A REALLY Special Session

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Our lawmakers are back in Jefferson City to help decide what kind of a country we will have, and what kind of country we will be. That’s a pretty strong observation. But if we are honest, it is also pretty strongly true.

Governor Kehoe has called them back because President Trump worries he won’t have continued absolute power for the last half of his term unless legislatures in various states take unprecedented action to change congressional district lines to eliminate Democrats.

Forget what the voters decided in the 2024 Congressional elections. Make sure some of them can’t have the representative they elected because a President who brags about his popularity is worried that, in truth, he is so unpopular in poll after poll that Americans might vote in 2026 to impede his seizure of absolute power.

The Missouri legislature wants to take Representative Emanuel Cleaver’s elected job away from him by splitting his district so about half of his biggest supporters can’t vote for him in 2026.

It is interesting that Republicans, who have so many chest-thumping evangelical Christians supporting them, want to eliminate a member of Congress who is a Christian minister. Perhaps Emanuel Cleaver isn’t Christian enough. Perhaps they think he is spiritually lost or spiritually bankrupt because he’s a Methodist, a mainline Christian group that has split in a dispute about whether God creates gays.

Wouldn’t you think that a president who peddles Bibles, poses holding a Bible in front of a D. C. church, and says in commercials that he has several Bibles and it’s his favorite book would want someone like Congressman Cleaver in Washington as a moral force?

That’s Trump’s problem. He is not a moral force himself. In fact, there are plenty who wonder if he has any morals at all.

Donald Trump, who is so scared of losing power that he will disrupt the entire system of picking a representative government, wants the legislature to just turn over the keys to the democratic process in Missouri to him.

He talks about American exceptionalism but cares not for the government system that gives us that distinction and he will do anything to make sure his power goes unchecked for as long as he and his political offspring can keep it.

Have the people of Missouri asked for this change in who represents them?

No.  There has been no public outcry that our congressional delegation has betrayed the people who elected it. But those we have chosen to represent us at the state level are facing a demand that the legislature go against its own public’s wishes so Missouri can help keep a man in power who day after day advances policies that are antithetical to a heritage that millions have lived and died to defend and to perfect.

Now we have the spectacle of our chosen state representatives and our chosen state senators meeting to undermine our representatives in the national government that we voted to support less than one year ago, and in the process throw out a Black Methodist minister who has served our state with great honor and decency in Washington since January 3, 2005, a man dedicated to public service in the pulpit as well as in the places of power—a dozen years on the city council in our largest city, eight years as its mayor, and more than two decades representing Christian values and his district’s needs.

He rightfully threatens to fight this ill-conceived realignment in court: “It will render people in Kansas City essentially silent and powerless,” Cleaver said. “The reason I’m saying this is Kansas City is roughly 70-something percent Democratic. If you tear Kansas City apart — put one portion of the Kansas City area in one district, the other in another — the chances are they have no representation.”

He is correct although today’s majority party does not seem to care.

What hammer does Donald Trump hold over our lawmakers that makes them so craven in doing his bidding? It’s a big one. It’s the power to withhold or even take back the billions of dollars in federal funding that underwrite about half of the state budget.

It is awfully hard to look down the barrel of that gun and not wilt. Trump wants no defiance from Missouri and from other Republican states. He and those who are pulling his strings daily prove they care not one whit for most of us but expects our voices in government at state and federal levels to say only two words: “Yes, sir.”

Some key questions emerge: Is there time to make all of this happen?  Can opponents drag out the special session before the bill passes and the court battles begin and how long will that process take before it clears state courts and goes through the federal court system, which will take even more time?

When will filing for these offices begin if this issue is tied up in courts?  Candidates cannot file in districts that will not legally exist until the courts rule which map will be THE map. When will primary elections be held, ditto? When will lawsuits challenging the results begin and be processed? Will the court fights be  done  before time for a November election?

This is going to be a long and ugly process that will do nothing to improves public confidence in Missouri’s, and the nation’s, government.

One man wants to take away one of our members of Congress with a new map THAT IS UNLIKELY TO BE PUT OUT FOR VOTER APROVAL before an election is held specifically to oust a congressman who has been elected eleven times by people in a district that Trump wants the Missouri legislature to destroy.

Here is the final question:

How much does the Missouri General Assembly want to disgrace itself for a man who has been considered by almost 150 of the nation’s most distinguished historians one of the worst presidents in history—-eve before he started swinging a sledgehammer in his second term.

Despite the words of a long-ago popular song, Freedom IS a word for everything to lose.

Our legislators will tell us at the end of this special session if they think it is, as the song also says, “just another word.”

Petting the buffalo, feeding the bears

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The first time we visited Yellowstone National Park, we noticed a line of vehicles parked on the shoulder of the road. That can only mean there’s an animal, or animals, in the neighborhood.

We pulled in behind a pickup truck where two baby bears were on their hind legs and being fed apple slices from a slightly lowered driver’s side window.  While the driver fed the cubs, the passenger got out with his camera and came around to the left front fender and took pictures.

In a few minutes, the pickup truck pulled away and the baby bears came our way. When they stood up their noses reached the bottom of our car’s windows and when they got no satisfaction on my side, they went around to Nancy’s side. Eventually, we realized our doors were not locked and hastily locked them.

We never saw Mama Bear until she lumbered up out of the woods, and stood up and put her front feet ON THE ROOF of our car.  I still have the photograph I took looking out my window at a big brown bear chest and its white stripe.

She didn’t shake the car or anything, just stood there for a little bit before going back into the woods with the kids.

We quickly observed how lucky was the clown with the camera taking pictures at the pickup truck that Mama Bear didn’t come out then. They move awfully fsst, these bears, perhaps faster than a guy who might not have sensed her rush out of the woods until the last second and couldn’t get back into that truck.

Some tourists do some incredibly dumb things in Yellowstone. More often these days we hear about some idiot who decides to pet that nice buffalo and realizes much too late that Yellowstone is many things but it’s not a petting zoo.

So it is that we wonder if Donald Trump’s demands that congressional districts can be redrawn to protect him and his disastrous reign might not be a case of feeding bears and petting a buffalo.

Redrawing the districts just might urinarily agitate not only Democrats, but also be the final straw for some of his Republicans and—most important—quiet independents, who could be the Mama Bears and the intolerant buffalo in those district elections. In this political climate, sure-things are not necessarily sure.

The polls have indicated some softening of R voters who might not vote or—for this election only—hold their noses and vote for a Democrat. Republicans, as is true with all other voting blocs, do not lack independent thought and might decide this is a time to really stop the steal.

The biggest bloc that could come into play are the outright independents who might have found Trump marginally less objectionable than Harris last year but this year might see redistricting as the straw-breaking issue for them, too.

If Donald Trump really was confident in his domestic and foreign policies, he wouldn’t be pulling this stunt.  But he isn’t, so he’s unthinkingly feeding bears and trying to pet a buffalo.

The 19th century English poet William Cosgrove Monkhouse, wrote an appropriate limerick for this occasion—although it involves an animal not found in Yellowstone National Park:

There was a young lady of Niger

Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;

They returned from the ride

With the lady inside,

And the smile on the face of the tiger

Independents, disaffected Republicans, and angry motivated Democrats could combine to make a huge Tiger in 2026. Trumpists might want to consider carefully how much they want to use their twigs to poke it through the bars. Creatures such as bears, buffalo, and Tigers seem docile enough.

Until……

 

T&P

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We’ve been thinking more about this “thoughts and prayers” thing and we decided to look up a time when a political leader offered more than a trite phrase.

Abraham Lincoln’s letter to the Widow Bixby is considered a classic although it is surrounded by controversy. The supposedly had lost five sons in the Civil War (she lost three) and there is considerable evidence the letter was written by Lincoln’s Secretary John Hay. The original does not exist.

“I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which would attempt to beguile  you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming,” the letter said. “But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly father assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”

Thoughts, yes he had them for her. Prayers, yes, that she be comforted.

The letter is noted for its sincerity, its realness, its tenderness. It is a stark contrast to the cold thoughts and prayers message that has been sucked dry by repeated use after repeated tragedies.

There are many versions of an old saying and many reported originators of it.  But it is useful for us to ponder it today in light of the defense by some prominent Republicans that “thoughts and prayers” is somehow adequate, even sacred.   The operative quotation that applies to this phrase is, “The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.”

Substitute  “piety” for “success” in this instance and you’ve nailed their defense for mouthing words but showing no interest in doing anything meaningful to those who are suffering, have suffered, or will suffer.

Here’s the thing about “thoughts and prayers:”

The phrase has been used so often that it long ago lost any personal sincerity.  The people who fall back on this hackneyed expression have well-paid public relations staffers who surely could come up with something far better and more personal than the cold, tired, “thoughts and prayers” thing.

Using it is fake sincerity and suggests the people who have fallen back on it don’t really feel sorry for those who are suffering. The fact that there’s no follow-up action or even discussion of what can be done to combat repeated tragedies renders T&P even more hollow, even more nothing but fake sincerity. Put out the statement and then move on.

Making things even worse are the political attacks on those such as Psaki who come right out and describe what the statement really is.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had a typical response: “It’s incredible to me that Jen Psaki, Gavin Newsom and others would attack religion, diminish the faith of millions of Americans at a time of such great tragedy. There are a lot of common-sense things that can be done to protect children at school. This is not a time to politicize these issues.”

The National Rifle Association has had absolutely nothing to say but former Congressman Trey Gowdy, a favorite of the NRA when he was in the Congress told his FOX News viewers, “The only thing that can give us any modicum of peace at all, is those two children are with the person who loved them the very most, the person who created them, that being Jesus.”

At least he didn’t say thoughts and prayers. We wonder if his “us” includes the parents of the dead children or their classmates, or the children of families, wounded or unharmed except for the emotional damage of the event. Right now the idea that the two children are with “the person who loved them the very most” doesn’t mean much to the parents who loved them more than anybody in this life.

This is where Johnson and the others who have turned the overdue discussion about sincerity into a personal attack have it all wrong. Psaki wasn’t disrespecting religion or anyone’s faith. If anything she was challenging those who loudly proclaim their piety but do not demonstrate it in their actions. Her comments seem rooted in the admonition from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Thoughts and prayers has become the “resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”  And assurances that their children are now with Jesus likely has limited comfort value to their parents. Pious assurances don’t go any farther than worn-out standard responses.

T&P and pious assurances are condescending at a time when condescension means little or less.

The Hill, a D.C. political newsletter quoted a national Democratic strategist who said last weekend,  “On this, Republicans are trying to own the space of faith just like they do patriotism. Scripture says faith without works is dead. The difference between us and them is we follow our thoughts and prayers up with action and they do not.”

Whether the Democrats follow through is questionable given the paltry record of really meaningful accomplishment, but Johnson was correct when he said, “This is not a time to politicize these issues.” It is, instead, a time for a meaningful reaction that seeks to help. There are plenty of people in times such as this who think, “Is that all they have to offer?”

Unfortunately, for Johnson and his cohorts including Tulsi Gabbard who charged Psaki is not someone who believes in God or His love, that IS all they have to offer. And to be honest, Democrats have very little to justify crowing.

Faith without action.  Professed faith without action. Clang, Clang, Clang.

Once you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.

There was nothing fake about the shootings and the deaths and Jen Psaki’s reaction. It’s clear where and who  the fakes are.

Sports: The Good and Sad Tiger Opener; We Explain “The Practice Squad,” and Other Sports Stuff

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—-The Missouri Tigers were expected to roll over Central Arkansas in their season opener but few thought they would run up 61 points. Central Arkansas has a student body of less than one-third of the student body in Columbia. The Bears didn’t score until 22 seconds were left in the game.

Sam Horn’s dream of being a starting quarterback for the Tigers are likely gone because of a serious right leg injury suffered on his first play in the game.  He underwent an MRI and more tests will be run this week but Coach Drinkwitz says he’s gone “for an extended period of time.”

Beau Pribula, however, left no doubt that he’s capable of running the Missouri offense. He accounted for more than 400 yards running and passing.

The Tiger also lost starting place kicker Blake Craig, who suffered a leg injury making a tackle on a kickoff.  True freshman Robert Meyer was good on all four of his extra points as Craig’s replacement.

The next opponent is a more substantial one. Missouri and Kansas will play for the first time in fourteen years next Saturday, in Columbia. Kansas has won its first games, also against lower-level teams. They’re shown they also can score bunches of points in their wins, 31-7 against Fresno State and 46-7 against Wagner.

Missouri leads the series 56-55. There have ben nine ties. Missouri has a one-game edge because kU had to forfeit its 23-7 win over the then-#1Tigers in 1960 because Kansas halfback Bert Coan was ineligible.

