Opinion

Eight days of rafting down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon with my daughter promised to be an exceptional experience. Introducing myself to a fellow voyager, a Texan, I joked that surely Texas wasn’t really planning to secede, because it would be a pain to have to obtain a visa to visit Austin.

As we look at the pictures from Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, New York;. and other mass shooting sites, we’re having agonized conversations.

Your editorial of 13 May, 2022, regarding my client Jacqueline Peterson demands that charges be filed in the shooting of her abusive husband. It reminds me of a film in which the supporting characters wail that they must do something. The lead character reminds them that, no, they must do the right thing.

For 33 years, my organization has been sounding the alarm about the declining fortunes of young adults. The words of the 1988 Forgotten Half report are eerie today: “One of the cruelest myths of contemporary American life is the claim that our economy is healthy because unemployment is relatively low.”

Thoughts and prayers are the least that should be provided following the latest among dozens of mass shootings across this nation during the past 20 years. Unfortunately, the least is the entirety of what will be offered by the pro-gun lobby and their lackeys in Congress after the massacre May 23 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, population 1,600.

I said hello four years ago this month as editor of the Richmond News and Excelsior Springs Standard. Now, I say good-bye.

Legalizing the recreational use of marijuana appears likely to get on the Missouri ballot in November, and from there, seems destined to become law. The prediction that the issue will reach voters is based on a claim by Legal Missouri 2022, the group pushing the ballot plan.

Change. Something that is completely natural, yet it can be dreaded.

Europe remembers the murders, destruction and subjugation of WWII, and history is now repeating itself in Ukraine. NATO countries have to vastly increase their militaries, both defensively and offensively, to thwart Russia. Tactical nuclear missile systems should be deployed within NATO countries. The addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO will give it a strategic presence in the north.

At some point, others who recall the lost world of real conservativism – people who, like me, campaigned and voted for Ronald Reagan, and who cheered George H.W. Bush’s work to create a “kinder and gentler” nation – need to look U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley in the eye, and themselves in the heart, based on this reality: