Category Archives: government

A Slightly Warped Sense of Humor

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If reporters didn’t have a warped sense of humor, we probably couldn’t do what we do.  Humor, even dark humor, helps us deal with the often tragic, often weird, often absurd things and people we have to cover.

Perhaps that’s why I used to have a series of offbeat posters that I changed monthly at my desk in the Missourinet newsroom.

These posters, from a company called Despair, Inc., are the opposite of the supposedly inspirational posters found in many workplaces.  Beautiful pictures with some saccharine sentiment beneath them.

The folks at Despair turn that concept on its head.

I suppose this could be seen as a blatant plug for this company’s products.  Actually, it’s more of a paen to the creative folks who tell us that we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.

We badly need those who try to tell us that.  We wonder if a sense of humor can be found in our today’s politics. Everybody is so blasted serious—-and for those of us who abhor all of the divisiveness in our system today—-Good Lord, we have reached the point of physical confrontations in the hallways of the House of Representatives in Washington to an instigated near-brawl in the Senate committee hearing—there is no shortage of seriousness. One of my reporters once told me, “They have it all backwards. They take themselves seriously, not their jobs.”

We need a Will Rogers IN the government, the guy who remarked:

“The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.”

“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer.”

“The more you read and observe about this politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”

“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”

“On account of us being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.”

“If all politicians fished instead of speaking publicly, we would have peace in the world.”

Or Mark Russell, who used to entertain us at the piano, on PBS from 1975 into 2004, whose death last March 30th escaped our notice.  He was 90.   He was introduced once by someone who noted, “Before there ws a John Stewart or a Stephen Colbert, there was Mark Russell.”

That was 2018, when Russell told the audience, “I’m not going to do any new political humor. Why?  Because there’s no material.”

He once asked about the Adopt A Highway program, “If a gay couple adopts a highway, will the highway grow up straight?”

The difference between Republicans and Democrats: “A Republican says,’We’re in a recovery.’  A Democrat says, ‘You shouldn’t enjoy it.’”

“A fool and his money is a lobbyist.”

Here’s a compilation of some of his performances:

Bing Videos

The story is told of the day in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln called a special meeting of his War Cabinet.  When the members filed into the room, they found Lincoln reading a humor book. He laughed as he shared a story from the book. When nobody else laughed, Lincoln read another story. Again, no response. Lincoln looked at his cabinet and asked, “Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh?  With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.”

And after that, he showed the cabinet the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

And so we need people like those at Despair who turn our contemporary cares on their heads with their demotivational posters.

There’s one I wish was available in my working days.  It shows a stack of papers and the poster is entitled “Media.”  The text reads, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies right to our faces.”

I think I’ll buy that one for the good folks in today’s Missourinet newsroom

Take the 25th 

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Something to ponder.

If Donald Trump becomes an imprisoned felon after winning election, can he become President?

Yes, even if he is inaugurated in his cell. Then we have to wonder if he will pardon himself before beginning his inaugural address to the smallest audience in inauguration history.

Ah, but there could be mischief afoot.

Let’s see if we can start a conspiracy theory.  We are not attributing it to anyone famous.  We’ll leave that to others because a conspiracy theory won’t work unless somebody famous is leading an organization behind it.

We are going to try to stage this so that anyone trying to pin it on the Left will have to acknowledge that there are quislings* also involved on the Right.

The only qualifications to become President of the United States are in the U. S. Constitution—that the person be at least 35, a natural-born citizen and a resident hee for at least fourteen years .  There is no morals clause in the document.

Congress could pass a Constitutional Amendment banning a convicted felon but that will take a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the Congress  and ratification by three-fourths of the states, a tall order to get done before inauguration day, 2025.

The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits anyone who has engaged in rebellion or insurrection against the United States from holding any office. But none of the 91 charges against our former president specifically accuse him of “engaging in rebellion or insurrection.’ Whether a case for insurrection-by-association can be built is being tested in some courts now.

We’ve never had a president who has a felony conviction. They’ve done all kinds of other things (fought in wars, impregnated mistresses, hanged someone, etc.,) and suspected of others, but they’ve never been convicted of a felony.

Convicted felons can serve in Congress. State laws might keep them from voting for themselves back home or from having guns, but the Constitution has no ban on them serving, either.

