Category Archives: elections

Chaos 

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(Two important updates to this posting occurred overnight as the gigantic mess that will be our congressional elections in November has gotten even worse)  Look for  the boldface additions in this revised–for the third time—column).  

The two people in this household are going to vote in the November election. As of today, we are not sure who we will want to be our member of Congress because we aren’t sure which congressional district we will be in.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh might have settled it yesterday when he flatly rejected the appeal of the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling that the old districts will be used for the election.  Kavanaugh is a Trump appointee and we would not be in this mess if Trump had not asked his loyal Republican-dominated legislature to skew congressional districts to help keep him in power.

However, shortly after that, a lower federal court judge ruled the other way.  We went to bed last night glad the day was over but knowing it is likely today will produce more political and judicial mayhem that none of us deserves but that all of us are getting, thanks to a President thinks our political system was invented just to keep him happy.

But since then, things have really heated up.

Shortly after that, the Chief Federal District Judge of this region, Stephen Clark, ruled the other way, issuing a temporary restraining order telling Hoskins to use the gerrymandered map while the case goes forward in the federal court system.  We went to bed last night glad the day was over but knowing it is likely today will produce more political and judicial mayhem that none of us deserves but that all of us are getting, thanks to a President thinks our political system was invented just to keep him happy. 

Governor Kehoe thanked the judge for providing “much needed clarity for Missouri voters and the election process.”  Since yesterday was the last day to make changes to the November ballot, he said, “the Missouri First Map will be used in the general election.”

He said, “Voters and candidates deserve consistency, certainty, and not to have the rules changed between elections,” an observation that is interesting because that is exactly what President Trump, the legislature, and Governor Kehoe have done “between elections” in 2024 and 2026. 

The scramble yesterday has left the Missouri Supreme Court, shall we say, in a state of high urinary agitation.  We awoke this morning to read a Missouri Independent report that the court has ordered Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to appear before it in person at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning to show why he should not be held in contempt of court for telling election officials to go ahead with a district map the court has forbidden him from using. It seems Hoskins had, as soon as Clark’s order came down, certified the official state ballot using the rejiggered congressional districts and sent the order, and his certification of the districts out to local election officials.  He says the Clark order, in effect, overrules the Missouri court’s order. 

The Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court wants Hoskins to explain exactly why his actions “is not an affirmative violation” of the court’s injunction which has the backing of a United States Supreme Court judge (who ranks higher on the judicial food chain than Clark) and, “if he is not willing to comply with this court’s injunction, he should take no action in all things related to the congressional district map until guidance is received from a higher court…”

Chief Justice W. Brent Powell made it clear this hearing is a face-off between Hoskins and the court.  Nobody else will be allowed to intervene.  

The last time we can recall a sitting state official to answer to the Missouri Supreme Court was when the court tried and convicted Secretary of State Judy Moriarty in 1994 of committing impeachable offenses—-  

—–which raises a question about how all of this could eventually play out for Hoskins, should anyone want to make a case of it.  If the GOP continues to control the legislature, that question likely is going to be moot.

This whole ugly thing is compliments of the same political party that gave us two amendments that were stomped flat by voters in August, allowed a small number of maverick state senators to produce two or three of the least productive legislative sessions—probably since the Civil War when we had a government supported by the U. S. Army in Jefferson City and a bunch of exiles pretending to be a Confederate government based in Texas, and who so badly fumbled a chance to pass a sports gambling law that the interested parties gave us a constitutional amendment that is of grave disservice to the people of Missouri

Republicans have no one to blame but themselves if voter in November seek retribution for this craziness by promoting many GOP lawmakers back to private life. Will the majorities in the House and Senate switch in November? Probably not.  But we’ll be watching to see if the two-third majorities and the accompanying arrogance that comes with such margins disappears at the hands of voters who think these lawmakers have gone too far.

The Missouri Supreme court has blamed our Secretary of State, who was one of those maverick senators, for this mess.  And the court underlined its feelings with a unanimous vote.

The court suspended the congressional district maps drawn because President Trump is afraid he’ll lose control of Congress in November and asked the Missouri legislature to approve maps that will oust one of our senior congressmen, Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. That would giving the GOP one more Congressman from Missouri who can protect Trump..  The legislature was more than happy to oblige him.

But then some citizens who felt such manipulation of the political system more focused on government of one person, by one person, and for one person is not exactly what this country is all about.  They went around and collected signatures of about 300,000 other dissenters demanding the new map not go into effect until the people had agreed to it.  The number of signatures was more than adequate to put the question on the ballot.

