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The State of Trump Address

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This is going to be a long one—as are all of the ones we publish after a major Trump serving of word salad.

We watched most of President Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. I confess that the longer it went on being Trump instead of being a President, the more I thought of finding something better to watch. I finally gave up after the one-hour mark and found an old cowboy movie on another channel, coming back at the end of it just in time for the Democratic Party response.

A few initial impressions:

He is still campaigning.

He is still lying.

I am sure he had some solid ideas. I am sure he had some less-solid ideas that are open to respectful discussion and compromise. I am sure he floated some ideas just to test political waters.  But his preoccupation with the 2020 and 2024 election, Democrats, and the immediate past-President buried them under his typical bloviating.

Never have a I heard a President spend so much time taunting the minority party. Until recent years, never had I seen members of Congress disrespecting the speaking President as I did last night. But in recent years, both sides of the aisle should have been spanked and sent to bed without dinner for their infantile behavior during the State of the Union speeches.

The place is starting to sound like the British Parliament during question time—except its manners are far worse.

If Trump had set forth his domestic and international agenda without attaching lies and insults to his statements, he would have saved us at least 45 minutes of our lives.

This was not a State of the Union speech.  It was a State of Trump speech.  And he’s pretty satisfied with himself.

I kept waiting for him to suggest something Congress should do.  But he carried on as if Congress doesn’t matter. Come to think of it, it doesn’t, as long as he can use his Magic Marker to make marks on a page that look like a badly-defibrillating heart monitor.

As is our habit, we’re going to turn to Daniel Dale of CNN for a comprehensive straight-out fact check.

But first, let’s look at some other reactions, at least some of which indicate how difficult it is to figure out how to assess what we watched the other night.

Satirist Andy Borowitz, who also writes pretty serious stuff, said in his Borowitz Report the next morning: “In what is being called a historic performance, on Tuesday night Donald J. Trump set a new world record for delivering the longest speech that did not include a single fact. Congressional Republicans were awestruck by their leader’s ability, at the age of 78, to give such a sustained fact-free oration. (House Speaker Mike Johnson said,) ‘To stand up there for 99 minutes and not accidentally slip up even once by saying something true? He’s still got it.’ Republicans contrasted Trump’s address favorably with the Democratic response of Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who spoke only briefly but whose remarks were riddled with facts.”

The New York Times Editor John Guida offered a more balanced approach the next day by asking some columnists and other writers for their assessments.

—Binya Applebaum: The speech was a “medley of fabrications, provocations, and insults.” Michelle Goldberg described Trump as “an autocratic thug gloating about stripping America for parts.”

Josh Barro noted Trump’s line about reducing immigration only required a new President instead of new laws, as advocated by Preisdent Biden was “an effective line on his strongest issue.”

Frank Bruni agreed that Trump was “on solid ground and in his comfort zone “when he talks about cracking down on illegal immigration” although he uttered lies about the issue.

Michael Schmitz: “Trump’s recitation of improbable-sounding expenses he claimed to have cut was funny.”

Farah Stockman praised the President for deputizing a child with cancer as a member of the Secret Service and telling the mother of a dead daughter that a wildlife area had been named in her honor.

Michelle Cottle thought the recognition of the chid was “a heartwarming plug for the President’s Make America Healthy Again agenda—and a clever way to gloos over the problematic views of his health and human services chief.”

Katherine Mangu-Ward said she has longed for a President who would dedicate “a significant portion…to cuts in the federal government.” But she was dismayed that the cuts he mentioned are small “and unlikely to withstand scrutiny from the courts or (as isn the case of his promises to stop Social Security Payments to 129-year olds fictional.”

Daniel McCarthy thought Democrats “set themselves up for the worst moment of the night with their jeering and heckling.”

Bruni grew tired of Trump proclaiming things were “like nothing that has ever been seen before,” and called such comments “juvenile, narcissistic and “exhausting—like his speech.”

Republicans in the chamber appeared to love every statement, every denigration of Democrats, every false claim. Democrats did themselves no favors with juvenile reactions when they should have been composing constitutionally-loyal opposition positions.

Was there an adult in the room?

Now, here’s Daniel Dale and his CNN fact-checking staff:

President Donald Trump made numerous false and misleading claims…The falsehoods spanned a variety of topics, including the economy, climate, immigration and more.

In his speech, just under one hour and 40 minutes, Trump also made a number of false claims about his predecessor, Joe Biden. Here is a fact check of some of Trump’s statements:

DOGE savings: Trump claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency, the initiative led by Elon Musk, has “found hundreds of billions of dollars” in fraud.

This figure, which is uncorroborated, needs context.

As of the day of Trump’s address to Congress, DOGE claimed on its website that its work has saved an estimated $105 billion for taxpayers.

But it hasn’t provided evidence to corroborate a figure that high.

DOGE listed about 2,300 contracts it claimed to have canceled across the federal government for a total claimed savings of about $8.9 billion. It also listed nearly 3,500 grants it claimed to have canceled for a total claimed savings of about $10.3 billion, but it provided no links or documentation for those cuts. And it listed about $660 million in savings from canceled government leases.

DOGE’s public tally has been marred with errors, and it has been repeatedly changed in recent weeks to remove some contracts identified as flawed by CNN and other media outlets — including a previous claim that it had saved $8 billion by canceling a contract that was actually worth a maximum of $8 million. Its website’s so-called wall of receipts has included contracts that were canceled during previous presidential administrations.Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “What Matters” Newsletter.

 

Bottom of Form

Musk and other Trump allies have claimed DOGE’s work is aimed at targeting waste, fraud and abuse. But DOGE has not released evidence that the contracts it has canceled were fraudulent. And at least some of the cuts have been reversed amid criticism.

From CNN’s Casey Tolan

DOGE and transgender mice: Trump falsely claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency identified government spending of “$8 million for making mice transgender.”

Between the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, the National Institutes of Health awarded a total of $477,121 to three  projects that involved administering feminizing hormone therapy to monkeys to understand how it may affect their immune system and make them more susceptible to HIV. Feminizing hormone therapy is a gender-affirming treatment used to block the effects of the male hormone testosterone and promote feminine characteristics among transgender women.

Transgender women are nearly 50 times more likely to be infected with HIV than other adults, according to one study from 2013 across 15 countries, including the US. It’s not clear where the $8 million figure came from.

