Category Archives: people

A Wagnerian, Arthurian Campaign 

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Watched the State of the Union address last week.  Have watched several events featuring the other guy lately.

The day after the State of the Union address, while others were analyzing the speech, I found myself looking at the battle ahead and Wagnerian music began to play in my mind.

And images.

Listen as you read:

(5) Wagner Götterdämmerung – Siegfried’s death and Funeral march Klaus Tennstedt London Philharmonic – YouTube

A chill late evening on an ancient battlefield, smoke and fog intermingling to turn the setting sun a deep orange in the aftermath of an epic life-and-death confrontation between two legendary opponents.. Think of Arthur and Mordred from medieval England.

The State of the Union address was one of them drawing the sword that is a traditional symbol of power, of justice, of the best interests of the people and throwing away the scabbard to enter the final struggle with one whom he sees as a brooding, vengeful foe seeking to destroy everything good and honorable; a rival of equally waning strength, knowing this is his last, desperate chance to prevail.

In Arthurian legend, Arthur and, Mordred, variously referred to in the tellings of the tale as Arthur’s traitorous nephew or the traitorous son of Arthur’s nephew Gawain, or Arthur’s bastard son born of Arthur’s relationship with his half-sister (and there are other descriptions). They are two of the few survivors of the Battle of Camlann. Arthur, seeking to regain the throne Mordred had seized in his absence, impales Mordred on a spear.  But Mordred uses the last of his waning energy to pull himself along the spear and strikes Arthur with a mortal blow to the head.

Arthur, knowing his end is near, commands Bedivere to throw the great sword, Excalibur, into a nearby lake, which Bedivere finally does, reluctantly. He sees a hand part the waters, catch the sword, shake it three times, and pull it beneath the quiet waters of the pool.

(The climactic last scene, accompanied by Wagner’s “Death and Funeral” music from Gotterdammerung, was used in the concluding scenes of the 1981 movie “Excalibur,” considered one of the greatest Arthur legend films ever made. In the movie, Percival rather than Bedivere throws the sword.

(5) Excalibur – Finale – YouTube)

Arthur’s body is buried later at Glastonbury. His former ally, Launcelot, returned from France, learned that Guenevere had become a nun, went to Glastonbury to hear the story of Arthur’s final battle, and became a monk.

Six years later, after Guenevere had died, he and other surviving Knights of the Round Table went to Almesbury to take her remains to Glastonbury to be interred next to Arthur.

So it is told in one of the many versions of the Arthur legend.

Will this battle in future decades be seen as Arthurian as the English legend describes the final battle between Arthur and Mordred, between good and evil? Will, in the end, we be left with the thought neither survived (politically) but the kingdom endured?

(screen shots are from the motion picture Excalibur, produced by Orion Pictures)

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(Perhaps these thoughts have some distant genetic origin.  Glastonbury is about ten miles from the ancient lead-mining community of Priddy, England. The patron saint of Glastonbury is Joseph of Arimathea, perhaps an uncle of Jesus, and a tin trader who took a young Jesus with him during Jesus’ “lost years” when Joseph was involved in the tin trade with pre-Roman England. Local legend in Priddy has it that a young Jesus, traveling with Joseph, also visited Priddy.

The Gospels, of course, identify Joseph of Arimathea as the person who got permission to remove Jesus’s body form the cross and to place it in his personal tomb.)

The County, The Man  

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One of our counties is named for a man who was the nation’s fifth Chief Justice of the United States.  Before that, he was the 12th man to be Secretary of the Treasury. Before that, he was the 11th United States Attorney General.

We pronounce the name of the county “Tainey.”  But his name was really pronounced “Tawney.”   Roger Brooke Taney represents the dual nature of history and the fame and the infamy that comes from it, a duality that we cannot escape and from which we must not hide.

This man who is best remembered for delivering a historic anti-freedom decision in 1857 was part of the court that ruled on a historic pro-freedom case in 1841.

The Amistad case involved Africans who broke free and seized their ship, eventually landing at Long Island.  The owners of the ship sued for recovery of their property—the ship and its cargo. Former President John Quincy Adams argued for the slaves and the court ruled 6-1 with Taney in the majority that the slaves belonged to no one and were therefore free because, “in no sense could they possibly intend to import themselves here, as slaves, or for sale as slaves.”

The point of slave law ruled upon by the Taney court sixteen years later was entirely different. Taney is best remembered for delivering the decision that denied freedom to Missouri slave Dred Scott.

Missouri courts had handled hundreds of “freedom suits” filed by slaves who claimed they had gained their freedom because their owners had taken them to free states before coming to slaveholding Missouri. Some 300 of those cases were filed in St. Louis where a monument now stands honoring those slaves. Many of the suits succeeded but they ended with the Scott case.

The case was heard twice by the U. S. Supreme Court, a second hearing held because, as Taney wrote in the final decision, “differences of opinion were found to exist among the members of the court; and as the questions in controversy are of the highest importance…it was deemed advisable to continue the case, and direct a re-argument on some of the points, in order that we might have an opportunity of giving to the whole subject a more deliberate consideration.”

You can read the entire decision at Dred Scott v. Sandford Full Text – Text of the Case – Owl Eyes

The court voted 7-2 that Scott, as a slave, had no constitutional right to sue for his freedom. It is a long, long decision written by Taney and announced on March 6, 1857.

“The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution,” Taney wrote the long opinion that includes:

The words ‘people of the United States’ and ‘citizens’ are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing..,The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.”

…The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, throughout the thirteen States by which that instrument was framed; and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; whom, as we are bound, out of respect to the State sovereignties, to assume they had deemed it just and necessary thus to stigmatize, and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens…

 Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

The opinion fueled fears of those who felt the slave economy eventually would collapse that the opposite would happen if the institution were to spread into new territories to the west. The 1821 Missouri Compromise forbade that but Taney’s ruling threw out that compromise:

“Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any article of property which the Constitution of the United States recognises as property.”

It has been called the worst Supreme Court ruling in our history and a direct contributor to the Civil War.

Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who had eyes on a presidential run in 1860, told a crowd at the Illinois Capitol that those who disagreed with the ruling were “enemies of the constitution. One of his listeners was Springfield lawyer Abraham Lincoln, who had his eyes on Douglas’ seat in the Senate. One of Lincoln’s newest biographers, Steve Inskeep, wrote that Lincoln responded two weeks later that Douglas “dreads the slightest restraints on the spread of slavery” and asserted that the decision did not “establish a settled doctrine for the country.” Inskeep says Lincoln felt the Scott case was more than a bad ruling; “It was part of a conspiracy to spread slavery everywhere.”

The next June, Lincoln told another meeting in the statehouse, the conflict over slavery had not been resolved.

“A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new – North as well as South.”

The Lincoln-Douglas debates that came afterward elevated Lincoln to the national spotlight and in 1860 into the presidency.

Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, just two days short of the fourth anniversary of the Scott case, showed how rapidly the decision had changed the nation. It began with a dramatic moment when the tall, young abolitionist president-elect, in his first public appearance with a beard, filed in “arm in arm” with the Chief Justice who would swear him in.  Roger Taney, days short of his 84th birthday, “looked very agitated and his hands shook very perceptively with emotion,” as one reporter put it, as Lincoln placed his large hand on the Bible and took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

We do not know if the walk “arm in arm” or Taney’s shaking hands were matters of emotion or of the infirmities of age.  He died a little more than three years later, having witnessed the imposition of the Emancipation Proclamation that declared slaves in southern states were free, and, six months before his death, the passage by the United States Senate of what would become the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude.

On March 6, 2017, the sixtieth anniversary of the decision, descendants of the Taneys and the Scotts met at the Maryland State Capitol, where a statue of Taney stood, for a ceremony of reconciliation. Charlie Taney, great-great-great grand nephew of the judge, acknowledged, “I’m sure he wouldn’t be happy with this,”  but continued, “There’s totally something about seeing the Scotts and the Taneys side by side working together on reconciliation that strikes a real chord in people.”

Another descendant, Kate Taney Billingsley, said, there had been mixed feelings in the family about Taney: “A lot of people, it was like, they were proud of the name because it was a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for other rulings he had made that was not the Dred Scott decision, and yet everybody agreed that it was a complete smear on our name and it was a terrible, terrible decision.”

On the other side was Lynn Jackson, the great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott, who runs the Dred Scott Foundation of St. Louis, who hoped the event could foster something bigger. “It’s an open door for us to say if the Scotts and the Taneys can reconcile, can’t you?” she asked. “If you look at relationships in our nation, these are supposed to be the two who are really supposed to hate each other. But it’s not about hatred, it’s about understanding, and then relationship building and trust.”

There had been discussions about removing Taney’s statue from the Maryland Capitol grounds at the time but the families opposed it.  They suggested it would be more appropriate to put up a statue of Scott and one of Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery in Maryland and became a national abolitionist leader.

It wasn’t to be.  The state removed Taney’s statue in 2017, two days after Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh ordered removal of a replica of the statue from city property.

In December of 2022, the United States House of Representatives completed the process of ordering the removal of a bust of Taney from the old House Chamber that was used by the Supreme Court until its own building was constructed.  Maryland Congressman Stenny Hoyer, who noted that every day he served in a chamber that had been built by slaves, said, “While we cannot remove the stones and bricks that were placed here in bondage, we can ensure that the moveable pieces of art we display here celebrate freedom, not slavery, not sedition, not segregation….”His narrow-minded originalist philosophy failed to acknowledge America’s capacity for moral growth and for progress. Indeed, the genius of our Constitution is that it did have moral growth, it did have expanded vision, it did have greater wisdom. Taney’s ruling denied Black Americans citizenship, upheld slavery, and contributed, frankly, to the outbreak of the Civil War.”

The bust was removed on February 9, 2023 and replaced by a bust of Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights attorney who played a key role in the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that ended segregated schools in America, and later the first black member of the U. S. Supreme Court.

Taney County, Missouri was carved out of Wayne County by the state legislature in 1835, the year that Andrew Jackson appointed Taney to succeed Chief Justice John Marshall, who had died earlier that year.  Taney’s nomination was confirmed in 1836, making him the first Catholic to serve on the court. Taney County was formally recognized as an organized county in 1837, almost twenty years before the ruling that became the deciding “smear” on his record and on his descendants’ name.

In advocating for the removal of the Taney bust from the national capital, Congressman Stenny Hoyer noted the duality of history when he said, “We ought to know who Roger Brooke Taney was, a man who was greatly admired in his time in the state of Maryland. But he was wrong. Over 3 million people visit our Capitol each year. The people we choose to honor in our halls signal to those visitors which principles we cherish as a nation.”

There are no known statues of Taney in Taney County and there has been no overt move to change the name of the county. The name honors the distinguished public servant that he was, not the jurist who wrote one opinion that overshadows everything else he wrote or was.

Taney, the man, is a reminder of something else said by the man he swore in as President of the United States when he delivered his annual message to Congress late in 1862:

“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”

Sometimes words cross all barriers of time. Taney’s words. Lincoln’s words. Words of yesterday become words of today. It is up to us to decide what to do with them.

(Photo credits: National Judicial College, Library of Congress)

 

For Everything There is a Season; Who’s the “Greatest?”

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

One Historic season is winding down. A new season is beginning. And a third season is on the way. And, man oh man, was that a race in Atlanta!

(miz)—Fourteen in a row. A new record for consecutive losses in a basketball program that is more than 115 years old.  And it’s a familiar tale. Things fall apart down the stretch.  Missouri had Arkansas tied at 50-50 about halfway through the second half and took a 52-50 lead with 9:3 left. But they didn’t hit a field goal for six minutes while the Razorbacks pulled away. Final score, despite Sean East’s career high 33 points: Arkansas 88  Missouri 73.

The Tigers went through a first-half scoring drought, too—not hitting a field goal in the firsts five minutes of the game.

Four games are left. They’ll be on the road again Wednesday against Number 24 Florida.

—But they’re playing baseball in Florida and Arizona!!!

(CARDINALS)—Cardinals lost to Marlins 9-8 in opening game of Grapefruit League. Good first outings. though, for relievers Ryan Helsley and JoJo Romero. Helsley threw 18 pitches, gave up a double and a single then got a third strike looking, a force out at second and then a three-pitch swinging strikeout. His fastball averaged 96.2, topped out at 98.3

Romero had a 26-pitch scoreless inning and his go-to slider looked good.

A couple of rookies showed well with Victor Scott II singled then reached beat a potential double-play ball to second, took third on a balk and then outran a ground ball to third and a throw home and when the throw rolled away from the catcher, the runner behind him also scored.

The Redbirds shut down the Houston Astros on four hits Sunday. Drew Rom threw two scoreless innings to start and allowed only one runner. Gordon Graceffo, Connor Thomas, and Tink Hence also went two scoreless innings.  Masyn Winn, making his first start, led off the game with a single, then singled against in the third and doubled in the fifth before going to the showers.

The Cardinals and the Marlins played to a 1-1 tie on Monday. Pitching again looked strong as he Marlins had only three hits. Sem Robberse was impressive in his first start—one hit, two innings.

New Redbird Sonny Gray will make his spring training debut today with Miles Mikolas making is first one tomorrow. Kyle Gibson, another off-season free agent, goes to the mound Thursday.

As we were going to press this week, Katie Woo with The Athletic reported that the Cardinals were adding Brandon Crawford to the team. Crawford, 37, is a three-time All-Star shortstop who has spent his thirteen-year career with the Giants, with whom he has won two World Series rings and four Gold Gloves. He hit only .194 last year but he’s a double backup because it’s not known when utility man Tommy Edman can return after his October wrist surgery.  Manager Oliver Marmol reported yesterday that Edman is hitting off a tee and with soft tosses from coaches. He’s farther along in his recovery from the right side than the left (he’s a switch-hitter).

(ROYALS)—The Royals split their first two games in the Cactus League, falling to the Rangers 5-4 on Saturday then shutting out the Angels on Sunday 1-0.

Vinnie Pasquantino played his first game since his shoulder surgery last June, went 0-3 but made pretty good contact. He hit a one-hopper to first base hisfirst time up, popped up the second time, then hit a long fly to right that came down just short of the fence. He played five solid innings in the field.

