERA has three scoreless AFL innings with four K’s and two walks in three games.

L. P. Langevin, a product of Louisiana-Lafayette missed part of the minor league season with a right lat strain has yet to allow a hit in limited action in the AFL, three and three in the strikeout-walk department and one unearned run.

Pitcher Logan Martin, a righty out of the University of Kentucky, started 22 games in High A this year and put up a 3.45 ERA in 91.1 innings. In Arizona he has pitched 5.2 innings, given up four runs with four walks and one strikeout.

Lefty Hunter Owens, a Vanderbilt product, spent this year in Double A, had nineteen starts and three relief appearances in which he gave up 3.8 runs per nine innings. He missed parts of the year with shoulder tenderness but struck out 107 batters in 94.2 innings.  In Arizona he’s had some problems in his two appearances. Six runs, 11 hits, four strikeouts and a walk in 4.1 innings.

Catcher Blake Mitchell, who signed out of Sinton Texas High School had surgery on a broken wrist but got into 49 High-A games. He struggled after coming back from the injury and hit only .209 with one home run.  In Arizona he also has struggled and is hitting .167 but has taken a dozen walks.  Defensively, he’s fine behind the plate.

Shortstop Daniel Vazquez, a 2021 International Free Agent, is making up for missed time in the regular season by hitting .357 in Arizona with five stolen baes and eleven RBIs in eleven games.

Center Fielder Carson Roccaforte has hit .294 in his first nine games of the AFL after posting an .862 OPA in High A. Bottom of Form

(SLUGGER)—Louisville Slugger has announced its finalists for its annual American League Silver Slugger Awards. National League winners will be announced on November 6, with American League winners announced the next day. Managers and coaches cast the ballots for the best hitters at each position.

Two Cardinals are on the National League nominees list, both listed as utility players: Alex Burleson and Brendan Donovan.

The Royals have first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino, Shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., Catcher Salvador Perez, and utility man Maikel Garcia.

(ROONEY and BUCK)—-There’s a personal angle to a wonderful recognition for a kid who once asked the Missourinet for a job.  And I told our boss, Clyde Lear, we needed to hire him as our first sports director when we got ready to have one.  Somewhere in the company files now at the State Historical Society in Columbia is the pencil-written job application for John Rooney.

John is one of the ten finalists for the highest honor a baseball broadcaster can have—the Ford Frick Award at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

And there’s Joe Buck who has done baseball games on FOX Spors for 26 years. He also called 17 years of Cardinals games and has broadcast a couple-dozen World Series.

That kid has just finished his 39th year broadcasting major league baseball games for the Twins, the White Sox, and now for the Cardinals. He’s also called some games for FOX Sports and in his younger days he was a CBS radio voice for the NCAA Tournament and for other games.

Also on the list is Skip Caray, son Harry, who was going sportscasts on Columbia radio station KFRU when this correspondent was in college.

The winner will be announced December 10 during the winter baseball meetings. Induction will take place in late July when the Hall announces its latest honored players.

One of those who nominated this year’s slate is another familiar name to Missouri sports fans: Bob Costas.  Among those who will make the selection is longtime Royals broadcaster Denny Matthews.

Another sport has a final four—

(NASCAR)—NASCAR has narrowed the number of drivers with a change at the NASCAR Cup to four. The big difference in this sport when compared to stick and ball sports is that the racing field remains full throughout the run-off. As many as forty drivers might be on the track at Phoenix next Sunday when the championship will go to one of those four who is highest in the finishing order.

Actually, eight of the biggest names in NASCAR will decide whose driver will be this year’s NASCAR Cup Champion:

Joe Gibbs Racing

Hendrick Motorsports

Chevrolet

Toyota

Byron

Briscoe

Hamlin

Larson

Three of the four drivers want their first Cup. Kyle Larson won the Cup in 2021. William Byron, Chase Briscoe, and Denny Hamlin are looking for their first.  Briscoe and Hamlin drive for Gibbs. Larson and Byron run for Hendrick.  Hendrick uses Chevrolet engines. Briscoe and Hamlin drive for Toyota.

Byron raced his way into the final four with a dominating rim on the tight half-mile flat track at Martinsville, starting from the pole and leading 304 of the 500 laps, the last 44 after getting past Ryan Blaney, who had to win to make the final four.

Christopher Bell became the odd man out when Larson claimed the fourth and final slot, seven points ahead of Bell.  But with Hamlin, Byron, and Briscoe guaranteed in the final four by winning the three final cutdown races, Bell,  seven points behind Larson in the regular points standings, was  out of the finale.

(Photo Credits: Mahomes—NFL; Byron—Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2025; Logo—Louisville Slugger; Zollars—Reddit; Rooney and Buck–St. Louis Cardinals)

 

Pimples

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Back in the Twentieth Century, when your correspondent enrolled at the University of Missouri, male freshmen and sophomores were required to enroll in what we called “rot-see,” more properly, ROTC—the Reserve Officers Training Corps.  Two years of military education designed to encourage students to join the Army, Navy, or Air Force after two more years of military education.

I decided to focus my energies on becoming a journalist.

One of our instructors in Crowder Hall, a Sergeant whose name I might be able to recall in the middle of the night, once referred to Fort Leonard Wood as “a pimple on the ass of humanity.”

I think of him almost every time I walk into a convenience store and see a line or two or more of machines that are or are not slot machines (according to their owners) but are instead Video Lottery Terminals.

Owners of the machines say they’re legal because there aren’t slot machines that are state-regulated. The casinos, which want a monopoly on all things gambling (except the state lottery that they can’t lay their hands on, so far) say they are slot machines and state law allows only casinos to have legal slot machines.

The question of their legality tied up the Missouri Senate so badly that for three years in a row that almost no legislation was passed except for a state budget. Most of the instigators of that deplorable era have moved on or moved out, allowing the legislature to actually accomplish several things for good or for ill in the most recent regular session.

The legacy of those deadlocks is Amendment 2, the sports wagering proposal barely grafted onto our state constitution last November that will have almost no benefit to the citizens but will greatly fatten the pocked of casinos and our sports teams.  Backers of legalized convenience store slot machines refused to let sports wagering legislation, or almost any other legislation, go anywhere unless those bills also legalized the slot machines.

The backers of the VLTs, therefore, are largely to blame for Missouri now having a constitutional amendment rather than a law.  Laws are easier to correct or to make more fair for the people of the state than amendment is.

The casino industry also is largely to blame because it refused any kind of a compromise. The legislature refused to be the adult in the rooms (the House and the Senate) and put it collective foot down and resolve the issue in a way that protected the state’s interests.

The stage is now set to decide in the court system if those “gray market” machines are or are not legal.   A few days ago, a St. Louis federal jury ruled that the biggest supplier of those slot machines has been engaging in unfair competition and has misled players and stores about how the games operated.

