Category Archives: government

On Hypocrisy

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Let’s go on a journey as I track down an interesting internet post by the title of today’s essay.  As regular consumers of these entries know, your author is pretty critical of the evangelical blessing of Donald Trump’s actions, which has led to some surprises as I’ve followed one of those investigative strings that began with that internet post that seemed appropriate for these times.

Let us begin with:

I love cartoonist Wiley Miller and his Non Sequitur offerings. It led me to seek out some related comments from some far distant pre-internet sources.

Shakespeare wrote, “God has given you one face and you make yourself another.”

Socrates had a couple: “Be as you wish to seem,” and “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”

Nineteenth Century social commentator and author Ambrose Bierce called Hypocrisy “prejudice with a halo.’

So we arrive at a post popular on Facebook that originated on Linked In written by “digital circuit rider” Dr. Cliff Kelly, Professor of Digital Media & Communication Arts at Liberty University in Virginia for the past twenty years.

Liberty U was founded by Jerry Fallwell Jr. and describes itself as “a private evangelical Christian University rooted in Southern Baptist Traditions” that is “deeply committed to evangelical Christian Principles.”

Kelly’s writing raised the eyebrows, given his connection to Liberty and its mission. It begins:

You can’t spend Sunday morning in church praising Jesus, talking about love, compassion, mercy, humility, honesty, and caring for the vulnerable, then spend Sunday afternoon defending an administration that does the exact opposite.

Well, that seems to fly in the face of the familiar photographs of evangelical leaders, including Baptists, placing their hands on Trump as a kind of blessing.

How, then, could Kelly write something so strongly attacking what seems to many of us to be a theological double standard that also seems to be against the moral basis of his university?  Let’s find out.

When Kelly was on the Chicago City Council (1973-1988) he sponsored the first ordinance proposed in the city to ban sexual orientation discrimination. His proposal is now part of Chicago’s Human Rights Ordinance. But Liberty hired him.

Adding to the chemistry of this situation is the Southern Baptist Convention’s election of Florida Pastor Willy Rice as its president. One of his strongest supporters was identified by Newsweek’s Shane Croucher as “a former official’s staffer in the Trump administration.” His election was considered “an ideological shift to the right in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination” that already was pretty conservative and has been criticized by Rice for being too “Woke.”

One of his influential supporters was the Center for Baptist Leadership headed by a former Trump administration employee William Wolfe who once said, “I want my boys to grow up in a country where they don’t look like they’re the foreigners here.”  Think of Bierce’s comment.

But Croucher says Rice does not seem attached at the hip to Trump. He’s not a Trump opponent in any way but he hasn’t minded differing with him—-such as Trump’s post showing him as a Christ-like figure healing the sick, which Rice said was  “wrong and should be removed,” while also saying, “I continue to be thankful for many things our President has done.”

He firmly condemned the 2021 attack on the Capitol fomented by Trump. Although saying there were “defensible reasons” for evangelicals to support Trump in his rise to power, “but there are grave concerns about what unhealthy political passions in this recent season have revealed about the state of the church in America.” Additionally, he has warned of an “unhealthy and dangerous co-mingling of religion and politics,” observing, “We don’t need Donald Trump to save us. I know this will sound hard to some, but God never called us to Make America Great Again.”

“That people who claim to follow Christ have embraced conspiracy theories like Q-Anon is to our shame. Some of the same people, who hear about other cults and conclude that they would never fall for such nonsense, are the same ones posting and sharing utter falsehoods about orphans trapped beneath cities who are being rescued by President Trump, liberals practicing cannibalism, and the mysterious Q, This is garbage!”

Now it seems a little easier to understand how Kelly was able to write his piece.  Here’s the whole thing:

You can’t spend Sunday morning in church praising Jesus, talking about love, compassion, mercy, humility, honesty, and caring for the vulnerable, then spend Sunday afternoon defending an administration that does the exact opposite.

And before someone says, “But I’m a Republican,” let me remind you of something: God doesn’t serve political parties. Jesus didn’t die for Democrats. Jesus didn’t die for Republicans. He didn’t wear a red hat or a blue one. He didn’t tell people to pick a team and hate the other side. He called people to love their neighbor, care for the poor, welcome the stranger, seek truth, show mercy, and hold the powerful accountable. You can’t praise the Good Samaritan while cheering policies that target immigrants and asylum seekers.

You can’t celebrate “love thy neighbor” while mocking the poor, cutting assistance for struggling families, and treating human suffering like a political talking point. You can’t talk about protecting children while separating families, demonizing entire communities, and creating fear as a governing strategy.

Jesus fed the hungry. He didn’t ask for their paperwork first. Jesus healed the sick. He didn’t check their political party. Jesus stood with the marginalized. He didn’t use them as campaign props. Jesus challenged the powerful. He didn’t worship them. This administration has normalized cruelty, retaliation, greed, vengeance, dishonesty, scapegoating, and the constant division of Americans against one another. It attacks journalists, demonizes opponents, mocks compassion as weakness, treats empathy as a flaw, and encourages people to view fellow Americans as enemies rather than neighbors.

The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Ask yourself honestly: are those the values being demonstrated? Or are we seeing anger, fear, revenge, hostility, insults, loyalty tests, culture wars, and endless outrage? You don’t have to be a Democrat to see it. You don’t have to be liberal to see it. You just have to compare what Jesus taught with what this administration celebrates.

If your politics require you to ignore cruelty, excuse corruption, justify lies, or abandon compassion, then politics has become your religion and your politician has become your idol. God doesn’t have a political team. Jesus doesn’t wear a campaign hat.

And no politician is important enough to place above the values you claim to believe in every Sunday morning,

Sounds pretty Socratic and pretty Wiley-ish to us.

