Author Archives: bpriddy

Great? 

Posted on by
1

We have a place at the end of these entries for people to respond to them. I hope the Trumpers will do that today—

And explain how last week’s disgusting performance in the meeting with Ukraine’s President in any way makes America Great.

To whom?

Well, Russia thinks America is great.  Donald Trump thinks browbeating and bullying the president of a country fighting off takeover from a cruel, controlling, all-powerful despotic leader of a gigantically larger country makes our America great, at least in his own self-dominated mind.

HERE’S how American can be great—–but Trump’s own cruel, controlling, all-powerful self-image won’t let him do it:

Persuade his good friend Vlad to stop the invasion of Ukraine. Withdraw.  Offer Russia security protections against invasion from Ukraine.

He won’t do it. He can’t do it. He’s already speaking from Vlad’s pocket when he accuses Ukraine of starting the war.

Imagine if Roosevelt in 1939 had accused Poland of invading Germany; England of launching a blitzkrieg against Germany in 1940, Hawaii of bombing Tokyo in ’41.  Imagine if Truman accused South Korea of starting a war in 1950 by invading North Korea.  Or if George H. W. Bush had charged Kuwait with invading Iraq in 1990.

Just think how much greater we would be now if those presidents hadn’t made the mistakes Trump refuses to make today.

The greatness of America on the world stage is gone and it is becoming smaller in the international rear-view mirror.  It’s even growing smaller in our own rear-view mirror with every day of crude butchery of our own government, with every day that the faceless bureaucrats who try to make our government work for US are threatened with the loss of their jobs by people who have little appreciation for laboring on behalf of other people.

So tell me, Trumpers, in the dialogue box at the end of this entry, just how Trump is making our country great by doing the things to his own people that he is doing.  Look ahead, and tell me how our lives will be better a year from now.

Don’t send me an email.  My name is on every one of these entries. I expect those with differing opinions to have enough courage to stand behind their words with their names.

Make me think how great my country is today.  Make me proud of my president.  Make me sufficiently grateful.

Eyes on the Prize; Blind to Freedom 

Posted on by
1

Making a deal with the Devil puts the Devil in charge.  Chickens making agreements with foxes soon realize the fox in the hen house always is hungry.

Freedom is not a business proposition. Those who try to make it so are less concerned with freedom than with ownership and exploitation. Acceptance of a business proposition by a battle-scarred country will an an acceptance of less independence by the people of that country and acceptance of less independence can only bring about a loss of freedom.

Ukraine is not a hotel, a country club, a casino, a university that can be run into bankruptcy while the person behind it walks away unscathed.  It is not a commodity such as coins, tennis shoes, and Bibles never read.  Freedom cannot be bought, sold, or traded.  There are no international bankruptcy laws that protect the freedoms lost by a people who become victims of a loser business man with an extensive record of deals gone sour.

And when a United States President asserts that an innocent nation minding its own business caused its own invasion by a ruthless despot is unforgiveable.

The freedom of Ukraine must be protected. It is too precious to be considered something that can be  bought or traded for. Once freedom has been achieved, it is worth fighting for even against overwhelming odds. Ukraine does not deserve someone who would force a devastated country to sell a major part of its economy in return for a peace without security or reparations.

And it is even more repugnant than that.

Anyone who would proclaim that Ukraine started the war with Russia and is willing to deal away Ukraine’s freedom as a business investment is an international disgrace, especially when representing a country that has been the shining example of freedom to the rest of the world.

It is betrayal of what this country stands for.

Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize. He envies Barack Obama for winning it. He thinks he can demand it for himself by forcing another nation to give up a large chunk of its independence to end an accused war criminal’s invasion.

To hear his incoherent and lying babbling about the victimization of Russia-–even his former media apologists at FOX News struggle to tolerate it—must raise questions about his mental state and the damage he is doing both internally and externally to   our country.

Yes, he won the election. But every day he demonstrates his disrespect for the history of the nation he leads and every day he sees himself less as a defender of freedom and more as a shady wheeler-dealer who cares only about power and possession.

Donald Trump is proving every day that he belongs in a padded room, not the oval office.

Contrary to the song, Freedom’s just another word for EVERYTHING left to lose. Too bad we have a President who doesn’t care who loses it whether it is the people of another country or people of his own.

Sports: Missouri Stays Put; Missouri Wants Royals, Chiefs to Just Stay; Games Are Being Played in Arizona, Florida; and an Intense Final Lap at Atlanta

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(KEEPING THE CHIEFS)—Meetings are being held in Kansas City keep the Royals and the Chiefs on this side of the state line. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas (pardon the use of an inappropriate word to describe a baseball issue) huddled with civic leader in Kansas City to discuss another run at financing a new stadium near downtown Kansas City, near Union Station.