The jury had no trouble deciding—in only two hours after a five-day trial. The owner of traditional bar games had sued Torch Electronics and won a half-million dollars, four times what was sought.

The jury’s finding could clear the way for Federal District Judge John Ross to rule whether these machines are legal. He has indicated a reluctance to wade into the “politically fraught” waters involving this issue but indicated he would rule after the Torch case was decided.

Gambling generates a lot of Money in Missouri and it’s important that those in the biz make sure those who make decisions on laws and regulations are friendly.

Tthose who make that money have not been shy about buying high-level political friendships with it, thanks in large parts to the financially-persuasive involvement of former House Speaker Steven Tilley, now an influential lobbyist who has endeared himself to key figures such as Governor Kehoe, whose political action committee account was fattened by a quarter-million dollars last year, and former Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who kept Torch money and who backed away from defending the Highway Patrol—which had been sued by Torch to keep it from seizing machines.

Bailey’s predecessor, now-U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt, returned $5,800 in campaign donations from Torch’s owners after questions were raised about possible conflicts of interest. State Treasurer Vivek Malek, after a Tilley-arranged meeting with Torch’s owner, put stickers on the VLTs advertising the state’s unclaimed property program, which had nothing to do with those machines but drew criticism from those who thought they indicated the state had licensed them.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the plaintiff’s attorney in the case told the jury that 101 of Torch’s 6,000 machines throughout Missouri took in $32 million in seven years and generated $11million in profits to Torch, a payout rate of about 65% while regulated casino slots pay out more than 90%. No law requires operators of those machines to share their wealth with state programs and services.

There has been a general reluctance by city and county prosecutors to declare the machines beyond the law. One county and one city have taken that step but a ruling by Ross of illegality could give others the backbone to challenge the machines’ presence.

Regardless of how Judge Ross rules, the conflict about whether they are or whether they aren’t slot machines has left Missouri with an unfortunate result.  Sports wagering is now in the Missouri Constitution rather than in the Missouri Revised Statutes.  Putting something in the Constitution doesn’t make it immune from change but the opportunity for constitutional change is much harder than it is to change a law.

Regardless of how Judge Ross rules, Missourians are losers because the people we elected to represent us in the Capitol didn’t do their jobs in voting video lottery machines legal or illegal and failed to pass a sports gambling law that serves the people.

You might ask them why they lacked the backbone to put the state in control of the gambling industry rather than the other way around. Check their campaign contribution reports on file at the Missouri Ethics Commission and you might find some answers.

The Hating Terrorists

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President Trump has branded antifa a terrorist organization. It’s just more hot air because there is no organization named antifa. If there was, the word would be capitalized and would have a campaign bank account and would have officers he could arrest.

But if he wanted to see the face(s) of his enemy, all he had to do was watch some non-football news coverage last Saturday when organizers of more than 2,600 No Kings protests say more than seven million people had something to say to and about Donald Trump.

 

 

Organizers claimed a total of more than 7 million people turned out at more than 2,600 protests across the nation.

He missed a great chance by not dispatching his ICE goons to those rallies to round up antifa terrorists as well as brown people or people with names ending in “z,” and some plain American citizens while they were at it.

In an Air Force One news scrum, Trump called he rallies “a joke.”

“I look at the people and they’re not representatives of this country,” he continued. “I looked a all the brand new signs paid for, I guess it was made by Soros and other radical left lunatics…The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people who worked out, when you look at these people, those are not representatives of the people of the country. “

“And by the way,” he concluded. ”I’m not a King…I work my ass off to make our country great.”

George Soros is one of Trumpisms favorite boogeymen. And the phrase “radical left lunatics” was tiresome the second time he said it. But it’s his phrase of the moment so he’ll beat all the blood out of it.

The Speaker of the House and some other Republicans are calling these events “Hate America Rallies.”  But polls and rally turnouts indicate an awful lot of people aren’t buying the name game that Trump addicts try to apply to these gatherings.

And we don’t know what television coverage he was looking at, but those demonstrations were NOT “very small.”  And he is likely to learn in next year’s mid-term elections if they were, in fact, ineffective.

Organizers of anti-fascist or anti-kings rallies have to be careful, though It’s ten months before the 2026 primaries, more than a year before the general elections, especially in the Trumpmandered congressional districts.  The people behind the “No Kings” rallies—-that’s what they prefer to call themselves regardless of those who try to convince the public that these folks hate America—don’t want to peak too soon.

As far as these people being haters?  Au Contraire, mon frere.  These are people who love America and they love it enough to hold mass rallies that so far have burned no stores, looted no television shops, and broken no large numbers of windows.  In the sixties, anti-war demonstrators sometimes stuck flowers down the barrels of guns that soldiers were carrying.  Today, maybe some will give flowers to the ICE goons.

What organizers have to be careful about is peaking too soon.  This is a time for Democrats to be finding their strongest candidates and rounding up big money from Democrat or Independent million-and-billion-aires.

Antifa might need to go into what the Continental Army called “winter quarters,” to conserve energy and to let Mr. Trump give himself more and more rope.

Republicans who might notice the declining favorability of the Trump administration might wish to quit dismissing these events as “Hate America Rallies” and recognize them for what they are—people who love America and are concerned with the direction that President Trump is taking America. Name-calling will not eliminate the threat these rallies could be to their side of the aisle in a few months and might, in fact, only fuel the efforts of the No Kings folks. Finding a platform that is BETTER than what the “No Kings” voices are expressing and offering candidates more loyal to their oaths than to their president might be a better use of their time and resources.

What is happening now is likely to only intensify as elections draw closer and if the present direction of national leadership follows its present arc.

Those of us who remember the demonstrations of the sixties know that dismissal is the wrong direction to go.

It is dangerous to shake a beehive and believe you can ignore the swarm.

Sports: Tigers Gut One Out; Chiefs Showing What a Healthy Team Can Do; And a Cinderfella Story in NASCAR)

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor;

(CHIEFS—-We seldom see one NFL team dominate another one as completely as the Kansas City Chiefs overwhelmed the Las Vegas Raiders Sunday. The final score of 31-0 with five minutes left in the third quarter was enough for Coach Andy Reid to pull many of his starters.

By then, Patrick Mahomes had throw for 286 yards and three touchdowns, two of them to the newly-returned Rashee Rice.   He completed passes to nine different receivers.

The Chiefs scored on their first five possessions and racked up 434 total yards. The Raiders ran only thirty plays, the fewest in more than two daces by an NFL team. They had only two first downs by plays and one on a penalty, and totaled only 91 yards of total offense.