From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips

Trump on the economy

Trump’s tariffs: Trump, promoting his tariffs on imported foreign products, claimed that “we will take in trillions and trillions of dollars,” and he added that “I did it with China.” This is misleading at best. Tariffs are paid by US importers, not foreign exporters, and study after study, including  one from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, found that Americans bore almost the entire cost of Trump’s first-term tariffs on Chinese products. It’s easy to find specific examples of companies that passed along the cost of the tariffs to US consumers.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Tami Luhby

Small-business optimism: Trump said that “small-business optimism saw its single-largest one-month gain ever recorded — a 41-point jump.”

This claim needs context. If Trump was referring to the commonly cited NFIB Small Business Optimism Index (his spokespeople didn’t respond to a previous CNN request to clarify), his claim about a 41-point increase appears to be a reference to one component of the index — the percentage of small-business owners expecting the economy to improve — rather than the index as a whole. That measure did soar a  net 41 percentage points from pre-election October to post-election November.

And Trump didn’t mention that the total index then declined in January to a level that is still high but lower than it was under Trump in  September, 2020 and Octoger 2020 – less than five years ago.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Egg prices: Trump on Tuesday made the misleading claim that former President Joe Biden “let the price of eggs get out of control.”

The avian flu has caused egg prices to rise because the United States Department of Agriculture requires the culling of entire flocks to stop the spread if the virus is detected. It’s a practice that occurred during the Biden administration, but also one that is continuing under Trump as the virus continues to infect flocks nationwide.

When Biden took office, the average price of a carton of a dozen grade A eggs across US cities was $1.47, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. By January 2023, as avian flu spread to flocks nationwide, a dozen eggs rose to $4.82 on average, a 228% increase. By the time Biden left office in January, a carton of eggs cost $4.95 on average, a 2.7% increase from a year prior. Due to short supply,  egg prices are projected to increase by 41.1%  this year, according to the USDA’s food outlook as of February 25.

From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Elisabeth Buchwald and Vanessa Yurkevich

Trump on efforts to fight climate change

Trump and “the Green New Scam”: Trump claimed that he terminated the “Green New Scam.”

This claim is inaccurate in various ways. Biden didn’t pass the original “Green New Deal,” a nonbinding resolution   introduced by progressive congressional Democrats in 2019 that was never turned into law. Trump hasn’t yet terminated the major environmental law Biden did pass, which is what Trump might be referring to as “the Green New Scam.” Trump has previously claimed the policy cost $9 trillion.

Biden signed a law in 2022 known as the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA,  containging $430 billion in climate and clean energy spending and tax credits.Independent estimates later raised the cost of that law to over $1 trillion by 2032, but the IRA actually saved the government $240 billion because of its increased tax enforcement and prescription drug savings, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And importantly, the IRA’s tax credits spurred companies to build new factories and solar and wind farms in the US, creating jobs with it.

Trump and congressional Republicans haven’t killed the law, although they are aiming to take parts of it out later this year. Trump has effectively killed other climate policies Biden imposed through executive order, but it will take an act of Congress to reverse the former president’s signature climate bill.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

Paris climate agreement: Trump touted withdrawing a second time from the Paris climate agreement, claiming in his speech to Congress that the landmark climate deal was costing the US “trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying.”

This claim is inaccurate. Biden pledged to pay $11.4 billion per year toward international climate financing upon taking office. However, the US contribution to a global finance goal ended up being far lower because Congress appropriated far less money than Biden’s goal. Biden’s State Department  announced it had allocated $5.8 billion to international climate finance by 2022. US climate finance contributions have never reached trillions of dollars.

The US wasn’t the only laggard on its climate finance commitments; other nations have struggled to meet a collective $100 billion climate financing goal meant to help countries vulnerable to sea level rise and droughts.  China, the UK and the EU have all contributed. That goal  was tripled to $300 billion annually by 2035 at the most recent United Nations Climate Conference.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

Trump on border crossings and migrants

Illegal border crossings: Trump claimed that, since taking office again, he has already achieved the lowest number of illegal border crossings “ever recorded.” That’s false.

He could have accurately said the number of Border Patrol apprehensions at the southern border in February – the first full month of his second term – is the lowest in many decades, at least if it’s true that the number was 8,326, as he claimed on social media in early March. But  official  federal statistics show there were fewer Border Patrol encounters with migrants at the southwest border in various months of the early 1960s, as well as in various months of previous decades.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole

Migrants coming from mental institutions: Trump repeated his familiar claim Tuesday night about how other countries have supposedly released people from their “mental institutions and insane asylums” into the US as migrants. There is no evidence for the president’s claim, which Trump’s own presidential campaign was unable to corroborate. (The campaign was unable to provide any evidence even for his narrower claim that South American countries in particular were emptying their mental health facilities to somehow dump patients upon the US.)

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Haley Britzky

Trump on former President Joe Biden

Weaponizing the Justice Department: Trump claimed that Biden used his office to “viciously” prosecute him. That’s false.

Trump’s two federal indictments were brought by a special counsel, Jack Smith. Smith was appointed in November 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, but that is not proof that Biden was involved in the prosecution effort, much less that Biden personally ordered the indictments. Garland had said that he would resign if Biden ever asked him to act against Trump but that he was sure that would never happen. For Trump’s part, he has never provided any evidence that Biden was personally involved in the federal prosecutions.

The two cases were dropped by Smith after Trump was reelected.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole

Inflation under Biden: Trump falsely claimed in his address to Congress that under the Biden administration America suffered the “worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure.”

Trump could fairly say that the year-over-year US inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but that’s not “48 years” — and this 9.1% rate was not close to the all-time record of 23.7% set in 1920.. The rate in the last full month of the Biden administration, December 2024, was  2.9%. It was 3% in January, 2025, , a month partly under Biden and partly under Trump.

Trump did qualify the claim with the word “perhaps” and “they’re not sure,” but there is no basis for the claim regardless, and those numbers are certain: The Consumer Price Index data goes back to 1913.

Inflation’s rapid ascent which began in early 2021, was the result of a confluence of factors, including effects from the Covid-19 pandemic such as snarled supply chains and geopolitical fallout (specifically Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) that triggered food and energy price shocks. Heightened consumer demand boosted in part by fiscal stimulus from both the  Trump and Biden administrations also led to higher prices, as did the post-pandemic imbalance in the labor market.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Alicia Wallace

Undocumented immigrants: Trump falsely claimed Tuesday that 21 million undocumented immigrants came into the US during Biden’s tenure.

Through December 2024, the last full month of Biden’s presidency, the country had  recorded  under 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during that administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country; even adding in so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no way the total is “21 million.”

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole

Agricultural purchases by China: Trump repeated a false claim that he got China to purchase $50 billion worth of agricultural goods during his first administration and that the Biden administration “didn’t enforce it.” That is misleading.

China agreed to increase agricultural purchases by $12.5 billion in 2020 and $19.5 billion in 2021, as part of a trade pact signed with the US in January 2020. That did occur in 2020 but not in 2021, when US agricultural exports to China increased by $6.4 billion compared with 2020, according to US Department of Agriculture data.

Nevertheless, the pact never specified that China would have to continue to keep up such purchase levels beyond 2021.

Rather, it said, “The Parties project that the trajectory of increases in the amounts of manufactured goods, agricultural goods, energy products, and services purchased and imported into China from the United States will continue in calendar years 2022 through 2025.”

Even still, 2022 surpassed 2021 levels of $33 billion, according to USDA data. However, by 2023, US agricultural exports to China declined by $9 billion.

From CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald

Trump’s other claims

Autism rates: In his address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump spoke of the recent rise in autism prevalence in the US, saying that “not long ago, and you can’t even believe these numbers, one in 10,000 children had autism, one in 10,000, and now it’s one in 36.”

Some of the earliest studies on autism diagnosis from the 1960s and 1970s estimated reported autism prevalence to be in the range of 2 to 4 cases for every 10,000 children, but that was many decades ago. While the diagnosis rate has increased steadily in recent years, it was already 1 in 150 children in 2000, 25 years ago, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was indeed 1 in 36 children by age 8 in 2020.

Experts say significant improvement in identifying and diagnosing autism is a key driver behind the rise in reported rates.

From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips and Daniel Dale

Military recruitment: Trump claimed Tuesday that the US military is having “among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services” and that the US Army had its “single-best recruiting month in 15 years” in January, adding that “just a few months ago” the US “couldn’t recruit anywhere.”

This needs context. According to  the Defense Department, military recruitment was already up over 10% in fiscal year 2024 compared with the year prior, and the delayed entry program for the active-duty military was up 10% in fiscal year 2025. The delayed entry program is a way for recruits to join the military but not ship out until a later date.

And looking specifically at the Army’s recruitment, former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, who served until January 20, told FOX News that the uptick started before Trump was elected — and that the Army in fact started seeing increased numbers in February 2024.

From CNN’s Haley Britzky

Social Security benefits: In an extended claim, Trump said 4.7 million people who are at least 100 years old are still listed in the Social Security Administration’s database and that “money is being paid to many of them.” However, this claim needs context.

The vast majority of these people do not have dates of death listed in Social Security’s database. But that doesn’t mean they are actually receiving monthly benefits.

Public data from the Social Security Administration  shows that about 89,000 people age 99 or over were receiving Social Security benefits in December 2024, not even close to the millions Trump invoked.

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Leland Dudek, who was elevated to that post by the current Trump administration, tried to set the record straight in a February statement.

“The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” Dudek said.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby and Daniel Dale

Aid to Ukraine: Trump repeated a regular false claim that the US has spent $350 billion, “like taking candy from a baby,” to support Ukraine’s defense while Europe has collectively provided just $100 billion in aid. That is not close to correct.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank that closely tracks wartime aid to Ukraine, Europe – the European Union plus individual European countries – had collectively committed far more total wartime military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine through December 2024 (about $263 billion at current exchange rates) than the US committed (about $126 billion). Europe had also allocated more military, financial and humanitarian aid (about $140 billion) than the US allocated (about $121 billion).

The US did have a slim lead in one particular category, military aid allocated, providing about $68 billion compared with about $66 billion from Europe. But even that was nowhere close to the giant gulf Trump described.

It’s possible to arrive at different totals using different counting methodologies, but there is no apparent basis for Trump’s “$350 billion” figure. The US government inspector general overseeing the Ukraine response says on its website that the US had appropriated nearly $183 billion for the Ukraine response through December 2024, including about $83 billion actually disbursed – and that includes funding spent in the US or sent to  countries other than Ukraine.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Alicia Wallace

Panama Canal deaths: Trump delivered a slightly vaguer than usual version of his repeated false claim that 38,000 Americans died during the building of the Panama Canal. That figure is not even close to true, experts on the canal’s construction say.

Experts on the canal say it’s not even close to true that 38,000 Americans died during construction.

While the century-old records are imprecise, they show about 5,600 people died during the canal’s American construction phase between 1903 and 1914 – and “of those, the vast majority were Afro-Caribbeans,” such as workers from Barbados and Jamica, said  Julie Greene, , a history professor at the University of Maryland and author of the book “The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal.”

The late historian David McCullough, author of another book on the building of the canal, found that “the number of white Americans who died was about 350.”Thousands of additional orkers, perhaps around 22,000, died during the French construction phase that preceded the American phase. But Trump strongly suggested he was talking about American deaths, as he has explicitly said on previous occasions.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

JOHN

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I must have met John Ventura during a news directors convention in Las Vegas sometime.  I have no memory of him.  But a few days ago, when sorting through years of flotsam and jetsam on the top of my dresser, I came across an orange 3×5 card he must have given me sometime during one of our news directors’ conferences in Las Vegas.

John had a degree in pharmacy and had been a Navy corpsman.  But his real career was in newspapers and in public relations. He was the  editor of the Mohawk Valley Times in New York but wound in Las Vegas doing public relations. He was 79 when he died in 2011.

But John lived on with that card buried on my dresser top. It has some things he said and something somebody sent to the Times when he was the editor—a poem by William Arthur Ward that challenges us to be bolder than we think we can be—because unwillingness to risk anything means a person cannot BE something.

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk rejection.

To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To hope is to risk pain.

To go forth in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel change, grow or love.

Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave.

He has forfeited his freedom.

Only a person who takes risks is free.

The little orange card contains a couple of things he said originated from him. The first is dated  June 13, 1984 (which is probably about the time we met so briefly):

“It’s doing what you don’t have to makes you do it better!”

And the little card also has something he didn’t take credit for, but liked;

I’d rather be a “could be” if I couldn’t be an “are;” for a “could be” is a “may be with” a chance at touching par.

I’d rather be a “has been” than a “might have been” but has never been.

But a “has been” was once an “are.”

Wisdom on a little card from a man I do not recall meeting but I know that I did. Finding it on the clutter of my dresser was a kind of resurrection for John D. Ventura. It’s too late to thank him for sharing those words, but I do.

The End at Mizzou and in KC; Grapefruit and Cactus; Youth is Served on the Track

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(WOMENMIZZ)—The fifteen-year career of Robin Pingeton as women’s basketball coach at the University of Missouri is stumbling to an sad ending.

The Lady Tigers lost their last regular-season game to Vanderbilt 100-59, the first time an opponent has topped 100 points against a Missouri women’s team in 25 years.

Pingeton’s Tigers will be the 15th seed in the SEC tournament, facing Mississippi State tomorrow evening. Mississippi State is the 10th seed. Missouri won a regular season game against MSU, 78-77 on January 27.

Her departure is not a surprise.  Missouri has gone 79-98 in the last six years with losing records in four of those seasons, twice racking up only nine wins. Going into the likely last game of the year and of her career, Missouri is 14-17.

Overall at Missouri, Pingeton is 250-217 and has taken the team into ten postseason appearances and made four trips to the NCAA women’s tournament. She’s 584-373 including her stint with Northern Illinois.

(MIZZ)—The Missouri Tigers again have shown an inability to capitalize on a big win, losing to Vanderbilt 97-93 in overtime after holding a three-point lead with nine seconds left in regulation.

Missouri had led most of the game but could never put the Commodores away.

It’s a costly loss that drops Missouri out of a top-four seed in the SEC tournament and the double-bye that would have been part of that seeding.

Coach Dennis Gates blamed himself for the loss, saying he hadn’t done what he had to do.

Missouri plays Oklahoma in Norman tomorrow night.

The loss drops Missouri to 19th in the coaches poll. They’re 15th among AP sportswriters. They’re 10-6 in the conference now.  Auburn, the nation’s top team, is 15-1 with Texas A&M second at 12-4 and Florida and Alabama at 12-4. (zou)

(MOOSE)—Former Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakis is coming home to retire. The Moose is going to sign a one-day contract before a game on May 31 so he can retire with the team he helped win the 2015 World Series. The team will host a pregame ceremony for him before they play the Tigers.

He hit 139 homers in his eight seasons with a n 11.5 WAR before he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, where he played for a season and a half before going to Cincinnati for three years. He split 2023 between the Rockies and the Angels, signed a minor league deal in 2024 but was cut before the season started.

He hit .284 with 22 homers and 82 RBIs in the championship year of 2015. He hit .304 against the Mets in the World Series.

(SPRING TRAINING)—How are  the Royals and Cardinals doing in spring training?

The Cardinals are last in the Grapefruit League at 3-6 through Sunday. They’ve been outscored 37-46 and are winless (0-5) outside Roger Dean Stadium. As a team, the ‘Birds are hitting only .193. Nolan Arenado is 3 for 12. Masin Wynn and Nolan Gorman are hitless in 12 at-bats each. Jordan Walker is 1 for 11. Victor Scott and Wilson Contrares are having a good spring. Both are 5 for 9 (.556). St. Louis is averaging five hits per game.

The Royals 6-4, sixth in the Cactus League. They’re 65-65 in the runs-scored, runs-against sats and hitting .257 as a team through Sunday. Bobby Witt is at 294. Michael Massey is at .417. Vinnie Pasquantino, coming back from a fractured wrist last year, is looking for his stroke at .188.

(CHIEFS)—  The offseason for the Chiefs already is producing changes and apprehension. Early speculation is focusing on three guys.

Linebacker Nick Bolton will become a free agent next month. He knows he’s a hot commodity. The Chiefs know it, too.  The former Tiger has racked up at least 100 tackles in three of his four seasons. He’s indicated he’s like to stay in KC, but—–

Offensive guard Trey Smith is not under contract for 2026 and coming off his first pro-bowl season. He also is 25 and is the kind of guy a lot of teams would like to pick up. But he was a stalwart in a leaky offensive line last year. Ian Rapaport with NFL insider thinks Kansas City will make him a franchise player for 2026 and pay him about $23 million for a one-year deal, making him the highest-paid guard in the league.

But the financial impact goes beyond Smith because it affects the players’ budget.  The big loser, according to some analysts, could be Isiah Pacheco, who missed ten games but the Chiefs didn’t seem to miss him much. The running game led by a rejuvenated Kareem Hunt might make Pacheco expendable.

Moving Along.    At about 200 mph:

(INDYCAR)—Defending INDY car champion Alex Palou dominated the race on the streets of St. Petersburg, the first race of the series schedule.

The win gives him a leg up on winning his third INDYCAR championship. It’s his 12th career win in the series.

But six-time champion Scott Dixon thinks he could have won he race if his radio hadn’t quit working, forcing him to make pit stops based in dashboard information rather than communications from his crew chief.

Even with that difficulty, Dixon’s runner-up finish gave Chip Ganassi Racing a 1-2 finish with the cars of rival Penske Racing’s Josef Newgarden and pole sitter Scott McLaughlin.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden closed to within nine-tenths of a second late in the race but faded to third, passed by an onrushing Dixon, who finished less than three seconds behind Palou.

Palou called his win “amazing,” which it might have been because of his past struggles at St. Pete.

The season opened poorly for the third Penske driver, Will Power, who had to replace his engine before the start and was then caught up in a crash on the third turn of the race. Power, who turned 44 earlier in the week, is in the last year of his contract with Penske. He wants to keep racing, would prefer to stay with Penske but says serious contract negotiations have not yet begun.

McLaughlin announced before the race that his contract with Penske had been extended.

(NASCAR)—Christopher Bell has become the first driver since 2018 to win two of the first three NASCAR Cup races, crossing the finish line at the Circuit of the Americas after a tough but clean race. He also won at Atlanta last week.

Bell finished second at COTA last year. This year seemed like a replay of 2024 in some ways. “These road-course races are so much fun,” he said afterwards. But he didn’t want to wreck Busch to get past him. “We tried to be so cautious…His car started falling off, and ours was still strong. I kept thinking ‘don’t beat yourself.’”