And the Chiefs are in the mix, too, because Arrowhead Stadium either needs a major refresh or a replacement.

Kansas has given itself a big tool to get the teams to cross the line—the STAR Bond law, passed last June that allows the Kansas Commerce Department to negotiate with both teams. The STAR Bonds (Sales Tax and Revenue) are intended to improve economic development in Kansas.

The program lets Kansas pay almost three-quarters of the cost of a new stadium by issuing bonds that would be paid off through thirty years with a a heightened sales tax.

The teams have leases through 2031.

(KEEPING THE ROYALS)—Although one Kansas state legislators has said the state is close to a deal with one of the big pro sports teams in Kansas City, the owner of the Royals is reportedly still looking at a site on our side of the line.

A few days ago, Mayor Lucas said owner John Sherman is still look for a downtown location for a new baseball stadium and that he’s considering Washington Square Park, east of Union Station and the Crown Plaza shopping area.

(CHIEFS TEAM)—Regardless of what comes out of  geopolitical machinations about news stadiums, the Chiefs know they’ll be playing football again in six months and they know a Standing Pat does not need a team that is standing pat.

The team has cut several practice squad players and has added replacements while it plots a draft strategy.

The coaching staff already has undergone a slight facelift with the hiring of Matt House as the senior defensive assistant and Chris Orr who will be the defensive quality control coach. House left the Chiefs to spend the last three years at LSU and the last season as the linebackers coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Round Ball:

(MIZZ)—The Missouri Tigers’ inability to capitalize on the big win against #4 Alabama last week by being outrun Saturday night hasn’t cost them much in the national polls. They’re up one slot in the AP poll, to 14th.  The coaches have left them at 16th in their poll.

Missouri’s destiny remains in their own hands. They play lowly South Carolina tonight at home. South Carolina is having last year’s Missouri season. The Gamecocks are 1-13. It will be the second of four games in a row against lower-tier conference teams.

Auburn still leads the conference at 13-1 with Florida (11-3) and Alabama (also 11-3) behind them. Missouri is one of three times tied for fourth at 9-5. The Tigers are joined by Tennesee (22-8 overall) and Texas A&M (20-7, the same as Missouri overall.

The Tigers disappointed themselves against Arkansas with too many mistakes and an ice-cold hand by Caleb Grill, who was only 2/14 overall and 2/12 from three.  Missouri had 18  turnovers, six by Mark Mitchell and four by Tony Perkins.

The Baseball:

(CARDS)—St. Louis has started its Grapefruit League season 1-2 with a win yesterday and an encouraging start by Steven Matz, who hasn’t lived up to his paycheck, at least partly because of injures. Match went two innings, and used 26 pitches to hold the Astros at bay in the first two innings. The Redbirds won it 7-4.

(ROYALS)—The Royals are 1-1-1 in the Cactus League. They tied the A’s at one yesterday.

Now we get the motors running—

(NASCAR)—The weekend race at Atlanta was notable for its wild overtime finish—but first we want to mention somebody who wasn’t there.

Martin Truex had not missed a NASCAR Cup start since the 2006 Daytona 500.  His 685 consecutive race streak ranks him sixth on the all-time starters list.  Joey Logano now has the longest string of races, 578. Brad Keselowski has 546, the only other driver with more than 500 consecutive starts.

A consecutive-race string of a different sort ended for Christopher Bell and for Joe Gibbs racing at Atlanta Sunday night.  Christopher Bell won his first race on a super speedway and gave car owner Joe Gibbs his first win since last June.

Bell led only the last lap and was slightly ahead with several cars crashed behind him, bringing out the caution flag and freezing the positions. Second-year driver Carson Hocevar was second and Kyle Larson was third. It’s Hocevar’s best finish in his young career and the best finish on a superspeedway for Larson, who hasn’t won in 48 tries on a drafting track. One third of those finishes were DNFs.

NASCAR heads to the Circuit of the Americans next week.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR starts its season next weekend at a traditional location, the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida.  A lot of familiar faces return but the interim between seasons has been a busy one.

Jay Frye, the former Missouri Tiger football player who has headed INDYCAR for a decade was let go a few weeks ago. He’s been replaced by Doug Boles, who also is President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Arrow McLaren team has named Indianapolis 500 winner its team principal. Kanaan drove his last Indianapolis 500 two years ago, joined McLaren later that year as a consultant and has worked his way up to a position that will have him oversee team and driver development.

Michael Andretti is no longer a team owner. Neither is Sam Schmidt.

