Gorbachev

 

by Pa Rock

History Major

One of the most significant individuals of the twentieth century has left the stage of world affairs.  Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Premier of the Soviet Union, passed away yesterday in Moscow.    He was ninety-one.

Mikhail Gorbachev received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, a recognition that was well deserved.

Born into a peasant family, Gorbachev drove a tractor on a farm collective in his youth, was diligent and hard-working, and in due course was awarded membership in the Communist Party.  He attended and graduated law school, and at the young age of forty was appointed to the Communist Party Central Committee.  Gorbachev eventually rose to the rank of General Secretary of the Communist Party and became the Premier of the Soviet Union in 1985, a position that he held until 1991 when the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.

Gorbachev is credited with being the individual who precipitated the end of the Cold War.  When he took over leadership of the Soviet Union it was becoming bogged down in a war in Afghanistan that had been going on for over six years.  The Soviet people were growing war-weary, and the economy was generally stagnating.  Gorbachev sought to bring some democratic reforms to the largely totalitarian country, and during his first year in power he instituted a policy called "glasnost" which called for a more open government, one that sought input from the people it served, and a more widespread dissemination of information.

But Gorbachev did not stop with political reforms.  He also addressed economic concerns and reforms with a policy called "perestroika" that basically ended the old Soviet system of central planning and allowed for more autonomy in production.  Soviet manufacturing began focusing on what world markets were doing and what consumers were actually seeking.

As Gorbachev's reforms started taking hold, independence movements that were inspired by the new freedoms began springing up within the Soviet Union and throughout much of its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.  When the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989 with no interference from Moscow, it signaled to the rest of the world that Soviet dominance in that region was coming to an end.  The Warsaw Pact (Eastern European nations militarily aligned with the Soviet Union) began collapsing in early 1991 - after the Soviet's failed attempt to stop an independence movement in Lithuania - and the pact was dissolved by July of that year.   

The constituent republics of the Soviet Union gained full independence on December 26, 1991, and the Soviet Union was at an end, a process that was both initiated (though inadvertently) and overseen (reluctantly) by Mikhail Gorbachev and his policies of openness (glasnost) and restructuring (perestroika).

Ironically, when Mikhail Gorbachev died, over thirty years after the official demise of the Soviet Union,  the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, was hard at work trying to get the band back together.

Lindsey Graham Seeks to Subvert the Law

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The arguments for not arresting and prosecuting Donald Trump for stealing sensitive and highly classified government documents have gone from "he didn't do it," to "it wasn't intentional," to "the documents weren't classified because he declassified them," to "it would be unprecedented to arrest a former President," to now "Trump can't be arrested because it will cause rioting."

Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican Party's spokesperson for all things macho (when Josh Hawley isn't around) said on Fox News a couple of days ago that a prosecution of Donald Trump for "mishandling classified information" would result in "riots in the streets."

Many in the political and media communities interpreted Graham's remarks as being more of a threat than a prediction.

Is this where we are at?  Laws can't be enforced because that might make some people mad and more laws would get broken?  Is there any law on the books - anywhere - whose enforcement would not make somebody mad?

Isn't it ironic that many of the same people who just weeks ago were campaigning on the need to fully fund and support police agencies are now calling for the FBI to be defunded and the Espionage Act to be repealed?

I guess laws must be favorable and necessary only when they are focused on those awful "others," but when laws limit what we and our friends can do, they are unwarranted and intrusive.

Lindsey Graham's statement about rioting sounds like a blatant attempt to subvert justice - in much the same way as he is trying to subvert justice in an election fraud probe in Georgia by using his position in the US Senate to ignore a subpoena.  

Lindsey, get over yourself and quit trying to subvert the law through threats and privilege.   Our nation's laws are meant to apply to all of us.  You ought to know that because you help write them!

West Plains on the Grow!

 

by Pa Rock

Country Gentleman

I am not a "townie," opting instead to live about a half of a mile outside of the city limits of West Plains, Missouri - the hometown of Porter Wagoner, Preacher Roe, and Bill Virdon, and the birthplace of Dick Van Dyke.   But I am proud of my community and am quick to tell people that I live in West Plains because in most respects I do.   

West Plains had a population of 11,986 during the 2010 census count, but then it experienced a decade in which a couple of the bigger industries closed.  However, even with those factories shutting down, the population managed to actually increase by 304 over the period between 2010 and 2020.

Education and health care are the main employers in the area and the fields which bring in the highest numbers of college graduates.   West Plains is home to a four-year branch of Missouri State University which has seen a significant expansion over the past few years.  It is now possible for a student to get a four-year degree in some majors without ever having to attend classes on the main campus in Springfield.  The local public schools perform well academically and in extra-curricular activities, and they seem to be relatively conflict-free compared to schools in other areas.

Our hospital system, which was already large by local standards, has just completed a major expansion so extensive that it brought about the installation of a new stoplight on the highway bypass - as well as the city's second traffic circle!  I experienced both for the first time earlier this morning.    As I was walking across the newly expanded parking lot to get to the newest building, I was approached by a shuttle driver in an enhanced golf cart who tried to give me a ride to the front door - and as I left another shuttle driver rushed up and offered me a ride to my car.  (I declined both rides, opting instead to get in some of my 10,000 daily steps.)

Most of the other jobs are minimum wage and of the fast food and personal service varieties.  Walmart has sucked the life out of the retail market - the city lost its J.C. Penney and Sears outlets during the past year - but it gained an Arby's just a few years ago, and this year West Plains added a Steak 'n Shake and a second Taco Bell.  The little city also has four - count em, FOUR! - Casey's convenience stores as well as several independent quick stops.  There are a few nicer eateries both in town and close by, a "daily" newspaper that publishes five days a week, and a couple of radio stations, and several motels owned and operated by national chains.

The city has a nice park system, an active senior center, and an exceptional civic center that houses the city's biggest auditorium as well as an olympic swimming pool.

This past spring the small but progressive city of West Plains began the operation of its own solar farm - 40 acres and 26,316 solar panels - the largest municipally owned solar farm in Missouri.

All of that - and West Plains has quick access to several rivers and creeks, Lake Norfolk, and the Mark Twain National Forest.

I may just stay!

A Gentleman in Moscow

 

by Pa Rock

Reader

Amazon.com, which is intimately familiar with my reading history through book orders and posted reviews, has recently spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince me to buy a copy of The Lincoln Highway  by American author Amor Towles - which I eventually did.  But as I researched Towles and his latest novel, I decided that I would likely enjoy his preceding effort more - so I also purchased a copy of A Gentleman in Moscow, an exceptional book which I have just finished reading.

(I had the rare good fortune to be able to visit Moscow in the spring of 1999, and while I did not stay at the Metropol, the grand hotel at the center of this novel, I did stay nearby and was able to see and visit many of the places that Towles describes in his novel - like the Kremlin, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the department store adjacent to Red Square - and I was also in St. Petersburg which he references quite frequently - so I wanted to read this novel to rekindle a few good memories.)

A Gentleman in Moscow is the tale of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a Russian aristocrat who was born twenty years or so before the end of the Romanov rule, and thus had a background of life as an elite in Russia.  Rostov had been out of the country during the Bolshevik Revolution, but returned to take care of family business and help some relatives to leave the country.   But Rostov,  himself, did not leave.  He moved to Moscow where he took up residence in the elegant Metropol Hotel.

Count Rostov quickly came to the attention of the new government over a poem that he had supposedly written and for which he took credit.  The poem, which the government viewed as subversive, led to his arrest and court trial, a trial which could have led to his execution.  The judge, however, viewed the Count as more of a harmless eccentric than a threat to the newly forming social order, and instead of imposing a death sentence, the judge ordered Count Rostov to be returned to his hotel and placed on a life sentence of house arrest - and he warned the Count that he would be shot if he ever left the Hotel Metropol.