And that brings to the 25th Amendment.

Suppose Trump is convicted. And suppose he is elected.

The New Congress will have convened a couple of weeks before inauguration day. Let’s assume the D’s have regained control.  Here is what the 25th Amendment says about a president’s inability to serve:

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department [sic][note 2][7] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Now we get to the conspiracy theory:

The Vice-President is sworn in before the President is.  Always.  This person is the key to the entire drama. This person is in cahoots with those who want the former president to keep putting a golf ball into a plastic cup on the other end of his cell.

Look at the first section of the amendment which says that the VP and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments (the cabinet) or of such other body as Congress by law may provide transmit to the leaders of the Senate and the House a written declaration that the President can’t do his job…..

Immediately upon the imprisoned President finishing his oath, a committee created by a Congress controlled by the other party submits a declaration against the President before he can sign his own pardon. The VP takes over and the inaugurated president remains in his cell.

Now, the next section comes to the fore.  The imprisoned President immediately files a letter that declares “no inability exists” and, therefore, he shall resume the duties of the office UNLESS the VP and a majority of the cabinet OR that special committee that wrote the original declaration maintains the President still cannot perform his duties from a prison cell. The Congress by a two-thirds vote can declare the president, indeed, still can’t perform his duties and the Veep will remain in charge and the replaced president remains in his cell.

This is, of course, only a layman’s reading of the amendment and it is likely there are first-year law students who could demolish this idea.

But look, this IS the age of conspiracy theories.  I smell a television mini-series opportunity here.

The weakness in this idea is that Trump will pick a running mate who would throw him under the bus as he threw Mike Pence under the bus, and that voters will turn both houses of the Congress decidedly blue and the D’s will successfully connive with the R Veep to pull this off.

So it might not be practical in the real world.

But I still maintain it might make a riveting TV miniseries.  There would have to be a role for Kevin Kline and another for Kiefer Sutherland and one for Martin Sheen  and others for Tea Leone. Michael Douglas, and Anette Benning.

And what would we call it?

Go back to the top of this column.

*From time to time we try to throw in a word or phrase that we can use to teach a little lesson in language and in history.  Vidkun Quisling, a World War II leader of Norway who was a Nazi collaborator and who tried unsuccessfully to take over the government and end resistance to the invading Nazi Army. He formed a second, puppet government supported by the Nazis, and was involved in the shipment of Norwegian Jews to concentration camps in occupied Poland.  He later was convicted of high treason, among other crimes, and was executed by firing squad in October, 1945.

His name is considered a synonym for “traitor.”

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The Year Ahead 

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Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the music for the great Broadway hit, Fiddler on the Roof¸ wrote a song earlier (1955) that seems fitting today.

They’re rioting in Africa,
They’re starving in Spain.
There are hurricanes in Florida.
And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch,
And I don’t like anyone very much.

He called it “The Merry Minuet,” and it became a big hit in ’56 for the Kingston Trio.

It seems to fit our times, almost 70 years later, with a few nationality changes.  Palestinians, Jews, Russians, Ukranians, Republicans, Democrats.   And so forth.

While the world seethes with 2023 Merry Minuets, we’re are reminded that we are only a year away from The Big Political Dance of ’24—The Election.

The pundits made sure last week that we know it.

Biden wants to shuffle onto the podium in January 2025 and be sworn in again.  Trump wants to rant his way to the podium to begin his revenge tour in earnest.

Will the zoo animals in the Capitol have passed a budget by then?

A year away from the national election and you and I are in a runaway stage coach driven by headless horsemen.

Donald, who promised to drain the swamp in 2016 is now living proof of the old adage that, “If you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s too late to drain the swamp.”

Joe, who has presided over a pretty strong economic recovery can’t find enough ears who can hear abot it over the cacophony of today’s politics when he tells us how good we have it.

A year away, and—-what?

A year is a long time in politics.  Nothing is a given a year out in politics.

Kelly Gordon and Dean Kay put it this way in a song popularizd by Frank Sinatra;

You’re riding high in April, shot down in May.

A political career can become political careening in a matter of days or hours.  We’ve seen it happen time and again in Missouri politics as well as nationally.

Joe is growing older and vows to run for re-election. Trump is growing older, too, and is running from coviction.

