Category Archives: government

A New Phase Has Begun

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We haven’t heard anything like this since the Vietnam era protest songs.  Bruce Springsteen wrote a powerful protest song last weekend, recorded it at the start of this week, and it might be taking the Minnesota experience into a new socio-political realm.  It is hard for provocateurs to regain control when the public mood becomes part of a nation’s popular music culture, for music can be one of the greatest indicators of a generational shift in national attitude.

The song has the feel of the 60s because the momentum of the public mood in an increasing number of places is starting to be reminiscent of the early days of the Vietnam protests and the Civil Rights movement, a volatile combination that rewrote our country’s self-image. Will this song be the first of many protests songs of this generation?

Those who lived through those days can recognize that possibility. Today’s demonstrators are the children and the grandchildren of those who in the 1960s opposed military interventionism and advocated civil rights.

April will be the 61st anniversary of the first major antiwar rally, in Washington. It was there that Judy Collins sang a Bob Dylan song, “The Times They are A-Changin,’” followed by Joan Baez’s rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” the song considered the civil rights movement’s anthem.

English poet William Congreve wrote in 1697 that “Music can soothe the soul of the savage beast.”  It can. it also can motivate those standing against a savage beast.

For those who think Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” no longer fits the times, listen to Bruce Springsteen and “Streets of Minneapolis” the first major protest song or our times.

Bruce Springsteen – Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

If you want to sing along, here are the lyrics. We apologize if they do not translate from our edit page to the post in proper verse order; our computer does odd things we don’t understand.  But you will be able to follow the lyrics as you sing along

[Verse 1]
Through the winter’s ice and cold  Down Nicolett Avenue A city aflame fought fire and ice ‘Neath an occupier’s boots  King Trump’s private army from the DHS Guns belted to their coats  Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law Or so their story goes

[Verse 2]
Against smoke and rubber bullets  In the dawn’s early light  Citizens stood for Justice Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets  Alex Pretti and Renee Good

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land  And the stranger in our midst  Here in our home, they killed and roamed In the winter of ’26    We’ll remember the names of those who died  On the Streets of Minneapolis

[Verse 3]
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest Then we heard the gunshots   And Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead. Their claim was self-defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes  It’s our blood and bones   And these whistles and phones  Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Bridge]
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of “ICE out now”    Our city’s heart and soul persists  Through broken glass and bloody tears On the Streets of Minneapolis.

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26    We’ll take our stand for this land   And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Outro]
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out

(llyrics from genius.com)

An Epic Game; Kansas Questions; A Chiefs Shuffle

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZBB)—When they make a list of greatest Missouri basketball games, Saturday’s 88-87 double overtime win against Oklahoma will be on a short list. Neither team could build a lead greater than six. There were ten ties and 22 lead changes.

Missouri, one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the SEC, went 24 of 33 (73%) from the stripe. They were only 6 for 21 from the three-point line. But the last two were historic, the ball ripping through the net as the red light around the backboard flashed on to show the time left at 0:00.

Oklahoma was up by three with 5.6 seconds left when Missouri inbounded the ball in regulation and fed it to Trent Pierce, who had missed five threes in the game finally hit one from the top of the key as time expired in regulation to tie the game.

Oklahoma was up by two with four seconds left in overtime and Missouri inbounding the ball under the sooner basket. Mark Mitchell took the pass, dribbled just past half court and fired the 37-footer that will make the all-time Tiger highlight reel.

The Tigers made up for poor shooting from outside by outscoring Oklahoma 40-12 inside and outrebounding the Sooners 41=29.

Oklahoma took its sixth loss in a row. Missouri might have kept its NCAA Tournament hopes alive after a couple of tough losses. They’re now 4-3 in the conference and in the top half of the standings. But the road ahead is hard starting with a road game against 17th-ranked Alabama Tuesday night.

Three guys scored 66 of Missouri’s 88 points—Mitchell with 25 (and 10 rebounds), T. O. Barrett, making his first start, had 21 and Jayden Stone had 20.

(LOOK WHO’S IN THE TOP 25)—-The St. Louis Billikens are 19-1, lead the Atlantic 10, and are 23rd and 24th in the polls. They hammered St. Bonaventure 97-62 Saturday for their thirteenth win in a row.  Their only loss was by one point, 78=71, to Stanford. The Billikens have six players averaging 10-12.7 points per game and a seventh player who’s averaging more than nine.

(BEARS)—-Missouri State forward Michael Osei-Bonsu is the school’s first Conference USA Basketball Player of the Week.  The Bears beat UTEP and New Mexico State last week with Osei-Bonsu hitting 14 of his 22 field goals, averaging 19 points, nine rebounds and a couple of assists. He hit the game-winning shot att UTEP with 12 seconds left. Bonsu, a 6-4 forward, has the best shooting average in the conference and ranks 29th in the country. He’s majoring in psychology.

Missouri State  (12-8) is in sole possession of second place in the conference, at 6-3.  Liberty, undefeated in nine games, leads.
(CHIEFS1)—It appears the Kansas City Chiefs’ move to Kansas is hardly a done deal. The big hangup is a big question:

Who would own the stadium?

Arrowhead Stadium is owned by the Jackson County Sports Authority and is leased by the Chiefs, who want the same kind of deal with Kansas. The Chiefs made that clear in a recent Kansas legislative committee hearing.

It has to do with taxes. Abhishek Sachin Sandikar, writing for Yahoo Sports on Google, says the issue is how money from the Kansas STAR (Sales Tax Revenue) Bonds would be used for a three-billion-dollar stadium.

