Ya Got Trouble Right Here in River City

“Gotta figure out a way to keep the young ones moral after school,” the professor told the citizens of River City, Iowa.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft thinks he has a way to do that.  He proposes taking away state funding for local libraries that don’t adopt written policies that allow any parent or guardian of a minor “to determine what materials and access will be available to a minor,” particularly any materials that might appeal to that minor’s prurient interests.

The ultimate moral policeman would be the Secretary of State, whoever it is now and whoever it might be in the future.

Librarians throughout the state are not reacting kindly to his idea.  And local library boards, who are better cross-sections of community standards than one person at the state capital, by and large resent his meddling.

If you want to read the proposed rule, go to: https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/AdRules/main/images/15_CSR_30_200_015.pdf

We are now within a thirty-day public comment period before the legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules decides whether this overreach should become state policy.

One local library trustee who is known for wordiness minces no words in his response:

I am a trustee of a local library board, a position I have held off and on for more than twenty years. I was a delegate to the most recent White House Conference on Libraries and Information.  I am a published author of five books with a sixth book under consideration by publishers.

I am a reader.

I believe in the First Amendment.

I do not believe in censorship.

I do not believe in government overreach.

I am not a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, but I do carry a valid library card.

The proposed rule on “Library Certification Requirements for the Protection of Minors” is a terrible rule and should be rejected by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules.

This rule potentially gives the Secretary of State, whoever it might be or whoever it might become, the power to determine whether a library shall receive state funds based on his interpretation of what, as the rule states, “appeals to the prurient interest of any minor.”

The Secretary has issued a statement saying, “When state dollars are involved, we want to bring back local control and parental involvement in determining what children are exposed to. Foremost, we want to protect our children.”

The intimation in this statement that local control of libraries has been lost is irresponsible. Public libraries are governed by boards made up of local citizens. There has been no loss of local control.  “Parental involvement in determining what children are exposed to” likewise seems to suggest parents have been restricted in considering whether a book that might be proper for someone else’s child to read is improper for their own child to have.

He also has said, “We want to make sure libraries have the resources and materials they need for their constituents, but we also want our children to be ‘children’ a little longer than a pervasive culture may often dictate.”

I am afraid that the statement only invites chaos. If libraries are to serve “their constituents,” they must have a wide range of materials available to a broad range of individuals at various levels of maturity. To expect librarians to determine the level of maturity of every nine-year old who walks into their buildings is unrealistic.

When I first heard about this rule, my first question was, “Who makes the ultimate decision?”  It appears the answer is the Secretary of State.  To place one person in a position of second-guessing professional community librarians is dangerous.

The proposed rule does not define this critical phrase which puts the Secretary of State, as the supervisor of the patronage position of State Librarian, in the position of making subjective judgments about the prurience of any single publication that is objectionable to “any material in any form not approved by the minor’s parent or guardian.”

“Prurience” is not defined nor is “age appropriate,” three words that open the door to onerous penalties based on an interpretation of one parent and/or one state official. And stoking fear of some kind of vague “pervasive culture” that the statement suggests has invaded our public libraries and motivates the professionals who manage them is completely uncalled for.

The rule creates the potential for the kind of decision referred to by Justice Potter Stewart who discussed the threshold test for defining obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio in 1964:

“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…”

By working backward from the parent to the Secretary of State, this rule indicates that a library could lose state funding if one parent of one child disagrees with a library’s policy on collection acquisitions by finding one book that the parent feels appeals to the child’s “prurient interest” and files the objection with the State Librarian and the librarian’s supervisor, the Secretary of State.

I do not believe our libraries and our librarians are  the “dance at the arm’ry” referred to by Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man:

“Libertine men and scarlet women, and ragtime, shameless musicThat’ll grab your son, your daughter with the arms of a jungle, animal instinctMass-stariaFriends, the idle brain is the devil’s playground.”

Libraries are not devil’s playgrounds. Librarians are not “libertine” or “scarlet” but are instead highly professional defenders of the right to read, the right to know, the right to think.  I believe they carefully evaluate additions to the collections, but they recognize that children as well as adults mature differently and determining “age appropriateness” is one of their most difficult tasks.

But if my children were still young readers, I should be the one to decide what they bring home. It is not my place to decide what should be available to another child of the same age but a higher maturity.

We refer to these institutions as free public libraries. I believe the word “free” means more than an institution that does not charge a membership fee that limits access to intellectual exploration and growth.

This is a bad rule that places one person in a position of denying funding to one of the most important institutions in any community because he or she agrees with one parent who finds one book objectionable.