When the Count returned to his hotel, he found that he no longer had his elegant suite, but had instead been transferred to a very small room in what was essentially the hotel's attic.  He was able to take as much of his personal furniture as he could fit into his new room - which was not much, but did include a desk in which he had secreted a fortune in gold coins - and he began his life anew.  The year was 1922, and he was destined to be a "guest" of the Metropol (and later an employee) for over thirty years - a time in which the world and the Count's beloved Russia were destined to change radically.

And the meat of this novel revolves around the life that Count Rostov, who soon transforms into Head Waiter Rostov, experiences while living in captivity at the Metropol:  his friendship with nine-year-old Nina, his affair with a beautiful actress, his close friendships with other members of the hotel staff, and life with the adoptive daughter who is unexpectedly thrust upon him.  It is a beautiful story, one that evokes the changes occurring in Russia during the first half of the twentieth century through the eyes and ears of someone standing at the elbows of the world's rich and powerful as they wine and dine their way through the communist bureaucracy and growth of the Soviet Union.

A Gentleman in Moscow is an exceptionally fine novel - and for me one that brought back many memories.  It is being made into a television series starring Kenneth Branagh.  I highly recommend the book - and am anxious to see how it translates to film.  

Time spent in the rooms, and lobby, and fine restaurants, and even the attic of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow is time well spent, and Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is the ideal gentleman to charm with his knowledge of history, culture, cuisine, and intrigues.  He is the perfect host and tour guide.

Biden Bites Back

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Donald Trump, who played golf somewhere north of three hundred times during his one four-year term as President - or roughly a quarter of his time in office - also managed to occasionally work - but only if you count sitting up all night rage-tweeting, and spending large parts of the "work" day watching cable news along with more rage-tweeting as "work."    And, of course, he also had to have an inordinate amount of time for personal grooming:  make-up, haircare, and diaper-changing.

It was a busy and demanding schedule, and through it all Trump managed to keep his base fired up to near incendiary levels.

Joe Biden, on the other hand is a bit more reserved.  He has played golf a couple of times since becoming President, ridden his bicycle on a few occasions,  and spent a half-dozen or so family weekends at the beach in Delaware and Thanksgiving in Nantucket - all of which have driven Trump supporters beyond their normal level of crazy - and Biden spends his "work" day in the White House actually working for the people who hired him and pay his salary.   He dresses appropriately, acts appropriately, and manages to craft legislation that actually benefits real people - and get it passed.  And Joe has never been known to throw plates of food at the walls of the White House dining room.

If Joe Biden has a major failing it may be that he tends to ignore the Trump noise machine that is always nipping at his heels.

But now that may be changing.

This week President Biden announced a cancellation of some student debt (up to $20,000 per individual borrower), a move that will benefit hundreds of thousands people who have spent years paying off student loans, many of which were predatory in nature, and put more money into the economy.  Conservatives, who by-and-large supported the massive GOP tax cut passed during the Trump administration, a move that put more money in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires, and who by-and-large benefitted from the recent government Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) stimulus loans to American employers, almost all of which have already been "forgiven," were outraged that the United States government would dare to negate a portion of the student loan debt.    

Outraged GOP office holders and party bosses were fine with assisting themselves and their friends with government handouts, but using the national treasury to benefit ordinary people was a bridge too far.

And the wail went up!

The GOP immediately began grinding out talking points claiming that the government was bankrolling scammers with the hard-earned money of taxpayers.  But this time as sanctimonious Republicans began venting their outrage, the Biden White House decided not to ignore it.  

Megan Coyne was recently hired by the White House to be its deputy director of platforms in the Office of Digital Strategy, a position which apparently has the responsibility for writing "tweets" for the White House Twitter site.  Coyne, who had performed the same function for the state of New Jersey, is quick and sharp and not afraid to call out hypocrites.

This week the White House Twitter account went after several members of Congress who had complained indignantly about the unfairness of student debt cancellation -- and she responded to their complaints on Twitter by pointing out the amount that each of them had received in PPP loans - loans that have been "forgiven."  She even had the audacity to cite the exact amounts of government cash that each of the members of Congress had been gifted by our government.

The recipients of these White House truth bombs were not happy about having their blatant hypocrisy exposed.  After the White House Twitter account exposed a six-figure PPP loan that a particularly odious congresswoman from Georgia had received - and after Biden had publicly referred to her as "what's her name," the congresswoman roared back with a tweet that ended with "Go to hell, Joe."

I'm sure that one made him smile!

What I Learned at the Umbrella Academy

 

by Pa Rock

Remote Learner

I have recently finished watching three seasons (30 episodes) of the Netflix original series entitled "The Umbrella Academy," and while it may not the best program currently streaming, it's pretty damned good.   "The Umbrella Academy" is a science fiction feature somewhat reminiscent of Great Britain's extremely long running (nearly sixty years!) and very popular  "Dr. Who" series.    Both shows involve time travel and tinkering with history.

The general plot of "The Umbrella Academy" focuses (initially) around seven young people who were all born on the same day in 1989 after their mothers endured surprise pregnancies that lasted less than a day.  A couple of dozen of those babies were born that day, and an intrigued New York City billionaire rushed out and adopted (purchased) the ones that he could find.   The "father" brought the babies to his palatial home in NYC where he raised them, discovered the special abilities that each one possessed, and refined those abilities.  He called the group "The Umbrella Academy," and the young misfits grew into an active crime-fighting assemblage of super heroes.

During their youth one member dies and another disappears, and all but one of the rest breaks free of their father's control.  (The father sends the one remaining on a mission to the moon where he works in isolation for several years, sending reports and lunar samples back to his adoptive dad.)  Then, when the father dies somewhere around our current time, the gang all comes home for the funeral, including the moon man and the child who had gone missing in his youth.  The missing youth, "Five," has a special ability of jumping about in time, and he had jumped into a post-apocalyptic world where he had spent a couple of decades living and traveling with a female mannequin.  He returns to the group and shares his knowledge of the apocalypse which is just on the verge of happening.

From there the group's efforts focus on fighting a different apocalypse during each season of the show's production.  There is a lot of jumping through time and space, again much like "Dr. Who," except that while the good doctor uses his Tardis (a British police call box with magical qualities), the young people from the Umbrella Academy employ an equally magical brief case that transports them - and it takes them across a very realistic landscape of our recent history, providing viewers with knowledge that fills a certain void as state governments rush to bury or alter large segments of our national history and culture.

Season two is especially good.  In it the group has fled New York City together in the wake of an impending apocalypse and landed in an alley in Dallas, Texas, in the early 1960's - but they became separated during the transport and landed at different times.  Allison, a young black woman, is the earliest to arrive, and by the time the others begin dropping in she has married a young civil rights activist and is involved in the early days of civil rights organizing in America.  As their tale progresses, she and her husband and a clandestine group of friends plan a lunch counter sit-in as a way of drawing attention to the segregation issues that were persistent in the South at that time.  They want their demonstration to attract the notice of President Kennedy who is about to visit their city.

In that segment the hatred of the white community as the protest starts is palpable.  The intensity of both the anger of the whites and the fear felt by the blacks is so stark and electrifying that it cannot fail to impact the viewers.  As I watched the demonstration and white response unfold, I could not help but think that while local school boards are pulling history textbooks off of the shelves, the ugly history of segregation and racial violence in America is still finding ways to be told.

Another area that season two addressed in a starkly realistic manner dealt with gay relationships and gender identity.  That segment focuses on Vanya, a member of the group who was a concert violinist and thought she had no special abilities - as her siblings all did.  But as Vanya uncovers her special ability, she also begins t realize that perhaps she is also someone else on the inside as well.

After Vanya lands in Dallas she steps in front of a car being driven by a harried abused wife and mother of a young son.  The woman takes Vanya to her home and nurses her in recovery, and, being separated from her siblings and not knowing where they were or if they would eventually join her, Vanya stays with the woman, her abuser husband, and their son - where she acts as a family helper and a live-in babysitter.