Kyle Busch seemed on the verge of ending his 59-race winless streak when the last caution came out that allowed the field to bunch up with him. He and Bell raced hard and clean before Busch’s worn tires forced him to slow, allowing Bell to get past him with ten laps to go, and then William Byron and Tyler Reddick got past him, too.

Byron was able to get to Bell but couldn’t get an opening to pass. Chase Elliott, who came back from an early spin to finish fourth, watched the three fight it out in the closing laps and called the contest “a great example of three very respectful talented race car drivers duking it out for the win without crashing each other.”

Busch is looking for his first win since June, 2023 at Madison, Illinois. After the race he told interviewers, “I feel like maybe the two-lap fresher tires the No. 20 (Bell) had was the difference. All things considered, I’d love to have equal tires to the No. 20 and get back after it and see what we could do that way. But I also hated to see that yellow that came out. I felt like we had a little bit of a gap there, enough of a gap that I was protecting my tires.”

(photo credits: Moustakis—KC Royals; Bell—Bob Priddy; Palou—Rick Gevers)

 

 

 

Great? 

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We have a place at the end of these entries for people to respond to them. I hope the Trumpers will do that today—

And explain how last week’s disgusting performance in the meeting with Ukraine’s President in any way makes America Great.

To whom?

Well, Russia thinks America is great.  Donald Trump thinks browbeating and bullying the president of a country fighting off takeover from a cruel, controlling, all-powerful despotic leader of a gigantically larger country makes our America great, at least in his own self-dominated mind.

HERE’S how American can be great—–but Trump’s own cruel, controlling, all-powerful self-image won’t let him do it:

Persuade his good friend Vlad to stop the invasion of Ukraine. Withdraw.  Offer Russia security protections against invasion from Ukraine.

He won’t do it. He can’t do it. He’s already speaking from Vlad’s pocket when he accuses Ukraine of starting the war.

Imagine if Roosevelt in 1939 had accused Poland of invading Germany; England of launching a blitzkrieg against Germany in 1940, Hawaii of bombing Tokyo in ’41.  Imagine if Truman accused South Korea of starting a war in 1950 by invading North Korea.  Or if George H. W. Bush had charged Kuwait with invading Iraq in 1990.

Just think how much greater we would be now if those presidents hadn’t made the mistakes Trump refuses to make today.

The greatness of America on the world stage is gone and it is becoming smaller in the international rear-view mirror.  It’s even growing smaller in our own rear-view mirror with every day of crude butchery of our own government, with every day that the faceless bureaucrats who try to make our government work for US are threatened with the loss of their jobs by people who have little appreciation for laboring on behalf of other people.

So tell me, Trumpers, in the dialogue box at the end of this entry, just how Trump is making our country great by doing the things to his own people that he is doing.  Look ahead, and tell me how our lives will be better a year from now.

Don’t send me an email.  My name is on every one of these entries. I expect those with differing opinions to have enough courage to stand behind their words with their names.

Make me think how great my country is today.  Make me proud of my president.  Make me sufficiently grateful.

The Meritocracy

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We are waiting to see the day the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion do two things.

  1. Proclaims Black History Month will not be recognized.
  2. Eliminate the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” in 1926 at the urging of one of our nation’s greatest Black historians, Carter G. Woodson, and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, with Woodson saying it was important to the cultural survival of Blacks within the broader White society.  The week was observed in the February week when the birth of Abraham Lincoln was celebrated.

He commented, “If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. The American Indian left no continuous record. He did not appreciate the value of tradition; and where is he today? The Hebrew keenly appreciated the value of tradition, as is attested by the Bible itself. In spite of worldwide persecution, therefore, he is a great factor in our civilization.”

The Black United Students group and Black educators at Kent State University proposed in 1969 that the week-long celebration become Black History Month.  The first observance was in 1970.

President Ford endorsed it as part of the national Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.

But with the arrival of the second Trump term, Black History Month appeared to be on somewhat shaky ground.  One of the first things Trump did when resuming office was to sign an executive order ending “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government.”

Within a matter of days, agencies were circulating memos, many of them announcing in terms similar to the line used by a Justice Department memo, “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”

To the surprise of some, Trump did sign a proclamation recognizing Black History Month at the start of February calling on American citizens and public officials to “celebrate the contributions of so many black American patriots who have indelibly shaped our Nation’s history.”

EEOC:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exists but President Trump has rendered it useless, as he has the National Labor Relations Board.

Acting quickly after resuming office, he fired then-Chairman Charlotte Burrows, a Biden appointee who became the first chairman ever fired by a President. He also canned Commissioner Joycelyn Samuels, one of his own appointees from 2020, leaving only two members of the five-member commission. Trump appointee Andrea Lucas was named the acting chair. She is identified as a strong opponent of DEI programs, which she says promote reverse discrimination. The also is known as a critic of legal protections for transgender people. Her term expires July 1.

Failure to reappoint her or to name a successor will leave only Kalpana Kotagel on the commission.  Kotagel is an African-American employment attorney appointee of President Biden. Her term expires in 2027, potentially leaving the commission with no members.

Kotagel is doomed.  She’s the kind of person Trump loves to hate. As a private attorney, she specialized in DEI cases, particularly involving the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and has represented clients in other civil rights employment actions. Four years ago she worked with the Transgender Defense and Educational Fund when Aetna Insurance Company granted access to breast augmentation surgery for male policyholders who underwent surgery to become women. She also is a member of the Advisory Board Office of Equity and Inclusion at the University of Pennsylvania.

Trump criticized the EEOC in his first term as ineffective and took no steps to make it so. The commission’s staff has been cut by more than 40% by Congress.

About the same time he was ravaging the EEOC, Trump fired National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a Biden appointee, and Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the NLRB also with just two members and three vacancies, thus unable to do any business.

In place of these and other programs created to insure qualified people have equal chances to become employed, Trump trumpets the meritocracy, saying people should be hired on the basis of merit, not race or other factors. But he has dismantled the agencies that were established to make sure that everybody was considered on their merits.

And he has celebrated the month by firing a lot of Black American patriots—including, just last week, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—who are shaping our present.  Someday our present will be someone else’s past.  We hope those of the future are harsh in their judgments of our present and the President who is making it.

The Golden Rule Today

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It use to be darkly humorous to note than in contemporary society, “He who has the gold rules.”

But today, in this country where egalitarianism is taking a beating from the super-oligarch behind the simple-oligarch, there is no humor in that twisting of the verse from the New Testament Book of Matthew, “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.”

Or in contemporary English, “Do unto Oohers and you would have the do unto you.”

The sentiment seems completely unfamiliar to our President or to his top henchmen and his Meat Cleaver Vigilantes.

The Golden Rule is not just a Christian instruction.  Other faiths have their versions of it.

Sathya Si Baba, a Hindu guru who claimed to be the reincarnation of 19th century spiritual master Sai Baba of Shirdi, whose teachings were a blend of the Christianity and Muslim faiths, wrote: “You must examine every act to find out if it will cause pain to others; if it does, withdraw from it. Don’t do to others what you do not like done unto you. This is called the Golden Rule. Yes, it is the best test for distinguishing right from wrong.”  (SSS 7:227

The equivalent for Buddhists from Udana-Varga 5:18is, “In five ways should a clansman minister to his friends and families by generosity, courtesy, and benevolence, by treting them as he treats himself and by being as good at his word.”

Judaism: “What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man.” (Talmud, Shabbat 3id)

Muhammed told his followers, “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Sunnah)

In The Great Learning, Ta Haio, Confucius comes pretty close to our contemporary language: “Do not unto others that you would not they should do until you.”

Mahabharta 5:17 tells Hindus, “Do not do to others that which if done to thee would cause thee pain.”

Followers of the Indian faith called Jainism, one of the world’s oldest religions, say, “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard “all creatures as we regard our own self.”

The lesson from Grantha Sahib in the Sikh faith is, “As thou deemest thyself, so deem others. Then shall thou become a partner in heaven.”

The Tao Tu Ching, The Book of the Way and Virtue teaches students of the Tao, “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and regard your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

Zoraster, who also is known as Zarathustra, was a teacher and preacher of an ancient religion that influenced the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Muslim, and Judaism—and the great Greek philosophers. His teaching recorded in Dadisten-i-dinik 94:5 reads, “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.”

There also are Golden Rules from the writings of great philosophers:

About a century before the birth of Christ, Epictetus wrote, “What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others.”

Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German Philosopher, wrote, “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.”

The Greek philosopher Plato, in the 4th Century BCE wished, “May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.”

About a century later, another Greek philosopher, Socrates, offered, “Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.”

And Rome’s Seneca in the First Century CE, said in his Epistle 47:11, “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.”

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote his Meditations 2.1, said Nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, for we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away. 

We’ll give American poet Edwin Markham the final observation:  “We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.”

Markham might be best known for his simple poem, “Outwited”:

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

In Washington today, the Golden Rule is a tarnished gong, a clanging cymbal and the only circle is the one that shuts people out.

Wouldn’t a Christian Nation draw the circle that takes others in?

The Gulf

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It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Period.

And calling it the Gulf of America is as silly as some people got after the September 2001 terrorist attacks when France opposed our invasion of Iraq by deciding to call French fries, Freedom Fries.

The pettiness and immaturity of a 78-year old man with a superiority complex was played out a few days ago when he threw a tantrum and banished an Associated Press reporter from an Oval Office press conference dominated not by the old man but by his  hatchet man. The reporters was not banned because he asked an impertinent question of either of the stars of the event.

He was barred from the event because the Associated Press won’t call the Gulf of Mexico the presidentially-designated Gulf of America.

To begin with, Trump’s executive order on the Gulf shows his usual ignorance of and respect for maritime/economic law and the authority of individuals as well as countries to keep calling it the Gulf of Mexico.

But never trouble Donald Trump with facts or with respecting any system, nations, and cultures that long-ago legally or at least culturally designated names of places.

Renaming Denali, for example, is disrespectful of the Koyukon Athabascan people who have lived in that area for centuries and have called it Denali. Not until 1896 was it called Mt. McKinley, and not by any official action or decision by an international naming agency but by a gold miner who started calling it McKinley to support a presidential candidate. President Wilson signed a bill in 1917 making McKinley the official name.

But the state of Alaska asked in 1975 that the United States Board on Geographical Place Names make the official name to the traditional Denali. Ohio Congressman Ralph Regula blocked it because McKinley’s hometown of Canton was in his district and he didn’t seem to care what generations of natives had called the mountain long before he came along. Canton is a long ways from Alaska and surely Regula (who died a few years ago) could have found something closer to home with which to make a headline.

The Board of Geographical Place Names?

The King of Renaming Puffery apparently does not know, or does not care about, the existence of such a body that was created in 1897 and assumed its present status by federal law in 1947. The board, part of the Department of the Interior, tries to allocate place names based on local custom “as well as principles, policies, and procedures governing the use of domestic names, foreign names, Antarctic names, and undersea feature names,” as one source puts it. More than fifty other nations have similar national bodies.

Such organizations are necessary to avoid confusion about what is what and where that what is.

Then there is the United Nations Economic and Social Council  and its nine-member Group of Experts on Geographical Names that has been reviews things every five years, beginning in 1960. Having a commonly-used name of a place is important in domestic and international trade.

But we are learning that this President has no regard for federal agencies or international programs, especially when he decides to show his power by ignoring them with executive orders. And woe be unto anyone who does not worship his impulses.

Here’s the deal about the Gulf of Whatever—

The United States does not OWN the Gulf of Mexico.  The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants countries control of waters about twelve nautical miles from the country’s shores. That’s the closest this country has to owning a gulf, a sea, or an ocean.

There also is an “Exclusive Economic Zone” that covers 200 miles of offshore water. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the zone allows this country to “explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources” in that area. That zone overlaps similar zones for Mexico and Cuba. But they don’t count in inner Trumpworld.

So the Great Geopolitician is asserting authority over Mexico and Cuba with his MAGA-pleasing proclamation, something outside his and his country’s authority. The solution to his situation should be easy for him: Make Mexico our 52nd state and Cuba our 53rd.

Canada already is in line to become number 51. And that brings us to another issue for our President and our takeover of Canada.

What’s with this St. Lawrence Seaway thing?

It allows oceangoing ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota.  It’s named for the St. Lawrence River that links Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. We expect an executive order soon renaming the thoroughfare the Duluth Seaway.

And while we’re at it, why is it the Missouri River when there are so many other states involved?  We can’t call it the Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska-Iowa-North Dakota-South Dakota, Montana River.  Let’s simplify it and just call it The Trump River and make it a symbol of his success at bringing the county together.

And then—

The administration’s new Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum says the department is considering redrawing boundaries of our national parks and historic sites so there’s more room to drill, baby, drill—even though we understand the major petroleum companies are less enthusiastic about the increased supply that will lower the pump prices of gas and oil.  But as long as we’re tinkering with those parks and historic sites—-

Let’s add the scowling Presidential visage to Mount Rushmore although rock experts have told the National Park Service the remaining rock is unstable.

It might be the perfect place for a Trump sculpture after all

(Actually, increased drilling should be welcomed by consumers who will pay less for the fuel it takes to buy their more-expensive groceries.)

And while we’re talking about the Gulf of Mexico, why don’t we annex the Caribbean?

Now back to the AP reporter. Trump’s action constitutes a punishment for a news agency that reports the news in a way he does not like.  That’s been illegal since John Peter Zenger was accused of libel by the Royal Governor of New York because Zenger’s New York Journal published an editorial critical of Governor William Cosby.

Cosby issued a proclamation condemning Zenger’s newspaper for “divers scandalous, virulent, false, and seditious reflections,” a crude eloquence we won’t find on (Un)Truth Social. It doesn’t even have an exclamation point, a misspelling, and a capitalized word.

Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton—the father of Alexander—argued that truth is an absolute defense against libel. It took a jury only ten minutes to find Zenger not guilty, a judgment that established press freedom in this country.

Trump’s hissy fit because the AP recognizes the internationally-established name for the Gulf of Mexico, while not a libel, is an exercise of press freedom. The press is not obligated to print the party line or the individual declaration of anyone, including Presidents with a totalitarian attitude.

–or as the AP put it, “As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audience.”  The AP does agree to change the mountain to Mt. McKinley in its style book.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group, commented, “President Trump has the authority to change how the U. S. government refers to the Gulf. But he cannot punish a new organization for using another term.”

Well, he did.  And he’s moving to punish news organizations who dare question his bloviating about any issue that pops into his head.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll get into a discussion of “America,” another word about which Trump is, shall we say, extremely uneducated.

Some General, Generally Biased, Observations

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We cannot help but reflect on the man whose birthday is today. You know, the guy who said in his second inaugural:

“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

We have a retread President who is 78 years old but acting as if he’s just seven and seems immune to rational thought (see Greenland, Canada, Panama, sh—thole countries in general  including Haiti, El Salvador, and all African countries), fawning about Putin, Xi, Erdogan, and North Korea’s Un and only, California wildfires caused by poor raking of leaves in forests, having the Army shoot protestors in the legs, claiming to be a Christian whose favorite Bible verse is “Two Corinthians,” a billionaire who wants to be like his idols—Musk and Bezos, etc., and so forth)

Forbes in 2023 listed him as only 420th on its list of 1490 billionaires, behind Republican whipping boy George Soros (410) various members of the Walton family, and well behind Charles Koch, who was 67th but who has a bottomless check book that he uses to influence political candidates—or buy them, as some suspect. Musk and Bezos were 1-2. Trump admires them for their wealth. Being around them makes him feel bigger.  He wants to be them.

A few days before his re-inauguration, he bragged that his administration already had hired 1,000 people some of whom will replace some of the THREE MILLION people who are federal employees now, about 2.3 million being full-time. The military makes up 775-thousand, the largest segment. Veterans Affairs involves another 476-thousand.

Adding one-thousand people while proclaiming he’ll make big cuts in the government payroll sees a little counter-intuitive. He and some of his acolytes want to eliminate the federal education department.  We recently checked and found doing so would eliminate about 4,150 jobs.,

Wow!  Our  billionaire president eliminates an entire department in which the average employee earns $130 thousand a year. Don’t think that’s excessive until you’ve read the real estate ads in the Washington, D.C. metro area yet.

In that same message he asked people quit referring people to him such as  “people who worked with, or are endorsed by Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch), “Dumb as a rock John Bolton, “Birdbrain Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, disloyal Warmongers Dick Cheney and his psycho daughter, Liz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, (General(?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yester, or any of the other people suffering from Trump derangement Syndrome.”

What’s with the question mark next to General Milley’s name? He was just the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, capping a distinguished military career of 44 years, which is only about 44 years more than the question mark served.

At least he didn’t call Pence a traitor.  At least not this time. But the rest of it—the name-calling?

If you lack the intellectual capability to do anything else, you can always call somebody a name. “Poopy Head” is a good one for seven-year olds. When he was in office the first time, maybe he should have sent Poopy head Milley to serve in one of his famous sh—hole countries.

As for those who were endorsed by “Americans for No Prosperity,“ Charles Koch is worth about ten times more than lowly number 420.  But we doubt that he and most of the others—especially those higher than 420, have better things to do than sit at their computer all night dreaming up derogatory names of people who not only are far wealthier than he is, but in many cases probably better people.

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Having taken our retread President to task in the comments above, let us congratulate him for his brilliant idea that the Palestinians from Gaza should be sent to other places while he takes their damaged homeland and turns it into a beautiful place for the right kind of people.

His idea is very American.  And his plan was part of the original Make America Great plan.

It is uncomfortable for many who raise this point because they might be considered “woke,” and your correspondent realizes the risk he runs by reminding us of this proud part of our heritage—when good Christian people “helped” natives of another land move elsewhere after the systematic destruction of their cultures so the vacated land could be developed and inhabited by better people.

You might have heard of some of these places:

Navajo Nation, Uinta and Ouray, Thono O’odham, Standing Rock, Crow, Wind River, Pine Ridge, Fort Peck, and San Carlos Indian Reservations.

So don’t be critical of our President for suggesting natives go someplace else so others can turn their abandoned lands into profitable enterprises. He’s just continuing a cherished American tradition.

Let’s wrap up today’s spleen-letting with these two observations:

Given the nonsense that has emanated from the Trump Royal Golf Course in Florida, we suggest its name be changed to Mar-a-Liego.  And when his time in the White House is over and if there is to be built a place to hold and study his unclassified and classified papers, it would be appropriate to refer to it as the Presidential Liebrary.