(MIZNFL)—Some made the teams. Some didn’t but are sticking around. Some are hurt. SI.com has this list of former Missouri Tigers who are connected, or not, to NFL teams:

Former Missouri Tigers on NFL Rosters

Kris Abrams-Draine, Denver Broncos, Cornerback
Tyler Badie, Denver Broncos, Running back
Nick Bolton, Kansas City Chiefs, Linebacker
Larry Borom, Miami Dolphins, Tackle
Marcus Bryant, New England Patriots, Tackle
Luther Burden III, Chicago Bears, Wide receiver
Jordan Elliott, San Francisco 49ers, Defensive tackle
Akayleb Evans, Carolina Panthers, Cornerback
Ty’Ron Hopper, Green Bay Packers, Linebacker
Marcellis Johnson, Indianapolis Colts, Tackle
Drew Lock, Seattle Seahawks, Quarterback
Isaiah McGuire, Cleveland Browns, Defensive end
Armand Membou, New York Jets, Tackle
Darius Robinson, Arizona Cardinals, Defensive end

Released (some have been signed to practice squads)
Joshuah Bledsoe, Tennessee Titans, Safety
Jaylon Carlies, Indianapolis Colts, Linebacker
Trystan Colon, Detroit Lions, Center
Brady Cook, New York Jets,  Quarterback
Jacon Foster, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tackle
Harrison Mevis, New York Jets, Kicker
Nate Noel, Indianapolis Colts, Running back
Albert Okwuegbunam, Las Vegas Raiders, Tight end
Cody Schrader, Los Angeles Rams, Running back
Theo Wease Jr., Miami Dolphins, Wide receiver
Kristian Williams, Denver Broncos, Defensive tackle

Injured List
Yasir Durant, T, New England Patriots
Ennis Rakestraw Jr., CB, Detroit Lions
Johnny Walker, OLB, Denver Broncos
Kristian Williams, DT, Denver Broncos

Reserve/Designated to Returm
Jaylon Carlies, LB, Indianapolis Colts

Practice Squads
Trystan Colon, C, Detroit Lions
Brady Cook, QB, New York Jets
Marcellus Johnson, OT, Indianapolis Colts
Harrison Mevis, K, New York Jets
Albert Okwuegbunam Jr., TE, Las Vegas Raiders
Cody Schrader, RB, Los Angeles Chargers
Theo Wease Jr., WR, Miami Dolphins

Profootballnetork.com’s Piiyanshu Choudhary has a good explanation of what practice squad members are paid:

Close to 1,000 players hit the free agent market simultaneously, allowing teams to stock up on depth pieces at positions of need. All practice squad players are eligible to make the team on game day, giving coaches some flexibility with their lineups. But what is the compensation for the players on these practice squads? How much do they earn for the role? And what are the rules that govern their standing across the NFL?

NFL Practice Squad Salaries

The NFL separates players on the practice squad into two distinct categories. Any member with two or fewer years of experience falls into the first group, while those with more than two years of experience fall into the other category.

For the relatively newcomers to the league, the weekly salary amounts to $13,000 in 2025, as agreed upon by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. However, that number is not static and continues to increase each year.

  • 2025: $13,000
  • 2026: $13,750
  • 2027: $14,500
  • 2028: $15,250
  • 2029: $16,000
  • 2030: $16,750

The salary is also defined by the CBA for players who qualify in the veteran portion of the agreement. However, their value can be set within a specified range rather than a fixed number, depending on what their agents can negotiate.

That designation falls in the $17,500 to $22,000 range for the 2025 season. However, like the previous list, these numbers continue to grow until the current CBA’s extension of 2030.

  • 2025: $17,500 – $22,000
  • 2026: $18,350 – $22,850
  • 2027: $19,200 – $23,700
  • 2028: $20,900 – $25,400
  • 2029: $20,900 – $25,400
  • 2030: $21,750 – $26,250

How Many Players Can Be on an NFL Practice Squad?

The first unofficial practice squad was established in 1946, courtesy of Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown. Four years later, the NFL made it official for each franchise to have a practice squad.

In 1993, the official count for players on the practice squad was limited to five, courtesy of the CBA. However, that number doubled to 10 in April 2004 and remained stagnant til 2019. The onset of COVID-19 led to a change once again, with the pool expanding to 16 players.

This year, though, that number is taking another slight bump, with 17 total players allowed on the roster. However, two further guidelines are in place for the squad’s constituents.

One player must be a member of the NFL’s International Pathway Program. Of the remaining 16 players, at least 10 should qualify for the two-year or less criteria in relation to their experience in the league.

Each week, teams have a chance of locking in four players to protect them from making a different team’s active roster. However, a team can only activate a player twice before giving him an official contract.

Who Is Eligible To Be on an NFL Practice Squad?

Not all players are eligible to be on an NFL team’s practice squad. Rookies cannot be placed on the practice squad. Additionally, players on the active list for fewer than nine regular-season games during their only accrued NFL season are also ineligible.

When players are elevated from the practice squad on game days, they count toward the 48-player limit each roster must present.

Only two practice-squad players can be elevated for the same game, and players can only be elevated three times until they need to be signed onto the active roster.

ESPN adds more information:

What does an average day look like for a member of an NFL practice squad?

He does everything an active player would during the week. He practices, does film work and eats meals at the team facility. He travels with the team for road games. But on game day, he’s in street clothes unless he gets called up.

Can NFL practice squad members get traded? How much stability do they have?

Only players on the active roster can be traded. But teams can sign a practice squad player for one week, only to release him the next.

What happens to NFL practice squad members at the end of the season?

Practice squads are only active during the regular season and postseason. Once the season is over, practice squad members are typically signed to reserve/futures contracts by their teams. With those contracts, players can be members of the team’s offseason roster at the start of the new league year in March. Most practice squad contracts automatically terminate one week after the team’s final game of the regular season or postseason.

Do NFL practice squad members receive Super Bowl rings?

Per the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, practice squad members are entitled to Super Bowl rings, though they may be of lesser value than the rings their full-time active counterparts receive on the team.

And finally, from fluentrugby.com:

NFL practice squad players receive a range of benefits including pension (if they play at least 3 seasons), player insurance, 401(k) and disability payments.

NFL practice squad players receive the following benefits:

Player insurance – Practice squad NFL players receive  Medical, Dental, Vision, Prescription Drug, and Life Insurance.
401(k) – NFL practice squad members can defer salary and place it in their 401(k) where they make tax free investments.
Disability plan – NFL practice squad players receive a range of different disability payments and support.

(CHIEFS)—Brazil gets a taste of Chiefs football when Kansas City opens its season against the Los Angeles Chargers in Arena Corinthians in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The Chiefs are no stranger to taking NFL football into foreign countries but this will be their first game in South America. The game is on ESPN and can be streamed with an app.

Receiver Rashee Rice will miss the first six games as he pays a suspension penalty for his reckless driving crash that injured people in other cars last year. He’ll play his first game on October 19th against the Raiders. He is barred from the team practice facility until preparations for that game.

(BASEBALL)—Holy Smokes, folks!  There are only 23 games left in the regular baseball season! The Royals are only three games out of a wild card playoff position. The Cardinals are 5½  games out.  Detroit shut out the Royals Sunday on only four hits and kept KC from pulling within two games of the wildcard.

(CARDINALS)—Michael McGreevy is emerging as a potential Cardinals star next year. His win in an unusual game on Saturday makes him 6-2. How he got that sixth win is historic. For the first time since 2009 the Cardinals won a game in their pitchers recorded zero strikeouts. McGreevy and three relievers inducted 17 groundouts and beat the Reds 4-2.

Sunday, the Cardinals struck out 15 times in dropping a 7-4 game that kept them from getting back to .500. They have split their last ten games and started the week 68-70.

(ROYALS)—Kansas City also has split their last ten and started this week with the reverse of the Cardinals at 70-68.

Going a longways to get back to where you started—

(INDYCAR)—Josef Newgarden has ended his most difficult IndyCar season with a win in the last race of the year, only the second victories in 17 races for Team Penske. Newgarden broke an uncharacteristic twenty-race winless streak He held off series champion Alex Palou for the last eleven laps on his hometown oval in Nashville.

He picked up the guitar trophy for winning the Music City Grand Prix. Palou received the Astor Challenge Cup for the fourth time, the third time in a row, for being the national champion and Louis Foster shaded Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter Robert Schwartzman for Rookie of the Year.

Newgarden teammate Scott McLaughlin equaled his second best with his third third-place finish to put two Penske drivers on the podium for only the second time this year.

IndyCar racing,  known for its high-speed competition, recorded a dozen leaders, twenty lead changes, and 284 passes for position in the 225-lap race.

But IndyCar is done for the year now. Not until next March 1 when IndyCar’s 31st season begins on the streets of St. Petersburg. It also will be the 115th year when a champion of American open-wheel racing will be crowned.

(WHITHER POWER IN ’26)—The biggest question about who will drive for who next year is waiting for one big decision from Penske Racing and whether its senior driver, Will Power, will sign a new contract or will move on. David Malukis, who has driven for A. J. Foyt Racing is being talked about Power’s heir-apparent at Penske.

Power had the best year of any Penske driver this year. He finished eighth in the points; Mclaughlin was tenth and Newgarden was 16th. Power had one of the two poles won by Penske this year and, until Newgarden’s season-ending win last weekend, had the team’s only win.

The end of the race and the end of the season came just before a meeting with team owner Roger Penske from which he emerged still not knowing if he’ll have a contract for next year.  But it’s clear from reports and from his emotional reactions at the end of the race and at the end of the meeting that he seems to have accepted the idea that he’ll be moving on.

He told reporters, “Either way, no matter what happens, Roger has been extremely good to me. Very, very good to me. I’ve been lucky for the chance to win championships, Indy 500, a lot of races, poles. So whatever happens, I think I was so lucky to drive for Roger Penske.”

It’s been quite a ride—the 2018 Indianapolis 500, forty other race wins, a record 71 pole positions and two championships. Power will be 45 about the time the next season starts. Malukis is 23.  Only Scott Dixon is older among active IndyCar Drivers. Dixon, a six-time champion who trails only A. J. Foyt in total victories will be 45 next year. Dixon, like Power, has driven for only one team throughout his IndyCar career.

(NASCAR)—Chase Briscoe is making the most of his off-season move from the now-defunct Stewart-Haas team to Joe Gibbs Racing, picking up his second win of the year at an opportune time—the first race in the playoffs. The race celebrating the 75th Southern 500 at Darlington scrambled the playoff standings with only Briscoe, Tyler  Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin finishing in the top ten. Only six of the sixteen drivers finish in the top 15.

Briscoe, who drives the only car sponsored by a Missouri company in the Cup Series, also has won five poles this year and narrowly lost his sixth one to Denny Hamlin, led 307 of the 367 laps two win his second straight race at “the track too tough to tame.” The last time anyone won two straight races at Darlington was when Greg Biffle did it in 2005 and 2006.

Two more races remain before the field is cut to a dozen drivers. Last year’s champion, Joey Logano is three points below the cutline, followed by Austin Dillon, Alex Bowman and Josh Berry.

(Photo credits: Power—Bob Priddy; Newgarden—IndyCar; Pribula—Instagram; Briscoe car—Rick Gevers; Rice—Kansas City Chiefs)

Trump Invades His Own Country

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President Trump likes to rail against an “invasion” across our southern border. Whatever your thoughts about that claim, his present actions to put armed United States military personnel in our cities based on clear lies should be even more alarming because his military invasions, or threatened invasions, of our cities betrays our national founders and undermines one of the foundations that separates us from oppressive governments now and in the past, in other places.

Trump has deployed troops in Los Angeles and in Washington, D.C., and is threatening to do the same in Baltimore and Chicago. He has responded to Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s invitation to walk the streets of Baltimore with insults and increasingly frightening incoherence including a threat to withhold federal funding for the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The governors and mayors in the cities he has invaded are Democrats. Republican governors and mayors have remained silent and unfortunately are likely to remain so until Trump’s actions, incoherence and name-calling reach a point that is so toxic that Republican leaders believe he is enough of a threat to their own survival that they, too, must turn on him—which they must have courage and selfless principles enough to do

Nations are lost when leaders become cowards.

Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker on Monday made a case against Trump that must not be ignored. The wolf is approaching the doors of all of us.  I hope you will heed what he said.

I want to speak plainly about the moment that we are in and the actual crisis, not the manufactured one, that we are facing in this city, and as a state, and as a country. If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country.

Over the weekend, we learned from the media that Donald Trump has been planning, for quite a while now, to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago. This is exactly the type of overreach that our country’s founders warned against, and it’s the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances.

What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.

No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor. No one has reached out to our staffs. No effort has been made to coordinate or to ask for our assistance in identifying any actions that might be helpful to us. Local law enforcement has not been contacted. We have made no requests for federal intervention. None.

We found out what Donald Trump was planning the same way that all of you did: We read a story in The Washington Post.

If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police?

Let me answer that question: This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals.

This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities and end elections.

There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. There is no inter- insurrection. There is no insurrection. Like every major American city in both blue and red states, we deal with crime in Chicago. Indeed, the violent crime rate is worse in red states and red cities.

Here in Chicago, our civilian police force and elected leaders work every day to combat crime and to improve public safety, and it’s working.

Not one person here today will claim we have solved all crime in Chicago, nor can that be said of any major American metro area. But calling the military into a U.S. city to invade our streets and neighborhoods and disrupt the lives of everyday people is an extraordinary action, and it should require extraordinary justification.

Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency? Look at this. Go talk to the people of Chicago who are enjoying a gorgeous afternoon in this city. Ask the families buying ice cream on the Riverwalk. Go see the students who are at the beach after school. Talk to the workers that I just met taking the water taxi to get here. Find a family who’s enjoying today sitting on their front porch and ask if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator. Ask if they’d like to pass through a checkpoint with unidentified officers in masks while taking their kids to school.

Crime is a reality we all face in this country. Public safety has been among our highest priorities since taking office. We have hired more police and given them more funding.

We banned assault weapons, ghost guns, bump stocks, and high-capacity magazines. We invested historic amounts into community violence intervention programs. We listened to our local communities, to the people who live and work in the places that are most affected by crime and asked them what they needed to help make their neighborhoods safer.

Those strategies have been working. Crime is dropping in Chicago. Murders are down 32% compared to last year and nearly cut in half since 2021.

Shootings are down 37% since last year, and 57% from four years ago. Robberies are down 34% year over year. Burglaries down 21%. Motor vehicle thefts down 26%.

So in case there was any doubt as to the motivation behind Trump’s military occupations, take note: 13 of the top 20 cities in homicide rate have Republican governors. None of these cities is Chicago.

Eight of the top 10 states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans. None of those states is Illinois.

Memphis, Tennessee; Hattiesburg, Mississippi have higher crime rates than Chicago, and yet Donald Trump is sending troops here and not there? Ask yourself why.

If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to deescalate conflict on our streets. Cutting $71 million in law enforcement grants to Illinois, direct money for police departments through programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, the state and local Antiterrorism Training Program, and the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, cutting $137 million in child protection measures in Illinois that protect our kids against abuse and neglect.

Trump is defunding the police.

To the members of the press who are assembled here today, and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is.

This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see, where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president’s actions.

Donald Trump wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents, and score political points. If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is: a dangerous power grab.

Look at the people assembled before you today, behind me. This is a full cross-section of Chicago’s leaders from the business world, the faith community, law enforcement, education, community organizations, and more. We sometimes disagree on how to effectively solve the many challenges that our state and our city face on a daily basis. But today, we are standing here united, in public, in front of the cameras, unafraid to tell the president that his proposed actions will make our jobs harder and the lives of our residents worse.

Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, “Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?” Instead, I say, “Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.”

You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy.

Most alarming, you seem to lack any appropriate concern as our commander-in-chief for the members of the military that you would so callously deploy as pawns in your ever-more-alarming grabs for power.

As a governor, I’ve had to make the decision in the past to call up members of the National Guard into active service, and I think it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on how seriously I take that responsibility, and on the many things that I consider before asking these brave men and women to leave their homes and their communities to serve in any capacity for us.

As I’ve said many times in the past, members of the National Guard are not trained to serve as law enforcement. They are trained for the battlefield, and they’re good at it. They’re not trained to arrest people and read them their Miranda rights. They did not sign up for the National Guard to fight crime. And when we call them into service, we are reaching into local communities and taking people who have jobs and families away from their neighborhoods and the people who rely upon them.

It is insulting to their integrity and to the extraordinary sacrifices that they make to serve in the Guard to use them as a political prop, where they could be put in situations where they will be at odds with their local communities, the ones that they seek to serve.

I know Donald Trump doesn’t care about the well-being of the members of our military, but I do and so do all the people standing here.

So let me speak to all Illinoisans and to all Chicagoans right now.  Hopefully the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our city’s sovereignty. Hopefully rational voices, if there are any left inside the White House or the Pentagon, will prevail in the coming days. If not, we are going to face an unprecedented and difficult time ahead.

But I know you Chicago, and I know you are up to it. When you protest, do it peacefully. Be sure to continue Chicago’s long tradition of nonviolent resistance. Remember that the members of the military and the National Guard who will be asked to walk these streets are, for the most part, here unwillingly. And remember that they can be court martialed and their lives ruined if they resist deployment. Look to the members of the faith community standing behind me today for guidance on how to mobilize.

To my fellow governors across the nation who would consider pulling your National Guards from their duties at home to come into my state against the wishes of its elected representatives and its people, you would be failing your constituents and your country. Cooperation and coordination between our states is vital to the fabric of our nation and it benefits us all. Any action undercutting that and violating the sacred sovereignty of our state to cater to the ego of a dictator will be responded to.

The State of Illinois is ready to stand against this military deployment with every peaceful tool we have. We will see the Trump administration in court. We will use every lever at our disposal to protect the people of Illinois and their rights.

Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous: we are watching and we are taking names.

This country has survived darker periods than the one that we are going through right now, and eventually the pendulum will swing back, maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf.

You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.

As Dr. King once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Humbly I would add, it doesn’t bend on its own. History tells us we often have to apply force needed to make sure that the arc gets where it needs to go. This is one of those times.

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Sports: Football Time, Ready or Not; Baseball Lingers; a Second Season for one Racing Series and the End Nears for Another

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Next week, we’ll be telling  you about the real start of the football season. Here’s where somethings stand in the days before the start of one season emphasizes the short life left for another one.

(MIZFB)—The Missouri Tigers will start the season with two starting quarterbacks next weekend. One will start the first half and the other will start the second  half.

(MIZ-STATE)—Missouri State is taking a big step this year, moving into the top tier of college football. The Bears make their debut in the really big time with a game next weekend against the Southern Cal Trojans.

(LINCFB)—Lincoln University moves fully into the Great Lakes Valley Conference, hoping to be more competitive that anytime in recent memory. Lincoln was 1-10 last year

Former Blue Tiger “Leapin’ LeMar” Parrish has been elected to the Cincinnati Bengals Ring of Honor Parrish, who played for Lincoln 1966-69.

The Bengals’ announcement of his honor summarizes his career:

Parrish, known as “Leapin’ Lemar,” is remembered by fans as one of the most athletically gifted and exciting players in team history. Recognized for his charismatic personality and flashy attire in the 1970s, his play was just as electrifying. He remains the franchise’s highest scoring defensive player, with touchdown returns recorded on four interceptions, four punts, three fumbles and one kickoff. He boasted an 18.8-yard punt return average in 1974, which still is the best mark by any player in a season since the 1970 NFL/AFL merger. His 90-yard punt return against Washington that season is the second-longest in Bengals history, and it occurred in the same game he returned a fumble recovery 47 yards for a TD. Parrish tallied 25 INTs as a member of the Bengals, the fifth-most in team history, then went on to record 22 more during stints with Washington and Buffalo. His six Pro Bowl selections (1970-71, ’74-77) are the second-most ever by a Bengals defensive player. Parrish is one of six cornerbacks with at least eight Pro Bowls and the only one not in the NFL Hall of Fame.

