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Parson says Missouri is set for economic recovery

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Gov. Mike Parson said the state is well positioned for economic recovery after setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gov. Mike Parson

Parson says over the last 10 months, Missouri has seen 10,000 new jobs and more than $1 billion invested in new businesses. He says that growth trickles down to farmers.

“When we’re able to work on workforce development and infrastructure and have those tools in place, that means Missouri is going to grow,” Parson says. “When Missouri grows that means people are going to eat more and farmers are going to be more successful selling their products.”

Parson said more growth in the ag sector is on its way with two new processors coming to the state.

“There were some companies that I worked on when I went on an overseas trip that’s going to be moving their plant here,” he said. “In Missouri, we’ve got another one that’s going to be probably coming through, hopefully, in the Columbia area before long. So, a couple of good things on the ag side.”

Parson said Missouri is in the top 10 for economic recovery and top five for lowest unemployment.

The governor spoke at this week’s Pork Expo at the Lake of the Ozarks. He says Missouri’s pork industry contributes $1.6 billion annually to the state’s economy.

By Will Robinson of Brownfield Ag News

Woman put to death for gruesome murder in northwest Missouri

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-reported by Brent Martin, KFEQ radio, St. Joseph

Federal officials executed Lisa Montgomery by lethal injection early this (WED) morning at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Montgomery was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m.

Montgomery killed 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in her Skidmore home in December 2004, but not before cutting out Stinnett’s baby. Montgomery returned home with the baby, claiming the girl as her own.

A federal judge had stayed the execution, but the United States Supreme Court declined to uphold the stay and allowed the execution to proceed, the first execution of a female inmate by the United States government in nearly seven decades.

Prosecutors say Montgomery traveled to Skidmore under the guise of adopting a Rat Terrier puppy. When she arrived, Montgomery used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. Stinnett attempted to defend herself as Montgomery used a kitchen knife to cut the baby from the womb. Montgomery removed the baby and then killed Stinnett.

A jury rejected the defense contention that Montgomery had been suffering from delusions when she killed Stinnett. The Supreme Court refused to block the execution, rejecting the argument from Montgomery’s defense lawyers that she should be given a competency hearing.

Montgomery’s attorneys and family had appealed to President Donald Trump to commute her sentence to life without the possibility of parole.

Rep. Graves says Capitol riots are no way to solve America’s disputes

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Congressman Sam Graves of northern Missouri says riots in Washington, D.C. are disturbing after angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol while Congress proceeded to certify the Electoral College victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

Graves described the scene on Capitol Hill to KFEQ’s Brent Martin soon after it happened.

Read more here.

 

The “Christmas Star” shines Monday night as Jupiter and Saturn meet in night sky

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Get ready for a fantastic night time spectacle as two of the solar system’s planets join to create a once in a lifetime sight. Jupiter and Saturn will be right on top of each other on Monday night in what’s known as a conjunction. Astronomer Sebastian Zamfir says the show starts just after sundown.

“If we are patient, we’ll see that in about maybe 20 minutes, half an hour, it gets dark enough for the two planets to become visible. They will stand out because they are very bright,” he says.

Zamfir says astronomers have tracked these events all the way back to the time of Jesus.

“Some of the good candidates, as natural phenomena that would be related to The Star of Bethlehem were this kind of conjunctions, planetary conjunction. An even more spectacular one in terms of brightness happened in 2 BC and that one was between Jupiter and Venus,” he says.

The last time Jupiter and Saturn got this close together in the night sky was over 800 years ago, making this a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Missouri’s skies are expected to be clear tonight to view the show beginning just after sundown.

The event coincides with today’s winter solstice – the shortest day of the year and the official start of winter.

By Raymond Neupert of Wisconsin Radio Network

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Economist predicts 2021 to be a good year for Missouri agriculture

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Economist Ernie Goss says this year’s increase in farm income is leading to an increase in farmland prices.

“Farmers are out there and they’re feeling better about the economy, but unfortunately we’re not seeing it in the businesses on what we call ‘Rural Mainstreet,’” Goss says.

Dr. Ernie Goss

Every month, Goss surveys rural bankers for a Rural Mainstreet Index. His latest survey indicates the economy in Missouri and nine other states in the Great Plains and Mountain West will dip in the current 4th quarter.

“It looks like we’re hitting a hiccup in the global economy and a hiccup in the US economy and, for that matter, in the regional economy,” Goss says. “Growth is just slowing down and potentially moving what was a V shaped recovery into a W shaped recovery — in other words, back down into the recession.”

But Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University in Omaha, says commodity prices have been climbing “fairly dramatically” this fall, leading to optimism in the ag sector. About a third of U.S. farm income this year will have come, though, from the Trump Administration’s payments to make up for trade losses and Goss says those are likely to end with the Trump presidency.

“On the flip side, we’re likely to see the Biden Administration be a little more positive on trade,” Goss says. “…You’ve got some positives and some negatives. I expect 2021 – at least as we sit here now — to be pretty good for the agricultural sector given the expansion on trade.”

Rising global oil prices are generally good news for Missouri’s ethanol industry as well, according to Goss.

By Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson

Bob Priddy: Missouri -elects- a sitting governor for only the second time in history

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Bob Priddy for Missourinet

Missouri voters did something Tuesday that was done only once before in the state’s 200-year history.  Historian Bob Priddy explains that Governor Mike Parson was not running for reelection. He was Lieutenant Governor when Eric Greitens resigned, moving him into the big office. This was the first time Missourians were faced with a sitting governor running for election since Lilburn Boggs, who as lieutenant governor replaced Daniel Dunklin, who resigned after becoming Surveyor General of Missouri and Illinois.

Boggs, who is best known for issuing the extermination order against the Mormons, was elected to a full term in 1836.

The extermination order said, the Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace,” which led Joseph Smith and the Mormons to flee to Nauvoo, Illinois.  The order remained on the books until Governor Christopher Bond canceled it in 1976.

Boggs also is remembered for the “Honey War” for almost going to war with the state of Iowa, a boundary line dispute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Priddy: Missouri once had three secretaries of state in about a week

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Bob Priddy for Missourinet

Missouri once had three secretaries of state within a week. It was December 1994 when the Missouri Supreme Court removed Judi Moriarty. Governor Carnahan appointed his Director of Administration Dick Hanson to be the interim secretary of state.  By the end of the week, he had appointed Rebecca McDowell Cook of Cape Girardeau to complete Moriarty’s term.  Hanson, thus, has the distinction of having the shortest term of any Missouri statewide office-holder.

McDowell was a lawyer and state school board member. She became the second woman to hold the Secretary of State’s job—Moriarty being the first and only fourth woman to hold a statewide position.

She was elected to a full four-year term but did not run for re-election in 2000. Four years later she was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor but lost by one-half of one percentage point to fellow Cape Girardeau resident Peter Kinder, who went on to serve three terms.

Bob Priddy will be bringing his historical perspective to Missourinet’s live election coverage Nov. 3, after the polls close. Join us on your favorite station or on Missourinet Facebook Live.

Bob Priddy: Term limits are on the Nov. 3 ballot, breaking with prior practices

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by Bob Priddy for Missourinet

A proposal on the November 3 ballot further limits Missourians’ abilities to vote for incumbents they like.

Amendment 1 extends the two-term limit for Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and State auditor. The governor and the state treasurer already are term-limited.

But history shows Missourians might have a hypocritical streak on this issue.

When given a chance to vote for more terms for candidates, Missouri voters have a propensity to do it. It’s how Peter Kinder served three terms as lieutenant governor; Jay Nixon served sixteen as state attorney general; Forest Smith served four terms as state auditor. One of his successors, Haskell Holman, served 18 years.

Missourians limited their opportunities to vote when they supported term limits in 1992, with limits kicking in with the 1994 election—at which time many legislators who already had served eight or more years were elected for even more.

 

 

 

Bob Priddy: Peaceful transfer of power was once blocked in Missouri

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Bob Priddy for Missourinet

President Trump’s back and forth on a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election might remind historians of a time when Missouri Democrats took the same approach.

Democrats had a stranglehold on state offices and on the legislature in 1940 when Forrest Donnell was the only Republican elected to statewide office.  In those days, the Missouri Speaker of the House was the official who proclaimed the official winners of statewide elections and Speaker Morris Osburn refused to certify Donnell’s election.

The loser, Democrat Larry McDaniel, and state Democratic Party Chairman C. Marion Hulen claimed voting irregularities made McDaniel a winner by 30-thousand votes, not the 36-hundred margin that made Donnell governor.

The Missouri Supreme Court ordered Donnell to be sworn in, six weeks late, and to serve until a recount showed he had lost.

The recount became a disaster for McDaniel, who withdrew his challenge without consulting Democratic leaders who had urged him to fight.

Donnell became the last Republican governor until Christopher Bond was elected 32 years later.

Bob Priddy has been writing a history of the Missouri Capitol, to be published by The University of Missouri Press

Bob Priddy: election history this week as 5 statewide officials run for their jobs for the first time

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Bob Priddy, special to Missourinet

Missourians are voting in a unique election this year because five statewide officeholders are trying to keep a job nobody elected them to hold four years ago.

Missouri historian Bob Priddy explains that Governor Mike Parson, Lt. Governor Mike Kehoe, Attorney General Eric Schmitt, and Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick were not elected to their present offices in 2016.

The resignation of Governor Eric Greitens created a jobs shuffle at the top of state government.

In 2016, Parson was elected Lieutenant Governor. Schmitt was elected State treasurer. Kehoe was headed back to private life as a term-limited senator and Fitzpatrick was facing ouster from the House because of term limits. Parson moved up with the resignation of Governor Eric Greitens and promptly appointed Kehoe as Lieutenant Governor. Schmitt was elected State Treasurer then was appointed Attorney General when Josh Hawley ended Claire McCaskill’s U.S. Senate career.  Fitzpatrick, House Budget Committee chair, was appointed by Parson as Schmitt’s successor as Treasurer.

The only statewide officeholder who is running for reelection, not just election this year, is Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who has stayed where voters put him four years ago.

They all have opponents who hope to short-circuit their historic bids on election day.