Also making a return was starter Daniel Lynch IV, who got in one scorless inning in his first start since last July when he developed shoulder problems. He’ll be working up during spring training to be part of the starting rotation. He was throwing 91=92 mph and hopes to pick that up as the training season progresses.

Seven pitchers held the Cubs to just six hits in a 6-0 shutout win yesterday. Off-season veteran pickup Seth Lugo went two innings working on his new cutter, threw 19 strikes in his 27 pitches, gave up a hit, got a strikeout and hit a batter.

Another off-season veteran pickup, former Cardinals starter Michael Wacha, gets his first start of the spring today against the Padres.

(Football)—The St. Louis Battlehawks have quarterback A. J. McCarron back in the fold.  He led the team last season then signed with the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL as a backup quarterback for the NFL season and is completing his year-around career by returning to St. Louis for the first season of the United Football League.

He got into four games for the Bengals in the most recent season, was 4 fo 5 passing for 19 yards. He says he’s back because his son wondered why he was at home instead of playing football.

He got into four games for the Bengals in the most recent season, was 4 fo 5 passing for 19 yards. He says he’s back because his son wondered why he was at home instead of playing football.

He started nine games for the Battlehawks last year in the now-defunct XFL, setting a league record with 24 touchdown passes and completing almost 70% of all of his throws. He was on the active roster for the Bengals for the last six weeks of sthe season.

The Battlehawks and the other seven teams of the UFL started their joint training camp in Arlington, Texas on Sunday. The first weekend of the ten-week schedule is March 30.

Now, the wheeled sports.

(THE GREATEST)—-Broadcaster Sid Collins, the long-time voice of the Indianapolis 500, spoke the words into a microphone for the first time during the 1955 race broadcast: “Stay Tuned for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

(It was the first 500 broadcast I can remember hearing—but any recollection of hearing the phrase is overshadowed because I remember Sid’s announcement of the death of Bill Vukovich in a backstretch crash as he tried to win his third straight 500.)

Announcers on the radio broadcast of the 500 have used it as the cue for a commercial break from that day to this. And the phrase, originally created by copywriter Alice Greene at WIBC Radio, the anchor station of the annual broadcast.  It was trademarked in 1986 by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The phrase has gone far beyond the radio broadcast. It has become the motto of the 500. And it has become a major point of conflict in the world of big-time auto racing.

But, of late, several others have been throwing the phrase around and the Speedway is rightfully and royally agitated about it. Speedway President Doug Boles has told Motorsport.com, “We…are prepared to take every measure possible to rotect our brand’s intellectual property. It continues to be disappointing that others can’t create their own brand identity without infringing upon ours.”

One of he biggest offenders has been Formula 1 and its owner, Liberty Media.  Liberty started promoting last year’s Las Vegas Race as “the greatest racing spectacle on the planet.”  Liberty piled on by calling Las Vegas “the sports and entertainment capital of the world,” which is uncomfortably close to another Speedway trademark as “The Racing Capital of the World.” Boles reported after talking to F1 management that they “got it” and “couldn’t have been more gracious.”

But it appears Liberty didn’t really mean it.  During pre-race ceremonies staged by Liberty at the Miami Grand Prix, rapper LL Cool J, in scripted remarks, called that race “the greatest spectacle in motorsports,”  a phrase ESPN used in a commercial promoting its F1 coverage this year..

NASCAR, in one of its promotions for its 2024 season opening Daytona 500 called it “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” ignoring the traditional description for that race coined by its broadcasting legend, Ken Squier, who began calling the Daytona 500 “The Great American Race” after watching a “dinger” of a race in Australia and on the way home thinking Daytona was a great AMERICAN race.  NASCAR quickly removed the offending phrase from a social media post before IMS called it out.

The phrase is sacred to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway owners—and the fans of the 500, a race that abounds with traditions and history, an institution to generations.  Beyond that, in the gritty world of big business, it’s a phrase that is part of the identity of a multi-billion dollar institution and racing empire.

And the Speedway has let it be known it’s not going to stand for this mis-appropriation of its brand. Boles recently told the Indianapolis Star, “You have to enforce it every single time.” He stopped short of telling the newspaper that IMS will send Libery a cease-and-desist letter but it’s clear he’s close to his limit. “We will once again address it with the appropriate people and are prepared to take every measure possible to protect our brand’s intellectual property. It continues to be disappointing that others can’t create their own brand identify without infringing upon ours.”

A word about Doug Boles, as we lapse into commentary and beyond reporting, which is not altogether comfortable for us. In our many years around motorsports, we have never seen another top official of any series out mixing with the fans as Doug Boles does.  When there are hundreds of thousands of fans dressed in everything from as little as possible to outlandish outfits that commemorate the race, it’s not unusual to see a guy in a light blue suit with tie tied all the way up, circulating through the crowd, talking to the folks. He’s the face of IMS.  Roger Penske might own it, but Doug Boles is the place’s personification.  And you never know where you’ll see him just being part of the crowd, although the best dressed one by far.

(NASCAR)—Now that’s racin!

Four-hundred miles on the high banks at Atlanta. Forty-eight lead changes among fourteen drivers. Cars going into corners four-wide.  Ten yellow flags that left only a handful of cars that finished the race without body damage. The top three cars finish within 0.007 seconds of one another.

Daniel Suarez wins by .003 over Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch.  It’s Suarez’s first win since June of 2022 on the Sonoma road course, his second in his career. He came back from being involved in a 16-car mashup on the second lap that left him with hood damage. But his crew made the fix and kept him in contention.

The win is his second in 253 races.  He’s the only Mexican-born driver to win a Cup race in NASCAR’s 75-year history.

Some of his friends suggested he can relax now that he is the second driver to qualify for the playoffs.  “Hell, no,” he said in a post-race news conference. “My goal is not to win one race…This is not relaxing here. This is only the beginning. We have to continue to work, to continue to build.  There are a few things we could have done better today…I’m happy that we are secure in the playoffs but to be able to win the championship, you won’t do it winning one or two races. You have to win at least a handful of races to create points.”  He told reporters, “The goal for me is for you guys not to be surprised the 99 (his car number) is in victory lane.”

(Photo Credits: Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum; Bob Priddy (Boles and Suarez) NASCAR finish: Alex Slitz, Getty Images)

THE TIME HAS COME

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“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”

That part of the Lewis Carroll (creator of Alice in Wonderland) poem, “The Walrus and the Carpenter” came to mind a few days ago.  It’s an absurd poem and maybe that’s why we thought of it when the issue of golden tennis shoes became part of our absurdist political discussion a few days ago.

We have to find a word that is more fitting to these times than “unprecedented.”  Trump World has pulverized that word. It has become a sail possum word.

The sail possum theory is this (I usually apply the theory to over-covered news stories)—

Imagine on a hot August day you see an opossum in the road.  It appears to be dead and over a period of days traffic makes sure it is as cars and trucks run over the poor creature until all that is left is a pavement-baked and flattened piece of skin with some fur still attached so that someone can peel the remnants up off the pavement and sail it frisbee-like into the median.

That’s a sail possum.

