Category Archives: history

Preserving the Truth of History

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

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

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

This is how the speech concluded:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He is right…but he is right about himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is our responsibility, our challenge, as historians.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 We are Victims of Trump’s Absurd Tariffs

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—-and I am furious.

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

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

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

Stop me before I tell you what I really think.

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

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

Sorry about that. We have wandered off the path.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bing Videos

Bing Videos

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

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

Then she wrote:

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

Eighty dollars on a $30 package!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The status of your package has changed.

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

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

We got a new note from from Diane;

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

I am very sorry about this. 

UPS told us:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A New County 

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We’ve commented in the past about whether some of our county names should be changed to honor more contemporary heroes—and maybe reject some scalawags who we learn from history weren’t really worth honoring in the first place.

More than 110 years ago a distinguished Missouri politician introduced a bill to change the name of one of our counties.

We discovered his suggestion among our clippings.  It’s part of a column from the Taney County Republican, January 30, 1913

The column began, “Until a few years after the war, the city of St. Louis was the seat of St. Louis County. When, by authority of an act of the legislature, the voters of the city and the county adopted the ‘scheme and charter.’

“St. Louis became a separate jurisdiction, a county within itself, under the name ‘The City of St. Louis’ and the county became known as ‘the County of St. Louis.’ The county seat was established at the city of Clayton and a courthouse was erected on land donated by a citizen of that name. It has never since had any legal connection with the city of St. Louis, although comparatively few of the people of the State know yet that St. Louis is not in St. Louis County.

“Deeds and legal documents intended for county officials and courts and lawyers are often mailed to St. Louis and important legal documents affecting property and persons in the city of St. Louis are often mailed to Clayton. The confusion created by the use of name St. Louis for the county has been a source of annoyance for many years to both city and county.”

He proposed renaming St. Louis County “Grant” County, honoring the Union General and later President who once lived there and married into a prominent family, the Dents. “There was a time when name of Grant was not popular in that county,” said the newspaper. “But that day has passed.”

“The name of the famous general to whom Lee surrendered is more honored than any other name connected to St. Louis County. No name could be more appropriate for St. Louis County than the name of Grant. If the name of that county is ever changed, it should be called Grant. That it eventually will be changed is hardly to be doubted.”

We know, of course, that his bill didn’t make it.  One reason is that Michael McGrath didn’t make it, either.  It’s an interesting proposal, too, because it came from a former Confederate soldier.

His name means nothing to most of those who labor in the halls of the Capitol now.  But in his time, Michael McGrath was a political power.  And his influence is still felt in Missouri government today.

He was the Secretary of State who created the Official State Manual, known colloquially as “the Blue Book” but called when first published in 1878 “Almanac and  Official Directory of  Missouri.” It contained all of the information about state government in 72 pages.

McGrath was born in 1844 in Ballymaloe Civil Parish, County Cork, Ireland and was raised on a farm and educated in a parish school.  He went to the National School in Kinsale, a small village in the southeast corner of Ireland where he studied to be a teacher.  He became one at age 16.

(Kinsale is the home to a lot of famous people we Americans have never heard of except for William Penn, the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania.  Nearby is Old Kinsale Head, a piece of land jutting into the Atlantic that has a lighthouse and the remains of an old castle.  About eleven miles out to sea from Kinsale Head, the liner Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk in 1915.)

He was among the thousands of Irish citizens driven to this country by the Great Potato Famine and general civic unrest in Ireland, arriving after a nine-week voyage in New Brunswick in 1850 and immediately gong to Maine before going to New York a few months later in 1851. He was convinced to come to Missouri by reading The St. Louis Republic in the Astor Room New York City Libray. He arrived here in July, 1856.

Just two days after his arrival, his good handwriting landed him a job with the St. Louis County Recorder.  After declaring himself a Democrat, he was hired as a a deputy clerk in the criminal court in 1861. He served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War but signed a loyalty oath at the end that let him take a bar examination and become a lawyer.  He was a clerk in various city and court offices until he was elected Secretary of State in 1874.

He served fourteen years, a term in the office not exceeded for a century when Jimmy Kirkpatrick served five four-year terms.

He got into the newspapering business, owning and operating an Irish-oriented paper, The Celt, and the Sedalia Democrat. He also was a major stockholder of the Jefferson City Tribune.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1912 but he died shortly after taking office on January 28, 1913 “after a brief illness.”  He was 79 and had had heart trouble and problems with bronchitis.