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins apparently found some wiggle room in a federal district judge’s ruling last December that the new map would be suspended if the petition had enough signatures and a vote could be held on overturning that map. The judge’s opinion noted, however, that Hoskins believed he had the power to declare the petition itself was unconstitutional.

The Missouri Supreme Court told him, twice, that he had to rule on whether the petitions had enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

Rather than do that before the primary election that used the questionable new districts, Hoskins waited until the primary election was already underway before proclaiming the petition unconstitutional.

The Missouri Supreme Court said he screwed up, saying there actually are no new districts because opponents had gathered adequate signatures to have an election on their legitimacy. Unless voters approved the districts, they did not exist.

But Hoskins let the election proceed with the new districts.  So now we have candidates in our eight districts and—-

?

Justice Kavanaugh’s terse rejection of the districts is a second loud slap in the face of Hoskins and the obedient Trumpicans in our Capitol, coming after our Supreme Court’s ruling.

As we understand it these two rulings, we have no districts except the old ones and the candidates did not run in the old districts. They ran in the new ones which the court says don’t exist. The Missouri court has said rather clearly that Hoskins is responsible for any confusion the people of Missouri might have.

That’s a very heavy load of responsibility.  Hoskins will be up for re-election in 2028. Missourians are likely to be reminded of these events.

Out of this complicated embarrassment so far, however, is something vitally important. The Constitutional right of Missouri citizens “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”     to enact laws through a petition process and to overturn offensive laws enacted by the people who are supposed to represent us has been upheld. The court decisions have upheld Missourians’ right to initiative and petition in overwhelming numbers. (Next year will be the 120th anniversary of the adoption of initiative and referendum in Missouri. We need to have a big celebration.)

Hoskins disputes the Missouri court’s ruling that he’s the one to blame.  He seemed to argue in a radio interview (KFTK) that the Trumpian map should be valid for November because voters used it in the primary election.

—although the State Supreme Court says they (we) voted in illegal and therefore nonexistent districts.  Justice Kavanaugh obviously didn’t buy Hoskins’ arguments either.

We must confess that we are as befuddled as most people are and we’re not convinced we understand all of this folderol or if we have explained the situation correctly.

If the districts were not legal, then there actually was no congressional primary election, right?   And those of us who voted were just rehearsing for the real thing. Can that be correct?  Are we headed to November with candidates nominated in a non-election?

And since the petition issue gathered enough signatures to merit a vote and no districts, old or new, will be established until voters have decided on the petition issue, how can we vote for our congressional delegation in November?

If it turns out that one of the winners in August is not a resident of the old district that might be in effect in November—-

Well?

I feel as if I am wading in the dark through an endless swamp of mashed potatoes and the legislature led me to it.  Lawmakers are back at the Capitol for a day or two next week to consider overriding any of the Governor’s vetoes from the spring session.  Can they, will they, do anything to restore some orderliness in our state political system?

To paraphrase an old saying:

“To err is human. To really screw up things you need a politician.”

I am now going to take some aspirin and lie down and hope this all passes.

(picture credit: Demotivators)

 

Notes from a Quiet Hill (Geography Edition)

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Saw this pop up on the internet the other day.  We always like to remind folks the founders weren’t Europeans but were the people who met them when they arrived (as Will Rogers once remarked about his ancestors).  The t-shirt is being sold on the Honoringthetribe.com, which we couldn’t reach when we looked for it.

But we appreciate the image.  Our President might not be caught wearing this t-shirt even if they had one large enough to fit him. Even if he wore it, it’s doubtful that he would give a hoot about the message.

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I used to think, “This man cannot be more absurd that this” but he quickly dissuaded me of that opinion on a daily if not hourly basis, much of it driven by childish pettiness.  In recent days he has “punished” Canada by signing an executive order renaming Lake Superior “Lake America.”  Now, most recently, he has shown a new map of New Mexico with “Mexico” crossed out and the word “America” written in.

Why don’t he end this ridiculous business and sign an all-encompassing executive order and make it “Planet Trump” and be done with it?

Would it be enough or would he want more?  You don’t need to answer that.

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From a January, 1922 Jefferson City newspaper: “It is said to be an open question whether Congress at present represents public opinion.  If not, next fall will be open season on congressmen.”

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Question for folks in Jefferson City: When was the last time our member of Congress showed up in our town? I don’t mean slipping in to say hello to the office staff, but to meet with the voters. He cannot recall any visits in recent years. Your intrepid correspondent stopped by Congressman Luetkemeyer’s office one day. The door was locked.  When somebody let me in the basic attitude was, “What are you doing here?”  I had a note for the Congressman I wanted to drop off. I doubt he ever saw it because I didn’t even get one of those “Thank your four your interest” form letters.

