Opinion

Body Josh Hawley, Missouri’s firstterm junior U.S. senator, works overtime to try to make himself sound like a big deal.

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 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 It has been almost 50 years since the original Missouri Sunshine Law was adopted by Missouri.

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 Missouri Department of Transportation policies, at least as evidenced in Ray County, are far less friendly toward the military and veterans than promised in a state where former Gov. Jay Nixon, present Gov. Mike Parson and other political leaders seek to present a friendly face.

Body I took out the trash Nov. 30.