Michael Knowles McGrath is an unfortunately forgotten figure in Missouri history.

St. Louis County is still St. Louis County. But Grant County is a pretty good idea for someplace. Surely a legislature that is always willing to make a fourth-grader’s dream come true by choosing a new state symbol could devote as much time to assessing whether some famous person has worn out his welcome with one of our counties.

(Photo Credit: State Official Manual, 1913)

 

I Am An American Citizen 

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I am a citizen of the United States of America, not because of anything I have done to deserve it but because it is my birthright. I was born here and that is all I need.  I am not the child of former slaves but, instead, am a descendant of a long line of white Northern Europeans who came here for the same reason brown people from the central and southern American continent come here today—with hope and for opportunity.

I am an American Citizen, a hyphenated German-French-Scots-Irish-English-American, whose ancestors by their everyday lives helped this country achieve a greatness too easily given away. I am married to a Swedish-American Citizen whose ancestors came here for the same reasons mine did—with hope, seeking a better and safer life than they had and could have in their old countries.  We are proud of our hyphens.

I am an American Citizen because the first person with my name settled in Virginia on land granted him by Queen Elizabeth I because of his work as the captain of a privateer who fought pirates on the Spanish Main. The first name is a common one in the family and carries with it genetic linkages to a courageous forefather.

I am American Citizen proud of the good that our country has achieved regardless of how increasingly embarrassed I might be with what its contemporary leadership wants it to be.

I am an American Citizen who loves his country even when given manifold opportunities to dislike it.

I am an American Citizen free to practice my religion but not free to force others to adopt it, and free to object to those who by social or legal means try to force their religion on me.

I am an American Citizen who respects the National Guard but will oppose a National Police. I will not show an identity card to one of them who greets me at my polling place or anywhere else. Nor will I acknowledge them as I walk freely down any street where they have been directed to patrol.

I am an American Citizen who believes my voting records are between me and my county election authority and no one, not even a federal agency, has any right to them.

I am an American Citizen who believes I can call myself by any party name I wish at any time in my life, and—in fact—have spent my life loyal to no party, which also is my right as an American Citizen.

I am an American Citizen unafraid of my past, knowing that slavery WAS “that bad,” and acknowledging that some members of the southern branch of my family undoubtedly owned black people. I will not apologize for them; the historical records are unavoidable despite any efforts to obscure them. The “original sin” of America remains a sin only if we continue to avoid responsibilities all of us share with and for each other regardless of color, heritage, belief, or self-identity today.

I am an American Citizen who believes acknowledging the past and moving to correct its faults is a mark of national greatness, who believes it takes more courage to correct than to hide, that hiding is a sign of American Cowardice. Progress, not regression, makes greatness.

I am an American Citizen who cherishes my right to see, to hear, to read, to learn, and to therefore think and act, a library board president who will vigorously oppose all who profess to be the ones who can dictate truth or limit opportunities to find it, an information consumer who abhors the consolidation of media on the basis of financial self-interest above the public interest, particularly that segment overseen by a federal government agency with licensing power that wants to control the variety of voices we once had and must regain.                                                                                                                            I am an American Citizen who refuses to believe that all other rights in all other amendments are possible because of the Second Amendment.

I am an American Citizen who believes none of the other amendments would be possible without the FIRST Amendment. In particular, I believe all have a right to responsible speech, agreeable to me or not and the right to petition our government for redress of infringements on the rights granted to me by national documents and physical heritage.

I am an American Citizen who will not tolerate those who seek power or seek to maintain it through division, derision, and disrespect.

I am an American Citizen because I believe we can be better tomorrow than today, by building on the best of what we have been, not tearing down the good that we are.

I am an American citizen who does not believe in the melting-pot but instead believes we are a stew made tastier by the separate ingredients that meld, not melt, within the national bowl.

I am an American Citizen who hates hate except toward those who fuel hate, take advantage of hate, and themselves hate others.

I am an American Citizen who fears not the present because he remembers the past and therefore can hope for a better future. .

I am an American Citizen who needs not wrap himself in the flag to proclaim his patriotism but will display his love of country in his daily living and his daily defense of all who seek, as our founders put it, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am an American Citizen because I will not give up on my country, be accused of giving up on my country, or being told I must leave behind the country where I have lived for all of my life.