I think I have run into Northwest Missouri’s Sam Graves more times at the Capitol than I have heard of our own members of Congress being around except to file for election.

Our current Congressman (we think) Bob Onder is one of two GOP politicians asking the U. S.  Supreme Court to overturn our Missouri Supreme Court order reinstating non-gerrymandered district lines.

We could not do any worse by having a Congressman from Kansas City.  In fact, it’s hard not to think a longtime Methodist minister would be anything but better.

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Went to Colorado to visit the granddaughters and their parents last month. We rather like driving across Kansas because of ancestral ties that help us appreciate the Flint Hills and the Tallgrass Prairie and the rolling limestone hills that used to be the floor of the Great Inland Sea.  We even like when we get West of Hays and the upland prairie begins under a wide-open sky not obscured by billboards (there are few of them).  But once again we were reminded when we cross the state line that there still is too much Kansas in Colorado.

Your observer has often felt that a new state should be carved from the area between Hays and Burlington, Colorado, extending south to include the Oklahoma Panhandle and north to include the Nebraska Panhandle

Stopped in Bennett to fuel up. We were a little, uh, stunned.

The cheapest stuff was 15% ethanol. The Subaru is accustomed to a diet of 10% but we were sure it wouldn’t cough and sputter on the strong stuff.   12.2 gallons.  55 dollars.

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This is St. James’ Church in the English village of Ormside, near Appleby (hope that helps you understand its location).  The BBC reports this church is getting something for the first time in its long history. A £10,000 gift from a private trust will pay for an indoor loo, which the church never has had.

A loo over there is a bathroom.

For centuries, people in Ormside carried buckets of water from the village well to operate the primitive indoor plumbing. The BBC reports that the church hopes the improvements “will make the site more welcoming and hospitable, after attendees at weddings and funerals had previously had to rely on nearby residents homes for bathroom access.

The new toilet won’t be in the church itself. A disused hearse house will be modified for people who have to go while sending someone on their way

When we traveled across the pond a couple of years ago we visited the community of Looe, which is the case with many towns and cities, has public bathrooms. Admission, we think, was 25 pence.

The town of Looe is pronounced without the “e.”   I took a picture of the public bathrooms. I refer to it as Looe’s Loos.

 

A Little Politics We’d Like to Forget 

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Saturday nights when Liz and Rob were not taller than we are, Saturday nights had kind of a ritual to them.

At 5 p.m., I’d turn on KBIA, the National Public Radio Station at the University of Missouri, and wait for A Prairie Home Companion to come on.  I had my reel-to-reel SONY recorder wired into the radio and set at the slowest recording speed to record the two-hour program based around a mythical Minnesota town called Lake Wobegone (“a little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve, where all of the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average”) and the stories told by one of its former residents, Garrison Keillor.

I left the speakers off because we were still doing stuff at 5.  Dinner was usually about 6.  At 7 we’d gather in the living room where I rewound the tape and we’d listen back to the recording. Popcorn was part of the evening.  While the playback was underway, I’d turn on my cassette recorder and dub the program onto the smaller format.  There also in our house were some LP recordings of old radio programs—Jack Benny, Fibber and Molly, Suspense, Mr. Kean—Tracer of Lost Persons, Gangbusters, the Shadow, the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet, Straight Arrow, Escape, etc.—some of which I dubbed onto cassettes before we went on long trips.

SiriusXm now has a channel for those old programs (the PHC is on Keillor’s webpage) but in those days, cars had cassette players and those programs came in handy when World War III broke out in the back seat.  I’d just slide a cassette of Garrison or Jack or Fibber or Molly or one of the creepy shows into the player and peace would immediately break out behind us.

The kids’ imaginations were immediately seized by those radio shows.  The “theatre of the mind” took over and for an hour or two the miles slipped by easily and quietly.

We are not alone in thinking children today are missing that important element in their development—-imagination.  Oh, they can imagine they are great dragon fighters or world-saving soldiers on their computers.  But it’s not the same, by far.

Radio could then, and still can today if we ignore the local stations that aren’t local anymore and aren’t imaginative anymore, and are mostly forums for people whose egos are their greatest asset, expand the mind far beyond anything we can see, even on a 100=inch flat screen screwed to the wall.