The Chiefs do not want to own the stadium; they want it owned by a public entity as Arrowhead Stadium is owned by the Jackson County Sports Authority and is leased to the team through 2031. The Chiefs operate and maintain the stadium. The bonds used to built both stadiums in the Jackson County Sports Complex have been financed by a 3/8 cent sales tax. But last April, Jackson County voters went 58% against a new 3/8 sales tax to pay for renovations of Arrowhead and a downtown stadium for the Royals. The Chiefs found Kansas a willing suitor and the Royals are still looking at something on this side of the border although Kansas is courting them, too.

Chiefs lawyer Korb Maxwell says the Kansas stadium proposal does not make sense for the Chiefs unless a public entity owns the stadium. He argues that providing bond money for a privately-owned stadium would mean the funding would not be on a tax-exempt status and 45 percent of those dollars would be taken in federal taxes, thereby killing the project.

While the Kansas governor and the team have announced the move, the Kansas legislature has not yet approved the issuance of the STAR bonds—and the Chiefs don’t want to be their own landlord.

The deal hasn’t fallen through but Missourians shouldn’t think that the Chiefs will stay on this side of the line after all, though.

(CHIEFS2)—The Chiefs hope Eric Bienemy can be magic again for them. He’s back as offensive coordinator, a job he held for five years when the Chiefs offense was high-powered and exciting in Patrick Mahomes’ younger days.

Bienemy was the running backs coach for the Bears in their just-finished season. The Bears were third in the NFL in rushing yards, led by D’Andre Swift’s 1,087 yards and in average yards per carry. He was the Chiefs running backs coach for five years before moving up the OC.

Bienemy’s return has Travis Kelce sound more as if he’ll come back for another year. It’s just enthusiasm without commitment right now, though.

(ROOKIES)—The elimination of the Los Angeles Rams from the NFL playoffs allow us to look at the season three Tiger NFL rookies had.

Harrison Meavis emerged halfway through the year as the Rams’ place kicker and he showed he belongs in the NFL.  He hit all 39 of his extra points and was 12 of 13 in field goals.

Luther Burden III started five of the Bears’ 15 games, caught 47 passes out of 60 targets for 652 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Brady Cook finished the New York Jets’ season as the starting quarterback after two guys ahead of him went down within injuries. In four starts (and a fifth game he finished), Cook threw for two touchdowns but seven interceptions, 738 yards and a couple of touchdowns. He had a 55.43 rating.

(ROYALS)—The Royals continue to be quiet. They’ve signed several players to minor league contracts but have yet to sign a major free agent or make anything near a blockbuster trade. Speculation that former Cardinals outfielder Harrison Bader would be a good fit for an outfield slot has been blown up by word that Bader has signed a two-year $20.5 million dollar deal with the Giants.

(CARDINALS)—The Redbird’s news is about who is still on the roster versus those who have left, those signed to minor league deals, or those who have/have not gone into arbitration.  Brendan Donovan and JoJo Romero are still on the roster although there’s more than enough speculation about St. Louis’ interest in trading them.

We’re two weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting.

Speeding along on track and in the court:

(DAYTONA)—The first major race of 2026 has lasted 24 hours at Daytona and ended with the winner just 1.5 seconds ahead of the runner up.

Roger Penske’s Porsche team has become the third team to win the race three years in a row, joining rival Chip Ganassi’s team and the Wayne Taylor team. Felipe Nasr has been the lead driver for all three of the wins. His co-drivers this year were Julien Landauer and Laurin Heinrich. Their car ran in the GTP class, the fastest of several classes in the race.

One of the drivers of the second-place Cadillac was NASCAR phenom Connor Zilisch. Indianapolis 500 winner Alex Palou was one of the drivers in the fifth place car. IndyCar driver Colton Herta was part of the team for the car in sixth. IndyCar’s Scott Dixon and NASCAR’s A. J. Allmendinger were half of the team that finished ninth.

IndyCar’s Nolan Siegel was part of the team that finished 12th overall and third in the LMP2 class. IndyCar’s Christian Rasmussen was part of the 5th place LMP2 team (14th overall). Kyffin Simpson, a driver for the Ganassi IndyCar team, was in the 17th place (8th in LMP2). Former 500 winner Will Power, driving in the GTD Pro class, helped his team to second in class and 20th overall. Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe was in a Lamborghini that finished 24th overall, 6th in GTD.

(NASCAR)—It appears NASCAR might be losing one of its road courser races. The fall Charlotte race had been held on its “Roval” for several years—the road course that’s also part of the oval track—but NASCAR reportedly is ready to move it back to the oval.  The event would be one of the ten-race championship chase series.

(NASCARHOF)—Three new names have been added to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina—Kurt Busch, Harry Gant, and Ray Hendrick. Busch won the NASCAR Cup championship in 2004. Concussion problems after a 2022 Pocono crash sent him into retirement.

Busch ran the 2014 Indianapolis 500, a one-off event, and finished a solid sixth. His hopes of completing the 500 and the 600-mile race at Charlotte that same day ended when his car dropped out after 273 laps.

“Handsome Harry” Gant had 18 wins in the Cup series and 21 in the second tier series. He’s the oldest driver to win a Cup race (52) and the oldest driver to win his first Cup race (42). He won four in a row in 1991 and ran his last NASCAR race in 1994 at the age of 54.

Ray Hendrick only ran 17 Cup races but he raced modified stocks for 36 years and won 700 races. He was 51 when he died in 1990

(MCLAREN VS. PALOU)—The long-running breach of contract lawsuit by McLaren against IndyCar champion Alex Palou is a win for McLaren, but the company isn’t satisfied with the $12 million judgment against him. McLaren wants reimbursement of its legal expenses plus interest.

In 2022, Palou agreed to drive for the McLaren IndyCar team then backed out to rejoin Chip Ganassi Racing where he has won four IndyCar championships and last year’s Indianapolis 500. He says McLaren’s offer included a role as a reserve driver for the McLaren Formula 1 team with the possibility of moving F1 and driving for McLaren’s IndyCar team until then. But he said he later learned the Formula 1 opportunity would not materialize so he walked away from the signed contract to stay with Ganassi. Palou says he’s meeting with his advisors and is considering his options.

