Category Archives: events

Notes from the Minnesota War Zone II

Posted on by
Reply

A warning—do not rise to the bait. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t get the memo.  They sent their own message.

This memo was sent to at least some state employees and people at the University of Minnesota last Thursday.

The Cedar Riverside area of Minneapolis is described as a historic “point of entry for immigrants since Swedes, Germans, and Bohemians began arriving in large numbers during the late 19th century.” Today it is sometimes called “Little Mogadishu” because it has become the largest concentration of Somali-born residents in the twin cities.

A key figure in the anti-Muslim protest was Jake Lang, a January 6th participant who served four years in prison before President Trump pardoned him. Some of his rally colleagues dragged him away from the scene at Minneapolis City Hall, bleeding from the back of his head.

Reports indicate he was leading the Americans Against Islamification’s “Crusader March on ‘Little Somalia.’” One report says he intended to burn a copy of the Quran during the rally. Lang was dragged away to safety by one of his group after about ninety minutes of yelling back and forth and when the chaos that he sought to stoke went after him.

Another report says a member of the group was chased into a parking garage and struck with a flagpole. During the chaos, one of those protesting the presence of Lang’s group noticed the man was bleeding from a head wound and was heard shouting into a megaphone, “This guy needs medical help. He needs mental help. The bleeding is natural for Nazis, but he needs mental help.” When another woman, a protestor, asked the man if he needed help, he replied, “No, I’m good. Thank you, though. I appreciate you.”

It’s not clear if the two reports are referring to Lang or if there was a second man. Later, Lang texted on X from a hospital that he “was just literally LYNCHED by anti-white mob of liberal and illegal immigrants…PRESIDENT TRUMP SEND IN THE NATIONAL GUARD They are lynching White Christian Americans!!!!!”

Some will say he asked for what he got. Some who have studied contemporary accounts of lynchings will say that what happened to him is nowhere near a lynching.  And some will question whether there is anything at all Christian in his words and actions and President Trump’s roundup up of Somalis there.   .

On one hand, the worst thing that can happen is for people to give the Langs of our country the attention and reaction they provoke. On the other hand, what happened at that rally is a clear statement that good people will not stand for Trump’s ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign.

We aren’t in Minneapolis but we all should wonder how we would react if it was OUR city and OUR state being put through these experiences because they didn’t vote for Trump and don’t kiss his political ring.

Sometime the best protest is a silent, glowering presence, bristling with danger for the provocateurs but not giving them the violence they want.

But it’s easy to say that when it’s not your city and it’s not your people, your neighbors, who are endangered by someone who is really, just a petty, pitiful vengeful little man who misguidedly believes he is more than just a President of the United States.

—when he is, in fact, so much less a President and a man, and a disgrace to the office.

On the Minneapolis Front Lines

Posted on by
Reply

Minnesota—a state of Lutherans, loons, lutefisk, and Lake Wobegon—is suddenly a war zone.  To hear the Trump administration describe it, it is filled with dangerous Somali fraudsters, and as HHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it, a “domestic terrorist” got what she deserved, a woman that Vice-President Vance claimed was influenced by a vaporous “left wing network,” and that President Trump accused of “violently, willfully, and viciously” running over ICE agent Jonathan Ross—characterizations all quickly issued with absolutely no knowledge of what happened to Renee Nicole Good, a recent Kansas City resident who had moved to Minneapolis about a year ago. Her wife, Rebecca, said in a statement, “We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

A recent editorial by the Wall Street Journal disputed the fulminations from Trump, Noem, Nance and their associates: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them,” suggesting that generous benefits and numerous programs so large that comprehensive oversight is rendered impossible create opportunities for fraudsters. The Journal blamed both political parties for the situation.

When we were organizing the Missourinet in 1974, the first person I wanted on the my news staff was Jeff Smith who had worked with me at the now defunct KLIK radio station in Jefferson City right after he left Indiana University. Jeff was a terrific reporter whose career path took him into marketing and management. He and his wife Denny remain among our most cherished friends.

Jeff retired as a VP with Northwest Airlines and now is heavily engaged in non-profit work in Minneapolis. Among his colleagues are Somalis. Last week, just as the significance of the killing of Renee Good was starting to sink in, I asked Jeff and Denny to share some of their thoughts. Denny in particular has an interesting perspective on the immigrant situation, which became the focus of their comments.

Here is what they sent:

ICE Storm in Minnesota –

from Jeff and Denise (Denny) Smith

Four days ago, as we write this, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Depending on which account you believe, she was either a hero or a domestic terrorist. There’s no doubt that the event sparked a storm of outrage on our cold, wet streets.

Unfortunately, we may never get a neutral account of what happened. The Federal government is acting as the sole investigator following its role as executioner. It’s the latest trauma our community has endured in the last seven months, including a fatal school shooting and the assassination of a State Representative.

Renee Good’s death is an outcome of the Trump administration’s decision to send more than 2,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota. Trump is clearly ratcheting up his determination to punish Minnesota for being blue.

As a white woman, born in the U.S., Renee Good wasn’t the chief target of these agents’ attention. Those would be people who are brown or black.

Minnesota has been home to us for forty years, since we migrated from Missouri for a career opportunity. Thank God we didn’t move from Mogadishu. If we had migrated from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, we now would be labeled “garbage” by President Trump. If we wore a hijab or had brown skin, we would likely be afraid to leave our home, fearing an ICE agent’s impulsive imprisonment.

Somalis in Minnesota are neighbors and co-workers. They comprise the largest population outside of Mogadishu and our communities depend on them every day. Somali Americans have become integral parts of all aspects of a diverse Minnesota that ranks in the top ten states for health, education, our business environment and other measures.

Quoting the Sahan Journal, a local newspaper serving Somalis, “The vast majority of Somalis here and across the United States are U.S. citizens, and most who are not have legal permanent residency.” Among many professions, they provide needed services for people at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. They care for older adults living in our communities for seniors. They work in our food processing plants. But, according to Trump, they’re not “legitimate” Americans.

By that definition, most likely, neither are you.

Only indigenous Americans have non-immigrant roots. The Twin Cities are home to more than 8,000 tribal members. But that population also does not feel safe. Last week, ICE detained four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe because they could not provide proof of citizenship. They were unhoused and living under a bridge.

And they are not white.

Unless you are a Native American, you too are connected to an immigrant. Did your forebearers come from Poland, or Ireland, or Italy or, involuntarily, from Africa? If so, your ancestors knew what it’s like to be labeled “garbage,” or worse.

As a second-generation Sicilian, Denny’s grandparents and their families were vilified by white Americans as the new “Niggers” and were recruited to replace black cotton field workers during the great migration north by southern former slaves.

There’s always the “other” and they usually have dark skin.

We acknowledge that a few Somali Americans are at the center of the documented fraud in some Minnesota social service agencies. However, we trust that the fraudsters will receive swift justice and that the bureaucrats who allowed it will be held responsible.