     

 

A Lost Weekend for Missouri Sports—Except for One Guy

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

—Tigers lost. Chiefs overwhelmed. Thank Heavens for Baseball.

(CHIEFS)  Look for a lot of new names on the Kansas City Chiefs offensive line next year. ESPN reports Patrick Mahomes was pressured on 29 of his 56 dropbacks in the Super Bowl and was sacked six times, more times than in any other game in his career.  The Eagles helped him to a forgettable record with those 29 pressures, breaking the record of 25 held by Buffalo’s Jim Kelley in Super Bowl 26.

And the Eagles did it without blitzing. They just rolled over the Chiefs’ offensive line.

Mahomes was sacked eleven times in the Chiefs’ three post-season games. In the regular season, the defense got him on the ground 36 times.

The Eagles dominated the Chiefs, especially in the first half when the Chiefs became the second team in Super Bowl history to have fewer total offense yards than the number of points they gave up. Their total offense in the first half, on 20 plays, was only 23 yards. They had only three running plays (Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco combined for three yards) and trailed 24-0 at the break.

The highlight of the game for the Chiefs was the winning the coin toss.  By the end, they had suffered the worst loss of any team in a Super Bowl since since losing to Tampa Bay 31-9 four Super Bowls ago.  The loss, however, was far from the worst in a Super Bowl.  SB24 saw the 49ers clobber the Broncos 55-10.

Statmuse.com says this is the 26th time in the entire history of the franchise that the Chiefs have given up 40 points and the first time it’s happened since they lost to the Vikings 45-20 on December 20, 2003.

Travis Kelce set a new record for most catches in a Super Bowl. He finished with four in the game and 35 in his career, two more than Jerry Rice. Earlier in the playoffs he had broken Rice’s record for 100 yard playoff games, with 117 yards against the Houston Texans, his ninth playoff game getting 100 yards or more. Going into the game Sunday night, Kelce’s 350 Super Bowl yards ranked him fourth in the record book. He was first with 174 catches and now has 179. He went in ranked second with 2,039 receiving yards and second with 20 receiving touchdowns.

Andy Reid’s career coaching record now is 301-162-1 in 26 seasons. Including playoffs. He’s up one on Bill Belichick for most playoff games coached, with 45. Belichick has 31 wins. Reid has 28. He will be 67 when the Chiefs start the 2025 season.

(mizz)—Dropping two games to top-10 teams last week have has led to Missouri, not surpisingly, dropping six spots in both of the major polls. They’re down to 22 in the coaches poll and

he Tigers fell to No. 22 in the USA Today Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll in Monday’s top 25, down six places from their previous ranking. They also dropped six positions in the AP sportswriters  ranking.

Both Missouri losses were by a combined seven points against top-10 teams. Tennessee remained at No. 4 in the coaches poll and Texas A&M moved up four spots to No. 9.

The teams that beat Missouri last week rose in the polls.

A last seconds heart-breaker of a three with 1.8 seconds left gave Texas A&M the win in Columbia Saturday but the Tigers sowed the seeds of their defeat with two long dry spells.

They went the first 5:40 without a point before Tamar Bates hit a three from the corner. Missouri didn’t scored in the last 8:13 of the half. The Tigers dominated the second half and tied the game with ten minutes left. They took the lead with 53 seconds left but left too much time on the clock and Wade Taylor got the game winner.

(The Baseball)—That’s what Hemingway’s Old Man called it in The Old Man and the Sea.  Pitchers and catchers are drifting into the camps in Florida and Arizona. Full squads are due by the 17th.

Both teams start the season with questions.  For the Royals, it’s “Can they do it again—and do more?”  For the Cardinals, the question is “What are they going to do, anything?”

Now, The Wheel Guys, one in particular:

(EDWARDS)—Retired Columbia NASCAR driver Carl Edward never was close to being the most popular driver of the year during his career. But any self-doubts he had about being an outsider were erased last Friday night when he joined the NASCAR Hall of Fame. In his 8th year of retirement, Edwards talked about why he abruptly retired and how he learned he was part of the NASCAR family.

Edwards was headed for the NASCAR championship when a crash took him out of his last race in 2016. A few weeks later he met with his  team owner, Joe Gibbs, and told him he was not coming back for the 2017 season.

“I’m grateful that we didn’t win that championship because it gave me time to go home and think about a few things…I didn’t know my kids and because of brave men like Dale Earnhardt Jr., and other athletes, I was aware that there are real risks to hitting your head over and over.”

Edwards told Gibbs from the dais, “You said , ‘If this is important to you, I’ve got your back’…You changed my life. You gave me permission to do something I needed to do.”

Carl’s full speech:

Bing Videos

Next weekend, big-time NASCAR racing returns at full throttle with the Daytona 500.

(Photo credit: Yahoo Sports)

Hearing a Speech Never Given 

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A few minutes before President Kennedy was to arrive at the Dallas Trade Mart on November 22, 1963, he was murdered.

Some of his planned remarks are useful for us to consider today. The text of the speech is available from numerous sources.

But what if he had lived to deliver it?

Well, we now have an idea of how it would have sounded.

A few days ago, I listened to  John Kennedy deliver that speech, in which he said, among other things::

“Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country’s security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.

“There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable…

“We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will ‘talk sense to the American people.’ But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.”

As he neared the end of his speech he would have cited how American leadership through strength had blunted the Soviet Union’s expansionism.  He would have said:

“. There is no longer any doubt about the strength and skill of American science, American industry, American education, and the American free enterprise system.”

He would have warned, “In today’s world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles – on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.”

He would have concluded, “Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom…

“We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’

Artificial Intelligence can be monstrously good and monstrously evil, which is why it is so frightening to many of those who have seen past promises of peaceful and proper use of technology turned inside out by those who have exploited them.  So it can be with AI, which is alternatively exciting and frightening.

But AI also has given us John Kennedy’s voice giving the speech he never lived to give.  You can read how it was done and then hear the speech here;

JFK video: hear Kennedy’s ‘lost’ Dallas speech in his own voice

The technology is remarkable—-and it is just beginning its ascendency.  And while listening to how technology has woven words into speech, it is more important to focus on the words never spoken—

“We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint,”

AI has given us that speech. Will human intelligence let us appreciate it in these angry times?