Category Archives: voting

And the winner—

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(Your faithful observer confesses to being less observant than he thought he was, as at least three of you faithful consumers have been good enough to remind me.  For those who don’t or won’t in the future know about that to which I refer, go on with your lives. For those who do, please note that I have made the slight correction you suggest, with thanks.  But Mr. Biden is still P45.)

—won’t be known until January 6, 2021, two weeks before inauguration day.

Not officially, anyway.

We think we’ll know.  The networks will think they know.  The print reporters and the pundits will think they know. But they won’t be correct until January 6.

Officially.

Before we launch into an explanation of those statements, we want to say two things.

First: Joseph Biden will NOT be the 46th President of the United States.  He will be the 45th.  He will lead the 46th presidential administration but he will be the 45th president.  Grover Cleveland screwed up the numbering system when he served two non-consecutive terms and somebody decided he would be the 22nd and 24th President.  He was not two people. But he did lead two administrations.   It’s a small thing. But there are those who get really irritated with the lack of clarity in describing Mr. Biden as our 46th president. If should be apparent who one of them is.

(On Monday, we heard Governor Parson talk briefly about what an honor it is to be Missouri’s 57th governor and to realize how small the group is of men who have led the state in its 200 years.  Actually, the group is more exclusive than that.  He’s our 55th Governor, serving the 57th administration.  Phil Donnelly was 41 and 43 and Christopher Bond was 47 and 49 in terms of state administrations. So Governor Parson is one of only 55.)

Second and more important to today’s discussion: Our county election officials and the hundreds of volunteers who filled various roles on election day—for pitifully little pay—did something remarkable two weeks ago. Not just in Missouri.  Nationwide. With all of the concern about trouble from poll watchers, concerns that the number of voters would overwhelm the system, that the pandemic added hostile and confusing elements, and with the U. S. Postal Service set up to be a fall guy if some absentee or mail-on ballots didn’t get counted, election day happened without noticeable problems beyond the usual ones.  Election days are never easy days for those responsible for administering them.  But November, 2020 should be remembered because our election authorities stayed focused on their jobs and their responsibilities and did a highly-praiseworthy job. Thank Heavens our state went Republican. Otherwise those good folks would be living with unreasonable accusations and insults they do not deserve.

Now, on with our explanation of why we won’t have an official winner until the first week of the new year.

A week ago today we went to bed and we woke up and we didn’t know who would take the oath of office in Washington on January 20, 2021.

There’s a lot about this process of picking a president that we have forgotten about—if we ever knew it.

First, there’s this reminder. You and I were not electing a president two weeks ago.  We were indicating a preference for a president. We were deciding which party’s electors would elect a president.  Missouri Democrats and Republicans each select ten electors, one for each of our members of congress plus two because we have two Senators.  Our system says the person who finishes ahead in the popular vote in Missouri gets all ten of our electors. The electors then vote for the president.  In 2016, Donald Trump won Missouri 10-0.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  Our friend Phill Brooks, who started covering the Capitol about the same time your obedient servant did and writes a weekly political column about Missouri politics, said in a recent column, “the results reported on election night are neither official nor complete.”

Those of us who enjoy reporting the numbers on election night like to think they are, but Phill is correct. Mail-in and absentee ballots are counted after election day if they are postmarked by election day.  That’s why the numbers from the November 3 election were not certified by local election authorities on the spot.

But those are not the official numbers.

“The state law gives the state Board of Canvassers several more weeks before announcing the official state results based on those local reports,” Phill wrote. It is during this time that required recounts in local elections take place and protests or lawsuits are filed.  Once all of that is resolved and canvassers certify no problems with the count, a determination is made about which electoral college panel gets some work to do while the others go home.

The Missouri electoral college delegates will not meet until December 14.  Our ten D or R delegates will give all ten of Missouri’s real determining votes to the state winner, meaning Donald Trump will carry Missouri again 10-0.

But the winner is not determined then, either.

Congress collects all of the Electoral College reports and will hold a joint session on January 6. It will count the electoral votes and declare the person who got 270 or more electoral votes the winner of the big chair in the oval office.  Two weeks later that person will be inaugurated.

That’s how it works. We voted November 3 to pick someone from our district to represent all of the winner’s voters. That person will present all ten of our votes to one candidate.

And then it’s official.

The Secretary of State reports Donald Trump got 1,711,848 votes in Missouri last week. But actually, he got 10.  Joe Biden got 1,242,851.  Actually, he got none.  But thank you, 1,242,851 Missourians for taking part.