Moral judgments are personal. The power to force others to bend to the moral judgment of any single political officer by cutting off funding to a library should never be allowed.

This rule is anti-freedom at several levels and has no business being part of state government. While I am concerned with our children remaining children, I am more concerned with what happens with a politician being a politician and what it can mean to the liberties of us all.

I urge the committee to reject this proposal.

Bob Priddy

Jefferson City

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Our Fiery Trial 

Perhaps we as a nation have once again pulled back from the brink of the destruction of our Democracy.

A lot of pundits and other common observers take comfort that the Red Wave fueled by a leader seemingly capable of almost anything to regain power did not develop.  In the days since, the Republican Party has noticeably indicated it no longer fears Donald Trump as much as it once did.

He isn’t going away—although “going away” might assume a different focus if we start seeing post-election indictments. He and his core believers are still a force.  How the party reckons with him while reshaping itself will be difficult. But last week convinced many in the party that it cannot continue down the Trump rabbit hole.

Democrats should not see themselves as victors last week. They have only dodged a bullet.

Your faithful observer was born in a town in which Abraham Lincoln’s family lived briefly, and grew up in two small towns where Lincoln practiced law as a circuit-riding attorney.  Perhaps because Lincoln lies deep within him that he offers to you today Lincoln’s words on the need for a unified nation and the verdict that awaits if it fails in that effort.  He spoke to Congress on December 1, 1862 of his vision and he issued a warning.

Although the words were spoken in the Union’s dark early days of the Civil War, they remain meaningful today at a time when some are breathing suggestions we will have another civil war and others are involved in one within their political party.

Will not the good people respond to a united, and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means, so certainly, or so speedily, assure these vital objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not “can any of us imagine better?” but, “can we all do better?”

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.

“WE MUST DISENTHRALL OURSELVES, AND THEN WE SHALL SAVE OUR COUNTRY.”

In this time when it seems our leaders only see themselves in terms of the power they want to gain, perhaps they should pause to reflect on the long line of history that will be built after them and whether they will be lighted “in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” History likely will not consider the legacies of many of them kindly.

It is not their responsibility alone.

It is ours, for we choose them.

We can do better.

We have the chance to do better in just two years.  How will our grandchildren’s grandchildren look back at the choices we will make?

We will be the history they study?  Will they be proud of that history that we cannot escape?

We should be mindful of the history we are creating.

The Appointing-est Governor—and some other election history

Governor Mike Parson is going to have to do it again.

He’s going to have to appoint a new State Treasurer and a new Attorney General.

This time he has to appoint a new Attorney General to replace an elected Treasurer that he appointed Attorney General who now is off to Washington to become the second straight Attorney General Parson will replace.   Let’s walk through our governor’s record of appointing more statewide elected officials than any other governor.

Mike Parson ascends to the governorship with the resignation in disgrace of Eric Greitens (by the way, does anybody know where he has landed after Missourians found him significantly unfit for the Senatorship?).  Attorney General Josh Hawley, who eschewed any ambitions for immediate higher office when he became AG and then did exactly that, becomes a U. S. Senator. Former State Senator Eric Schmitt is elected State Treasurer.  Not all of these things happened at once. They accumulated over time.

Governor Mike Parson appoints outgoing State Senator Mike Kehoe to the Lieutenant Governorship.

He appoints Treasurer Schmitt to the Attorney Generalship to replace Hawley when Hawley lights out for Washington.

He appoints former House Budget Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick as the Treasurer, replacing Schmitt.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft quietly watches what’s going on, preferring to wait until 2024 when he will decide where he wants to go.

Roy Blunt decides that being the second-oldest person to serve as a U. S. Senator from Missouri does not mean he should try to become the oldest coot in Missouri Senatorial history, and announces his retirement.*

Eric Schmitt, with nothing to lose because his term as AG doesn’t run out for two more years, sees a chance for greater glory, downs a big glass of Trump Kool-Aid, and wins a race to replace our truly senior senator.

Fitzpatrick, with nothing to lose because his term as Schmitt’s successor as Treasurer, claims the last Democratic statewide office by being elected State Auditor.

As of the morning after the election, Governor Mike Parson has to appoint a new Treasurer and a new Attorney General.  Several ambitious people, knowing that incumbency will have advantages if 2024, think they could give up whatever they are doing now to fill those vacancies.

Governor Parson has until January to decide who will be the latest to get single-digit license plates and a leg up in the 2024 campaign for statewide office.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft continues to quietly watch, knowing that one of his potential opponents in the Republican Governor’s primary in 2024 is now otherwise occupied.