I am American Citizen who will not live by bumper sticker mottos but lives by thought and deed, and the words of Thomas Wolfe:

…To every man his chance—to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity—to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him — this, seeker, is the promise of America.

I am an American Citizen who will never forsake that promise—

—because I have lived it.

I

Am

An

AMERICAN

CITIZEN!

(Advertisement is from the Columbia Daily Tribune, probably in the 70s; Cartoon by Wiley Miller, distributed by Andrews McMeel Publishing)

Sellout

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The Missouri General Assembly has sold out the people of Missouri and more than two centuries of our heritage in following President Trump’s dictate on congressional elections.

The quick obedience of our legislature came less than a month after Trump issued a wholly unconstitutional rant on his social media page on August 18—

Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.

While we might have had other presidents who THOUGHT that, only Donald Trump has said so clearly and unmistakably that he is a dictator, the Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution be damned. He, he claims, can order states to do his bidding.

It is nothing short of a political tragedy that our Governor and our Missouri General Assembly have so unabashedly acknowledged that he is what he says he is and they will take orders from him, to the detriment of their constituents.

The legislative journals will be testimony for decades to come how completely the people from our home towns that we chose to represent us have sold out to a president who respects no bounds, including those of the United States Constitution, as well as forfeiting the rights of independence asserted by our State Constitutions for more than two centuries.

To be clear: What Trump and our legislature have done is NOT for the good of our country or our state. Their actions are an abdication by the majority of their oath of office to defend the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Missouri:

“I do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and faithfully perform the duties of my office……”

The attitude by legislators who have endorsed the Trump congressional district map raises serious questions whether the people in the House and the Senate that we elected to serve and to protect US have “faithfully performed” the duties of their office—which do not include following the dictates of a President of the United States who demands service only for the good of Donald J. Trump, a man either ignorant of the Constitution HE swore to uphold or who flagrantly ignores Section Four, which reserves the power to the states to regulate elections and the counting of votes and they in no way must do what the President tells them to do.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

The loophole in the language, however, does allow the legislature to carry out a President’s wishes and there’s nothing to stop a power-hungry President from telling the legislature to do his bidding and the majority of the legislative members can rationalize reasons for doing so—which they have done although the legislature is under no legal obligation to do so.

The legislature also has ignored the wording of every Missouri Constitution in the 204-year history of our state by agreeing Missouri, and other states “are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”

States are not agents. They are independent subdivisions and Missouri has repeatedly claimed that distinction. Article Ten of the Bill of Rights, often cited—especially by Republicans—establishes that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Missouri has always firmly claimed those powers, beginning with our first constitution.

1820: “We, the people of Missouri, inhabiting the limits hereinafter designated, by our representatives in convention assembled, at St. Louis, on Monday the 12th day of June, 1820, do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic, by the name of ‘the State of Missouri;’ and for the government thereof, do ordain and establish this constitution.”

1865: Article 1, Section 5: That the people of this state have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof, and of altering and abolishing their Constitution and form of government, whenever it may be necessary to their safety and happiness; but every such right should be exercised in pursuance of law, and consistently with the Constitution of the United States.

1875:  BILL OF RIGHTS. In order to assert our rights, acknowledge our duties, and proclaim the principles on which our government is founded, we declare-.

Section 1. Political power, origin of. —That all political power is vested in and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole. [Same as Const. 1865, Art. 1, Sec. 4.]

Sec. 2. Internal affairs, regulation of. —That the people of this State have the inherent, sole and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof, and to alter and abolish their Constitution and form of government whenever they may deem it necessary to their safety and happiness : Provided, Such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.  (same, in substance, as language from 1865 Constitution)

1945 Constitution: Bill of Rights:

Section 4. Independence of Missouri—submission of certain amendments to Constitution of the United States.—That Missouri is a free and independent state, subject only to the Constitution of the United States; that all proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United States qualifying or affecting the individual liberties of the people or which in any wise may impair the right of local self-government belonging to the people of this state, should be submitted to conventions of the people.

Free and Independent state?  Not anymore.  Not as long as a President can say “jump” and the Missouri legislature leaps.

How high would it leap?  Senator Lincoln Hough of Springfield is the answer. Hough has been a trusted figure among the Republican super majority. You don’t get much more trusted than by being put in charge of the committee that decided what gets how much of a $50 billion budget.

He and Senator Mike Moon of Ash Grove  voted against both the petition proposal and against Trump’s gerrymandered map.

