Multi-millionaire political financier Rex Sinquefield has told an audience at Lindenwood College that the Ku Klux Klan designed the public school system to ruin the lives of African-American children.

Sinquefield is known for spending millions of dollars supporting candidates and backing petition drives attacking teacher tenure and advocating elimination of the income tax.

Listen closely—the recording was made with a cell phone camera.

[                                                  AUDIO: Sinquefield :33

Ralph Voss’ newspaper column in the Linn Unterrified Democrat was published April 11, 2007, was a satirical commentary on the condition of the American education system and clearly says, “The Klan had nothing to do with it.” (see below)

Sinquefield has issued a statement apologizing for what he calls “an ill-timed, inappropriate reference.”

“I apologize for my reference to a quote from Ralph Voss of the Unterrified Democrat. The public discourse on these issues is too critical for an ill-timed, inappropriate reference. It is my sincere hope that this does not distract us from the important mission of helping all children access a high-quality education.”

The statement does not admit that he mis-stated the content of the editorial or that he was wrong in his history of American education.

                                                                                                                                ———————

Ralph Voss sent us a copy of the column. Here is the part that concerned education:

For the Record

By Ralph Voss

In early 1962 the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan was really out of sorts. Ever since the Civil War the Klan had been trying to control blacks, and up to that time had been relatively successful. But times were changing and the country was no longer in the mood for blacks to remain as second class citizens. The grand dragon didn’t know where to turn, so he called a meeting of some 10 leaders from throughout the country and someone suggested scraping up all the money they had and hiring one of those Washington think tanks to come up with a plan.

So the grand dragon and his cohorts traveled to Washington D.C. and walked into the office of a think tank with two shopping bags full of $100 bills and explained their dilemma. The think tank manager was hesitant at first, but he saw the bags of money and decided that maybe they could help after all.

“This will take a little time,” the manager advised. “Come back in two weeks and we will have a plan for you,” he said. “The plan will be presented to you orally; we are not willing to put it in writing.” The two Klanners agreed to this, turned over the money and departed.

In two weeks the Klanners went back and the think tank people presented their plan. “You need to place liberals in charge of the public schools,” the think tank folks explained. “The liberals will hurt the public schools in every state, but their policies will simply devastate the big city public schools that the blacks and poor whites attend. The big city schools will get so bad they will lose their accreditation and the dropout rates at those schools will just be unbelievable. Liberal judges will take money that should be going to schools outside the big cities and pour that into the big city schools, but it won’t help because of all the corruption. The extra taxes ordered into effect by the liberal judges won’t help either. The big city schools will continue their downhill slide and finally realism will set in and the blacks and poor whites will ask for vouchers so they can send their kids to the same schools the politicians, trial lawyers, big city school teachers and big city newspaper folks send their kids. The request of these blacks and poor whites for equal treatment for their children will go unheeded for 45 or 50 years, but by then some conservative Republicans will be pointing out the hypocrisy of the liberal position and the people with kids in these inner city schools are going to become very restless and the demand for vouchers will become impossible to resist. But at least you will have bought yourselves 45 or 50 years. That’s the best we can do for you.”

The Klan members did not comment on the plan, but thanked the think tank people and left. When they got outside the grand dragon was ecstatic. He turned to his buddy and said, “Man, is that ever a plan. We sure got our money’s worth.”

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The unfortunate thing for Missouri and most other states is that the above plan was put into action. The Klan had nothing to do with it. But the fact remains liberals were placed in charge and the results are what we see unfolding in front of us. The public schools in St. Louis-with 32,000 students-are no longer accredited. Kansas City schools are about as bad. And remember, this is after the state of Missouri poured hundreds of millions of dollars into those schools. And do you recall U.S. District Judge Tom Clark in Kansas City ordering a tax increase on the people of Kansas City to pay for all kinds of ideas he thought were advisable. In St. Louis U.S. District Judge William Hungate did about the same thing, although he did not order the tax increase. The result was huge sums of money that should have gone to outstate school districts was instead shipped to the two metropolitan districts.