Vanya and the abused wife begin falling in love, and Vanya slowly starts to see herself as a male.  As her siblings finally begin showing up in Dallas, Vanya cuts her hair short and starts identifying as a young man named Viktor, and from that vantage point viewers get a broad perspective of what it means and how it feels to be transgender in a world that is not open to that sort of personal growth and change.

The whole transgender process is brought to a higher level by the fact that "Vanya/Viktor" is played by an actor named Elliot Page.  In 2007 Elliot, who was then known as Ellen Page, was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe for "her" title role in the movie, "Juno."  The actor had transitioned form female to male, and now his character, Vanya, also transitions from female to male, a circumstance which makes the entire situation more believable and intense.  Like the segment on the hatred and violence associated with trying to integrate a segregated lunch counter, Vanya/Viktor's struggles are also very real and immediate.  Viewers are left with a deeper understanding of various perspectives on one person's struggle to come to terms with who they really are - or at least this viewer had his horizons broadened!

Even as books are being banned and burned, ideas still find ways to persist and advance.  And yes, censors come, and censors go, but even as small-minded people race around furiously trying to erase or cover up the aches and pains of social change, it keeps happening.     There will always be ways to mark the advance of humanity, and we must never cease telling our story so that others may benefit from where we have been and what we have learned and accomplished.

"The Umbrella Academy" does a good job of explaining some of the more thorny issues in our culture, and it explains them right in your face!

Thank you, Netflix.

Max Frost, the Reboot

 

by Pa Rock

Film Fan

Back in the very late 1960's a couple of college friends and I went to a drive-in theatre in Springfield, Missouri, to see a new movie titled "Wild in the Streets," and we liked it so well that we went back a few nights later and watched it again.    Today I have a copy of that same film on a compact disk which I occasionally watch when I get nostalgic for my misspent youth.   Over the years the movie has become regarded by many as a "cult classic."

"Wild in the Streets" tells the story of a very smart young man by the name of Max Frost who  grows up and becomes a rock star.  But Max isn't just interested in music, he also has a passion for politics, and from his position of influence with young people he begins pushing to bring teenagers into government.  Some of that is accomplished by amassing the energy and force of the nation's youth, and some is done through more nefarious means such as dumping large quantities of LSD into the water supply of Washington, DC.   Eventually Max is able to get one of his older groupies, a twenty-five year old spaced-out actress named Sally Leroy, elected to Congress where she proposes legislation opening the floodgates of voter participation to teens - thanks to the help of other congressmen who are delusional from the effects of LSD in Washington, DC's water supply.

Okay, so "Wild in the Streets" stretched the imagination a bit, but the movie was fun to watch and had a good soundtrack.  The main character, Max Frost, was played by a young actor named Christopher Jones who seemed to be on a road to becoming the next James Dean.  (Jones also starred in "Three in the Attic" which I reviewed not too long ago in this space.)  Also in "Wild in the Streets" were a few other noted actors including Shelly Winters, Hal Holbrook, Ed Begley, and a very young Richard Pryor in what was only his second film appearance.   

The soundtrack featured eight songs, five of which were performed by "Max Frost and the Troopers," and the most memorable of which was "Shape of Things to Come."  (Alexa knows it - ask her for a listen.)

The reason, of course, that I am rummaging through this particular corner of my mental storage unit today is that on Tuesday of this week the good people of the 10th congressional district in Florida nominated a Democratic candidate by the name of Maxwell Alejandro Frost - aged twenty-five - as the first member of Generation Z to run on a major party ticket for Congress.  Florida's 10th is a Democratic-leaning district, and he is expected to win the general election in November.  Frost, who will be the youngest member of Congress, is supported by national progressives including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

And Pa Rock has lived long enough to see Max Frost make another move on Congress.  Sooner or later it all comes around!

Pandemonium Prevails at Pa's Place!

 

by Pa Rock

Proud Grandpa

I had carefully explained to Rosie more than once yesterday that company was coming and things  would get lively in the evening, but the old girl either was not paying much attention or didn't believe me because as it started to get dark outside she curled up next to me on the couch and drifted off to sleep.  But Rosie, who can hear an ant fart in a thunderstorm, suddenly hopped to attention when a car pulled up our drive around nine o'clock last night and doors began opening and closing.  She jumped from the couch and ran to the back door barking furiously, and when I finally caught up and let her out, she rushed onto the porch and quickly found herself surrounded by my Oregon grandchildren - and was she ever excited!

Willow, Judah and Sebastian, along with their parents, Molly and Scott, had just pulled in following their long drive from Uncle Tim and Aunt Erin's house in the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City.  They had flown from Oregon to Kansas City a couple of days earlier.  They will be at my house until tomorrow - Thursday - and then are heading over to Branson and then down into Oklahoma to see Scott's parents.  

Molly was here last May, but this is the first time that the kids have been to the Missouri Ozarks in four years.

Rosie was so excited to see all of our guests that I thought she was going to collapse from exhaustion as she ran from one to another seeking attention.  She is especially fond of girls because we don't have many of them visit The Roost, and she and Willow (age ten) became good friends very quickly.

Today we will all be out exploring - Rosie, too - and learning as much as we can about how to have fun in the Ozarks.  It promises to be an exciting time!

At Home with Groundhogs

 

by Pa Rock

Farmer in Summer

One thing that I did not intend to accomplish during my retirement years was to become a groundhog expert, but somehow that seems to be happening.  Over the eight years that I have been retired in the Missouri Ozarks, I have brought several types of creatures out to The Roost - mostly poultry - and today only one of those feathered friends remains - a lonely old guinea fowl that I have named "Uncle," and who dutifully follows me around the big yard anytime that I am outside.

But there have also been quite an assortment of other creatures who have wandered on and off of the property during those same eight years.  There are numerous trees including some like hickory, walnut, and oak that produce nuts that attract a plentitude of squirrels and give them plenty of places to climb and play.  The pond has bullfrogs and it also draws in a steady stream of deer who congregate there in the early mornings and late evenings to enjoy a cool drink and exchange deer gossip.

One summer a young armadillo found his way to The Roost and spent several months punching holes in the ground with his snout in search of grubs and worms.  Over the years I have also come face to face with skunks, possums, turtles, rats, mice, voles, rabbits, hawks, lizards, and several varieties of snakes.  I have never encountered a coyote on the property, but they are close by and in the evenings I can sometimes hear them chattering and howling as they try to lure or scare their prey out into the open.  

But through it all, my favorite wildlife guests at The Roost have been groundhogs.  One day recently I stepped out the back door and spotted four of the creatures sunning themselves and chewing at vegetation in the backyard.  Their tunnels are everywhere, including even under the dirt floor in the barn.  Some people would regard them as a nuisance, but to me they are just neighbors trying to survive the summer, and when winter comes we will all part company go into hibernation mode.

I have a place where I throw out table scraps, and the groundhogs are always quick to check it out, and every morning is set out some hen scratch for Uncle, and as soon as he does a pass through it, the groundhogs  and their cousins, the squirrels, show up and finish it off.  We all get along.

Yesterday I learned something new about groundhogs.  The Missouri Department of Conservation publishes a magazine for children called "Xplore" which I subscribe to and then share with my grandchildren.   Groundhogs are rodents, an order of mammals (the largest order of mammals) that includes creatures like squirrels, mice, moles, voles, hamsters, and several other related creatures.  I always assumed they were called "ground" hogs because of their tendency to be found either on or under the ground, but the edition of "Xplore" that I received yesterday said that the very large rodents could also occasionally be found in trees - like their cousins, the squirrels.

Groundhogs in trees?  Impossible, I thought!  Why the ones on my acreage can barely waddle out of the way when they see me coming!

And mine probably don't climb trees just because I make life too easy for them by slinging food around, but, according to the brief mention in the magazine, a hungry groundhog will climb a tree to get at good things like persimmons and pawpaws.