(In 1965, the great radio humorist Stan Freberg did a series of public service announcements for the Radio Advertising Bureau promoting radio.  They’re all priceless but the fourth one, “Stretching the Imagination” is considered the classic:

(bing.com/search?q=Stan+freberg+who+listens+to+radio&form=ANNTH1&refig=6a8601c200594754ba45e2583e91c5c7&pc=HCTS)

The Singer is Sarah Vaughan.

Garrison Keillor is no longer doing his radio program but he does do stage shows recreating the program. He’s 84 now, writes books, lives in New York instead of Minnesota, and writes with his familiar droll humor a daily column.

A few days ago on the 17th, he offered this observation that we decided to pass along:

(7) Another modest proposal, but a good one

Yes, It is obvious that he’s a Democrat. In fact one of his books is called Home Grown Democrat. But he seems to capture the contradictory, confusing, infuriating political mess we are living through.

Saturday nights at our house aren’t so interesting anymore. The kids are all grown up and have their own families.  Sometimes, though, we do have some popcorn.  And in our cars, we can listen to Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Gunsmoke (with William Conrad as Matt Dillon, Boston Blackie, Tales of the Texas Rangers, the creaking door of the Inner Sanctum and many more.

And the miles just slip away.

We The People

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Many years ago during a meeting in Washington D.C., a friend of mine from Maine insisted I go along with him to the Birchmere Music Hall across the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia to listen to a folk music trio from his state, Maine.   Schooner Faire’s harmonies on music focusing on northeastern culture has stayed with me to this day.  One is especially appropriate for our times.

One of the three men I watched that night has died but the other two, brothers Steve and Chuck Romanoff continue to perform. The third member, Tom Rowe, died in 2004. .

One of the songs they sang is one of their most popular. It’s called “We the People,” and although they’ve been singing it for decades it seems appropriate today.

If you want to follow along, or join in the signing, here are the lyrics by Steve Romanoff

We the people, hand in hand
We, the people, understand
That there’s an answer, there’s a way
We, the people, have to say
So, send the orders to prepare
We, the people, do declare
Send the good news, send the word
We, the people, will be heard
We, the people, everywhere

There’s a message in the air
And it’s a’movin’ across the land
If you listen you can hear it well, my friend
We know the time has come
To take our heads out of the sand
‘Cause if we don’t the chance might never come again
The future is in reason
Not in building ways of war
And the time has come for reason to be heard
The purpose of the people
Is what this declaration’s for
And it’s why our fathers told us word for word…

We the people, hand in hand
We, the people, understand
That there’s an answer, there’s a way
We, the people, have to say
So, send the orders to prepare
We, the people, do declare
Send the good news, send the word
We, the people, will be heard
We, the people, everywhere

We won’t accept excuses
And we won’t accept the lies
Of those who’d lead our nations into hell
It’s time to call their bluff
To say to them, enough’s enough
It’s time we all could hear the tolling of the bell

It’s time to feed the hungry
And it’s time to heal the pain
And it’s time to beat our weapons into plows

It’s time to hear the voices that have risen once again
It’s the wisdom of the people clear and loud
Singing proud…

We the people, hand in hand
We, the people, understand
That there’s an answer, there’s a way
We, the people, have to say
So, send the orders to prepare
We, the people, do declare
Send the good news, send the word
We, the people, will be heard
We, the people, everywhere

We the people, hand in hand
We, the people, understand
That there’s an answer, there’s a way
We, the people, have to say

So, send the orders to prepare
(That) We, the people, do declare
Send the good news, send the word
We, the people, will be heard
We, the people (Oooh)
We, the people (Oooh)
We, the people (Oh, Yes Oooh)
We, the people (Oooh)
We the people everywhere

Schooner Fare still performs after more than fifty years of concerts although you have to go to Maine at this time of year to hear them.

(The song can be heard on an album with the song’s title. Find it on Amazon at: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B00IIVZUGM?do=play&trackAsin=B00IIVZUOO&ts=1787150255&ref=dm_sh_zsaULICOxXOjIqQEaRmXCxqAz

There also are several Schooner Faire songs on YouTube and a complete 1992 concert from the Chocolate Church Arts Center in Bath, Maine. The song starts about 98 minutes in the concert if you would like to sing along with them:  youtube.com/watch?v=oJXtbDLHMl0&t=6234s.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXtbDLHMl0&t=6234s)

When you go to the polling place in November, perhaps this song will be in your mind along with Edmund Burke’s comment, “Governments who ignore the natural wisdom of the eople willd o so at their own peril.”