One other thing to mention.  Missouri saw 3,012,436 votes cast for president. The total number of votes cast (because some people did not vote for president but voted for other candidates or issues) is going to be more than that. But the number of votes for president was almost 200,000 more ballots that were cast in the 2016 election.

It has to be FRAUD, I tell you!

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I’ve been studying the Missouri results of the November 3 election and I believe we need some judges to declare there were fraudulent votes cast.  Thousands of them.

One need only look at the winning percentages of statewide Republican candidates to see evidence of illegal activity.

Missouri abolished straight-ticket voting in 2006.  But look at the winning percentages of top-of-the-ticket Republicans:

Trump 58.26%

Parson  57.17%

Kehoe  58.5%

Secretary of State 60.6%

Treasurer 59.2%

Attorney General 59.5%

Clearly, there’s something fishy here.  It’s impossible to have percentages this uniform unless there wasn’t illegal straight-ticket voting going on.  I’m not sure how it was done but it’s time to hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit, and accuse voters and local election authorities of plotting to assure a Republican sweep.

These votes should not have been counted because the percentages show there was clear tampering going on at the ballot box.  Chances are that a check of thousands of ballots will show remarkable similarities in the way the little ovals next to candidates’ names were filled in by reputed voters.

Furthermore, poll watchers were kept so far away from the tabulations that they could not closely examine the way the ballots were marked, thus being unable to challenge each ballot before it was processed.

All of the votes cast in the election of 2020 in Missouri should be voided because the uniformity of markings clearly shows extensive violation of the state election law against straight-ticket voting.

An investigation must be launched at the highest level to find the actual ballots that were removed so these fake ballots could be substituted and elections officials throughout Missouri should be jailed for their parts in this massive voter fraud that resulted in obvious straight-ticket voting ban.

Maybe the Democratic Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, and nine other Democratic Attorneys General who have no business sticking their noses into a Missouri election should file a petition asking the United States Supreme Court to throw out all of the ballots showing near-uniform voting for President Trump and the five Republican statewide officers.

Note to Nicole Galloway:  This election is not over!

The whole election was a record-breaking fraud, I say.  FRAUD!!!  FRAUD!!!

A presidential favor

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Our president refuses to admit he’s a loser..

But that’s okay—although his personal behavior and his political attitude suggest he should be sent to his room without supper

—because he might be doing the country a big political favor with his stubbornness. .

Mind you, this is being written by a voter who didn’t cover the campaign or the national election returns with the intensity of the national media, whether friendly or fake in the eyes of the president.

The election was unique beyond the combatants.  It was unique in the process by which it was held, a process that is likely to continue in many parts of the country.  Early voting in one form or another is here to stay. Processing of those votes in this election seems to have satisfied most people, but not our president and his loyal supporters. The president is filing lawsuits right and left alleging various kinds of fraudulent actions that have denied him a second term. The complaints appear to lack evidence but our legal system does not require proof before a citizen files a complaint.

Critics have little good to say about all of this even though they are not surprised President Trump is being a poor sport about losing.

Our president is also a citizen and as with all of us, he has a right to ask the courts to remedy what he asserts is a wrong that has been done to him. It would be nice if he had firm proof to back up his attacks on the elections system and the people of both parties who administered it in this terrible time.

That aside, let us look at the positives he might be providing the country rather than dwell on the negative aspects of his personal behavior.

Your obedient servant sees at least two benefits to his actions.

First, in filing all of his lawsuits claiming the process was badly flawed, he is giving the courts multitudinous chances to confirm it was not.  He is giving the courts—perhaps ultimately including many judges that he appointed—an opportunity to confirm our elections system worked even under one of the most severe tests it ever has faced.

As this is written, he and his lawyers haven’t won a single case. His efforts to de-legitimize the election and the election process are, in fact, legitimizing them, thanks to his losses in the courts.  So cut him a little slack. So far he has proven the process he seeks to disprove.  Let him keep going.  In the end, the establishment of a 21st Century system of voting might be one of his biggest legacies, much as he might dislike the result.

Second, he is proving something upon which he has at times cast doubt—the concept that no one is above the law.  Not even the president.  In filing his lawsuits he is admitting that he does not have the power as President of the United States to void an election.  He has the same authority you or I have, the authority as a citizen to seek redress of perceived wrongs through the court system.  He’s not above us.  He is still just a citizen regardless of his title.

So let him go, even though his accusations and his lawsuits and his lack of cooperation with the president-elect’s transition effort is not good for the nation.  Let’s appreciate that he’s proving—although he doesn’t seem to want to—that two essential parts of our democracy are true—that no one is above or beneath the law including a president, and the election system not only works, it is capable of working under the greatest of strains.  It might need some fine-tuning after this, but once again, this latest use of the system given to us by our founders has continued to work.