What is the backup plan for both parties if decisions are made by others for both of these guys’ goals?  And a key issue, not often on the front page despite its great importance a year away, is who will be their running mate—because, at their ages and the different uncertainties about their abilities to serve second terms, our parties might wind up nominating someone who either won’t make it to inauguration day or, if inaugurated, might not last the next four years?

Both parties do have rules allowing replacement of candidats on the national ticket. Older Missourians will remember when Tom Eagleton resigned as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 after information was leaked that Eagleton had undergone shock therapy for depression and exhaustion three times in the early to mid-60s. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of President Kennedy and founder of the Peace Corps.

Ballotpedia lists these folks as potential VP candidates in 2024:

For the Democrats:

Incumbent Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Congressman Lauren Underwood of Illinois, U. S. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgie, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

On the Republican side: U. S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee,             Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida, Congresswoman marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, 2022 failed governor candidate Kari Lake of Arizona, Congresswoman Nancy Made of South Carolina, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, New York Congresswoman Elise Stevanik.

They have a year to show that they not only are Vice-Presidential material, but would be logical people to pick up the torch if either of the old men lay it down or are forced to lay it down.

If, within the next year, Joe winds up in a home and Donald winds up in the big house, who becomes the most viable person to take their places on the ticket?  Are there others who will emerge in the months ahead?  Any number of circumstances could lead to the most chaotic but interesting and significant conventions in decades, events that could lead to a lot of negotiations in vape-filled rooms if the two people most determined to fight for the job suddenly drop out of the picture after the primaries and before the conventions or are determined by the conventioneers to be bad choices after all.

Although the two leading figures in both parties don’t want us to think about it, there is no sure thing about politics in 2024.

You’re riding high in April, shot down in MayBut I know I’m gonna change that tuneWhen I’m back on top, back on top in June

…I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race

That’s life (that’s life)
I tell you, I can’t deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it

We only hope our heart can stand it.

We’re a year away.  A long time.

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A Missouri Precedent

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Missourians have seen this before.  But not recently.

Thirty-one Democratic members of the U. S. House joined Republicans a few days ago in voting down a resolution to expel New York Congressman George Santos.  Some of those 31 have taken to social media to explain why they did that.

It’s a matter of due process for them.  Santos has not been convicted of any of the 23 felony crimes he’s charged with committing.  Beyond that, though, is the way the House deals with due process.  It’s called the House Ethics Committee.

The committee is considering action against Santos after reviewing more than 170-thousand pages of documents, authorizing 37 subpoenas, and interviewing about 40 witnesses. The committee says it will announce its next action by November 17.

The committee is acting under Article I, section 5 of the U. S. Constitution’s provision that, “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a former professor of constitutional law, explains, “If and when Santos is convicted of these serious criminal offenses or ethics charges, I will certainly vote to expel. Until then, it is a very risky road to go down and we have to stick by due process and the rule of law, as obvious as the eventual results may seem.”

Innocent until proven guilty. It’s the way we dispense justice in this country. It’s the presumption that protects you and me. It’s a trial by peers, whether it is a jury or an ethics committee, that determines guilt. We have a word for inflicting punishment based on obvious but unproven guilt.  It is called lynching.

But the Ethics Committee has a problem, too.  Santos has not been convicted of any of the charges against him.  He remains innocent until proven guilty, at least on those counts. But Santos remains vulnerable on political issues connected with his candidacy, his claims of qualification during his campaign and afterwards, including during his time in office, and other actions and statements for which he is responsible as a member or potential member of the House.

Throughout its history, Congress has only expelled five members of the House, the most recent being the colorful Ohio Congressman James Traficant, in 2002, after he was convicted of racketeering and obstruction of justice.  The last Congressman before him was Michael Myers of Pennsylvania, who was convicted of bribery in the 1980 ABSCAM scandal.

Two Missourians in the House and two more in the Senate are key figures in the history of congressional expulsions.  House members John B. Clark and John W. Reid were Missourians.  The third expulsion was given to Kentucky Congressman Henry Burnett.

John Clark Sr., left his House seat to join the secessionist military forces organized under former governor Sterling Price at the start of the Civil War.  He led his division against Franz Sigel’s Union forces at Carthage on July 5, 1861, a minor battle but a decisive one because is was a sound retreat for Sigel and his men.  Eight days later the House voted 94-45 to expel him. He resigned his military commission after he was wounded at Wilson’s Creek, Missouri’s Confederate government appointed him a delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress and then was appointed to the Confederate States Senate. He was not appointed to a second term because of allegations that he was a drunk, a liar, and a womanizer.  Clark was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives and at the end of the war fled to Texas to avoid prosecution.  When that turned out to be a bad idea, he came back to this country, and found his way back to Missouri in 1870, where he practiced law.

Missouri Congressman John W. Reid was a pro-slavery member of the Missouri House for two years in the 1850s. Reid was an active participant in the Missouri-Kansas Border War during which Missourians tried to get Kansas into the Union as a slave state. On August 30, 1856 he was one of the leaders of a 200-man force of pro-slavery raiders that sacked Osawatomie Kansas, the home of abolitionist John Brown.  When his men failed to dislodge forces led by Brown’s son from their rock fortification, they chased the abolitionists back to Osawatomie where they killed Frederick Brown and burned almost all of the buildings in town.

The Kansas Historical Society says this attack led John Brown to begin to see himself as a national leader in, and potentially a martyr to, the abolitionist cause. “ God sees it. I have only a short time to live—only one death to die, and I will die fighting for his cause,” he said. “There will be no more peace in this land until slavery is done for. I will give them somethine else to do that extend slave territory. I will carry this war into Africa.” The KHS says that’s when he started thinking of a raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, to seize the weapons to organize a slave revolt in the South.”

Reid was elected to Congress in 1861. He withdrew on August 3 that year and soon after was expelled on a charge of disloyalty to the Union. He became a volunteer aide to General Price. After the war he was a lawyer, banker, and real-estate owner in Kansas City. He was one of the founders of the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

On the Senate side, Senators Waldo P. Johnson and Trusten Polk were expelled on the same day.  They were among fourteen senators expelled early in the Civil War because they had gone to the Confederacy.

Trusten Polk served 51 days as governor in 1857, the shortest term of any Missouri governor, before becoming a U. S. Senator.  Early in 1861 he called for constitutional amendments protecting slavery and argued they should contain wording that prevented them from being appealed.  He, and Johnson, did not return to Washington for the 1862 meeting of the Congress.  On January 10, 1862, the Senate voted 35-0 to expel him for disloyalty, a day after receiving a committee report recommending expulsion..  He was part of General Price’s Arkansas command until Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him presiding judge of he Trans-Mississippi Department.  He was captured in 1863 and imprisoned at Johnon’s Island prison camp in Ohio. When his health turned bad, he was given parole.  He returned to Arkansas and was part of Price’s final raid into Missouri in 1863. When the defeated Price fled back to Arkansas, Polk went with him, fleeing to Mexico for a sort time at war’s end before coming back to St. Louis and resuming his law career.

Waldo Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1860. He served about ten months before he was expelled on the same day Polk was kicked out. The Senate voted 36-0 to get rid of him, also a day after getting a committee report recommending expulsion. Same reason as Polk: disloyalty. During the war, he recruited a battalion that fought in the Battle of Pea Ridge, near  Bentonville, Arkansas, a Confederate defeat. In 1863 he was appointed to the Confederate Senate. He fled to Canada after the war and eventually got a presidential pardon and returned to his home in Osceola to resume his legal practice.  He presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1875.

Clark, Reid, Polk, and Johnson paved the way for the possible expulsion of George Santos. They were kicked out for political disloyalty.  So, too, he might be.  Disloyalty to common morality, to his constituents, to the law.

Is there guilt enough?

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The Team Player

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Being a team player means placing greater value on a team’s success than on individual achievement.

In sports it might mean passing up a chance to hit a home run when a sacrifice bunt is necessary.  In business it might mean supporting the competitor who got the job you wanted because the company is more important than one job, more important than one individual.

Sometimes being a team player means figure out what your team is.

The issue came up recently when Congresswoman Ann Wagner, who represents a district in eastern Missouri, announced she would support Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, who had the backing of former President Trump, for Speaker of the House just days after she said she would “absolutely not” support him.  She complained that when Jordan lost the original caucus vote to Congressman Steve Scalise, “He gave the most disgraceful, ungracious—I can’t call it a concession speech—of all time.”