The final test runs at Sebring found Joseph Newgarden and Will Power pacing the field of 27 drivers. The lap times indicated a lot of close racing is in store for this year.  All 27 drivers lapped without eight-tenths of a second of each other.

And while we weren’t looking, A. J. Foyt turned 90 in January.  He won with everything he drove—a four time Indianapolis 500 champion, a winner of the Daytona 500 in NASCAR, a winner of the LeMans 24 Hours, and the 24 Hours of Daytona.

(Photo Credits: Atlanta—NASCAR/ Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images; Kanaan—Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2023.)

 

The Meritocracy

Posted on by
Reply

We are waiting to see the day the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion do two things.

  1. Proclaims Black History Month will not be recognized.
  2. Eliminate the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” in 1926 at the urging of one of our nation’s greatest Black historians, Carter G. Woodson, and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, with Woodson saying it was important to the cultural survival of Blacks within the broader White society.  The week was observed in the February week when the birth of Abraham Lincoln was celebrated.

He commented, “If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. The American Indian left no continuous record. He did not appreciate the value of tradition; and where is he today? The Hebrew keenly appreciated the value of tradition, as is attested by the Bible itself. In spite of worldwide persecution, therefore, he is a great factor in our civilization.”

The Black United Students group and Black educators at Kent State University proposed in 1969 that the week-long celebration become Black History Month.  The first observance was in 1970.

President Ford endorsed it as part of the national Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.

But with the arrival of the second Trump term, Black History Month appeared to be on somewhat shaky ground.  One of the first things Trump did when resuming office was to sign an executive order ending “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government.”

Within a matter of days, agencies were circulating memos, many of them announcing in terms similar to the line used by a Justice Department memo, “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”

To the surprise of some, Trump did sign a proclamation recognizing Black History Month at the start of February calling on American citizens and public officials to “celebrate the contributions of so many black American patriots who have indelibly shaped our Nation’s history.”

EEOC:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exists but President Trump has rendered it useless, as he has the National Labor Relations Board.

Acting quickly after resuming office, he fired then-Chairman Charlotte Burrows, a Biden appointee who became the first chairman ever fired by a President. He also canned Commissioner Joycelyn Samuels, one of his own appointees from 2020, leaving only two members of the five-member commission. Trump appointee Andrea Lucas was named the acting chair. She is identified as a strong opponent of DEI programs, which she says promote reverse discrimination. The also is known as a critic of legal protections for transgender people. Her term expires July 1.

Failure to reappoint her or to name a successor will leave only Kalpana Kotagel on the commission.  Kotagel is an African-American employment attorney appointee of President Biden. Her term expires in 2027, potentially leaving the commission with no members.

Kotagel is doomed.  She’s the kind of person Trump loves to hate. As a private attorney, she specialized in DEI cases, particularly involving the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and has represented clients in other civil rights employment actions. Four years ago she worked with the Transgender Defense and Educational Fund when Aetna Insurance Company granted access to breast augmentation surgery for male policyholders who underwent surgery to become women. She also is a member of the Advisory Board Office of Equity and Inclusion at the University of Pennsylvania.

Trump criticized the EEOC in his first term as ineffective and took no steps to make it so. The commission’s staff has been cut by more than 40% by Congress.

About the same time he was ravaging the EEOC, Trump fired National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a Biden appointee, and Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the NLRB also with just two members and three vacancies, thus unable to do any business.

In place of these and other programs created to insure qualified people have equal chances to become employed, Trump trumpets the meritocracy, saying people should be hired on the basis of merit, not race or other factors. But he has dismantled the agencies that were established to make sure that everybody was considered on their merits.

And he has celebrated the month by firing a lot of Black American patriots—including, just last week, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—who are shaping our present.  Someday our present will be someone else’s past.  We hope those of the future are harsh in their judgments of our present and the President who is making it.

The Golden Rule Today

Posted on by
Reply

It use to be darkly humorous to note than in contemporary society, “He who has the gold rules.”

But today, in this country where egalitarianism is taking a beating from the super-oligarch behind the simple-oligarch, there is no humor in that twisting of the verse from the New Testament Book of Matthew, “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.”

Or in contemporary English, “Do unto Oohers and you would have the do unto you.”

The sentiment seems completely unfamiliar to our President or to his top henchmen and his Meat Cleaver Vigilantes.

The Golden Rule is not just a Christian instruction.  Other faiths have their versions of it.