The Seven Deadly (Social) Sins 

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I love discussion groups.  Sitting around and exploring issues, thoughts, events.  I recently came across something that could make for an interesting evening.

Or interesting any time, really.

Although usually credited to Mahatma Ghandi, this list apparently began with English Anglican Priest Frederick Lewis Donaldson (1860-1953).  He made his list public when he was the Canon, or Administrator, of Westminster Abbey and delivered them as part a speech on April 1, 1925.

We find his list of the Seven Deadly (social) Sins useful as we discuss political leadership at all levels in our country today:

  1. Wealth without work
  2. Pleasure without conscience
  3. Knowledge without character
  4. Commerce without morality
  5. Science without humanity
  6. Religion without sacrifice
  7.  Politics without principle.

He sent them to India to Mahatma Ghandi, who put them in his weekly newspaper, Young India, six months later.

Several books have been written that use these statements as their basis. The internet also is full of interpretations of them.  We like the summary at exploringyourmind.com.

(I gave the list to my minister who wrote about them in our weekly church newsletter.  He added an eighth one: unity without humility, commenting, “Too often people demand unity when what they really want is conformity. They want silence instead of conversation. Agreement instead of relationship. Control instead of community…Unity honors the dignity and humanity of others even when we disagree. It listens before speaking. It seeks understanding before judgment. It makes room at the table.”)

In his article a century ago, Ghandi wrote:

A Fair friend sends me “Crisp Sayings” by Dan Griffiths on crime and wants me to find room for them in these pages. Here are some extracts which a Satyagraphi  (a person who practices nonviolent resistance) can readily subscribe to:

“State law is not necessarily moral. Crime is not necessarily immoral.”

“There is a world of difference between illegality and immorality.”

“Not all illegalities are immoral and not all immoralities are illegal.”

Who can say that whilst not to crawl on one’s belly at the dictation of an officer might be an illegality it is also an immorality? Rather is it not true that refusal to crawl on one’s belly may be illegal but it would be in the highest degree moral? Another illuminating passage is the following; “Modern society is in itself a crime factory. The militarist is a relative of the murderer and the burglar is the complement of the stock jobber.” The third excerpt runs as follows;

“The thief in law is merely the person who satisfied his acquisitive in ways not sanctioned by the community. The real thief is the person who takes more out of society than he puts into it.” But “Society punishes those who annoy it,—the retail and not the wholesale offenders.”

Ghandi published the “Seven Deadly Sins” after that with the comment, “Naturally, the friend does not want the reader to know these things merely through the intellect but to know them through the heart to avoid them.”

The entire issue of Young India  can be found at: Full page photo.  The last page, under the title “Practical Vendata” offers an interesting view of Hindu philosophy (Vendata) compared to the teachings of Jesus.

We have wandered a bit because, as usual, one thing has led to another. Getting back to the beginning: Where are we as a people and as a nation on this list of deadly social sins—-and how do we move closer to becoming repentant sinners?

From the Wonderful Folks Who Want to Hijack Our History

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The hijacking of our nation’s 250th birthday party by Donald Trump continues, a man who seems motivated to make sure he has a big place in American history.

His place seems assured—potentially as this country’s worst President.

The latest shameful step is his demand that National Park Service employees buy and wear—or the NPS buys and gives employees to wear==Trump’s Freedom 250 pins instead of the decorations from the Congressionally-established America 250 Committee. Mother Jones reports any worker refusing the do so could face disciplinary action.

It means that NPS employees working on the National Mall for the “Trump rally” better be wearing pins from which the President will make a profit—or else.

Trump already has turned the National Park Service into his history propaganda machine. His removal of signs, exhibits, films, and other portrayals of our history and replaced them (if he replaced them at all) with Trump-politically correct versions of history. Court filings indicate at least 37 NPS sites have been affected.

A federal judge had ordered the restoration of the items to their original places by July 3. An NPS spokesman says the agency is not sure that’s enough time to get it all done.

The arrogance of Trump’s Ozymandic quest was put on huge public display a few days ago when a giant poster was unfurled on the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building showing TR’s face and a quotation attributed to him: “Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.”

The problem is that Co-Director Michael Patrick Cullinane of the Theodore Roosevelt Center told Huff Post, “What I can say for certain is that the quote did not originate with Theodore Roosevelt.”

The Washington Post did an article about it, which prompted a representative of the Office of Personnel Management, that occupies the building, to say the quotation “is commonly attributed to Roosevelt and captures the spirit of the federal workforce.”

(or at least what is left of it after the Trump-Musk eviscerating of numerous federal agencies.)

The comment from OPM’s Laurine Pinover is reminiscent of a quote attributed to President Warren Harding: “I love Paul Revere, whether he rode or not.”  (Paul Revere was one of two riders who rode to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British Army was advancing in that direction.  Revere was captured early in the event, questioned, and freed after being questions.  William Dawes was the one who spread the alarm but who is forgotten because his last name does not rhyme with “Listen my children and you shall hear…”)

Pinover dismissed the article: “As excited as we are about America 250, it’s surprising the Washington Post has taken such an interest in our small agency’s building banners.”

The newspaper notes that there’s another banner alongside Roosevelt’s image that promotes Trump’s Freedom 250 efforts to rewrite history in general.

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library gives us a far better statement that he really did make—to the Iowa State Teachers’ Association in November, 1910:

“Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. No kind of life is worth leading if it is always an easy life. . . . I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

It’s not something Donald Trump—who has had an easy life but has made the lives of millions of people difficult—would understand. But this one is true, something else Donald Trump doesn’t understand, either.