“Unprecedented” has become a sail possum word because it has been applied to so many outrageous statements and actions of Trump World that repeatedly validates the phrase, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Case in point:

The time has come to talk of shoes.

Not in our wildest nightmares could we ever have conceived of the idea that the presumptive presidential nominee of one of our two major political parties would be hawking golden high-top tennis shoes to raise money to pay his legal bills.

And who will make them?  This bears close watch.  Allamerica.org put out a news release last December 11 that reported:

  • 99% of all shoes sold in the United States are imported.
  • 7 billion pairs of shoes were imported to the US in 2022 – an all-time record.
  • 25 million pairs of shoes were manufactured in the US in 2022 – the US imports 108x more shoes than it produces.
  • China is the top footwear importer to the US, exporting 1.6 billion pairs of shoes to the US in 2022. Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and India comprise the rest of the top five US importers – all unchanged from 2021.
  • Over 81% of Americans want to buy shoes made in the USA vs. imported ones.
  • Over 58% of Americans cite high prices and difficulty finding footwear made in the USA as their primary obstacles to buying.

The sneaker industry found the announcement peculiar, to say the least, but very typical of someone whose inconsistencies matter not to him.  Shosy Ciment, writing for Footwear News, refers to his announcement s “an ironic move for the politician who, during his presidency, introduced the burdensome Section 301 tariffs on China that have had a direct negative impact on the footwear industry in the U.S., which largely relies on imports from China.”  She comments, “These tariffs have constributed to soaring footwear prices in the U.S. and have hurt American businesses and working class consumers.”

The Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America calculates footwear prices went up 4.6 percent from 2021 to 2022, and an other two-tenths of a percent in ’23.

The President and CEO of the FDRA, Matt Priest, told Ciment, “[Trump] had a direct hand in driving up costs for consumers and sneakerheads alike that added an additional upwards of $20 billion in costs to those shoes.” Matt Priest, president and chief executive officer of FDRA, told FN in an interview.

President and CEO Steve Lamar of the American Aapparel and Footware Association said, “Americans also love affordable and authentic fashion, and that is why we continue to urge for a commonsense approach to tariffs – not the reckless tariff increases proposed by former President Trump should he be re-elected, or the reckless tariff increases former President Trump imposed when he was last in office.”

Affordability is a big issue, says the Allamerica.org survey. That doesn’t seem to count with the golden sneakers. Here’s a screenshot from ebay.com taken on February 20:

Note:  TWO  pair already had been sold at the absurd price of $45,000..

Forget about Air Jordans. Get your order in now for these Hot Air Trump Pumps.

Will the golden sneakers sold to pay legal bills help make America great again or will they help pay low-salaried shoemakers in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and India?  And will they be made cheaply enough to maximize the profits—-and it’s going to take a LOT of profits to pay lawyers and to pay the damage assessments in fraud and defamation suits.

The longer we think about it, can we envision the reputed thousands who attend his rallies being the kind of folks who would wear red, white, and gold tennis shoes?

(To be honest, the red ones and the white ones kind of look pretty nice except for the logos on them.)

Will he wear ever wear them?  They’d really look great with his black suit, white shirt, and red tie, don’t you think?

It would help him identify with the common folks more, don’t you think? We sure don’t see may neckties and black suits in the audience at the rallies.

Some think these pricey slippers will make him increasingly acceptable to a particular demographic segment. FOX News contributor Raymond Arroyo opined the sneakers are “connecting with Black America because they love sneakers. This is a big deal, certainly in the inner city. So when you have Trump roll out his sneaker line, they’re like, ‘Wait a minute, this is cool.’ He’s reaching them on a level that defies and is above politics.”

Some folks find that kind of talk to be racist, among them MSNBC contributor Michael Steele, the first African-American to lead the Republican National committee,  who responded on MSNBC: “Seriously?  Why didn’t I think of this when I ran the RNC?  Let’s see.  Black folks love sneakers—and we can paint them gold.  This can’t miss! Trust me. It’s a big miss. And they ugly as Hell….Are they really this cynical over there at FOX?”

He seems to see Arroyo’s comments as political reductio ad absurdum, “reduction to absurdity.”

Wouldn’t Melania look stunningly fashionable in a pair as she shows her support for her spouse in his unprecedented financially difficult time although she likely wouldn’t be caught dead in the gold ones.

As for the red or white ones, in truth we probably will see them on her feet only when “pigs have wings.”

Oh, one other thing—there are no refunds and so far, there have been no delivery dates, which brings to mind more Latin—

Caveat Emptor, big time.

 

NO VICTIM, NO LOSS

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Author Ally Carter has this perspective:

“Denying the undeniable just makes you sound like a fool as well as a liar.”

Who might she be talking about if she had said that recently?

A high-rolling braggart lies about the value of his property so he can get better loan terms for the acquisition of other properties.  He makes all of his payments, bless his heart.

But a judge says he is a major fraudster and nails him with a big penalty and tells him not to do any more of his shady business in the state for three years.

And the judge gets hammered by apologists for the liar who say making timely payments on fraudulently–obtained loans excuses the lies that were told to get those loans at favorable rates.  Some say it’s the banks’ own fault if they were harmed because they didn’t check the records to see if they had been lied to.

To set the record straight:

It all began with the lies.  Whatever resulted, including the loss of additional fund through required higher payments began with lies. It is inescapable that the liar is responsible for whatever is the unfavorable result for the lenders.

Lies have victims.  And if those lies result in lost income because they resulted in lower-than-usual interest rates on loans, there is a loss.

Timely payments are not a factor; Congenital lying is a factor.

Fraud is fraud no matter how consistently a fraudulently-obtained loan is paid off.

There was a victim, or there were victims.

They lost because a customer lied to them.

The liar’s denial of it, whining about it, blaming someone else for it is just deepening the lie.

It all started with lies.  A lot of lies.

The liar profited from his lies.

There were losses.

There were victims.

And there must be consequences lest we say lies are acceptable.

Liars succeed when people lack the courage or the involvement to call them to task.  This time a judge who carefully looked at the long track record of deceit decided  to set a price on the lying,.

We wonder if, in his private moments, the liar admits to himself that he is and has been a liar. Surely he must know that. Perhaps that is why his only defense is to keep lying.

But slowly, slowly, it is harder for those with a shred of honesty about them to keep defending the liar.

How many more times will the integrity of the legal system have to rule before the followers of the liar realize they have reached a tipping point?

How long before they realize THEY are the biggest victims?  How long before they realize what they have lost?

 

The Fix Was Only Partly In 

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It was all planned, wasn’t it?  Except it all fell apart.

The MAGA people in their tinfoil hats had predicted the Super Bowl would be rigged so the Chiefs would win—in fact, the playoffs—if not the whole season—had been rigged by he NFL so the Chiefs would win and then Travis Kelce and girlfriend Taylor Swift would announce their endorsement of President Biden during the halftime show.

We must have missed that announcement.  We were chowing down at a friend’s “Souper Bowl” party while Usher’s spectacular halftime show was under way. It’s probably all coach Andy Reid’s fault that he would not let Kelce leave the locker room while the Chiefs rehearsed the NFL and the Democratic National Committee’s plans for the Chiefs to win.