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Eric Schmitt will be the fifth Missouri Attorney General to become a United States Senator. He’ll be the second in a row to move from AG to Senator.  Using the Attorney General’s office as a stepping stone to federal office is a fairly recent circumstance in politics.

Tom Eagleton was the first former Attorney General to make the leap, but he did it from the Lieutenant Governor’s office where he served after being Attorney General.

John Danforth was the first to move directly from Attorney General to the Senate.  He was elected in 1976, defeating former Governor Warren Hearnes. Hearnes was chosen by a Democratic Caucus after Congressman Jerry Litton was killed on election night on his way from his Chillicothe home to a victory party in Kansas City. He had upset former Governor Hearnes and Congressman Jim Symington, who had been favored by many people to succeed his father, Senator Stuart Symington.

Some time after that, Danforth’s top lieutenant, Alex Netchvolodoff, told me that Danforth wasn’t sure he could have beaten Litton.  Danforth had voluntarily established campaign spending limits.  Litton had no qualms about spending as much as necessary and although I heard he had spent 96% of his liquidity to win the primary, he was a charismatic figure with eyes on the White House who was capable of raising huge sums of money.

John Ashcroft was the next AG to become a U.S. Senator, but he did it after serving eight years as governor.

Josh Hawley, who took office as Attorney General and said he had no plans to immediately seek higher office, did just that in 2020, as we noted earlier.

And now Eric Schmitt becomes only the fifth Missouri Attorney General in our two centuries of history to make the leap, only the third to do it directly.

*Roy Blunt will be 72 years, 11 months, and 24 days old when the new Congress begins with Eric Schmitt as his replacement.  Only Stuart Symington was older when he left the Senate. He was 75 years, six months and one day old when he departed.

He will become our seventh living former U.S. Senator. The others are John Danforth, Christopher Bond, John Ashcroft, Jean Carnahan, Jim Talent, and Claire McCaskill.

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When Eric Schmitt celebrated his victory last week he said, “We want our country back.”  Hmmm…..that’s the same thing a lot of voters thought they were doing when they reduced the Great Red Wave to a ripple.

Notes from a Quiet (Leafs in the Gutters) Street

Tomorrow is election day. At least it is for the thousands of people who have not voted early.  We are two of those who have. Visited the courthouse last Wednesday.  We passed three people coming out when we arrived, and four people going in when we left.  Not sure what our numbers were but we were probably closed to numbers 1999 and 2000.

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We like early voting. No lying about being out of town.  There were times when you had to have an excuse, such as being out of town on election day, to vote absentee.  I was always tempted to vote absentee and then on election day drive outside the city limits and then come back in, thus fulfilling the statement that I would be out of town that day.  The language never says the WHOLE day.

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The first Christmas catalogues arrived before Halloween.  One of them has, among other things, t-shirts with humorous messages on them—at least humorous to some.

One of the t-shirts says, “If YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook merged, you would have Youtwitface.”

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Originalist thinking by some judges interpreting the Constitution seems to overlook a lot of things that have happened since 1791.  Upholding the purity of the Second Amendment is seen by some as allowing the use of large-capacity magazines in today’s weapons.  But the authors of the Bill of Rights lived in a time when guns fired only one bullet at a time and required several seconds to reload, prime, cock, aim, and fire again.

Where’s the National Musket Association when we need it?

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Inflation was portrayed during the recent campaign as an issue caused by one person and that can be cured by one party.  If it was that simple, we wouldn’t have inflation.

Or climate change (for those who believe in it). Or a drug problem.  Or a crime problem.

And for those who preach simple solutions—I have this rash…….

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Once again, we gave away no treats for Halloween.  We went to a movie instead.  It’s a matter of self-preservation.  We don’t want to be caught with all that chocolate left over.

We saw the latest Julia Roberts-George Clooney movie.  George was George. Julia was Julia. The popcorn was pretty good, too.

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We noticed a sign of what the movie theatre business is becoming.  The ticket booths were closed.  We bought our tickets at the concession stand.                                                    -0-

Had a doctor’s appointment earlier that day.  The nurse was dressed up as Lilo, as in Lilo and Stitch (a Disney animated sci-fi movie of a decade ago). Given what nurses deal with, we thought she should have been dressed as Stitch.

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With the end of the elections, the first round of legislative chaos is about to begin.  The offices of those defeated or who were term limited are now available for surviving incumbents to scramble to get. For the next few weeks the Capitol will look like a big used furniture emporium with furniture stacked in the hallways waiting to go to its new offices.