We are alarmed by the Trump administration’s broad-brush judgements, especially of non-white Americans. We should not be so quick to judge entire populations. We should not be so quick to judge, period.

Our move introduced us to a region shaped by both harsh winters and remarkable cultural diversity.  Over the decades, we’ve witnessed how new waves of immigrants, from all corners of the globe, have been welcomed to the fabric of Minnesota, bringing fresh perspectives, food, traditions, and resilience. This blend of backgrounds has enriched our state and broadened our understanding of the world.

We’re glad we migrated to Minnesota and we pray for our city.

0-0-0-0-0-0

For the record: Native Americans were not recognized as general citizens of this country, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment,  until June 2, 1924 but were not guaranteed the right to vote in every state until 1948.

It’s important to hear from people such as you and me in America’s occupied areas—-because ICE is among us, too. And so are immigrants.

The death of Renee Good is a case filled with complications and Minnesota authorities are not ceding the investigation and prosecution of the case to Trump’s FBI or any other federal agency whose trustworthiness is as limited as our President’s honesty.

But the basic point to remember is this:  The “domestic terrorists” in Minneapolis are the ones sent there by President Trump to punish a state that is not in his political column. His justification that people from those places he calls a “sh—hole countries” are committing massive fraud is a blatant slander of thousands of good people and a craven excuse for his abuse of power.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board disputes Trump’s singling out of Minnesota and its Somali immigrants: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them—not immigrants or a particular culture.” Others have noted the billions of dollars poured into Pandemic relief programs have led to massive systemic nationwide fraud, suggesting that Trump’s singling out Minnesota and its Somali residents for military intervention is far beyond the limits of reality.

None of us deserves what is happening in Minneapolis and in too many other places in our country today. As Renee Good put it, “No matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

Compassion and kindness are two of the many things grievously missing in our national dialogue and particularly from our national leadership.

Maybe we’ll ask Jeff and Denny to report from the front lines of our president’s war on his own country again as the ICE campaign and the killing of a 37-year old poet simmer in this frigid time.

We All Know What Tomorrow Is

Posted on by
Reply

How can we forget?

I had been asked to keep a pandemic journal because we had no personal journals from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic that told how people survived day by day during that scary time. We share some of those times because there was, at the start, no known medicine to treat whatever it was, and—as was the case with the misnamed Sanish Flu (it could have been the Kansas Flu)—the first advice was to mask up, stay indoors, close public gathering places such as bars, restaurants, churches, etc.

I was working on my Journal on January 5, 2021, watching video of the Trump rally that was becoming more dangerous with every lie that he told. I was not very forgiving of him for years before and I will never forgive him for this day. He remains the most despicable person in public or private life I have ever run across.  I added some photos to the entry as they became available and a text of Trump’s incitement to riot a couple of days later so journal reader a century from now (or longer, of course, I hope) will know how our country survived a pandemic but darned near didn’t survive Donald Trump—the first time. As long as there is a United States of America it will be a national shame that he was elected again, and more and more people are understanding that now. Here is how I watched in horror—as I hope you did—what happened that day. Wednesday, January 6, 2021

0-0-0-0-0

I begin this entry at 1:50 p.m. while watching something happen in Washington that neither I nor my citizen ancestors going back to the days of Washington, Jefferson, and even earlier founders could have imagined—thousands of supporters of our president, egged on by him in an hour-long tirade near the White House—have laid siege to the United States Capitol, interrupting the debate on certifying results of the Electoral College. I am watching FOX, the network that has been uncomfortably friendly with our president for years, as some demonstrators are trying to break through the doors into the House of Representatives.

Reporters just said law enforcement officers are guarding the doors with guns drawn, and another of the reports said moments ago that he’s been getting text messages from ambassadors saying this country would be highly critical of other countries if anything such as this happened there.

What we are seeing is appalling.  One observer calls it “a breakdown of the constitutional process.”  It’s the most significant incursion inside our Capitol since the British attack in 1814.  There is no doubt our president stoked this outrage and has been doing it for months, years. This morning, he and his children and other supporters had a rally near the White House.  His son, Donald Junior—who hopes to become the next national chairman of the Republican Party—told the crowd that their presence should tell mainline Republicans their day is past. “It should be a message to all Republicans who have not been willing to actually fight, the people who did nothing to stop the steal. This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party. We’re going to try and give our Republicans the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”  Then his father ranted for about 90 minutes, speaking to a crowd he had been begging for several days to show up in Washington today.  He urged the protestors to go to the capitol.

They did and about an hour after Congress started the process and started dealing with the first protest—of the Arizona results the House and Senate suddenly adjourned.  When I saw that happen (on C-SPAN) I switched to CNN and then to FOX because I suspected there was trouble developing.

FOX reporters are as stunned as anybody on the other (less Trumpish) networks by what is unfolding in front of them. Others got into the hallways and office areas.

Protestors get into the capitol and are shown on video walking through Statuary Hall.

One reporter on Pennsylvania Avenue just reported things are becoming increasingly violent in the streets. Senators and Representatives are locked in their offices. The Vice-President, who was presiding over the joint session, has been evacuated.  The President apparently is in the oval office where he earlier sent a Tweet criticizing the VP for lacking courage to overturn the election results today.  That was after VP Pence told members of Congress he would not try to singlehandedly throw out electoral votes. He had sent a letter to all members of Congress saying, “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”

A few minutes ago he tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our country. Stay Peaceful!”

One senator just tweeted a picture of protestors in the Senate Chamber.

The Mayor of Washington has instituted a 6 p.m. curfew.

So far, Josh Hawley has been silent—and he’s one of those who lit this fire several days ago when he announced he would challenge the election results. He was later joined by a dozen others, and the president who “rallied” his supporters in Georgia Monday and who encouraged demonstrators this morning to march on the Capitol.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, interviewed on FOX “cannot be sadder or more disappointed. This is not the American Way. I’m with capitol police; I’ve heard on the radio shots have been fired.”   (we later learned a woman had been shot, apparently while with the crowd trying to break into the House chamber.) “This is Un-American, what’s going on.” He called on Trump to make a statement.  The president sent out a Tweet shortly after that, about 2:15: “I am asking everyone at the U. S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No Violence! Remember WE are the Party of Law & Order—respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

About the same time, Brett Baier on FOX reported Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had asked that the National Guard be deployed to clear the protestors.

2:30—FOX shows protestors breaking windows and climbing into the building.

Fox at 2:50 showed a photograph of a demonstrator sitting in the chair in Nancy Pelosi’s office.

The New York Times reported later that night that he’s from Arkansas, Matthew Rosenberg, who left a quarter on the desk and took a personalized envelope from the office. And he could be in very bad trouble. His Congressman, Steve Womack, tweeted about him, “I’m sickened to learn that the…actions were perpetrated by a constituent. It’s an embarrassment to the people of the Third District and does not reflect our values. He must be held accountable and face the fullest extent of the law. This isn’t the American or Arkansas way.”  And Arkansas Senator Jim Hendren tweeted “Don’t know this guy, but he needs to go to jail.”