He will continue to drive for Ganassi in the IndyCar series.

(Photo credits:  Billikens—Amazon; Palou (shown at the Daytona 24 Hours), Michael L. Levitt/ Lumen via Getty Images; Kurt Busch at Indianapolis 2019—Bob Priddy)

 

 

What’s the Matter With Missouri? 

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A century ago, Emporia Kansas newspaper editor William Allen White wrote an editorial called “What’s the Matter With Kansas,” a scathing column reacting to a populist takeover of Kansas government.

Here in Missouri, the pending loss of a third NFL team and the uncertainty about retention of one of our major league baseball teams, coupled with memories of other pro sports teams we’ve lost (two major league baseball teams and two NBA teams) have sparked some to think, “What’s the Matter with Missouri?

Let’s be clear at the outset of this discussion that there’s a lot that’s RIGHT about Missouri. There’s always something wrong about Missouri politically, depending on where you stand. But let’s not forget what is right as we look at what’s the matter with our state today.

One of Missouri’s biggest problem is that it’s too proud of our cheapness. Expecting the promotion that we are a low-tax state will produce steady economic development significant enough to make a major impact on our economy does not seem to be borne out by the realities.

If all of the tax cuts or eliminations we have seen in the past several years really worked, our metro areas would be economic giants in the Midwest. Our smaller cities would be centers for mid-corporate expansion and our even smallest communities might not be withering. Missouri would not be in danger of losing another seat in the U. S. House of Representatives, not because we are losing population (as is easy to say) but because other states are growing faster.

One of our biggest problems is that we are satisfied to be mediocre. But it can be argued that thinking economic growth springs from being a low tax state is questionable if low taxes are consistent with being the progressive state that excites potential investors.

US News’ most recent ranking of the states puts us 31st out of 50 in many categories. Our highest rankings are in fiscal stability and “opportunity,” where we are 11th (more on that in a minute).  We’re 18th in natural environment. Our economy ranks 25th.   After that—well…..

33rd in education

37th in infrastructure

43rd in health care

43rd in crime and corrections.

39th in teacher salaries, according to the MNEA.

World Health Review says we are among the states with the highest rates of homelessness—one dismaying factor that describes our economy, the numbers increasing 22% in the last five years, 39% more than in 2013 and 78% more than in 2018. People don’t flock to Missouri to become homeless.  This is a home-grown problem that includes many people with mental health issues. Speaking of which—

Mental Health America uses seventeen criteria to rank us 36th  in mental health and well-being—40th among adults.

Digging deeper into “opportunity,” US News ranks us 14th in equality and in affordability. But we are only 34th in economic opportunity.  And what does that mean? “It takes into account a state’s poverty rate, prevalence of food insecurity, and median household income as wellas he level of income inequality among residents… These four comprehensive metrics are indicators of more than just economic opportunity in a given state; they intersect with employment, stability and health – affecting the quality of life of a state’s population,” says the survey.

In health care, we are 28th in low obesity rate, 34th in low suicide rate, 39th in public health, 39th in low infant mortality rate and overall mortality rate and 44th in low smoking rate.

We don’t want to drag this out so we’ll let you read the 50 states report by US News and you can explore why its surveys do not rank us better.  Best States | U.S. News State Rankings and Analysis

States are far more than their sports teams. Once we look beyond the glitz and glamour of the coliseum and look at what should make us a great place to live, we find a grittier and less attractive view. To think that the things that drag us down will be improved by reducing the financial ability to lift them up seems to this layman’s eyes false economy.

We cannot escape the shortcomings that short-change ourselves if our big selling point is that we have low taxes. The exciting visuals of sports teams quickly fade when people look at the quality of real life and that quality is not improved by continued diminution of resources to improve it.

This is a campaign year and, of course, a tax cut is a favorite way of pleasing voters. Candidates, however, might want to focus on how income tax elimination will make Missouri better than 31st and how it will elevate our low standing in personal categories and whether paying sales taxes on a plumber’s visit makes us a place to which significant numbers of people and businesses want to move. Sooner or later, it will become clear that our drive to be a state known for its tight-fistedness won’t perform much economic magic.

Useless arguments about “tax and spend liberals” versus “don’t tax and can’t spend conservatives” won’t solve what’s wrong with Missouri, and as great as our state is in float streams and tourist attractions, there’s plenty the matter with it that we can overcome if all of us recognize that WE are responsible for being 31st or 43rd or—-pick a number as long as it’s in the 30s or 40s.

The first gubernatorial inauguration I covered was that of Warren Hearnes when he became the first Missouri governor elected to two consecutive four-year terms. He said on that clear but chilly January day, “To do and be better is a goal few achieve. To do it, we are required to make sacrifices—not in the sense of shedding our blood or giving our lives or the lives of those we love,  but sacrifice in the sense of giving of a part of those material things which we enjoy in abundance. A great people will sacrifice part of that with which they have been blessed in order that their children might be better educated, their less fortunate more fortunate, their health better health, their state a better state.”

What’s the matter with Missouri?  When have any of our recent leaders laid down this kind of challenge to all of us?  Would we accept it if they did?

Failure to issue that challenge….and a failure to respond to it is what’s the matter with Missouri.

Who’s the S—hole Country Now? 

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It’s good to see ourselves through other eyes sometimes.

Newsweek reported a few days ago about a Norwegian’s response to President Trump’s plea for more immigrants from Scandinavia instead of so many from “s—hole countries” such as Somalia, his country of choice for his latest profanity-laced bowl of white supremacist sludge.

The response from Chris Lund, a Norwegian vocalist, has gone viral. We think he has some interesting points, namely that the Scandinavian countries are far superior to ours, especially Trump’s version of ours that Lund finds crude, cruel, and lacking civilized values.

