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SPORTS:  Two FB Wins; MLB season endihg with a whimper; Another Top-Tier BB Recruit, Etc.    

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—The Missouri Tigers are a come-from-behind team this year, winning games after trailing, and moving incrementally higher in the rankings after starting the year outside the top 25.

Missouri won again with a strong fourth quarter for a 29-20 win over a team that has shown it was clearly overrated in preseason polls that listed the Gamecocks as number eleven.

The Tigers went into the South Carolina game with another of their players being nationally recognized.

Ahmad Hardy was named the Doak Walker Offensive Player of the Week for his 250-yard rushing performance against Louisiana-Lafayette. It was the second week in a row that a Tiger had received national recognition.  Quarterback Beau Pribula was named the Maxwell National Player of the week for his performance in the win against Kansas.

Hardy racked up another 138 yards against South Carolina and now is number two on the national rushing list and leads all running backs in the number of broken tackles a skill he demonstrated in scoring his only touchdown after it appeared he had been bottled up.

South Carolina’s attack showed some holes in the Tigers pass defense but the Gamecock’s running offense did nothing. Less than nothing, actually, finishing with minus=9 rushing yards while getting 302 through the air.

The AP sportswriters poll ranks Missouri 20th this week, six points behind Michigan. Vanderbilt is 18th.  The tigers are 19th in the coaches poll, behind Michigan but one position higher than Vanderbilt.

UMass is next.

(MI|ZHONORS)—Four Tigers earned SEC player of the week honors for the game.  Hardy was named the offensive player of the week. Freshman of the week is Robert Meyer, who shares the honor with Vanderbilt linebacker Jamison Curtis. Meyer missed his firsts kick of the game—an extra point—but he nailed a 40-yard field goal, his longest of the season, to make Missouri’s fourth-quarter lead a two-possession affair.

The Defensive Lineman of the week is Zion Young, who splits the certificate with Oklahoma’s rusher Mason Thomas. Young had three tackles, a sack and two tackles for loss. Keegan Trost, who helped open the holes for Missouri running backs, is the offensive lineman of the week.

(XMIZZ)—-Former Tiger Luther Burden III has arrived big time in the NFL.

It was a breakout game for Burden, had three receptions including a catch-and-run 62-yard flea-flicker play that put the Bears up on the Dallas Cowboys 14-3 in the first quarter. His 29-yard reception late in the first half led to another touchdown and a 24-14 Bears lead at the break. He also gained seven yards on a running play to run his total yardage for the day to 108 yards. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs won a generally boring game against a weak New York Giants team 22-9 Sunday night. The win ends a three-game losing streak, including last year’s Super Bowl.  The running game showed some fresh spark; the passing game was adequate. But the kicking game was uncharacteristically a mixed bag as Harrison Butker missed a field goal and a point-after. The Chiefs defense kept the Giants’ offense under control, including interception of two Russell Wilson passes.

The Chief play the Baltimore Ravens next weekend.

(KC RICE) Suspended Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice is back with the team although he won’t play until three more games are in the books and he can’t practice with the team or be on the field. He can be at the training facility, though.

Xavier Worthy had three limited practice sessions before the Giants game but was not activated. Coach Andy Reed told reporters yesterday that Worthy “practiced and did the best he could but it just wasn’t right…We thought it best if he didn’t play.”

(ROYALS)—Kansas City Royals founder Ewing Kauffman was born 109 years ago Sunday, and his team still has a fain hope of making the playoffs as they go into the last week of the regular season.

The Royals got in a 3-0 hole in the second inning and gave up three more in the fifth before rallying back to 5-5 only to see the Blue Jays pick up two runs in the eighth to win 8-5.

The Royals staved off elimination by taking two of the three weekend games against the Toronto Blue Jays.  But that’s more a matter of whistling past the graveyard than thinking they have a chance to extend their season.

The Royals are 78-78 with six games to play. They are six games behind Cleveland and Houston, who have identical 84-72 records coming down the final stretch of the regular season. The Royals only hope is that they win all of their games and Cleveland and Houston lose all of THEIR games for the wild card race to end in a three-way tie.

Sports Illustrated writer Jackson Roberts says the Royals have to beat odds of one in 262,144 to one for that to happen.

The Royals wrap up the season, starting tonight, with six games against the Angels and the Athletics. If they win four of those games they’ll have back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in a deca

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have to win all of their remaining games to finish at .500.  They wrap up the year with three games against the Giants and three more against the Cubs.

The Redbirds used their final home game Sunday to say goodbye to President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak, who’s retiring from the team after six more games.  And their calling back to the dugout for Nolan Arenado after he’d taken the field for the first inning has fueled speculation that they wanted the fans to have a chance to say goodbye to him, too.

He still has a couple of years left on his contract and has a no-trade clause that will have to be worked out if, indeed, St. Louis fans have seen him for the last time in a Cardinals uniform.

(EMPTY SEATS)—Three seasons of increasing mediocrity have caught up with the St. Louis Cardinals who had their lowest per-game attendance in thirty years this year.

Their average attendance this year was 27,778, the second year in a row that per-game attendance has fallen below 40,000. Until 2024, the Cardinals had averaged 40,000 people per game for a decade (not including 2020 and 2021, the pandemic years).

The Post-Dispatch reports the five-game rolling average attendance had fallen to less than 20,000 earlier this month for the first time since the present Busch Stadium opened twenty years ago. Ticket sales have dropped by almost one-million (991,084) from 2023.

In total, 628,108 fewer tickets were sold for Cardinals games in 2025 than a year ago. It’s down 991,084 from the 2023 total.

St. Louis has ranked in the top ten in attendance for more than forty years. The last time they were in the bottom half of major league baseball attendance was 1980.

Well, let’s move on to something else…..

(NASCAR)—Ryan Blaney has guaranteed will be among the final eight drivers chasing the NASCAR championship in two more weeks.

His win on the Loudon, New Hampshire mile locks him into the next stage of the playoffs as he chases his second title in three years.

The final results were a boost for Team Penske which had been shut out of victory lane in the first three-race round of the playoffs.  Blaney was chased across the finish line for the last twenty laps by Josh Berry, who drives for a Penske subsidiary—Wood Racing. Penske teammate Joey Logano, who led the most laps in the race finished fourth.

Team has won the last three Cup championships with Logano’s titles in 2022 and last year bracketing Blaney’s title in ’23.

Missourians have a second chance this year to watch a playoff race as the series moves to the Kansas City area next weekend.  The next cutdown of the competing drivers will come the week after the Kansas race when NASCAR runs its last road course of the year, on the Charlotte Roval.

After that only eight drivers will remain.

Heading into the Kansas race, drivers Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric Tyler Reddick, and Bubba Wallace are on the outside looking in.

(Photo Credits: Hardy—Instagram; Burden—Bailey Black, Chicago Bears); Kauffman—KC Royals; Blaney—Bob Priddy)

Lincoln

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(Before we dip our pen in acid for this entry, please let us observe a bit of a milestone. This page represents page 3,000 of these entries. Today we will plod toward word number 1,300,000. We are sure that we are the only one who has read every word and every page.)

If you’ve been along for a long, long time, maybe you should send yourself a sympathy card.

Now, on with the show:)

Lincoln

Some people just have the right names.

Lincoln Hough SOUNDS like a Republican Senator’s name.

He is one.

But he’s in trouble—

—-because Lincoln Hough is not above thinking. And speaking his mind.

Because he had the nerve to suggest that the Missouri Senate was going against everything the Missouri Senate has stood for, he has been slapped down by his party.

Hough objected to the final dismantling of the Senate’s legacy as a deliberative, respectful, collegial part of government when his party’s majority leadership rammed two questionable bills through a short special legislative session to satisfy the self-serving demand of an increasingly dictatorial President and a desire by his party to mangle the concept of majority vote.