Another photo shows a demonstrator sitting in the Senate President’s chair.

Haven’t seen an I-D of this creep yet.

(all Photos in this post are from Google Images)

2:52—Pelosi and Shumer call on president to go on the air and call on protestors to leave.

2:55—DOD mobilizes troops.  A barrier will be set up around the capitol, crowd to be cleared out. And a tight lockdown will be put in place.

2:20—FOX reports at least one person has been shot.

2:20—senate secured and demonstrators are being pushed out of the second and third floors of the rotunda.

3:05—President-elect Biden goes on the air.  He began, “At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times. Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America, do not represent who we are. I’m genuinely shocked and saddened that our nation, so long a beacon of hope and light for democracy, has come to such a dark moment. America’s about honor, decency, respect, tolerance. That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been.”

He demanded the president call on his supporters to end an “unprecedented assault” on democracy. “I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”  He urged the protestors to end their occupation of the House and Senate and blamed today’s violence on Trumps refusal to accept defeat. “At their best, the words of a president can inspire. At their worst, they can incite…This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.” He finished, “President Trump, step up.”

A few minutes later the White House released a taped message from Trump encouraging people to go home—-but most of his 61-second message was a whine about the election:

“I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us, it was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side.  But you have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us from me from you from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens, you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home and peace.”

We love you. You’re very special. ??????  No condemnation, no criticism.  Whine and pat these domestic terrorists you have encouraged on the heads and tell them to go home.

3:40—FOX shows video of woman shot in the capitol. She’s reported critical at a hospital. This is the only reported shot fired and only reported person injured.

It’s dusk in Washington now and reporters and city officials are worried about what will happen tonight, despite the curfew.  The Mayor and metropolitan police have announced anybody on capitol grounds after 6 p.m. will be arrested.

4:15: Rep. Steve Scalise says he hopes to get the capitol open and continue the debates tonight. Some other members reportedly feel the same way but we haven’t heard from the Congressional leadership yet.

At some point in all of this, this afternoon, the networks proclaimed John Osoff had won the Georgia Senate election although the margin is so thin that a recount is likely. He’s 33 and will be the youngest member of the Senate although not the youngest person elected. That honor goes to Joseph Biden.

About 4:55 it was announced that police think the capitol is secure again.

About an hour ago, Hawley tweeted: Thank you to the brave law enforcement officials who have put their lives on the line. The violence must end, those who attacked police and broke the law must be prosecuted, and Congress must get back to work and finish its job.

He drew three quick responses:

Samuel George

Sir – you inflicted this by rejecting the vote of the people

Your name will always be associated with today. Cool legacy.

Alex Rozar

This was your doing.

Former President George W. Bush released a statement late this afternoon “A statement on the insurrection at the Capitol,” a pretty plainspoken comment.  It’s especially impactful because he has seldom spoken about things since leaving the White House—as past presidents traditionally have done.  But there’s no love lost between the Bush family and Trump.

“Laura and I are watching the scenes of mayhem unfolding at the seat of our Nation’s government in disbelief and dismay. It is a sickening and heartbreaking sight. This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic.

“I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement. The violent assault on the Capitol — and disruption of a Constitutionally-mandated meeting of Congress — was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes.

“Insurrection could do grave damage to our Nation and reputation. In the United States of America, it is the fundamental responsibility of every patriotic citizen to support the rule of law. To those who are disappointed in the results of the election: Our country is more important than the politics of the moment. Let the officials elected by the people fulfill their duties and represent our voices in peace and safety.

 “May God continue to bless the United States of America.”

 Former President Clinton: “Today we faced an unprecedented assault on our Capitol, our Constitution, and our country. The assault was fueled by more than four years of poison politics spreading deliberate misinformation, sowing distrust in our system, and pitting Americans against one another. The match was lit by Donald Trump and his most ardent enablers, including many in Congress, to overturn the results of an election he lost.”

Former President Obama: “History will rightly remember today’s violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election, as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation. But we’d be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise. Right now, Republican leaders have a choice made clear in the desecrated chambers of democracy. They can continue down this road and keep stoking the raging fires. Or they can choose reality and take the first steps toward extinguishing the flames. They can choose America.

“I’ve been heartened to see many members of the President’s party speak up forcefully today. Their voices add to the examples of Republican state and local election officials in states like Georgia who’ve refused to be intimidated and have discharged their duties honorably. We need more leaders like these — right now and in the days, weeks, and months ahead as President-Elect Biden works to restore a common purpose to our politics. It’s up to all of us as Americans, regardless of party, to support him in that goal.”

Jimmy Carter: “This is a national tragedy and is not who we are as a nation. Having observed elections in troubled democracies worldwide, I know that we the people can unite to walk back from this precipice to peacefully uphold the laws of our nation, and we must. We join our fellow citizens in praying for a peaceful resolution so our nation can heal and complete the transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.”

Twitter has shut down our president’s access for 12 hours because of a message he put out this afternoon.  Facebook took down his “We love you” video and has banned him for 24 hours.

The Kansas City Star tomorrow morning available on line this evening:

“No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway.  

“This, Sen. Hawley, is what law-breaking and destruction look like. This is what mobs do. This is not a protest, but a riot. One woman was shot and has died, The Washington Post reported, while lawmakers were sheltering in place.

“No longer can it be asked, as George Will did recently of Hawley, “Has there ever been such a high ration of ambition to accomplishment?” Hawley’s actions in the last week had such impact that he deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed.

“Hawley was first to say that he would oppose the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. That action, motivated by ambition, set off much that followed — the rush of his fellow presidential aspirant Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Sedition Caucus to put a show of loyalty to the president above all else.

“After mayhem broke out, Hawley put out this uncharacteristically brief statement: “Thank you to the brave law enforcement officials who have put their lives on the line. The violence must end, those who attacked police and broke the law must be prosecuted, and Congress must get back to work and finish its job.” So modest, Senator, failing to note your key role in inspiring one of the most heartbreaking days in modern American history. We lost something precious on Wednesday, as condolence notes to our democracy from our friends around the world recognize.

“Among those Hawley got to emulate him was Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, whose very first act as a member of the world’s greatest deliberative body was to sell out his country by attempting to overturn the outcome of a legitimate election.

“This revolt is the result, and if you didn’t know this is where we’ve been headed from the start, it’s because you didn’t want to know.”

“’The Frankenstein just tore down the doors to the palace,” U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, told The Star. Which happened because, as he said, “One-third of the nation has bought into a bald-faced lie, and they are living in a fact-free America.’

“’I’m currently safe and sheltering in place while we wait to receive further instruction from Capitol Police,’ tweeted U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat from Kansas. ‘Today is a dark day for our country. It’s unacceptable that we have a President who has repeatedly condoned and even encouraged this despicable behavior. It must stop.’”

“We’ll say again what Davids is too polite to say: Trump did not manage this madness on his own. Far from it.