Sathya Si Baba, a Hindu guru who claimed to be the reincarnation of 19th century spiritual master Sai Baba of Shirdi, whose teachings were a blend of the Christianity and Muslim faiths, wrote: “You must examine every act to find out if it will cause pain to others; if it does, withdraw from it. Don’t do to others what you do not like done unto you. This is called the Golden Rule. Yes, it is the best test for distinguishing right from wrong.”  (SSS 7:227

The equivalent for Buddhists from Udana-Varga 5:18is, “In five ways should a clansman minister to his friends and families by generosity, courtesy, and benevolence, by treting them as he treats himself and by being as good at his word.”

Judaism: “What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man.” (Talmud, Shabbat 3id)

Muhammed told his followers, “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Sunnah)

In The Great Learning, Ta Haio, Confucius comes pretty close to our contemporary language: “Do not unto others that you would not they should do until you.”

Mahabharta 5:17 tells Hindus, “Do not do to others that which if done to thee would cause thee pain.”

Followers of the Indian faith called Jainism, one of the world’s oldest religions, say, “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard “all creatures as we regard our own self.”

The lesson from Grantha Sahib in the Sikh faith is, “As thou deemest thyself, so deem others. Then shall thou become a partner in heaven.”

The Tao Tu Ching, The Book of the Way and Virtue teaches students of the Tao, “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and regard your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

Zoraster, who also is known as Zarathustra, was a teacher and preacher of an ancient religion that influenced the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Muslim, and Judaism—and the great Greek philosophers. His teaching recorded in Dadisten-i-dinik 94:5 reads, “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.”

There also are Golden Rules from the writings of great philosophers:

About a century before the birth of Christ, Epictetus wrote, “What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others.”

Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German Philosopher, wrote, “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.”

The Greek philosopher Plato, in the 4th Century BCE wished, “May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.”

About a century later, another Greek philosopher, Socrates, offered, “Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.”

And Rome’s Seneca in the First Century CE, said in his Epistle 47:11, “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.”

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote his Meditations 2.1, said Nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, for we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away. 

We’ll give American poet Edwin Markham the final observation:  “We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.”

Markham might be best known for his simple poem, “Outwited”:

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

In Washington today, the Golden Rule is a tarnished gong, a clanging cymbal and the only circle is the one that shuts people out.

Wouldn’t a Christian Nation draw the circle that takes others in?

Sports: Tigers climb back in the polls; We’ll look at where they might rank in the tournament; Cardinals, Royals, climb back into uniforms; Racers Climb Into Cockpits

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing edit

(MIZ)—Missouri has climbed back into the teens in both national polls after two strong bounceback wins after their first two-game loss streat this season. Wins at home against Oklahoma and on the road against Georgia have put them 15th in the AP sportswriters poll and 16th in the USA TODAY coaches poll.

Mizzou is 19-6 now with six games left. They’ll play #4 Alabama at home tomorrow night.

(NCAA)—March is madly approaching and various prognosticators are telling us who will be in the NCAA tournament and what the seeding will be.  Most projections we’ve seen indicate Mizzou would be a 5-seed after splitting the last six  games of the regular season to finish 22-9.

(CARDINALS)—Nolan Arenado is in camp with the Cardinals, as he usually would be, despite his off-season being one of rampant speculation that he wouldn’t be.  And the team’s president of baseball operations seems resigned to his failure to get rid of him. John Mozeliak told reporters last week that Arenado is “likely to be part of our club at this point.”

Arenado has three years left on his eight-million dollar, $260 million contract (pro-rated annually until 2041). He was hoping a team more likely to play in the World Series would cut a deal with the Cardinals this winter.

He told reporters on the first day he was in camp, ”I’m in the right place.” He heard a lot of things in the offseason but, “I try not to get caught up in it too much. I’m ready to focus on getting ready for the season.

Arenado’s contract has a list of teams for which he would accept a trade. But he told MLB.com he wasn’t going to talk about which teams they are and says the talk about those teams “doesn’t really matter anymore.”  He’s indicated there’s more to his situation than signing a lucrative free agent deal: “I got a family now and to be willing to pick up my family and move them, it has to be something that’s worth it.”

Sounds as if his head is on pretty straight.

His presence is not a guarantee he will be with the Cardinals on opening day. Mozeliak’s comment can be seen to indicate the Redbirds are s till looking to move him.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals have extended the contract of VP and GM J. J. Picollo through 2030 with a club option in ’31. Piccolo is considered the architect behind last year’s surge back into contention last year.

The Royals also have exercised their option with manager Matt Quatraro. Piccolo and Quatraro finished second in balloting for executive of the year and manager of the year.

Royals owner John Sherman has hinted that conversations have resumed about a new stadium. WDAF-TV has him talking about “a very exciting thing for our community” as he advocates for “securing a long=-term home for the Royals.”