Hough has told The Missouri Independent that Senate leader Cindy O’Laughlin within minutes of the vote removed him as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee because he defied orders to vote for the petition and redistricting bills.

Hough told The Independent, “She said, ‘​w​e are tired of fighting with you.’  To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’”

“What I’ve seen at the end of last session, and what I saw this week, is a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be.”

The Senate as an institution nationally and in this state has always—until now—held itself to be the careful, deliberative chamber that allowed all voices to be heard, even if those voices tried to defeat or  modify legislation.  What happened in that chamber last week ended that important role in which one chamber of the Congress or of the legislature cooly evaluates the value and the honesty of legislation.

The Senate leadership, not even pretending to honor that tradition and that role in the system of government checks and balances that our nation’s creators gave us, destroyed that tradition. It twice voted to silence opposing voices and go straight to a vote, the outcome of which was guaranteed even with the two GOP defectors (Republicans control 2/3 of the seats in both chambers).

O’Laughlin several days ago fell back on the questionable excuse that the bills should be rammed through the special session to protect “Christian conservative values.” We are still waiting for her definition of them.

Whether the government should force Christian views—-or the perceived views of politicians who consider themselves Christians—on others seems clearly violative of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The Pew Research Center recently released its survey on religion in Missouri, showing 62% of Missourians identify themselves as Protestant Christians. Catholic Christians represent 14%.  Historically Black Protestants make up five percent. Four percent of adults identify with other religions—Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindus and other world religions.

One-third of the responding adults say they are “nones,” religiously-unaffiliated. Five percent are atheists and eight percent are agnostic. “Nothing in particular” adds up to 20%.

If our legislature was interested in a representative congressional map, especially one based on those “Christian Conservative Values,” the map would be 5-3 Republican based on the perentages in the Pew study. Instead, it has caved to political greed and created a 7-1 map that does away with the only ordained Christian in our delegation and one of only of two active Christian ministers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Then it punished one of the caucus’s own members for taking a principled stand while the rest of his party colleagues sold out.

Whether it is a matter of religion or just raw politics, the Senate by its actions, got far under the covers with our President, and—in effect—endorsed his great desire to be a dictator.

Ultimately, these actions will reach the federal courts. Sadly, we no longer have confidence that the ultimate federal court will find our legislature’s bowing to a President seeking total power is far out of Constitutional bounds.

Some of the protestors at the Capitol when the House voted pointed to the state motto, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.”  Pretty clearly, the legislature has chosen the welfare of Donald Trump as its priority.

You and I have been sold out by those closest to us that we trust to defend our freedoms from a President who wants to become a tyrant.

Remember those who have done this to us. Remember it next year when they ask for your vote.

We do still have the right to vote for our legislators.

For now.

The Repetition of History

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Philosopher George Santayana’s most famous quotation, taken from his Life of Reason, or The Phases of Human Progress came to mind the other day while I was doing some research about former Jefferson City Mayor C.W. Thomas, who suggested 100 years ago this year that Jefferson City build a convention center.

But he died before that could happen. A few months later the stock market collapsed and the Great Depression gripped our country until World War II created the economy that got us out of it. By he time the Greatest Generation had led us to a country that was a positive example to the rest of the world, Cecil Thomas and his vision had been forgotten.

Our mayor badly wants to see a convention center built. And many of us are watching with dismay as our greatness is being destroyed, not returned.

Santayana wrote more than a century ago:

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I came across this editorial published March 19, 1920 in The Central Missourian, a Democrat newspaper published in the nearby town of Russellville that raises important questions that seem quite contemporary.

A Party Without Conviction

The Republican party has always been a party of expediency, for all its great claim to consequential policies and principles. Its affairs have usually been governed by men of rather lax convictions, who would trade anything for power. In former years, when the tariff fetish was set in the central altar of all apostles of political buncombe, nothing counted save an opportunity to promote the tariff policies demanded by the masters of Republicanism, Men and measures went by the board in the continuous and unremitting fight for prohibitive schedules and restrictive customs laws. Various bugaboos were used at different times to frighten the people, but there was always the tariff behind the whole Republican program.