REPUBLICANS KNEW TRUMP’S FRAUD CLAIMS WERE BOGUS

“Just before the putsch began, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said sadly that we need to once again work from an agreed upon set of facts. Only now has he noticed that lying to the public on a daily basis poisons democracy.

“People have taken this too far,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Fox News. Until he had to run for cover, McCarthy was fine with this sick stunt.

“U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky, said in a statement, ‘Today’s events at the U.S. Capitol are tragic, outrageous, and devastating. They are wholly inconsistent with the values of our constitutional Republic.’

“Yes, they are. But they are wholly consistent with Trump’s calls to overturn this election to address nonexistent fraud. And they are wholly predictable, given the willingness of most Republicans to repeat these baseless claims.

“When we wrote that Hawley’s actions were dangerous — and that those of Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and others were too, in their pretending for far too long that the election wasn’t over — some readers found that absurd. ‘Oh my goodness, how will democracy and our country survive?’ one reader wrote in sarcasm. ‘How will Biden possibly govern? The Star editorial board’s hysteria over nothing is approaching CNN levels.’

“No doubt plenty of Americans will see even this free-for-all in the temple of democracy as defensible. And those of you who have excused all of the brazen lawlessness of this administration can take a little bit of credit for these events, too. They couldn’t have done it without you.

“Hawley, Marshall and other Republicans who upheld Trump’s con about widespread fraud knew all along that his claims were bogus. Now that they’ve seen exactly where those lies have landed us, decency demands that they try to prevent further violence by making clear that Joe Biden did not win by cheating. Please, gentlemen, surprise us.”

(Hawley gestures to the demonstrators this morning as he goes into the Capitol.)

About 9:30 tonight the Senate defeated the challenge to Arizona’s electoral votes 6-93 as several of the original protesting Senators withdrew their support of the challenge after today’s actions.

A TV station in San Diego (KUSI) says it has confirmed the identity of the woman who was shot to death inside the capitol.  It says she’s Ashli Babbit, a USAF 14-year veteran who did four tours overseas. The French news agency, AFP, said tonight that Babbit tweeted yesterday about those going to Washington for the rally, “Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!”,

I had said right after the election that one of my greatest concerns was how much damage Trump could do before he left.  I’ve written a couple of pretty harsh blog pieces (the most recent one was Monday) about him.  I can’t say I was surprised by what happened today—I was surprised by the scope of the events but not that there was mob violence based on his encouragement of it. Now, with two weeks to go before he departs the White House, there are some concerns being voice in tonight’s news coverage about this deranged man with his finger on the nuclear trigger remaining in his job for those 14 days.

Tonight (it’s 10:15 p.m.) there’s talk about whether steps need to be taken under the 25th Amendment to remove him.  And there are reports of several resignations from his staff and possible resignations from his cabinet or high-level staff.  There are also a lot of questions being asked about how the mob could have penetrated the Capitol security.

I don’t think I would want to be in the White House tonight.  Our president must be in a rage that borders on insanity, not only because Pence hasn’t done his bidding and Congress not only won’t do his bidding and because some of his closest associates are on the verge of bailing out, but because he has no access to s social media, no way to rant and rave at an unprecedented level.

This has been one of those days that will be a “What were you doing when….” question is asked. It’s a landmark day in national memory much as the Kennedy assassinations and the King murder and the Moon landing, and the Twin Towers attack (and in Jefferson City’s case, the 2019 tornado). This one is so special because even the Kennedy and King assassinations didn’t leave people this shaken about the future of our republic.

It’s now after midnight.  The TV nets are reporting the streets of Washington are quiet.  The day’s toll, according to various reports:  Four dead—one shot to death by a police officer and three who had medical emergencies.  Fourteen police injured , two hospitalized, one critical.

The joint session re-convened. Two or three protests were offered but none had a Senator’s name on it—the first House member with one protest said the Senators had withdrawn their names. The count stopped with Pennsylvania when several House members and Senators Hawley and Cruz filed a protest.  The Senate dispatched with the Hawley-Cruz part of it 7-92.  The House is voting down the protest on its side of things but it’s time to call it a terrible day and go to bed.

While all of this has been going on, the common folks were dealing with the coronavirus.  MODOH reports yesterday’s positivity rate was 21.5% and hospitalizations just under 2800. Nationally, yesterday was the deadliest day in the pandemic.

0-0-0-0-0

And now, five years later, having witnessed his tragic-for-our nation return and his actions pardoning himself and his “peaceful tourist” followers from any responsibility for those events, having witnessed his and his followers’ efforts to turn Ashley Babbit into a martyr, having watched him try to prosecute those who would have prosecuted him if he had not kept his lies about that day alive and current, we are starting to see many of those who lacked courage to challenge him then and again in 2024 starting to realize what they have unleashed up on our freedoms and our national honor.  Overseas, America’s symbol is Trump and it is a symbol that is daily destructive to our position in the world as a creator of and defender of freedom.

History will look at this generation of Americans and will ask, “How could they have gone so wrong?”  Scholars will analyze and theorize, none of which will change what we are because of that day and the days since that all of us have witnessed.

It is 2026. Change seems to be coming. But as it evolves, the movements behind Trump and January 6 are returning also, Oath Keepers, Conspiracy theorists, and the Super-Religious Patriots who see power as more holy than service and who see their God in Trump.  This is going to be an ugly year. But a year from now the nation will emerge battered, perhaps soon to be without him, although bearing the deep scars he has left. We must believe the Better Angels will outlast him and we then can get about the business of rebuilding our country.

A DEI Christmas Hymn

Posted on by
1

This is a night I look forward to every year—the Christmas Eve service at our church, an evening we are drawn together in peace and in awe. We’ll probably hear the choir sing a song or two from our Christmas cantata the Sunday before last, and we’ll join in congregational singing of familiar hymns, hear the Great Story told again, and head out in the inspired quiet that follows.  Maybe we’ll drive around a little bit and take in yard decorations—a trip down a street long known as “Christmas Tree Lane” perhaps. Some years it’s cold and some years there’s snow and it looks and feels like Christmas. But it’s Christmas regardless of weather, regardless of neighborhood, regardless of culture.

I love the magnificence of some of the traditional Christmas music but I think the hymn that carries a special Christmas message, particularly in these times, is my favorite or at least very close to the top of my list of favorites.

It is music written in 1951 by Alfred Burt, a minister who died much too young, with lyrics by his church’s secretary, Wihla Hutson—who provide lyrics for music the Burts, senior and junior, wrote for their cards each year.  The Burt hymns are gentle and lovely.  The Jimmy Joyce Singers put out an album of them more than fifty years ago. It’s on Youtube and the CD is still available.

Here’s a hymn that’s probably unacceptable to some. But I think it needs to be played, sung, and heard by everybody—because it’s about everybody.

We have several videos at the end to let you hear how various people and groups perform this universal song.

Some Children See Him   (Wihla Hutson and Alfred S. Burt  1951)

Some children see him lily white,                                                                                    The baby Jesus born this night.                                                                                      Some children see him lily white                                                                                      With tresses soft and fair.