(I do have a small pawpaw patch and this year's crops has been very sparse, a fact that I blamed on the drought.   But perhaps one of the younger and more agile groundhogs has been up shaking a few limbs!)

Maybe if I can find a few persimmons this fall I can save the seeds and plant some persimmon trees in the spring.

Neighbors helping neighbors - that's what it's all about!

Cheney Unchained

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Politicians handle defeat differently.  Donald Trump, who lost the presidency bigly in November of 2020, is still whining nearly two years later that he was somehow "cheated" out of his place at the head of the public trough, and he spends his days begging money from his moronic followers to somehow right that egregious wrong.    And when he isn't on the beg - or the golf course - Trump is fighting to use his status as a "former" President to fend off investigations into his efforts to remain in office, his business dealings, and allegations of abuse against individuals.

Liz Cheney, on the other hand, seems quite content to accept her loss at the polls in last week's GOP primary in Wyoming where a Trump-endorsed candidate soundly defeated her bid for reelection.    Cheney, who knows she lost, has already rolled up her sleeves and, unlike Trump, is moving on.   She has recast her political future and now presents as a crusader for the Constitution - a position that is likely to provide a certain amount of discomfort to Donald Trump and his self-serving team of election-deniers.

Cheney has vowed to work to keep Donald Trump from ever again being elected to the presidency, but she isn't stopping with just him - Liz is also focused on scrubbing the government of Trump's major enablers.  Today she issued forceful attacks on two Republican senators who were both instrumental in trying to subvert the Constitution in order to keep Trump in power, or at least to be seen as Trump bootlickers in furtherance of their own political ambitions.  

The Wyoming congresswoman fixed her sites on Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, admittedly a pair of easy targets.  Hawley, who threw this fist into the air in support of the insurrection at the US Capitol and later peddled coffee mugs which promoted that cheesy photo op, was the first senator to announce that he would vote against certifying Biden's win over Trump.  (Later seven other senators, including, Cruz, would follow Hawley's lead - along with 130 members of the House - all in direct opposition to their duties as prescribed by the US Constitution.)

Liz Cheney has said, quite simply, in response to the votes against Biden by Hawley and Cruz:

"I think certainly when you look at somebody like Josh Hawley, or somebody like Ted Cruz, both of whom know better, both of whom know exactly what the role of Congress is - in terms of our constitutional obligations with respect to presidential elections - and yet both took steps that fundamentally threatened the constitutional order and structure in the aftermath of the last election.  So, you know, in my view, they both have made themselves unfit for future office."

This lifelong Missouri voter realizes that Liz's condemnation of Josh Hawley won't change votes for or against the showboat senator out in rural Missouri, but they certainly will not benefit him in the more urban areas of the state.  She is a Cheney, and Josh would ignore her at his peril.  (Liz has already done serious damage to Hawley's image with the January 6th committee's release of the video showing him sprinting away from protesters in the Capitol on the day of the insurrection - a clip that made him not only.a laughing stock at the televised hearing, but also across Missouri and the nation -  and for the time-being she remains vice-chair of that group and undoubtedly has access to plenty more juicy bits that could plague not only Hawley, but also any number of other Trump enablers who still inhabit our nation's halls of power.)

Liz Cheney may have lost an important election last week, but it doesn't seem to have slowed her down.  Now, not having to worry about reelection, Liz has the freedom to do as she sees fit and say exactly what she thinks.

Cheney is unchained - and things may really get interesting!

States Rush to Protect Children from Books - but not from Guns!

 

by Pa Rock

Retired Teacher

PEN America was founded one hundred years ago to promote literature and human rights.  The acronym (PEN) originally represented Poets, Essayists, and Novelists, but over the years it has been expanded to include Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists - a comprehensive literary assemblage that earns its keep by promoting ideas and changes in the human condition through the written word.   Needless to say, PEN America has a keen interest in what we are reading -  and in what reading matter is being kept off of public bookshelves.

Late last April, about a month before the end of school and the horrible mass shooting of fourth graders in Uvalde, Texas, PEN America released a report detailing the state of book-banning in US public schools.  That report found that 1,586 books had been banned in 86 school districts across the country.  One of the findings of the organization's report was that the same types of books are being banned by all of those districts, books dealing with race, gender, sex, and LGBTQ identities.  A spokesman for PEN America noted with a certain degree of alarm that all of those topics have only recently begun to be included on the shelves of America's school libraries, and now they are being "erased."

The report noted that Texas had more school book bans than any other state, with a total of 713 books being removed from the libraries of various school districts across the state.  (Pennsylvania was second with 456 book bans in schools, and Florida third with 204.)   Texans ban books at an alarming rate, and they do it to "protect" their children from ideas that some parents and state officials regard as dangerous because they present lifestyles and histories that vary from the way that they were taught to perceive the world. 

Sadly though, the state that is the quickest to pull books from school libraries is also one of the most reluctant to do anything that would slow the flow of guns into society.

Parents from Uvalde are planning a massive protest in Austin on August 27th with a simple goal.  They want the age to purchase an assault weapon in Texas to be raised from eighteen to twenty-one.   That's a commonsense measure that should not be controversial.  But it's Texas, and in Texas you don't mess with anyone's gun "rights," and the Uvalde parents are certain to meet with stiff opposition to their very modest proposal.

Perhaps the Uvalde parents would create a bigger fuss if they showed up to protest in Austin and began handing out banned books.  As many Texans already seem to know, books are dangerous!

Trudy Busch Valentine for the US Senate

 

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

The race for the open Missouri seat in the United States Senate clarified with the Missouri primary election earlier this month.   The contest to replace retiring US Senator Ol' Roy Blunt, a Republican, will feature Eric Schmitt, the state's current attorney general, on the Republican ticket, and Trudy Busch Valentine, a political novice and an heiress to the Busch Beer fortune, as the Democratic nominee.   The race to succeed Blunt will also feature a nominee for the Constitution Party, one for the Libertarian Party, and four independent candidates including John Wood who recently served as an attorney with the House January 6th investigative committee and who is being promoted and bankrolled by former Missouri US Senator Jack Danforth.

Over the past twenty years Missouri has become a reliably red state, and the race will be Schmitt's to lose. But, a loss for the Republicans is possible.

Schmitt, a right-wing Republican, has taken a lot of criticism for spending much of his time as attorney general actively campaigning for the Senate seat - and for focusing on efforts to curb women's reproductive health care rights.  

Eric Schmitt's fealty to Trump and Trump's attacks on democracy seems to have been the prime motivators to cause Jack Danforth, a millionaire heir to the Ralston Purina fortune, to seek and promote an independent conservative alternative to Schmitt.  Danforth's PAC, "Missouri Stands United," has indicated that it may spend as much as $20 million promoting John Wood in the race.  Danforth and Wood are residents of the Liz Cheney wing of the Republican Party, and Wood, in fact, worked with Liz on the January 6th committee.

Trudy Busch Valentine, the newly anointed Democratic nominee for the open Senate seat, is, in addition to being Gussie Busch's daughter and a well-established St. Louis socialite, also a licensed nurse who can point to a history of actually working with some of the average people whom she is running to represent.  She is a proponent of women's reproductive and health care rights and not bashful about saying so.  Busch Valentine understands that her stance on that issue aligns with the majority of Missouri voters.  (Republicans have been slow to recognize that electoral fact, and now they find themselves entangled in the anti-abortion rhetoric of the past several years - some of which has become increasingly difficult to defend as public attitudes have begun coalescing against the recent Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade.)

Yesterday Trudy Busch Valentine took another policy leap that her major Republican opponent - Schmitt - is unlikely to follow.  She announced that she would be supporting a Missouri constitutional amendment that will legalize the use of marijuana for recreational purposes by adults in the state.  That amendment will be on the state's November ballot - the same ballot that will be determining the Show-Me state's newest United States Senator.  Trudy Busch Valentine is a cautious political novice, and she undoubtedly had a good look at the polls before stepping into the field of recreational weed.