One of the many puzzling things about Trump’s plea for more Scandinavians is that they come from a system he loves to pummel as socialism. But to hear Lund describe it, there are many things there more attractive there than here.

—once you get beyond the cold, dark winters.

Trump spoke last month (December 9) at Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania where he brought out his tired whine that the best people are not coming to the United States (the best people have NEVER flocked to the United States; they had and have good lives in the Old County). He appears to think his musings are humorous: “Why it is we only take people from s***hole countries…Why can’t we have some people form Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let’s have a few from Denmark…Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people. Do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting,”

Lund told Newsweek he spoke out because of the “recurring irony of being told America is the ‘land of opportunity’ by someone who doesn’t seem to realize that, for Norwegians, moving there is a massive downgrade….When you compare five weeks of vacation and a year of maternity leave to the American system, the offer is a joke. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just looking at the benefits package.”

On December 12, Lund took to his Threads account, @chrislundartist, where he wrote in a now-viral post: “Trump said he wants more immigrants from Norway. I have reviewed the offer, and I have to decline. The benefits package is terrible. You offer two weeks of vacation if we are lucky; we get five. Your maternity leave is ‘good luck,’ while we get a year. Your healthcare plan is GoFundMe, while ours is free. And your safety plan is just ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Moving to the US right now feels like leaving a spa to go work in a burning hot dog stand. Thanks, but we will stay in the snow.”

The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority says all employees are entitled to at least 25 working days of holiday each year, and employers are duty-bound to make sure each employee uses all of their holiday allowance. The maternal leave policy there entitles new parents to a total of twelve months—or as much as three years if the parents go back part-time. The Commonwealth Fund says the country offers universal health coverage that is paid for by automatic taxes and payroll contributions.

Lund told Newsweek he has visited the States, and once thought of moving here. here. But now?

“The U.S. looks less like a dream destination and more like a cautionary tale. I’ve realized I much prefer free healthcare and a life that doesn’t revolve entirely around surviving the latest political crisis.”

Some accuse him of being “obsessed” with the United States. Not obsessed, he says, just observant. “The truth is, what happens in America affects everyone. A lot of Americans don’t seem to understand the impact their country has on the rest of the world. Your economy and your politics vibrate across the globe, so we have to pay attention.”

He suggests President Trump should be worried about what would happen if people from Norway moved here in big numbers. “If we actually moved to the U.S. and started voting, we most certainly wouldn’t be voting for him. We’d be voting for the very things he calls ‘socialism.’”

Photo Credit: Lund–//www.viberate.com/

Notes from the Minnesota War Zone II

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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.

Obituary for a Politician

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In 1968, Nancy and I were in Sacramento, California where our friend from college, Tracy Wood, was a United Press Reporter in the Capitol.  We went with her to a news conference with Governor Ronald Reagan.  No credentials. No security checks. We just walked with her into the room.

She took us on a tour of the Capitol which, though big with a genuine gold dome, was not nearly as impressive as ours. We went into the House of Representatives that recently had been redecorated and told us House Speaker Jesse Unruh’s first impression if it was, “It looks like a French whorehouse.”

Jesse Unruh already was something of a political legend in California, the kind of political figure I wish we had today here and in Washington. Compared to Unruh, we live in a political world where genuine almost-larger-than-life figures are replaced by bland, small and often self-important individuals who tell us they will fight for us but instead are just throwers of sand in the political sandbox.

I was looking up Unruh’s most famous quotation about lobbyists a few days ago and I came across the Washington Post’s obituary for Unruh that made us wish for an era we are old enough to remember—when politics was properly passionate in the proper places, where it seems heavyweights fought over issues in the chambers and laughed over dinner at a restaurant.

It is discourteous, it is said, to speak ill of the dead but in this era there are a number of candidates for whom we might not speak well. His is the kind of obituary for a politician we are not likely to see when the final gavel falls for too many of this generation:

Washington Post

JESSE UNRUH A ‘BIG DADDY’ WHO GAVE POLITICS AND POWER A BEAR HUG

By Lou Cannon, Washington Post  August 5, 1987

When Jesse Unruh arrived in Sacramento 32 years ago as an overweight, underpaid state assemblyman, he became part of a legislature that was largely of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists and for the lobbyists.

The history books will say that Unruh, who died of cancer Tuesday in his California home at the age of 64, took money from these lobbyists and used it to elect legislators who made him, as speaker of the Assembly, the most powerful politician in California. The historians will also say that Unruh used this power to transform a supine and dependent legislative body into one that had a decent respect for the people and sufficient resources to represent them. They will say that the Unruh era was a time when the legislature initiated action to help the needy, protect consumers, advance civil rights and save some of California’s magnificent parklands before developers could destroy them.

During the Unruh years, these achievements were overshadowed by the forceful personality and gargantuan appetites of “Big Daddy,” a nickname given him by his friends and hurled back in his face by his enemies.

He was called “Big Daddy” because of his supposed resemblance to the domineering southern father played by Burl Ives in the film version of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” But Unruh really was more Broderick Crawford than Ives, the Crawford who portrays a thinly disguised Huey Long in “All the King’s Men” and rallies the rural dispossessed to his banner by calling them “hicks” and promising them a taste of the power they have never had.

When Unruh went to the legislature, he was a real hick from the cotton fields of Swenson, Tex., by way of the Navy and a GI Bill of Rights education at the University of Southern California. He had been dirt poor, and he once said that he never wore socks before he was 12 but that no one could tell because his feet were so dirty.

” . . . They live in a steady shame and insult of discomforts, insecurities and, inferiorities, piecing these together into whatever semblance of comfortable living they can,” James Agee wrote of similar sharecroppers. This is what Unruh’s life was like as a boy and, in some inner recess, what it must always have been like. After he became, at 39, the youngest speaker of the Assembly in California’s history, he told a friend, “I’m still not sure I’m not going to wake up some day and be on a small farm out there in Texas.”