Some children see him bronzed and brown,                                                                  The Lord of Heaven to earth come down.                                                                      Some children see him bronzed and brown                                                                    With dark and heavy hair.

Some children see Him almond-eyed,                                                                            This savior here we kneel beside.                                                                                  Some children see him almond-eyed                                                                              With skin of yellow hue.

Some children see Him dark as they,                                                                            Sweet Mary’s son to whom we pray.                                                                              Some children see Him dark as they,                                                                              And Ah! They love Him too.

The children in each different place                                                                                 Will see the baby Jesus’ face                                                                                         Like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace                                                                       And filled with holy light.

Oh, lay aside each earthly thing                                                                                      And with thy heart as offering                                                                                        Come worship now the infant king                                                                                  ‘Tis love that’s born tonight.

Carolyn Mawbry Chorale Some Children See Him arr. Jay Rouse

Bebe Williams sings: (1325) Some Children See Him (feat. Bebe Winans) – YouTube

Tennessee Ernie Ford: Some Children See Him

John Williams with the Boston Pops, the Boston Children’s Choir, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus: John Williams: The Carols of Alfred Burt

The complete album:

Jimmy Joyce – This Is Christmas: The Complete Collection Of Alfred S. Burt Carols in 4k (1964)

The Peace Speech

Posted on by
Reply

Less than six months before his murder, President Kennedy spoke to the graduating class at American University in Washington, D.C.  It became known as his “Peace Speech.”

Today we are going to recall those remarks, delivered June 10, 1963 because they speak of a nation to which we should yearn to return and to be dissatisfied with leaders who want to deliver anything less.

We are not engaging in nostalgia with this entry. We are engaging in hope as it was embodied in a President who believed in doing for his country, not for himself, and summoning his generation to follow in that spirit.

(If you wish to hear President Kennedy’s voice as you follow along, go to Bing Videos.)

The ‘Peace Speech’

It is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the American University, sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

This is a young and growing university, but it has already fulfilled Bishop Hurst’s enlightened hope for the study of history and public affairs in a city devoted to the making of history and to the conduct of the public’s business. By sponsoring this institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, whatever their color or their creed, the Methodists of this area and the Nation deserve the Nation’s thanks, and I commend all those who are today graduating.

Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time, and I am confident that the men and women who carry the honor of graduating from this institution will continue to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service and public support.

“There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,” wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities — and his words are equally true today.

He did not refer to towers, or the campuses. He admired the splendid beauty of a university, because it was, he said, “a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.”

I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived – and that is the most important topic on earth: Peace.

What kind of a peace do I mean? What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age where great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War.

It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament — and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it.

But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude — as individuals and as a Nation — for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward — by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First, examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view.

Our problems are manmade. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and we believe they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and goodwill of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions, on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace, no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers.

Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process, a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor, it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.

And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

And second, let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims, such as the allegation that “American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars, that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union, and that the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries and to achieve world domination by means of aggressive wars.”

Truly, as it was written long ago: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning — a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and families were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland, a loss equivalent to the destruction of this country east of Chicago.

Today, should total war ever break out again, no matter how, our two countries will be the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours.

And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so many countries, including this Nation’s closest allies, our two countries bear the heaviest burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combat ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle with suspicion on one side breeding suspicion on the other, and new weapons begetting counterweapons.

In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours, and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Third, let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.

We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists’ interest to agree on a genuine peace.

Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy, or of a collective death-wish for the world.

To secure these ends, America’s weapons are non-provocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.

For we can seek a relaxation of tension without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people, but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth.

Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system — a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.

At the same time we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist world, where many nations, all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western unity, which invite Communist intervention or which threaten to erupt into war. Our efforts in West New Guinea, in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the Indian subcontinent, have been persistent and patient despite criticism from both sides. We have also tried to set an example for others by seeking to adjust small but significant differences with our own closest neighbors in Mexico and Canada.

Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are bound to many nations by alliances. These alliances exist because our concern and theirs substantially overlap. Our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin, for example, stands undiminished because of the identity of our vital interests. The United States will make no deal with the Soviet Union at the expense of other nations and other peoples, not merely because they are our partners, but also because their interests and ours converge.

Our interests converge, however, not only in defending the frontiers of freedom, but in pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope, and the purpose of allied policies, to convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation choose its own future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the choices of others.

The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.

This will require a new effort to achieve world law, a new context for world discussions. It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased understanding will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of the other’s actions which might occur at a time of crisis.

We have also been talking in Geneva about our first-step measures of arms control designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and reduce the risks of accidental war. Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament, designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms.

The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this Government since the 1920’s. It has been urgently sought by the past three administrations. And however dim the prospects are today, we intend to continue this effort, to continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.

The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security, it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.

I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard.

First: Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking toward early agreement on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind.

Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on this matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it.

Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives, as many of you who are graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home.

But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete.

It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government — local, State, and National — to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within our authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever the authority is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of others and respect the law of the land.

All this is not unrelated to world peace. “When a man’s ways please the Lord,” the Scriptures tell us, “he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights, the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation, the right to breathe air as nature provided it, the right of future generations to a healthy existence?

While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can — if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers, offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough, more than enough, of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it.

But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on, not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

-0-

The speech was delivered only eighteen years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and only eight months after the Cuban Missile Crisis that frightened leaders of both countries into starting back-door discussions. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev called it “the greatest speech by any American president since Roosevelt.”

A few weeks later, the United States and Russia signed the first nuclear test ban treaty outlawing tests in the atmosphere, under water, and in outer space.

But that was then. This is now.

Maybe in looking back we can find hope in moving forward

(Photo credit: Google Images)

Sports; Tigers Having a Long Drink and Wait for a Bowl; Chief Playing for Highest Draft Pick in Years; It’s Basketball Season 

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZFB)—Missouri ground up Arkansas and spit it out as it wrapped up its 8-4 season that leaves fans with several “what ifs.”   What if Sam Horn hadn’t lost his season in his first game of the year? What if Beau Pribula had not lost three games with his ankle injury and wasn’t mobile for a fourth? What if the team’s field goal kicker had not been hurt.

—all of which is meaningless, of course. Missouri is 29-9 in these last three seasons with a chance to win 30 games in three years for only the third time (Missouri was 30-11 twice, from 2007-09 and from 2006-2008) in school history. For the record, Missouri went 40-14 from 2007-2010, 38-16 from 2006-2009 and 36-17 from 2008-2011.

Three Tigers had more than 100 yard of offense in the game: Ahmad Hardy with 149 rushing yards, Jamal Roberts with another 100, and Pribula, who was 4-7 passing for only 25 yards but who ran for 78.  It’s Hardy’s eighth 100-yard game of the year.

(POTY)—Despite Hardy’s performance, including his astonishing tackle-busting TD run, SEC Player of the Week honors went to two other Tigers.