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Will the Missouri Tigers go bowling this year?  Sure.  The Columbia Mall has several lanes available.

 

Woke

I’m Woke.  At least I think I am.  If it means being aware of the world around me and not being afraid to learn the world around me is something other than what I have thought it to be, I’m Woke.

Woke is a carelessly-used pejorative that has been used to blindly attack progressive views of almost any level. Not just progressive views, either.  It’s been thrown around in public and private arguments about what we should know about our history and what history our children should be taught.

It is a one-word example of today’s bumper sticker politics in which it is easier to call someone a name or disparage their ideas rather than have the courtesy or curiosity to discuss differences.  It is perceived as coming from someone with a “my way or the highway” attitude that replaces thoughtful dialogue with a one-word dismissal.

It’s childish.  Name-calling is a refuge of fools with nothing substantial to say.

A challenge to those who label others as Woke has come from a report by the United Kingdom version of the Huffington Post (HuffpostUK).

Rakie Ayola is an award-winning Welsh actress and producer born of a mother from Sierra Leone and a father from Nigeria. She is now starring in a six-part BBC series called The Pact about some friends who are tied together by a secret. On the BBC Breakfast show the other day, one of the co-hosts suggested some viewers would consider the program “a ‘woke’ version of the Welsh family.”

“If anybody wants to say that to me,” Ayola said, “what I would say first is, ‘explain what you mean by woke – and then we can have the conversation.’”

“If you can’t explain it, don’t hand me that word.

“Don’t use a word you cannot describe.

“Or maybe you know exactly what you mean, and you’re afraid to say what you mean, then let’s have that conversation.

“Not even afraid – you daren’t. Do you know what I mean.

″Sit there and tell me what you mean by ‘woke,’ and then we can talk about whether this show is woke or not.

“Then I can introduce you to a family just like this one – so are you saying they don’t exist, when they clearly do? Are you saying that they’re not allowed to exist? What do you mean by that?

“Let’s have a proper conversation. Don’t throw words around willy-nilly when you don’t know what they mean.

“If you don’t know, then please be quiet because you are incredibly boring.”

Seems to be pretty good advice.

You can watch that part of her interview at:

Rakie Ayola Has The Perfect Response To Anyone Who Uses The Word ‘Woke’ (msn.com)

She makes a good point. Those who throw the word around should be able to define it. And there is some doubt that most can.

Part of the problem with Woke is that most of us are not aware of the word’s history and the reasons for it. So let’s discuss that a little bit.

A significant part of the history of Woke is related to the Ferguson killing of Michael Brown in 2014, in fact.

New York magazine published an excellent article about the history of Woke two years ago. For most of its history, it has been a word of caution within the Black community, not a weapon of division of society in general.

https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy

White folks understanding of the history of Woke is part of the understanding of Black culture and, perhaps, in understanding it, respecting it.

Seeing other cultures and understanding how they see the dominant white cultural history of our country is a matter of respect. Unfortunately some in our political world find it more profitable to denigrate those efforts. History will prove their short term infliction of politically-advantageous pain will have been an unsuccessful bump in the road for the people our grandchildren’s grandchildren will be.

Facing our history, celebrating the noble parts and acknowledging and correcting the bad parts, can be difficult.  But we need not be afraid to do both.

A few days ago I picked up a copy of a 2015 National Book Award-winner, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, whose mother—born in Joplin—probably was part Cherokee. Early in her book, she talks of an exercise she has given her students in Native American Studies at California State University-Hayward. She asked students to draw a rough outline of the United States when it gained independence from Britain. “Invariably most draw the approximate present shape of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific,’ she writes. When she reminded students the only things that became independent in 1783 were the thirteen colonies, the students often were embarrassed. “This test reflects the seeming inevitability of US extent and power, its destiny, with an implication that the continent had previously been seen as terra nullius, a land without people…The extension of the United States from sea to shining sea was the intention and design of the country’s founders. ‘Free’ land was the magnet that attracted European settlers.”

“…In the United States, the founding and development of the Anglo-American settler-state involves a narrative about Puritan settlers who had a covenant with God to take the land.”

“Indigenous peoples were…credited with corn, beans, buckskin, log cabins, parkas, maple syrup, canoes, hundreds of place names, Thanksgiving, and even the concepts of democracy and federalism. But this idea of the gift-giving Indian helping to establish and enrich the development of the United States is an insidious smoke screen meant to obscure the facts that the very existence of the country is a result of the looting of an entire continent and its resources.”