More History Than We Could Have Imagined 

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We have been reminded from all sides that this year’s election is historic. Whether it is as historic as some of the rhetoric has tried to portray it will be determined by the passage of time, as time’s context defines history. But it is, at least, unique.

Especially for Missourians.

We might be—probably are—participating in a huge first step of a transition from polling place to mailbox or other ways of casting votes. While mail-in voting was approved by the legislature as a one-off experience in this pandemic year, this bell has been rung and it can’t be UNrung. It is hard to believe lawmakers here and throughout the country will not revisit this issue, smooth out its rough spots, and move to make remote voting in one form or another a regular practice.

Resistance can be expected. But the arrow is in flight and while its course might become longer than anticipated, it will not be diverted.

More locally, what we are seeing in Missouri this year has never happened before or has happened only once. For example—-

Governor Mike Parson is not running for RE-election. He was Lieutenant Governor when Eric Greitens resigned, moving him into the big office. This is the first time Missourians have been faced with a sitting governor running for election since Lilburn Boggs, who as lieutenant governor replaced Daniel Dunklin, who resigned after becoming Surveyor General of Missouri and Illinois. Boggs, who is best known for issuing the extermination order against the Mormons, was elected to a full term in 1836.

(As a side note, all of this occurred a decade after an unusual gubernatorial succession circumstance put one man in the governor’s office with no opponent. Our second governor, Frederick Bates, died in 1825. Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Reeves had resigned earlier to help survey the Santa Fe Trail.  Senate President Pro Tem Abraham Williams, a one-legged shoemaker from Columbia, assumed duties as governor and under the constitution in effect at the time, called an election.  John Miller defeated three other candidates. Miller ran for a full term in 1828 and to this day is the only governor elected without opposition.  He served the longest continuous term until a constitutional change allowed Warren Hearnes to succeed himself in 1969.)

Never before have we had so many people seeking election to statewide offices they already hold but were not elected to hold.  Parson, Lieutenant Governor Kehoe, Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick were not elected to their present offices. But  Mike Kehoe was headed back to private life as a term-limited senator and Fitzpatrick was facing ouster from the House because of term limits. When Parson moved up to governor, he promptly appointed Kehoe as Lieutenant Governor. Schmitt was elected State Treasurer then was appointed by Parson as Attorney General when Josh Hawley ended Claire McCaskill’s U. S. Senate Career.  Fitzpatrick, the outgoing House Budget Committee Chair, was appointed by Parson as Schmitt’s successor as Treasurer. The only statewide office holder who is running for RE-election, not just election, is Secretary of State Jay Ashcoft, who has stayed where voters put him four years ago.

The last time a sitting statewide office holder was elected, not re-elected, was 1996 with the election of Bekki Cook as Secretary of State.  She had been appointed to succeed acting Secretary Dick Hanson after the Missouri Supreme Court removed Judi Moriarty from office. Hanson, incidentally, served in the office only a few days and as far as we know holds the record for shortest time in office of any statewide official.

Cook did not see re-election but four years later was the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor. She lost to fellow Cape Girardeau resident Peter Kinder who went on become the only person to serve three full terms as Lieutenant Governor—a record unlikely to be broken if Amendment 1 is unfortunately approved next week.

President Trump’s repeated refusal to say he would assent to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses recalls an instance in Missouri when the legislature refused to allow such a transfer. Democrats had a stranglehold on state offices and on the legislature in 1940 when Republican Forrest Donnell was elected Governor.  In those days, the Speaker of the House proclaimed the official winners of statewide elections and Speaker Morris Osburn refused to certify Donnell’s election. The loser, Democrat Larry McDaniel, and state Democratic Party Chairman C. Marion Hulen claimed voting irregularities made McDaniel a winner by 30-thousand votes, not the 36-hundred vote loser. The Missouri Supreme Court finally ordered Donnell be sworn in—six weeks late, and to serve until a recount showed he had lost. The recount became a disaster for McDaniel, who withdrew his challenge without consulting Democratic leaders who had urged him to fight.

The event is unlikely to be repeated. A new state constitution adopted five years later made the Secretary of State, not the Speaker of the House, the person who certifies election results.

Many who read these observations already have cast their ballots and already have contributed to this historic election.  Thousands more will go to polling places next Tuesday to do their parts.

It’s not often that so many people make so much history.  We hope you will have or already have done your part.

 

Our application

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We have not been posting comments on current affairs on any day but Wednesday for some time but Nancy, the insightful wife of your loyal correspondent, asked a question yesterday that prompts this rare Tuesday inquiry.