Perhaps because he knew what it was like to be truly powerless, Unruh had a keener appreciation of power than more sheltered politicians. “He was the premier politician in the state because he knew the issues and understood the uses of power,” said Stuart K. Spencer, a longtime Republican adversary and friend. “He used power to advance the causes he believed in. He was very honest and didn’t go sneaking around when he wanted money like some politicians do. But the key was that he was willing to use the power once he acquired it.”

Unruh’s Democratic candidates and Spencer’s Republican candidates competed for the legislature in campaigns of brutal intensity and misrepresentation. Afterward, they would drink together and tell stories about what they had done to each other. Unruh did not avoid his adversaries, and he valued most those who shared his understanding that politics was both a noble calling and a dirty business.

Unruh was not afraid to get his hands dirty. He despised those who disdained political detail or soared above the petty and sometimes ugly struggles by which he remade the State Assembly. Unruh boasted too much and ate too much and, for a long time, drank too much. But he did not shrink from the reality of his faults or his virtues.

Instructing freshman assemblymen on how legislators were supposed to behave in lobby-ridden Sacramento, Unruh would say, “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them, you have no business being up here.” This doctrine formed the core of Unruh’s political theology. He knew that the lobbyists were an eternal fact of life. He believed that the way to deal with them was to accept this fact and use their resources to advance his own agenda.

He did not deal as successfully with Ronald Reagan as he had with the lobbyists. Unruh was too proud of his political skills to appreciate the contempt which many Americans hold for politicians as a class. Gov. Reagan, who did not know the contents of his own legislative program, understood and shared this prejudice and exploited it at Unruh’s expense.

But it is also true that Unruh, who was at bottom an unrelenting, populist Democrat with a personal understanding of poverty, gave Reagan a tougher political race than any other Democrat has before or since. You can look it up, as Casey Stengel would have said. Without money or organization or an attractive television personality, Unruh nonetheless came much closer to defeating Reagan at the polls than did Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, President Jimmy Carter or Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

After Unruh lost to Reagan in 1970, his political life went downhill. He was strong enough to accept defeat, but he was unable to deal with powerlessness and being out of the legislature. As an elder statesman, he was a bust.

Unruh subsequently was elected state treasurer, a job whose requirements he mastered within minutes and which gave him time and freedom. But his home was no longer in the future, and he spent the rest of his life recalling the glory days when he had been “Big Daddy,” the powerful speaker of the Assembly.

He had a right to do that, a right to feel pride in his accomplishments. He did something that no else has ever done. He went to California as a Texas hick and remade its corrupt and backward-looking legislature into a modern instrument of democracy. This is not a small thing.

Oh, how I would like to see those words about eating, drinking, etc., and voting against them on the wall of every legislative office in our Capitol.  I’ll bet a craftsman in Jefferson City could sell of lot of ‘em.  Maybe they would provoke some cultural change.

 

On the Minneapolis Front Lines

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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.

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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.

Donnie and Nico

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“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” said Chairman Mao as he led his armed struggle/revolution in the 1930s.

Today we have an impulsive, petulant short-attention span child with a pistol who has invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president and his wife and brought them to our country to face American criminal charges.  As is usually the case with Trump, there is little indication that any kind of long-term thinking went into this scheme. He says the United States is going to “run” Venezuela but it is clear there is no plan in place to do so.  There are no planeloads of diplomats in Caracas developing a transition plan, no one sent in to calm an uncertain and certainly angry population.

Secretary of State Rubio tried to clarify to a minor degree that we do not plan to “govern” Venezuela only to have Trump double down that we are going to “run” the country. The Washington Post, citing two White House Sources say a personal grudge might be a factor in Trump’s actions. Suggestions had been made that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado should be put in charge of the country. Trump showed no interest in the idea?  Why?  Because Machado accepted the Nobel Peace Price last year. And we all know that Trump for reasons that only he cannot understand stood no chance anyway.

The Prize Committee cited her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.”  She had her detractors including a faction that disagreed with her support of Trump’s oil embargo.

So who IS in charge now?

Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez Gomez has been sworn in as acting president. She has declared the country deserves peace and dialogue, not war and is offering cooperation with the United States.  On Saturday however, after the kidnapping, she had a different tone, calling the kidnapping “barbaric” and saying she still considered Maduro the leader of the county.  Time and circumstances, however, bring a reality to things. She’s a lawyer and a diplomat who has been Vice President since 2018.

She seems to have put forth somc contradictory messages. On her social media channels Sunday, she said Venezuela wants to develop ‘balanced and respectful international relations…based on sovereign equality and non-interference. She called on Washington to agree with a program “oriented toward shared development, within the framework of international law.”

At the same time, she ordered police “to immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack” by the United States.”

President Trump’s gunboat diplomacy leaves so many questions unanswered.

What does that look like, his plan to run Venezuela, apparently with no interest in “balanced and respectful international relations” and shared development within the framework of international law?” Unfortunately those are not things Trump respects.  Will our miliary take the place of the police and other security forces?  How long will it take them to become as well-versed as the existing Maduro loyal miliary, police, and security establishment?  And how much blood will be shed in gaining military control of the country?

(For that matter we have not heard the human cost of the arrests of the Maduros, or the building damages caused by the raid and whether this county will rebuild the damaged properties.)

Who will the United States install as it military governor, or whatever the title might be?

One would think that a true leader would have these things decided and in place within hours after turning a country upside down.  But not our impulsive child-president with a pistol.