Art and Not Art

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As we recover from the weekend $60 million Trump birthday party cage match at the White House that symbolized the character of the current occupant, an event held within hours of the removal of his name from the Kennedy Cener, we recalled a couple of things President Kennedy said that emphasize the differences between grace and crudeness, between raising hope and getting revenge, between Bernstein and Dorati and Topuria and Gaethje.

There is perhaps no more stark difference between the two men than part of President Kennedy’s speech at Amherst College a month before his death:

I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future

I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an American which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. 

The first performance in the Kennedy Center was the premier of Leonard Bertstein’s Mass at the opening gala in the Opera House on September 5, 1971. The Concert Hall opened the next day with a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Antal Dorati, one of our country’s most celebrated conductors.

Ilia “El Matador” Topuria and Justin “The Highlight” Gaethje are wrestlers who performed in their own way Sunday night.  One of the fighters, after his event, threw a slur at Michelle Obama, referring to her as “a man.’  CNN reported that Trump quietly smiled.

As for the Kennedy Center, Trump is interested in it only if he has his name on it above Kennedy’s name.

Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into “NEVER NEVER LAND, Therefore, based on the fact that the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center, almost all of which lose large amounts of money throughout the Country, we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it.

The 80-year old petulant child takes his ball and goes home because everybody else won’t play his rules.

I urge you to take seven minutes to look at the video of part of a fund raising event held on November 29, 1962 for development of a National Cultural Center, now again known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I hope many of you find yourselves uplifted a little bit by a better man and a better president.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=John+Kennedy+onthe+arts&view=detail&mid=2D79B9FC6F6A8F45EA082D79B9FC6F6A8F4

John F. Kennedy’s name is on numerous institutions, buildings, and institutes because other people believed what he said when he spoke of what we can be as a better, more optimistic nation. So far, Donald Trump’s name is on buildings only because he puts it there or demands them to be put there, or else.

The contrast between the Kennedy Center and the giant claw that was erected for cage fight could not be a starker illustration of the difference between Kennedy’s dream and Trump’s reality.

This is why old people are valuable.  We can tell you during this time that many believe is a national nightmare about a time when a President encouraged us to dream of a country known for its civilization as well as its strength.

The Income Tax Cut

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It’s going to take some pretty strong lobbying to convince me that the governor’s plan to eliminate the state income tax and make up for the lost state revenue by increasing the sales tax is a good idea.

We already have seen a major investment in promoting passage from an anonymous source—almost two million dollars so far.  Our campaign finance laws allow big money special interests or individuals to hide behind a legal campaign money laundering system that has been abused by both side of the aisle.

If I contribute $100 dollars to someone’s campaign (which never have been done or will be done), my name becomes a public record. If I were wealthy enough to buy part of the Missouri Constitution, I could hide my attempted purchase.

Getting back to the topic:

Here is an issue that could have a chilling effect on our public services and public protections that hasn’t been discussed as far as I have heard:

The local sales tax has been used throughout Missouri to improve local infrastructure—streets, sewer systems, parks, and improved public safety.

This last point has been highlighted in the last couple of weeks by requests from sheriffs in Boone and Cole County for temporary sales tax increases to fund jails and jail expansions.  The Boone County Commission is putting a 3/8 cent sales tax increase on the November ballot with proceeds building a new jail.

The Cole County sheriff has just asked his county commission for a temporary sales tax to improve and expand current jail—which was built with proceeds from a temporary sales tax increase.

Temporary local sales taxes need voter agreement.  It seems that if voters are given a specific amount to be raised and significant enough purpose for the increase, they are likely to support it as a matter of community self interest. We make this observation without having seen any professionally-done studies on the subject; it just seems to work this way. The system gives citizens an opportunity to evaluate the benefits they will receive versus the cost of obtaining them.

But if the income tax is cut and the state imposes new sales taxes on a myriad of products and services, the local voter has no say in how that money will benefit their communities. And the higher the state-imposed sales tax is (the legislature can determine what the rate will be), might it become harder for voters to approve temporary increases at the local level?

The income tax/sales tax proposal headed for the statewide ballot in August might be nice for those who have a lot of money and don’t want to share it but a lower income tax won’t much help our lower income residents—and a higher statewide sales tax not only will increase financial problems for the paycheck-to-paycheck families, it could weaken voter support for a temporary tool used by local governments  to increase public services and public safety.

I might find a temporary sales tax for a new jail or improvements to an existing one—or other public improvements and programs— more than my billfold can bear if the state taxes my purchases to make up for the loss of revenue that seems to benefit people higher up the fiscal food chain than I am.

Until we are better persuaded, the proposed income tax cut appears from our hilltop view to be a benefit I can’t afford and that my city and county can’t afford either.

I’m always open to efforts to make me think otherwise.  But for now, a billionaire’s money is unlikely to buy my vote.

Laws for the Presidency

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CNN polling discussed last weekend shows the overwhelming number of Americans are tired of President Trump lionizing himself, especially by sticking his name on  buildings while he remains in office. The data was called “clear as glass” by CNN’s Chief Data Analyst, Harry Enten.

The Survey found one in five Americans think it’s okay to name buildings after Trump—but only after has left office (and, we add, after time and more open evaluation of his behavior is possible).

Only NINE PERCENT say it’s okay for him to stick his name on government buildings while he’s still in office.

How strong is that feeling.  Enten looked at some other ridiculous ideas for comparison.  Nine percent is even lower than the 12 percent of Americans who think the moon landing was a fake.

It is even one point lower than the number of Americans who think the Earth if flat—ten percent.

Enten said, “On this issue, the rock core, that core Republican base that Trump has relied upon, that stick with him through thick and thin, even on this issue, though, just 17 percent, just 17 percent of Republicans say that, yes, it is. Three percent, not really so surprising, of Democrats say the same thing. So, you get rare bipartisan unity on this issue.