(photo credit: YouTube)

Just for the Record

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There have been few times Missourians have so revolted against legislative proposals for new constitutional amendments as they did Tuesday.

Worst losses:

1912 Am 6  Authorizes land inheritance and utility taxes, excepts personal property, abolishes poll and occupational taxes, removes tax limits.  86,647-508,137    85.43% no

2026 Am 5  Phase out of Income Tax  233,309-1,165,085   83.31% no

1914  Am 14  Fifty million dollar bond issue  build and maintain state highways, authorizes a tax levy to pay off bonds (10 cents a gallon of gas)  76,542=378,530   83.17%  no

1918 Am 8  Restructures state tax system to derive public revenue form improved value of land 80,725-373,220   82.21% no

1914  Am 15 Allow petitions to authorize bond issue for road construction and maintenance. 80,935-373,202  82.18% no

2026 Am 4  Constitutional Amendments proposed by petition must be approved by votes in all congressional districts   275,040-1,122,748  80.32% no

1910 Am 8  Increase per diem for legislators  95,045-385,765    80.23% no

1914  Am 4  Establishes annual salary of $1,000 for member of legislature  89,629-355,326  79.85% no (rounded up to 80%)

November is a whole lot more interesting now—-and one question will be whether the Republicans can retain their two-thirds membership in the House and in the Senate.

And then there is 2028.——The offices of Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of Sate, Attorney General, and State Treasurer—all are held by Republicans—and all are up for decisions by voters.

 

Massive Repudiation

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(This post has been updated to correct an error.  Amendment five failed in every county, not in all but one. We relied on erroneous information for the original post.)

It was not just a historic election—

It was an epic defeat for two constitutional amendments proposed by a legislature that is two-thirds Republican.

Missouri voters rejected amendments four and five by rates unseen in more than a century. The results for the income tax elimination amendment failed in every county and according to the New York Times just before midnight last night failed in one county, Shannon, 92-8 percent and failed in Maries County 90-10.

Here’s a simple explanation for the failure of Amendment 5—the income tax destruction amendment—and some observations about a flawed state fiscal policy:

The people who can’t afford more sales taxes defeated the people who don’t want to pay income taxes.

For folks to whom an income tax cut would be of relatively minor value while increased sales taxes would be a major blow, the defeat of the effort to excuse those to whom sales taxes are a minor thing from paying income taxes is a major victory, a crushing rejection of the legislature’s proposals.

We hope our lawmakers and/or the candidates to become lawmakers understand a sorry message:

The people at large do not trust them, at least not in matters of tax policy.

How will it play out in candidate elections in November? Incumbent Republicans might face intense demands to explain why they supported both of these amendment, especially Amendment 5.

Here’s a different approach that supporters of Amendment 5 might think about next:

Eliminate the sales tax.  Restructure the income tax so it spreads the fiscal responsibility for state finances more equitably across income levels but gives the folks on the margins some breathing room.

Governor Kehoe said one reason Amendment 5 was justified was because, “We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.”

No.

We have both. And we’ve had them for a long time. And the thinking of the legislative majority has been for two decades that the state needs to lower its capabilities to raise money for programs and services for the people who put them in power.

Our spending problem will only increase by reducing our revenues. It would be the equivalent of solving a breathing problem through strangulation.  Fortunately, Missourians didn’t buy that irresponsible cure.

Our politics are filled with cliches, two of which are:

Government needs to be operated like a business.

You can’t cut your way to prosperity.

The Managing Editor of the Illinois Business Journal, Alan J. Ortbals observed in 2015:

Many people advocate government living within its means. Government needs to operate like a business, they say. Those who say that, however, apparently don’t know much about business…

Cost cutting alone creates a downward spiral — cuts diminish your product which reduces your sales which lead to more cuts that diminish your product and further reduce sales until you hang the “Going Out of Business” sign in the window.

Good government — like good business — requires stable revenue. Grover Norquist’s “No New Taxes” pledge is a mindless way to operate…Imagine running your business on a “No New Revenues” pledge. 

Ortbals called for a “balanced approach to government funding with a combination of revenue and cuts. You can’t do it all one way.”

He concluded, “Yes, government does need to operate like a business, which means working on both sides of the ledger to build a stable organization that can grow and prosper.”

Here is a question voters need to ask their candidates in November:  How are you going to build a stable state financial plan that encourages the state to grow and prosper?  What is your plan?

Jeremy Corbyn, a member of the House of Commons in England, put it most simply: “You grow your way to prosperity; you don’t cut your way to it.” It’s probably not an original statement because so many others have said it.