There is precedent for this kind of thing but we haven’t heard Trump justify the Maduro arrest by citing the arrest Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega exactly 36 years earlier, to the day.  Noriega’s dictatorship had been supported by the U.S. government that had paid him large sums to fight drug trafficking, and to keep an eye on Cuba. He fell out of favor by pushing for Panamanian Independence. There also were suggestions he was taking bribes to let drugs reach our country. President George H. W. Busch sent in American troops to topple the regime. He spent 20 years in an American prison for drug trafficking, and seven years in France for money-laundering. He was returned to Panama with a 60-year term for murder, corruption, and embezzlement.  He was 83 when he died in 2017.

The trial arguments will be fascinating. Whether they are similar to the Noriega is something we want to see.  The idea of snatching the president of another country, and putting him on trial for violating the laws in a another nation will be an interesting discussion point and one that the United States Supreme Court will have to parse.

If we can arrest Maduro, can we enforce our speed limits on British roads?  Can a French person who shoplifts an American product in Paris be prosecuted here?  Can the president of a foreign country be charged under American law for exporting a product that is legal in his county to meet a growing demand that product in the United States?

By the way—-what happened to the Fentanyl excuse?  Now all of the talk from Trump is about Venezuelan oil.

Associated with that question is this: Can a President of the United States be prosecuted here or anywhere, for failing to reduce the demand for Maduro’s product, in effect sanctioning by inaction its use?

When did Venezuela’s drug captains become more important than the Columbian Drug Cartels that dominated our drug concerns for so long?  Trump has indicated Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Iran, and Mexico are potential targets of someone who agrees that power comes from the barrel of the gun.  He drools over Greenland, especially, which has never been a threat of any kind to us.

I probably could cook up more questions but I’ll leave that to you.  But here is another one?

If we’re going to run Venezuela, why not make it a 51st state?  If we want Greenland for its rare earths, why would not Venezuela and its oil be the new star on our flag?

Our cynical self has peeled around my shoulder and suggested we would rather have Greenland and Canada because Venezuela has brown people in it, and Canada and Greenland people are white.  But, “We’ll worry about Greenland in about two months,” the child with a gun said on Air Force One.

In the meantime, the spotlight is off the Epstein papers for a while.  That’s okay. When it swings back, there will be a huge volume of material sifted from the most recently studied papers.

Finally, this note on this topic—Maduro is a bad guy.  But is violating international law and other standards the answer to the problems he caused?

And how should NATO respond when his guerillas hit Greenland

Have at it folks.  The box below would welcome you comment and concerns.  We are, after all, in this world box together.

 

 

We All Know What Tomorrow Is

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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

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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.

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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.

Tiger, Tiger Burning Dimly; KCK Chiefs Slouch Toward the End; Sorrow and History in the speedsports.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

English poet William Blake wrote it:

Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright

In the forests of the night—–

(MIZFB)—The Missouri Tigers, depleted on and off the football field, have wrapped up an 8-5 season with a defensive effort against Virginia that is easily overlooked by the lackluster offense in a 13-7 loss..

Virginia dominated the clock, holding the ball for almost 39 minutes with long drives for its touchdown and two field goals. The game-deciding touchdown came at the end of a 19-play, 75 yard drive that ran ten minutes off the clock. Missouri went 0-5 against ranked teams this year. Virginia went into the game at number 20. Missouri’s win at Arkansas let them barely back in the top 25.

The departure of offensive coordinator Kirby Moore to become the head coach at Washington State left Drinkwitz in the position of calling the plays and there are those who think he showed the need for a quick Moore replacement, which Missouri has done by signing Michigan’s offensive coordinator Chip Linsey.  Mizzou also has lured Jack Breske away from Tennessee to be the Tiger president of player personnel and recruiting. More important to the playing field was he exit of tight ends coach Derham Cato

Also important to the product on the field is the departure of tight ends coach Derham Cato and assistant offensive line coach Jack Abercrombie. And the guy who works with players in the weight room has left: Malcolm Hardmon, the assistant director of football athletic performance.

With the portal opening Thursday, the defection of Brad Larrondo could be the toughest loss.  As the GM and CEO of Every True Tiger Brands, the marketing arm of the football program, Larrondo has been The Guy who set up Missouri’s NIL operations. He has negotiated revenue sharing and third-party NIL funding, distributing money to the moneyball athletes attracted to Missouri while also staying within the sending cap.

The portal is open for only two weeks and presumably Larrondo made plenty of arrangements to take advantage of it before he left. But his successor will have little time to put his stamp on the program.

Fortunately, Drinkwitz has some cash to buy good replacements. His new contract provides him with $54 Millon more dollars to hire assistants.

More than a dozen players were not on the game roster, four with injuries and others headed to the portal. Most of them were backups.

The defense did not wear down despite all the time on the field but the defensive scheme against Virginia’s third and fourth down plays seemed to be missing. The fact that Virginia had to convert fifteen of them indicates the Tigers had them where they wanted them but couldn’t close the deal. Missouri went into the game ranked 19th nationally in third down stops but let Virginia converted thirteen of them on 23 attempts. Mizzou, on the other hand, made it work only three of twelve times. Missouri never converted a fourth down in three tries. Virginia did it in two out of four.

The offense, after scoring on the first drive, was shut out the rest of the way. Matt Zollars again showed promise, especially leading a desperation last -minute drive to tie the game. He was taken out with one play left after banging his head on the field during a tackle. His replacement , Brett Brown threw a pass that was intercepted in the end zone.,

One question many fans will want answer to is why Drinkwitz didn’t use Ahmad Hardy more. Hardy reeled of a 42-yard run in the first possession but carried the ball only fourteen times after than. He finished with 89 yards and the all-time single season rushing record.  Some fans were displeased and there appeared to be times on the sidelines when Hardy was chafing at not being on the field.  Missouri was undefeated in games this year in which Hardy carried the ball at least twenty times.  One sportswriter says the social media was “off the charts” because of his absence. In all of Missouri’s losses this year, Hardy had the ball less than twenty times.

