What Does Rex Sinquefield Gain By Messing With Kansas City?

So once again, rich, billionaire, St. Louisan Rex Sinquefield tries yet one more time to have Kansas Cititans vote on and, for him, hopefully do away with our 1% city tax.

Here's a guy who's from St. Louis, for pity's sake and a billionaire but he wants to mess with this city across the state, a city he doesn't even live in---and he's already wealthy---yet he has to mess with Kansas City and Kansas Citians and their taxes.

What is his gain in this?

Why doesn't he leave us alone? Why doesn't he leave us all alone?

Is this not one of the best, if not the best example of a wealthy person trying to have his way with the rest of the state, with the middle-, lower- and working-classes, if not the rest of the nation?

Trying to buy the state's next governor  with Catherine Hanaway and the next Lt. Governor as he's been trying to do, I understand. It's still  wrong and deeply so but that I understand.

What he gets,real or imagined, from draining Kansas City's tax coffers, thatI don't get.

Missouri Figures Prominently In First Supreme Court Deadlock

So the first voting deadlock since Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death from the now 8-member US Supreme Court comes straight out of a case that began right here in Missouri:

Supreme Court hits first post-Scalia deadlock in bankruptcy case

WASHINGTON -- The risk created by last month's death of Justice Antonin Scalia became a reality Tuesday when the Supreme Court deadlocked in a bankruptcy case that had been pending since the first day of the term last October.

Chief Justice John Roberts read the one-sentence verdict, which could be repeated many times before a replacement for Scalia overcomes a similar deadlock between President Obama and Senate Republicans: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court."

The case was one of the high court's least noticed -- a bankruptcy dispute between a Missouri bank and a development company that defaulted on its loans. The company was owned by two couples, and the wives filed suit, claiming discrimination for being required to guarantee their spouses' loans.

The justices clearly were divided in the case, as evidenced by the length of time it took to issue a decision. By the time Scalia died Feb. 13, the case had been under review for more than four months -- an indication of a close decision with one or more dissents.

Left without Scalia's vote, the justices had to ditch all the opinions, concurrences and dissents they may have been writing and, in essence, throw up their hands.

As a result, the Community Bank of Raymore emerges victorious over the two wives, Valerie Hawkins and Janice Patterson, by virtue of the earlier decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

Here's hoping our Congress will, very soon, interview and discuss President Obama's nomination for the Court and have a vote on it.

Hey, we can hope.

On Those Kansas', Republican Tax Cuts

Seth Myers gets it right on Kansas' Republican tax cuts and the wider implications for possible our national, fiscal  future, given what Republican candidates for the presidency are still proposing.

On Brussels

I am personally sick to death of people who think somehow that blowing up other civilians, strangers advances their cause. It's beyond disgusting.

The bad thing is that they killed and hurt lots of innocents.

The good thing is that they did it with suicide vests.

Spring is Here

On These Coming Summer Olympics?

I wrote earlier about this year's coming Summer Olympics:

This Year's Coming Summer Olympics

Between their pollution and the Zika virus, I felt sure these Olympics will quite possibly be the least attended in years.

Now, on top of all those problems and controversies, it seems they aren't done there, they've had to add to it. This news broke this week, internationally:

Brazil corruption: Is the government in crisis?

It seems there's been a great deal of corruption, from the previous Presidente to the current one. And the current one was trying, this week, to give that previous one, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, cover and protection by making him a defacto member of her government so he wouldn't be prosecuted.

I tell you, I have to think the International Olympic Committee is nothing but regretting giving Brazil these Olympics.  I stand by what I said earlier, the closer we get to these Summer Olympics, the more it looks like they will be under attended and possibly greatly so.

Stay tuned.

Kansas City on the Zika List

An article came out this past week listing 50 cities in America that may well become exposed to the Zika virus and guess who's on it?

Potential Zika virus risk estimated 

for 50 U.S. cities

Not paranoia, just awareness, folks.

Have a great weekend.

Entertainment Overnight -- For St. Pat's

Danny Boy

Sexist, Republican Missouri Representative

Breaking news today tells of a certain Republican legislator from Missouri who, besides being deep in the pockets of the banking industry, is also a rabid sexist and misogynist. Here's his latest:

Congressman calls on bankers to ‘neuter’ Elizabeth Warren — the ‘Darth Vader’ of Wall Street

Blaine Luetkemeyer is part of a group of lawmakers identified by the Center for Public Integrity as 'especially solicitous to the banking industry.'