Parrish joins another Bengal great, Dave Lapham, in joining the Ring of Honor. You can find of interviews of the two men at https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-litmus-caerus&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-caerus&hspart=litmus&p=lemarr+parrish&type=1476589-vsub-2_25083_2_E0_V_nwtb3#id=7&vid=751e53a6ab0fc80ef86aea0e84314657&action=click

His part of the interview begins at 25:12. Parrish also was he head football coach at his alma mater for four seasons.

Parrish played for Coach Dwight T. Reed, for whom the Lincoln Stadium is named. Reed won 135 of Lincoln’s 248 total wins. He lost only 76 of the 453 school losses. His teams played six of the university’s 25 football ties.

(BASEBALL)—The Royals are surging. The Cardinals are drifting.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals beat Detroit 10-8 Sunday to avoid a series sweep by the  Tigers and to end their five=game winning streak. The win leaves the Royals, winners of seven of their last ten, 67-64, in second place in their division heading into a new week.

Taking the loss for Detroit was former Cardinals star Jack Flaherty, who drops to 7-13. Flaherty had one of his worst outings of the year, giving up seven straight hits that resulted in six Royals runs in the third inning. KC, 7-3 in their last ten games, is three games above .500, in second place in their division.

Royals veteran Salvador Perez no longer has the major league record for most home runs in a season by a player who is primarily a catcher. Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh, who is on a pace to beat Aaron Judge’s American League record of 62 homers, hit his 48th and 49th home run Sunday, breaking his tie with Perez, who hit 48 in 2021.

(CARDINALS)—Cardinals shortstop Masyn Wynn got his second MRI on his left knee in the last two months yesterday.

He did not play Sunday. Wynn says the MRI in July “showed a little something,” and added, “I’m assuming this one’s going to show a little more.” Regardless of the results, he says he’ll “play through it and suck it up.” He says the Cardinals still have a shot at the playoffs “so I want to be out there and playing shortstop as much as I can.”

The Cardinals’ chances of making the playoffs do not appear promising, though. Their Sunday loss to Tampa Bay dropped them to 64-67, five and a half games out of the last wild card playoff slot. It was their eighth loss in their last eleven games.

Cardinals Nation is not taking this season well. The average attendance is its lowest since 1984 as the team continues to be on a track for a mediocre season at best and heads toward the Labor Day weekend showing no signs of breaking out.

Speaking of being on a track—

(INDYCAR)—It has been 39 IndyCar races since the series saw a first-time winner. But Christian Rasmussen stopped that string with a stirring late-race run to win the next-to-last IndyCar race of the year, on the ancient Milwaukee mile.

Rasmussen pitted when a few drops of rain oozed out of the sky and caused a caution flag late in the race.

While race leaders Alex Palou, Scott McLaughlin, and Josef Newgarden stayed out to hold their track positions, Rasmussen and the rest of the field got new tires before getting back on the track with about forty laps to go.  Within twenty laps the better grip of the new tires had allowed  Rasmussen to catch Palou, swoop past him and pull away to a two-second lead at the end.

Rasmussen, who is in his second year at the top level of American open-wheel competition, had his first career podium finish a few weeks ago at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis. He has posted his first victory in his 30th IndyCar race.

Rasmussen, who drives for Ed Carpenter Racing, outran three drivers from two of the series powerhouses—Palou, who drives for Chip Ganassi Racing, and McLaughlin and Newgarden, who drive for Penske. His win is the first for ECR in more than four years—since Rinus VeeKay won on the Indianapolis Speedway road course in May, 2021.

Palou’s runer-up finish means he no longer has  chance of equaling A. J. Foyt’s record of ten victories in a season. Palou has eight wins and a dozen top-three finishes in sixteen races this year.

The IndyCar season wraps up next weekend in Nashville.

(NASCAR-I)—Sixteen NASCAR drivers start their new season next weekend. No matter where the rest of the drivers are in the points now or how many races they win in the next three months, the highest any of them will finish will be 17th.

Ryan Blaney, the Cup champion two years ago, is headed to the ten-race championship runoff on a high after winning the regular seasons concluding race at Daytona Saturday night. His win is the first for Ford since Blaney won in Nashville on June 1.

Blaney shook off a mediocre start this year to finish second in the regular season points. He’ll go into the first playoff race on a roll, with five straight top-ten finishes including the Daytona win.

Two drivers without wins this year have made the sixteen car field==Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman. Blaney finished behind William Byron in the regular season championship points standings. He will start the playoffs as the fourth seed.

Fourteen drivers have victories this year that locked them into the playoffs. If a driver who had not previously won a race this year had won at Daytona Saturday night, Alex Bowman would not have had enough points for the playoffs.

Here are the sixteen drivers who will start the championship run next weekend:

(Left to right: Alex Boman, Josh Berry, Ross Chastian, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Shane Van Gisbergen—the NASCAR Cup—Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, Austin Dillon, Tyler Reddick.

The first three-race elimination round begins next weekend at Darlington. The next playoff race after that is at World Wide Technology Raceway, a few minutes across the river from St. Louis. It’s the first NASCAR playoff race to be held at that track, which has been steadily gaining in importance for NASCAR since owner Curtis Francois kept it from being sold for redevelopment, and reopened it in 2011.

The field of sixteen will be reduced to eight after the next three races. Three more races will eliminate half of those drivers and the next three will leave only two who can race for the championship—-regardless of where they are in the season points standings.

That’s a sore point for some in the garages as well as some in the grandstands, especially after Joey Logano won his third championship last year when he would have been 15th in points if there had been no playoffs. Logano made the playoffs with one win in the regular season but won the title with three wins in the playoffs.

(NASCAR-II)—A big change for Trackhouse Racing was announced before the Daytona Race. Connor Zillish will replace Daniel Suarez.  Zilisch is moving up from the NASCAR send tier to join Ross Chastain and Shane Van Gisbergen after having a strong season this year with JR motorsports, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team and is the points leader in that series.

He broke his collarbone in a fall after climbing out of the cockpit to celebrate a win. He drove in Friday night’s Daytona race with s plate in his collarbone, was replaced during the race by Parker Kligerman, who became the first relief driver in 18 years to win a NASAR race.

In the record books, though, the win is Zilisch’s because he started the race in the car. Officially Kligerman remains winless in 122 races but he’ll take Zilisch’s place in the JR Motorsports car next year.

Zilisch is just 19 and already has co-driven cars to class victories in the Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12  Hours.

