During any.

And all of you don't know what marriage is.

I Donnybrook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Paterson Foundation and the members of nine PBS.

Well, thank you very much for joining us for this edition of Donny Brook.

Yes, we are separated once again, but we'll find out who gets the Iron Man Award for showing up to the studio on this really wet Thursday.

Let's meet our panelists, starting with Wendy Weise from the Jennifer Wendy Show on the big board for us.

Mr. Bill MacLellan joining us from STL, Today.com and your Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Ray Hartman from Chris Ross, Street.com and the Riverfront Times.

And there he is, high and dry in in the studio Alvin read he made it to 3655 Olive Street.

He gets our award for this addition.

I'd like an unnamed senator I ran to work favorite topics we'll talk about.

Oh, by the way, very good.

I do want to mention that Joyce case has been providing the close captioning this broadcast for ten years.

And as it turns out, this is her last broadcast.

So if you've been following this program through the closed captioning let me just say we all owe a debt of gratitude to Joyce and her great work and we wish her the best in retirement.

All right.

To the topics we go tuesday is primary day in missouri, bill.

And on the democratic side, at least according to one poll, trudie bush, the nurse, is ahead of the veteran and lawyer Mr. Lance excuse me, lucas koontz and oh by about four or so points.

What are you thinking as the mayor of St Louis to Sharon Jones actually came out and endorsed Trudy Bush this week?

Well, I'm a little baffled by the whole thing.

I mean, you know, I met Trudy Bush Valentine at a reception off the record reception, and she seems like a very nice person.

But this is a U.S. Senate race and she hasn't had much of a campaign.

And the only thing I can figure is that she must have consultants who've looked into this thing and said, hey, people have a great feeling vibration for the old brewery, and they love Gussie Bush and everybody admires nurses.

So let's just go with that.

There's really no reason to campaign and it doesn't make much sense to me.

But according to the polls that you sent me, she's ahead.

Yeah, I bet Lucas Koontz about a year ago, and I think I wrote the first stuff about him, and I was really captivated by the fact that he was a different kind of Democrat than he was that he spoke American, he spoke Missouri, and he was from outstate, had a great resume and could connect to outstate Missouri.

I still feel that way.

And I still think he is the only Democrat that has a chance to break through.

Otherwise, it's the Democrats just doing what they do, which is, you know, talk to them, preach to their own choir.

They'll end up getting what they usually get, which is their 42% or whatever not with Judy.

But I will say this.

All right.

All right.

Well.

Let me get for just a second on that.

Yeah, true, true.

Bush is not your normal Democratic candidate, Ray.

I mean, first of all, her her big thing is she's a nurse.

And second of all, she's not woke at all.

I mean, like Laura Jones endorsing her surprised me.

I mean, truly, Bush is going just on straight values.

And I'm a I'm a good person and I'll do the right thing.

She's really not your typical Democrat.

But bringing bringing compassion back to the US Senate that a lot of people would vote for a floor lamp with who was going to bring compassion back to the U.S. Senate.

And I think that she is impressing people with a kind heart, a genuine desire to do good.

And I think if what I'm picking up on social media is any indication, Lucas Coombs went way over the top when it came to the whole, you know, veiled prophet.

The only people who were involved in veiled profit are racist and slave owners.

I mean, it was it was it was really out there.

The only people availed profit are incredibly wealthy people.

And you can't you can't paint with that broad a brush.

And I know a lot of progressives who have connections to the veil profit through their families who who were very offended by that tactic that his campaign took.

I just got to say that I didn't think she really had a chance when she got into the race.

I've since been obviously proven wrong.

And so like how can I sit here and say, like, she has no chance to win if she wins on Tuesday, I mean, she's.

Going to win.

This thing, I think.

Let's go to you, Wendy.

On the Republican side, the latest poll out of Emerson College College now has Eric Schmidt, the attorney general for Missouri, in the lead ahead of Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler.

And former Governor Eric Greitens.

Your thoughts on this one?

Well, Vicky Hartzler has been thrown under the Trump bus.

As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, President Trump made it clear that she wasn't up to snuff.

I think that probably endears her to a lot of people.