Shannon Power, a member of the Forbes Finance Council wrote in 2024, “The harsh reality is that you can’t cost-cut your way to sustainable growth.”

“The key to growth lies…in the strategic allocation of resources to areas that promise a return on investment. This requires a thorough analysis of where the company can generate growth. A go-to-market analysis of which industries are projected to grow in the coming years and/or which customers or potential customers are projected to increase spending next year is a good place to start.”

She was talking about business growth but in this case, running a government like a business has some applicability:

“The temptation to resort to short-term cost-cutting measures during uncertain times is commonplace. However, companies must recognize that sustainable growth requires strategic investments in areas that drive revenue…The key lies not in cutting costs—but in investing wisely for a prosperous future.”

Gut-touching political slogans won’t do the job. Simplistic steps that do not lift both ends of the boat are not steps toward greatness.  Only by broadening our views, and recognizing that growth begats growth can we lift Missouri from being a state ranked in the 30s and 40s to one other states can point to.

Let us hope that someday the kind of leadership emerges that makes us want to be such a state

Let’s Talk Tennessee Some More

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Maybe this will help you decide how to vote tomorrow, if you haven’t visited the county clerk’s office already.  There’s a lot that backers of Amendment 5 have kept from you as they hold up Tennessee as a utopian land of no income tax.

Although we’ve been told we won’t be paying sales taxes on all kinds of things, here is what your Tennessee friends and relatives pay extra for.  We thank Madras Accountancy for this information.

The basic state sales tax rate is 7 percent. Our state rate now is 4.225.  Local sales taxes are allowed for another 2.75%.  Citing the Tax Foundation, Madras says the rate applies to clothing, furniture, electronics, restaurant meals or other prepared foods, some digital products, motor vehicle purchase—familiar to us.  However:

A sales tax also is applied to gasoline and fuel products. We don’t do that unless you buy a can of oil, for example.

Groceries are taxed, although at four percent—including the rotisserie chicken, deli meals, candy and sugary snacks, soft and energy drinks, dietary supplements.

If you download or stream things, you’re likely to be charged a sales tax in Tennessee for such things as e-books and digital text books, downloadable music and movies, streaming subscriptions if the provider had an office in the state; computer software downloads and licenses, cloud-based software and SaaS platforms.

What’s exempt in Tennessee—

Prescription drugs and insulin, medical devices and durable medical equipment—such things as oxygen tanks and wheelchairs, farm equipment and agricultural supplies, some textbooks, machinery used in manufacturing or processing, and things you’re going to resell.

Services charge sales taxes.  Car repairs and replacement parts, appliance servicing, extended warranties and service contracts, pre-written software (including cloud-based tools), internet and telecommunications services, lodging and short-term rentals, as well as parking services and storage units.

We have a lot of special district taxes or specific taxes for such things as conservation, soil conservation efforts, state parks, police and fire safety, etc., that will continue because they’re part of the state constitution.  All of those will add to the basic state tax.

Supporters also talk of lowering property taxes—-which are the life blood of our schools, local roads and bridges, and city and county governments (do you know that two cents of your property taxes are earmarked for the state blind pension fund?).

No income tax and lowered property taxes sound good but we could be setting ourselves up for some difficult financial times if we buy the simplistic campaign arguments of supporters of Amendment 5.

As mentioned earlier—-we shouldn’t want to be Tennessee, nice as it is to visit.  We should expect our leaders to show us how we can be something better than 34th or lower.

Do We Really Want To Be Like Tennessee?

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Advocated for Amendment 5, the income tax elimination, like to point to Tennessee as a state that flourishes without an income tax.

As usual, campaigns—whether personal or policy in nature—cherry-pick simple issues and dislike honest discussion of the complexity of our way of life.

The Pro-Five campaign has been long on deception.  Equaling Tennessee is not big deal. In most cases our lives will be no better if we decide to move from being 30-something in sales taxes to Tennessee’s 7th highest in the nation.

I don’t want to be like Tennessee. I want to be Missouri—the best Missouri

Let’s look below the deception and see if the things that really matter in how we live are worth voting for 5.

The newest ranking of states by U.S. News says it would not be much of an improvement.  Among the fifty states, Tennessee ranks 24th.  Missouri is 31st.