A few days ago we received in the mail—and maybe you did, too, if you live in Missouri—a “Missouri Vote-By-Mail Kit.”  It was not sent to us by our county clerk although it is to be sent to that person.  It was not sent to us by the Secretary of State, the state’s top election official, who is facing a lawsuit filed by a voting rights group accusing him and local election officials of violating the rights of voters by making them do extra things and risk their health to vote in November.  Whether that is an appropriate or accurate allegation is for the courts to decide.

The point is: This “kit” does not come from anybody who will be administering our November elections.

It comes from Uniting Missouri Political Action Committee, an organization that supports Governor Parson’s re-election.  It includes vote-by-mail applications for Nancy and her husband to finish filing out—a few check marks here and there, a telephone number, an email address and a signature line.  All we would have to do is fill in those blanks and send the application to the county clerk.

But Nancy noticed the address on the “kit.”  It was addressed to “The Priddy Household or Current Resident.”

“What if somebody else was living here?” she asked.

A Current Resident.

That makes us a little nervous.  What if the Priddy Household had re-located?  What if the people at this address filled out this form and signed our names to it?   What if the email address didn’t have our names in it—many don’t.  What if the signatures were close enough to the signatures on file with the clerk’s office that an employee there decided “close enough” was good enough?  If the signature by Current Resident doesn’t match and a clerk’s employee calls the phone number listed (which would not be our own) the Current Resident could apologize and say it’s the best they could do since breaking their wrist last week.

We wonder if this mailing won’t just make the Cole County Clerk’s job more difficult.

What if we were to later re-register and go to our regular polling place on November 3 and be told we already had voted?

We worry that this “kit” could lead to confusion at best and voter fraud at worst.

We wonder how this political action committee can encourage a voting process that its party’s presidential candidate constantly blasts as already rife with fraud.

Perhaps those presidential concerns are neutralized by a message on the outside of the kit: “Our Republican candidates up and down the ballot are counting on you to cast your vote this year.  Liberal Democrats hope you’ll let fear stop you from voting. Don’t let the Democrats win!”

It also reminds us to “Stay Safe. Vote by Mail.”

Us.   Or the Current Resident.

Of course, if the Current Resident (who might not be us) were to vote by mail, we couldn’t “stay safe” in OUR voting, could we?

Well, it’s kind of academic in our case because we are the Current Resident and we plan to risk our lives, if you will, by FEARLESSLY donning our masks, going to our voting place on November 3, and casting our ballots.  Who we vote for is none of your business. But fear won’t keep up us from voting.

Will this piece of mail lead us to bear any kind of a grudge against Governor Parson?  No. Our perceptions of candidates are not based on what we get from them in the mail but are based on what we learn and what we know about them. We suggest that is a course for all responsible voters.

In fact, as we have noted before in some of these entries, it’s a good thing that we don’t base our votes on the crap we get in the mail from their campaigns.

Current resident might.  But not The Priddy Household.

 

 

 

Seeking honesty

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Last week’s entry encouraged participants to look carefully at and listen skeptically to claims and accusations that will be blowing over us at hurricane velocity as election day nears. We’ve always felt it dangerous for citizens of a republic to restrict themselves to one news source and accept statements from candidates, surrogates, and social media without question.  The internet offers us opportunities to seek the truth but it also floods us with untruths. Responsible citizens will be unafraid to check sources of information and investigate truth or only truthiness, or outright falsehood.

The sources we list today will provide evaluations of the stuff we hear or see. Although all of us are busy, the search for truth always is time well-spent and these sources can provide important perspectives quickly.

The Berkeley Library at the University of California calls its site Real News/Fake News: Fact Checkers. It has a list of sites on its webpage and we’ve added a few more.

Pollitifact: Pulitzer Prize winning site run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times (Florida) newspaper. “PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics…. The PolitiFact state sites are run by news organizations that have partnered with the Times.”  Politifact offers a Pants on Fire Truth O Meter.

The organization rates statements as True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False, False, and Pants on Fire.  It has made 140 checks on Biden statements and finds 39 percent true or mostly true, 25% half true. 19 percent mostly false, 15% false and 3% Pants on Fire. It has made 840 checks on Trump and found 13 percent true or mostly true and an equal percentage half true. Twenty percent were mostly false, 35% false, and 16 percent Pants on Fire.

FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania….a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.”  FactCheck.org recently was asked if a video shown on social media purportedly showing Joe Biden asleep during a television interview was genuine.  The answer: No, it was manipulated and fairly recently was circulated n Twitter by White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.