His party leaders have increasingly through the years stifled minority opposition to issues by passing motions to limit or prohibit discussion.  Hough is one of two Senate Republicans who had the courage to vote against the bills in the special legislative session, and to vote against ending debate on them.  Within minutes after the session adjourned, the leader of the Senate majority went to his office and fired him as the chairman of arguably the Senate’s most important committee, the one that writes the Senate’s version of the state budget.

Lincoln Hough told The Missouri Independent that as far as he was concerned, the Missouri Senate died at 1:42 p.m. on Friday, September 12 when debate was blocked on the bill weakening the First Amendment right of citizens  “to petition their government for a redress of grievances,” as it is put in the Bill of Rights.

This was one of the darkest weeks I’ve served during my time in the senate.

If the votes that I cast this week that I believed were in the best interests of my constituents in Springfield, the State of Missouri, and the institution of the Missouri Senate put me at odds with the President Pro Tem of the Senate cost me my chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee then so be it. I wouldn’t change any of them.

I’m looking forward spending my time and energy during my last session on the floor of the senate working every day to restore this institution to place of honor I inherited from Senators Richard and Wasson.

Ron Richard, from Joplin, is the only person in Missouri history to serve as Speaker of the House and President Pro Tem of the Senate. Bill Wasson was Hough’s predecessor in the Senate.

I believe in a process where members are given an opportunity to have a conversation about a piece of legislation, two, to ask questions about a piece of legislation, and, three, propose changes through an amendment process on the floor. When all of that is circumvented, that’s a problem.

This was not the first time Hough had voiced opposition to his party’s legislation by steamroller. He objected to shutting down debate at the end of the regular session in May on a bill repealing two issues voters had approved last year—protection of abortion rights and expansion of sick leave.

He called those actions and the special session experience “a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be.”

His party leader wasted no time dropping the axe. Less than half an hour after the session adjourned President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin went to Hough’s office and took away his appropriations committee chairmanship. He has been the vice chairman and then chairman since he came to the Senate six years ago.

She said, ‘we are tired of fighting with you. To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’

O’Laughlin assured Springfield television station KYTV there really aren’t any hard feelings involved.

“Every good business has a succession plan. We should not expect less for the Missouri Senate. Leadership on the budget includes not only planning expenditures, but being responsible for outcomes. Eight senators are terming out next year and that is a full 1/3 of the Republican caucus. Planning and executing those plans is a complicated process requiring constant work and oversight. In my view we need an appropriations chair who can get acclimated to the job before the turnover occurs. It has been my plan to appoint a chairman who can gain experience and continue on after the seats change next year. In my view this gives them the best chance of success.

Senior senators can help in this process prior to terming out. I implemented that plan yesterday and it is one I spoke to Senator Hough about last November. He is one of the most talented senators l’ve met and the change has nothing to do with votes as some have conjectured. Serving Missouri is not just about prestige but also about doing what is best for Missourians. I greatly appreciate Senator Hough and the immense amount of work he has performed on behalf of Missourians.

That might be true. Or it might be so much eyewash. Regardless, the optics—to use a phrase that has gained some purchase in our politics today—are pretty bad.  As for continuity, the vice chair of the committee is Chillicothe Senator Rusty Black, who is in his first Senate term and faces the voters for a second term next year. Three other Republican members of the appropriations committee are in their first terms and one other was just elected his second term last year. The committee also includes four Democrats, none of them eligible for committee leadership unless an unlikely switch of majority occurs. But committee members are hardly rookies and will have even more experience after the 2026 budget process.

Hough told The Missourinet O’Laughlin’s statement is “completely disingenuous,” noting that she had not replaced any of the other term-limited chairs of other Seante committees.

Here’s something else that speaks for the character of Lincoln Hough.  He has a picture of Harry Truman in a prominent place in his office.

He hasn’t done it because he’s some kind of a maverick. He’s done it because of the history of his office.

He put up the Truman picture after I saw David Balducchi’s article in the Missouri Historical Review in April, 2021 detailing Truman’s brief Missouri directorship of the National Reemployment Service. From October of 1933 until mid-May of 1934, Truman spent three days a week in Jefferson City where his office was in rooms 419A and 419B of the Capitol.

I took the article to Senator Hough’s office in those rooms and as soon as he read it, he set about getting a nice farmed picture of Truman with a note included in the frame noting Truman’s use of that space.

It was while Truman held that job that Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast offered him a chance to run for the U.S. Senate, a move some say Pendergast engineered because Truman had been too honest in his job as Jackson County Presiding Judge and Pendergast expected him to lose the Senate bid at the same time his administrative judgeship ran out so a Pendergast crony could be installed in the county position. Truman surprisingly won the first of his two terms before he became President.

It seems kind of appropriate that a portrait of a man who was too honest to suit his own party’s political boss in 1934 should be inhabited by a state senator today who had the courage to call out his party’s willingness to do the biddings of a President who acts as a political boss today.  Hough:

It’s pretty easy to pass legislation in the Missouri Senate if you don’t have to talk about it, and you can just bring it before the body and say, we’re not, we’re not going to have any discussion whatsoever. It seems that if you have any independent thought, or even just raise a question, you have a problem with this Republican Party and that is not the Republican Party that, 15 years ago when I first ran for the House, that I was part of.

There is a penalty sometimes for courage. Hough wasn’t told when he was fired as appropriations chairman if he is even still a committee member.

He lost a Republican primary bid for Lieutenant Governor last year.  I noticed on Facebook a few days after the session ended that someone thinks he’d be a good Congressman. At a time when President Trump’s support seems to be slipping within the Congress, a Republican such as Lincoln Hough, who has an independent streak, might be the kind of Republican the party needs for its future.

A Republican named Lincoln with a big picture of a Democrat named Harry in his office.

Those are pretty good optics.

 

Need Your Trash Hauled?

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Maybe the Mayor of Chicago and the Governor of Illinois should not object so much to the President’s plan to  deploy National Guard troops to the Windy City.  Ditto folks in Memphis, the next American city in line to be invaded by the United Stats Army.

Based on the experience in Washington, D. C., the National Guard is making streets safer by picking up trash and doing gardening duties at national monument sites. One doesn’t want a tourist to trip over something or to be horrified by a wind-blown hot dog wrapper.

The National Guard reported during the Labor Day Weekend that its 2,000 troops had collected more than 500 bags of trash and cleaned more than 3.2 miles of roadways.

They’ve been doing a lot of the work that National Park Service workers would be doing if the Trump administration hadn’t fired thousands of them. One-fourth of the NPS workers were axed by enthusiastic DOGE-oriented actions. National Guard members, trained to fight on foreign battlefields and to serve in domestic disaster areas have instead helped with forty “beautification projects” in D.C.

Those National Guard troops also have disposed of three truckloads of plant waste.

It’s costing one-million dollars a day for the National Guard to serve as gardeners and garbage men in our nation’s capital.

As for fighting crime in one of the most crime-ridden cities in the world, there are a lot of places in the world, and even in red states with far higher crime rates than D.C.  Or Chicago. Or Los Angeles.

The Guard reports it made 1,369 arrests in the first three weeks including one guy who threw a sandwich at a member of the Guard. But Trump’s choice for the district’s prosecutor, former FOX news host Jeanne Priro, reportedly hasn’t been able to get a grand jury indictment in a couple of high-profile cases, not even against the deadly sandwich thrower.

Numerous studies indicate many more cities are more “entitled’ to National Guard protection (or                                       trash collection and gardening) than D. C., LA, or Chicago, based on crime. Many of them do not have Democrats as mayors so they apparently will just have to let the garbage pile up and let the weeds grow in their parks and around their monuments.

There’s a lesson here.  If you don’t want the president to order the National Guard to invade your town and pick up your trash or spread mulch in your beautified public places, elect a Republican mayor.