Ending the income tax might please Missouri’s rich folks but it will not appreciably benefit Missourians as a whole.  U.S. News ranked the states in eight categories and in 22 subcategories.  Here is how we match up with Tennessee, the sweetheart of the Pro-Five set: The numbers on the left are Missouri. Tennessee is on the right.,

44  Crime and Corrections 40

22  Economy  13

32  Education  31

17  Fiscal Stability 5

43 Healthcare  39

35  Infrastructure  39

17 Natural Resources 34

8  Opportunity  22

The survey breaks down the categories this way:

CRIME AND CORRECTIONS

35 Corrections Outcomes  8

40 Public Safety  46

ECONOMY

9 Business Environment 17

28 Employment 15

34 Growth 11

EDUCATION

30  Higher Education 37

27 Pre-K-12 20

FISCAL STABILITY

18 Long-term stability 1

18 Short-term stability 22

HEALTHCARE

40 Healthcare Access  37

39 Healthcare Quality 21

39 Public Health  48

INFRASTRUCTURE

22 Energy 31

33 Internet Access 13

36 Transportation 14

NATURAL RESOURCES

23 Air and Water Quality 16

20 Pollution  39

OPPORTUNITY

12 Affordability 17

34 Economic Opportunity 39

14 Equality 26

You can go to the U. S. News website to get some breakdowns of these categories.

Here is the main point:  Missouri’s goal is not to be as good as Tennessee but to be BETTER THAN TENNESSEE.  That is going to take some really deep and non-partisan (if there’s any chance of that) policy-making that sees our state holistically and encourages Missourians to see beyond themselves.

Abraham Lincoln told Congress in 1861 that circumstances had forced a break from the status quo: “As our case is new, we must think and act anew.”

We the people, and those we elect must not be afraid of thinking and acting anew if we want a better state.  A simplistic step being offered Tuesday that favors some and disadvantages many others is the wrong direction to go.

Notes From a Not-Quiet Hill

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I’m typing this between phone calls to check on my Medicare program, my burial plans, the unclaimed property that might be waiting for me, an accident claim with my name attached to it and who knows what else because I’m not answering and the people who are spending hours calling me aren’t leaving messages so I can call them back. How rude.

I am disappointed, however, that no candidates have called.  You’d think that with the emphasis President Trump placed on redrawing my Congressional District that he would be calling about his preference.  Maybe he’s saving his energy for the general election.

We could discuss whether he can take away my citizenship after about seven generations or so (I honestly do not know if my earliest ancestors were legal immigrants.  We are learning that it’s never too late for ICE to execute justice on those who think they are legal.

Back to the phone calls—

There are so many I can’t recall all of them.  Yesterday our phone started ringing with robo calls at 9:15.  Our last call came at about 6:15.  There were so many that our caller ID stopped at 14 and our landline stopped counting at 50 sometime yesterday afternoon.

If a candidate for Congress or for the U.S. Senate wants to curry my favor, hey will announce the introduction of legislation enacting penalties on companies that show up on my caller ID as someone, some place, or some thing that they are not.

I swear, the entire city of Mokane called but never left a message.  It WAS kind of entertaining for a while listening to the Lady of the Phone pronounce the names of the Missouri places calling us.

Political junk in the mailbox.  Insurance junk on the telephone.  Billboard junk on our highways (well, on I-70 anyway).  Talk junk in the White House.  If there was any more junk, I’d be living in a landfill.

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Speaking of I-70—I drove back Sunday night from the race in Indianapolis and rather quickly realized I had made a mistake of coming back on 70.  At night.  Especially at Kingdom City where I thank Heaven I was the only car on the road at the time as I sought the exit lane and then navigated the new traffic circle.  The entrance to the circle seems designed for truckers who sit up high and can see over the end of the bridge railing to see if there are vehicles coming around.  But my car is small and I had to pull into the circle to see peek around that end.

It probably will be very nice when it is finished.  But Sunday night I didn’t feel particularly safe getting into the circle. I am becoming more friendly with Highway 50.

Now, back to our main theme—

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One of our candidates is shown on the teevee carrying a rifle and telling us he’s going to stop the Chinese from buying our farmland. Pete Hegseth should be proud of this testosterone-loaded commercial.

I don’t vote for testosterone. And I’ve seen enough of people who pledge to “fight” for our rights by showing us a gun instead of an original idea. Eric Greitens wore that theme down to the nubbins. He was able to blow up some targets and he couldn’t blow things up when He became one.

What this present candidate hasn’t mentioned is what he’ll do to the Chinese who already own some of our farmland—-in this case, the properties that used to be Smithfield Foods, which sold its holdings in north Missouri to Chinese interests a few years ago. Will he go into the embassy in Washington, point his gun at the ambassador and demand the Smithfield land be given back?