(MIZBB)—Now it’s up to Dennis Gates and the men’s basketball Tigers to do something the football Tigers couldn’t in their season—beat a good team.  The Tigers have finished their nonconference schedule 10-3. They open SEC play at home Saturday against Florida with road games against Kentucky and Mississippi.  Florida is 8-4; Kentucky is 9-4 and Mississippi is 7-5.

Vanderbilt is undefeated in a dozen games. Georgia and LSU are 11-1.

The Tigers will have had two weeks to improve from their performance against 91-48 performance against Illinois that set some bad records. It was the worst loss since Dannis Gates has run the program. It was the worst loss in the 93 years the two schools have played each other and the fewest points scored since Arkansas whipped Missouri 87-43 in 2012. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—It’s going to be a long time for Missourians’ hurt to go away after the Chiefs decision to move to Kansas.  It’s probably more politically emotional hurt than fan-support emotional hurt

. The turnout for the first Chiefs game after the announcement did not appear to be noticeably less.  But one politician far from the conflict has weighed in with the observation that Chiefs Owner Clark Hunt is “the biggest Welfare King in America.”  Congressman Brendan Boyle from Pennsylvania—where Chiefs coach Andy Reid built the career in Philadelphia that made him a great choice for Kansas City—said on social media, “Billions of taxpayer money going to this billionaire, while working people suffer. Just a disgrace.”

We can excuse Hunt for seeing it in a different way. “The benefit to the entire region will be monumental. A stadium of this caliber will put Kansas City in the running for Super Bowls, Final Fours, and other world class events. A brand new training facility and headquarters will allow the Chiefs to continue to attract top talent. And the vision for a new mixed-use district will rival that of any sports-anchored development anywhere in the country.”

There is no doubt about that. He would have said the same thing if the Chief stayed in Missouri, but Kansas simply outbid our side.

And in a sports world where some college quarterbacks prices might be reaching for five million dollars at their next university, our games have become nothing more than horses chasing carrots.

On the playing field, the Chiefs dropped to 6-10 on Christmas night’s loss to the Broncos. The Chiefs have lost ten more games nine times. They lost 14 in 2008 and 2012; a dozen in ’77,’78 and 2009. Eleven losses be the third in team history, back to back 11 loss years came in 1987 and ‘88.

The play the Raiders next Sunday for their last game until next August hen they meet the 2-14 Raiders. For the fist time in a decade, the team will have eight months to rest, recover, and regroup before they get back to football that counts.

The end of the year is filled with speculation about what Travis Kelce will do. He has equalled  Hall of Famer Jerry Rice by receiving at least 800 yards a dozen times.

He is having a solid bounce-back season this year with 73 catches for 839 yards averaging 11.5 yards per catch,  close to his career average of 12.1 yards.

He has promised to let the Chiefs know if he wants to be part of the team rebuilding or if is going to step aside before the draft season begins.

The Chiefs have signed yet another backup quarterback. With two QBs on the shelf, they need someone behind Chris Olodokun just in case.

The just in case person is Shane Buechele, who has been picked off of the Buffalo Bills Practice squad. He was with the chiefs in the 2021-2023 seasons and has never played in a real game. In three pre-season games ith the Chiefs he threw for nine touchdowns and six interceptions.

While it’s been confirmed that Minshew didn’t tear his ACL, providing a beacon of hope for Reid in Mahomes’ absence, he will miss time and was placed on Injured Reserve. Hence, the Chiefs need a new quarterback to join Chris Oladokun on the depth chart.

(BASEBALL)—Both of our teams took the holiday off. There were no transactions. Still no blockbuster deals.

—–A somber world of speed—

(NASCAR)—-NASCAR world still mourns the death of retired driver Greg Biffle and his family in a pre-Christas plane crash. Investigators say they’re recovered data recording devices but it will be sometime before the cause of the crash can be determined.

Fans are familiar with his on-track record, but his off-track accomplishments weren’t widely circulated until we read his obituary (as is the case with many pro athletes—and people in general). He set up a foundation that gave grants to humane societies through America. He was a universal blood donor and after his racing career he got into hurricane relief and delivered fuel to stranded Floridians and then helping find places for animals displaced from their shelters. It is said he “risked his life” helping Norh Carolinians caught in Hurricane Helene.

A celebration of his life is being planned.

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As we go to press with this entry, we’ve gotten word that a fire that destroyed the home of Denny Hamlin’s parents in North Carolina killed his father, Dennis, and severely injured his mother, Mary Lou, who is under intensive treatment at a burn center in Winston-Salem.  Officials say both had gotten out the house but had suffered “catastrophic” injuries. The damage to the house is so severe, officials say, that it might be some time before a cause is determined.

Denny, the driver, successfully pursued his 60th NASCAR victory this year and when he got it, he emotionally discussed the importance of the win to his father Dennis, who was in poor health and remarked that 2025 was his father’s last change to see his son with the NASCAR Cup.  Denny made the final four for the final race but Kyle Larson won the Cup.

Young Denny used to sit on his father’s lap watching races on television. He started racing go-kart, when he was seven, and won his first race. Dennis had a little trailer-making business that Denny worked in during high school.  His father formed a family-owned race team.

The family scrimped and saved—and borrowed—to keep Denny’s young career going up until he caught the eye of Joe Gibbs Racing and signed on for the big time. Denny remembered everything his parentsdid for him on the way up. One day, Dennis Hamlin told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Denny announce to his father, “You’re done working and you’re moving to Charlotte.”  When the elder Hamlin responded that he wasn’t going anywhere, the younger Hamlin set him straight by handing him the keys to a new house and told him, “It’s finished, take your clothes, sell the business. Mom works for me now. It’s set. You’re going. You’ve retired.”

Dennis Hamlin was 75.