But is he fixated on himself, as if we need to ask? He plans to the celebration of our nation’s 250th birthday in Washington into a celebration of himself, which should remove any doubt, underlining the sentiment of only 29% of Americans in the CNN survey who think he is focused enough on issues that really matter.  More than two-thirds (68 percent) say he is not.

As we have noted in a previous blog, the polarization of America this man is causing is staggering in its scope.  In this issue—focus—only THREE PERCENT of respondents seemed to have no opinion.

Because our current occupant of the White House has so clearly violated or ignored all previous written and unwritten standards for the office, it is time for Congress put serious limits on the presidency, written standards with severe penalties for their violations. Some of these standards must be applied also to those who enact them.

These proposals are based on the proposition that the higher people rise in our political system, the more they must reveal of themselves as a matter public honesty with those who elevate them to those positions.

In short, the higher you rise, the less private your life becomes and the more you “belong” to the public because you are entrusted by that public with increasing levels of power that must be exercised with responsibility beyond personal interest.

To begin with the current example, these laws of the powerful should require:

—The name of no President shall be affixed to any government building, park, military equipment or other federal holding while in office. Such naming shall remain the province of the Congress and its usual process for such designations which shall not be made until the president has been out of office for one election cycle.

—No image, signature or other representation of a sitting or living former President shall appear on any United States currency or coinage used in general public circulation.

—Within two weeks of an individual achieving a nomination for President, or achieving the office through succession, the Internal Revenue Service shall make public the tax returns of the individual for the previous five years and shall release them for each year the individual is in office.

—The same standards shall apply to appointees to the United States Supreme Court, to cabinet positions, and to members of Congress upon their elections. .

—The President and incoming Vice-President, not later than two weeks  prior to inauguration, shall transfer all assets, including but not limited to personal financial holdings and property to an independent blind trust established by the Congress to manage those assets during the time they are in office. No transfer of assets within the families of the President and the Vice-President during the two years before the inauguration date shall be recognized as legal and such assets shall be seized and placed into the trust if so made.

—Failure to place assets into such a trust will delay the inauguration until such time as the obligation is met.  The sitting president shall serve as a President Pro Tempore until such requirements are met.  If the sitting president is incapable of serving under provisions of the 25th amendment or chooses not to continue service, the sitting president shall be replaced according to the line of succession established in the Constitution and that person will continue serving until all trust requirements are met. Impeachment shall be mandatory if it is determined later that these standards have not been met intentionally.

—Within two weeks of all annual physical examinations, the detailed results including (for lack of a better term) “beyond basic” tests of cognition, shall be released.

—No President shall order the unprovoked attack of or invasion of another independent nation without the approval of Congress.

—No President can claim, annex, or purchase any independent nation or territory of an independent nation without approval by Congress and a proven willingness by the inhabitants of such lands to become part of the United States..  “Proven willingness” shall mean a positive vote by the general population of the area proposed.

—No President unilaterally can withdraw this country from international bodies dedicated to the health, safety, welfare, financial stability, and peaceful coexistence with others without approval by Congress.

—No President may interfere with the orderly elections of the states nor with the standards of institutional of higher learning within those states.

—All revenue outside of campaign donations that would personally benefit a sitting President shall be applied against the national debt (ending the pay for play philosophy that seems so prominent in today’s presidential dealings).

—All campaign donations to presidential and congressional candidates shall be listed according to the name of the individuals making them.  Organizations aggregating campaign funds must identify the individuals contributing to such aggregated donations.

—No president shall establish independent political action committees to influence elections at the state level during the term of the presidency.

Nothing in these suggestions prohibits a president from making recommendations nor do any of them limit the president’s constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and expression nor his ability to associate with others who might advocate a cause on his behalf. But they will go far to prevent future presidents from taking the powers of the people from them.

Expecting Congress to enact any of these protections for the nation’s general welfare seems to be quite a reach. But we should know by now that failure to do so only invites something worse, if it is possible to envision something worse, than the inattentive but self-absorbed figure we have now.

Recall that on September 18, 1787, the last day of the Constitutional Convention. Elizabeth Willing Powell, a Philadelphia social leader we today would call “an influencer,” asked delegate Benjamin Franklin as he emerged from the final meeting, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”  Franklin’s answer is well known: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

These recommendations are designed to keep our republic and have been created to respond to the excesses of the current holder of the presidency.  You might have modifications to these ideas or additional limits that Congress could and should impose.  Feel free to share them in the “comments’ section at the end of this posting. No snark please. This is too important for that.

In this campaign year, those seeking federal office should be asked by the media and the voters if they would support limits such as these on the most powerful single person in our government and for those seeking high federal positions. If yes, why?  If not, why not?

We citizens have obligations to ourselves and to our families as well as to our neighbors—known and unknown—to protect ourselves and to protect our nation.  Some might argue that the Constitution already protects us enough.  Your correspondent does not believe that it does, and we have seen demonstration after demonstration of that inadequacy, especially with President Trump.

These issues need to be part of the national dialogue in this election year. If you would like to begin this discussion with others by distributing these ideas, feel free to do so. If you have a chance to speak of these things with your congressional candidates, do not miss it.

A republic is a terrible thing to be wasted.

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Notes From a Quiet Hill 

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In case you are wondering—-

Triple-A says the highest recorded price for regular unleaded fuel in Missouri was $4.683 on June 16, 2022. The record for diesel was set just nine days later at $5.375.

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We either are still in Indianapolis or on the way home after witnessing two races—one of which we hope to have more about later (and we don’t mean tomorrow). We took this picture last year of the starting field—only six cars, if you want to call them that.