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs have dropped some people from the Taxi Squad and have signed some people to it and they’ve told Travis Kelce they hope he’ll tell them by the middle of next month if he wants to keep playing.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The UFL season opens March 28 with the St. Louis Battlehawks playing six of their ten games in the dome in St Louis. The first game, however, is on the road against the Houston Roughnecks. They’ll play the San Antonio Brahma’s twice. Last year, the ‘Hawks beat the Brahmas twice but lost to them in the first round of the playoffs.

Sports with Motors

(DAYTONA)—Nobody was surprised  he had won the Daytona than the driver who did it.

William Byron, seventh with one lap to go, won the Daytona 500, his second straight win of the Great American Race.

Byron dodged the last big crash, which happened at the front of the field halfway through the last lap, to win by about 1.1 seconds over Tyler Reddick.

NASCAR heads to Atlanta next weekend.

 

The Gulf

Posted on by
Reply

It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Period.

And calling it the Gulf of America is as silly as some people got after the September 2001 terrorist attacks when France opposed our invasion of Iraq by deciding to call French fries, Freedom Fries.

The pettiness and immaturity of a 78-year old man with a superiority complex was played out a few days ago when he threw a tantrum and banished an Associated Press reporter from an Oval Office press conference dominated not by the old man but by his  hatchet man. The reporters was not banned because he asked an impertinent question of either of the stars of the event.

He was barred from the event because the Associated Press won’t call the Gulf of Mexico the presidentially-designated Gulf of America.

To begin with, Trump’s executive order on the Gulf shows his usual ignorance of and respect for maritime/economic law and the authority of individuals as well as countries to keep calling it the Gulf of Mexico.

But never trouble Donald Trump with facts or with respecting any system, nations, and cultures that long-ago legally or at least culturally designated names of places.

Renaming Denali, for example, is disrespectful of the Koyukon Athabascan people who have lived in that area for centuries and have called it Denali. Not until 1896 was it called Mt. McKinley, and not by any official action or decision by an international naming agency but by a gold miner who started calling it McKinley to support a presidential candidate. President Wilson signed a bill in 1917 making McKinley the official name.

But the state of Alaska asked in 1975 that the United States Board on Geographical Place Names make the official name to the traditional Denali. Ohio Congressman Ralph Regula blocked it because McKinley’s hometown of Canton was in his district and he didn’t seem to care what generations of natives had called the mountain long before he came along. Canton is a long ways from Alaska and surely Regula (who died a few years ago) could have found something closer to home with which to make a headline.

The Board of Geographical Place Names?

The King of Renaming Puffery apparently does not know, or does not care about, the existence of such a body that was created in 1897 and assumed its present status by federal law in 1947. The board, part of the Department of the Interior, tries to allocate place names based on local custom “as well as principles, policies, and procedures governing the use of domestic names, foreign names, Antarctic names, and undersea feature names,” as one source puts it. More than fifty other nations have similar national bodies.

Such organizations are necessary to avoid confusion about what is what and where that what is.

Then there is the United Nations Economic and Social Council  and its nine-member Group of Experts on Geographical Names that has been reviews things every five years, beginning in 1960. Having a commonly-used name of a place is important in domestic and international trade.

But we are learning that this President has no regard for federal agencies or international programs, especially when he decides to show his power by ignoring them with executive orders. And woe be unto anyone who does not worship his impulses.

Here’s the deal about the Gulf of Whatever—

The United States does not OWN the Gulf of Mexico.  The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants countries control of waters about twelve nautical miles from the country’s shores. That’s the closest this country has to owning a gulf, a sea, or an ocean.

There also is an “Exclusive Economic Zone” that covers 200 miles of offshore water. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the zone allows this country to “explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources” in that area. That zone overlaps similar zones for Mexico and Cuba. But they don’t count in inner Trumpworld.

So the Great Geopolitician is asserting authority over Mexico and Cuba with his MAGA-pleasing proclamation, something outside his and his country’s authority. The solution to his situation should be easy for him: Make Mexico our 52nd state and Cuba our 53rd.

Canada already is in line to become number 51. And that brings us to another issue for our President and our takeover of Canada.

What’s with this St. Lawrence Seaway thing?

It allows oceangoing ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota.  It’s named for the St. Lawrence River that links Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. We expect an executive order soon renaming the thoroughfare the Duluth Seaway.

And while we’re at it, why is it the Missouri River when there are so many other states involved?  We can’t call it the Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska-Iowa-North Dakota-South Dakota, Montana River.  Let’s simplify it and just call it The Trump River and make it a symbol of his success at bringing the county together.