(Photo credits: Parrish—Cincinnati Bengals; Winn—MLB; Rasmussen car—Rick Gevers; Rasmussen and Blaney—Bob Priddy; Playoff field—NASCAR)

 

The Repetition of History

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

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

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

Santayana wrote more than a century ago:

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

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

A Party Without Conviction

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

The Theory

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Moderator: I was looking at one of Wylie Miller’s “Non Sequitur” comics the other day it inspired me. Look at this:

So we’re going to play a game called Conspiracy Theory.  Let’s make one up, right here.  All five of us around this table.  Each of us contributes one “fact” with the next person building on that “fact” until we have a theory we can float out there.

Person One: How about this? Donald Trump isn’t the real President.

Person Two:  He did win the office in an election, but—

Person Three: He’s just a figurehead!

Moderator: Wait a minute.  Figurehead?

Person Four: I think I agree. Yeah, he’s just the guy out front but somebody else is really pulling his strings.  Think of all the times he has said, “I don’t know” when he’s been asked questions by the press. And just recently when somebody asked him who stopped arms shipments to Ukraine, he said, “I don’t know. You tell me.”  We need to point a finger at someone we can pass off as the string-puller.

Person One:  Hmmm.  Why don’t we “suggest” it’s Stephen Miller?

Moderator: Wow!  That’s an interesting road to go down. How can we cook up something to explain that?

Person Two: Well, what about we say that Miller is dreaming up all of this deportation business.  I mean, he recently tried to explain how much better the country would be if we got rid of all of the immigrants. Like, “You would be able to see a doctor in an emergency room right away.” He was talking about how Los Angeles would be better but aren’t there emergency rooms all over the country that would be better off if we didn’t have immigrants falling off of roofs or burning themselves in a Mexican restaurant kitchen, or having a heart attack while picking lettuce on a 110-degree day? Stuff like that.

Person Three: Y’know, he also talked about schools. He said, “Your kids would go to a public school that had more money than they know what to do with.”

Person Four: And he also said “Classrooms would be half the size. Students who have special needs would get all the attention that they needed.” Of course, all of this was being said about the same time the administration was withholding tons of money for summer programs and other school things.

Person Two: Do you think his immigration talk was just a smokescreen to distract attention from the school forecasting?

Person Four: Interesting suggestion.

Moderator:  All of the claims are provable nonsense, of course. And here in Missouri, a lot of school funding is based on attendance numbers so that might mean LESS money for Missouri schools if there are fewer students.

Person One: And don’t forget: “There would be no fentanyl, there would be no drug deaths.”

Person Three: None?

Person One: That’s what he said.

Moderator: Thanks for mentioning that. It sure sounds like the kind of stuff Trump actually has said.  It’s also not true, but truth and conspiracy theories are incompatible. So, we need to make sure we say this thing about Miller often enough that people will think, “If they keep saying it, it has to be right.”

Person Two:  Those things do sound like stuff he might cook up to feed Trump to say during one of his cabinet meetings or maybe during a graduation speech somewhere.  Trump does like to be given a fact that he can blow up into a major talking point even if he doesn’t know what the fact is all about—-and then keep repeating it during his interminable public speeches.

Person Three: Speaking of feeding Trump things.  D’you think he really reads the executive orders he signs?  I don’t. Somebody announces what the thing is about and then gives it to Trump who signs the document, holds it up for the photo ops, then waits for somebody to tell him what’s in the next one. Somebody else clearly writes the things—the spelling and capitalization are all properly done and I haven’t heard yet that any of them end with MAGA!

Person One: And there are so many of them!  You can’t tell me that he personally signs all of them. We just see the ones he does on television. Why don’t we suggest the Trump autopen is in Miller’s office?

Person Four:  Good point. I’ve got another one. His speeches. He reads his prepared remarks as if he hasn’t seen them before and then goes off-script with some whoppers in his usual style for several minutes and then might drift back to the prepared remarks.  It must drive people like Miller crazy when he goes off the reservation like that. But we can make the case that he doesn’t sound like he knows what he’s talking about when he’s on-script because he’s just mouthing words provided by Miller until he thinks he can make the point better if he mixes it in with ad-libbed revenge language or something.

Person One: You’re right. The prepared stuff sounds too rational to be Trump’s real words and when he reads it off the teleprompter it sounds as if he’s never seen it before. It’s not until he goes off on a tangent that we get the real Trump and that makes people forget what somebody prepared for him. I think that makes our theory stronger.

Person Two: Hold on a minute. We’re kind of drifting away from creating a well-rounded theory here.  Let me suggest this: Stephen Miller actually runs Donald Trump.

Person Four: Could we suggest he’s a shape shifter and he actually IS Donald Trump?

Person One: That’s over the edge, I think—although people who dress up as Wookies might believe it.

Person Three: Getting back to our point. Maybe we can suggest it’s the kind of stuff that Trump will embellish to even more outlandish dimensions in his speeches or cabinet meetings, which will let the media think he’s the one most loudly pushing this stuff.

Person Four:  But we say he’s not, that the main thing he’s interested in is becoming wealthier so he lets Miller run the presidency and create quotes while Trump cooks up new ways to make more money

Person Two: And playing golf.

Person Four: And playing golf.  AND getting a gift airplane he can repaint to look like Air Force One and take it home as a souvenir when he leaves office.

Moderator: We’re drifting off topic again, folks. Let’s get back to the Trump-as-front-man for Miller theory.

Person Two: What else do we have?

Person Three: Well, there’s Jeffrey Epstein and Vladimir Putin.

Moderator: That’s an interesting pairing. But I think that’s going to take some work before we put it out there.  Remember, Trump has been accusing Ukraine of starting that war and he browbeat Zelinsky during that Oval Office embarrassment and now Trump has figured out that Putin doesn’t care what he says.  We need to spend some time figuring out how Miller can be behind that.

Person Three: How about Epstein?

Person Two: Oh, Lord, I’m not sure we can add anything to that mess. Let’s leave that to Glenn Beck. He has five theories and we don’t want to crowd the field. He’s creative enough to handle that himself and we should let nature take its course on that one. If there are a half-dozen conspiracy theories around, things will be confused enough that MAGA people can take their picks.

Sooner or later that drawing of the woman is going to leak out, if there really is one. However, even without that, we do know that Trump has used his magic marker to draw things for auctions as well as for things other than signing executive orders and re-drawing weather maps. So he and his marker are certainly capable of a lot of things. But we need to talk more about that.

Moderator: Listen, we shouldn’t get too complicated with our theory.  The best conspiracy theory is a simple one that susceptible minds—the gullible idiots—can easily latch onto. We don’t want to get over the heads of those people.