The Chiefs had a 21-2 advantage in first downs. They had a 275-51 edge in yards, and that includes six meaningless yards that Jeanty gained on the final run of the half. And the Chiefs became the first team since at least 2000 to start a game with three TD drives of at least 80 yards, allowing them to consume nearly 21 minutes of the first half. At the end of the game, they had controlled the ball for more than 42 minutes.

The shutout was the first by the Chiefs’ defense in ten years.

(MIZFB)—The Missouri Tigers played one of those games where both teams had a chance to put a dagger in the other team’s hopes but neither team could put the other one away.

So they played an overtime. And then they played another one before, at last, Missouri got the first big break, and the winning touchdown on a three-yard run by quarter back Bo Pribula and a second break with a sack of Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold to end the second overtime and let Missouri walk wearily away with a 23-17 win.  Missouri goes to 6-1 and is now eligible for an early December bowl.  How late in December they will play depends on their next five games. Auburn lost its fourth straight game after three season-opening wins.

For the second straight week, the other guys’ defense stopped Ahmad Hardy from any ground-gobbling runs, holding him to an average of less than three yards a carry although he did power his way to two short-yardage touchdowns.

Things don’t get any easier next week when the Tigers are on the road against Vanderbilt. The Commodores are no longer the conference door mat. They beat then 10th ranked  LSU Saturday to also reach 5-1. It will be another match of ranked teams. Vanderbilt has climbed to 10th in the AP sportswriters poll. Missouri is up two slots to 15th.  In the Coaches poll, Vanderbilt is 12th and Missouri is 14th.

(MIZEAST)—Former Tiger standout guard Sean East has signed with the Utah Jazz after spending a year with the Edmonton Stingers in the Canadian Elite Basketball Leag. He started 25 games, average more than 23 points a game, almost five assists and more than 4 rebounds each game.

East was a Tiger for two years and averaged 17.6 points per game in his second year, 2023-24, a down year for Missouri but a solid year for East, who led the team in scoring and assists and was the team leader from outside the arc. (ZOU)

(BASEBALL)—Until the World Series is over and the big time wheeling and dealing starts, the Arizona Fall League is offering a chance to see into the long-term future.  The Cardinals have nine players considered among their best in the minors: Five are right-handed pitchers: Chen-Wei Lin, Randel Clemente, Darlin Saladin, Tyler Bradt, and D. J. Carpenter. There are two outfielders: Travis Honeyman and Miguel Ugueto. Catcher Graysen Tarlow rounds out the group.

There might be some guys with better shots next spring to come north with the team, but the Fall League is giving the front office a chance to evaluate others with possibilities—

Some observers put Lin near the top of the field although he had a mediocre season at Springfield (AA). He made 15 starts but gave up more than six earned runs a game. He walked 37 batters in 46 innings but had 61 strikeouts. He’s from Taiwan, stands 6-7 and

Another one high on the evaluation list is Darlin Saladin, a starter/reliever this year who split his starts and his relief appearances equally through 26 games with High-A Peoria. 94.2 innings, 4.85 ERA. But they like his live arm.

Travis Honeyman missed all of the 2024 season but came back to hit .284 in 289 at-bats. The Fall League will give him mor at-bats to build on those numbers. He played in both LowA and High A ball last summer.

Then there’s Randel Clemente, right-hander from the Dominican Republic. He’ll be 24 soon who climbed through three levels of the minor leagues before finish the year at Springfield.

(ROYALS)—The AFL will give Royals catcher prospect Blake Mitchell is a non-roster invitee. He suffered broken wrist bone that shortened his minor league season. He missed spring training and had a setback that lasted until July 8. But in 2024 he was the George Brett Hitter of the year for the Royals farm system. He struggled in the batter’s box this year but the team liked his place discipline that saw his chase low and away pitchers only 20 percent of the a time. He walked almost 22 percent of the time although he had a 34% swing and miss percentage.

The Royals also will be watching shortstop prospect Daniel Vazquez who hit .260 for the Quad Cities last summer.

Outfielder Carson Roccaforte was the Frank White Defensive Player of the Year for the Royals. He hit .290 for Double-A Arkansas this year.

Four pitchers are in the fall league for Kansas City.  Left-hander Hunter Owens had some injury problems this year but when hew as healthy he had a 3.80 ERA for Nothwest Arkansas (AA) with 107 Ks in 94 2/3 innings. He’s 6-6.

A.J. Causey throws from the right side, a former University of Tennessee reliever who looked awfully good in High A ball—73 1/3 innings, 75 strikeouts. He had a whiff rate of better than 40%.

Right hander Dennis Colelran already has had Tommy John Surgery. He was a reliever for the first time this year who went 66.1 innings with 72 strikeouts and a 2.,85 ERA in three levels of work this year.

Right hander Dennis Langevin started the season on the injured list and only made 14 apperances but they were impressive enough to get him an invited for baseball in the desert.

And righty Logan Martin, who was a starter in High A Quad cities this year. 78 strikeouts in 91.1 innings. 3.45 ERA.

Now, from fastballs to fast cars:

(NASCAR)—A year ago at this time, Chase Briscoe was with a dying team and uncertain about his future. Today he’s with one of the premier teams in the sport and in two weeks will be one of four drivers running for the NASCAR Cup.

Briscoe’s survival of Talladega and his last-lap pass that brought him the win that puts him in the final four, along with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.  In the usual Talladega Superspeedway last turn scramble for the finish line, Briscoe beat Todd Gilliland to the checkered flag by .145 of a second.

The leaders coming into the green-white-checker two lap shootout began with William Byron and Kyle Larson on the lead row.  Larson ran out of fuel on the final lap after Bubba Wallace had grabbed the lead but Briscoe got to the front and took Gilliland and Ty Gibbs with him to the finish line ahead of Wallace.

The win is his third this year, the fifth of his career.

Next weekend is the last race to set the four-driver final championship field. More than 35 drivers will crowd the small Martinsville track with six drivers fighting for the last two spots in the Championship race at Phoenix in a couple of weeks.

Briscoe drives one of the two cars on the circuit sponsored by Misouri businesses.  Johnny Morris’s Bass Pro Shops sponsors his car.  Anheuser-Busch backs the car driven by Clay Chastain.

(INDIANAPOLIS)—2018 Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power made his first race at Indianapolis since losing his ride with Roger Penske and moving over to Andretti Global for the 2026 IndyCar season.  But his return was in a Mercedes-AMG competing in the Intercontinental GT Challenge, an eight-hour endurance race on the Speedway road course.  He was one of three drivers in the car, joined by fellow Australians Kenny Habul and Chaz Mostert.  It was Power’s first sports car race in 22 years.

“I have been meaning to do, and wanting to do, some GT racing for some time,” Power said ina pre-race interview.”It’s different, and I’ve wanted to feel it and see how I go. This is a good start at a track I know, and if I do a good job and if I like it, I’d like to do some more.”