Trudy is with the people on women's reproductive and health care rights, and she is with them on the legalization of recreational marijuana for adults - and those are both places where Republican candidates still fear to tread.  Trudy is in it to win it - and she might just do it.

While I firmly believe that the United States Senate already has too many millionaires, I will be voting for Trudy Busch Valentine in November because she has been out and worked with ordinary people, and she seems committed to supporting the needs of the common people of Missouri and of the United States - and her major opponent seems committed supporting Donald Trump and weakening democracy.

Trudy Busch Valentine for the US Senate in 2022.  It's an easy decision!

The Bard of Tecumseh

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Tecumseh is an unincorporated community in southern Missouri  (eastern Ozark County) with a population of 602, give or take a dozen.  Internet sources indicate that the population of Tecumseh has declined around fifteen percent over the past couple of years.   The median age is almost sixty, which may explain the decline in the number of residents of the community.  Tecumseh is located on the North Fork River at the north end of Lake Norfolk in an area that is scenic, though fairly isolated.

Over the past few days, however, the little berg of Tecumseh has made local, state, and even national news.

According to news articles featured in Ozark Radio News, The Kansas City Star, The Hill, as well as other publications, a fifty-year-old male resident of Tecumseh by the name of Walter Lee Hoornstra was indicted earlier this week for allegedly leaving a threatening voice mail on the personal cell phone of an election worker in Maricopa County, Arizona.  The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Hoornstra with one count of communicating an interstate threat and one count of making a threatening phone call.  Those two charges could result in the defendant being sentenced to up to seven years in prison.

According to information in the indictment the incident occurred on or about May 19, 2021, when Walter Lee Hoornstra left the following message on the election worker's cell phone voice mail:

"So I see you're for fair and competent elections, that's what it says here on your homepage for your recorder position you're trying to fly here.  But you call things unhinged and insane lies when there's a forensic audit going on.   You need to check yourself.  You need to do your (expletive) job right because other people from other states are watching your ass.   You (expletive) renege on this deal or give them any more troubles, your ass will never make it to your next little board meeting."

Walter Lee Hoornstra had his say and then hung up.  Now the government of the United States of America will have its say.

The case is being investigated by the Phoenix Office of the F.B.I.

Pa Rock at Home in 1950

 

by Pa Rock

Time Lord

The United States Federal Census for 1950 was released to the public this past April, but before it could be of use to most of us it had to be transcribed and indexed by thousands of volunteers, and its actual appearance into the public record has been a gradual affair.  As someone who was born in 1948, the 1950 census marks my debut into the nation's official count that happens every ten years - on those years which end in zero.

This morning I finally was able to view my first census entry - and even though I have spent much of my life collecting family history, I still managed to learn a couple of things about my family that I never knew before.

According to the document that I saw today, the census taker was Grace Adaline Altizer, and she arrived at our home to enumerate the family on April 13th, 1950.  There were three of us in residence there at the time:  my father, Garland E. Macy, a white male, aged 25, the "head" of the household, my mother, Florine Macy, a white female, aged 28, and me, Rocky Macy, a white male, aged two.   All of that fits with what I already knew about my family.  The census reported that each of us had been born in Missouri - which is also correct.

The census entry stated that we lived on Park Street in Neosho, Newton County, Missouri.  The house number on the census entry was indistinct, but I knew that the actual address was 510 Park Street from numerous comments that my parents made about that little house as I was growing up  (we had moved from there when I was three-years-old)  and I even visited and walked through the house once as an adult. (The property is unique in that a railroad track borders the edge of the yard and separates it from the Federal Fish Hatchery, a Neosho landmark.)

One of my most persistent memories of my mother is that she always worked, but according to that census, she was not working in April of 1950, nor was she looking for work.  But she was a stay-at-home mother of a two-year-old and pregnant with my little sister who would be born that October, so I suspect Mom was a fairly busy woman at that time in her life!

My father was listed as a "can filler" at a condensed milk factory - which would have been the old Pet Milk Factory in Neosho.  I remember that he mostly worked nights, so he probably actually was at home when the census taker arrived.  I had never heard his specific job before, that of "can filler," so that was new information.

And that basically was the gist of my first entry into the United States census.  There were no big surprises, but at least I know that I made it into the nation's official count in 1950, and I will be there waiting when my grandchildren and their grandchildren come snooping around looking for me!

Florida Court Rules Pregnant Teen Is Too Immature for an Abortion

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The unflagging, enthusiastic opposition to abortion under any circumstances has brought the bright lights of hypocrisy shining down on many intolerant judges and other politicians, a vast majority of whom are members of the Republican Party.

A Republican Circuit Judge in Escambia County, Florida, recently ruled that a parentless 16-year-old girl who lives with a relative and is overseen by a court-appointed guardian - and was 10 weeks pregnant when she went before the judge - could not have an abortion because she "lacked the maturity to choose to have an abortion," a requirement for the procedure where minors are concerned.  The girl's guardian was in agreement with her request to have an abortion.

The matter, which was of urgency because Florida has a new law that bans abortions altogether after fifteen weeks, was appealed to the Circuit Court, and a three-judge panel there ruled unanimously this past Monday to support the first judge's decision.  The teen, who is known in court documents as Jane Doe 22-B, was to remain pregnant.

In Jane's original petition to the court, she stated that she was not ready to have a baby, did not have a job, was still in school, and the baby's father was unable to assist her - but those arguments did not sway any of the judge's involved in the decision to force her to remain pregnant.

Journalist Bess Levin writing in yesterday's on-line edition of Vanity Fair offered this stinging (and somewhat salty) critique of the Florida judicial system's treatment of Jane Doe, 22-B:

"It should go without saying, even though it apparently needs to be said, that it's completely fucking insane to declare that someone is not mature enough to make a decision to end a pregnancy, but is grown-up enough to go through the mentally and physically taxing work of growing and giving birth to a child, as well as the lifelong, never-ending work of raising one.   Republicans, of course, don't actually care about what being pregnant entails, seeing women as mere reproductive vessels, and they definitely don't give a shit about children once they are born.   On a somewhat tangential note, we'd also argue that knowing one is not ready to have a kid is actually a clear sign of maturity, setting aside the fact that just not wanting one should be reason enough."

That about sums it up.   A sixteen-year-old in Florida is mature and smart enough to know that she is not ready to be a mother, and a group of Florida judges feel that girl is not mature enough to seek an abortion - but she is mature enough to carry a fetus to term and then to spend the rest of her life meeting the physical and emotional needs of a child that she was never prepared to have.

Sounds about right.

Wyoming Prepares to Buck Cheney

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Wyoming is, by physical size, the ninth largest state in the Union, but with less that 600,000 people living within its borders, Wyoming is also the least populated of all fifty states.  Because of its small number of residents, Wyoming only has one member of the US House of Representatives, and for the past six years that member of Congress has been Liz Cheney, a Republican.  Ms. Cheney, an attorney, former Fox News personality, and married mother of five, is also the oldest child of former US Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, television journalist Lynne Cheney.

Rep. Cheney was promoted into a leadership position in her party almost as soon as she got to Congress, and it looked to many as though she might eventually become Speaker of the House.  But Cheney, who arrived in Congress just a couple of weeks before Donald Trump was sworn in as President, was destined to take another path in the service of her country.  Liz Cheney was one of ten Republican members of the House who voted to impeach Donald Trump over his encouragement of, and participation in, events leading up to the public uprising at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and she later served as vice-chair of the congressional committee which is still investigating that treasonous insurrection.

Trump, well known for his vindictive nature, set about trying to destroy the careers of Republicans whom he deemed had been disloyal to him, and Cheney was at the top of his list.    After pressure from Trump, the GOP removed her from her position as the Republican Conference Chair in Congress, and Trump publicly endorsed Harriet Hageman, Cheney's most prominent GOP opponent, in the August primary - an election which is being held today.