Talk about a turnaround!

She justified her change by saying it is because she is a team player.

In baseball terms, she tore off her Cardinals uniform and put on one for the Cubs. Instantly.

More and more, though, it appears we don’t have teams in Washington.  We have tribes.  At least four of them: the extreme right tribe, the center right tribe, the center left tribe, and the extreme left tribe.

Jordan, whose record of getting bills passed is so thin it is, well, non-eixtent*, got the Republican conference’s majority vote as its candidate for Speaker—-but with substantial opposition, casting doubt on whether he could get the 217 Republican votes he needed to take the gavel. He came out of the conference caucus 65 votes short of what he needed in a floor vote. He and his supporters spent the days getting people like Wagner to turn around. But 65 votes was a whole lot of turning. And Jordan couldn’t do it.

Some of his opponents had the temerity to suggest that the Republican minority within the Republican majority might align with Democrats to pick a Speaker, an impracticality at the time because a Democrat in charge of a chaotic Republican House would be unable to bring sanity to the large room that seemingly needs to add padding to its walls and to rewrite its recently-rewritten dress code to include canvas blazers with long sleeves that tie in the back.

But give credit to those who have had the courage to suggest that the other side is not the enemy; they’re just friends who have different ideas.  And if they can find areas of agreement and move forward, it sure beats focusing on differences that stand in the way of service.

We do not mean to target Wagner in this entry because there are others who have misunderstood the concept of team when they proclaim in word and deed that they, too, are team players, an observation that applies to both of our political parties.  She just happened to use the phrase.

Minority Democrats, who have seemingly been inessential to the slim-majority Republicans and therefore beneath respect by them, have had the luxury of sitting back and watching the GOP House fall into a state of extreme disarray without addressing the possibly troublesome fringe of their own party and the mischief it might cause if Democrats regain control of the House—which a lot of pundits think the Republicans are proving should be the case.

It appears the only teams that matter in that climate are Republican and Democrat.  Anyone who has spent a lot of time inside the political system at the national or state level can understand how consuming that world becomes, so consuming that the real team is forgotten.

As we said earlier, there are four tribes in the House, not two teams.

Who IS the team?

Look in your mirrors.

Somebody in Washington or Jefferson City wants to be a team player?  The first step is to get rid of tribes. The second step is remembering who the team really is.

WE are the team.

Reaching across the aisle in a way that benefits the team more than it benefits any one tribe isn’t a crucifiable offense.

Was Jim Jordan interested in taking one for the team?  No, he was in it for Jim Jordan (and his big booster at the time).  And he lost three times, each time with fewer members of his own party supporting him.

So what is the team’s responsibility for straightening out the whole mess? Simple. Pay attention to what our congressional delegation is saying and doing and make sure that whomever we send to Washington next November is more loyal to country than to tribe and certainly more loyal to country than to a disgraceful former leader.

*The New Republic, an unabashedly liberal publication, said in its October 17 webpage entry,  “Jordan stands out among his predecessors and colleagues because he is not a real lawmaker… The Center for Effective Lawmaking, a project by Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia, rates House members based on their legislative performance. In the 117th Congress, Jordan was tied for fourth place among the least effective lawmakers.

Jordan sponsored only a single bill in the last Congress—on social media censorship, a perennial issue among some conservatives—and it did not advance out of committee. He has never successfully drafted a bill that became law…Meredith Lee Hill, who covers all agriculture-related goings-on on Capitol Hill for Politico, reported that Jordan’s supporters pitched his speakership to agriculture-minded Republicans as the “best way to get the huge [Farm] bill to the floor” in what remains of this Congress’s term. As Hill noted, Jordan has never himself voted for a farm bill at any time in his career.”

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The Team Player 

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Being a team player means placing greater value on a team’s success than on individual achievement.

In sports it might mean passing up a chance to hit a home run when a sacrifice bunt is necessary.  In business it might mean supporting the competitor who got the job you wanted because the company is more important than one job, more important than one individual.

Sometimes being a team player means figure out what your team is.