—And the destruction of dozens of Indian nations, a truth that’s hard to accept in a country in which the cowboys always defeat the savages and the cavalry always arrives to drive them away.

The fact is that this was not “a land without people” at all.  They just weren’t the right kind of people. (Go back to our July 25th comments if you would like more background.)

The insistence by some that we are better if we see our history through the eyes of those who were enslaved or driven from their lands is too often dismissed as “Woke.”

If we are afraid to see ourselves as we really are, and as we really have been, we short-change our opportunities for what we can be.

Eric the Meddler

Our Missouri Attorney General has sued China for not coming clean about COVID. He has meddled in how Pennsylvania ran its 2020 presidential election. He sued more than a dozen school districts that had decided their students were safer if they wore masks to limit COVID exposure. Now he is demanding emails from academics that he thinks are critical of him or might be teaching something he finds it politically advantageous to criticize.

Does this sound like the person whose duties are described on his own office webpage?

The Attorney General serves as the chief legal officer of the State of Missouri as mandated by our Constitution. The Attorney General is elected by Missouri voters, serves a four-year term, and is not subject to constitutional term limits.

The Attorney General’s Office represents and provides legal advice to most state agencies; defends challenges to the validity of state laws; enforces civil law, including consumer protection and environmental laws; defends the State’s interest in civil actions, including bankruptcies, workers’ compensation claims, professional licensing cases, and habeas corpus actions filed by state and federal inmates; and serves as a special prosecutor in criminal cases when appointed. In addition, the Office handles all appeals statewide from felony convictions.

The Attorney General’s Office brings and defends lawsuits on behalf of the State and prepares formal legal opinions requested by State officers, legislators, or county attorneys on issues of law. The Office represents the State in litigation at all levels ranging from a variety of administrative tribunals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Frankly, it seems our attorney general hasn’t read his own webpage lately, although he seems to be pretty loose in his interpretation of bringing and defending lawsuits on behalf of the State.

A few months ago, Schmitt’s office filed open records requests with the University of Missouri-Columbia. One demanded three years of emails seemed to target a research program to help teachers helping teachers promoting social emotional learning. The Rand Corporation says social emotional learning gives students “the skills they need to work in teams, communicate their ideas, manage their emotions — even stand up to a schoolyard bully. For anyone who has ever complained that kids these days don’t have the strength of character, the stick-to-it-iveness, of previous generations, here’s one way to better ensure they do.”  The second letter demanded four years of emails from a couple of Journalism School professors sent to the head of Politifact, a political fact-checking website.

Why is he interested in these things?  Schmitt’s office has told The Kansas City Star he’s “simply trying to get to the bottom of the fact checking process.”

—whatever the heck that means.

His latest target is Missouri State University Assistant Professor Jon Turner who reacted on Twitter after Schmitt asked parents to report “divisive” curriculum in their kid’s schools.

The Missouri Independent has reported that Turner tweeted that Schmitt used to be known as a moderate state Senator but since becoming AG, he has become “so ANTI-TEACHER I just can’t wrap my mind around the flip-flop” and he said he was working to “make sure this dangerous, hateful political jellyfish never gets elected to anything again.”

Schmitt did not take such remarks lightly.  His office fired off a letter to the university demanding all of Turner’s emails for the previous three months as “part of a fact-finding process we undertook that was looking into the practices and policies of education in our state,” as Schmitt’s spokesman put it.

Turner has told the Independent that his reseach looks at the four-day work week and other challenges facing rural schools, not something Schmitt’s office should bother Schmitt.

Turner says Schmitt’s “attempted intimidation” has just made him more concerned that Schmitt is politicizing his position.

Schmitt also has targeted MSU. Earlier his office demanded emails from various professors and documents related to a training seminar sponsored by the University called the “Facing Racism Institute.”.

The University describes the institute as “the area’s leading program for uncovering racism and understand its impact on individuals and the workplace. It says more than 600 people have attended the institute. The university says, “Racism is still a powerful force in our lives and community. The Institute challenges participants of all backgrounds to be part of an equally powerful dialogue. We provide a safe space and neutral guidance needed to help that dialogue emerge.”

Again, it appears he hasn’t read his own office’s mission statement on its web page although he takes the language about bringing lawsuits on behalf of the state rather freely.

A good friend of your correspondent, who headed the Springfield Chamber of Commerce for many years, called the Institute “the best experience that we have found to have people understand the challenges and perspectives of folks unlike themselves. It is hard to be inclusive if you don’t understand what others might feel like.”