Charleton Heston is dead.  He was not buried with a gun in his cold dead hands. It was impossible.  He was cremated.

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And please spare me all of cow cakes about ending waste, fraud, and abuse. Anybody who makes a big deal of that in a campaign is long on slogans and short on facets and is greatly unoriginal.  PLUS, they’re insulting the hundred or thousands of people who got into public office making the same promise by implying they were liars because it’s still going on. I have yet to hear from any of those candidates who promised to root out those terrible things, stretching back for several decades, who showed me at the next election time what they had accomplished anything. PLUS PLUS, I hope these candidates are not using the Trump playbook for eliminating WFA.

Wouldn’t it be nice to find a candidate that didn’t waste my time, use a fraudulent telephone number, and abuse my intelligence, or volunteer to shoot the bogey man of the day?

The problem with too many political campaigns is that they insult the voters by treating them as idiots.

Enough of this howling in the wind.  I need to grab my Red Ryder Daisy BB Gun and chase off a Chinese land-grabber somewhere.

And don’t try to take it away me. I’m going to consult with one of those callers who wants to talk about my final expenses and tell them I want to be buried with my BB gun in my cold dead hands so that I can the security force at St. Peter’s gate.  He must be getting some real doozies of  souls knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s Door.

Notes From a Quiet Hill (Worst Campaign Commercials, Best movie scenes, Cavernous Man-Made Potholes edition)

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We’re hoping to have enough time between automated Medicare phone calls to put these thoughts together. We did get a real person once a few days ago. He wound up apologizing.

Moving on to the pithy observations:

I can understand naturally-occurring potholes.  But I’m having trouble dealing with some man-made potholes in Jefferson City. A couple of years ago I had an expensive encounter with a pothole on I-70. We don’t have anything such as that in town but we do have some that give pretty big jolts.

The resurfacing of some of our streets has left some manhole covers below the street surface. Readers in Jefferson City might be intimately familiar with a real suspension banger for cars turning right from Jefferson Street onto East Capitol Avenue. For example.

It has taken me too long to decide on an alternate way to church.  That’s not the only man-made pothole in our street system but it’s the worst I’ve encountered so far.

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Nancy and I are college graduates.  I even went to graduate school until I discovered her, at which point I got a real job so we could get married (This is only partly true but I’m not sure which part).  We, as educated people, have trouble accepting how awful the commercials are for the income tax elimination proposal on the August ballot.  In the case I’m about to cite, they are so intellectually silly that the point they want to make is lost, assuming they make a point.

Here’s the script for one that is a total turn-off in our household;

Some uninvited guests have been eating at your table for years. Property taxes and income taxes, helping themselves to money that belongs to your family. Amendment 5 shows them the door: it cuts property taxes, phases out the income tax, and shifts the burden to the big corporations that have been getting a free meal. This is your table. It’s time you had room at it. Vote YES on Amendment 5. August 4.

The shifting of the tax burden to big corporations is exactly the opposite of what we have understood the proposal to be about and the ad’s targeting of them is pretty bewildering.  As we understand the rational explanations of Amendment 5, the shift of the tax burden would be from the wealthy and the big corporations to the little guy.

Further, aren’t “big corporations” supposed to flock to Missouri because we’re cutting the taxes?  Not according to this awful commercial that says we need to “show them the door,” presumably the door out, not in.

000

The famous archaeologist Dr. Alan Grant died a few days ago.  We will always remember him for one of the most magical sequences in movie history—the day Dr. Grant saw his first living dinosaur—and when we saw it with him—and then the first dinosaur herd.

We know Dr. Grant, of course, by his real name—Sam Neill

Remember, he and the rest of the cast were not seeing what we saw on the screen, which made the acting that carried the impact of the scene so extraordinary. We were as emotionally awed as Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) were.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=sam%20neill%20sees%20a%20dinosaur&view=detail&mid=883E4913FA95A4A0FD448

Everything about the Jurassic Park movie franchise seemed formulaic after this.  But these first few moments are pure magic—and we saw them with the eyes of Alan and Ellie.

Off the top of our head we can think of few other movie scenes with the visual scope and emotional impact of those few minutes.

Perhaps our first view of the slowly revolving space station in 2001 (with perfectly chosen music making it even better). Maybe the great pull-back scene in Gone With the Wind that showed all of the casualties of the Battle of Atlanta.  Maybe the intensity of Pickett’s Charge in Ted Turner’s “Gettysburg” series.

You might have comparable scenes in your memory. Share them, if you like, in the box below.

(picture credits: Instagram)