The issue came up recently when Congresswoman Ann Wagner, who represents a district in eastern Missouri, announced she would support Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, who had the backing of former President Trump, for Speaker of the House just days after she said she would “absolutely not” support him.  She complained that when Jordan lost the original caucus vote to Congressman Steve Scalise, “He gave the most disgraceful, ungracious—I can’t call it a concession speech—of all time.”

Talk about a turnaround!

She justified her change by saying it is because she is a team player.

In baseball terms, she tore off her Cardinals uniform and put on one for the Cubs. Instantly.

More and more, though, it appears we don’t have teams in Washington.  We have tribes.  At least four of them: the extreme right tribe, the center right tribe, the center left tribe, and the extreme left tribe.

Jordan, whose record of getting bills passed is so thin it is, well, non-existent,* got the Republican conference’s majority vote as its candidate for Speaker—-but with substantial opposition, casting doubt on whether he could get the 217 Republican votes he needed to take the gavel. He came out of the conference caucus 65 votes short of what he needed in a floor vote. He and his supporters spent the days getting people like Wagner to turn around. But 65 votes was a whole lot of turning. And Jordan couldn’t do it.

Some of his opponents had the temerity to suggest that the Republican minority within the Republican majority might align with Democrats to pick a Speaker, an impracticality at the time because a Democrat in charge of a chaotic Republican House would be unable to bring sanity to the large room that seemingly needs to add padding to its walls and to rewrite its recently-rewritten dress code to include canvas blazers with long sleeves that tie in the back.

But give credit to those who have had the courage to suggest that the other side is not the enemy; they’re just friends who have different ideas.  And if they can find areas of agreement and move forward, it sure beats focusing on differences that stand in the way of service.

We do not mean to target Wagner in this entry because there are others who have misunderstood the concept of team when they proclaim in word and deed that they, too, are team players, an observation that applies to both of our political parties.  She just happened to use the phrase.

Minority Democrats, who have seemingly been inessential to the slim-majority Republicans and therefore beneath respect by them, have had the luxury of sitting back and watching the GOP House fall into a state of extreme disarray without addressing the possibly troublesome fringe of their own party and the mischief it might cause if Democrats regain control of the House—which a lot of pundits think the Republicans are proving should be the case.

It appears the only teams that matter in that climate are Republican and Democrat.  Anyone who has spent a lot of time inside the political system at the national or state level can understand how consuming that world becomes, so consuming that the real team is forgotten.

As we said earlier, there are four tribes in the House, not two teams.

Who IS the team?

Look in your mirrors.

Somebody in Washington or Jefferson City wants to be a team player?  The first step is to get rid of tribes. The second step is remembering who the team really is.

WE are the team.

Reaching across the aisle in a way that benefits the team more than it benefits any one tribe isn’t a crucifiable offense.

Was Jim Jordan interested in taking one for the team?  No, he was in it for Jim Jordan (and his big booster at the time).  And he lost three times, each time with fewer members of his own party supporting him.

So what is the team’s responsibility for straightening out the whole mess? Simple. Pay attention to what our congressional delegation is saying and doing and make sure that whomever we send to Washington next November is more loyal to country than to tribe and certainly more loyal to country than to a disgraceful former leader.

*The New Republic, an unabashedly liberal publication, said in its October 17 webpage entry,  “Jordan stands out among his predecessors and colleagues because he is not a real lawmaker… The Center for Effective Lawmaking, a project by Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia, rates House members based on their legislative performance. In the 117th Congress, Jordan was tied for fourth place among the least effective lawmakers.

Jordan sponsored only a single bill in the last Congress—on social media censorship, a perennial issue among some conservatives—and it did not advance out of committee. He has never successfully drafted a bill that became law…Meredith Lee Hill, who covers all agriculture-related goings-on on Capitol Hill for Politico, reported that Jordan’s supporters pitched his speakership to agriculture-minded Republicans as the “best way to get the huge [Farm] bill to the floor” in what remains of this Congress’s term. As Hill noted, Jordan has never himself voted for a farm bill at any time in his career.”

Nullifying a Nullification 

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The Supreme Court has once again had to rule that Missouri is part of the United States.

A lower court had ruled as unconstitutional the legislature’s latest effort to say Missouri did not have to obey federal laws.  In this case it was a 2021 law that prohibited local and state police officers from enforcing certain federal firearms restrictions.