How clever of the Chiefs and the 49ers to heighten the drama by taking the game into overtime. But that was part of the plan, wasn’t it?  More commercials at $7 million for each thirty seconds.  And how much of that will secretly wind up in the Biden campaign account (that wasn’t part of any conspiracy theory that we heard before the game but it came to mind in the aftermath)?

And when Kelce and Swift met on the field afterwards, they appeared to get lost in their own hugging and kissing that they forgot about making the endorsement. Up to then, things were pretty good and then they forgot their lines and messed it all up.

Maybe it was because they engaged in alternate activity because they were afraid they would say something that would prove claims that she is some kind of a Pentagon asset, although the tin hat folks have not specifically defined what that asset might be. If she ever slips and introduces herself as “Swift, Taylor Swift,” we’ll all know.  So far she hasn’t let it slip, but in the exciement of the Super Bowl she might have done it, so that’s why the Pentagon probably ordere Kelce to plaster his lips to hers because it’s hard to give away high-security secrets when your lips are linked with someone else’s lips.

President Biden commented on X, “Just like we drew it up,” again showing his decline in mental acuity by forgetting they were supposed to endorse him or that the scheme was to be top secret.

Noted liberal mainstream media talking head Joe Scarbrough the next morning disguised the failure of Kelce and Swift to perform by focusing instead on “all the MAGA, ultra-MAGA freaks” and Biden’s comment being “him mocking the snowflakes.”

Biden, showing that he is more contemporary than many give him credit for being, used TikTok to stream a video showing him answering questions about the Super Bowl. He refused to acknowledge that the fix was in by refusing to pick a winner.

“I’d get in trouble if I told you,” he told an interviewer who succested there had been “deviously plotting” for the Chiefs to make the playoffs and then taking the Super Bowl.

Sorry, Joe B.  You can run but you can’t hide.  All right-thinking—or is it ultra-right thinking?—people know the truth.  Kelce and Swift dropped the ball.

One more thing:

President Biden declined to do a pre-game interview, something called “a traditional sit-down” by one news agcncy although it hasn’t been a “tradition” very long. And guess who volunteered to replace him?

Ah, it’s not that hard a question. Our ex-president “praised” the incumbent’s decision, diplomatically noting, “A great decision, he can’t put two sentences together. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO REPLACE HIM – would be “RATINGS GOLD!”

He seemed to have a different attitude when HE skipped the pre-game interview in 2018.

As far as Ms. Swift is concerned, our former president thinks she would be a traitor if she endorsed the current president.  He figures she owes him, big time because he signed the Music Modernization Act “for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists,” he put it on Truth(?) Social.

“I signed and was responsible for the Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists. Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will. There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.”

“Was responsible for?”

He had nothing to do with the bill, officially called the “Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act,” which had gotten unanimous passing votes in both the Senate and the House. It is, to oversimplify things, a major update in copyright laws to deal with use of music on streaming services.

HE “made her so much money?” Last time we looked, that sure wasn’t Donald Trump dancing and singing  under the spotlights in various venues around the world.  It appears she is capable of making “so much money” on her own.

So he’s upset that this ungrateful superstar might think she has a much better person to endorse. Four years ago she ripped the then-president for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency.”

As a side note, has anyone compared the sizes of the audiences for her performances with the sizes of audience for HIS performances?

The former President about eight years ago professed to be a regular reader of Rolling Stone who likes Elton John, Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi. He “new Michael Jackson very well…I knew him better than almost anybody.”  Pavarotti was a “very dear friend.”  Not on his lis are the numerous artists who have asked him to stop using their music at his campaign rallies including The Rolling Stones. His favorite song? Peggy Lee’s “Is that all there is?” The lyrics are about a person disillusioned with life events.

But it’s not all bad with the former president. “I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!” he said on his page.

Sorry, Donnie, that’s probably not enough to get you a seat in the Chiefs’ luxury box so Taylor can hug you in celebration of one of Travis’ great plays. And I don’t think Travis would want to hug you, either, despite your grudging admiration of him.

In keeping with the spirit of Tinfoil Hat Sports, Inc., we offer this conspiracy theory for the 2024-25 football season;

The NFL will restructure its schedule so the Super Bowl and inauguration day fall on the same day.  The inauguration will be moved from the Capitol to the halftime show in New Orleans. The Chiefs will survive a tough, but rigged, schedule and will be down by at least ten points at the half and Andy Reid will forget about taking the team to the locker room so Travis and Taylor can perform a poem they have written and set to music for the occasion before their choice for President takes his oath of office. The Vince Lombardi Trophy will be awarded to the Chiefs by the President at the end of his speech although the game is only half over, However it will continue as arranged to make sure all of the commercials are run and to formalize the pre-arranged result. There will not be an overtime because the inaugural ball will begin in a hail of confetti after the Chiefs pull out another close victory that beats the spread.

And eight Clydesdales will circle the stadium pulling a Bidenweiser beer wagon.

Bet the farm.  It’s already been arranged. You read it here first.

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Rape Theology

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The Missouri Senate went after the legislature’s favorite annual punching bag the other day—Planned Parenthood.  It argued about a bill that would keep the organization from collecting Medicaid reimbursements for dispensing family planning and other women’s health services including cancer screenings.

Planned Parenthood hasn’t provided abortions for a couple of years in Missouri.  But that’s not enough for the PP-haters who don’t want the folks working for the organization to even say the word. And suggesting someone who has thought through the issue and still wants an abortion to places in other states, well, that is calamitous.

One Senator wants to make it a crime for a woman to seek an abortion—although she’d have to leave the state to have it.  He also would have rapists castrated or shot.

Apparently the Senator is not familiar with Article 1, section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution that gives Congress exclusive power over trade among the states. It also limits state powers to limit interstate commerce. And abortions ARE interstate commerce. But ignoring the U. S. Constitution has not been a problem in the legislature on the hot issue du jour for some time.

Another Senator says rapists should get the death penalty and suggested forcing the victim to carry the fetus to term created by the rapist who should be executed “may even be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.”

Still another suggested that rape might be “mentally taxing…(but) it doesn’t justify an abortion.”

Missouri Independent reports she continued, “God does not make mistakes. And for some reason he allows that to happen. Bad things happen. I’m not gonna be able to support the amendment because I am very pro-life.”

I have often remarked that nothing screws up faith more than religion, or as one of my favorite cartoonists expressed it a few years ago:

To describe rape as “mentally taxing” is completely inappropriate.  So is the idea that executing the rapist would be a great healing agent. An African-American member of the senate attributed her existence to the rape of her great-grandmother, a slave, who by her white master.  The event was “mentally taxing” enough that the victim killed herself.

Several years ago, a similar argument against putting rape and incest exemptions into the abortion was pushed by a woman state representative who argued that it is God’s will that  something beautiful (the birth of a child) could result from something so bad as rape or incest.

I wrote in the old Missourinet Blog that, that kind of reasoning argues against rape being a crime. If God intended something beautiful, a baby, to result from something so ugly as a rape or incest, then God must have intended for the rape and incest to happen—especially since God is perfect.  And if that’s the case, rape should be considered an Act of God, not a crime.  After all, God does not make mistakes.