I've been saying since the beginning that Eric Schmidt was going to be the nominee, and I believe that's going to happen.

Eric Greitens, I think you guys talked about it while I was I was off one week.

But once you make the allegations about children, it's it's over.

It's over.

And I, I don't know if he'll come back again, but I am I would bet a lot of money that he will not be the nominee after the primary on Tuesday.

I think I'm sorry.

I was going to say the.

Oh, it obviously looks like Schmidt's got the momentum and going in the right direction.

I've always I think we all need to be careful about polls just because of what we is everybody's experience and I think the only factor that we don't know and I don't know anybody could possibly support is Donald Trump.

If he does an endorsement and it would not be the latest one he does.

If he does it this weekend, I think in a Republican Missouri Republican primary, it will make the difference for Eric Greitens if he gets Trump's endorsement.

I'm not predicting it, but I don't think you can rule it out.

Well, you know, Trump, you know, said what he had to say about Hartzler maybe they took her out, maybe he didn't.

But I do think that this is a case where no matter what I think of Eric Schmidt, I think you have a lot of Republicans in a state like this.

And we have to nominate somebody.

And a party can be great.

And yet it can't be Greitens and it can't be McCloskey, and it can't be that you will long or whatever his clearly long, long.

Yeah.

All right.

Hey, Alvin, can I say one other thing now?

Let's move on, real guys.

Got to say what the John Wood it'll be interesting to see if he if it is Schmidt if John Wood stays in the race.

Yeah.

OK. Alvin Reed, I want to ask you about Corey Busch, the incumbent congressperson, first term Democrat, who is now up against Steven Roberts, the General Assembly lawmaker.

She gets a lot of attention.

Members of the squad were here last week stumping for her.

Can Roberts defeat Corey Bush?

No, I think she's her base is solid enough that she'll be OK.

I think also that just you know, we ran a Missouri independent story on the race and Rasheen Aldridge had, you know, some pretty good quotes, basically not saying I agree or disagree with him, but he was just saying that I know both and I like both.

But what went on under this campaign, he just thought was just kind of low.

And I think that throughout the first congressional district, it will be enough that I think I think Bush carries it.

I think it it will.

Well, I won't say it won't be close, but I think she'll win.

I do think she'll win.

Well, I think that she's definitely out of favor.

And I think that her supporters are very fervent.

You know, I'm I'm on the other side.

I'm rooting for Steve.

Roberts and can I just quit, Charlie?

Now, I know it's the political season, but, boy, that torrential rain here and folks is flooded getting boated out of their house and everything.

And it was it was almost instantly Corey Bush was saying we need to declare a federal disaster.

And then the mayor came in like right at the same time and they were like on it.

And I thought of the movie, The Candidate with Robert Redford in it and the guy, Crocker Jarman and some there was some a wildfire.

And he got out there with some bill.

Just I was like, man, if I was running against an incumbent, I would have been out there neck deep in water.

And I just, as I say, like missed opportunity.

And I think there were a lot of misstep up, too.

So I'm sorry I didn't.

And I know that I know that Steven Roberts is is a family friend, Bill.

And I take nothing away from that closeness, obviously.

But from a political standpoint, I think, Alvin, you're you're right.

It has to be it has to be a fire you know, something that you feel very strongly.

And I've never I've never had that sense from from Stephen Roberts.

He seems like something of a reluctant candidate.

And on the other hand, you've got Corey Bush, who buries the needle.

So I'm pretty sure she'll be fine.

Well, Ray Hartmann, the Saint Louis County, the county executive, Sam Page, is facing opposition from Jane Duca.

And this, of course, is next Tuesday's Democratic primary for county executive.

How what do you see in this one?

I think Jane Duke is going to pull it upset.

I think she's Sam Page has.

Well, first of all, it's a low turnout election.

In low turnout elections that the folks who are unhappy are more likely to dominate.

The other fact is, I know I had to pitch on my show who a Republican who is ERG voted for Jane Ducker and is urging other Republicans to do that.

And they certainly it's perfectly you know, you have to take it one party or another.