Flack Check: “Headquartered at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, FlackCheck.org is the political literacy companion site to the award-winning FactCheck.org. The site provides resources designed to help viewers recognize flaws in arguments in general and political ads in particular.”  The site reports on politics, science, and health. On the “politics” page you will find a helpful video about how to spot fake news.

OpenSecrets.org: “Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, the Center for Responsive Politics is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.” Among the topics on the web page is one about Dark Money and another about Political Action Committees. There also are specific stories about inside political influence and activities.

Fact Checker: “The purpose of this Web site, and an accompanying column in the Sunday print edition of The Washington Post, is to “truth squad” the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local.” The web page bills it as “The Truth Behind the Rhetoric.”  This is the site that rates truthfulness by awarding Pinocchios, using the famous puppet whose nose grew with each lie he told.

Snopes: “The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.” One fairly new posting asks if “The CDC readjusted the COVID-19 death toll from 60,000 to 37,000.”  Snopes’ investigation rated the statement “false.”

Duke Reporters’ Lab: Fact Checking: Includes a database of global fact-checking sites, which can be viewed as a map or as a list; also includes how they identify fact-checkers.

AP Fact Check: Associated Press Journalists throughout the world check facts and accountability.

There are other resources, too:

CNN Facts First: This one recently had entries about nine conspiracy theories our president is pushing and a review of his opponent’s speech on Social Security, fracking, and crime. It also fact checks FOX News.

FOX News: We checked numerous sources for a FOX News fact checker but found no indication it has such a service.

ABC News: The Australian Broadcasting Company has a fact-check page but it focuses on that Australia, not the United States. (See below).

Traditional Networks: We searched for independent fact-checking efforts at the big three broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and ABC. None of them seem to have their own fact-checking staff that we could determine. But they do report on the fact-checking by other entities.

C-SPAN: Does not appear to have its own fact-checking staff.

Unfortunately there are those who will look at all of these resources and decide to ignore them because they know all of them are liars, fake news, or some kind of joint anti-American conspiracy.

But for those whose minds might be open, even if only for a small sliver of light, they’re worth looking into. They might help convince a few folks that if they’re the only ones going a different direction than the rest of the traffic on a one-way street, it might not be the other drivers who have a problem.

Just the facts, ma’am*

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Well, we’ve endured two more political conventions, their tiresome tirades, their excessive exaggerations, their profound puffery, their ferocious flag-waving, their multiple misstatements, and sometimes their litany of lies.

We want to think those we root for in their pursuits of public office are pure in thought, word, and deed.  But we know better.  And we would be better if we were unafraid to challenge them, even those we support, when they mislead us.

One of the greatest responsibilities we have as citizens is to demand truth from those who seek our votes and our money. But experience shows we citizens fail to meet those responsibilities time after time.

It would be nice to say our candidates owe us their integrity.  But politics doesn’t work that way. Integrity often must be forced by those who are picking the men and women who will lead them.

So our conventions are finished. Dancing With the Candidates is down to the finals. Now it’s not Dancing with the Candidates.  It’s a World Wrestling Federation match. In the mud.

No, it isn’t.  It’s more real.

It’s a street fight until November 3. A sweaty, nasty, bloody, anything-goes brawl.

It’s too bad that we who want to be led will too much expect too little of those who want to lead.

One thing is abundantly clear after the conventions.  The busiest people in the country for the next few weeks will be:

Fact-checkers.

We should pay attention to them. We should know when the people who want to be (presumably) the most powerful person in the world aren’t shooting straight with us.  We should notice those who spout conspiracy theories—-and they seem to be more outlandish every day.  Watch out for those who say, “I have heard…” and those who, when challenged to prove their statements say, “I’ll let you know later.”

More than ever, this is a time to tell our candidates, “Prove it,” or because we’re Missourians, “Show me the proof.”

Conservative organizations are going to be especially watchful of liberal candidates. Liberal organizations are going to be especially watchful of conservative candidates.  We should pay attention to both of them.  We should pay attention to those doing their analysis from the middle. And in the end we should think for ourselves despite the plentitude of loud voices on our airwaves telling us they can think for us.  No, they can’t—unless we let them. Have enough citizen responsibility to think for yourself.

There will be carloads of commercials that wave at truth from a distance. Don’t believe them.

There already have been manipulated videos on our social media. Question them.  Better yet, turn off the social media except for person-to-person communication with people you know.

We’ll get all kinds of flyers in the mail that are not worth the postage that sent them.  Recognize them for what they are. Fill up your recycling bins with them.