Anything served to win with, if the manufacturers might control the tariff. But there came a time when the tariff schedules, mounting higher with every revision, fell of their own weight, and the progressive movement in the Republican party began, with great promise, at first, under sincere leadership. Then arose the greatest opportunist of them all, with all due respect, Colonel Roosevelt. He was more flexible of mind than the stand-pat leaders. He believed in the tariff, but he wanted four years more in the Presidency, and was willing to turn free trader, if need be, to win.

He capitalized the dissatisfaction of the Republican masses, and espoused the progressive tendencies of the times, sweeping aside the men whose earnest fights in Congress had built up the movement against the reactionaries. The Colonel could not rule, so he wrecked. For the first time in history the stand-pat forces had refused to compromise, in order that the party might win. In 1916, the Republican party had no issue, it had no leader save Roosevelt, and he was both feared and hated by the inner circle. So it invaded the United States Supreme Court and drafted Justice Hughes, concerning whom neither the country nor the leaders knew overly much.

The West deserted the camp, for the West had taken seriously the progressive movement, and, with native shrewdness, the West discerned the wolves of stand-pattism behind the Hughes mask., The expedientists lost their most important battle. The same situation is developing in 1920. The Republican party has no program. no policy, no leadership. And there are even disputes among the chief manipulators as to what considerations of expediency may dictate.

Meanwhile, candidacies of no special distinction, and without a particle of evidence of popular enthusiasm in any direction. are developing and delegates are being chosen. What will the Republican party stand for? No man can tell. What will the candidate represent? Nothing, except the desire of the Republican party to get into power and run the government, which it regards as its vested right. The candidate is likely to be merely a stuffed shirt, the platform a set of innocuous and meaningless phrases.

The Republican party must think the American people are a lot of weak-minded children, petulant, irritable and altogether foolish.

*****

“A tariff as a weapon for defense is wanted,” declared General Wood in his St. Louis speech. There is something too vague about this declaration to warrant much discussion, like nearly all of the utterances of the General, when he gets away from military matters. Does the General know that almost all of our commercial treaties with foreign countries forbid discriminatory duties, and provide that our tariffs shall be levied equally against the products of all nations? How then, could the tariff be used as a weapon of defense, or offense, either, so far as that goes? Then the General says we should have a tariff to “protect American industries that are essential to America, not a tariff to protect industries which are artificial and whose protection adds to the living cost of our people.” The General is on dangerous ground and might give away the whole Republican argument if this suggestion should be carried to its logical conclusion.

Will George be proven correct more than a century after this observation?  Perhaps the answer is whether, in 2025, WE are the weak-minded children, petulant, irritable and altogether foolish or whether we recognize that we are led by someone who is.

Sports: MLB teams muddle along as trading deadline nears: and a special win in NASCAR)

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals post all-star game drive to the playoff has been an unsteady one with a terrible turn in Colorado, where the worst team in major league baseball this year took two out of three—and wrapped up the series by holding the Redbirds scoreless, 6-0.  It’s the first time in 220 games that Denver has shut out an opponent. The win left Denver 26-76.

The Cardinals, thus, helped set a major league record by ending the Rockies record run of no shutouts.  The shutout is only the third time St. Louis has been shut out in the 32-year history of the Rockies. It was the second straight series loss since the break and dropped them to just one game over .500 after losing five of their first six games on the road trip and being outscored 20-1 in the first three innings.

The only win in those first six games was the middle game in the Denver series when Michael McGreevy, just up from Memphis picked up the victory.  His performance was solid enough that the team decided it’s time for one of its younger pitchers to become a starter. But that meant that a veteran had to go. In this case, it was Erick  Fedde, who has been a bust for St. Louis this year. He’s 3-10 with a 5.22 ERA. In his last 17 2/3 innings he gave up 26 earned runs. He’s 33-52 in eight major league seasons. The Braves have decided to pick him up. They’ll give the Cardinals some cash or a player later.  Fedde will be a free agent at the end of the season.

We start the week still waiting for the Cardinals to make the blockbuster trade that various sorts experts have been predicting.

(ROYALS)—The Royals  have continued to muddle along but they have gone to the free agent market to pick up former Cardinals outfielder Randall Grichuk from the Diamondbacks in exchange for pitcher Andrew Hoffman.  Grichuk, who is expected to immediately improve the outfield offensively and defensively, went one-for-four in his first game with the new team.  For now, he takes the roster place of rookie outfielder Jac Caglianone, who has gone on the 10-day DL with a strained left hamstring. Caglianone has struggled at the plate in his first season.  Grichuk was hitting .240 with 175 AB this year. He’s a lifetime .252 hitter  with five teams in a 12-year career.