Too bad, though. Your high murder rate will stay high and your city will not be cleaner and more beautiful.

If you want your low murder rate to stay down, but you don’t want to hire extra people to clean up your streets and your parks so that the President will send inexperienced trash-hauling soldiers to do that, elect a Democrat, especially a black one.

It’s not about crime. It’s about cleanliness.

-0–0-

Sports: Another tune-up for Mizzou; a Tiger loss; Baseball Teams Drifting Out of Contention

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZZFB)—The Missouri Tigers finished their tune-up schedule by rushing past, over, and through the Ragin’ Cajins from Louisiana-Lafayette Saturday.

Ahmad Hardy was the big battering ram, gaining 250 of the team’s 427 rushing yards and scoring three of the seven touchdowns in a 52-10 win. Only six players in Tiger history have gained more yards in a game than Hardy did Saturday. And he went to the bench with the other starters after the first series on the second half.

For the second straight week, Missouri had two running backs gain more than 100 yards. Marquise Davis rushed for 113 and a touchdown.

The 52-10 score wasn’t as close at the score makes it seem.

Missouri totaled 606 yards to Louisiana’s 121. The defense held Louisiana’s passing game to only two completions in 14 attempts for just four yards. Most of Louisiana’s 121 offensive yards came on an 84-yard run by Zylan Perry in the second quarter.

Quarterback Beau Pribula, coming off his recognition as the Maxwell Player of the Week after his performance against Kansas, had his worst yardage day of his three-game Missouri career, gaining only 174 yards passing on a 15/22 day. Of course that’s because he only played slightly more than one half of football. In his three games as a starter, he is 68/89 passing (76.4%) for 791 yards.

Next up for Mizzou is their first SEC game, against South Carolina, which went into Saturday night’s game as the nation’s 11th ranked team and was clobbered by Vanderbilt 31-7. CBS Sports dropped South Carolina to 36th, down 20 from its previous ranking. CBS says Missouri is 20th, a couple of positions below Vanderbilt, the team that beat South Carolina last weekend.

The Tigers are 23rd in both AP sportswriters poll and the USA Today Coaches Poll.

(HORN)—The Sam Horn era as a Mizzou quarterback is over. His leg injury turns out to be a fractured tibia, the large bone in the right lower leg. He’s undergone surgery and is out for the football season of course. He’s expected to make a full recovery.

Getting the surgery done now will give him to rehab his right leg, important because that’s the push-off leg that helps a right-handed pitcher gain momentum on his pitches, an important factor for Horn who was a 17th round pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers in this year’s MLB draft. He has signed a contract with the Dodgers that left him with the opportunity to play football this year for Missouri.

(MIZZHOF)—MIAHOF has inducted six new members—that’s the Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame we’re talking about.

Former Athletics Director Mike Alden, who led the athletics department 1998-2015 and engineered MU’s move to the Southeastern Conference called the shift, “transformational…for our university and the state.”  His 17-years in that position is the second-longest in school history. Only Don Faurot served longer, his first stint being eight years, 1935-1941 and his second one the longest, 22 years, from 1946-1967.

Longtime Sports Information Director Bob Brendel (1980-2000) is credited with modernizing the sports information office and for helping create the Hall of Fame. After several years in the information office at the State Transportation Department, Brendel has returned to the MU information office as its historian.

One still-active athlete was elected to the Hall this year—WNBA star Sophie Cunningham, who says, “I bleed black and gold to the core,” is the women’s basketball team’s all-time leading scorer who helped the Lady Tigers get to four NCAA tournaments and was a first-team all SEC choice three years.

Volleyball star Alyssa Munlyn, the first four-time AVCA All-American from Mizzou, played 2015-2018 and still holds the record for most blocks in a career.

A member of Coach Eli Drinkwitz’s staff and former record-setting running back Brock Olivo referred to Mizzou “home for me” in his inaugural remarks. Olivo is now the special teams consultant for the Tigers. When he left Mizzou after the 1997 season for a career in the NFL and the Italian Football League, he was the Mu career rushing and touchdown leader.

The final inductee is basketball player Kareem Rush, a first-round NBA draft pick, the key guy in Mizzou’s run to the Elight Eight. He played for five NBA teams and several minor-league pro basketball teams.

They are the most recent of the 262 members of the Hall who are recognized in the concourse of the Mizzou Field House. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—A 14-point turnaround play was the difference for the Philadelphia Eagles, who flew out of Kansas City with a 20-=17 win, giving the Chiefs losses in their first two games for the first time since 2014, and handing Patrick Mahomes his third straight loss for the first time in his pro career.

The backbreaker for the Chiefs was a touchdown-bound pass Travis Kelce couldn’t handle at the goal line that wound up in the hands of the Eagles’ Andrew Makuba, who took it back 41 yards before being knocked out of bounds by the last Chiefs player who could have stopped him.  From where the Eagles scored the touchdown that turned a possible 17-13 Chiefs lead into a 20-10 Eagles advantage.

The Chiefs came back to score a touchdown at the two-minute mark but an on-sides kick failed and the Eagles ran out the clock.

Rashee Rice has started practicing with the team but wasn’t ready to play against the Eagles.

(BASEBALL)—The Cardinals’ faint hopes of making the playoffs are almost invisible. The Royals seem to be drifting out of the picture.  Neither is likely to play more than 162 games this year. The only real question is whether either team will finish with a winning season.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals stopped their five-game losing streak with a 3-2 win in Milwaukee Sunday, a day after the Brewers became the first MLB team to clinch a playoff berth.

Miles Mikolas had an up day in this up and down season. He went five innings and gave up only two home runs to move closer to a .500 record for the season. He’s 8-10 now and probably has a couple more starts. The Cardinals scored all three of their runs in the second inning on RBI singles by Jose Fermin and Nathan Church. Reliever Riley O’Brien struck out the last batter of the game to get his fourth save in seven chances one day after he bave p three runs without recording an out in Saturday’s 10-inning 9-8 loss.

Mikolas is finishing strong. In his last four starts, he’s thrown 21 innings and given up six runs, no more than two in any of those four games. He has his ERA down to 4.80.

The Cardinals ended the road trip and the week with a 73-77 record. They need to win nine of their next 12 games to finish over .500, eight of 12 to finish break-even.

Yesterday, the Cardinals announced that Nolan Arenado is being reactivated after a rehab stint shows his throwing shoulder is ready for regulatr duty. He hasn’t played July. 30.  Freddie Fermin has been sent down to Memphis to make roster room for his return.  He’s had a below-average year at the plate this season, coming back to his usual third base position with a .235 average.

(CARDSWYNN)—The Cardinals and shortstop Masyn Winn have decided not to wait for the end of the season to have surgery done on his torn meniscus cartilage.  He had hoped to play through the pain to the end of what was being a historic season in which he was well-positioned to win a gold glove.

He’s officially on the ten-day disabled list but that will take him through the end of a solid season highlighted by his defense. He’s made only three errors all year and his .994 fielding average is the best in the National League.  He leaves with 22 outs above average, also tops in the National League, equaled only at the time of his departure by the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr.

He’s being replaced on the roster by infielder Jose Fermin, called up from triple-A.

The Cardinals have activated Brendan Donovan, who has been on the IL while recovering from a straight left groin that has kept him out of 25 games. He made his first All-Star game appearance this year. Also coming back is left-handed reliever John King, who has been recovering from a back strain since August 26. To make room for Donovan and King, the Redbirds have optioned pitcher Nick Racquet to Memphis and have released second baseman Garrett Hampson.

(ROYALS)—Kanss City’s loss to the Phillies Saturday dropped them below break-even for the first time in a month as the bullpen gave up a lead. The loss left the Royals 6 ½ games behind Seattle for the last playoff spot in the American League and ruined a night that otherwise would have been a big celebration for a landmark game by Salvador Perez.