It will be easy to throw up our hands, abandon our responsibilities to ourselves and to our neighbors, and just mark a ballot so we can say we voted.

Congratulations.  You just trashed your country. Or your state. Or your city.  You just put it in a big blue plastic container and rolled it out to the curb.

CARE, dammit!  Find the truth.  Demand the truth.

After two weeks of political conventions, it should be clear to all of us that we have a responsibility to reach beyond ourselves and understand who is most trustworthy in a time when truth too often takes a back seat to bombast, accusation, misrepresentation and conspiracies.

We won’t find absolute truth from either candidate at the top of our tickets or from some of their supporters. But we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our neighbors from coast to coast and border to border not to elect the biggest liar.  That’s an awful thing to say, isn’t it?  But it’s also the

Truth.

And we have to be honest with ourselves, for ourselves, to determine who that is. Sometimes that means traditional party loyalties have to give way to loyalties to something bigger. Increasingly, it means we have to get our noses away from the social media screens.

Keep up with the legitimate, established fact-checkers.  These campaigns will keep them up all night in pursuit of truths we haven’t heard from our candidates during the day.

Just the facts.  That’s all we should ask for. It’s all we should demand. There are reliable sources that will provide them because our candidates and their surrogates might not.

In a later entry we’ll try to recommend some fact-checking resources.

*Los Angeles Police Detective Joe Friday, badge number 714, the main figure in hundreds of police investigations dramatized on radio and television for decades, never said, “Just the facts, ma’am.”  Snopes.com, one of the longest-running reliable fact checking websites, says that the character typically said, “All we want are the facts, ma’am,” or “All we know are the facts, ma’am.”

The danger of finger-pointing

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Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was summoned to recent congressional committee meetings for what became a partisan public flogging or a partisan public head-patting because of the mess the current administration has put the United States Postal Service in at a critical time. Does he deserve such a flogging or congratulatory head-patting?

The correct answer is “yes,” largely depending on whether you are an R or a D.

The USPS does have problems but the timing of the correction and some of the justifications offered for it have created a climate of suspicion.  Last weekend, the Associated Press ran a lengthy fact-checking article that covered an entire page of our local newspaper. It looked at claims made during the Democratic National Convention by Joe Biden and claims made at various recent times by our president.  Part of the article examined President Trump’s claim that the post office “probably” loses “three or four dollars” on every package it delivers for Amazon. The AP says the truth is that package delivery is NOT the cause but something else is—and that’s where today’s observation fits.

The House has approved $25 billion for the Post Office to make sure it can operate at full speed during the election. Most Republicans opposed it (26 voted with the Democrats) and the bill has to get through the Republican-controlled Senate before the president can veto it—as he has indicated he will.

We have heard precious little discussion by either party in Congress or in the White House about fixing the real cause of USPS’s financial distress.

Long ago someone told me the danger of pointing a finger is that there are three fingers pointing back at you. A few days ago a retired mail carrier friend suggested I look at legislation passed in 2006 as the root cause of the turmoil that has engulfed today’s most visible but perhaps most under-appreciated public servants.

Last year, the Institute for Policy Studies, which bills itself as a “progressive think tank” (and please, let’s not dismiss these findings because it comes from somebody calling themselves “progressive,” another honorable word that has been ruined by raving talk show hosts) issued a study called “How Congress Manufactured a Postal Service Crisis—and How to Fix It.”  The opening paragraphs could not be more clear:

In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U. S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in services and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.”

The study—you can read it on the internet—clearly states that the action of Congress in 2006 placed a burden on the Postal Service that is choking it. If that burden did not exist, we might not be in a crisis ripe for political exploitation because the USPS would be profitable.

Is it fair to blame the Trump administration for today’s postal service brouhaha? Perhaps better, is it fair to blame the administration for taking advantage of the mess Congress created to seek an advantage in this year’s election?  Strong Trump critics will say, “definitely.” Trump supporters are likely to accept the president’s finger-pointing at Amazon and its owner, Jeff Bezos who—as we noted last week—owns a Washington newspaper that aggressively challenges the truth of many Trump statements, as the reason for poor financial performance.

The law was passed when Bush 43 was President and both chambers of the Congress were Republican.  Today’s Republican administration appears to be trying to capitalize on the crisis created by a Republican Congress in an earlier Republican administration.  But it is unfair to put the problem entirely in the lap of the majority party.  Democrats controlled the Senate 2009-2015 and controlled the House 2007-2011 and did nothing to ease or eliminate the problem.