Also going on the DL is starting pitcher Kris Bubic, our for 15 days with a rotator cuff strain.

The Royals did make a major commitment to the pitching staff, signing Seth Lugo to a two-year, $46 million guaranteed contract extension.

Last night, the Royals lost 10-7 to the Braves.  The game is memorable because Royals pitchers tied a club record with fourteen walks.  Six of those walks were dealt by Rich Hill, the 45-year old journeyman pitcher making his second start with his record-tying 14th team. He also gave up four runs and gave up two homers.

Now, the story of a man named Darrell and his record-setting day

(NASCAR)—

This is William Darrell Wallce, who goes by his middle name and more often is known as Bubba.  He’s a NASCAR driver who had gone three years, 100 races, since his last victory. When he broke that string this past weekend, he made significant auto racing history.

Bubba Wallace became the first Black driver to win a major race in the 116 year history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He and Wendell Scott are the only black drivers to win a NASCAR race. Scott won one race in 1963. Wallace now has three NASCAR Cup winner’s trophies.

He only the third black driver to compete in one of the major races at the Speedway and the first since George Mack in 2002. The first was Willy T. Ribbs in 1991 and 1993

Wallace took the lead with less than twenty laps to go and held a three second lead over defending race champion Kyle Larson when a crash brought out the caution flag and bunched up the field for a restart. But he got the jump—twice—on Larson on two overtime restarts and took the checkered flag two tenths of a second ahead of Larson.

The win makes him the thirteenth entrant in the 16-driver playoff field with four races to go before that field is set.  Three non-winners are in the top ten in points and could be eliminated from the championship run if three other drivers win one of those four races.

Two other drives merit special attention:

Denny Hamlin, who was on a pole-setting run, wrecked on his second qualifying lap and started dead last, 39th. He and his pit crew got him to fifth for the last restart (that’s his 11 in the picture) and he picked up two more positions third place at the end.

And the only woman racing in NASCAR, Kathryn Legge (she pronounces the first three letters of her last name) drew praise for finishing 17th, far better than her average finish this year. She was on the leader’s lap on the last restart and held her position during the wild two-lap green-white-checker flag scramble to the end.

 

(INDYCAR)—Alex Palou puts more points distance between himself and challenger Pato O’Ward with a win at Laguna Seca, near Monterey, California. It’s his eighth win of the year. It has been eighteen years since anybody won eight races on the INDYCAR schedule.

Sebastian Bourdais did it in 2007.

The record for most wins in a season has been set and equaled at 10. A. J. Foyt in 1964 and Al Unser Senion in 1970 are the only ones to hit that mark.

Now he has eight of those. The record is 10 by A.J. Foyt in 1964 and Al Unser in 1970.

Two wins in the last three races of the year would let Palou tie the record.

(Photo credits: Wallace speaking and winning, restart and Legge—Bob Priddy; Wallace car—Rick Gevers)

The Disaster 

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We pause today to pay tribute to the humble and often-maligned FEMA trailer, the refuge for those who have watched all that they have wash away, be blown away, burned away in a natural disaster.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency has given hundreds of thousand of victims of fires, floods, earthquakes, and windstorms places to live while they begin to reassemble their lives.

FEMA Trailers often are criticized for their condition or their environmental problems. But they also are symbols of a nation that believes all of us must help some of us in times of disaster.

That concept is strange to the people in charge in Washington, led by a person who has never known and has no sympathy for those socially and mentally beneath him.  And that is why the trailers and the federal agency that provides these crucial shelters are endangered.

The administration in Washington is reacting poorly to reports that the emergency management system locally and federally was broken when more than 150 people lost their lives in the July 6 Texas flash flood.

The New York Times has described some of the dimensions of the disaster that the administration has inflicted on the nation’s disaster agency:

“On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.

“The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.”

Unbelievably, a statement from FEMA claimed, “When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase. Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance.”

And what one person appears to be behind that totally untrue statement, delivered to the newspaper through an unsigned email?

On that very day, July 5, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem failed to renew or extend the agreements with the contract operators of those call centers leading to layoffs of thousands of employees. She has to approve any expenses of more than $100,000 and she didn’t do it for five days.

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also say Noem did not authorize deployment of search and rescue teams until three days after the flooding began.