Liz Cheney has conducted a lackluster campaign in Wyoming, choosing to not even spend a large portion of her campaign war chest, and most polls show her losing to Hageman by twenty or more percentage points.  The main political thrust has been to encourage Democrats and Independents to change their party registration to Republican for this election in order to vote for Cheney, and figures released today by the Wyoming Secretary of State's office indicate that as many as 4,000 (10 percent of registered Democrats) may have done that.  Even so, that number appears to be far short of what Rep. Cheney would need in order to prevail over Hageman.

The political speculation seems to be that Liz Cheney has resigned herself to defeat in today's race, and that she will use her new found cross-party appeal to pivot into a different political trajectory.  There is talk that after the January 6th hearings conclude, Cheney may choose to get into the 2024 presidential race with the specific aim of shooting down any Trump effort to regain the power of the presidency - sort of a Kamikaze Liz!

Donald Trump seems to be on the verge of ending Liz Cheney's career in Congress, and she is seems to be intent on returning the favor.

And somewhere someone is popping piles and piles of popcorn!

Bring it on!

More Adventures in Mowing

 

by Pa Rock

Lawn Ornament

I know that I write about mowing my yard too much in this blog, but when something defines your life the way that mowing does mine, it becomes a difficult subject to avoid.   During a normal mowing season I usually cut the grass at least fourteen times between April and November, usually at about two week intervals.  A normal mowing takes around six hours spread out over two days.
 
This summer, with the drought, things have been different.  I had last mowed on June 18-19, after the drought had begun to set in – and then I was able to take a long hiatus from mowing.  Of course, during that t time I carried a ton of water to the plants in the yard, flowers in pots, things like begonias, marigolds and coleuses, as well as rose bushes and young trees.  I’m happy to report that all of the outdoor flowers, bushes, and trees survived the awful dry spell and are still blooming sprightly and brightly.
 
We finally had some rain a couple of weeks ago, quite a bit actually, and the grass began to green and grow.  I put off mowing for several days out of laziness, and then started to get ready to get back on the Dixie Chopper, my 54-inch, zero-turn-radius, miracle mowing machine.  But then we had a couple of showers and one 5” rainstorm, and for about a week or so we were under the threat of even more rain, though none developed, but I used those forecasts to put off the inevitable for just a few more days.
 
During those few days the grass really grew – and by the time I finally did get on the mower after a fifty-three break in mowing, parts of my yard had tall, wavy grass that was almost impenetrable.  Quite a bit of it was taller than the front bumper of my riding mower.  The six-hour mowing took eight-and-a-half hours to complete!
 
But I persisted and ultimately prevailed.  The mower choked out several times on the tall grass, and I soon learned a routine for getting it restarted quickly.  Now the area that I mow (six acres) looks much nicer, but there are many “lumps” of cut grass lying around that did not get completely digested by the mower, and I will probably be back at it sooner rather than later.
 
I did see some interesting wildlife during this mowing.  One surprisingly skinny toad hopped out in front of the mower, and I stopped and waited until he moved on.   A young bullfrog crossed my path up near the pond, but he was much more agile and quicker than the toad - and did not require a stop in the mowing.  (During the last mowing I had encountered a very large bullfrog sitting by the pond, but he seemed to be in charge and did not move or get flustered when I mowed close to him on two separate sweeps.)
 
A couple of years ago the pond was empty, but then we did some work on it and now it collects water and normally holds a good amount – except when a major drought happens.  This pond has an abundance of bullfrogs, and I am not sure why since neither my son nor myself brought in any frogs or tadpoles.  But they are here.   Nick says that frogs will find a pond, regardless of how far they have to travel, but I have also heard stories that frogs sometime come down with the rain.
 
Who knows?  Perhaps Ranger Bob does.
 
I also encountered three small furries in three different locations during the mowing.  They looked somewhat like field mice, but were a little larger and thicker, with thicker coats.  They were too small to be rats, and did not necessarily look like rats, anyway -  nor were they moles.  (As a lad I actually captured several moles with my bare hands, and I know exactly what they look like!)
 
So, after a bit of on-line research I believe that my three close encounters were with voles.  These looked like those that I found pictured on the internet, and the article accompanying the photos said they can be found across the United States and like areas with tall, wavy grass – and boy was my grass tall and wavy a few days ago!

Out in one of the hard areas of the yard that gets no shade, I also came across a solitary large red ant who seemed to be in too much of a hurry to stop and study me.  He was about three-quarters of an inch long with orange and black stripes, and his body appeared to be covered with a velvety type of texture.  Ants have always fascinated me, and I took a break for a few moments to watch this one as he hurried along.  (Years ago I was at a site of Mayan ruins in the jungles of Guatemala when I came across a trail of busy ants that must have extended at least a couple of miles in length.  Some other yankee tourists and I spent more time watching them march through the jungle that we die poking through the Mayan ruins.)
 
I think that it would probably be worthwhile to purchase a sidecar for my mower and take Ranger Bob along the next time I spend six or eight hours exploring my yard.  He could identify and chart the creatures that I stir up.
 
Mowing is such an adventure!

Missouri Legislature Fights Education

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In its never-ending quest to keep Missouri school children from getting an education, the Missouri Legislature has passed a statute which takes effect August 28th and presents one more hurdle to keep teachers from actually being able to teach.  The law, which is part of a broader bill that was intended to create a sexual assault survivor's bill of rights, has a secondary aim of keeping some books beyond the reach of students.

The bill mandates that schools pull books that have explicit sexual content from their curriculums and library shelves.  It defines explicit sexual material as any depiction of sex acts or genitalia, with exceptions for artistic or scientific significance.  It applies to images found in books or magazines in the school's library as well as to images found on any internet site to which students have been directed.

Providing students with anything outlined as prohibited in the law will be considered a Class A misdemeanor and will will have a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

One lawyer in the St. Louis area who works at a firm representing multiple school districts, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the new legislation does not apply to the written word, but many districts are not taking any chances and have already pulled books that are routinely challenged from their shelves.

Some conservative parent groups are posting information on-line about how to file police reports regarding objectionable books - and those same groups are providing lists of books which they find objectionable.  A conservative Missouri legislator has been quoted in the press as saying that school districts were "grooming students to be sex addicts" by making certain books available.

Last February two students from Wentzville, Missouri, went to court demanding that some withdrawn books be returned to their library shelves.  Included in their list was Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye."  The students, who were represented in court by the ACLU of Missouri, were successful in their challenge.

Right now, as Missouri schools prepare to open for the 2022-2023 school year, confusion reigns in the school libraries.  Some of the confusion will be sorted as the year progresses, but unless there is a drastic change in the make-up of the state legislature, the forces of darkness and ignorance seem likely to prevail over education in Missouri for the immediate future - and the situation will keep becoming more dire.

Fortunately for those young people who are determined to learn, the internet is just a click away on their phones - and so are the world's largest book-lenders and book-sellers.  Being a ruthless censor is no longer an easy task.  Today when you forbid a kid from reading a certain book, he can be halfway though the first chapter before you are done talking!

And that's a good thing!

Trump Takes the Fifth - Again, and Again, and Again!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

New York Attorney General Leticia James has been conducting a civil investigation into the practices and dealings of Donald Trump's business enterprises for nearly a year.  Trump had been able to avoid testifying directly in the matter until this past Wednesday when he finally was cornered into sitting for a deposition with James and her team of attorneys.    Well, he sat, but the only information that Trump shared with the lawyers was his name.