And then—

The administration’s new Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum says the department is considering redrawing boundaries of our national parks and historic sites so there’s more room to drill, baby, drill—even though we understand the major petroleum companies are less enthusiastic about the increased supply that will lower the pump prices of gas and oil.  But as long as we’re tinkering with those parks and historic sites—-

Let’s add the scowling Presidential visage to Mount Rushmore although rock experts have told the National Park Service the remaining rock is unstable.

It might be the perfect place for a Trump sculpture after all

(Actually, increased drilling should be welcomed by consumers who will pay less for the fuel it takes to buy their more-expensive groceries.)

And while we’re talking about the Gulf of Mexico, why don’t we annex the Caribbean?

Now back to the AP reporter. Trump’s action constitutes a punishment for a news agency that reports the news in a way he does not like.  That’s been illegal since John Peter Zenger was accused of libel by the Royal Governor of New York because Zenger’s New York Journal published an editorial critical of Governor William Cosby.

Cosby issued a proclamation condemning Zenger’s newspaper for “divers scandalous, virulent, false, and seditious reflections,” a crude eloquence we won’t find on (Un)Truth Social. It doesn’t even have an exclamation point, a misspelling, and a capitalized word.

Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton—the father of Alexander—argued that truth is an absolute defense against libel. It took a jury only ten minutes to find Zenger not guilty, a judgment that established press freedom in this country.

Trump’s hissy fit because the AP recognizes the internationally-established name for the Gulf of Mexico, while not a libel, is an exercise of press freedom. The press is not obligated to print the party line or the individual declaration of anyone, including Presidents with a totalitarian attitude.

–or as the AP put it, “As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audience.”  The AP does agree to change the mountain to Mt. McKinley in its style book.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group, commented, “President Trump has the authority to change how the U. S. government refers to the Gulf. But he cannot punish a new organization for using another term.”

Well, he did.  And he’s moving to punish news organizations who dare question his bloviating about any issue that pops into his head.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll get into a discussion of “America,” another word about which Trump is, shall we say, extremely uneducated.

Some General, Generally Biased, Observations

Posted on by
1

We cannot help but reflect on the man whose birthday is today. You know, the guy who said in his second inaugural:

“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

We have a retread President who is 78 years old but acting as if he’s just seven and seems immune to rational thought (see Greenland, Canada, Panama, sh—thole countries in general  including Haiti, El Salvador, and all African countries), fawning about Putin, Xi, Erdogan, and North Korea’s Un and only, California wildfires caused by poor raking of leaves in forests, having the Army shoot protestors in the legs, claiming to be a Christian whose favorite Bible verse is “Two Corinthians,” a billionaire who wants to be like his idols—Musk and Bezos, etc., and so forth)

Forbes in 2023 listed him as only 420th on its list of 1490 billionaires, behind Republican whipping boy George Soros (410) various members of the Walton family, and well behind Charles Koch, who was 67th but who has a bottomless check book that he uses to influence political candidates—or buy them, as some suspect. Musk and Bezos were 1-2. Trump admires them for their wealth. Being around them makes him feel bigger.  He wants to be them.

A few days before his re-inauguration, he bragged that his administration already had hired 1,000 people some of whom will replace some of the THREE MILLION people who are federal employees now, about 2.3 million being full-time. The military makes up 775-thousand, the largest segment. Veterans Affairs involves another 476-thousand.

Adding one-thousand people while proclaiming he’ll make big cuts in the government payroll sees a little counter-intuitive. He and some of his acolytes want to eliminate the federal education department.  We recently checked and found doing so would eliminate about 4,150 jobs.,

Wow!  Our  billionaire president eliminates an entire department in which the average employee earns $130 thousand a year. Don’t think that’s excessive until you’ve read the real estate ads in the Washington, D.C. metro area yet.

In that same message he asked people quit referring people to him such as  “people who worked with, or are endorsed by Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch), “Dumb as a rock John Bolton, “Birdbrain Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, disloyal Warmongers Dick Cheney and his psycho daughter, Liz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, (General(?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yester, or any of the other people suffering from Trump derangement Syndrome.”

What’s with the question mark next to General Milley’s name? He was just the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, capping a distinguished military career of 44 years, which is only about 44 years more than the question mark served.

At least he didn’t call Pence a traitor.  At least not this time. But the rest of it—the name-calling?

If you lack the intellectual capability to do anything else, you can always call somebody a name. “Poopy Head” is a good one for seven-year olds. When he was in office the first time, maybe he should have sent Poopy head Milley to serve in one of his famous sh—hole countries.