Earlier this year, President Trump called for elimination of the entire agency and in June, FEMA stopped going door to door in disaster areas to find those needing help.

The Times identified the acting administrator of FEMA as David Richardson, “who has no background in emergency management.” He took the position May 8 and a week later, according to The Wall Street Journal, admitted privately that he did not have a plan for the spring Atlantic hurricane season. Reuters reported on June 2 that he had told the staff he didn’t know there was such a thing—a comment the agency claimed later was a joke. CNN has reported he went to Kerrville, Texas on July 12 but refused to answer any questions from reporters.

The President has said often he wants to transfer much of the responsibility for disaster response to the states that already are facing struggles because of large cuts in federal funds going to them for various programs.

If you are old enough to recall the great 103-day1993 flood, you are likely to remember the thousands of FEMA trailers brought to Missouri from numerous other states to be temporary homes for our people.  Imagine the state having to find—and pay for—those trailers while also dealing with the costs of fixing destroyed roads, bridges, and public buildings and paying for the massive extra personnel costs of first responders, National Guard sandbaggers, and healthcare givers among thousands of other expenses.  The Weather Service estimated the damages totaled twelve to sixteen billion 1993 dollars.

Or more recently:

Sure, the state of Missouri can handle something like this. Easily. The amateurs and idealogues in Washington know it can. Without doing any research.

These things are permanent parts of our lives. There were 27 disasters causing at least one billion dollars damage reported last year alone.

The Times has reported FEMA grants totaling $3.6 billion dollars already have been revoked. The money was earmarked for protection of communities from wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters.  One in five agency staff members are likely to be gone by the end of the year.

Trump wants to shut down ten NOAA laboratories in the next fiscal year that research changes in weather patterns. The studies are based on global warming, something the President doesn’t believe in. One of the targeted labs is the one that sends hurricane hunter airplanes into storms to collect important forecasting data and other information.

Another cut that’s important to us in Missouri would cut programs that use river gauges to forecast floods. Those gauges check river levels every fifteen seconds and are used to issue flood alerts.  They showed the sudden rise of the river in Texas July 5th.  They measured the weeks of Missouri and Mississippi River floodwaters in 1993. Trum wants to eliminate more than twenty percent of the budget of that program.

Times reporters say the Weather service did issue appropriate warnings for the area flooded in Texas but staff cutbacks had left the San Antonio office without a warning coordination meteorologist.  That’s the person that works with local emergency managers to warn people of floods and helps them get to safe ground.

From gutting the national weather service to hamstringing the call centers and other response entities and reducing abilities to forecast hurricanes and floods and to crippling disaster responses, the administration is once again acknowledging that the word “humane” is not in its dictionary.

The real disaster is not wind, fire, and water.

(Photo credits: Trailers–Magnolia Reporter; Joplin Tornado–National Standards for Technology; Flood–USGS)

Here We Go Again

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We’ve seen this scenario played out before. Republicans cut some taxes and the economy goes into the toilet soon after with the state having reduced its ability to fund programs that people rely on during economic downturns, especially lower-income Missourians.

The national economy isn’t in the toilet (yet, perhaps), but Congress has approved President Trump’s budget that will harm thousands of Missourians.  At the same time, Governor Kehoe is thinking about signing the bill eliminating some taxes that will produce revenues.

He already has vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget approved by the legislature, citing concerns about state finances in the fiscal year that is  newly underway.

We must be missing something. This doesn’t seem to add up to us. On one hand, there is concern that the state can afford the things the legislature approved and on the other hand there’s—

Wait a minute.

Aren’t we on the same hand?

Finger one: Cut the budget because of uncertainty of state finances, much of it caused by federal cuts in some important programs.

Finger two: Cut Missouri taxes to reduce total revenues even more?

One estimate is that the tax cuts reduce program funding by about a half-billion dollars at a time when not-so-beautiful bill in Washington eliminates a lot of federal money coming here.

To be sure, there are some good things in the bill he plans to sign.  A capital gains tax reduction will be welcomed by many who have capital gains but that’s one reason the liberal-leaning Missouri Budget Project isn’t a fan of the bill.   The MBP says five percent of Missouri taxpayers will get eighty percent of the benefits.

But it’s not all for the high-rollers. The Circuit Breaker property tax program will increase the income levels of people eligible for it, a change that will affect almost 200,000 households. The state sales tax is being lifted for diapers and women’s hygiene products. And there are some other things the MBP admits are badly-needed.