And how much good did it do? None. The schools in St. Louis and Kansas City are worse now than 30 years ago. Vouchers are the only answer. The residents of St. Louis and Kansas City need to be given the means to send their children to other schools, public or private. We need a voucher system. Without this the problem will only get worse and we will be taking more and more money away from other schools.

Liberal ideology is so sick and twisted the government will help a young girl terminate her pregnancy without the consent of her parents, but will not help a 30-year-old black couple send their kids to the same schools the liberals send their children.

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The above column appeared in the April 11, 2007, issue of the Unterrified Democrat, a weekly newspaper published since 1866 at Linn, Mo. The owners of the U.D. from 1866 to 1979 were conservative Democrats. Three liberal Democrats bought the paper in 1979, ran it into the ground and were forced to sell it. At that time it was purchased by the current owner, a Reagan Republican

                                   AUDIO: McCaskill :18

She notes the Corps budget includes $5 million for flood management and more than $70 million for habitat work on the Missouri River…

                                   AUDIO: McCaskill :13

But when she asked Bostick he thinks the disparity between flood management and habitat work, she didn’t get a satisfactory answer.

                                  AUDIO: Bostick & McCaskill :31

North east Missouri also is recovering from 2011 flooding, the most severe part of it affecting land behind the Bird’s Point Levee that was blasted open to relieve river threats to Cairo, Illinois. 

                                        AUDIO: McCaskill & Bostick :31

She says she need sto know from Bostick before she votes on his confirmation “that what the Army Corps blew up they will put back to the way it was before they blew it up.”  

 AUDIO: entire exchange 13:42

Decreasing state support for higher education is driving up on-campus costs for students. But Warrensburg Senator David Pearce hopes his bill makes it easier for people to start at the cheaper community colleges and more easily transfer to a four-year institution to finish up. 

The coordinating board for Higher Education will establish a special list of courses for all institutions that can be transferred to any two or four-year state college or university.

Pearce says that system will work in case of transfer—or reverse transfer in which students transfer from a four-year school to a community college where they can pick up an associate degree..

Pearce says most transfers between community colleges and four-year schools take place on a regional basis. But he says this plan will make the program more statewide.

He says that program will help students get their diplomas..and get jobs or move on to higher-division campuses. The list of core courses can go beyond 25 eventually. He says Oklahoma has developed 90 common courses that will transfer from community colleges to four-year schools.

The House has to approve the bill.

 AUDIO: Pearce Interview 4:50 approx

Cameras that catch people ignoring the stop lights at busy intersections are in several Missouri cities.  The jury is out on whether they make previously-dangerous intersections safer. Some state lawmakers question whether cities really are interested in safer intersections or just interested in getting more money from red light-running motorists.

Senator Will Kraus wants fines from red light cameras to go to local school districts. If cities really are installing the cameras for safety reasons, he says, they should not profit from them. 

But University City Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal sees nothing wrong with cities using the cameras to raise money…”There are certain expenses that you have, ” she notes. But she says most municipalities are pinched for money and the cameras help produce it.

Other opponents say schools would not really benefit because state law says state aid to districts is reduced by the amount of traffic fines that are earmarked for local districts.

Opponents have talked long enough to bring Kraus’ bill to a complete stop.

AUDIO: debate 54:33

If Senator John Lamping’s proposed constitutional amendment already were in effect, this year’s debates would end on March 23rd, not May 18th.  And the veto session would be in June, not in September. Supporters say shortening the sessions would save a lot of money.

His proposed amendment would give several days to properly edit and print final versions of the bills with April 6th the new adjournment date. 

We’ve looked at the last decade of legislative session. Lawmakers had met for 41 working days, on average, by the date Lamping would have the session end.  Sessions have averaged 72 days under the present law. Today will be the 19th debate day of this session.

The proposal does not decrease lawmakers’ salaries while cutting their days in debate by 43 percent.

Kehoe says the legislature needs to be thinking of things like this to finance rebuilding and maintaining 70 and other parts of the state system.

His plan would have the public-private partnership rebuild I-70 from the Interstate 64/Highway 40 intersection in eastern Missouri to Interstate 470 that goes around Kansas City.