As for those who were endorsed by “Americans for No Prosperity,“ Charles Koch is worth about ten times more than lowly number 420.  But we doubt that he and most of the others—especially those higher than 420, have better things to do than sit at their computer all night dreaming up derogatory names of people who not only are far wealthier than he is, but in many cases probably better people.

0-0-0

Having taken our retread President to task in the comments above, let us congratulate him for his brilliant idea that the Palestinians from Gaza should be sent to other places while he takes their damaged homeland and turns it into a beautiful place for the right kind of people.

His idea is very American.  And his plan was part of the original Make America Great plan.

It is uncomfortable for many who raise this point because they might be considered “woke,” and your correspondent realizes the risk he runs by reminding us of this proud part of our heritage—when good Christian people “helped” natives of another land move elsewhere after the systematic destruction of their cultures so the vacated land could be developed and inhabited by better people.

You might have heard of some of these places:

Navajo Nation, Uinta and Ouray, Thono O’odham, Standing Rock, Crow, Wind River, Pine Ridge, Fort Peck, and San Carlos Indian Reservations.

So don’t be critical of our President for suggesting natives go someplace else so others can turn their abandoned lands into profitable enterprises. He’s just continuing a cherished American tradition.

Let’s wrap up today’s spleen-letting with these two observations:

Given the nonsense that has emanated from the Trump Royal Golf Course in Florida, we suggest its name be changed to Mar-a-Liego.  And when his time in the White House is over and if there is to be built a place to hold and study his unclassified and classified papers, it would be appropriate to refer to it as the Presidential Liebrary.

     

 

A Lost Weekend for Missouri Sports—Except for One Guy

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

—Tigers lost. Chiefs overwhelmed. Thank Heavens for Baseball.

(CHIEFS)  Look for a lot of new names on the Kansas City Chiefs offensive line next year. ESPN reports Patrick Mahomes was pressured on 29 of his 56 dropbacks in the Super Bowl and was sacked six times, more times than in any other game in his career.  The Eagles helped him to a forgettable record with those 29 pressures, breaking the record of 25 held by Buffalo’s Jim Kelley in Super Bowl 26.

And the Eagles did it without blitzing. They just rolled over the Chiefs’ offensive line.

Mahomes was sacked eleven times in the Chiefs’ three post-season games. In the regular season, the defense got him on the ground 36 times.

The Eagles dominated the Chiefs, especially in the first half when the Chiefs became the second team in Super Bowl history to have fewer total offense yards than the number of points they gave up. Their total offense in the first half, on 20 plays, was only 23 yards. They had only three running plays (Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco combined for three yards) and trailed 24-0 at the break.

The highlight of the game for the Chiefs was the winning the coin toss.  By the end, they had suffered the worst loss of any team in a Super Bowl since since losing to Tampa Bay 31-9 four Super Bowls ago.  The loss, however, was far from the worst in a Super Bowl.  SB24 saw the 49ers clobber the Broncos 55-10.

Statmuse.com says this is the 26th time in the entire history of the franchise that the Chiefs have given up 40 points and the first time it’s happened since they lost to the Vikings 45-20 on December 20, 2003.

Travis Kelce set a new record for most catches in a Super Bowl. He finished with four in the game and 35 in his career, two more than Jerry Rice. Earlier in the playoffs he had broken Rice’s record for 100 yard playoff games, with 117 yards against the Houston Texans, his ninth playoff game getting 100 yards or more. Going into the game Sunday night, Kelce’s 350 Super Bowl yards ranked him fourth in the record book. He was first with 174 catches and now has 179. He went in ranked second with 2,039 receiving yards and second with 20 receiving touchdowns.

Andy Reid’s career coaching record now is 301-162-1 in 26 seasons. Including playoffs. He’s up one on Bill Belichick for most playoff games coached, with 45. Belichick has 31 wins. Reid has 28. He will be 67 when the Chiefs start the 2025 season.

(mizz)—Dropping two games to top-10 teams last week have has led to Missouri, not surpisingly, dropping six spots in both of the major polls. They’re down to 22 in the coaches poll and

he Tigers fell to No. 22 in the USA Today Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll in Monday’s top 25, down six places from their previous ranking. They also dropped six positions in the AP sportswriters  ranking.

Both Missouri losses were by a combined seven points against top-10 teams. Tennessee remained at No. 4 in the coaches poll and Texas A&M moved up four spots to No. 9.

The teams that beat Missouri last week rose in the polls.

A last seconds heart-breaker of a three with 1.8 seconds left gave Texas A&M the win in Columbia Saturday but the Tigers sowed the seeds of their defeat with two long dry spells.