This year was the second annual Wiener 500.  All six of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile raced for two laps, each with a two-person crew (both college students who have spent a year touring the country promoting Oscar-Mayer products.  It was so much fun they decided to do it again Saturday, weather permitting (we are writing this on Wednesday night before heading to the Circle City Friday morning).  We’ll have a full report.  Last we knew, two young women from the MU Journalism school had been part of the traveling show. If one of them drives one of these machines to victory, she will be the first woman to win a race in the 117-year history of the Speedway.

Last year, the 500 broadcast crew had fun with their straight-faced coverage:

Inaugural Oscar Mayer Wienie 500 🌭 Full Race | INDYCAR on FOX

Unofficially, the last 2.5 mile lap was turned in 3:17.5, about 65.2 mph.

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Another example of the political amateur hour in Washington crossed our desk a few days ago when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told the House Natural Resources Committee advocates for solar energy are wrong because, “”All of these projects …in Nevada have one thing in common. When the sun goes down, they produce zero electricity….The whole machine doesn’t work when the sun goes down. And there’s examples from around the world of this happening.”  He suggested committee members have secret briefings about how solar energy doesn’t work.

California Congressman Jared Huffman couldn’t resist a response, asserting there is an “amazing new technology that apparently the secretary is unaware of, it’s a battery.” And solar system batteries hold the day’s electricity for use at night.  Burgum seems to have been in the dark about that. Ignorance such as this in this administration stopped being a surprise a long time ago.

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I’m an immensely popular guy. Or maybe a lot of people are interested in my welfare. My phone is ringing from sunup to sundown from people wanting to make sure my Medicare program is good enough. Even when my caller identity says they’re call from some town in Missouri (and other places nationwide) it turns out that they’re not calling from those places at all.

And many voices sound as if they’re coming from places without Medicare.

A dozen calls a day probably is below average. I answer the calls because I don’t want to fill up the answering machine with non-messages. The thing beeps and drives me crazy.

One day our caller ID told us we were calling ourselves. But we recognize our own voices and the voice calling us was neither of us.

It’s time we re-examined the Attorney General’s no-call list to see if we can have a law (maybe it has to be federal) that says any call originating from someplace other than where the caller ID says it’s coming from is a crime.   It has been many years since we heard of the Attorney General racking up a big fine against a robocall company.

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Here’s something that is really, really serious in our country’s politics.  There are conspiracy theorists who claim that President Trump faked his assassination attempts. While there is no Christmas card exchange between his mailbox and ours, we can’t see how that assertion is true. If it is true, it means that Donald Trump planned for the death of one or more onlookers—Corey Comperatore, who did get fatally shot, and two other people on the platform who were wounded in Pennsylvania. There are those floating the idea that he somehow convinced some guy from California to give up the rest of his life as a free citizen to go to Washington and do something at the correspondents’ dinner to justify tearing down part of the White House and building a ballroom that is more secure than the Washington hotel ballroom where the dinner was scheduled this year.

All of that is rubbish. Perhaps the discussion we should be having is about what Trump does and/or says that has encouraged three unbalanced people to try to get him in their gunsights.

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Here’s a way to end Mr. Trump’s war with Iran.  We buy all of its enriched uranium and make an exclusive contract with Iran to be our exclusive supplier, with American management involved. Payments for the uranium would come from the funds this country has confiscated from Iran not only to pay for the uranium but to constitute reparations for our bombings. Turn management of the Strait of Hormuz to the United Nations which could charge reasonable fees that would finance programs in the world’s poorest countries.

Maybe we could make Iran our 51st state. Or the 52nd.  Or the 52rd.  Or 53rd.  We almost need a scorecard to keep track of the possibilities.

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The 51st State

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President Trump’s fixation on creating a 51st state is, as is the case with so many of his ideas, poorly thought out. Who is it going to be?  Canada?  Greenland?  Cuba?  Venezuela?  Some other country somebody mentions to him that sticks in the front of his mind ahead of all other issues?

A COD—Country of the Day.

Who have we left out?

Well, there’s one place that’s been hopeful for more than a century of becoming the 51st state.  Puerto Rico. But Puerto Rico—it’s just a place for paper towel-throwing demonstrations by a president who seems to want anybody BUT Puerto Rico to be considered anything more than he considers it to be—a possible trading chip to gain Greenland.

The Trump administration has been miserly in providing disaster relief to Puerto Ricans after hurricane a few years ago. He withheld $520 million in disaster aid.

I’ll trade you my ’62 Oldsmobile with no air conditioning and plenty of water damage for your ’53 Ford that doesn’t have a heater and uses tire chains seven months of the year.

None of the other four countries has expressed much interest in his undisciplined mind’s suggestions although Cuba certainly is closer than Hawaii—-although Cuba says it values its independence, is no Iran as a threat to this country, and shouldn’t be Trump’s next punching bag.

Putting Puerto Rico aside because it already is a United States territory, let’s think about the silliness of the other four.

He cannot sign an executive order declaring another country a state of the United States. That’s not the legal process for creating a new state—although for Trump, legal process is a dismissible thing.  His contempt for the law is beyond contemptible.

Think about this:

Making another country a state means that other country will come under our laws, our Constitution, our long history of court precedents. It will suddenly come under our clean air and clean water laws.  OSHA, just by itself, will be an enormous problem for many countries (we’ve climbed and descended some pretty dangerous steps lacking handrails in other countries just for one example). Highways will have to meet federal highway standards.  In the case of Canada, the province of Quebec will have to forget its French language.  It’s not ‘Murican y’know.

The EPA will face a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Healthcare programs will have to be brought into conformation with United States plans.  Currency, banking, stock markets—all will  be changed to the American system.