The race was stopped for two hours by lightning in the area.  Power and his teammates were running fourth at the end but wound up sixth after taking a 30-second time penalty for unauthorized work being done in the pits during the stoppage.

Another IndyCar veteran, Connor Daly, was part of the team that finished fourth

(Photo credits: Missouri vs. Auburn t-shirt: JNJ Apparel Store; Briscoe: Bob Priddy; Power at Indianapolis; Richard S. James, RACER Magazine.)

 

 

Keep Them Ignorant and Pay the Cost

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I was in Romania a little more than a year after the Iron Curtain fell and the people of Romania revolted against one of the most oppressive regimes that had been behind it. The Romanian Revolution was part of a historic period when unrest boiled over in several former Iron Curtain Countries that were still controlled by dictators—-it was the same year of the Tiananmen Square Protests in China that did not turn out as well.

In December of 1989, a church leader’s speech against the government triggered huge protests in Timisoara, which led to a military crackdown under Premier Nicolai Ceausescu (Chow-chess-kew).  He made a speech from his palace, which wasn’t too far from the hotel where I later stayed, and from the Hall of the People where I lectured and interacted with young journalists wanting to learn how to be free journalists.

The crowd at Ceausescu’s speech began booing and chanting “Timisoara!”

The military turned on him. Ceausescu and his wife, who also was the Deputy Prime Minister were driven out of the palace and captured by some of the angry citizens. They were take into some woods near Bucharest and shot to death on Christmas.

A new government took over. The death penalty was abolished. An election was held the next May and the new government was overwhelmingly approved and quickly moved to enact democratic reforms.

While I was there, Moldova declared its independence from the Soviet Union. I remember seeing people sitting in their cars listening to reports of what was happening in their neighboring Soviet satellite, now a free country.  It was of particular interest because many of the people in Moldova are of Romanian ancestry.

Romania joined NATO in 2004 and the European Union in 2007.

I have thought often of the people of Romania—and of Poland, where I did seminars in Warsaw after traveling from Bucharest—as I have watched Ukraine hold on against Vladimir Putin’s major effort to reassemble the USSR and I know from those long-ago days that the people of Romania and Poland are living with uncertainty, knowing that if Putin wins in Ukraine, Moldova and Romania and Poland might be next.

All of this is the long way around another impression I had in Bucharest, where my hotel, still displaying bullet marks in its stone walls, once was a nice hotel in the pre-Communist times but now was reminiscent of a 1950s hotel that had never been updated.  My room had a big square television set, black and white, and there were only two or three channels, all former government-run stations, none of which told viewers much about the outside world or even about Romania.

Were it not for a small Radio Shack shortwave radio I had brought with me to listen to the Voice of America, I would have been ignorant of what was happening in Romania and Poland, in Europe, and in the word. The Iron Curtain was down. But the window of open information was still being opened.

You will understand, then, why I watch the Trump administration’s increasing efforts to choke off the free flow of information and discussion in this country whether it is by threatening broadcast licenses or the recent despicable action by the Secretary of Defense (Sorry, Donald, I’m not going to use your word for the department any more than I am going to call the Gulf of Mexico by the name  you demand it be called).

A few days ago, somebody posted this sign in the correspondents’ corridor near the Pentagon press room.  

“Journalism is not a crime.”  To Pete Hegseth and his boss, Donald Trump, it would be, complete with prison sentences, if they could get away with it.  And it would not surprise me if Trump someday accuses a particularly persistent reporter doing the job reporters must do in a free society with treason or some other crime.

Trump heartily endorses Hegseth’s ban on reporters doing stories questioning what he says and does, and banning those who do not agree to be just a mouthpiece for Hegseth’s part of the administration. “I think he finds the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace,” said the man who calls people such as me “enemies of the people.”   He went on, “The press is very dishonest.”

Only one news organization is now accredited by the Pentagon, The One America News Network, an organization that wants to curry a lot of favor with Trump.  Even other networks that lean more to the right  such as FOX, the Washington Post, and NewsMax  have refused to abide by Hegseth’s rules to limit the flow of information to only that which is politically favorable.

It’s another effort to keep the people at large ignorant not just of what is happening but who is making it happen, often for their own great benefit.

The thing about trying to repress journalism in this country is that it just makes journalists work harder. But if Trump/Hegseth think they can control the flow of information to the public in this country, they are mistaken. We will learn of their increased militarism at home and abroad no matter how many press room doors are closed in however many places.

Trump knows his policies have turned many of his supporters away from him. Newsweek reported last week that every swing state—-the ones he constantly interrupts his speeches to brag about carrying in ’24—is now against him. He’s -8 in Wisconsin, underwater by five points in Michigan, down by three in Nevada and North Carolina. He’s minus-2 in Pennsylvania and Arizona and minus-1 in Georgia.

You might not like to listen to or see CNN or MSNBC or any of the three over the air major networks and I’m not saying you should like them. But this nation was great long before the MAGA crowd came along and decided greatness should be determined not by the people but by one person. And he seems determined every day to burnish his future credentials as the worst president in American history. Taking abusive steps to shut off any reporter questioning his administration’s actions or his personal statements will not go well.

It is never good to poke a Tiger with a stick.

The swing states are sending a message that Trump can bluster about and lie about his own magnificent popularity. But a lot of people aren’t buying his garbage anymore.

We aren’t going to see an Army revolt and military overthrow of our government, as has happened in many countries but we have to ask how far he can push our military without the first blowup.

He’s not going to be taken to the woods, Ceausescu-style.  But the people are stirring; many are up-to-here with this man and his cronies.  The “No Kings” movement is growing. His polls are tanking. He is deathly afraid that a measure of political justice will be brought down upon him after next year’s elections, which might bring a measure of political justice down on a political party that, like Ceausescu’s loyalists, pays the price for blindly following and defending him.

He will do anything to keep journalists from their rounds, from questioning his policies, his actions, his intimidations, his lies, his business dealings as President, his character–

He will fail.  Dictators always fail. I saw the past, the present, and got a glimpse of the future in those days in Romania and in Poland. It is in my mind as I watch our president’s grasp for absolute power and the people’s growing disgust of it.

Our system provides for a peaceful overthrow of a tyrant. History shows the people will use whatever means their system gives them to do just that.

Carl Sandburg:

The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it….

Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?

…In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for
keeps, the people march:
“Where to? what next?”

The poem is called “The People, Yes.”   We must find strength in one another to resist the worst that he can do.  He wants us to forget that long ago this country placed its faith in the concept that government flows from the consent of the governed.

But in this darkness with our great bundle of grief, we know and more are coming to know and the people are starting to march, for we are “the people so peculiar in renewal and comeback.”

That is the spirit behind the “No Kings” protests.