This is why we have, presumably, a separation of church and state.  Religious Dogma should not replace a law of humanity.  But it does and there are many who want to erase that separating line entirely. To do so would thus make one religion more free than others. And that would mess up the idea that this is a nation that practices religious freedom.

My theocracy is better than your theocracy. My God is better than your God. That’s what it all boils down to.

The major flaw in the “God does not make mistakes” argument is that God created people who make mistakes because God gave people free will.

So we live in an imperfect world and reconciling the imperfections in a way that makes living more humane is a never-ending argument. Killing others in the name of God has only produced never-ending wars.

Killing the rapist raises questions about the entire right to life philosophy. Would it be a “healing agent” to kill the rapist of a pregnant ten-year old girl who will likely not understand why she is left to bear what some consider God’s Gift? And if the product of a rape is a gift from God, how can killing the bearer of that gift be considered correct policy?

It is not our intention here to argue whether there should be abortions. But there are two innocent lives involved, not one.  And to try to make rape a theological issue is a political Gordian knot.

If we accept that God is perfect then we must accept that it was God’s will that we mortals are imperfect. And as imperfect creatures we make imperfect decisions. The challenge is in determining the fairness of the way we deal with those imperfections.

Maybe some issues are beyond the law and ongoing gyrations trying to make them fit within a law that carries equal rights and compassion for everyone the law touches is beyond human capabilities.  In those instances, the decision should rest with the individual, their doctor, and God.

Turn to faith, not religion, for the ultimate guidance.

Replace The National Bird?

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The hard right wing of the Republican Party keeps proving there is no limit to their lunacy.  It is so pronounced that we are surprised they haven’t advocated replacing the Bald Eagle with the Loon as our national bird. Maybe they’re too busy cooking up conspiracies to get to that.

Out with the elephant as the party symbol. In with the Loon.

I have decided these people need a sense-of-humor transplant for starters.  Have you ever seen any of them indicate any sign of sincere happiness about anything?  But if they got the transplant, who would be the first ones they would laugh about?  The mirror holds the answer.

There seems to be no end to their absurdity, to wit:

Not content to maintain that the 2020 election was rigged, they now are all a-twitter (or maybe all a-X) about how the NFL has rigged the playoffs and the upcoming Super Bowl so the Chiefs will win and Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce will announce they endorse Joe Biden for re-election.

I kid you not.

Dominick Mastrangelo and Sarakshi Rai wrote for The Hill last week that Swift, a person of the year for Time magazine and the dominant figure in the entertainment world led some artificial intelligence-composed fake images “broke the internet,” has become an obsession with the nutcase caucus of the GOP.

Swift endorsed Joe Biden four years ago and has been “somewhat active” politically otherwise. “Swift’s incredible popularity is also bringing to the forefront various ugly sides of 21st century American life, from explicit AI-generated deepfakes of the superstar that briefly closed down Taylor Swift searches this week on X to unfounded conspiracy theories,” they wrote,.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a paragon of reasonableness, wrote the morning after the Chiefs beat the Ravens for the AFC championship, “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.” None other than Elon Musk responded, “Exactly.”

Other inmates running the far right asylum chimed in. Jack Lombard, an activist who lost a bid for the House two years ago, went on social media to proclaim that he has “never been more convinced that the Super Bowl is rigged.”

Somebody named Mike Crispi who is described as the host of a Rumble video on Musk’s social media site says the NFL has “totally” rigged the Super Bowl, “all to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA.”  And, he says, halftime entertainer Usher is going to have to share the spotlight with Swift, who “comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”

“The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce),” Crispi said “All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”

This isn’t something that just became obvious to the loon flock. The writers for The Hill record that Jesse Watters, a FOX News host, said a few weeks ago that this conspiracy isn’t just focused on the Super Bowl.  The Pentagon’s psycholical operations unit has tought about turning Swift into “an asset.”

A lot of people think she already is, and a good one, but in an entirely more complimentary way. “It’s real,” Watters is quoted as saying. “The Pentagon psy-op unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combatting misinformation online.” Somehow a report by Politico that a presenter at a NATO cyber conference referred to Swift as a powerful influencer has turned her into a tool for the psy-op unit.

Over on the pro-Trump Newsmax channel, talking head Greg Kelly warned that public admiration of Ms. Swift could bring the wrath of God down upon her followers because it’s idolatry. “If you look it up in the Bible, it’s a sin,” he proclaimed, without mentioning any concerns about what has been called the Trump Cult.

And what would the loon caucus be without George Soros to drag into any discussion?  Alison Steinberg, a host on another pro-Trump channel (One America News) complained with not a scintilla of evidence that she is “owned by Soros.”

FOX News recently noted that her short flight in her personal jet from New Jersey to Baltimore to watch the AFC championship game produced three tons of CO2 emissions. The story was a personal attack on her, however, rather than an explanation of why the burning of that fossil fuel contributed an infinitesimable amount to climate change. Ignored in the enthusiasm to attack someone who might influence voters away from the network’s favorite ex-president was any mention that said ex-president is an ardent protector of coal mining that continues to produce the fuel that has powered the Industrial Age from the beginning and is a major contributor to mankind’s contribution to our changing climate.

Rolling Stone magazine has reported that the former president is still smarting because she was named Time magazine’s person of the year instead of him. Citing a person close to the former president and another source, it says, “Trump has also privately claimed that he is ‘more popular’ than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does.”

None other than Trump lawyer Alina Habba, whose defense of the former president resulted in an $83 millon judgment against him, has asked on social media, “Who thinks this country needs a lot more women like Alina Habba and a lot less like Taylor Swift?”

Boy, is THAT ever a hard question to answer…………

The fact that Taylor Swift IS a significant influencer and that her influence has grown since 2020 has put some fear into the hearts of people who cannot grasp that things happen that are not the result of a conspiracy against them and their leader(s).  And there are grounds for their fears.

A Newsweek poll done by Redfield and Wilton strategies of 15-hundred respondents showed 18% of them were “more likely,” or “significantly more likely” to vote for someone Swift endorses.

And that is precisely what the MAGA crowd  wants to discourage. FOX personality, Brian Kilmede, has given some advice that Swift can sweep aside without a thought: endorsing Biden would be “the single dumbest thing a mega superstar could ever do.”

We can think of several dumber things.  Instantly.  Because a lot of mega, or MAGA, superstars have done a lot of dumb things. As far as we know, Taylor Swift never recommended people drink bleach to ward off COVID or other made other similar squirrelly recommendations, for example.

“Why would  you tell half the country that you don’t agree with them in this highly polariezed time? You stay out of it…it would be the craziest thing you could ever do. And Biden isn’t worth it,” he said.

Jeanine Pirro, another FOX personality chimed in that Swift should not “get involved in politics” because she might “alienate her fans.”

How odd that these critics worry about the costs she might incur from exercising her freedom of speech while their own idol complains his freedom of speech is being limited because his message is the exact opposite of hers.