Integrating the military systems, minimum wage standards, pension programs, and taxes will have to conform to our system.  Speaking of finances—currency uniformity will be a real bear.

The social safety net expansion will be horrendous.

National Parks, national historic sites, cultural centers, museums, and school systems will suddenly have to be made American.

Licensed professionals will have to be re-licensed and relicensed under American standards. Lawyers under other countries’ systems of laws will have to be retrained in our system so their citizens will be protected as our citizens are (except in certain Democratic-controlled cities, of course).

Political conventions will face enormous challenges and it is likely there will be more than two parties.

Licensing of professionals—doctors, lawyers, etc.—-will have to be done by our standards.

Just changing the style of traffic signs will cost, maybe, billions. No more kilometers.

And our history books will have to be rewritten to reflect the history of the newest state.

Did you ever hear of Alexander McKenzie?  No, he’s not a character from “Outlander.”  He’s the Canadian explorer who became he first “literate traveler” to cross North America north of Mexico—a decade before Lewis and Clark.  Giving up Lewis and Clark might be a leap greater than some Americans can tolerate.

And that brings us to the differences in our countries in dealing with indigenous people—
“First Nations” as they’re called in Canada.

What happens to the national anthems? Will anybody be allowed to sing them?

Missouri was a district, then a territory, and once it became socially and bureaucratically qualified, a state.

What will become of the existing governments and their employees? And their government pensions? The national capitols and capitol cities?  What will be their status or will they cease to be nothing more than historic sites?  What new religions might we have to deal with or what religions from our newest “state” will change our religious demographics in an uncomfortable way for established denominations? //?

Highly important: How will we gerrymander their congressional districts so they’ll vote red? Gotta protect the homeland.

How long will it take for the new state’s education system to equal ours?   That’s one that could cut both ways.

And—-

Wait a minute!

Hold the phone!

Some of these countries speak SPANISH!!!!

We know what problems that present sto the 50-state country and what its present administration that thinks of people who speak Spanish.  It’s been rounding them up, impounding them by the thousands in often miserable concentrations, and shipping them off to countries that are not being considered for statehood.

And how about those who speak Kalaallisut, Tunumit, and Inuktun, and Danish?  The first three make up better than 96% of a language known as Greenlandic. The rest speak Danish.

Oh, dear….

For years MAGA people even before there were MAGA people insisted our official language is our version of English.  How can we be considering adding states that present us with such language challenges?

At least Canada has a language closer ours except they say “Eh” while we say “y’know.”

How long can we keep asking these questions for which our President has no answers?

But having no answers, at least no honest answers, is what he’s best at.

Viewing what he has done with the 50 states now under his supervision leaves no confidence that he can deal with a 51st state no matter how he might try to have it created.

Here is another possibility he hasn’t thought of.  Combine more than ninety islands that this country took over in the 1890s into one jurisdiction although they’re separated by a few thousand miles. Our country claimed them because of their vast mineral deposits.

And what was that much valued mineral?

Guano. These islands had no people but they had birds for centuries and their byproduct was needed as fertilizer in this country. Trump could claim that combining these islands into one new state would prove that this country is the only one that really has all it’s ______ together.

The People Will Not Be Defeated 

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I walked out of the Missouri Supreme Court building last Tuesday and saw large crowd across the street chanting:

“The People,

United

Will Not Be Defeated.”

It was a “People Not Politicians” demonstration urging the court to throw out the new congressional district map enacted by the legislature  to protect President Trump from a new Congress that would hold him more responsible for his acts than his timid GOP Solons are doing now.

Later the group crossed the street and paraded in front of the court building.

—-and about four hours later, the court ruled against People Not Politicians on all three cases it had heard that morning.

Please do not take this to suggest people should not gather for this purpose, but protest demonstrations and marches in these situations are of limited utility.

Rallies to get and to keep people involved in public policy-setting are important. But in terms of forcing a change in direction by government far more is required.

Every year during a legislative session, thousands of people representing one cause or another, or one profession or another, organize “Day at the Capitol” events when they bus in dozens of people, many of whom have no experience in Capitol politics, to go to legislative offices to make their cases. For many, perhaps most, of these people, this is the only time they relate to their lawmaker, who usually is in the chamber working on legislative business.  So they drop off some brochures or information packets and then check their lists to see whose office they will visit next.

Days at the Capitol join demonstrations and marches, in general, with having little lasting impact.

Here are some things that do work:

Money.

Sayings such as “Money greases the wheels of politics,” or “Money is the lifeblood of politics” are, unfortunately, part of our system of government. This is not to say that those we elect can be bought, at least not directly.  But money buys lobbyists. Money for campaigns speaks loudly.

It is often said that money doesn’t buy politicians; it just buys access to politicians. However, the more access you can have, the more influence you might be able to exercise. That is the world they live in. It is wrong, however, to assume that all who live in this world are corrupt. In all my forty-some years of covering Missouri government, probably no more than twenty legislators and state officers were sent to prison or removed from their jobs, less than two percent of all of the people I covered in the pressure cooker of Missouri politics.

When your legislators drive across the bridge or under the viaducts to enter Jefferson City, they are entering a bubble that has a tendency to be all-absorbing of their attention.  It is a special world where the focus of those working in it is entirely on the issues in front of them. Home can become a long ways away.  The pressure is enormous and it grows even greater as the pages are peeled off of the calendar.

On Tuesday, the day the Supreme Court heard the redistricting cases, the House and the Senate met for the 68th time this year.

The session ended after 71 working days. Here’s what the lawmakers were facing: 1,002 Senate bills and resolutions introduced this year and 2,101 bills and resolutions introduced in the House—by our count. That’s 3,103 proposals, many of them duplicates or more.