The conventional Republican wisdom is that if you reduce taxes, the infusion of those moneys into the general economy will generate more revenues to offset the taxes. We can’t say that we have noticed significant improvements in the economy when the legislature reduces Missourians’ taxes.

We are in sympathy with the stated reasons for lowering these taxes but we wonder if freezes are more protective of the overall well-being of state services than cuts at this time.

For more than fifty years we have listened to all kinds of people complain about the lack of money for schools, health and mental health, prisons, law enforcement, housing, nutrition and a host of other issues.  This scenario is kind of like the old saying, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it” except the talk about taxes also includes doing something about them.

Sometimes though, it is best to heed the phrase-altered advice, “Don’t just do something. Sit there.”

To be honest, we admit having no grasp of the subtlety of economics that one probably needs to understand the rationale for these cuts.  We only took one economics course in college. Everything else we know about the economy is reflected in our utility bills and grocery prices. And in our taxes.

Jim Mathewson, who served in the legislature from Sedalia and was the President Pro Tem of the Senate for eight years, a record that will never be broken in this unfortunate era of term limits, said several times, “People don’t remember that you cut their taxes. But they sure remember when you raise them.”

It’s a nice bill today but the people who remember it are the ones who won’t benefit, especially those hit with the federal cuts.  One thing we’ll watch is to see whether there’s a political fallout in state politics that will be anywhere the fallout being predicted at the national level.

 

Well, There Goes the Nobel Peace Prize 

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Hours after President Trump proclaimed on Truth Social that he should have won the Nobel Peace Prize several times, he guaranteed he will never get it.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee never has and never will give the prize to someone who bombs another country.  Or rounds up thousands of people he stereotypes with his lies and ships them off to prisons in strange places to face indefinite futures.  Or refuses to support a small country that has fought off the aggression by a supposedly overpowering enemy.

Trump claims he deserves it because of his administration’s work in getting a cease fire between Pakistan and India.

He also claims to have brought about a cease fire between Iran and Israel.

Cease fires are not peace treaties. And they have a bad habit of not lasting.  In fact, Israel and Iran have already have accused each other of firing missiles after the cease fire.

Who invited him and his B-2s to the Iran-Israel party anyway?  It’s one thing to work out a cease fire with diplomacy. It’s something else to unilaterally send in the bombers.

Trump’s claim that the attacks obliterated Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons has been disputed by the New York Times, citing a preliminary U.S. damage assessment report saying the bombs only collapsed a few tunnels but not the main underground production rooms. The newspaper says the truth is that production could resume in a matter of months or just weeks. Perhaps Trump was exaggerating which is not uncommon. Regardless, his attacks did not end the nuclear threat from Iran. Instead the attacks seem to have guaranteed that Iran WILL HAVE nuclear weapons if it wants them.

Former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev wasted no time making that point. He posted on social media, “What have the Americans accomplished with their nighttime strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran? The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.”

While Trump might want the bombings to lead to regime change in Iran, Medvedev says the regime might have survived “even stronger.”

One of the countries with nukes that says it will supply Iran with nuclear warheads, if it wants them, is Pakistan, which called the attacks “deeply disturbing and an “unprecedented escalation of tension and violence, owing to ongoing aggression against Iran.”

China said it “stands ready to work with the international community to pool efforts together and uphold justice, and work for restoring peace and stability in the Middle East.”

That’s the kind of language the United States used to use.  Iran has asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to condemn the United States.  That’s the kind of thing the United States used to seek in times such as this.

People win the Nobel Peace Prize for doing good without thinking they deserve honor.

Then there’s Trump, who says he should have received the prize “four or five times.”  However, he complains,  “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

No. That’s not all that matters to him. He wants a prize he cannot buy, cannot bully anyone into giving him, and cannot primary.

The prize for Russia/Ukraine?

The prize for giving his good friend Putin an excuse to ship ready-made atomic weapons to Iran?

Adolph Hitler didn’t win the prize for pacifying Poland and Czechoslovakia and rounding up stereotyped undesirables and shipping them off to uncertain and certainly undesirable futures.  Mussolini didn’t win the prize for bombing and gassing Ethiopia into submission.  Stalin didn’t win the prize for establishing gulags where he sent undesirables by the tens of thousands and creating persecutions and killings behind the Iron Curtain.

At least they didn’t complain about not winning the prize.