Former CNN talker Chris Cuomo, now doing a similar show on Nexstar’s News Nation, calls these ravings a “mashup of madness” and confesses, “I don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know what they’re playing at. It’s completely divorced from reality. No one with a working brain can believe this energy that they’re putting into this. She hasn’t even endorsed anybody. Who cares who she endorses.”

The Biden campaign, Chris. It has indicated the obvious, that he’s open to the idea. She endorsed him in 2020 and her endorsement likely will carry even more weight now. think of how many more people would show up for a Taylor Swift political rally than show up for a Donald Trump political rally.

We have never met Ms. Swift and doubt we ever will. But she sounds far smarter than those who are incubating the latest crop of loon eggs. She is highly capable of making her own decisions without counsel from Kilmede and others who conveniently overlook the log in their own eyes*, thank you—and that is precisely what this bunch is afraid she will do.

Taylor Swift scares the bejeesus out of this crowd because she is admirable for the way she encourages others through her music to be better and to do better. They hate her because she is intelligent and sincerely enthusiastic about things like football and one player—-who seems to be a nice guy away from the ferocity of the game—in particular.  And she speaks her mind— intelligently. I bet you could get a cogent answer if you asked her about the Civil War.

While on the other side, we hear only the tremulous sound of the loon.

(*Matthew 7:3-5: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.)

(Photo credit: National Audubon Society)

Jean

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We liked Jean Carnahan at our house.  She was never at our house but we were at her house a few times when she and Mel were governor and first lady.

Jean died last Tuesday after 90 years of a life well-lived. And shared.

We always think of them as “real” people, the same folks when dressed in their government clothes in Jefferson City for a few years that they were in their farm clothes back home in Rolla many more years than that. Not all first-couples have that quality.

She several times talked with me about the book she was writing about the history of the Governor’s Mansion and I cherish the two signed copies of If Walls Could Talk that are on the bookshelf in our living room. She wrote several others after her time in Washington.

In all my career as a reporter, I kept those I covered at least at arm’s length.  The Carnahan’s, especially Jean, I allowed as close as my wrist because of that “real people” quality. When she was appointed to the U. S. Senate, I told her that our relationship would have to change because she now was only a news source. She seemed disappointed.  I was not pleased to have to tell her that.

A personal story—

Mel got his pilot’s license and one evening he showed up at the Columbia airport to get some flight time on the way to a campaign meeting in St. Louis.  He needed someone to fly to Hermann with him who could fly the plane back to Columbia while he, Jean, and their Highway Patrol escort went on to St. Louis.  The young flight instructor on duty at the time was our son, Rob, who flew to Hermann with the governor.

The plane’s engine would not re-start after they landed so the Carnahans invited Rob to join them for dinner at a German restaurant they liked in downtown Hermann.  So there was Robb, a kid trying to pile up enough flying hours to get a job flying cargo somewhere, having an unexpected dinner with the first family of Missouri.  By the time they were finished, the plane’s engine had cooled enough that it could start and the group parted ways.

The news of the fatal crash in October,  2000 hit our son hard, as you might expect. The day that the governor’s casket was in the great hallway of the governor’s mansion so the public could pay tribute, Jean came down the grand stairway and went outside to greet the office staff that had come over from the Capitol.  When she came back in, she noticed me standing in the library just off the great hall.  She came over and hugged me and said, “We’re so glad we got to know your son.”

It took a little time to resume the role of the stoic reporter just coverina a story. But that was Jean.

This great lady, burdened by terrible loss of her husband and one of her sons with incredible dignity, thought at that time of that evening in Hermann with a kid flight instructor.

Rob flies for Southwest Airlines today but that dinner with the Carnahans is one of the most memorable experiences of his life. But, that was just Mel and Jean being Mel and Jean.

Her official portrait in the Executive Mansion captures part of her nature.  The group that works to preserve the mansion says her outfit honors working women by wearing the kind of professional dress working women would wear. She is holding the flower that blooms on the Dogwood, our state tree. She later wrote on her Facebook page, “I always thought a computer keyboard would have been a more appropriate depiction.”  Jean computerized the mansion by setting up a website and creating a database for all of the assets of the old house.

The Carnahans had a good time in the mansion and especially enjoyed visits from children. They started the annual Halloween Spooktacular highlighted by Mel dressed as Dracula and appearing from a window on the second floor. She held a Children’s Hour at the Mansion and they had Easter egg hunts each year. A fountain created by Jamie Anderson was installed near the front porch to celebrate the mansion’s 125th anniversary commemorates children’s health.

She wrote on her Facebook page after the 2019 visit, “I recall my vision for the sculpture came from seeing an old photo of children playing in the abandoned fountain, that was placed on the lawn more than a 100 years ago. In today’s fountain, the girl atop the basin, her toes barely entering the water, is reminiscent of the shortened life of 9-year-old Carrie Crittenden, who died at the mansion of diphtheria. Her presence is a vivid reminder of the health care needs of children today.

“The African-American boy is inspired by the youngster, who once stayed in the Mansion barn. As he reaches out to grasp the flowing water, he denotes opportunity for all children. The other boy, modeled after my grandson, stands against a backdrop of leaves, birds, and fish, reminding the viewer of our need to protect the environment for future generations to enjoy.”

She paid her last visit (as far as I know) to the mansion in 2019 (shown here with First Lady Teresa Parson standing on the grand staircase under the official portrait of former first lady Maggie Stephens, described by Jean as “one of the flamboyant and benevolent residents of the old home.”)

When the Carnahan administration began, Jean and Mel decided the governor’s office need to be refreshed for the first time since the Hearnes administration moved into what originally was a big waiting room for people seeking meetings with the governor. As Betty Hearnes had supervised that makeover, Jean Carnahan supervised the update.  Furniture was repaired and some stored items were returned. The ceiling was repainted with the state seal included—Mel was given the brush and painted the last start, now known as the “Carnahan Star” in the ceiling seal—and the worn carpet with the state seal in it was replaced with a lighter carpet with the state flower in it so visitors wouldn’t walk on the seal.  She had the seal framed and it decorated a wall in her Washington office and, I was told, became part of the decoration of son Russ’s office while he was a member of the U.S. House.

She became the first woman U.S. Senator from Missouri when Governor Wilson appointed her to serve in Mel’s place after he had been elected posthumously.  She was the same kind of Senator-person as she had been here in Missouri.  Thoughtful.  Quiet.  Effective.  Disappointed when she lost to Jim Talent in 2002 but still always looking for things to do, people to know, adventures to be had.

My wife, Nancy, always enjoyed Jean’s restaurant critiques and other comments she posted on social media after she resumed private life in St. Louis.

We have now within a span of weeks lost two special former first ladies, Betty Hearnes and Jean Carnahan, who were as comfortable to be around in the mansion as they were when they were around the folks at home. They might have seen themselves as ordinary people who lived in extraordinary circumstances and they never outgrew that  understanding of themselves.

The life well-lived.  We all want that at the end, don’t we?  They had it.

(Photo credit: Carnahan family, Jefferson City News-Tribune, Missouri Mansion Preservation, Jean’s Facebook page)

Failures 

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It is hard to look at what remains of the Missouri Senate and not be ashamed of how far governance has fallen there.  The Senate, once proud of its role as a bipartisan deliberative body—it used to be said, “The House passes the bills; the Senate writes the laws.”—is in total disarray because a few members will go to no ends to get their ways although it is abundantly clear their only support is themselves. We remember when the Rs and the Ds could argue as if it was Gabriel versus Satan on the floor but with respect and civility.