Trump chose to plead the Fifth Amendment rather than help to shine any light on his business practices, practices which the state's attorneys say helped to mislead taxing agencies and lending institutions and served to benefit Trump and members of his family financially.  Trump, who had taken potshots at Hillary Clinton after some of her staff members took the Fifth when questioned about office emails, famously said that "The mob takes the Fifth," and, "If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"

Last Wednesday Donald Trump verbally declared that he was taking the Fifth Amendment a total of four-hundred-and-forty times while responding to questions from attorneys in the case.  (Yup, somebody was counting!)   And while that may seem like a lot, or even legal overkill, he was outdone by his son, Eric, who pleaded the Fifth in the same case more than five hundred times!

Donald John Trump may not have much respect for the United States Constitution when it comes to trivial matters like the peaceful transfer of power from one presidential administration to another, but when that same document can be used to give cover to corrupt business practices, Trump will stand tall and salute it!

Armed Terrorist Attacks FBI Cincinnati Field Office

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

An armed domestic terrorist who tried and failed to force his way into the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, yesterday, was shot and killed by police in an Ohio cornfield several hours after the failed attack.

Police report that Ricky Shiffer, 42, of Columbus, Ohio, tried unsuccessfully to force his way into the FBI Cincinnati offices yesterday morning.  Shiffer was reportedly armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle as well as a nail gun.  A social media posting on Donald Trump's "Truth Social" later in the morning by what appears to be Shiffer admitted that he had stormed the FBI offices and that he "thought" he had a way to breach the agency's bulletproof glass, but that his idea had failed.  (Nail gun?)

Some news reports indicated that Mr. Shiffer had been a member of the "Proud Boys" and that he had been at a rally outside of the Capitol on January 5th, 2021.  There are also reports that he had been a financial donor to Donald Trump.  It is also believed, based on social media postings that apparently came from him, that Shiffer acted against the FBI in retaliation to the FBI search of Trump's home in Florida earlier this week.

After the failed attempt to breach the FBI offices, Ricky Shiffer fled northward into Ohio in his Ford Crown Victoria.  He was spotted at a rest stop on an interstate highway, and then took off again.  Police report that he fired his weapon inside of his car as he fled.  Eventually he was forced off of the road and into a cornfield.  Shiffer took cover behind his car for several hours, and police used that time to try to take him alive, but when he eventually raised his gun to resume firing, they took him out.

Republican Party leadership and several members of Congress who had been almost rabid in their response to the FBI search of Trump's home have quieted down considerably since yesterday's attack on the FBI by a domestic terrorist.

Here is a tweet posted by Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar in response to the FBI seizing of a Republican congressman's cell phone after the Mar-a-Lago search.   The tweet, which was posted at 6:16 p.m. on August 9th, is fairly representative of the anti-FBI vitriol that was coming from right-wing politicians:

"The FBI has reportedly seized the cellphone of House Freedom Caucus Chair, Scott Perry.  Our country is becoming unrecognizable.  

The FBI, and the Regime they take marching orders from, are the enemy of the American People.  They must be stopped.

DEFUND THE FBI"

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has also called for the FBI to be defunded.

Extremist rhetoric has consequences because it is often heard and acted upon by deeply disturbed individuals who have access to guns.  The FBI, our nation's premier law enforcement agency, safeguards democracy, protects our national intelligence including nuclear strategies and capabilities, enforces our laws, and protects us - all of us - including ungrateful members of Congress.

The men and women of the Federal Bureau of Investigation deserve our support and respect.  Anything less weakens us as a nation.

Missouri Prepares to Light Up

 

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican and scion to the most pious political family in the history of the state, yesterday announced that voters in the "show me" state would have the opportunity to vote on a ballot initiative in this November's general election that would amend the state's constitution to legalize marijuana for recreational use.  

As reported in this space two days ago, there are currently nineteen states where the sales, possession, and use of marijuana for recreational purposes are legal to some degree or another, and some states where citizens are even allowed to grow their own.  I neglected to mention in that piece that there are also thirty-seven states where the prescribed use of marijuana for medical treatment is also legal - and Missouri is one of those states.

Ashcroft, who was probably uncomfortable even having to say the word "marijuana," stated that 171,592 valid signatures of registered voters were necessary to get the measure on the ballot, and in May backers of the measure had turned in 385,000 signatures.

(Hey Jay Bob, why don't to you round that number up to 385,001 - because nobody asked me to sign,  and I certainly support it!)

Two other states, Maryland and South Dakota, will also be voting on measures to legalize marijuana in November.  Maryland voters will have the opportunity to amend their state's constitution to make the recreational use of pot legal, and voters in South Dakota will vote on enacting a law that will also make possession and use legal.  South Dakota voters have passed their law once already, but Republican Governor Kristi Noem went to court to challenge the constitutionality of citizen-passed initiative on  technicalities and the state's Supreme Court ruled for the state and against the people.  Now those technical difficulties have undoubtedly been addressed and resolved.

According to the internet news site, Ballotpedia, the Missouri amendment would legalize recreational marijuana for adults over the age of twenty-one.  It would also:

" . . . allow the personal cultivation of marijuana with prescribed limits and regulations and would impose a six-percent tax on the retail price of marijuana.  It would also allow people with a record of certain marijuana-related non-violent offenses to petition for release from incarceration or parole and probation and to have their records expunged.  It would also establish a lottery selection process to award licenses and certificates for cultivation and sale and distribute licenses within each congressional district."

Supporters of the ballot initiative to amend the Missouri state constitution to legalize recreational marijuana include the ACLU of Missouri, the NAACP of St. Louis, NORML of Kansas City, and Pa Rock of West Plains.

The times they are a-changin' - and it's about damned time!

Remember Kansas!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Last week, several days before the FBI visited Mar-a-Lago, the Republican Party was frantically trying to focus the American public on some topic other than abortion.  On Tuesday, August 2nd, more than sixty percent of voting Kansans had defeated a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have made it easier for Kansas politicians to curtail or outlaw abortion services - and because Kansas is generally a reliably red state, the defeat of the amendment was seen as a harbinger of bad news for the anti-abortion movement and its cheerleaders, the Republican Party.

The national GOP wanted to change the topic of conversation - badly - and before the week was out the party hierarchy coughed up one of its more reliable boogeymen, the Internal Revenue Service.  New government funding was going to allow the hugely understaffed agency to hire 87,000 new field agents to help process claims and ferret out fraud.

The Republican Party falsely claimed that the new agents would be focused on terrorizing middle class taxpayers, and they set their office holders and friends in the right-wing media to singing that tune.  And while those claims were quickly denied by the head of the IRS as not based in fact, one very real aim of the revitalized agency was being publicly ignored:  to go after wealthy tax cheats and large corporations that under-paid or didn't pay their taxes.   More agents would also allow for better monitoring of the activities of organizations claiming tax exemptions due to religious or charitable functions.

In other words, more IRS agents were a legitimate concern to the Republican Party because they would be problematic for the GOP's big corporate donors and political groups based in religious organizations - but they would pose no threat at all to honest, hard-working taxpayers.

It was just stuff to rile up the base and get the focus off of abortion.

Then the FBI (which is headed by a Republican appointed by Trump) got a search warrant (from a Republican judge appointed by Trump) and headed to Mar-a-Lago, and the narrative changed again.  And later today the "victim" of Mar-a-Lago will be dealt one more victim card when he flies off to New York and is deposed in a civil investigation that is looking into his financial dealings of his business operations, a deposition that he has been actively avoiding for months - and another news cycle will kick into gear.

I've got a Speed Queen washer that doesn't cycle that fast!

November is coming.  Forget the noise and remember Kansas!

The FBI Did Its Job

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday morning agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed up at Donald Trump's home and resort, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, search warrant-in-hand.   News of the raid was made public through a press release from Trump that evening, a lengthy diatribe in which he tried to paint the raid as a political attack whose aim was to derail his self-ballyhooed political comeback.

Although the reason for the FBI's unannounced search of Trump's Florida residence remains unclear, some reports indicate that it is related to a cache of classified national security documents that were recovered from the property by the National Archives and Records Administration in February of this year.  At that time NARA reportedly removed fifteen boxes of sensitive documents that were the rightful property of the United States government.