And neither National Guard troops invading other states nor goons from ICE snatching people from our streets can stop that march.

It has become, to borrow a phrase from another purpose and another time, “too big to fail.”

 

Vanity of Vanities. All is Vanity

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This phrase, drawn loosely from the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, came readily to mind the other day when word got out that the U. S. Mint has been ordered to plan production of one-dollar coins –apparently illegally—promoting our President.

If only he deserved such an honor, or ever will.

His self-absorption and self-promotion know no bounds. Previously, he had mused on how great it would be to make him the equal in stone of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. He believes he can jawbone his way to a peace prize he is massively unqualified to receive.  Now there is this proposal:

We aren’t sure what he means when he has “In God We Trust” as part of his image. He does have a pretty elevated image of himself but this much?

The Treasury Department apparently is on the verge of producing these things. Samples have been circulated within the Mint’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing and “set-up” coins have been ordered stamped.  Those are practice coins that make sure the new coins are properly designed  when they go into production.

Not that it matters to Trump, but some people believe the coin violates part of an 1866 law.  “No portrait or likeness of any living person shall be engraved or placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes or postal currency of the United States,” it says. The provision was recently removed from the Treasury Department’s web page.

Reports in the public press note that the first Trump administration reversed a Treasury Department  plan to take Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replace him with the image of 19th century Black civil rights leader Harriet Tubman. Trump called the plan “pure political corruptness.”

The creation of the Trump Dollar had not been known until The Treasurer of the United States, Brandon Beach, posted on social media draft images of the coin—which will be legal tender going into circulation next year.  The blog site Defector.com quotes a Treasury Department source saying the usual process for creating such commemorative coins takes months and includes a review by the Citizens Coin Advisory Committee that last met on September 16 without any indication such a coin was in the works.

This coin proposal was whipped from nothing into pre-production, says the source, in four days—September 29-October 2.

Commemorative Coins also are supposed to be approved by Congress.  Congress hasn’t heard anything about this plan.

The Treasury Department put out a statement to USA TODAY puffing about the “historic leadership” of President Trump and saying, “While a final $1 dollar (our faithful editor hopes you will pardon the department’s redundancy) design has not yet been selected to commemorate the United States semiquincentennial, this first draft reflects well the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, even in the face of immense obstacles.

Nine years ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco underlined the ban on living persons appearing on our currency: “To avoid the appearance of a monarchy, it was long-standing tradition to only feature portraits of deceased individuals on currency and coin. That tradition became law with an 1866 Act of Congress.”

The Legal Institute at the Cornell Law School cites federal law: 31 U.S. Code 5112—“No coin issued may bear the image of a living former or current President.”

Congress passed a collectible coin law in 2020, during Trump’s first term authorizing the issuance of five different designs of commemorative coins for the nation’s 250th birthday. The Congress said one of the coins should honor a woman and others may honor innovators and Native Americans. There’s nothing about a President hijacking the idea.

Well, we all know of Trump’s disdain for the Constitution, the Congress, and the Federal Reserve. And we all know that he idolizes himself above all others who as individuals or as groups put him deep in their shadows in all kinds of criteria.

USA Today columnist Rex Huppke encapsulated the situation well, writing—

“The planned coin will be a commemorative,  presumably commemorating how everything is perfect now that Trump is president again! Perfect, as long as you disregard the fact that the government is shut down, National Guard troops are being dispatched to cities Trump diesn’t like, U. S. citizens ae routinely eing rounded up by masked and warrantless immigration agents inflation and food prices are rising, electricity prices are rising, the job market is weak, the president’s poll numbers are tanking , [and] Republicans are doing everything to avoid releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the 79-year-old Trump himself doesn’t seeme entirely tethered to reality.”  

Perhaps while his Treasury Department prepares to stamp thousands of these coins honoring him, it also can stamp out his own Nobel Peace Prize Medal—with his profile from the coin replacing that of Alfred Nobel.  Better yet, create the Trump Peace Prize that he can award to himself, much the same way he consistently wins the club championship at Mar-a-Liego. That’ll show those stuffy people in Stockholm a thing or two.

Or maybe he can arrange to ship a few thousand of these coins to his subjects to be used to pay his tariffs on many of the things he has arranged for his peasants to pay more for.

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Sports: Mizzou Not Quite Good Enough; Roundball is ‘Round the Corner; Battlehawks Live to Fight Another Season and Other Good Stuff 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZFB)—The Missouri 15-game home stadium win streak is over. The six-game home stand is done. And the hard part of the season is facing them.  But they served notice in their 27-14 loss to Alabama Saturday that they will be reckoned with.

Alabama had one more clutch play than the Tigers had and got the big stop it needed with time falling off of the clock to leave Columbia with a 27-24 win.  Alabama, ranked 8th coming into the game, now has three straight wins over ranked opponents.

Missouri had a chance to get a tying field goal, at least, or get a last-minute touchdown at best. But Alabama got its second interception of a Beau Pribula pass to end it.

Alabama controlled Missouri’s running game as well as the clock, holding Ahmad Hardy to 52 yards on a dozen carries, snapping a 7-game streak in which Hardy had gained at least 100 yards. Alabama had the ball for 17-minutes longer than Missouri had it, a reversal of he usual Missouri game this year.

Tide quarterback Ty Simpson lived up to his credentials with three touchdowns, going 23 ogf 31 despite a lot of pressure from the Tiger defense that got to him four time for sacks and applied pressure fourteen times.

Coach Drinkwitz said afterwards he was “disappointed because we had an opportunity.”  But Missouri was only one for ten on third downs

Missouri plays its first road game of the year next weekend against Auburn and follows that with Vanderbilt, which went into the weekend as a top-20 team. They have another week off on November 1 before facing Texas A&M, which started the weekend at number 5 in the polls, Missisisippi State, their first game against Oklahoma since leaving the Big 12 (Oklahoma was 6th last weekend and then finishing against Arkansas.

(MIZPOLLS)—The Alabama-Missouri game provided slight changes in the national rankings for both teams.  Alabama moved from 8th to 6th in both polls. Missouri dropped from 16th to 18th.

(MIZBB)===Basketball season is a little more than three weeks away for the 2025-26 edition of the Missouri Tigers. Central Arkansas is the first potential victim on November 3 with Tulane three days later and Arkansas State on Veterans Day.

The annual game against Illinois is December 10. The SEC season begins with a game against Texas on New Year’s Day.

Missouri has a half-dozen returning players: Guards Anthony Robinson II and T.O. Barrett, Forwards Mark Mitchell and Trent Pierce, 7-5 center Trent Burns (who was on the bench all year last year) along with Jacob Crews and Annor Boateng. They’re joined by transfers and freshmen Javon Porter, Shawn Phillips, Aaron Rowe, Sebastian Mack, Luke Norwether, Jayden Stone and Nicholas Randall.