The legislative process becomes a highly-selective and highly subjective matter. What goes on in the Capitol is an intense winnowing that will produce, in a good year, 100-125 agreements on legislation. This year, the total was about 90, a big improvement over recent years when a few members of the Senate decided that if they could not get their way, the large majority wouldn’t get anything done.

About twenty of those bills each year detail the way the state will spend money on programs and services that people want or need.  Even the most skilled lobbyist for even the wealthiest interest group realizes that legislative sessions resemble a crap shoot. Few things are guaranteed from the outset. Not even the governor is guaranteed approval of his issues.

It is easier to get some things approved when one party occupies two-thirds of both seats in the House and Senate—such as the protect-the-President redistricting plan upheld by the Supreme Court last Tuesday. Many of the protestors likely would have asserted that some words carved into a Missouri Senate wall were clearly ignored: “Nothing is politically right that is morally wrong.”

Noble words carved into Capitol stone are easier said than honored at times, in a system that is shaped by humans.

None of this should be considered excuses. It’s just the real world.

While all of this might sound as if there is no hope for principled protestors such as the People Not Politics demonstrators Tuesday, there is hope.

The congressional districts are drawn presumably to change our 6-2 Republican delegation in the United States House to 7-1. Even some Republicans have admitted publicly that the new maps should not be considered a predetermined result. They know a lot of public opinion can be swayed between now and November.

If that is going to be the case, Tuesday’s marchers will have to be more effective at home than they have been in Jefferson City. One day at the Capitol cannot replace many well-organized days on the streets at home. Their cause is more persuasive among the voters than among the lawmakers and judges. No Republican candidate should feel comfortable in their re-election campaigns this year, especially since the court has upheld that map. Donald Trump can be his party’s own worst enemy regardless of congressional district lines. The PNP demonstrators can become a formidable force if they organize at home and advocate against those who support President Trump in spite of all of his sins—especially those who passed the redistricting bill that manipulates our political system.

The battleground is not in front of the Supreme Court building. It is in the cities and counties of each congressional district and each legislative district. Redistricting can become a major issue against the party that did it, whether it’s the legislators who drew the lines or the congressional candidates who want to take advantage of them.

The Republicans have gotten what they wished for. But you know the old saying about being careful that what you wish for because what you got can become an issue of voter retribution.

This is not a suggestion that all of the rascals should be turned out.  It is, instead, an observation of how those opposed to the redistricting scheme can turn it against the scheme’s advocates and a warning to those advocates to be prepared in their own defense.

In 2016, Senator Ted Cruz told ABC’s Face the Nation, ““If we’re given the White House and both houses of Congress and we don’t deliver, I think there will be pitchforks and torches in the streets. And I think quite rightly,” a metaphorical reference to England’s Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 against a perceived unjust government.

Will the Supreme Court marchers from last Tuesday go home and become the organizers and the activists—the pitchfork and torch carriers—whose biggest and most effective protest will be at the ballot box?

Will they create a united people who will not be defeated?

We’ll all see an answer in a little more than five months.

Don Jr., Sends Me an Email

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I’m going through my phone messages Saturday afternoon and I come across one from 571-470-0894.

The message says, “Hi, it’s Don Jr. My father an….”

I don’t know any Don Juniors who would have my phone number. And the message doesn’t tell me why I should care about his father.  He’s only an “an.”

An what?

An engineer?

An astronaut?

An animal lover who wants me to donate 19 dollars a month so I can get an adorable plush toy?

An alien?

And why would a Don Jr., address me, someone he’s never met (because I don’t think I ever met him) is so casual a way?

I’ve known several people named Don although I don’t know any Don Juniors, or I don’t think I do.

So I go on the internet and check several sites that will look up phone numbers and after each one of them takes several minutes of my time they want me to pay thirty dollars or something to find out who belongs to this number.

By now I’m thinking this must be a burner phone and we know burner phones are used by blackmailers and the like.  But I know all of my family is safe so this must be a fake blackmailer—maybe one of those calls from someone who says, ”Grandpa, I’m down here in Alabama and I’ve been arrested and I need you to send me $500 to get out of jail.”  I got one of those once and my “grandson” didn’t seem to know his first name so I began to think this was a con.  So I hung up.

Well, I decided to open the message to see if Don Junior had a last name.

The rest of the sentence added a “d” to the “an.” And it told none other than Donald Trump Junior was concerned about my voting status.   “My father and I (he didn’t mention his name so I wondered if there’s some reason he’s embarrassed to do so) need you to do one thing: update your voter verification record. Robert, go to—(hmmmm, I thought, this is strange. The only time anyone calls me “Robert” is when I have an appointment with someone on my increasingly long list of doctors that have accumulated with each passing year and a nurse says it’s my turn for whatever ceremony I’m about to undergo.).

Well, it gave me an email address to open but I didn’t at first because opening those unsolicited things means a raft of future emails that I move to the Spam folder without looking. But I gambled because Don’s dad must be a pretty important guy to want this kind of information from me.

So I took a gamble and clicked on it. It’s labeled “The Official 2025 Voter Verification Questionnaire,” and we all know that when the word “Official” is on something, it is not something to be ignored.

The message invited me to tap on a website—

And when I did, there popped up a picture of a very serious—in fact he looked pretty pitiful, like a lost soul who needed a shave—badly—Don Jr. (Remember Emmett Kelly, the famous circus clown known as “Weary Willie?”  Well, he looked kind of like that although Don Jr. was dressed better.

Weary Willie always carried a head of lettuce that he gave a leaf from  to people in the audience, symbolizing his good heart because all he could afford to give people was a lettuce leaf. I had my suspicion that Willie’s lettuce wasn’t the kind of lettuce we’d eventually get around to discussing in this “survey.”