It was a slam dunk by the court. Only former Missouri assistant attorney general Clarence Thomas thought the state had a great idea.

That great idea, given the haughty name of the Second Amendment Preservation Act gave citizens the right to sue local and state governments, agencies and agents that enforce federal gun laws that impose registration requirements, fees, and taxes, for as much as $50,000 for allegedly infringing on Second Amendment rights.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the Biden administration took the state to court. Our Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, suggested the federal government had no business suing the state because lawsuits could only be filed against state and local agencies. And he maintained, as backers of the law proclaimed in 2021 that the state has no responsibility to enforce federal law. He called the federal government arguments “aggressive and novel,” and railed against federal second-guessing state policies.

United States Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asserted that the law hampered enforcement of federal laws, “including its ability to apprehend dangerous criminals.”

She also argued—as opponents argued when the law was passed—that the U. S. Constitution prohibits states from invalidating federal laws.  Furthermore, she said, Missouri’s law says any federal employees who enforce the federal law in Missouri could never work for the state of Missouri after they leave federal employment.

Last March, a federal judge blocked enforcement of the law but damage already had been done.

The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has had a task force made up of federal, state and local authorities. But several of those state and local agencies quit feeding date into a national program that helps link evidence of crimes in Missouri with crimes elsewhere in the country.

The U. S. Marshalls Service said a lot of state and local officers stopped helping catch fugitives.

States have been trying to nullify federal laws since 1832.  It hasn’t worked but the Missouri General Assembly is a low learner.

The issue originally arose with the passage of a strong tariff law in 1828. Southern states thought it put an unfair tax burden on their agricultural economy because the south lacked industry and had to import most of its manufactured goods. When the federal government under President Andrew Jackson did nothing to relieve that distress, radcals in the South Carolina argued that a state could declare any federal law it believed to be unconstitutional null and void and in 1832 adopted An Ordinance of Nullification that declared the 1828 tariff and a later one passed in 1832 were unenforceable in the state.

South Carolina prepared a military force to oppose any federal soldiers  sent to enforce the tariffs. Congress passed the Force Bill in March of 1833 authorizing President Jackson to use military force against South Carolina. At the same time, Congress passed a new tariff that was a compromise South Carolina could accept.

A petulant South Carolina repealed its Nullification Ordinance.

Then it passed a measure nullifying the federal Force Bill, just to have the last word.

The issue of states’ rights, however, has never gone away.  And the 2021 Second Amendment Preservation Act was the latest flareup of the issue in Missouri—at least that got legislative approval.

But don’t be surprised if somebody proposes something for the 2024 General Assembly that asserts this state can live apart from the United States Constitution if it disagrees with something in it.

(You can check out the “Blood Right” entry we posted on May 10 this year for another example of the legislature to ignore the Constitution of the United States.  It was a gun issue, too.)

Crock

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Republicans in the U. S. House of Representatives have had the night to twist arms, make promises or threats, or do other things to cajole their own caucus to vote for a Speaker who has been in the House since 2006, has introduced only thirty bills in all that time, and has gotten none of them passed.  They’ll try again today.

Jim Jordan not only didn’t get the votes to become Speaker of the House on the first ballot yesterday, he got outvoted by Democrats.  All 212 Democrats voted for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries. Jordan had only 200 votes after twenty of his fellow Republicans voted against him.

The Republicans, who can’t get their own ducks in a row, are blaming Democrats for their failure to use their majority to pick a new Republican  Speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy.

Whose fault is this historic and ugly deadlock?

McCarthy maintains the House would not be stalemated if “every single Democrat didn’t vote with eight Republicans to shut this place down.”

That, my friends, is a crock. And it’s full to the brim.

The Democrats have no obligation to Republicans who have let four percent of their caucus run their conference.  Democrats are not in charge of putting the Republican House in order.

Democrats have scored some points by saying they’ll work with moderate Republicans to end the chaos.  But McCarthy and Jim Jordan and their supporters who have shown no interest in bipartisanship otherwise think Democrats should ride to their rescue.

Hypocrisy flows in buckets with their whining.

Perhaps the Republicans, especially those who have aligned themselves with the political evangelicals should have a discussion group about the meaning of Luke 4:23—“Physician, heal thyself.”