(CHIEFS)—-The Chiefs are fun to watch again and they’re expected to look even better next week when Rashee Rice returns from his six-game suspension.  Kansas City whipped previously-unbeaten Detroit last night and the Lions didn’t like it so much that a fistfight broke out as the teams shook hands after the game.

One of the hands was the fist of Lions safety Brian Branch who slugged Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith, starting a brief scrum, quickly broken up with nobody hurt.  All of the players were still in full uniform, including helmets.

https://x.com/i/status/1977574469624635558

The Chiefs now have evened their record at 3-3 with a game against the Raiders next Sunday. Detroit falls to 4-2.

The Chiefs controlled the highest-scoring team in the NFL up to this point.  They played all four quarters without a penalty.  They took away the ground game, holding Jahmyr Gibbs to only 65 yards. But it took him 17 carries to get that much. And quarterback Jared Goff had only 203 yards passing.

Mahomes ran for a touchdown and passed for three more, giving him 302 passing TDs in 139 games, faster than anyone in NFL history. It took Aaron Rogers 147 games.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks, the most popular team in the United Football League have survived the league’s latest realignment.

The UFL will remain a eight-team league but the Columbus Aviators, Louisville Kings, and the Orlando Storm are new. The Arlington Renegades will be the Dallas Renegades next spring wile the Houston Roughnecks will become the Houston Gamblers.

They replace the Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers, and the San Antonio Brahmas.

The Birmingham Stallions and the DC Defenders join the Battlehawks in keeping their names and their cities.

That’s the roar of the crowd part. Now, the other roar—

(NASCAR)—You are looking at the eyes of Denny Hamlin, who has won more races than any driver without a NASCAR Cup championship. But now he can see it. He’s the first driver to earn a spot in the final runoff race for the title in just three more races.  Three weeks from now, he will have a one-in-four chance to make his dream come true.

He also can see the end of his career. It’s coming after two more years because he doesn’t want to linger as a back-marker.  He hasn’t said it, but others will agree that he has earned he right to have a year as champion before he hangs up the helmet for good.

He’s 44, old for athletes in top-level competition and he knows it.  But behind those eyes, the competitive fire still burns strongly and his stirring fight to claim the win at Las Vegas on Sunday shows it.

It was the 60th of his career, moving him into a tie with the retired Kevin Havick for tenth on the all-time wins list.  Next up is Kyle Busch, with 63.

Hamlin started from the pole but did not lead the race on the first lap. In fact, h led only eight of the 267 race laps, including the last four.  He started sixth with fourteen laps left after the final caution period, got past Chase Briscoe with four laps left and claimed an emotional victory that he dedicated to his father, who is facing health issues.

The win is Hamlin’s sixth of the year, the most of any Cup driver.

(INDYCAR)—The last time David Malukas drove at World Wide Technology Raceway, he was driving for A. J. Foyt’s team, one of fourteen leaders in the race (he led 67 of the 260 laps, the most laps led by any driver) although he ultimately finished twelfth.

Last week he was back but was driving one of the elite cars in the IndyCar series—the #12 Penske car that had been handled by Will Power for seventeen years. Power’s contract was not renewed for 2026, after driving the 12-car to an Indianapolis 500 win in 2018, two season championships and 42 wins. Malukas using the fall Firestone tire testing sessions to get comfortable in the car.

The test at World Wide Technology Raceway was his first drive in the car since inheriting the Power seat. “It was incredible…I’m trying to keep my composure, but it’s very difficult to do.”  He turns 24 this week. Four years ago he got a test session in a Penske car on the Indianapolis Speedway road course and referred to it as “a Rolls Royce of IndyCar.”

He’s been in IndyCar for only four years, starting with Dale Coyne Racing, where he gave he team three podium finishes.  A slow-healing broken wrist from a mountain biking accident short-circuited his career with the Arrow McLaren team. He did get in ten races with Meyer Shank last year before joining the Foyt team, which had a technological relationship with Penske.

He finished second to Alex Palou at Indianapolis last May.

Power, meanwhile, is branching out. Next weekend he will drive his first sports car race but he’ll do it on familiar territory. He’ll be one of three drivers of a Mercedes-AMG in the eight-hour GT Challenge race on the Speedway road course. He might be in a new kind of car but he’ll be driving on familiar territory. He had five wins on the road course while driving for Penske.

He quickly moved to Andretti Global after leaving Penske and hopes to build on his IndyCar record of 71 poles and 45 career victories, which puts him third on the all-time list.

Several IndyCar drivers have moved to sports cars during the off-months, as have several NASCAR drivers.  Fellow 500 winner Scott Dixon will race in the 10-hour finale of the IMSA Championship season next weekend.

(Photo Credits:   Helmet–The Business Journal; Eyes—Bob Priddy; Malukas–IndyCar;  Schedlue–Mizzou)

The Bunny, the Bully, And A Sing-Along 

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It has been more than 46 years since a bunny has made headlines such as this—when President Jimmy Carter saw a swamp rabbit swimming his way and either splashed water on it or hit it with his canoe paddle to keep it away.

It was a minor thing, really, but you know how the press is. The Associated Press broke the story and the commentators and comedians started having a field day with Carter fending off a “killer rabbit.”

Now we have Bad Bunny lined up to do the halftime show at the Super Bowl, the first male Latin performer to do that show, and the MAGA crowd is having a cow.  Especially Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

When President Trump was asked for his reaction he offered his usual, “I never heard of him. I don’t know who he is” response, which he has used too often for us to count to deny knowing people he knows. “I don’t know why they’re doing it, it’s like crazy. … Then they blame it on some promoter that they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” he continued.

Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s ridiculous to hire somebody he never heard of?

So, for him as well as for those of us of his well-advanced generation, here’s some information about BB and why the MAGA crowd has its undies in such a knot:

He’s 31 years old, a performer from Puerto Rico (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) who has made Spanish rap music popular worldwide. He’s been a star for almost a decade. From 2020-2023 he was the world’s most-streamed artist on Spotify. His sixth studio album, described as “a love letter to Puerto Rico and his heritage, was number one on the Billboard Top 100 albums earlier this year.

He’s also a WWE pro wrestler and a former 24/7 champion, which—if he weren’t Puerto Rican—might entitle him to take part in the 80th Trump birthday celebration wrestling matches at the White House.

Earlier this year he wrapped up a 23-performance tour of Latin America, Europe, Japan, and Australia—but not the United States because of concerns that ICE would pounce on fans going to his shows.

And that is what has smoke coming out the ears of some MAGA people, including Noem who has proclaimed that her ICE agents will be out in force at the Super Bowl.