But I think a lot of Republicans that are so turned off by the Senate race anyway would be more likely in this year.

To vote closer to home.

And so I think she's going to pull it upset.

Well, that's for sure.

I don't have a bold prediction I, I don't think so.

And I, I also think that Republicans are energized by their senatorial campaign and I don't know if they would switch to Democrats just to do a protest vote against page.

I don't think Saint Louis Republicans are at all because they're more likely to be normal Republicans who are more like John would than.

They would want to go for Eric Schmidt over.

The old Eric Schmidt.

Maybe, but not this this frothing like Maggie.

As I said, wait, we compared to Greitens and McCloskey and you know, that crew, then you just have to just go go with it.

And then I mean, I think they do get some percentage of votes in north county of be just 1%.

That's hard to get over.

I mean so OK, well, Alvin, let me ask you about Senator Josh Hawley.

As you know, we were preempted last week here on nine PBS as PBS carried the January 6th Congressional Committee Committee hearing.

And it turns out that one of their maybe the most famous video they released was of our own junior senator from the state of Missouri, Josh Hawley, running away from the rioters.

Obviously, he was trying to get some exercise on January the six well, let me ask you, if you were in that capital, as much fun as we make about Josh Hawley, wouldn't you be running for your safety as well?

All right.

One, I would remember that, Alvin, you were Mr. Bravado, so I would have walked risk.

Oh, I would have been in full spread.

And I'm glad my, you know, 85 year old brother was not on the escalator because he would have just shoved her out of the way to try to get out of that building.

Hey, you lit a fire, all right, Ed, you ran away from it.

Literally ran away from it.

And he's Mr. Manly man.

So I mean, I'm not saying I would have not left, OK?

I would have left in orderly fashion.

He ran, and that really shows what kind of man he is.

It really does.

I don't want to get into stereo typical stuff, but, oh, my gosh, you ran away so well.

And there was there was something about the the backdrop of the security that were around him or in the hallway or the Capitol Police, wherever they were.

I kept reading about one of the Capitol Police officers who said that, you know, Holley did the fist from inside a secure area.

And so these these police officers knew that trouble was coming, but they weren't panicking.

But you have the senator who incited them running.

And I I'm not sure I'm not sure how he I'm not sure how he survives this politically.

He's he's faced a lot of things before.

I don't see how he survives this politically.

I think it was just one of those feet.

Don't fail me now moment.

Well, yeah.

And off he went.

And I think a lot of people can say, you know, I, I mean, I don't like Josh Hawley, but and I got I was amused by it, but I don't really hold it against him.

I think, I think he hit a level that very few people have ever hit in politics for being laughable.

And pathetic.

And that's very different from being defiant with the close race.

I thought a year ago that he was done way after we had our show the day after the insurrection I think I said on the show, you can't come back from the closed fist way you can because it turned out, unlike that day that the entire Republican Party fell into line, which saved him on that point.

But I tell you what, he's in the pop culture as a punch line.

Well.

I don't I don't think so.

He's just his book is just coming out about manly men.

Here's the thing.

Is, every day.

I think that his supporters never even see him running because the media they follow are not going to be showing it, certainly not again and again.

And, you know, let's face it, to be honest, there's a lot of these moments and they come and go really quickly.

One of them, I think, is when President Joe Biden recently gave a fist bump to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Now, of course, if you're watching Fox News, that was repeated again and again and again, probably not so much.

And certain networks like MSNBC, I'm just guessing.

I don't know all these things.

They come, they go.

They're kind of yeah, they're good for the moment, but they're not lasting.

I think it is presidentially, I guess after Missouri, I'm not saying couldn't win a Senate race again.

They might be able to, but I don't think I think he's done well.

Let me ask.

OK, Bill McLellan, what about Lisa Clancy, a member of the St Louis County Council, who, as it turns out, was doing some paperwork and writing for the pot industry.

The marijuana industry got about $5,000 in payment before she stopped, but she also voted on matters that affected the industry that she was getting money from.

Is she in hot water?

Well, perhaps she should be, but I don't think she is.

I think it's a solid Democratic district.

It's the one I'm in.

And she doesn't have any opposition in the primary.