Today there are 24 Rs and only 10 Ds.  Actually, there appears to be 19 Rs, 10Ds, and 5 soreheads who want to run the place and throw tantrums if they cannot get their way. The number of soreheads might be seven but five are the biggest problem so for today’s contemplations, let’s say fice, for consistency.They have adopted the name of a similar bunch of miscreants in the U. S. House of Representatives.

The Freedom Caucus.

At the start of the session, caucus chairman, Rick Brattin warned, ““Peace is no option…In terms of advancing policy, this will be a show-no-prisoner type approach.”

Such is the level of adulthood within this caucus.

There is nothing free about taking hostages and that is what happened recently in OUR State Senate.  25 hostages to start. There have been deserved consequences and it was about time. But they let these five to claim they are victims of a failed system.  They have it wrong.  It is they who are the failures.

It is time for some basic lessons in Government for People Who Don’t Care About Government But Better Learn Something Instead of Thinking Everybody is a Crook or a Liar, Etc.

They aren’t, as a large general rule. A few, however, are the products of these times, thinking disrespect for the system is respectable and minority bullying that stops orderly public service is acceptable.

One of the Senate’s roles is to confirm or reject governor’s appointments to state boards and commissions.  The Five Senate Soreheads and two others who voted with them stopped any business from being transacted for 11 hours on January 18th by keeping 25 Missourians from being confirmed to positions on various state boards and commissions, most of the positions being voluntary and unpaid personal public service commitments.

The 5SS wanted to invoke an almost-never used rule to start immediate debate on a plan to make it harder for citizens to file petitions to create or change laws without an opportunity for citizens  to be heard in committee hearings. They lost 25-7 and had a hissy fit about it. They decided to keep the Senate from considering the appointments until they got their way, not a prudent move by supposedly intelligent prople who several times in recent years had pulled the same kind of stunt.

The leader of the remaining 19 Rs and 10 Ds, President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, called the behavior, “..unequivocally, without a doubt, the worst show of bad faith, or the biggest show of bad faith, I have ever seen in my life.” The floor leader who has the traditional role of setting the debate schedule, Cindy O’Laughlin, salled the caucus “terrorists.”

There is something to be said for filibusters as a tool to force negotiation and compromise, but the caucus is interested in neither, as Brattin has noted. The egregious disregard of senatorial courtesy and procedure is coupled with a disrespect of the process of government.  As Rowden observed last week, the caucus had held the floor for 16 hours and 45 minutes of the 17 hours and 52 minutes the Senate had been in session so far.

Minority Leader John Rizzo, whose Ds quietly have watched the Republicans’ ability to govern disintegrate into a worsenig  rolling internal mud fight, called the latest implosion “the civil war within the Republican Party that is showing its face and that has come from outside of the smoke-filled back rooms and is now front and center. This has been going on for years now. The only difference is that now the public is seeing it.”  He says the Senate reflects the national fight by Trumpian MAGA true believers trying to control the U. S. House of Representatives:

“They’re…sick and tired of having to take orders from someone else and they are pushing towards an authoritarian government, as we’ve been saying forever.”

Last Monday, Rowden showed had had more than enough.  He took away committee chairmanships from caucus members Brattin, Bill Eigel, Andrew Koenig, and Denny Hoskins. Senator Mike Moon did not have a chairmanship, having lost that distinction in 2022 for wearing bib overalls on the Senate floor, a violation of the dress code, and refusing to apologize.

This might seem to an outsider to be quibbling.  But within the political bubble, this can be a pretty stiff penalty.  Committee chairs have enormous power to determine whether important legislation ever gets debated and ever has a chance to become law.  They also have influence in getting things done for constituents or for favored interest groups. Loss of that power can take away important self-serving talking points during campaigns for higher office and become fodder for political opponents who want to raise issues related to public trust.

Moon is the only one of the five not seeking statewide office this year. It is hoped that voters select their more adult opponents of whatever party they choose.

The caucus, called “the chaos caucus” and “swamp creatures” by Rowden who probably should not have lowered himself to name-calling, has indicated it is not fazed. Hoskins called Rowden, “the worst President pro Tem in the history of the Missouri Senate,” the kind of exclamatory dialogue to which observers have become accustomed from this caucus.

Hoskins is a CPA much more than he is a Senate historian.  Perhaps someone should ask him to name who else is on his bottom five list of pro Tems.

Regrettably, O’Laughlin let her frustrations get the best of her in a news conference earlier Thursday when she said remarked, “Two years ago I said, ‘You know, with 23 votes you can throw somebody out of here. I would do it today. I absolutely would.” That would mean cutting a deal with Democrats to get enough votes and Republicans seemingly would ask to be injected with cholera first. But the statement illustrates how far beyond reason the leadership thinks the 5SS have gone.

The intemperate observation, which mentioned Eigel by name, led Eigel to go wildly ballistic with a screaming fit aimed at O’Laughlin, a continuation of behavior that raises questions about whether one who has shown a propensity to be ungoverned in his present office should be considered fit to govern others. Eigel thinks he would be an excellent governor.

It was, to be blunt, disgraceful, and a total display of disresprect for the tradition of courtesy that has made the Missouri Senate effective.  To the credit of O’Laughlin, Rowden and others on their side, they have resisted the shouting, rude interruptions, and arm waving of the 5SS.  If someone is to make a spectacle of themselves, it is unlikely to be them.

There still has been no confirmation votes. The number of appointments awaiting confirmation has risen to 42. Governor Parson, also an R, said last week, “They’re not doing anything wrong, nobody has anything against them, yet they’re in the crossfire of what’s going on here politically, internally, and that’s not right. It’s simply not right.”

Innocent people who are willing to serve on tne boards and commissions that oversee programs and services from which all of us benefit are in danger of losing the opportunity to serve and the caucus does not care.

The behavior of caucus members past and present goes beyond disrespect for the other 29 members of the Senate.  It also has affected all 163 members of the House who work hard for four months to get bills into position for final passage only to see all of that work go up in smoke in the Senate because nothing is more important than what the caucus cannot convince a majority of their own party to buy.

To put it directly, the 5SS have lowered work by a revered part of our state government to a depth beyond the worst nightmares of all of those who have served in it for more than two centuries and it is incomprehensible that their demagoguery should be tolerated much less supported by some county party committees. But some do.

Should any of them be expelled?  No. People in seven Senate districts deserve representation even if is from senators more interested in their political futures than in respecting the functions of government. They still can do constituent services while contaminating the lawmaking process. They have to face opponents on the ballot who are being given ammunition against them every minute they continue to abuse the process of OUR system of government.

They say they are fighting for their causes. Perhaps they might be better off WORKING for their causes.  Working has a tendency to engender respect and that can produce progress.  When work, respect, and progress give way to bullying, shouting, and minority dictatorship, representative government fails the broad interests of the people.

As long as they carry on, the legislative branch of our state government is failing us.

And these are the failures behind the failure.