Supporters say this approach would rebuild the highway in a much shorter time than the present financing system would allow. Critics say the tolls would be the equivalent of a three-dollar a gallon fuel tax increase and would hurt businesses along today’s highway

  AUDIO: Kehoe in senate 1:02

Bernie Federko, Alan Benes, Mattt Cassel, Aaron Crow and Danario Alexander join Governor Jay Nixon in announcing the Joplin Challenge. UPI Bill Greenblatt

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced the 2012 Governor’s Joplin Habitat Challenge. The goal, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, is to build 35 new homes in the Joplin this year and provide continued aid to the city’s recovery.

Speaking prior to the Mizzou-Kansas basketball game on Saturday, Governor Nixon was flanked by members of the St. Louis Blues, Cardinals, Rams, Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, Kansas Speedway and Missouri Tigers. The 35 homes will be divided into seven different neighborhoods, which each neighborhood assigned a sponsor among the seven teams. Players, coaches and members of each sports organization will visit the neighborhoods throughout the year to work alongside volunteers and professional builders.

Missourians can visit MO.gov to sign up to volunteer with the team of their choice in Joplin or contribute online. “I am proud that Missouri’s teams are leading the way and I encourage all Missourians to get involved,” said Nixon. “Together, we’ll directly tackle the issue of building 35 homes in Joplin and provide the resources for Habitat for Humanity to expand in the years to come.”

An EF-5 tornado hit Joplin on May 22, 2011 and destroyed more than 7,700 homes and thousands of Joplin residents continue to live in temporary housing.

Greg and Missey Smith call the bill "Kelsey Smith's law," for their daughter (pictured).

The language of House Bill 1108 has been introduced three previous times in Missouri, and has been passed out of the House but never out of the Senate. It would require companies to locate, or “ping” a cell phone, when law enforcement requests that information in emergencies in which a missing person is in danger of serious physical injury or death. It also protects cell phone companies from being sued for providing that information under the guidelines of the bill.

Missey Smith has advocated for the bill each time. “It’s time that this gets changed.”

Missey and her husband, Greg Smith, are proponents of the bill commonly named for their daughter Kelsey, who was kidnapped from Overland Park, Kansas and found murdered in southern Jackson County in 2007.

Greg, now a legislator in Kansas, says if such language had been law then Kelsey might have been saved. “June 2, 2007 was the night she went missing and she was found four days later … Once that information was released by the cell phone company it only took forty-five minutes to recover her body.” A former police officer, he adds, “If you can get that kind of response in a missing person case, that’s just absolutely light years ahead of what we’re doing right now.”

Missey says the bill changes one component of current law. “They may turn this information over already. So, they’ve already got all of this in place. The Kelsey Smith Act, or this legislation, states they will. That’s the difference. It goes from ‘may’ to ‘shall.’”

No one testified against the bill in the hearing of the House Committee on Utilities.

Learn more about the effort to remember Kelsey, and pass the law named for her.

Missey says it is frustrating the bill has not become law yet, and its sponsor agrees.

This is the first year Representative Jeanie Lauer (R-Blue Springs) has carried the language. “We have history and tracking that shows that this legislation is great, it’s in other states and it is time for Missouri to step up to the plate.”

The bill is currently law in Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, New Hampshire and North Dakota. It is being considered this year in Hawaii and the Smiths say it could be taken up later this year in Massachusetts and Illinois. The Smiths says they know of two cases in the states where the law has passed in which cell phone location information has led to the safe recovery of a missing person.

Missy says she will be back in Missouri as needed to push for the bill to become law this year. “Whatever it takes to get it done.”

Dickson Despommier — a professor at Columbia University in New York — is one of the world’s foremost experts on vertical farming. He tells the Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture the idea has mushroomed since his team of researchers started working on the idea. Despommier says vertical farming is happening in countries that have run out of arable land to feed its people — South Korea, Japan, Holland, England, Singapore. (Holland is building theirs underground with grow lights.) Japan got serious about vertical farming in a sterile environment after contamiation concerns from the Fukushima nuclear incident.

Stateside, in addition to Chicago, there are projects in Milwaukee and Seattle.

The world population is expected to grow by another 3 billion people — that’s 3 billion more mouths to feed, so this is an idea that is going to continue to grow, Despommier says. He says Missouri has the research institutions, the farming interest and the legislative drive to make vertical farming projects successful in this state.