And that surprised me because, you know, I wasn't really upset about the pot thing.

But when she gave up oversight for Sam Page, it wasn't what I expected from a young, strong young woman to say, oh, we'll let Sam do it.

And I thought, somebody is going to Challenger.

And they didn't.

So the pot thing doesn't really bother me so much.

I have I have issues with her as a councilwoman, frankly, because and I think that reflected in the ad that this is schism between her and Sharonda Webb and her days who I think have handled themselves much better.

I will say this Lisa Clancy's problem here wasn't that she was the consultant.

It was an issue of disclosure in other words, a huge conflict.

But there was a disclosure problem.

And and I said no trouble politically, though.

And then when Joe Holliman calls from the Post-Dispatch, don't I mean, talk to him, you know, don't don't ignore the Amen.

Joe.

Joe did a fine job on it.

Yeah.

For a city council person to refuse to talk even on the phone.

Yeah.

And then how about in that case?

I think she just she should have returned the money or recused herself.

But to her credit, she did stop working for the pot industry when either she was told to by the county executive or she thought better of it.

Sometimes people do things that they later realized don't make any sense.

But when it came to that.

I think that's a good you're not leaders, Charlie.

I mean, that's the past.

I'm not giving her that.

Whatever, whatever she did that I may or may not disagree with, I could say that all right.

Now, maybe you did that for political expediency.

Maybe you did that to help Sam Page.

Maybe you did that.

You know, how you make your votes and what stance you make.

OK, I think that's politics.

But this is, you know, being ignorant of the facts.

And I don't think you could be that ignorant.

This is an obvious conflict of interest.

And if you have to like, oh, maybe that was wrong.

I'm not buying that.

I always lean to you knew that was wrong.

And the problem came when you got busted on.

So this one that sticks more with me than any other thing she's done that you guys may disagree with.

Maybe so, but I do I do believe that people do stupid things.

Ray, I want to ask you about a column you wrote this week.

Thank you.

Oh, no, no, no.

I can't hear.

You.

Stupid things.

Let's go to.

Ray.

Yeah, I want to direct everybody to this week's Riverfront Times where Ray Hartmann talks about that $510 million that nobody else seems to be reporting on these days in December.

Stan Cronk, he wrote a check to three governmental bodies around here for more than a half a billion dollars.

And there's been, like, no discussion to our eternal disgrace.

Seven months later, finally, Ray, you're taking a look at it.

You're saying that money should go to mental health counseling.

As an example and that not the.

I made it clear there's certainly there's a statutory requirement for the RSA, Anthony, to to do some spending on the dome.

I mean, that may not be exciting or sexy.

It's it's what it has to do.

It's well, it's therefore, I just threw out an idea because I think it's important to think in that community for people to actually have specifics.

I happen to think that it is disgraceful that we have so few 24 seven health facilities for people and particularly nowhere for people in mental health crisis.

It's so easy to talk about the suicide crisis, which we have so easy every time there's a shooting they talk about we need to do something about mental health.

I think this is the kind of thing that it is not about.

How about one in every block I a small but available network of mental health facilities would not be a large capital investment.

But we have plenty of money to really stake it out and do a good job and actually do something about the mental health crisis.

It would just be one of the things.

Obviously, the city and county are going to get a significant share to do other things but I think it should be used for stuff that we can agree on that's outside of the normal workings of government as we know them.

I agree with that concept.

On the mental health.

I think you run into that thing where, yeah, back in the day, if you were concerned about somebody, you could have them picked up and you can't do that anymore.

So you could have a 24 seven facility, but somebody has to go check into it.

You can't just grab people and put them in there, even though they may need to be there.

So I would say it.

It was a it was a brilliantly written column, Ray.

I mean, it really was.

But, but that was sort of my thought is that that's half the battle is getting somebody to cross the threshold of the facility if there isn't a crisis.

And we would if you could continue the the really intense conversation that we're having, I think all across the media, social and traditional, then that would certainly that would certainly help.

Well, Ray, I enjoy the column.

But like you, I think you brought this up.

You know, there's a mental health counselor shortage.