Itt appears that Eric Schmitt is guilty of something we hear his party blasting the Democratic congress and administration for:  government overreach. Whether he has, as Turner says, politicized his office is something we’ll let you decide.

Some of those he has targeted accuse him of trying to intimidate them. Others think he’s involved in political meddling in things that are not part of his official duties (read the intalicized description of the AG’s duties again).

In truth, he’s just being political.

We covered Eric Schmitt when he was a state senator.  We found him to be a thoughtful conservative.  We watched him struggle to pass a major autism bill.  We watched as he tried to transform Lambert-St. Louis Airport into a major trade hub with China—in a time when China’s economy was booming and its geopolitical ambitions had not turned perilous.

We kidded him about his claim that he was the tallest person ever to serve in the Missouri Senate, especially after we found an old newspaper clipping indicating he might only have tied for that distinction.

He’s not that Eric Schmitt today.

Perhaps political ambition is behind it.  Perhaps his advisors have told him he has to behave as he has behaved and is behaving because that appeals to a political base ginned up by and encouraged by Donald Trump—a man who has no compunction about dragging others down to his basest level.

Too bad the old Eric Schmitt isn’t the one running to join Josh Hawley representing Missouri in the U.S Senate. He seems to have left himself behind when he crossed the street from the State Treasurer’s office in the Capitol to the Attorney General’s office in the State Supreme Court building.

Awful

A few days ago, your faithful scribe heard someone say something terrible about the future of our democracy.  All of us should be threatened by her comment.

It was when Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker had his foot in his mouth for several says on abortion and other, issues.  Conservative radio talker Dana Loesch said, “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”

In other words, the character of someone seeking public office is not important.  The candidate is seen only as a number in a game where power is the only issue.

Have we become so craven as citizens, as voters, that we don’t really care what kind of person we are putting in a position of authority over us that we will vote for someone whose only qualification seems to be that they will do whatever they are told to do regardless of what that action might mean to their constituents and to their country?

If the only thing that matters about a candidate is whether there is an R or a D after their name, we are selling ourselves out. We are putting our trust in people who owe US nothing but who will owe their handlers everything.  And in today’s political climate, too many political handlers care nothing about service to anybody but themselves.

The key word in Loesch’s assertion is “control.”   She and her ilk want to “control” you and me, not to serve us, not to look out for the best interests of the broad and diverse people of our country.

Be very afraid that the Loesch’s of this country will succeed.

Do not sell out yourself when you vote.

He’s Willing to Talk.  Maybe.

But that doesn’t mean he will suddenly be stricken by a desire to tell the truth.

The January 6 Committee has issued a subpoena for Donald Trump to testify about his effort to stay in office, the opinion of the voters otherwise notwithstanding.

Shortly after the committee’s vote last Thursday, he asked on Truth Social, “Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago?”

Of course he had an answer to his own question: “Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our Country which, by the way, is doing very badly – A laughing stock all over the World?”

He has indicated that he’ll testify but only if it can be in a public session.

Actually, Trump has been testifying in public for months.  His campaign rallies, ostensibly held to build support for candidates he favors, spend little time uplifting the candidates.  He spends the largest amount of time playing the victim of a gigantic plot against his poor, abused self.

—Which is what he would try to do if the session with the committee were held in public.  It’s pretty easy to contemplate what would happen.  He expressed his attitude in a fourteen-page rambling response to the subpoena vote hours after it was taken. It began:

“This memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt, and despite strong and powerful requests, you have not spent even a short moment on examining the massive Election Fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election, and have targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself,”

If the committee is a witch hunt, it pretty clearly has identified who is the keeper of the broom.  And if these citizens were only “concerned,” what would they have been like if they’d been upset?

Trump still thinks he’s in control of things.

He’s not.

He’s not in control of proceedings against him in New York.

He’s not in control of proceedings against him in Georgia.

He will not dictate conditions to the January 6 Committee.  He either testifies under its procedures or he faces a possible contempt of Congress charge, a criminal charge that carries a punishment of one to twelve months in jail and a fine of $100 to $100,000.

His greatest problem is, and has been, that in any formal investigation whether it is before a grand jury or will be before this committee he will have to take an oath to tell the truth.  And truth, despite the name of his internet platform, has been a stranger to him.

As Trump sulked out of office on January 20, 2021, the Washington Post’s fact checker column tallied up its work for his four years in office:

When The Washington Post Fact Checker team first started cataloguing President Donald Trump’s false or misleading claims, we recorded 492 suspect claims in the first 100 days of his presidency. On Nov. 2 alone, the day before the 2020 vote, Trump made 503 false or misleading claims as he barnstormed across the country in a desperate effort to win reelection.

This astonishing jump in falsehoods is the story of Trump’s tumultuous reign. By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.

 Is there any expectation whatever that this leopard will change his spots when he goes before the committee?

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson believes Trump should have a chance to tell the truth. He said before the committee took its unanimous vote: “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him. The committee needs to do everything in our power to tell the most complete story possible and provide recommendations to help ensure that nothing like Jan. 6 ever happens again. We need to be fair and thorough in getting the full context for the evidence we’ve obtained.”

This committee is in no mood to give Trump a podium.  He has had a lot of them during the committee’s work and truth always has been in short supply on those occasions.

He can’t bully this committee. He can’t intimidate its members.  His best choice might be to meet under the committee’s rules and take the Fifth Amendment instead of answering questions, thereby avoiding possible perjury charges, as he did more than 400 times a couple of months ago when giving a deposition in the New York Attorney General’s investigation into possible real estate frauds.

Isn’t it interesting that telling the committee he is exercising his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination might be the most truthful thing he can say—or has said about those events?

 

The Colonies and the Mother Country

The coverage of the change in the British monarchy has rekindled some interest in the comparisons of the United Kingdom with the United States.

Oscar Wilde, the 19th Century wit and playwright had a British character in The Canterville Ghost comment, “We have really everything I common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

Through the years, George Bernard Shaw has been credited with turning that comment into, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language!”

The other day, we came across a newspaper column written by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, whose column, My Day, was syndicated in newspapers by United Features Syndicate nationwide.  She wrote on August 17, 1946 that the relationship between this country and the United Kingdom is “a little like a family relationship where the younger generation breaks completely away from the older generation with the result that relations for a time are very strained.

In most families, however, when either the younger or the older generation is threatened by real disaster, they come together and present a solid front. That doesn’t mean that they will see things in the same light in the future, and it does not necessarily mean approval on either side of the actions of the other—nor even that they might not quarrel again. But it makes future quarreling less probable. It is a kind of “blood is thicker than water” attitude which makes them stand together when a crisis occurs and, year by year, brings better mutual understanding.

She contrasted the characters of our peoples—Americans being people of light exaggeration and the British being people of understatement. Americans are more “dashing and perhaps more volatile” while the British are “more stolid and tenacious”

Remember this was just after World War Two. She recalled a British soldier who said the Americans did not enter the war until they developed an interest in winning, at which point they capitalized on “the hard work and the losses which we have sustained.”

And while Americans might not approve of many things important to the British, she write, there is a belief that we can find ways to live and work together.

In fact, she thought, that attitude is basic to our foreign policy—that “we can find ways to live and work together.”

The Colonies, us, are the kids who leave home.  But when there’s a family crisis, we get together.

Even in today’s world, three-quarters of a century later, she seems to have identified us.

 

Is the tax cut the Christian thing to do?

The question came up in the Searchers Sunday School class at First Christian Church in Jefferson City yesterday.

Perhaps the question arose, at least partly, because on Saturday, the third annual Prayerfest attracted hundreds of people to the Capitol to pray for ten things: marriage and family, religious liberty, fostering and adopting, law enforcement, sexual exploitation, business and farming, government, racial tensions, right to life, and education.

Lower taxes didn’t make that list.

The bill passed by the legislature last week will reduce general revenue by $764 million a year. My friend Rudi Keller at Missouri Independent has noted the state’s general revenue fund had $12.9 billion in revenue in the most recent fiscal year and the state ended the year with almost $5 billion unspent.

But shouldn’t it have been spent?

Just because the state has it doesn’t mean the state should spend it.  But Missouri clearly has public needs that are not being met.  Whether it is more responsible to give a little bit of money back to a lot of people or to use that money to served thousands is an ethical—and religious—question.

The 2003 Missouri General Assembly passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act intended to keep the state from restricting the free exercise of religion except under specific, limited, circumstances.  But we often have been reminded that freedom carries with it responsibilities.

Perhaps we need a Religious Responsibility Restoration Act that relies on Cain’s refusal to accept responsibility for the welfare (or even the life) of his brother.  The Judeo-Christian tradition does say that there is a personal responsibility for our neighbors, even those we don’t like (recall the Good Samaritan story).

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “Pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.”  And he told the Romans, “Let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may build up another.”

Instead of using money legitimately gained for the benefit of many, it appears the governor and the legislature have decided to lessen the state’s ability to pay the costs of the services thousands of Missourians need.

The Missouri Budget Project reports these things:

–Between FY 2007 and FY 2020, there was a 22% cut in Missouri’s investment in programs to support independent living when adjusted to today’s dollars.