The reality is this: It makes no difference which party created the problem.  Both parties have a responsibility to correct it.  And reducing services instead of correcting bad policy enacted in 2006 is not the responsible step to take, particularly at a time when a worldwide health crisis will keep many voters at home on election day and wanting to use the mails to vote.

Some people on both sides of the aisle need to get their priorities straight.

But when a congressional blunder becomes a matter of seeking political advantage rather than seeking to correct a mistake that is now hampering a public service, correction might be an unrealistic hope absent change in partisan numbers or political attitude in Washington.

Here’s a suggestion:

Although it is too late to do anything now, write letters to your U.S. Senators and your member of Congress asking them to fix the crisis they or their predecessors caused.  We can be sure the letters will be delivered.  We wish we could be as sure that the right people will read them and act in your best interest and the best interest of the people who carried your letter to them.

Congress can point all the fingers it wants to point at somebody else. But it needs to be reminded that the number of fingers pointing at IT as the cause of this crisis is three times as many.

Congress caused the problem. Some of those who were there in 2006 will be expecting the United States Postal Service that they crippled fourteen years ago to put their campaign literature in your mail box telling you what good servants they have been.

It does not feel good in this election year to think the people who bring us that campaign mail have more commitment to service and more public integrity than the people whose mail they are delivering.

“Two roads diverged—”

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“In a yellow wood,” wrote Robert Frost

“And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth.”

Two years ago, Missourians elected a charismatic young man who promised to make his state office something special, something different, something clean.

Two years ago, Missourians elected another charismatic young man who promised to make his state office something special, something different, something clean.

One of those young men took a road that has led him downhill into the darkness of the undergrowth, out of sight, and probably away from his dream of much bigger things—although there have been reports of some sounds coming out of that darkness that he’d like to come back for another trip.

The second young man last Tuesday took a road that is leading him up, to a sunny future, and perhaps an opportunity to reach the destination the first man thought he was going toward.

Poetry can take some interesting political turns.

—

Two roads.  One paved, one gravel.  One that would have been important to maintaining and bringing jobs.  One that is paved now but facing reduction to gravel in the future. Missourians have chosen the gravel road into uncertainty’s undergrowth with their rejection of the latest gas tax increase.  Our state legislators and other state leaders who have made economic development a constant theme of their work have failed to convince voters that a tax increase would result in the good roads necessary to encourage economic growth.

They have sewn the wind by preaching the evils of taxes and the blessings of tax cuts and tax breaks, particularly for businesses that presumably will create more jobs.  But industry wants good roads to ship in manufacturing materials and equipment and good roads to ship products out.

“The people know better how to spend their money than government does,” we have heard them say repeatedly.  Again, the people have decided to keep their money and spend it for things better than building roads and bridges and interchanges to companies that might have provided jobs to those same people and their relatives and friends.

The people have decided they want a higher minimum wage, meaning many of those who might benefit from better roads and the better jobs they could help create will have more money for themselves.

Two roads.  Two men.  Two political philosophies.  But we travel with them and we are the ones who often decide which road they, and we, take—a road rising to the future or a gravel road descending into the dark undergrowth.

“And that has made all the difference.”

—or will, perhaps.

Are you smarter than a third grader?

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We wrote this a year ago and put it in storage until we needed it.  We noted the other day that Representative Dean Dohrman has introduced a bill requiring people wanting to graduate from college to score at least seventy percent on a civics test before they can get their diplomas. He says he hopes the bill spurs greater civic education in our colleges.

That has led us to dig out this piece:

Suppose you had to take a test to be a Missouri voter.  More important, suppose those wanting to hold public office, particularly the six statewide offices and legislative positions, had to pass this test. Be honest, now, those of you who have taken oaths of public office—How many of you would be where you are now if you had to match this third-grade requirement (We, personally, would be a little nervous if we had to do this)?

And for those who voted to elect these folks, could you have voted if you had to prove competence to deal with these issues?  It’s kind of a lengthy examination.  Extra paper will be allowed.

Explain the major purposes of the Missouri Constitution. Explain and give examples of how laws are made and changed within the state.

Examine how individual rights are protected within our state. Explain how governments balance individual rights with common good to solve local community or state issues.

Explain how the State of Missouri relies on responsible citizen participation and draw implications for how people should participate.

Describe the character traits and civic attitudes of influential Missourians. Identify and describe the historical significance of the individuals from Missouri who have made contributions to our state and nation.

Explain how the National Anthem symbolizes our nation. Recognize and explain the significance of the Gateway Arch and the Great Seal of Missouri and other symbols of our state.

Analyze peaceful resolution of disputes by the courts, or other legitimate authorities in Missouri. Take part in a constructive process or method for resolving conflicts.