In an interview, it was clear that she has become a graduate of the Trump School of Nonsense: “I have the responsibility for making sure everybody who goes to the Super Bowl has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave, and that’s what America’s about. So yeah, we’ll be all over that place. We’re going to enforce the law. So, I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they’re law-abiding Americans who love this country.”

As for the NFL, she spouted this head-scratcher: “Well, they suck and we’ll win, and God will bless us and we’ll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day, and they won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe. And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it.”

Huh?

Her intelligence deficit was mirrored by MAGA influencer Tomi Lahren on her podcast interview with The Hill’s Krystal Ball (yes, Krystal Marie Ball is her real name), when Lahren asked Ball what she thought about whether BB was a good choice for the halftime show.  Ball admitted she didn’t know much about him but that he “seems like a great American artist, so sure.”

That’s when Lahren put her foot in it. “He’s not an American artist, but—”

Ball: “He’s Puerto Rican. That’s part of America, dear.”

Huff Post reported Lahren plunged ahead and criticized BB’s criticism of ICE only to have Ball remind her, “America agrees with him on that…A majority of Americans think ICE has gone too far. They’ve watched videos of, like, 79 year old business owners being slammed to the ground and their ribs broken by ICE. So I think the American people are probably on board with that message at this point.”

The best retort Lahren could offer was, “Whoever you’re talking to, I’m sure is. I’m not so sure the rest of the country is.”

Well, the fake news just reports fake polls, you know, and you shouldn’t pay attention to them.  It’s better, after all, to believe the First Golfer, who says he’s so popular that nobody has ever seen anything like it, to quote one of his favorite phrases.

Also chiming in is longtime Trumper Corey Lewandowski, now an adviser in the Homeland Security Department (If you can’t give a favorite ego-feeding supporter a specific job at the public trough, you can always make them an “advisor.”), who called the BB announcement “shameful” and charged Bunny “just seems to hate America so much.”

Lewandowski is lying. BB doesn’t hate America. But he doesn’t want his fans put in the sights of ICE agents emboldened by Lewandowski’s boss.  Bunny told i-D magazine, “There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U. S. and none of them were out of hate.” He recalled he had performed “successful” and “magnificent” concerts many times and has “enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S.”

The whole incident has become great fodder for internet denizens.

Trump’s antagonism toward Puerto Rico is widely known. When he tried to fire three members of a board that oversees the territory’s financial management, a federal district judge ruled he had likely violate constitutional due process rights and federal law.

Last year, a comedian at a Trump fund raiser referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.” Trump’s reaction to Tony Hinchcliffe’s comment was the usual: “I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is.” But he didn’t repudiate it.

He told a Puerto Rican native at a campaign roundtable in Pennsylvania, “We helped you through a lot of bad storms. I’ll tell you we really had some bad ones. You remember you were there when I brought the hospital ship against everyone’s advice and we got it there and took care of a lot of people. But I think no president’s done more for Puerto Rico than I have.”

Few viewed his visit to Puerto Rico some nine days after Hurricane Maria in 2017 as anything more than “insulting,” as San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz,  a “PR, 17-minute meeting.” They remember that he threw paper towels to a room crowded with victims hoping for something much more important, a “terrible and abominable” image that “does not embody the spirit of the American nation.”

“They had these beautiful, soft towels. Very good towels,” he recalled on a Trinity Broadcasting Network interview. There was a crowd of a lot people. And they were screaming and they were loving everything. I was having fun.”

He visited only one small part of the island for a short time—-and then piled insult on insult by minimizing what was facing those people who needed a whole lot more than paper towels. “Every death is a horror,” he said, “but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous—hundred and hundreds and hundres of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this.”  He belittled the storm by noting there had been only sixteen confirmed deaths. Mayor Cruz said Trump showed no interest in reaching out to suffering Puerto Ricans.

About that hospital ship: Reuters reported the Pentagon did not dispatch it until three days after defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Twitter that Trump and his Secretary of Defense James Mattis “should send the Navy…to Puerto Rico now. These are American citizens.” Further, the Inspector General in the Housing and Urban Development saw calculated  that the administration had withheld about $20 billion in hurricane relief after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

MSNBC talked to the Executive Director of Deadline Hollywood, Dominic Patten, who says Noem’s comments and the MAGA World’s reaction to the Super Bowl choice is rooted in three things—a hatred of capitalism (“Bad Bunny’s a big star; he’s going to make a lot of money for the NFL”), ignorance (“They might want to remember that Puerto Rico IS part of America”), and “a bit of the loser syndrome” (BB’s criticism of ICE).

As far as Noem’s claim that the NFL sucks, is weak, and “won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe,” Patten responds, “The NFL don’t care. The NFL is the NFL. They’re the biggest game in town.” Digit elevated.

The Super Bowl halftime show is organized by Roc Nation, founded by rapper Jay-Z, considered the “live music entertainment strategist for the NFL.”  The show is sponsored by Apple Music.

“Let’s also not be naïve,” said Patten. The NFL and Jay-Z knew exactly what they were doing. They decided to poke the paper bear and they’ve done a very good job of it.”

Well, the paper bear has decided to let loose with a jingoistic growl (We’ll save you the effort of looking up “jingoism,” by citing Britannica’s definition: “an attitude of  belligerent nationalism, adherence to the rightness or virtue of one’s own nation, society, or group, simply because it is one’s own.”). Turning Point USA. Charlie Kirk’s creation, has announced it is going to host “The All -American Halftime Show” as an Bunny alterative. It is taking an online survey of what music its adherents want. The first choice is “Anything in English,” a cheap shot at BB, who performs in Spanish.

It is clear that Mr. Bunny, although a native of a United States territory, just isn’t American enough for the TPUSA/MAGA crowd.

What do you want to bet that the song getting the biggest crowd reaction at that alternate even will be Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.

Tell you what—let’s look at the lyrics.

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I’d worked for all my life

(Such as the freedom to express an opinion without someone in an Army uniform pepper-spraying me or some goon in a mask and without a warrant yanking me into a white van and hauls me to a crowded lockup while my terrified family wonders where I am)

And if I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I’d thank my lucky stars
To be livin’ here today

(unless my wife and our children who were born here are being deported to some secret and awful place.)

‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom

(unless I want to read a banned book, visit a museum that tells the truth about our history, or go to a national park that doesn’t have oil wells sticking up from the ground.)

And they can’t take that away

(Oh, yes they can. And they’re trying for more.)

And I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free

(as long as I buy into the right kind of religion, don’t have a funny sounding name, think the 2020 election was stolen, and believe all I need to prove my Americanism is to wear a red baseball cap with the right letters on it)

And I won’t forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me

(Sixty-five thousand Puerto Ricans served our country in World War II including the seven Medina brothers known as “The Fighting Medinas,” and Agustin Ramos Calero, known as the “One Man Army,” who won the Silver Star and 21 other medals and decorations. About fifty were killed. About 48,000 Puerto Ricans served in Vietnam. About 350 were KIA and five earned the Medal of Honor.)