Person One: That’s a good point. Why don’t we just go out there with the “Trump is just a front man” theory. The mainline media will pummel that possum flat and the Trumpers will deny it. But a few of them might think, “Maybe there’s something there.” We use this as our first theory to weaken the obsessive support Trump has from a lot of people and then we flesh out some of the other things we’ve kicked around or that might come up.

Person Two: We could do a lot with swollen ankles, you know.

Person Three:  Oooh, great idea.  Maybe we can suggest that problems with blood flow to his legs can be an indication of problems with blood flow to the brain.

Person Four: What makes you think that would work?  The medical profession probably wouldn’t support it?

Person One: I think it COULD work. With RFK Jr., running the country’s health agency, a lot of the public might buy the brain vein idea and probably some other theory we can develop—like Trump wearing a catheter. That could be a good one, too.

Person Two: What could we do with his bald spot?

Moderator (ignoring Peron Two): Okay, I think we need to stop before we go farther off the deep end. We’ve come up with some great ideas. Let’s get together in the next few days and polish our first one before we send it to MSNBC where Rachel and Chris can spend a week or more developing it for us.  We probably should make sure FOX hears about it, too, so they can interview Trump whose denials and threats will only add credence to our theory.

Person Four: Don’t forget to give it to One America and Newsmax. They won’t be able to ignore it and we’ll get even more exposure when they call it a hoax.

Moderator: Now, listen.  You raised the issue of threats. We have to be careful so that nobody knows where this came from. We don’t want to get sued by Trump. Of course, we don’t have nearly enough money to make it worth his while but that doesn’t stop him.  We’re just innocent private citizens having a little fun at his expense.

Person Two: You know, of course, that we wouldn’t have to worry about such things if Trump had a sense of humor.

Moderator: Yeah.  Well…….

(Non Sequitur by Wylie Miller is distributed by Andrews McMeal syndicate.)

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Sometimes—-

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I wish I was a reporter again. God! I used to love to ask important people, “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” although I didn’t use those words. The point of the questions was the same.  I loved those moments, as good reporters do.  It’s what we are there for, actually.

Bloomberg News has quoted the leader of the Missouri Senate saying President Trump wants our congressional districts redrawn “to be sure Missouri’s representation matches Missouri’s Christian conservative majority.”

If I were still a reporter, I would have several questions. .

What are the values of a “Christian conservative majority” that are lacking in any of our present congressional districts—or members of Congress?  Is it just a matter of Democrats serving from two of those districts?  Does the election of Democrats indicate a majority of the people in a district lack Christian values, particularly “Christian conservative” values?

Given that our two Democratic controlled districts are centered in our biggest cities, is she suggesting St. Louis and Kansas City are to some degree not Christian?

Are these congressional districts that are not conservative Christian Muslim?  Shintoists? Buddhists? Sikhs?  Atheists?  One of the Congressmen is a Methodist Minister. Is he not Christian enough?  He’s the one in the crosshairs. How about Methodists generally?  The denomination has split recently. Which side is most Christian?

How does the Trump administration reflect the Christian values of being our brother’s keeper, of being the Good Samaritans, of helping the poor, of healing the sick? How does President Trump fit into that description of Christianity?

How is ICE and its behaviors a reflection of “Christian conservative values?”

How does she square Paul’s letter to the Galatians that proclaims, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

—Or even how well the leader of our government fits the admonition from the Old Testament Prophet Micah:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

It seems from here that there are shortages in the justice and mercy categories. And humility is not a word in the Bible he’s peddling.

One of the joys of being a reporter is being curious about things and having access to people who can discuss answers to that curiosity.

I was away from the Capitol for about five years after I left my life in the newsroom and when I went back to the Capitol to try to convince the legislature to do things the casino industry won’t let it do, I realized how much I missed the intellectual give-and-take of the place. A reporter’s job is to question and questions by reporters should not be automatically interpreted as hostile as often as they are, especially today when some political skin seems horribly thin.

How can we understand the religious attitudes that are dividing us if we refuse to ask or refuse to answer questions that test what we believe. And how Christian is it to claim that there is no room for different interpretations whether they are personal, denominational, social, or political?

Religion is an especially touchy subject these days when it has become a political tool or weapon. I struggle to accept those who think differing views make someone less Christian.

As I have often remarked, “Nothing screws up faith more than religion.”

I’d like to know what religion has to do with congressional redistricting.  I doubt that Donald Trump has made that one of his reasons for trying to gerrymander-rig the 2026 elections.

Apparently, six Christian districts and two heathen districts isn’t good enough.  We’ll be watching how legislators suddenly take a heathen area and with a few strokes of their genuine Donald J. Trump Sharpie, legislators will turn a heathen part of the state into a Christian one.

I’m pretty sure that is not something James Madison and his fellow creators anticipated when they wrote the Constitution. And I’m also pretty sure the court system has never ruled that congressional districts must be drawn intentionally to reflect Christian values.

I’m just an observer now. But, man oh man, there are times when I wish I could walk up to someone who thinks they’re important and ask things like this.

One Christian to another.

 

Hey, Donnie!!!! 

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We’re feeling left out, here in Missouri.

Don’t you realize the mayor of our largest city is black? Shouldn’t we have National Guard soldiers on every street corner there protecting everybody from the major crime wave that you claim is rampant in cities run by African-American Democratic Mayors?

Drawing new congressional district maps to exclude one of our two African-Americans in Congress won’t end all that crime, you know, although you may get some jollies by making a red state less black by redistricting one of our African-American districts.. He’s from our largest city so you could accomplish a lot by making that city safer. Double your pleasure!

Think about it, Donnie.  MMSA.  Make Missouri Safe Again.  Camo Caps with those letters sewn in black would really make our Guard members look spiffy, don’t you think?

And don’t forget, those Guard members would make the streets safer so your ICE goons will be safe when they go out and kidnap brown people.

Think how much better your poll numbers will look if you can coordinate your attacks on Black- run cities that have brown people in them?

And did you know that Kansas City has a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce?  Better keep a close eye on them, too.

We’re worried that you think Kansas City is a second-rate city that doesn’t deserve protection by our military.

By the way, have you thought about drafting homeless people as a way to end homelessness AND provide extra security forces for our crime-ridden Democratic-run cities?

Do not leave that stone unturned as you make sure crime is eradicated in our crime-overcome metro areas.

We’re counting on you, Donnie, because we know you are deeply concerned for our personal safety and welfare.

This might be flyover country but it’s also Trump Country.

Don’t let all those Democratic criminals take it away from you.