They went the first 5:40 without a point before Tamar Bates hit a three from the corner. Missouri didn’t scored in the last 8:13 of the half. The Tigers dominated the second half and tied the game with ten minutes left. They took the lead with 53 seconds left but left too much time on the clock and Wade Taylor got the game winner.

(The Baseball)—That’s what Hemingway’s Old Man called it in The Old Man and the Sea.  Pitchers and catchers are drifting into the camps in Florida and Arizona. Full squads are due by the 17th.

Both teams start the season with questions.  For the Royals, it’s “Can they do it again—and do more?”  For the Cardinals, the question is “What are they going to do, anything?”

Now, The Wheel Guys, one in particular:

(EDWARDS)—Retired Columbia NASCAR driver Carl Edward never was close to being the most popular driver of the year during his career. But any self-doubts he had about being an outsider were erased last Friday night when he joined the NASCAR Hall of Fame. In his 8th year of retirement, Edwards talked about why he abruptly retired and how he learned he was part of the NASCAR family.

Edwards was headed for the NASCAR championship when a crash took him out of his last race in 2016. A few weeks later he met with his  team owner, Joe Gibbs, and told him he was not coming back for the 2017 season.

“I’m grateful that we didn’t win that championship because it gave me time to go home and think about a few things…I didn’t know my kids and because of brave men like Dale Earnhardt Jr., and other athletes, I was aware that there are real risks to hitting your head over and over.”

Edwards told Gibbs from the dais, “You said , ‘If this is important to you, I’ve got your back’…You changed my life. You gave me permission to do something I needed to do.”

Carl’s full speech:

Bing Videos

Next weekend, big-time NASCAR racing returns at full throttle with the Daytona 500.

(Photo credit: Yahoo Sports)

The Portrait

Posted on by
Reply

It is not hard to dislike Donald Trump, especially if one overlooks the idea that he is, was, and always will be an unconventional President, to grossly understate his description.  Or if one does not understate it.

The fact is that he pulled off one of the most remarkable turn-arounds, perhaps THE most remarkable turnaround in American political history—although it was not the landslide he brags it was (in terms of the popular vote; although the electoral college was equally landslidey to the whipping he took four years earlier from Joe  Biden) .

You obedient observer does not recall anyone asking Trump him, as one asks those departing from office, how he wishes to be remembered. Trump already has answered that question with his presidential portrait for his second term.

If he wants to be remembered for this glowering, angry, and threatening image for the next century or two or more (we hope), so be it.  From his standpoint, that’s who he is today.

It’s a far cry from the portrait for his first term, which is used by the Trump Presidential Library.

The two portraits contrast the different places that Trump’s life has taken him as he regains the White House. The first exudes confidence, health, vigor, and excitement about being in the oval office, a winner. It’s a friendly image. He was a robust 70 then.

The second image is of a bitter old   man, worn by four years of well-deserved legal proceedings, one of which made him a felon and the second of which has seen an escalation of damages to more than one-half billion dollars while he appeals the finding. It shows a man driven by revenge, a man comfortable with his reputation as a bully who does not forgive those who question his lies or a country that will not be intimidated by his threats.

It is reminiscent of his mug shot taken at the Fulton County, Georgia jail, the first criminal mug shot taken of any previous President.  Reprinting it on t-shirts made him a lot of money.

And yes, there IS a Trump Presidential Library. It’s a website run by the National Archives nd Records Administration, the very organization he did not want to give some of his records to.  It’s considered a placeholder until a brick and mortar library is put up.

He’s 78 now, battered and facing questions about his own psychological stability—the same issue that dogged his predecessor in the recent campaign.

HuffPost writer Kimberly Richards consulted with some body language experts about what the portrait says. One, Mike Bowden, says the portrait “conveys a sense of aggression…the impression of intense targeting or scrutiny, as if he’s locked onto a subject.” He thinks the portrait “echoes the defiance” we see in the mug shot and turns it into “a statement of power and control” and a “readiness to confront and dominate.”

The CEO of the Body Language Institute, Janine Driver, thinks the new image “conveys    authority and determination. The absence of a smile signals seriousness, perhaps an effort to project strength…Whether one admires or critiques him, it’s hard to deny the intentionality behind every element of this new portrayal.”

I hate to say it but—wait, I don’t hate to say it:

The new portrait looks more like a mob boss than a President.  It looks like a man totally wrapped up in himself, the general population be damned.

But best of all, it looks like Donald Trump and it is the image that will represent who and what he is for generations to come. It is an image he carried through his inauguration—

—and is continuing through the next four years.

If he wants to be remembered as this kind of person, we will respect one of his few demonstrations of a commitment to truth.