Wide receiver Kevin Coleman Jr., was named Special Teams POTW for his 67-yard punt return for a touchdown, the first return for a Missouri touchdown since 2022.  Defensive tackle Chris McClellan was the defensive lineman of the week for recording two sacks and three pressures. His sack after Coleman’s return created a six-yard loss on first down, putting the Razorbacks in a hole they couldn’t get out of, forcing a three-and-out that stifled any chance for a rally.

(MIZPOLLS)—Missouri will go to its bowl game as a ranked team, but just barely. The AP sportswriters led Missouri squeak in at 25 in their poll, only a couple of votes ahead of Tennessee.  The Tigers aren’t so highly regarded by coaches. Iowa and Houston are ahead of Missouri as the first teams outside the top 25 of their poll.

(DOAK)—Ahmad Hardy’s yardage against Arkansas moves him to 1,560 for the year, just 28 yards behind Jacksonville State’s Cam Cook.  He is one of the three finalists for the Doak Walker Award, given to the best running back in college football for the year. It’s named for the SMU All-American who won the Maxwell Award in 1947 and the Heisman Trophy in 1948.

How do the three stack up statistically?  Physically, really close. Performance-wise, close.

Ahmad Hardy  Missouri  5-10  206 pounds  241 carries 1560 yds.   6.5 average 16 TD

Kewan Lacy Ole Miss  5-11  200 pounds  258 carries 1279 yds.  5.0 average  20 TD

Jeremiah Love  Notre Dame  6-0  214 pounds   199 carries  1372 yds.  6.9 average  18 TD

Love is a Junior. Hardy and Lacy are Sophomores.

Here’s one stat that might give Hardy a leg-up, if you will: More than 1,000 of his yards have come after breaking at least one tackle.  His 53-yard touchdown run through, it seemed, the entire Arkansas defense could be a clincher.

Instagram

(DRINKWITZ)—His team won’t win ten games this year but Tiger Coach Eli Drinkwitz has won a bid extension to his contract—six years with an average paycheck of #10.75 million. The University Board of Curators authorized the extension through the 2031 season after rumor increased that he was on the short list of coach choices in several major universities.

The six-year deal is two more years than the extension he signed earlier. It’s worth $64.5 million, putting Drinkwitz in the top-ten list of football coach salaries.

He was frustrated by all of the speculation about his possible candidacy for a job elsewhere. He said he was never interviewed for any of the high-profile positions that gossip put as a favorite to take: Penn Sate, LSU, Florida, or Auburn. He said after the Arkansas game, “We’ve got to figure this out, where we’re not putting pressure on coaches and programs and people during the middle of the week where there’s nothing but speculation…We’ve got Twitter trending with bets on who’s going to be leading or get this job… That’s annoying. That’s bullcrap. OK? And it’s just speculation, it’s just media throwing stuff on the wall, and it’s tough on everybody. It’s tough on players, it’s tough on coaches…I just felt like we weren’t done yet. That north end zone isn’t completed. And, so, my job here is not completed yet.”

In his six years at Mizzou, the Tigers are 46-28 and 26-24 in the SEC. He’s 58-29 in his career after gpomg12-1 as a first-year coach at Appalachian State. The Mountaineers finished 18th and 19th in the polls that year.

(MIZMBB)—The undefeated season-opening string for the Missouri Tigers has reached eight games with a Dennis Gates homecoming win at Cleveland State, the school from which Missouri hired him four years ago. The hiring became something of a swap because Cleveland hired former Missouri coach (and former Gates assistant), Rob Summers, as its head coach.

The Tigers were never challenged in their 86-59 win, running off the first 23 points of the game. The Vikings were scoreless for half of the first half. Five Tigers were in double figures with Jacob Crews finishing with 19.

Seven-foot-five center Trent Burns saw action in his second straight game as he works his way back into shape after foot surgery. Although he was in for only six minutes and didn’t score, he two rebounds, a block, and a pair of assists.

Things get more serious now. The Tigers play Notre Dame tonight before facing the Kansas Jayhawks in Kansas City on the 7th.

Missouri got the 28th most vote from the AP, the 29th most from the coaches. Notre Dame did not receive any points in either poll. The Fighting Irish roundballers are 5-3.

Kansas is 21st in both with a 6-2 record.

(MIZWBB) The women’s team is off to a 7-2 start after a big win against Northwestern in the Fort Myers Tip-Off in Florida. The Lady Tigers used Grace Slaughter’s 33 points to win 85-70. It was a landmark day for two people.  Slaughter’s last bucket got her to 1,000 career points. It also lifted coach Kellie Harper to her 400 win.

Five players racked up double figures for Mizzou with Shanno Dowell getting her fourth double-double of the year—12 points and 13 rebounds.  Northwestern drops to 6-1.

Missouri faces California in the ACC/SEC Challenge Thursday night in Columbia. The Tiger women received no votes in this week’s Ap women’s basketball poll.  (ZOU)

(POST-SEASON)—Northwest Missouri State made it to the Division II playoffs but didn’t make it past Harding, losing 38-16 in the first round.

Missouri State and Delaware are the last two teams to get into the 82-team FBS post-season tournament. The Bears will learn next Sunday who their first-round opponent will be. They’re 7-5 (5-3 in Conference USA) after losing their last regular-season game, 42-30 to Louisiana Tech.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs continue to make it appear likely they’ll be in the best position inyears for the college draft next Spring. Their 31-28 loss to the Dallas Cowboys dropped their record to 6-6.

There still is time to mess up their draft status, though. Last year the Chiefs also had split their first dozen games and wound up in the Super Bowl.

It was a familiar story against Dallas—inconsistency, a leaky offensive line, momentum-robbing penalties, and a vulnerable defense.

(BASEBALL)—Other than the Sonny Gray trade to the Red Sox for two minor league pitchers, the Cardinals have been pretty quiet. Any speculation that reliever Ryan Helsley would come back to St. Louis after his trade last season to the Mets has been killed by Halsley’s two-year $28 million dollar deal with the Orioles.

The Royals have been quiet, too.

Nineteen of the game’s top 25 free agents remain unsigned as we head to the winter meetings, starting December 10 in Dallas.

As we experience our first bitter cold and snow of the winter, here’s a warming reminder—Pitchers and catchers report for spring training on February 11. The days can’t pass fast enough.

Speaking of things that are fast—

(INDYCAR)—The 110th Indianapolis 500 next May will have an even more patriotic mood about it than usual, as the race and the nation celebrate the 250th anniversary of the document that created our nation, the Declaration of Independence.

The first part of the race’s promotion is the unveiling of next year’s logo.

The speedway says, “the logo colors directly match those of the American flag. The shield harkens back to the coat of arms, now called the Great Seal of the United States. The red stripes represent the stripes of the flag, as well as the wings of the IMS Wing & Wheel logo, while the four stars represent IMS’s four “founding father.”

At least one of the cars will carry the theme.  A. J. Foyt Racing will have this car for Santino Ferrucci next year.

HFOT stands for Homes For Our Troops a nonprofit organization that provides custom homes for severely injured post 9/11 veterans. A team statement says, “Most of these veterans have sustained injuries, including multiple limb amputations, partial or full paralysis, blindness, severe burns, and/or severe traumatic brain injury.

