Opinion

Body From its beginning in 1918, Russian Communists led by Lenin and then Stalin sought to control populations by intimidation, brutality and death. Lenin murdered 6 million people and Stalin three times as many.

Body I hear a lot on TV about rising gas prices and have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, Missouri has some of the lowest gasoline taxes in the United States, so that saves me money.

Body Our Missouri legislators really do not seem to care for the poor or the will of the people. We the people voted to expand Medicaid to cover about 200,000 more poor Missourians.

Body The right to redress government is part of the U.S. Constitution and is practiced with vigor in Missouri, but some Republicans want to change that and are meeting opposition rightly from conservatives within their own party.

Body Missourians in 1973 could have felt secure that the then-newly approved state Sunshine Law made public records and meetings easy to access, but today’s lawmakers often bare their hairy assertions of ignorance, if not outright contempt for the Sunshine Law.

Body Proposed bill would gut Mo. Sunshine Law It has been almost 50 years since the original Missouri Sunshine Law was adopted by Missouri.

Body George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are two of the greatest men this nation has produced. Both had flaws, too. Scratching the surface, Washington had faults as a military tactician and Jefferson in dealing with trade.

Body There is no reason to doubt that U.S. Rep. Sam Graves and the rest of the House will agree to already unanimously accepted Senate legislation, sponsored by Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, to award the U.S. Army Ranger veterans of World War II the Congressional Gold Medal.

Body Complex issues require hard work to solve, making them too difficult to use to win political campaigns, so politicians fall back on the tried-and-true practice of faking problems, blowing them out of proportion and then offering solutions to those phantom problems.

Body I took out the trash Nov. 30.