Perez hit a home run that gave him 300 for his career AND resulted in his 1,000th RBI.  He got number 301 later in the game.  Perez now ranks eighth on the all time list of homer-hitting catchers. Mike Piazza leads the list with 399.

Sunday, Perez brought the Royals back to .500 to wrap up the week on Sunday. They’re 75-75 gong into the last dozen games. Perez had a three-run homer and finished the day driving in half of the Royals’ runs in a 10-3 win over the Phillies.

Despite the loss, Philadelphia became the second team to clinch a playoff position after San Fancisco lost to the Dogers.

With a dozen games to go, the Royals pretty much have to win all of their remaining twelve games.

(KCRAGANS)—Cole Ragans will be back on the mound for the Royals. He’s missed the entire second half of the season so far. He’s expected to start tomorrow night’s game against Seattle.

(NASCAR)—A fiery night race at Bristol Saturday night reduced the playoff field to a dozen and produced the fourth win of the year for Christopher Bell. Only teammate Denny Hamlin has more victories this year—his fifth coming at World Wide Technology a week ago.

Bell’s win gives Joe Gibbs Racing a sweep of the first round of the playoffs. Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin won the first two races.

Bristol was the end of the line for four of the playoff contenders—Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon, Shane Van Gisbergen, and Josh Berry.

Joining the three JGR drivers for the first of three races in round two (at Loudon, NH) are Ryan Bleny, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick, Joey Logan (who on his third Cup title last year), Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott and Austin Cindric.

(NASCAR)—The after-race behavior of a three competitors in the race at WWTR has drawn a warning from NASCAR officials.

 

Cars of Ross Chastain, on the left and teammate Shane Von Gisbergen (right), were seen dropping off the inside of the track on the lap after the checkered flag, a technique sometimes used to pick up some rocks and dirt that adds weight to a car that might be fudging on the lioght side of the weight limit.

Joey Logano also was caught taking a dive into the infield on his cool-down lap.

NASCAR has told teams that similar behavior from now on could incur penalties, including disqualifications.  Logano was fifth, Chastain finished 24th, and Van Gisbergen finished 25th in the race.

(NHRA)—We don’t usually say much about the National Hot Rod Association, but the retirement of one of its best drivers to focus on raising a family topped a lot of the NHRA news this week. It’s a historic announcement.

Brittany Force announced she will end her 13-year drag racing career, for now, at the end of the season so she and her husband, Bobby Lyons can start a family.

She is the two-time top Fuel world Champion who recently set a record with a top speed of 343.51 mph (did you know that drag strips for the fastest cars are only 1,000 feet long; the traditional quarter mile having been abandoned in 2008 because of the extreme speeds cars were reaching at that distance?).  She and her three sisters are daughters of 16-time NHRA Champion John Force. With her departure there will be no one named Force running in NHRA for the first since her father entered the business in 1971.

She is following the lead of Leah Pruett, who stepped aside to give birth to her first child last November. Her husband, former NASCAR champion Tony Stewart, has taken her place in the car and has become the NHRA Top Fuel regular season champion.  He recently survived a 300 mph-plus crash with a competitor’s car  in the shutoff zone that saw his car  land on its side and slide some distance before righting itself and hitting a wall.. He later said he had a bad headache and had banged up his left hand.  But he later said, “I’ve been through sprint car crashes way worse than this, I’m pretty sure. We’re good. We’re good. We’re fine. I promise we’re fine.”

Leah says she’s taking back her seat next year.

(INDIANAPOLIS)—The Indianapolis Speedway isn’t done with racing yet this year.  IMSA brings its sports car racing series to the track this coming weekend.

Next month, The Indy 8 Hour race will be run October 16-18. Cars from seven classes will compete on the road course, the last event until next spring at the Speedway.

(Photo Credits: Hardy—Instagram; Perez—MLB;  Meniscus—orthoedge.com; Chastain & Van Gisbergen—Bob Priddy)

 

 

 

 

Sellout

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The Missouri General Assembly has sold out the people of Missouri and more than two centuries of our heritage in following President Trump’s dictate on congressional elections.

The quick obedience of our legislature came less than a month after Trump issued a wholly unconstitutional rant on his social media page on August 18—

Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.

While we might have had other presidents who THOUGHT that, only Donald Trump has said so clearly and unmistakably that he is a dictator, the Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution be damned. He, he claims, can order states to do his bidding.

It is nothing short of a political tragedy that our Governor and our Missouri General Assembly have so unabashedly acknowledged that he is what he says he is and they will take orders from him, to the detriment of their constituents.

The legislative journals will be testimony for decades to come how completely the people from our home towns that we chose to represent us have sold out to a president who respects no bounds, including those of the United States Constitution, as well as forfeiting the rights of independence asserted by our State Constitutions for more than two centuries.

To be clear: What Trump and our legislature have done is NOT for the good of our country or our state. Their actions are an abdication by the majority of their oath of office to defend the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Missouri:

“I do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and faithfully perform the duties of my office……”

The attitude by legislators who have endorsed the Trump congressional district map raises serious questions whether the people in the House and the Senate that we elected to serve and to protect US have “faithfully performed” the duties of their office—which do not include following the dictates of a President of the United States who demands service only for the good of Donald J. Trump, a man either ignorant of the Constitution HE swore to uphold or who flagrantly ignores Section Four, which reserves the power to the states to regulate elections and the counting of votes and they in no way must do what the President tells them to do.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

The loophole in the language, however, does allow the legislature to carry out a President’s wishes and there’s nothing to stop a power-hungry President from telling the legislature to do his bidding and the majority of the legislative members can rationalize reasons for doing so—which they have done although the legislature is under no legal obligation to do so.

The legislature also has ignored the wording of every Missouri Constitution in the 204-year history of our state by agreeing Missouri, and other states “are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”

States are not agents. They are independent subdivisions and Missouri has repeatedly claimed that distinction. Article Ten of the Bill of Rights, often cited—especially by Republicans—establishes that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Missouri has always firmly claimed those powers, beginning with our first constitution.

1820: “We, the people of Missouri, inhabiting the limits hereinafter designated, by our representatives in convention assembled, at St. Louis, on Monday the 12th day of June, 1820, do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic, by the name of ‘the State of Missouri;’ and for the government thereof, do ordain and establish this constitution.”

1865: Article 1, Section 5: That the people of this state have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof, and of altering and abolishing their Constitution and form of government, whenever it may be necessary to their safety and happiness; but every such right should be exercised in pursuance of law, and consistently with the Constitution of the United States.

1875:  BILL OF RIGHTS. In order to assert our rights, acknowledge our duties, and proclaim the principles on which our government is founded, we declare-.

Section 1. Political power, origin of. —That all political power is vested in and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole. [Same as Const. 1865, Art. 1, Sec. 4.]

Sec. 2. Internal affairs, regulation of. —That the people of this State have the inherent, sole and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof, and to alter and abolish their Constitution and form of government whenever they may deem it necessary to their safety and happiness : Provided, Such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.  (same, in substance, as language from 1865 Constitution)

1945 Constitution: Bill of Rights:

Section 4. Independence of Missouri—submission of certain amendments to Constitution of the United States.—That Missouri is a free and independent state, subject only to the Constitution of the United States; that all proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United States qualifying or affecting the individual liberties of the people or which in any wise may impair the right of local self-government belonging to the people of this state, should be submitted to conventions of the people.

Free and Independent state?  Not anymore.  Not as long as a President can say “jump” and the Missouri legislature leaps.

How high would it leap?  Senator Lincoln Hough of Springfield is the answer. Hough has been a trusted figure among the Republican super majority. You don’t get much more trusted than by being put in charge of the committee that decided what gets how much of a $50 billion budget.

He and Senator Mike Moon of Ash Grove  voted against both the petition proposal and against Trump’s gerrymandered map.

Hough has told The Missouri Independent that Senate leader Cindy O’Laughlin within minutes of the vote removed him as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee because he defied orders to vote for the petition and redistricting bills.

Hough told The Independent, “She said, ‘​w​e are tired of fighting with you.’  To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’”

“What I’ve seen at the end of last session, and what I saw this week, is a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be.”

The Senate as an institution nationally and in this state has always—until now—held itself to be the careful, deliberative chamber that allowed all voices to be heard, even if those voices tried to defeat or  modify legislation.  What happened in that chamber last week ended that important role in which one chamber of the Congress or of the legislature cooly evaluates the value and the honesty of legislation.

The Senate leadership, not even pretending to honor that tradition and that role in the system of government checks and balances that our nation’s creators gave us, destroyed that tradition. It twice voted to silence opposing voices and go straight to a vote, the outcome of which was guaranteed even with the two GOP defectors (Republicans control 2/3 of the seats in both chambers).

O’Laughlin several days ago fell back on the questionable excuse that the bills should be rammed through the special session to protect “Christian conservative values.” We are still waiting for her definition of them.

Whether the government should force Christian views—-or the perceived views of politicians who consider themselves Christians—on others seems clearly violative of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The Pew Research Center recently released its survey on religion in Missouri, showing 62% of Missourians identify themselves as Protestant Christians. Catholic Christians represent 14%.  Historically Black Protestants make up five percent. Four percent of adults identify with other religions—Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindus and other world religions.

One-third of the responding adults say they are “nones,” religiously-unaffiliated. Five percent are atheists and eight percent are agnostic. “Nothing in particular” adds up to 20%.

If our legislature was interested in a representative congressional map, especially one based on those “Christian Conservative Values,” the map would be 5-3 Republican based on the perentages in the Pew study. Instead, it has caved to political greed and created a 7-1 map that does away with the only ordained Christian in our delegation and one of only of two active Christian ministers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Then it punished one of the caucus’s own members for taking a principled stand while the rest of his party colleagues sold out.

Whether it is a matter of religion or just raw politics, the Senate by its actions, got far under the covers with our President, and—in effect—endorsed his great desire to be a dictator.

Ultimately, these actions will reach the federal courts. Sadly, we no longer have confidence that the ultimate federal court will find our legislature’s bowing to a President seeking total power is far out of Constitutional bounds.

Some of the protestors at the Capitol when the House voted pointed to the state motto, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.”  Pretty clearly, the legislature has chosen the welfare of Donald Trump as its priority.

You and I have been sold out by those closest to us that we trust to defend our freedoms from a President who wants to become a tyrant.

Remember those who have done this to us. Remember it next year when they ask for your vote.

We do still have the right to vote for our legislators.

For now.

“Those who live by the sword—–”

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The New Testament book of Matthew recites the story of Jesus and the disciples going to Gethsemane after the Last Supper where Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus.  Peter struck one of the soldiers, cutting off his ear, prompting a rebuke from Jesus, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

Through the centuries, that admonition has become, “Those who live by the sword die by the sword,” or in a more contemporary setting, “Those who live by the gun die by the gun.”

As a general public, we have a tendency to compartmentalize violent gun incidents, such as the murder of Charlie Kirk, to treat them as tragic events, and then move on to the next one and the next and the next. But Kirk’s assassination is not a stand-alone event.

We present to you today without comment what we think is a brutally honest commentary by Brian Kaylor on Charlie Kirk’s death. Rev. Kaylor is a Baptist minister from Jefferson City whose “Public Witness” can be read on his webpage, publicwitness@substack.com. 

Brian argues that putting Kirk’s assassination in context, rather than compartmentalizing it, helps understand the ongoing and growing tragedy of which it is a part and should motivate us to seek solutions.
NOT WORTH IT

“It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”

That’s what conservative pundit and activist Charlie Kirk argued in 2023. I disagree. I don’t think it’s worth it. Kirk shouldn’t be dead. He shouldn’t have been shot to death while exercising his free speech rights to talk about mass shootings during an event at Utah Valley University yesterday (Sept. 10). His two young children shouldn’t be fatherless. His wife and other loved ones shouldn’t have their lives wrecked by this violence. Not worth it.

The two children of Melissa and Mark Hortman shouldn’t be orphans after their parents were assassinated in June as Melissa was among Democratic lawmakers targeted by a conservative, anti-abortion man connected to the New Apostolic Reformation movement that Kirk at least partially embraced. Not worth it.

David Rose, a police officer guarding the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, shouldn’t be dead because a man fired more than 180 shots at the building to protest COVID-19 vaccines (after Kirk and others spent years pushing anti-vax politics). Not worth it.

Multiple students shouldn’t have been shot in a Colorado high school yesterday (Sept. 10) close to the same time as the killing of Kirk. Not worth it.

And two young children, Harper and Fletcher, shouldn’t have been killed during a Catholic Mass last week while attending their school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Not worth it.

The more than 300 people killed and more than 1,350 people injured in mass shootings in the U.S. just so far this year shouldn’t have been subjected to such violence. Not worth it.

To think all of the deaths to gun violence can be shrugged off as insignificant collateral damage suggests a broken morality. A misguided ethic that rejects empathy for the victims and their loved ones. Like when Kirk declared in 2022, “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage.” Maybe that’s why he said a “patriot” should bail out the man who brutally attacked then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their home while looking for her. Not worth it.

Such a misguided morality also ends up remodeling Jesus into a gun enthusiast. Like when Kirk brought Kyle Rittenhouse on stage to prop up as a hero for killing two people and wounding another at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. After Rittenhouse was acquitted, Kirk featured the vigilante at a conference.

“We brought Kyle Rittenhouse to front stage. That’s a win,” Kirk claimed. “It’s a win for due process. A win for constitutional order. It’s a win for presumption of innocence — all biblical values, by the way. Plenty of people were wrongfully accused all throughout the Bible, especially the Old Testament, including Jesus Christ himself.”

Kirk apparently thought the answer to the question “What Would Jesus Do?” was travel across state lines with an AR-15 to gun down protesters. Not worth it.

In life and in death, Kirk represented the worst of American politics. He stoked dangerous conspiracies, attempted to silence voices he disagreed with, and utilized violent rhetoric mixed with a godly veneer. Then, someone decided to respond with evil by picking up a gun to silence a life.

While Kirk refused to give empathy to Paul Pelosi or the numerous victims of senseless gun violence, many people who were targets of his political attacks gave it to him and his family in the hours after yesterday’s horrible shooting. Democratic politicians — some of whom were endangered by the deadly 2021 insurrection at the Capitol that Kirk cheered on with violent rhetoric — put out statements of condolences and strong condemnations of political violence. And many college professors — who Kirk’s organization targeted on websites to squash their free speech rights — issued similar rejections of violence and expressions of concern.

While there are, like after any tragedy, some people cheering the outcome, the prominent voices have been condemning it. Unlike what we’ve seen in past cases, like when Donald Trump repeatedly mocked Paul Pelosi for being attacked or when Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah advanced conspiracy theories about the shooting of Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota to falsely blame the violence on liberals. (And since we don’t yet know who killed Kirk, anyone telling you why he was targeted is adding to the problem.)

We should condemn all violence, not just when it’s against those we like. All who suffer deserve empathy as everyone is created in the image of God. Losing sight of our shared humanity is not worth it.

We need less hate in our public discourse and an abandonment of the win-at-all-costs mentality. Voices across the political continuum have been part of the problem — and, sadly, much of the violent and hateful rhetoric has been mixed in with references to God and quotations from the Bible. But we need more than just a recommitment to avoiding violent rhetoric and demonizing those with different politics. We need a recognition that the guns are not worth it.

The inability to tackle the real problem is literally killing us. There’s simply no other high-income nation that sees anywhere near as many gun deaths as the United States. Consider the differences with the United Kingdom. The U.S. has five times as many people but 692 times more gun homicides per year. And just so we’re absolutely clear, the U.K. doesn’t have more prayer than the United States. Largely secular nations across Europe have gun rates similar to the U.K.’s. So if they don’t have more prayer (in schools or even their empty cathedrals), then why the difference?

Guns.

We have many, many more guns than are found in other nations. There are literally more civilian-owned guns than people in the United States. The second-place nation is the warzone of Yemen (and even then, the U.S. has more than twice as many guns per resident). It turns out that loose gun control laws and an abundance of guns are directly correlated with lots of mass shootings.

It’s simply not worth it. We should vote against any politician or not trust any pundit who says it is worth it. We don’t have to live like this. We don’t have to subject our kids to gun violence at their schools, at their college campuses, at their churches, at concerts, at parades, at movie theaters, at restaurants, at grocery stores, and pretty much any other place. Not worth it.

As a public witness,

Brian Kaylor

                                    

Your Vote Won’t Mean a Thing OR it Might Mean Everything

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—if the legislature passes a crazy initiative petition reform proposal suggested by Governor Kehoe.

Gerrymandering our congressional districts to eliminate one of our Democrat members of congress—because President Trump wants no congressional limits on his power—is not the only threat to our republican (small “r”) form of government on legislators’ desks in the special session.

It is widely recognized that the petition process by which citizens can demand a new law be passed (because the legislature won’t pass it) has its problems and it has its perils that arise from mass expenditures of money to, in effect, buy part of our Missouri Constitution or part of our state statutes.

But a proposal that means 7/8 of Missouri’s voters’ ballots will have no meaning whatsoever is simply absurd.

The governor wants a law passed that says any proposal put on the ballot by citizen petition not only must achieve a majority to pass, it must get a majority in every one of our eight congressional districts.

One of the problems with the current process is that votes in our heavily-Democratic metropolitan areas have been enough at times to pass a proposal opposed throughout the rest of the state.

Governor Kehoe did not address that issue in announcing his recommendation in issuing the call for the special session. He said, “For far too long, Missouri’s Constitution has been the victim of out-of-state special interests who deceive voters to pass out-of-touch policies.  It’s time we give voters a chance to protect our Constitution.”

The answer to this problem is NOT, however, in killing a sacred part of this country—majority rule.

If Governor Kehoe’s idea had been in effect last year, we would not have sports wagering coming to Missouri regardless of how many millions of dollars the gambling interests spent. You’ll recall that the industry spent more than $40 million to get its petition issue passed by 3,000 votes. The industry fits like a glove the governor’s description of “out-of-state special interests who deceive voters.”

The proposal lost in three counties that have casinos—Lewis, Cooper, and Cape Girardeau. It carried in the metro areas that have casinos by tens of thousands of votes. Only one outstate county with a casino—Pemiscot—approved, but by only about 340 votes. It failed not in just one congressional district but probably in five (we haven’t seen a breakout according to district but the county-by-county plus St. Louis and Kansas City totals are available).

This is a ridiculously BAD idea.  Under this idea, a petition-proposed law or amendment could pass in seven of our congressional districts but fail by a single vote in the eighth. That single vote would negate every other vote in every other part of the state.

The proposal deals with a problem that is largely of the legislature’s own doing. By refusing to pass bills that have significant public support, our lawmakers are clearing the way for citizen petition campaigns. Sports gambling is the biggest and most recent such failure. The refusal to pass a law has led the gambling to put sports wagering in the Constitution and therefore make in extremely hard to deal with the problems this new form of gambling cause by changing a law. If it’s in the constitution, correction is manifoldly more difficult.

Here’s something else that’s kind of tragic—

This proposed law does not require a public vote.  You and I will have no right to vote on whether the state should be able to take away our votes, even if we are in the majority, at least not as the proposal is now written.

Law by petition has its problems.

Such laws do not go through the rigorous examination and refining process of legislative procedure. That can be frustrating for those hoping for a change in something. But writing a law that says specifically what it is meant to say, no more and no less,  is a finely-developed talent. Once it is written, it goes through committee hearings where shortcomings can be highlighted and corrected. Then in each chamber of the legislature, it goes through a “perfecting” process that again can be a rigorous review before it is finally passed.

But that doesn’t mean the right of petition given us by our ancestors more than a century ago should be rendered meaningless by this proposal.

The system does need some careful tweaks, but not surgery by meat cleaver. One tweak is a requirement that entities wanting to put a petition issue on the ballot should file only one version of the proposal with the Secretary of State whose elections staff spends time reviewing for correctness.

The Secretary of State’s web page has numbers that dramatically point to the problem. Last year, 174 petitions were filed. Nine were rejected, 24 were withdrawn, and 139 were approved for circulation. Only four were submitted with signatures and put on the ballot. Four out of 174. Large numbers were slightly different versions of the same matter. But each required review by the Secretary of State staff.

A law saying a group gets one shot would be helpful. If there are problems, then the group can submit a better proposal. But the shotgun approach needs to stop.

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has some ideas about improving the process:

Limit abuse of process, by instituting modest filing fees and banning duplicate or near-duplicate submissions.

Ensure broad geographic support, strengthening the constitutional “district distribution” requirement so that petitions reflect statewide, not concentrated, backing.

Ban foreign or out-of-state fundraising, and stiffen penalties for fraudulent signatures or circulator misrepresentations.

Increase transparency, with public comment periods and clear, plain-language explanations available before signature gathering begins.

Generally, these aren’t bad ideas although the funding ban might be a little shaky because of  First Amendment speech problems and whether limits on raising the money to do the speaking infringes on the right to petition by groups who say they can’t enjoy that right unless they can raise money from whatever source.

The secretary’s idea, however, of allowing one congressional district to be, in effect, a killing entity that makes votes in all of  the other districts meaningless is simply undemocratic.

These are statewide issues and the votes from throughout the state mean something today. But they won’t tomorrow if this proposal passes. “Broad geographic support” sounds good. But it’s shorthand for “forget majority rule.”

Missourians already have given up their right to vote. Twice. First, it was term limits that means we have no right to vote for a lawmaker who has served us well and that we would like to represent us for more than eight years. Second is the adopted initiative petition proposal requiring votes every five years in Kansas City and St. Louis on whether to continue their earnings taxes. One provision of that issue says none of our other cities can ever ask voters to approve a similar tax for their city. Proposals might not pass, but we have a law—again, submitted by initiative petition—that says we can’t even vote on it.

Now we are being asked to approve an idea that says a statewide majority is useless if one-eighth of the state, by as little as one vote, can wipe out the votes of everybody else.

The governor’s plan doesn’t take onerous amounts of money out of the process. Doing so has to be through a way around First Amendment protections of free speech and right to petition. Nobody has figured out how to do that in a way that the court system will buy.

A undemocratic proposal that says votes from 7/8 of our state can be rendered meaningless by the barest of majorities opposed in one district is just plain wrong.

Suppose we applied the idea to legislative races saying no one can be elected to the House or the Senate if one precinct in their district fails to give them a majority. That’s “broad geographic support” brought home to roost.

If they’re not willing to put themselves in that predicament, they shouldn’t put everybody else in the state in it.

 

Sports: Chiefs Challenge; Tigers Respond and Recruit; The Twilight of the Baseball Season; Moves on the Track, and off.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor.

(MIZFB)—-The Missouri Tigers picked on someone their own size last weekend and roared back from a first-quarter deficit to beat Kansas 42-31. The performance has earned Mizzou 25th place in the weekly AP poll. The nation’s coaches feel the same way.

there were some prognosticators who thought Kansas could win this one and the first quarter gave them plenty of evidence they were right.