His presentation on vertical farming shows how crops can be grown in industrial buildings amid dense population. “Just Google ‘vertical farming’,” he says. “It’s a really big deal.”

The committee also heard about initiatives in urban aquaculture and community gardening projects. A bill to push such initiatives in the state is expected to come forward soon.

Despommier says to one member of the committee who asked whether it can grow jobs, yes, so long as farmers are displaced by floods, drought and production moving overseas. He says Missouri, one of several states, can certainly identify how Mother Nature has wrecked so many crops.

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 10⁹ hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster? — From www.verticalfarm.com

AUDIO: Jessica Machetta reports (1:10)

Rep. Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) says his legislation comes from the Lentz case, in which a biological father took a case against a baby’s adoptive parents to the Missouri Supreme Court on the grounds that he never agreed to the adoption. Kelly says many cases such as these come forward when a biological parent or parents figure out they can financially gain from holding up the process.

“A woman’s parental rights were … her consent for adoption of the child was irrevocably filed, the court had ruled, she had consented, the adopted child had been living with the adoptive family for almost a year, then she attempted to name a punitive father, and he attempted to disrupt the adoption proceedings,” Kelly says. “Either once you have had your rights terminated, finally, or once you have not shown responsibility … it happens regularly that people try to hold the perspective adoption parents up for financial benefit by threatening to disrupt the adoption proceedings.”

Kelly’s bill says a father can establish his interest in the child, legally, by providing support to the child both before and after it is born.

Mary Beck is a law professor at the University of Missouri who specializes in adoption cases. When she was asked by a committee member about biological fathers of children who say they had no knowledge of the pregnancy prior to the adoption, she says current law already addresses that.

“That goes back to part of a stature that was passed years ago,” she told the House Committee on Children and Families. “It says that every man,who has sexual intercourse with a woman is on notice that she may become pregnant. So for him to say he didn’t know doesn’t work in Missouri, as well as about 20 other states. so he is liable to provide support for this child, prenatally, under this bill, because he is on notice.”

Beck says the legislation helps protect the rights and decisions of all parties involved, the birth mother, the biological father and the adoptive parents.

AUDIO: Jessica Machetta reports (1:14)

The bills being considered are HB 1258 — ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF PATERNITY, HB 1259 — CONSENT FOR ADOPTION, and HB 1260 — CONSENT FOR ADOPTION.

Senate measure would reform identifying information laws

Sen. John Lamping (R-Ladue) has filed three pieces of legislation that would reform the state’s law on letting adoptees seek their identifying information.

Lamping says he’s following up on legislation filed in the 2011 legislative session. Senate Bill 713, would add clarity to SB 351, which allows adoptees to obtain information on their biological parents if they can obtain consent from the parent or prove the parent was deceased or unknown. Lamping says this would help clarify situations in which there is no death certificate to prove a biological parent is deceased and no evidence, after a reasonable investigation is conducted, to prove the parent is still alive.

Similar measures have been proposed in years past, but have not been signed into law. Such legislation has received support from various advocacy groups, birth parents, adoptees and adoptive parents, some for life-or-death medical situations. One group has staunchly opposed releasing identifying information on the basis that a parent’s right to privacy would be compromised, and that is the Catholic Church.

Other adoption reform legislation is “aimed at getting more Missouri orphans in adoptive homes by increasing the efficiency of the process,” Lamping says. “My goal is to help parents experience the miracle of adoption and children to find forever homes.”

The adoption process can currently take up to two years or more. Senate Bill 711 would help expedite the process by prohibiting the court from using the race of a child, of the biological parents or of the potential adoptive parents as a consideration when placing a child with adoptive parents.

Another bill, Senate Bill 712, would modify the Special Needs Adoption Tax Credit by prohibiting a child’s ethnic background, or membership in a minority group, from being the sole factor used to consider the child as “special needs.” Lamping says under this bill, a child will still be considered a “special needs child” if he or she has a specific factor or condition, such as age, membership in a sibling group, medical condition or handicap because of which it would be reasonable to conclude the child cannot easily be placed with adoptive parents.