(INDYCAR)—A prominent color scheme will be back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2026 and its return brings one of the most exciting days in Speedway history to mind—-and the voice of a Missourian who fed that excitement who made it part of legend.

The colors of Sunoco Oil will be on a car next year for the first time in decades—and that is another story.

His name was Tom Carnegie, who grew up as a boy named Tom Kenagy in Raytown.  He was quite a high school athlete until a polio virus affected the strength of his legs and forced him to turn his thoughts to broadcasting. He went to William Jewell College and while there he went to work at KITE Radio in Kansas City. He was the public address announcer for the schools sports events. He went to Indiana, where a station manager encouraged him to change his name to Carnegie and not long after, to Indianapolis.

He was the public address announcer of the historic 1954 high school basetball championship game in which tiny Milan High School upset big Muncie Central, the game on which the movie “Hoosiers’ was based—with Tom doing a cameo.

Let’s go back to 1972 and Mark Donahue’s McLaren that is in the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.

Somewhere in thousands of slides shot at the Speedway that I don’t have the time or the patience to unpack from one of the several boxes of slides is this car on the track.

This car represents a historic part of the Speedway story in several ways.

First: It is the first car owned by Roger Penske to win the 500.  He’s had nineteen winners since.

Second: Speed. You have to be in or near middle age or beyond to remember when Indianapolis race cars did not have wings.  1972 was the first year the rules allowed wings, big ones, that led to he incredible one-day jump in speeds.

Rain washed out the first day of qualifying, but on the second day, drivers demolished Peter Revson’s track record of 178.696 mph from 1971 time after time after time, beginning when Bill Vukovich II set the new one-lap record at 185.797. But he crashed on his second lap and had to qualify later in the rebuilt car. .

Later, after another rain shower stopped running, Joe Leonard turned four laps at 185.223, a record for a four lap, ten mile run. Mario Andretti smashed that record at 187.617.

Longtime track announcer Tom Carnegie’s bass voice had exclaimed “it’s new traaack record” several times that afternoon when Bobby Unser went out with the crowd anticipating something special.  And boy, was it.

The first lap crushed Andretti’s record—194.932, the first lap in track history over 190.

The second lap: “You won’t believe it!” said the great voice on the PA system. 196.036, another new track record.

Lap three: “And it’s still going up! Forty-five and 91 hundredths of a second! 196.6781

And then the third lap: 196.678. A third new track record.

Lap four was “only” 196.121.

The four lap average (“It’s new all-time speed record”) 195.940.

The seventeen-mile jump in qualifying speed remains the record these 53 years later.  Many expected the 200-mile an hour barrier would fall the next year, but it five more years before Tom Sneva did it—with Carnegie fueling the crowd’s excitement as Sneva set records on each his four laps.

Unser’s speed stood up despite challenges from Revson, who put his McLaren next Unser’s Gurney Eagle at 192.885 and Donehue put his McLaren on the outside of the front row at 191.408.

Tom Carnegie died in 2011. The Indianapolis TV station where he’d become an institution put together a 20-minute tribute that included Tom remembering that historic day. It comes about 10:40 into the program.

Tom Carnegie: The Voice Remembered

One of these days I’ll dig out the interview did with him where talks about his Missouri roots.

Donahue’s Penske teammate, Gary Bettenhausen (the Bettenhausen name is part of IndyCar legend) led for 138 of the race’s 200 laps before mechanical failure took him out.  Donahue took the lead with thirteen laps left and gave Roger Penske his landmark win. It also was the first time a McLaren chassis had won the 500.  Al Unser Sr., finished second, coming one position short of being the first driver to win three 500s in a row—he later won two more times.

Mark Donahue and Roger Penske had a special bond. Donahue was an engineer who knew how to set up his cars and win with them. He raced everything from Porsches and Ferraris to Mustangs and American Motors Javelins in numerous serieses before stepping away from the sport’s full-time demands. But In August, 1975 he drove a Penske Porsche to a closed-course world record speed of 221.120 on the Talladega Speedway.

He was pulled back to full-time racing when Penske tried Formula 1. He ran a couple of races late in 1974 and was in the new Penske F1 car in ’75. The car didn’t work out so Penske switched to a March chassis. He went to Austria to run the new car in the Austrian Grand Prix and crashed badly but appeared to be unhurt. But he had a serious head injury and lapsed into a coma and died the next day, August 19.

Roger Penske owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar today. He also fields cars in NASCAR.

McLaren is a powerhouse team in Formula 1 and one of its drivers, Lando Norris, won the championship while his teammate, Oscar Piastri, was third.  McLaren does not build cars for the 500 or for IndyCar but does have a team led by one of the most popular drivers in the series, Pato O’Ward, the runner-up in this year’s points chase.

The fastest qualifying run at the Brickyard still be longs to Arie Luyendyk, who had a hot lap of 239.260 and a four-lap average of 236.986 in 1996.

Now, thirty years later, Mark Donahue’s sponsor returns to Roger Penske’s track.

Chip Ganassi Racing, Penske Racing’s biggest long-term rival is bringing back the familiar colors for Kyffin Simpson. Sunoco considers itself the largest independent fuel distributor in the country. It’s the official fuel for IndyCar and NASCAR.

The front wings are bigger. The rear wing is smaller.  Most important this car is far safer for Simpson hat he Donahue museum piece was in its day. The cockpit/windscreen protects drivers from flying debris in crashes and does not expose their heads to restraining fence poles or other impacts as the one that killed Donahue.

They’re a little slower but are inching closer to Luyendyk’s record.  And, as was the case more than fifty years ago, they make incredible sounds and provide breathtaking racing.

And in four months they’ll be on the great track at Indianapolis.  History and memory will come together with the past and its legends.

(Photo Credits: Kelce—Facbook; Donahue car—Bob Priddy; New Sunoco Car—Ganassi Racing; Dennis Hamlin—NASCAR.com)