(NASCAR)—The antitrust lawsuit filed by two NASCAR Cup teams against the sanctioning body (and owner of most of the tracks where the series’ major races are run has begun. The pre-trial climate has been increasingly ugly and the trial is expected to follow suit.

(FORMULA1)—The last race of the last major racing series to call it a year will be Abu Dabi next weekend. Max Verstappen’s win last weekend moves him to only 12 points behind Lado Naorris.

 

 

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear (of Ourselves)  

Posted on by
Reply

It was a cool-ish morning, a few degrees above chilly and several degrees above cold, the early sun making the warmth inside my car welcoming a few hours after results of this week’s elections had been announced.

As I had fast-walked my mile around the track at the Knowles YMCA in Jefferson City a few minutes earlier, two moments in history came to me as I thought about the first elections since Donald Trump began his second term.  Two phrases from those events  seemed appropriate:

“The people are coming, armed with pitchforks”  and “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

And I thought the Tuesday results amounted to the people armed with political pitchforks, a story springing from the French Revolution of 1789. And my mind added a phrase: “and the grooves in the guillotine are being greased.”

It was October 5, 1789 when 7,000 angry women, armed not only with pitchforks but with pikes and muskets, marched six miles in the rain from Paris to the palace at Versailles to confront Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette about the people in Paris who were starving while the Royal First Family of France ate well in their palace. There had been significant events preceding the march including the famous Storming of the Bastille, the infamous Paris fortress and a prison for Parisians charged with various offenses against the crown, and the circulation of “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

Four days before the march, a banquet was thrown at the palace, welcoming the troops that had arrived to protect the royal family. There were toasts and expressions of loyalty to the throne, a lavish banquet that outraged the hungry people in Paris when the newspapers publicized it.

Now, on October 5, those 7,000 rain-dampened working women were at the palace chanting “Bread, Bread,” to the rhythm of a beating drum, a moment captured two centuries later in the Broadway musical Les Miserables:

When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

The twenty-thousand French National Guardsmen were unable to keep the women from breaching the gates and demanding Marie face them alone, which she did from a balcony. The mob by now recognized the strength of its position and demanded that she and the King accompany them back to Paris to witness the misery of the people from whom bread had been withheld.

They had no choice. The next day, they became prisoners of the revolution and two years later went to the guillotine.

The dropping of the blade on the neck of Louis XVI meant the future of France would involve no kings.

We will learn more a year from now how much the story of the No Kings movement in France almost 250 years ago will be played out in our streets against President Trump, who held a sumptuous Great Gatsby Party at Mar-a-Lago hours before the Food Stamp Program expired, leaving millions of his citizens wondering how they could afford bread and other necessities of life as he and his friends dined on fine food.

Tuesday’s election results from coast to coast showed an undeniable revolt against Donald Trump.  It is easy and perhaps simplistic to draw parallels with his party and the banquet at Versailles in 1789, when a ruler and his supporters ate very well at a time when many Americans wondered if they could afford bread—and other necessities.

Trump’s reaction to the results illustrates his tone-deaf self-centeredness, his attitude that he is above the mob: “Trump wasn’t on the ballot, and shutdown, were two reasons that Republicans lost elections tonight, according to pollsters,” he wrote in all capital letters on his social media page.  As usual, he did not cite any pollsters supporting his attitude.

The fact is, Trump WAS on the ballot Tuesday.  And his party loyalists who have tried to blame the shutdown entirely on minority Democrats clearly have not convinced a lot of voters they are speaking the truth.

Trump never campaigned for any of his party’s candidates in this election cycle. In the New York Mayor’s race, he didn’t even endorse his party’s candidate and his name-calling against the eventual winner failed bigly.

Our two political parties face important decisions in the aftermath..  Democrats need to keep the public pot boiling for 2026, perhaps not a huge problem as long as Donald Trump keeps doing and saying Donald Trump things.

Is it already too late for Republicans to keep control?  A year is a long time in politics. Candidates and parties historically have found ways to get off the mat.  The Democrats did it Tuesday. But Republicans surely must be questioning how much continued slavish loyalty to Donald Trump will be a major liability for them as individuals and as a party in 2026.

How relevant will Donald Trump be to what the party needs to do in the next year to avoid being irrelevant to voters?  The party surely must confront the reality of the danger Donald Trump embodies to its continued power.  How will the party move beyond him for its self-preservation?

Mayor-elect Zahron Mamdani of New York told well-wishers Tuesday night, “We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.  After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”

On March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt opened his first inaugural address this way:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today.

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

Republicans surely understand that they have been warned, that the No Kings rallies are now emboldened, the pitchforks are out, and the pikes are ready for Republican heads next year. The beating of the drum and the beating of the national heart will intensify.

After Tuesday’s elections, it appears the only thing the Republican Party has to fear is itself.

 

The Hating Terrorists

Posted on by
Reply

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preserving the Truth of History

Posted on by
Reply

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

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

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

This is how the speech concluded:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He is right…but he is right about himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is our responsibility, our challenge, as historians.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-0-

 We are Victims of Trump’s Absurd Tariffs

Posted on by
Reply

—-and I am furious.

(My monthly guest column on the editorial page of the Jefferson City News-Tribune addressed this topic yesterday but of necessity it was much shorter and somewhat less candid, perhaps because I had lowered the steam pressure after starting on this version.)

There must be a reason why the highly-praised Wharton School that President Trump attended has never invited him back as a speaker. I wonder if anyone has investigated to find out who wrote his papers for him or even took tests for him.

His favorite course must have been Bankruptcy 101 and he must have slept through class every day the word “tariff” came up. The graduation program for his class does not list him for any honors and just has his name among all of the other graduates.

Stop me before I tell you what I really think.

Here is a story some nice people in a gentle English town. Stay with us. By the time we are finished the story will be about a person in a big American town who puts the “bully” into the ;political phrase “bully pulpit.”

(The phrase began with Theodore Roosevelt, one of the four faces on Mt. Rushmore, a monument he thinks he should—something even less possible than him winning the Nobel Price for Peace.)  TR used the word “bully” as an adjective for “wonderful” or “superb.”

Sorry about that. We have wandered off the path.

Grasmere, a village of about 4,500 people in England’s Lake District, has been known for decades as the home of numerous poets, writers, artists, philosophers and other notables.

Poets William and sister Dorothy Wordsworth described it as “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found.”

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) are considered the founders of English Literature’s “Romantic Age.” Coleridge is said to have “muttered stanzas” of the Rime” while walking about the countryside nearby. The Wordsworths lived for a few years in Dove Cottage, where Coleridge also lodged for a time.

The Dove Cottage is still there as is The Swan, an inn where William sometimes dined with the famous poet Walter Scott.

More recently, Gordon Matthews Thomas Sumner had a home there. The world knows him better as the musical artist, Sting.