And to remember another old adage:  If you point a finger at someone remember that there are three fingers pointing back at you.

-0-

A Creek by Any Other Name

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—is still a creek.

But what IS its name?

Jefferson City has a creek that winds through the town, divides the north part where the Capitol and the old penitentiary and the business district are located from the south side called by early German immigrants “Munichburg,” crosses under the Rex Whiten Expressway (Red Whitton, for those not native to these parts was the chief engineer of the state highwy department in 1941. Early plans for an expressway through Jefferson City were drawn up during his term, and Missouri became the first state to pave segments of the interstate system during his tenure. He was appointed Federal Highway Administrator in 1961 and oversaw early work on the interstate system.) and traverses what we call the “mill bottom” before emptying ito the Missouri River.

In flood times, the creek backs up and helps flood low-lying areas of central Jefferson City.

We call it Wear’s Creek today, or most all of us do. But it has worn various names through the peopled history of this area and the name’s origin is a mystery.

An 1825 map shows it as Wyer’s Creek.  A 1947 Jefferson City Daily Capital News article quotes then-County Recorder Henry LePage saying the creek’s name was recorded “under different spellings in different deeds.”  Some people called it “Ware’s Creek,” after Clem Ware, who owned a lot of property in the county.  But the creek’s name preceded him by many years.

He suggested that some called it “Wire Creek” because it twists and turns “in a wiry fashion,” leading to the spelling of is name as “Wier” or “Weir.”

The research for our next book, about the Capitol’s location, creation, and other history noted a report from the commissioners picked to find a permanent central location for the seat of state government that refers to it as “Wan’s Creek.”  An account of the execution of a Confederate guerilla by Union soldiers in the Mill Bottom calls it “Weir’s Creek.”

The 1947 newspaper article concludes by suggesting the then-new Cole County Historical Society could study the issue and settle the question about the creek’s name or, if the CCHS failed to do that, “Mayor Blair could appoint a commission to ponder the question, reach the decision on the spelling that could be accepted and which will permit uniformity.”

Neither the society nor Blair (who later became Governor) did anything about it.

However—

Missouri has a State Board on Geographic Place Names (did you even know such a thing exists?). It coordinates place names, working in cooperation with local, state, and federal agencies to coordinate the naming of places so we don’t have two of something with the same name.

Maybe someone should look into having this organization decide what this creek’s name should be once and for all.

On a related note:  About fifty years ago, the Cole County Court (an administrative body using a long-outmoded name from Missouri’s early days) decided to name all of the county roads.  As I recall, it was being done so emergency vehicles could find places and people in trouble.  The public was invited to suggest names. Then-Presiding Commissioner Tony Hiesberger told me that a suggestion for one road was “Old Muttonhead School Road,” a name stemming from a long-ago incident in which some rustlers took the sheep they had stolen to a country school, butchered them, and hid the remains underneath the school.   The commission decided against using that name, the reason why is lost to me but it would have taken a pretty large road sign to have the full name.  I don’t recall what name was adopted.

 

Now, Wait A Minute!!

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We are intrigued by the Trumpists who think our former president was correct when he said now-retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley should be executed for treason because he called his Chinese counterpart in the crazy post-January 6 days of the Trump administration to assure him that the United States was not planning an attack on China.

Trump called the conversation “treason,” writing on his (un)Truth Social page, “This guy turned out to be a woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the Prsident of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH. A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.”

The statement is remarkable because Trump seems to give credence to reporting by those he considers “fake news media.” But such self-contradictions within his constant self-aggrandizing verbal disgorgements are always expected.

Many observers warn that this typical Trump rant is another call for violence by his supporters and is an example of why his re-election would be perilous for our Democratic Republic. While reporters who interviewed several Trumpists in Iowa, where he recently campaigned found some willing to cut Milley some slack, one seemed to voice the common temper of the larger MAGA cult: “Why was he not in there before a firing squad within a month?”

As long as the Trumpists are asking THAT question—

There’s another question that nobody we have heard of has asked Trump. And if anybody does, we know the answer will be a doozy.

The question is this:

If it was treason for Milley to assure the Chinese that there were no plans for an attack—-

WERE THERE PLANS FOR AN ATTACK?

Well, Donny?