Describe how authoritative decisions are made, enforced and interpreted by the state government across historical time periods and/or in current events.

Identify and explain the functions of the three branches of government in Missouri.

Describe the importance of the Louisiana Purchase and the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Evaluate the impact of westward expansion on the Native Americans in Missouri. Discuss issues of Missouri statehood.

Describe the migration of Native Americans to Missouri prior to European settlement in the state. Describe the discovery, exploration and early settlement of Missouri by European immigrants. Describe the reasons African peoples were enslaved and brought to Missouri.

Examine cultural interactions and conflicts among Native Americans, European immigrants and enslaved and free African-Americans in Missouri. Examine the changing roles of Native Americans, Immigrants, African Americans, women and others in Missouri history.

Examine changing cultural interactions and conflicts among Missourians after the Civil War.

Discuss the causes and consequences of the Dred Scott decision on Missouri and the nation.

Explain Missouri’s role in the Civil War, including the concept of a border state. Describe the consequences of the Civil War in Missouri including on education, transportation, and communication.

Compare and contrast private and public goods and services. Define natural, capital and human resources. Define economy. Explain supply and demand.

Conduct a personal cost-benefit analysis.

Define taxes and explain how taxes are generated and used.

Explain factors, past and present, that influence changes in our state’s economy.

Read and construct historical and current maps.

Name and locate major cities, rivers, regions, and states which border Missouri. Describe and use absolute location using a grid system.

Identify and compare physical geographic characteristics of Missouri. Describe human geographic characteristics of Missouri.

Describe how people of Missouri are affected by, depend on, adapt to and change their physical environments in the past and in the present.

Describe how changes in communication and transportation technologies affect people’s lives.

Identify regions in Missouri. Compare regions in Missouri. Compare the cultural characteristics of regions in Missouri. Explain how geography affected important events in Missouri history.

Research stories and songs that reflect the cultural history of Missouri.Describe how people in Missouri preserve their cultural heritage.

Identify facts and opinions in social studies’ topics. Identify point of view in social studies’ topics.

Present social studies’ research to an audience using appropriate sources.

Whew!!

How can anybody be expected to know all this stuff?  Aren’t you glad you’re not an immigrant seeking American citizenship? Actually, immigrants don’t have to go through all of this stuff.

But Missouri third-graders do.

What you’ve just read are most of the Missouri Department of Education’s grade level expectations for third grade social studies students and their teachers.  How well students perform under these guidelines determines how competent they are considered to be and, by reflection, how competent their teachers are.

The impetus for this goes back more than two decades, to 1996, when the Show-Me Standards were developed to gauge student performance.  The Show-Me Standards were replaced by the Missouri Learning Standards that were required by the legislature to be written because the legislature didn’t like the Obama Administration’s Common Core approach.  The MLS are pretty close to Common Core, though. The state education department says the standards “are relevant to the real world and reflect the knowledge and skills students need to achieve their goals.”  The department also says they work best when administrators, teachers, students and parents share the goals.

This state is big on “local control,” so the standards do not require local districts to closely adhere to them. Districts can still make their own decisions about textbooks and teaching strategies and curriculum. But they’re measured on a standard gauge.

Your observer/historian was chatting with another observer/historian in a local coffee shop a few days ago about these standards and we agreed on a regrettable fact about them.

These are standards for third graders.  The teaching of Missouri history used to be done in the fourth grade but the department has moved that teaching back to grade three now.

Consider this, then (we admitted it kind of scares us): Missourians went to the polls in November, 2016 and elected people who are in office today who have had little education in Missouri history since third or fourth grade and whose teaching in Missouri government was limited to elementary school or maybe a poli sci class in college.  State law requires American history and United States government courses in high school (but no world history or government studies is required in this undeniable era of globalization).

But there is also this:  Both of us believe it takes extraordinary people to turn written goals into personal learning for fifteen to thirty children of incredibly diverse personal and cultural backgrounds every day in our classrooms.  Our lamenting the fact that a lot can happen in the decade from the time one is an eight-year old third grader and when one is an eighteen-year old first-time voter is in no way intended as a swipe at the public education system.  Neither of us could confidently assume that today’s decisions and situations would be better if the study of yesterday’s decisions and situations were fresher in the minds of those who voted and those who were elected. But it would help, we thought, if learning and voting were closer together.

How would we cure that problem?  When we considered all the things our school systems have to do and all of the problems students bring to school with them, we have to confess neither of us is close to an intelligent solution.

But wouldn’t it be nice if all of us, voters, candidates, office-holders alike, had to be as smart as third graders?