Perhaps better known than the poets, philosophers, and other notables who have lived there is Beatrix Potter, who gave the world Peter Rabbit and his friends. She also lived in the Lake District.

It was a coolish, dampish English day when we were there and we didn’t get to spend as much time as we wished, but that’s a penalty we paid for trying to hit some of the highlights of three countries—England, Wales, and Scotland in two weeks.

We had our lunch at the Grasmere Tea Room, ate outside on that pleasantly cool afternoon. I think we had Paninis, having a desire to break from fish and chips (we call them French Fries here). But we had been warned of interlopers that we were told were particularly aggressive that day—Jackdaws, a relative of crows and ravens. They liked to snatch food from tables.

Grasmere is, as is the case with many European communities, an old place, one where a 200-year old building is still relatively new.  We have avoided describing it as “picturesque” because we imagine the locals have heard their town referred to that way and it has become cloying to them.

And “quaint” is a condescending word, too, so we didn’t use it.  We liked Grasmere. It’s one of several small places we visited that we’d like to return to, despite the Jackdaws.

To the ancient Celts, Jackdaws were sacred birds that nested in church steeples, symbolic church guards. Like their Crow and Raven relatives, they are considered quite intelligent. We kind of thought the one perched on the back of a chair about twenty feet from our table was scheming to poach some of our lunch. But we kept a sharp eye on it and never let it have a chance.

What has all of this to do with Trump’s politically silly and nationally-damaging tariffs? We have vented about this in earlier posts but this time it’s personal.

Our excellent tour guide, Charlie Reader, gave us something else for which Grasmere is widely known.

We each got a couple of hand-wrapped gingerbreads. And we loved them.

More than 170 years ago, Victorian Cook Sarah Nelson began making gingerbreads in her 17th century home, using her “secret recipe” (that is still secret).  Grasmere Gingerbreads are a cross between a cake and what the English call a biscuit—a cracker to us.

Sarah’s secret recipe now is guarded by Joanne and Andrew Hunter, third generation owners of the business which still operates from Sarah’s house. I wish we had known of the gingerbread house before we left the town—and had the time to visit it.  But bus tours being bus tours, we had to be on our way after lunch.

The BBC has provided some looks at Sarah’s story and the wonderful products she created.

Bing Videos

Bing Videos

When we got home, I decided to secretly order a dozen of these gingerbreads to be delivered to our home each month. It was going to be a surprise Christmas present for Nancy but the surprise fell though when Diane Gallagher (probably) called from Grasmere and Nancy answered the phone. “There’s a lady from Grasmere on the phone asking for you,” she announced before listening to the conversation. Diane was calling to confirm the order.  The first order came in the tin you see here. Subsequent orders have come in hand-wrapped paper packaging and are refills for the tin.

Each month we have looked forward to finding our little package by our front door about the 10th of each month.  But on September 5, we received a note from Diane announcing the package had been shipped three days earlier but she understood “there have been delays at Customs and your parcel is due for delivery today.”

Then she wrote:

We believe the delays are because the US Government has now abolished the exemption for any parcel under a value of $800 from import duties.  This may mean that you will be liable for import duties on delivery of the parcel.  We are still trying to find out exactly what this will mean in monetary terms, but have reason to believe that for the next six months there will be a flat fee of $80 per parcel being sent from the UK. 

Eighty dollars on a $30 package!!!

This is the results of Donald Trump’s ill-advised removal of the “de minimis” exemption for small packages from foreign countries. Packages worth less than $800 were exempt from tariffs until August 29 when he decided even the smallest item would cost a lot more.

The Universal Postal Union says postal deliveries from around the world to the United States dropped by EIGHTY PERCENT within two weeks after our economic genius President scribbled his name on the bottom of his executive order.

We were supposed to take delivery on Wednesday, September 10. Instead we got a “reschedule” notice from UPS telling us, “UPS is preparing your package for clearance. We will notify you if additional information is needed.”

Diane told us it would be okay to refuse to pay the duties. Afterward the company could tell the UPS to destroy the parcel and the amount remaining on our order would be refunded.

The order from Grasmere was held up for the better part of a week before it cleared customs in Louisville, Kentucky (why Louisville, we don’t know), and was to arrive at our house on Wednesday, September 10.

We decided to pay the duty because the folks in Grasmere had produced the gingerbreads and had shipped them to us in good faith but we decided to have them hold onto the rest of our funds until our country regained this small part of its sanity and allows something so benign as Grasmere Gingerbread to be shipped to Missouri without a duty or a tariff that our President is unable to admit punishes his own citizens.

Trump says his tariffs will force foreign manufacturers to build factories in this country. I am quite sure that Joann and Andrew Hunter are not going to establish a gingerbread manufacturing plant in this country because of this petty policy.

But if you are accumulating evidence of how idiotic Trump’s tariff policy is working, we offer this observation as a good example.

We are puzzled by the whole tariff/duty business even more because while we were waiting for our gingerbreads to trickle through the customs bureaucracy, we found a book on our doorstep that we had ordered from a company in Delhi, India.  It took only ten days from the day I ordered it for it to arrive. I ordered the book on September 5. The company in Delhi gave it to FedEx on the tenth and five days later it was on my doorstep. Clearly, somebody in the customs office was asleep at the switch.

The gingerbreads?  They were mailed on September 2, three days before the book was ordered and eight days before the book was shipped.

On Friday, September 25, we got a notice from UPS:

The status of your package has changed.

Exception Reason: The customs clearance has failed and the shipment is abandoned

UPS told us on September 10 that the package was being prepared for clearance. We were to be notified if more information was needed.  We were not notified of anything until the message that Grasmere Gingerbread package apparently is such a threat to our national security that it would be dangerous for it to be shipped from Louisville, Kentucky where it has been losing its freshness for three weeks.

We got a new note from from Diane;

On 18th September we asked UPS to destroy the parcels that had not cleared Customs, but it appears that this has not yet happened for all parcels.  As well as the severe delays through Customs, it appears that parcels valued at less than £20 are incurring import duties of just under $70, which is just not viable.  For these reasons, our directors have taken the decision to suspend shipping to the US and Canada temporarily. 

I am very sorry about this. 

UPS told us:

Exception Reason: Package cannot clear due to customs delay or missing info. Attempt to contact sender made. Package has been disposed of.

Amazing. After all these months, UPS told us the reason UPS apparently could not get a straight answer from the customs people about the reason—it’s either “customs delay” or it’s “missing info.”  What missing info?   We are unlikely to ever learn why there was a delay and what information was missing in this shipment that wasn’t a problem earlier.

It’s a little package of a dozen Gingerbreads, for God’s sake!!!

It’s disgusting. But our president has taken “disgusting” to unprecedented levels in so many things.

I have notified Diane of our sincere apologies for the embarrassment this administration is. I wish we could go back to that beautiful part of our world to do it in person—-

—because he is creating so many things to apologize to the world for.

Is it too late for Wharton to ask for its diploma back?

(photos by BP. Gingerbread by the Grasmere Gingerbread Co., videos from the BBC)