His father—-again, his name was not mentioned so I wondered why he was hiding his father’s name—“needs every Republican reading this message to update their official voting record.”  Then red ink—as in a dramatically increased federal deficit—the message said, “”With enough feed back nothing can stop us from making America great again.”  I was asked to fill out a form that asked it I agreed that only American Citizens should be allowed to vote.  I had only a yes-no choice but I would like have asked, “Who decides who is good enough to be an American citizen,” but Don apparently hoped I would fill out this form without thinking and I have some friends who think that would make me a regular MAGA person which I am not and besides it’s unfair to stereotype many otherwise intelligent people that way. Shame on my friend Don for wanting me to treat so many of my friends like that. I know them better than he does, apparently.

“Are you an American citizen?” was the next question.   If I’m not why did you contact me? If I say “yes” are you going to have the Department of Homeland Security see if I lied?

“Could you prove your American citizenship?”  Can you?  Why should I trust someone who looks at me like a circus clown?

Please confirm my zip code.  You have my area code and that ‘s enough. I expect to get a lot of phone calls at meal times from you and I don’t want to get mail.

Did I vote in the 2024 Presidential election?  That’s supposed to be a secret, or have you bothered to read election laws?  It’s none of your business.

If so, who did I vote for?  President Trump, Kamala Harris (wait a minute. If Trump can carry a title for this election, shouldn’t my other choice be VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS just to put things on a courteous and equal footing.)   I also thought that if I said I voted for “other,”  there would be a following question asking if that person was a transexual, gay, brown or black or a question accusing me of perjury if I had indicated I really was a Republican (which I am not; I am a radical independent although using the word “radical” might be dangerous in this context.).

He wanted to know what state I voted in, if I voted.  Well, he knows my area code so he must know where I voted, or where I likely voted, if a voted, so why ask?

Did I cast my vote by mail, in person, or did I not vote. You already know whether I voted so the last alternative is silly.  Actually, I voted absentee because I might be out of town on election day (and I was.  Just to make sure I was within the law, I drove outside the city limits, turned around and came home so I could say I was out of town—-although I think that qualification ended during the Pandemic.).

Do I want free and fair elections?  I certainly do, which is why I find attempts to redraw congressional district just to benefit one old man who is scared that he might have to face some consequences if he doesn’t do all he can to do something he has falsely accused others of doing odious.

Do I think voters should have to show photo ID before voting? Ehhh.  I have a driver’s license and I registered in person and the election folks at my precinct know me by name but, okay, if you insist, I’ll make sure I have a government issued ID card. My driver license will do it although I’ve lost some weight since the picture was taken.

Do I identify as a Republican?  What’s a Republican these days?  For that matter, what’s a Democrat?  Why should I identify with either?

Do I support Free Speech?  Of course I do.  But your dad—I assume that’s who you’re asking all of this information for—apparently does not.  So sue me. I’d be honored.

Do I believe big tech is censoring Republicans. Define big tech. Do Elon Musk and DOGE constitute big tech?  Do I believe Republicans want to censor anybody who doesn’t worship a certain creator of monuments to himself?  Ask the head of the FCC.

Do I believe our country is better off under President Biden and Kamala Harris? Have you noticed that they are not in charge of things anymore?

Which issue facing our country concerns you the most moving forward?  Well, I think moving forward is a big issue.

And then we get down to the real reason that I should  verify my voter record.  “Can we count on you to give $10 to ensure Senate Republicans can fight back against extremist Democrats in the Senate?”   No. In fact you should send me ten dollars for the time I spent filling out your fake “update.”

Plus, you said at the start your father wanted me to do only one thing. I would have filled in a lot of blanks, which is more than one thing. And then making a donation is another.

Don Junior, I am starting to think you weren’t honest with me from the start. But be assured that my opinion of you has not changed.

I was given a chance to contribute more.  Let me calculate my hourly rate and I’ll let you know how much YOU owe ME for considering  your, uh, survey.

At the bottom in little print is the notice that I had been given 25 minutes to ensure my response was recorded. However, ”the timer has expired, but you can still donate below!”  And I was given several choices ranging from $35 to$1,000 or “other.”

And in little print I was told my contribution “will benefit the NRSC.”

“Nurse?” I muttered.  What does this have to do with nursing?   And why are nurses interested in my voting record?

Then this “survey” really goes off the rails because it warns me that those dirty Democrats are “ALWAYS fund raising.  ALWAYS organizing. ALWAYS plotting their comeback.”  Think of Snidely Whiplash, who surely must be a Democrat in the eyes of Willie—or, I mean Don Jr.

“The only answer is consistent monthly support from patriots who refuse to blink.”

I’m sorry, but this patriot is presently tied up supporting NPR and Public Broadcasting. When they raise funds, they don’t try to hide behind FAKE surveys.

Then there’s a FLASH POLL that doesn’t quite meet the standards most legitimate polls use to formulate questions. “Should Congress DEFUND every radical left-wing organization trying to destroy our democracy? Vote YES and pledge another gift…to help us win!”

Does “every radical left-wing organization mean I should not give money to the Democratic Party?  Our two parties are in such disarray that I think I will make my donation to the Whigs.

Then we were told “Campaign Finance Law requires us to collect your employment information.”  Which campaign law is that?   And does it also require me to give you the phone number you asked for?

I’d prefer you not have it.  I get enough calls about Medicaid while I’m trying to each breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  I don’t need to be getting calls about nurses.

(Photo Credits: Emmett Kelly—State Historical Society of Missouri; Snidely—ClipArtMax.com; Don Junior—Don Junior, I guess)

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