–While average incomes and property taxes increase over time, circuit breaker eligibility guidelines and the size of the credit have remained flat since the last increase in 2008. As a result, fewer people qualify for the credit over time and those that do are more likely to fall higher on the phase-out scale – meaning they qualify to receive a smaller credit. In addition, Missourians who rent from a facility that is tax-exempt were cut from the Circuit Breaker Program in 2018.

—When adjusted for inflation, required per student funding for K-12 schools was significantly lower in FY 2022 than it was in 2007. That is, the value of our state’s investment in its students is less than it was 15 years ago.   

—Missouri’s investment in K-12 education is also far below the national average. Our state revenue spending per child is less than 60% of what the average state spends to educate its children.

—Even with today’s rosy budget, Missourians can’t access long term care through the Department of Mental Health, child welfare workers are overwhelmed, and the state’s foster care system is in desperate need. Vulnerable Missourians – including kids – are being put at risk because Missouri has the lowest paid state employees in the country, resulting in staff vacancies.

Others reports indicate services (that in many cases are more important to thousands of people than a small tax refund) are badly in need of the funds the legislature and the governor want to give away:

Stats America ranks Missouri 38th in public welfare expenditures.  $1581. Mississippi is 20th at $2,098. W. Va is tenth at $2,722. Alaska, Massachusetts and New York are the only states above $3,000.

Spending on education: USA Facts. (from the Economics Lab at Georgetown University)  Nationwide, the top spending schools by expenditure per student spent $40,566 or more in 2019, more than three times the median school expenditure per student of $11,953.  Missouri was at  was $10,418.  That’s 37th in the country.

We were 26th in per capita spending on mental health services.  Missouri ranks 40th in mental health care, says Healthcare Insider.com

Average teacher pay 52,481 says World Population review. 39th among the states.

We are 32nd in police and corrections spending.

It’s not as if we are overburdened.  The Tax Foundation says we are 27th overall in tax burden, 22nd  property taxes burden.

Against that background is this assessment of the tax cut enacted by the legislature last week:

The Missouri Budget Project, which evaluates state tax policy and state needs says “A middle class family earning $52,000 will see only about $5.50 in tax savings each month. But the millionaire across town will get more than $4,200 a year.”   (To make sure that we’re comparing apples and apples, the middle class family’s annual savings will be $66 a year under the MBP projections.)

Reporter Clara Bates wrote for Missouri Independent about three weeks ago that “the Department of Social Services had an overall staff turnover rate of 35% in the last fiscal year ranking second among state agencies of its size after only the Department of Mental Health.”

It’s even worse for the Children’s Division: “Among frontline Children’s Division staff — including child abuse and neglect investigators and foster care case managers — the turnover rate last year was 55%, according to data provided by DSS. That means more than half of the frontline staff working at Children’s Division across the state at the start of the last fiscal year had left by the end of the year.”  Why the turnover?  High workloads for the staff. And the high workloads lead to more employees leaving at a time when the state needs to be hiring MORE people.

Missouri has almost 14,000 children in foster care.  The national average for children finding a permanent home within a year of entering the system is 42.7%.  The average in Missouri is “just over 30%.”

The politically-popular pledge to “shrink government” is exacting a terrible price on those who need its help.   The Department of Social Services has lost more than one-third of the employees it had twenty years ago.  The number of employees in the Children’s Division is down almost 25% since 2009

The number of full-time personnel at DSS shrunk by a third in the last two decades. The Children’s Division has had nine directors in the last ten years.

But instead of using the money the state has to ease or correct these more-than regrettable situations, the governor and the legislature are giving away $764 million dollars a year with the bill passed last week.

It’s always politically easy to cut taxes, especially in an election year.  It’s easy to talk about how much an individual taxpayer might get back.  It’s harder to confront the damage that might be done to the services that taxpayer needs or relies on.

A lot of people in the legislature and a lot of people in the broad citizenry of Missouri speak proudly of their religiosity. And many of them think the concept of “shrinking government” is a laudable accomplishment.

We should beware of the Pharisees who do not consider whether they are their brother’s keepers and who fail to realize that freedom of religion also carries a religious responsibility to “pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.”

In the Sunday School class yesterday we asked whether the tax cut that will become law soon is the Christian thing to do—-a question that we hope bothers at least some of those who are so boastful that this is and always has been a Christian nation.

Well, is it—a Christian thing to do?

Am I my brother’s keeper?  How does saving $5.50 a month in taxes answer that?