Missouri

Wednesday

James Donald Forbes McCann

A Midwest road trip

The Midwest Notre Dame is not an Ivy League university and, in what I assume is some sort of intentional point, its buildings tend to be ivy-free. Perhaps it is the absence of ivy, perhaps I am just flat after a long day’s drive across Ohio and Indiana, perhaps it’s just winter, but the campus seems more sterile than I had expected. It’s Good Friday, and my friend Margot is studying classical architecture here. She’s showing me around the grounds. I don’t really know what I’d hoped to see. Amy Coney Barrett? Multiracial friendship groups, skipping across the green? As soon as I see the stadium, though, I am transfixed. Margot is visibly disappointed when I say that I adore the stadium above all the other buildings.

james donald forbes mccann

Sunday

Amber Duke

My first family goose hunt

It's a slow Sunday in Paducah, Kentucky, the day before our snow goose hunt. Morning Mass down the road, where the priest quizzingly asked where we were from. Brunch with my husband’s family at a cozy café. Chocolate cake with that crackly boiled icing and fresh coffee in the late afternoon at his aunt and uncle’s house. It isn’t until close to dinnertime that we pack up our bags and hit the road for the bootheel of Missouri, where we will hope to catch a few hours of sleep at our hotel before we meet our local hunting guide. About halfway through our drive, the phone rings with bad news. Our guide, Scooter, spent the day scouting and could find no signs of geese at his usual spots.

goose

Wednesday

Ben Domenech

Republicans want populism but how much?

With last night's primary elections, the story of the Republicans' risky approach to the 2024 election is clear: GOP voters want a party that is populist, but they are at odds over what kind of populist that needs to be. The media's framing of the 2024 narrative has been clear from the outset, and as per usual it's the framing preferred by the Democratic Party. The entire lens of definition is Donald Trump. His endorsements supposedly reign supreme over a beholden GOP electorate, and this is leading them to nominate extreme, flawed, "election-denying" candidates who put their chances of taking the Senate and key battleground governorships at risk, even in what more honest pundits allow will be a wave year for Republicans in the House.

Monday

Cockburn

Trump endorses Eric

Erics across Missouri and indeed this great nation of ours were delighted on Monday when Donald Trump endorsed them for Senate. In Missouri, two candidates, Eric Greitens and Eric Schmitt, have been duking it out for months in the Republican Senate primary. Both have courted Trump, both claim to be America First, and both accuse the other of being a RINO. After begging for some attention from The Donald, the Lion of America at last stepped forward with an endorsement: I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!

Saturday

Curt Mills

The talented Mr Hawley

‘I met Josh Hawley 10 years ago, and he told me he would be president of the United States,’ a person who knows Missouri’s junior senator tells me. ‘It’s been terrifying to watch him to execute on that pledge perfectly ever since.’Joshua David Hawley, 39, is the upper chamber’s youngest member. Elected in 2018, a bad year as a whole for the GOP, Hawley would seem to be the Right’s answer to Pete Buttigieg: Xennial, Midwestern, Ivy League, sincerely religious, scary smart.Like almost everyone who matters on the Right, Hawley addressed this week’s National Conservatism Conference: ‘As we gather tonight, we face a nation divided, a political class paralyzed, the old political programs in shambles, the future uncertain.

josh hawley

Saturday

Deborah Ross

Three Billboards is a hoot and a blast, which I never thought I’d say about a rape movie

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri does, indeed, feature three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. They have been placed at the roadside on the outskirts of town by Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a middle-aged woman whose teenage daughter had been raped and murdered seven months earlier. The billboards read: ‘Raped While Dying’; ‘And Still No Arrests’; ‘How Come, Chief Willoughby?’ Mildred is grieving, in pain and a ball of fury. But not your regular, everyday ball of fury. She is a ball of fury of the most magnificent, unstoppable kind. If only she could go after every rapist from now on. I’d certainly sleep better in my bed.