Buthe last three quarters destroyed those expectations  as Missouri dominated, allowing kU only four plays while the Tigers ran up fifteen points to tie the game at 21.

The game was the first MU/KU game in almost fifteen years but fans celebrated in their seats at the end.

Here’s why MU’s officials were glad to see that behavior with no fans rushing onto the field to celebrate.

Mississippi State fans celebrated with a field rush after their team beat then 12th ranked Arizona State 24-20, their first win over a top-20 team since 2022. The NCAA carried out its threat to fine any school that has an incident like that one-half million dollars.

(MIZBB)—Basketball is starting to shoulder its way into the sports picture and Mizzou basketball is making another wave with the signing of its second five-star recruit for its class of 2026.  He’s Toni Bryant Jr., a 6-foot-9 forward who’s listed as the 14th top recruit by ESPN and the 21st by 247 Sports. He’s playing now at Zephyrhills Christian Academy in Florida. He also was being courted by Kansas, North Carolina and North Carolina State.

Coach Dennis Gates picked up his first five-start guy for the class of 2026 when Jason Crow Jr., signed. He’s the number three recruit on 247’s ratings list.

Crow is a 6-3 guard described as a “prolific scorer” out of Inglewood, California.

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs have some soul-searching to do after losing to the Chargers 27-21 in front of 17-million fans.

That’s right. 17 million. YouTube, which live-streamed the game to 230 countries from Sao Paolo, Brazil, says 16.1 million viewers watched on their devices in the Unite States and another 1.1 million from other countries also turned on the app for the game.

It was the biggest audience YouTube has had for a single event but it did not break the NFL record for a streaming audience. That belongs Netflix, which drew 24 million streamers for an NFL doubleheader last Christmas.

The Chiefs were flat the first half but showed life in the second, just not enough. They lost Xavier Worthy early in the first half. He dislocated a shoulder. Rookie Jalen Royals missed the game with a knee injury. His evaluation is a day by day thing.

The Chiefs meet the Eagles next weekend. The last time they met, Philadelphia embarrassed Kansas City in the Super Bowl.

Wide Receiver Xavier Worthy will be out of the lineup for a while with a dislocated shoulder. The Chiefs hope he can play eventually while wearing a brace.

As an aside, we offer this:

(REALLY, REALLY OLD)—The Chiefs’ biggest rival through the years as been the Oakland/LA/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders. They picked up their first win under new coach Pete Carroll. With that win, Carroll, who is 74, has become the oldest head coach in NFL history. Carroll will be 74 next Monday.

For may years, George F. Halas, one of the founders of the NFL, held the record at 72 years and 318 days. Romeo Crennel became the interim head coach of the Houston Texans five years ago at 73 plus 115 days and took over that record.

Carroll not only is the oldest coach NFL history, he’s the oldest winning coach, thanks to the Raiders’ 2013 win over the Patriots.

Andy Reid is 67.

(BASEBALL)—The Royals have a shot at the playoffs. The Cardinals appear not to have a change. But it’s baseball, folks, and the fat lady hasn’t sung for either of our teams. She might be warming her vocal chords for the Cardinals, though.

St. Louis made it back to break-even at the end of the week, winning seven of their last ten games, and needs to win ten of its remaining eighteen games to finish above that. The Redbirds need nine wins to equal last year’s total.

The Royals are three games above .500, missing a change to draw closer by splitting their last ten games. The first round of playoff games is only three weeks away from today.

(ARENADO)—Nolan Arenado could be headed to Springfield for a rehab assignment if his second day of batting practice today works out. Post-Dispatch beat writer Derrick Gold says hehopes to return in time for the last homestand next week. He’s been out about six weeks with a right shoulder strain.

Now the Speedy Stuff

(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin sounded pretty convincing this past weekend when he indicated he’s giving himself two more years of racing at NASCAR’s highest level.  But he showed at World Wide Technology Raceway just across the river from St. Louis that he still has a lot left in the tank at 44, he plans to do whatever he has to do to be competitive enough to go out a winner at the end of 2027.

He became he first five-time winner this year, starting from the pole and locking in his spot in the second round of the playoffs with a 1.6 second over Ryan Briscoe.

The win is his 59th, one away from his goal of 60 “or more.” Another win will tie him with Kevin Havick for tenth on the all-time NASCAR winners list. He has the most wins by a driver who has never won a Cup championship. His win also is the 200th NASCAR Cup win for Toyota.

World Wide Technology Raceway has one of the narrowest pit lanes in the series and sometimes it gets pretty congested.

Hamlin signed a two-year contract extension with Joe Gibbs Racing in May and has maintained that he plans to bow out of active racing at end of that contract. He has seen too many athletes, including some in NASCAR who have held on, even racing with lesser teams that have not fielded winning equipment. He says he doesn’t want to be one of those drivers.

“I’m just not going to leave this sport on my deathbed, you know, just leaking oil, running in the back of the pack. I have way too much pride for that. I’m way too cocky for that. There’s just no way. I want to be able to win my last race. To do that, I’m going to have to retire when I’m racing like this.”

At 44, he is a year older and considerably more competitive than the next-oldest driver, A. J. Allmendinger who has three wins in 474 races and a career average finish of 21st: Michael McDowell is 40 and has never finished better than 15th in points; and 40-year old Brad Keselowski, the NASCAR champion in 2012, like Hamlin involved in a team ownership, but who has had mediocre seasons the last two years.

“I’m sure there’s someone me competitive than me. I just have never met them. I just think that there’s a few people in every sport that are just built a little different, and they just won’t settle for anything but winning,” he said in his post-race news conference at WWTR Sunday night.

(INDYCAR)—Within days after the last race at Nashville, two major events came to the surface: the end of Will Power’s career with Penske and a major shift by Colton Herta, who leaves Andretti Global to pursue his Formula One dream.

Andretti Global quickly signed Power to a contract fill Herta’s seat and to join Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson for 2026. Power will be switching to Honda power with his new team after spending his career with Penske powered by Chevrolet engines. “This is a whole new chapter for me,” he said at the announcement event. “I have to say that sometimes a change of scenery and a fresh start is very energizing. I can’t wait.”

Power holds the IndyCar record with 71 poles. He’s fourth on the all-time wins list with 45, and is fourth in both number of podium finishes (108) and top fives (142) in more than 300 starts.

In 20 full years of top-level open wheel racing, Power has finished in the top ten in points 19 times. In more than 315 career races, his average starting position has been sixth and his average finish has been ninth. He has two series championships and an Indianapolis 500 win on his record, too.

Colton Herta, who has dreamed of racing in Formula 1is leaving IndyCar to pursue that dream with the new Cadillac Formula One team.  Cadillac has signed veterans Valterri Bottas and Sergio Perez as its drivers for next year but Herta will be the team’s test driver and likely will run some Formula 2 or 3 races to accumulate the number of points needed to become a full-time drivber on the circuit.

Herta became the youngest winner in IndyCar history six years ago. He leaves the series with nine victories and 16 poles in 116 races.

He’s had a taste of Europe already. He tested a 2021-spec McLaren F1 car in 2022. He also competed in some lower-level races before coming back to the states to race in IndyCar.

(FORMUA ONE)—When it comes to money—HUGE money—Formula 1 makes the two major American series look very small. This past week is an example. McLaren announced that it is now entirely owned by companies in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, making it a five-Billion dollar team. Mumtalakat, a sovereign wealth fund in Bahrain will be the majority stockholder. CYVN, which is majority-owned by the Abu Dhabi government will be the minority stockholder.

The deal involves these two companies buying the remaining thirty percent of McLaren that they did not already own from three five other investment funds.