And I’d gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today

(Even if you think I should not be allowed to perform a Super Bowl halftime show.)

‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

(I agree.  I love this land as you do. But I think Abrham Lincoln had his priorities straight when he purportedly said, “I do not boast that God is on my side; I humbly pray that I am on his.”

One of the immediate reactions to the Turning Point announcement was to have Bad Bunny throw paper towels into the crowd to make a political point that would remind the audience of the Trump visit.

But that would be lowering himself to their level.

Here’s what would be incredibly classy and what would at the same time send a powerful message:

(Here, let’s sing the song together:

Si mañana todas las cosas se hubieran ido–If tomorrow all the things were gone
He trabajado toda mi vida—I’d worked for all my life
Y tuve que empezar de nuevo—And I had to start again
Sólo con mis hijos y mi esposa—With just my children and my wife

Agradeceré a mis estrellas de la suerte—I’d thank my lucky stars
Vivir aquí hoy—To be livin’ here today
Porque la bandera sigue en pie por la Libertad—Cause the flag still stands for freedom
Y no pueden quitarlo—And they cant take that away

Y estoy orgulloso de ser americano—And I’m proud to be an American
Donde al menos sé que soy libre—Where at least I know I’m free
Y no olvidaré a los hombres que murieron—And I won’t forget the men who died
¿Quién me dio ese derecho?—Who gave that right to me

Y con mucho gusto me levanto—And I gladly stand up
Junto a ti y defiéndala todavía hoy—Next to you and defend her still today
Porque no hay duda, amo esta tierra—Cause there ain’t no doubt, I love this land
Dios bendiga a los Estados Unidos—God bless the USA

Just between thee and me, I’d love to hear Bad Bunny sing this song in Spanish at the end of the halftime show, maybe while the words were on the big scoreboard screens so the audience could sing along. That would be delicious.

MAGA is too young to remember Jimmy Carter and how embarrassing and foolish a person can appear to be if they think a bunny is dangerous.

Preserving the Truth of History

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A few days ago, I went to Springfield to speak at the annual meeting of the National Trail of Tears Association.

The Association represents the volunteers who preserve the heritage of the trail and of the forced removal, 1831-1838, of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and the Muscogee (Creek) Nations from their ancestral homes in the southeast to what is now eastern Oklahoma.

Various sources indicate 55,400-64,275 people were removed. Before the caravans reached athe place that President Jackson said would let them “cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community,” ten to 12,800 had died.

This is how the speech concluded:

It has been an honor to speak to this group at this time in our history when a concerted effort is underway to treat a lot of things as if they never happened —and when a 21st Century Trail of Tears is tragically underway, another time when people who are considered “as unqualified residents near civilized communities” are being sent off to uncertain futures in strange lands.

I wonder, as we look back 200 years to commemorate the Trail of Tears and to honor those who were forced to travel it, as well as those who showed those travelers mercy, if our descendants 200 years from now will look at the mass deportation program the same way we look at the Trail of Tears. Or the Trail of Death*.

As Chief Hoskin** noted last night, on March 27th, President Trump signed an executive order he called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” by ordering the rewriting of it so that embarrassing moments would be wiped from the public telling of our heritage.

It appears no historic site will be immune to his efforts to, as he put it, “restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”  

Have no doubt about what this is.  It is more than an executive order. It is a declaration of cultural war on the people of this nation, and the nations within this nation.

I am not sure that reminding Americans “of our extraordinary heritage” is consistent with effort to whitewash reality.

He also referred to “ideological indoctrination of divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” or, at least, his warped view of it. He appears not to understand that truth is not “ideological indoctrination.”

He complained that “the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.” 

He is right…but he is right about himself.

The danger is that such rewriting of history can be little more than returning to a past where societal divides were deeper, where acts of national shame were more acceptable, and the progress we have made that inspires millions around the world is wiped out.

I want to hear how he and his enablers can sanitize the smallpox blanket.

I want to hear how the destruction of the friendly Wampanoags and King Phillip’s War is “ideological indoctrination.

I want to hear how they can describe Sand Creek, Washita, and Wounded Knee as “consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect union.”

I want to know how the subjugation of the Apaches, the story of Chief Joseph, and the betrayal of Red Cloud is an “unmatched record of advancing liberty.”

How did the Indian Boarding School lead to “human flourishing.”

How the markers of the Trail of Tears are “uplifting public moments.”

I want to know which is more sacred: The Chinese-published Trump Bible with the lyrics of “Proud to be an American,” or Black Elk’s prayer on Harney Peak to the Great Mysterious One.***

That is why we cannot allow stories such as the Trail of Tears to be rewritten, with truth being excised by a person with limited or no appreciation for the work this organization does and what it stands for.

A President who threatens actions against professional sports teams unless they start calling themselves Redskins and Indians again will never understand the nobility of the kind of cause this group advocates..

Some politicians only seek the truth to distort it for their own ends. Greatness does not flow from distorted truth that hides our flaws, but—instead—flows from protecting the truth so we may grow beyond those flaws.

That is what museums are for. That is what historic sites and parks are for and that is what historical organizations are for—to remind us that this country is not a finished work, that it does not become better, let alone greater, by ignoring our past mistakes, our nation’s wrongs, and those who lived them and worked to correct them.

One reason to study history is to understand that greatness is created by today’s honesty about yesterday facts—and understanding that truth, not the obscuring  of it, builds a stronger people.  And a stronger people are a free-er people than demagogues and despots want us to be. 

A nation that hides its truths will not become great. REVEALING the truth is what gives a nation the opportunity to be better than before.

That is our responsibility, our challenge, as historians.

Others might fear us because of that. But we must never fear them.

We must never allow ourselves to be silenced—-for history is the nation’s conscience and we must never abandon the search for the truth in it.

We cannot escape history.  Indeed, our challenge today is to save it, to fight those who would rewrite it for their own benefit.

Reveal the truth, preserve the truth, speak the truth, BE the truth—and our nation will remain free.

*The Trail of Death crosses north Missouri, the path the Potawatomi Nation followed to what became Kansas when they were removed from their ancestral lands in Indiana and Illinois. It was a much smaller group but an estimated 40 of the 859 participants died en route.

**Chuck Hoskin Jr., is the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, the largest Native American Nation, with 45,000 citizens.

***You can learn about each of these issues with internet searches.  I recommend a YouTube video of the speech of Black Elk, described by narrator John G. Neihardt, a personal friend and biographer who described Black Elk as the “last of the great Sioux Indian Holy Men.”)

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