So even if we put hundreds of millions of dollars into mental health, I don't know if we'd find enough counselors.

That was not.

Part of the idea was to spend money in cooperation with our university.

And all I could say is, you know, I just let's see, other people come forward with say the same thing.

Maybe we need some larger sewers with whether that's about like we're having right now.

Bill, I want to ask you about $1,000,000,000 program.

Could be many billions of dollars because our friends and family in the West, in Southern California, in Nevada, they have no water.

The Colorado River is drying up.

Some have suggested that we divert parts of the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers to the west Do you feel like sharing the abundance of water that we have here?

I don't know.

I don't.

And I used to live in Phenix now as a non-science person, someone who doesn't understand anything.

It just seems to me they talk about desalinization, you know, taking salt water.

And I thought to myself, well, we have two big problems.

We're running out of water in the middle of the and the country.

And we're Los Angeles and New York are about to be submerged.

Why don't we take that excess water from the oceans, decolonize it, and use that sort of diverting Missouri and Mississippi.

Takes a lot of energy.

Yeah, well, I would.

Can we charge for the water?

I, I just.

Yeah, they can have the water if they pay all of our water bills.

You know, I think.

That's a pipe.

Dream.

Well, they'll drain us now that they need water so badly in Arizona.

I'm talking about moving there.

I'm not talking about Saint Louis on Tuesday.

I'm thinking about some drips and drabs, you know, like.

A Tuesday or today.

Like, I.

Just like watching the wheels of McClelland.

Reed.

Yeah.

The consulting firm.

How there are they?

How they.

Water approach.

We can charge you.

We've got a million.

Dollar effort there, Ray, and we're not charging you anything.

I like.

Wendy.

We.

Cardinals played two games in Toronto this week.

They split up, but turns out two of their stars, actually, three players and two of their stars are Nadal and Goldschmidt.

We're not there because Canada says you have to be vaccinated to get into the country.

These two players are not vaccinated.

So they set out the series duty.

That's their right to do that.

And that's all fine and good.

And you're coming to me because I'm the Sports Authority on the panel, and I understand that.

I was surprised by the people who did not have a problem with it, the number of people that that didn't have a problem with it.

Obviously, there's also a lot of grousing, but the that when I was reading the comments in the post, I was just stunned by because 20 years ago that would not have that would not have worked during Whitey Ball or Tony Ball or anything else.

People are arguing about the vaccination.

That's not right.

You abandon your teammates.

I don't want to hear I want to win the championship at all costs.

The next time a teammate has got to get surgery and he's back out there in like six weeks because he wants to help his team win I'd probably said just go sit someplace else, OK?

Because you decided you wanted to do what you wanted to do.

You chose not to play.

You chose not to play two games.

Inexcusable.

If I owned the team, I would always look at them like, No, not not money guys.

Not money player.

I agree with Albert.

I'd like I'd add one other thing real quick, and that is, you know, first of all, of course, it's in their right.

They can do it.

There's no rights issue here.

But I would say this, that please don't refer to them as role models after this.

You know, it's I guess they have a right not to have their kids vaccinated for the basic vaccines do.

It's just let's not glorify them and let the.

Excuse me, but go ahead.

OK, I'll just say I liked Ben Hackman's column on it very much.

The only head scratcher to me was when and I don't care if the people get vaccinated or not.

I have friends who didn't do it fine.

But when Paul Goldschmidt said that he spent the last year and a half talking to every doctor.

Yeah.

And I thought and made the decision, I thought no, you didn't.

I mean, there is a consensus that a vaccine is safe and there'd be it's relatively successful and it just don't tell me that you've talked to as many medical professionals as you could.

And, you know, if you want to say, you know, I just don't want to put anything like that in my body, cool.

But don't pretend like you saw it out.

And believe me, that'll have to be the last word because we are flat out of time.

Thank you.

Don't forget, everybody in Missouri, the primary is Tuesday.

And in just a matter of moments, we're going to be talking about voting with the secretary of state for Missouri, Jay Ashcroft.

On Next up, joining Ray Hartmann and me.

So don't under any circumstances touch that dial.

Donnybrook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of nine PBS.