McLaren has been the dominant team in Formula 1 with nine straight constructors’ titles. It has won twelve of the fifteen grands prix run so far this year and both of its drivers are in the fight for the driver’s championship.

Last weekend, Max Verstappen picked up his first win since May, taking the Italian Grand Prix by more than 19 seconds over McLaren’s Lando Norris.

(Illustrative material: University of Missouri, Kansas City Chiefs, Racing—Bob Priddy)

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A REALLY Special Session

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Our lawmakers are back in Jefferson City to help decide what kind of a country we will have, and what kind of country we will be. That’s a pretty strong observation. But if we are honest, it is also pretty strongly true.

Governor Kehoe has called them back because President Trump worries he won’t have continued absolute power for the last half of his term unless legislatures in various states take unprecedented action to change congressional district lines to eliminate Democrats.

Forget what the voters decided in the 2024 Congressional elections. Make sure some of them can’t have the representative they elected because a President who brags about his popularity is worried that, in truth, he is so unpopular in poll after poll that Americans might vote in 2026 to impede his seizure of absolute power.

The Missouri legislature wants to take Representative Emanuel Cleaver’s elected job away from him by splitting his district so about half of his biggest supporters can’t vote for him in 2026.

It is interesting that Republicans, who have so many chest-thumping evangelical Christians supporting them, want to eliminate a member of Congress who is a Christian minister. Perhaps Emanuel Cleaver isn’t Christian enough. Perhaps they think he is spiritually lost or spiritually bankrupt because he’s a Methodist, a mainline Christian group that has split in a dispute about whether God creates gays.

Wouldn’t you think that a president who peddles Bibles, poses holding a Bible in front of a D. C. church, and says in commercials that he has several Bibles and it’s his favorite book would want someone like Congressman Cleaver in Washington as a moral force?

That’s Trump’s problem. He is not a moral force himself. In fact, there are plenty who wonder if he has any morals at all.

Donald Trump, who is so scared of losing power that he will disrupt the entire system of picking a representative government, wants the legislature to just turn over the keys to the democratic process in Missouri to him.

He talks about American exceptionalism but cares not for the government system that gives us that distinction and he will do anything to make sure his power goes unchecked for as long as he and his political offspring can keep it.

Have the people of Missouri asked for this change in who represents them?

No.  There has been no public outcry that our congressional delegation has betrayed the people who elected it. But those we have chosen to represent us at the state level are facing a demand that the legislature go against its own public’s wishes so Missouri can help keep a man in power who day after day advances policies that are antithetical to a heritage that millions have lived and died to defend and to perfect.

Now we have the spectacle of our chosen state representatives and our chosen state senators meeting to undermine our representatives in the national government that we voted to support less than one year ago, and in the process throw out a Black Methodist minister who has served our state with great honor and decency in Washington since January 3, 2005, a man dedicated to public service in the pulpit as well as in the places of power—a dozen years on the city council in our largest city, eight years as its mayor, and more than two decades representing Christian values and his district’s needs.

He rightfully threatens to fight this ill-conceived realignment in court: “It will render people in Kansas City essentially silent and powerless,” Cleaver said. “The reason I’m saying this is Kansas City is roughly 70-something percent Democratic. If you tear Kansas City apart — put one portion of the Kansas City area in one district, the other in another — the chances are they have no representation.”

He is correct although today’s majority party does not seem to care.

What hammer does Donald Trump hold over our lawmakers that makes them so craven in doing his bidding? It’s a big one. It’s the power to withhold or even take back the billions of dollars in federal funding that underwrite about half of the state budget.

It is awfully hard to look down the barrel of that gun and not wilt. Trump wants no defiance from Missouri and from other Republican states. He and those who are pulling his strings daily prove they care not one whit for most of us but expects our voices in government at state and federal levels to say only two words: “Yes, sir.”

Some key questions emerge: Is there time to make all of this happen?  Can opponents drag out the special session before the bill passes and the court battles begin and how long will that process take before it clears state courts and goes through the federal court system, which will take even more time?

When will filing for these offices begin if this issue is tied up in courts?  Candidates cannot file in districts that will not legally exist until the courts rule which map will be THE map. When will primary elections be held, ditto? When will lawsuits challenging the results begin and be processed? Will the court fights be  done  before time for a November election?

This is going to be a long and ugly process that will do nothing to improves public confidence in Missouri’s, and the nation’s, government.

One man wants to take away one of our members of Congress with a new map THAT IS UNLIKELY TO BE PUT OUT FOR VOTER APROVAL before an election is held specifically to oust a congressman who has been elected eleven times by people in a district that Trump wants the Missouri legislature to destroy.

Here is the final question:

How much does the Missouri General Assembly want to disgrace itself for a man who has been considered by almost 150 of the nation’s most distinguished historians one of the worst presidents in history—-eve before he started swinging a sledgehammer in his second term.

Despite the words of a long-ago popular song, Freedom IS a word for everything to lose.

Our legislators will tell us at the end of this special session if they think it is, as the song also says, “just another word.”

Petting the buffalo, feeding the bears

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The first time we visited Yellowstone National Park, we noticed a line of vehicles parked on the shoulder of the road. That can only mean there’s an animal, or animals, in the neighborhood.

We pulled in behind a pickup truck where two baby bears were on their hind legs and being fed apple slices from a slightly lowered driver’s side window.  While the driver fed the cubs, the passenger got out with his camera and came around to the left front fender and took pictures.

In a few minutes, the pickup truck pulled away and the baby bears came our way. When they stood up their noses reached the bottom of our car’s windows and when they got no satisfaction on my side, they went around to Nancy’s side. Eventually, we realized our doors were not locked and hastily locked them.

We never saw Mama Bear until she lumbered up out of the woods, and stood up and put her front feet ON THE ROOF of our car.  I still have the photograph I took looking out my window at a big brown bear chest and its white stripe.

She didn’t shake the car or anything, just stood there for a little bit before going back into the woods with the kids.

We quickly observed how lucky was the clown with the camera taking pictures at the pickup truck that Mama Bear didn’t come out then. They move awfully fsst, these bears, perhaps faster than a guy who might not have sensed her rush out of the woods until the last second and couldn’t get back into that truck.

Some tourists do some incredibly dumb things in Yellowstone. More often these days we hear about some idiot who decides to pet that nice buffalo and realizes much too late that Yellowstone is many things but it’s not a petting zoo.

So it is that we wonder if Donald Trump’s demands that congressional districts can be redrawn to protect him and his disastrous reign might not be a case of feeding bears and petting a buffalo.

Redrawing the districts just might urinarily agitate not only Democrats, but also be the final straw for some of his Republicans and—most important—quiet independents, who could be the Mama Bears and the intolerant buffalo in those district elections. In this political climate, sure-things are not necessarily sure.

The polls have indicated some softening of R voters who might not vote or—for this election only—hold their noses and vote for a Democrat. Republicans, as is true with all other voting blocs, do not lack independent thought and might decide this is a time to really stop the steal.

The biggest bloc that could come into play are the outright independents who might have found Trump marginally less objectionable than Harris last year but this year might see redistricting as the straw-breaking issue for them, too.

If Donald Trump really was confident in his domestic and foreign policies, he wouldn’t be pulling this stunt.  But he isn’t, so he’s unthinkingly feeding bears and trying to pet a buffalo.

The 19th century English poet William Cosgrove Monkhouse, wrote an appropriate limerick for this occasion—although it involves an animal not found in Yellowstone National Park:

There was a young lady of Niger

Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;

They returned from the ride

With the lady inside,

And the smile on the face of the tiger

Independents, disaffected Republicans, and angry motivated Democrats could combine to make a huge Tiger in 2026. Trumpists might want to consider carefully how much they want to use their twigs to poke it through the bars. Creatures such as bears, buffalo, and Tigers seem docile enough.

Until……