Luetkemeyer, who made the remarks at a meeting of the American Bankers Association, is part of a group of lawmakers identified by the Center for Public Integrity as "especially solicitous to the banking industry," Slate noted in 2014. He has raised significant campaign funds from the the finance, insurance, and real estate sector, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

So congratulations, Missouri. Once again, your elected Republican legislator embarrasses himself---and the entire state.

Entertainment Overnight -- Classical Guitar

I was fortunate enough to go to high school with this classical guitarist. He lived, in fact, only about 2 blocks from our own house. He, Anthony Glise, of St. Joseph, has long since gone on to produce and perform untold numbers of pieces of classical guitar music and write his own, as well. He's traveled and performed here in Kansas City as well as across Europe.

I hope you enjoy.



Link to his Facebook page here:  Anthony Glise

Republicans? "Small Government"?

Kansas Republicans in general but Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback, too, more specifically, keep proving, time and again, that Republicans in Kansas and really, across the nation, are no more into "small government" than birds are into concrete. We got further proof just this week:

Kansas conservatives advance bill 

on impeachment of judges

It seems "conservative" Republicans in that state don't like that the judges in their area are independently selected and placed. Enough of that none political nonsense, they think it should be done by political parties and partisan government representatives, instead. This in spite the fact that the current system has served Kansans very well the last several decades, at least.

To top it off, those same Kansas, conservative (and I use the term loosely, very loosely), "small government" Republicans also tried last week to have the governor, of all people, take over the distribution of the education budget. Check this little beauty out:

Kansas senator cancels hearing on control-of-school-finance bill

It's not enough Governor Brownback and all the Republicans in Topeka slashed taxes for the already-wealthy and for corporations, thereby putting the state in a downward spiral of tax revenue so they're in the red and had to slash their education budget:

Gov. Sam Brownback cuts higher education as Kansas tax receipts fall $53 million short

Now they want to hand over the reins of the state education budget to the Guv and make the court judge's appointments political ones, instead. Independent judiciary, be damned.

It seems there's nothing those people in the Kansas statehouse don't want to get their hands on.

Small government, my *ss.

On This Day, 1965

Jon S. Randal (from FB)
March 9, 2014 ·

He was a white minister. Some said he didn't have to go, he had a good life in Boston, he had a loving wife and four loving children. But, he was horrifed at the brutality he saw happening in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, as what is now called "Bloody Sunday." So, when Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. issued a nationwide call to the clergy, urging representatives of all denominations and faiths to journey to Alabama and stand with African Americans there for the cause of voting rights, social justice, and equality, James Reeb answered the call. Believing that to do nothing in the face of injustice is as wrong as to condone it, Reeb knew he had to go.

Those of you who know your history know what happened and know what occurred on "Bloody Sunday."  On March 9, at an integrated restaurant in Alabama, Reeb and two other ministers were confronted by several white men brandishing clubs and shouting racial slurs. One man slammed his club into Reeb’s head, knocking him to the ground. Several hours elapsed before Reeb was admitted to a Birmingham hospital where doctors performed brain surgery. He never recovered, and he died on March 11, 1965.

His murder spawned national outrage. President Lyndon B. Johnson called Reeb’s widow and father to express his condolences, and on March 15, he invoked Reeb’s memory when he delivered a draft of the Voting Rights Act to Congress. That same day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eulogized Reeb at a ceremony at Brown’s Chapel in Selma:

"James Reeb, symbolizes the forces of good will in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers."

The last phone call Reeb made was to his wife at the restaurant before he was beaten. His wife would later say that Reeb believed in the aims of the civil rights movement, almost nothing could have stopped her husband from going to Selma, though he knew the risks associated with doing so.

James Reeb, January 1, 1927 – March 11, 1965

Entertainment Overnight -- Sweet Dreams

Indeed, sweet dreams on this, the anniversary of Patsy Cline's untimely death.

There was a local connection, too.

Patsy Cline: March 5 Marks 53rd Anniversary of Country Singer's Death

She died in a plane crash, along with Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas, on March 5, 1963. The musicians were returning to Nashville, Tenn., following a benefit concert in our own Kansas City, Kansas.

Decision 2016, In the Can

It's all over but the crying.

The Big Difference Between the Two Political Parties' Presidential Candidates

The big difference between the two political parties' presidential candidates is that two of them are discussing America's and American's problems and possible solutions.

The 3 candidates from the other political party are discussing the big ears of one, the stupidity of another, which one might be gay, one another and the like.

Oh, and Donald Trump just got some endorsements, yesterday, from some NASCAR drivers. That's got to mean a lot.

Right?