Trump, who traditionally spends August at his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, was not at his Florida home during the FBI raid, but he was reportedly kept abreast of the situation by his son, Eric, who was at Mar-a-Lago during the government search of the property.  By yesterday evening a statement had been drafted in which Daddy Trump vented his displeasure at the government incursion into one of his sanctuaries - including a complaint that the FBI agent had even broken into his safe.

In his public statement Donald Trump complained that the raid was:

" . . . prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024 . . . "

(Note:  The Federal Bureau of Investigation is headed by Christopher Wray, a man who was appointed to that position by Donald Trump.)

From there the statement drifted toward general incoherence and even included a couple of attacks on Hillary Clinton, one of which accused her of stealing antiques from the White House.  Clearly Trump had been rattled by what he saw as a violation of his privacy, and he was making an attempt to turn a law enforcement matter into something that could benefit him politically - and maybe settle a few old scores in the process.

Through it all the Federal Bureau of Investigation remained composed and silent.  The agency undoubtedly had enough evidence to  convince some very important people in the Justice Department of the need for a search of the Trump property - and it was able to show enough probable cause to convince a federal judge to sign off on a warrant to search the personal abode of a former President of the United States.    

It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment operation, or a political dirty-trick, or a witch-hunt.  The FBI raid on the Palm Beach home of Donald Trump was a part of a carefully planned and executed law enforcement operation by our nation's premier law enforcement agency, one that has undoubtedly been in the works for many months.   It was good police work on steroids.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation did its job!

Red States Put Themselves at Risk

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

There have been a couple of related stories in the news in recent days. One deals with medicine and the other commerce, and both basically predict that red states in America, and particularly those which have banned access to abortion, are going to suffer unintended repercussions for their political maneuverings to deny healthcare choices to women and to criminalize medical care provided by licensed physicians. 

Yahoo News reported on a couple of medical recruiting agencies that are already having difficulty finding physicians willing to relocate to states where stringent anti-abortion laws have recently been enacted - particularly physicians specializing in ob-gyn care, but also in other specialties as well.  Not only that, but medical students are looking for other states in which to do their residency training, and other medical students who had intended to practice medicine in their home states have also begun looking at other states in which they could set up their practices.  Retention of doctors who are already practicing also appears to be a looming problem in some states where abortion has been banned.

The Indiana legislature enacted an abortion ban this week and the state's governor quickly signed the legislation, perhaps hoping that a hurried completion of the process would limit time for a backlash.  But pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly found the time to issue a reaction anyway.  Lilly, which is headquartered in Indianapolis - and has been for over 140 years, says that it is going to start spending more of its revenues outside of Indiana.  As the company begins focusing beyond the borders of its home state, funding for production and innovation will follow, and so will the highly skilled and trained employees necessary to fill the jobs that have expanded into other locations - including international sites.   It will be a net brain drain and economic drain for Indiana, and likely for the United States as well.

Other corporations are also likely to find it difficult to attract young, dynamic, educated individuals to fill jobs in what many see as educational and cultural backwaters - places where politicians and sanctimonious moral arbiters seek to control an ever-expanding list of public services from healthcare to library offerings to which aspects of history may - or may not - be taught in schools.

As the doctors and members of the highly skilled labor force go elsewhere, the counter-balance to a restrictive society is lessened and things get worse.  It's a vicious cycle, one that was set in motion by one segment of society trying to impose its morals on everyone else, and in the end it harms the health and prosperity of the people it had intended to serve.

It's one thing to deliberately slow social and economic progress, but it is quite another to shift the whole process into reverse.   Judges and legislators are not only tinkering with our long-established rights, they are also threatening the very survival of our nation.

It is time for voters to come to the rescue - like they did in Kansas!

Recreational Marijuana Is on the March

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

(Note:  Most of the information that follows was taken from the article "Where is Marijuana Legal?  A Guide to Marijuana Legalization." by Claire Hansen, Horus Alas, and Elliott Davis, Jr. which appeared in the July 27, 2022, issue of  U.S. News and World Report.)

The United States federal government regards marijuana as an illegal substance with no legitimate medical use and a high potential for misuse.  However, over the past several decades the popularity and open use of marijuana, which the feds classify as a Schedule 1 Drug under the Controlled Substances Act, has become significantly more widespread in the United States, and seems to be openly pitting the will of the people against what many consider to be an outdated incursion by government into civil society.

A tenuous situation between some local jurisdictions, state governments, and the federal government over how to respond to legal infractions regarding the use of the increasingly popular illegal weed began being played out over the last couple of decades in the courts of public opinion as well as those aligned with political jurisdictions.

Then, in November of 2012, voters in the states of Colorado and Washington stepped into the ever-widening breach between the people and the national government over the issue of marijuana, and passed laws which flew directly in the face of federal statutes.  

Voters in Colorado approved a measure in November of 2012 which said that adults in Colorado over the age of 21 could possess and give away up to an ounce of marijuana, and grow up to a total of six plants each - with residences being limited to twelve plants regardless of how many people reside there.  Using marijuana in public remained illegal.  A tax structure was also implemented to impact sales at all state-licensed dispensaries.

Voters in Washington passed legislation which said that adults in that state who were over the age of 21 could buy and possess up to an ounce of marijuana, 16 ounces of marijuana-infused edibles in solid form, 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquid products, and seven grams of marijuana concentrate.  It remained illegal to use marijuana in public or for Washingtonians to grow marijuana plants at home.  Sales at government-licensed dispensaries were taxed by the state.

The following year, in 2013, the US Justice Department responded to the new marijuana laws in Colorado and Washington, as well as to the ever-increasing public pressure to decriminalize use of the plant.  In the Cole Memorandum the Justice Department backed away from the issue by saying that it would not challenge state's legalization laws at that time, and that it expected the states to have robust enforcement actions of their own.

The possession, distribution, and use of marijuana remained illegal at the federal level, but the feds would not actively interfere with new state laws that ran contrary to the federal laws regarding marijuana.  The door had been kicked open, and the federal government was declining to push it closed.  

Jeff Sessions, a former US Senator from Alabama who was Trump's first US Attorney General, rescinded the Cole Memo in 2018, but the US Justice Department has nevertheless stood clear of pursuing marijuana  "crimes" unless they involved bigger issues like organized crime or arms trafficking.  

After the United States government effectively withdrew itself from marijuana enforcement, other states have rushed to join the ranks of Colorado and Washington by making the substance legal to some degree or another.  Currently 19 states, the District of Columbia, and the US Territory of Guam have some form of legalized marijuana, with most being in the American West and the Northeast, and the fewest being in the South - the states of the old Confederacy. 

The states where the use of recreational marijuana is legal include:  Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Alaska, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Maine, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.  It was also made briefly legal by a vote of the people in South Dakota, but that state's governor, Kristi Noem, went to court to fight the measure and the state Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional and therefore not valid.

The use and possession of marijuana has been decriminalized in several other states, a status which generally means that a conviction will not result in jail time.  In many of those states it has also been approved for medical use.

Overall the laws regarding the use of marijuana are changing because public attitudes are changing.   According to polling by the Gallup organization, 12% of the US population supported legalization of marijuana in 1969, 31% favored it in 2000, and over half of Americans surveyed favored legalization of recreational marijuana in 2013.  Support is strongest among those under the age of thirty,  but nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 50-64 also support legalization.

Public support for the legalization of recreational marijuana is growing at a fast rate, and while the United States government has been slow to bring its statutes alongside the will of the people, it has nevertheless wisely opted not to get in the way.

Eventually the will of the people will wend its way into the halls of Congress and national legislation will begin to more closely resemble that of the states.  Maybe then we can begin using our jails and prisons to house real criminals and leave the more non-conformist among us to contemplate their navels and bake brownies.

But until then, know your state's statutes and be careful!