Those who complain about The Star (and other papers) only printing “bad news” don’t have much to complain about today.
Consider these developments, for example:
— A U.S. District Court judge ruled that a jury can consider allegations that Missouri Highway Patrol Trooper Anthony Piercy violated the civil rights of Brandon Ellingson, when Piercy essentially catapulted the 20-year-old Ellingson out of his water patrol boat in 2014 and then failed to rescue him before he drowned in the Lake of the Ozarks…It’s gratifying that a judge — a federal judge, no less — said from the bench what has been painfully obvious all along.
— The American Royal Barbecue competition is moving to Kansas Speedway…Makes sense to me. Holding it at Arrowhead sure didn’t.
— Pope Francis said he would establish a commission to study whether women can serve as deacons in the Catholic Church…According to all ancient available, Jesus never said women couldn’t be church leaders, so it’s about time the Catholic Church took steps to stop relegating women to the sidelines.
— Thanks to DNA testing, 38-year-old Jibri Liu-Kinte Burnett was sentenced to nearly 18 years in prison for raping and nearly killing a Kansas City, Kansas, woman in August 1999…In 2001, before the attacker’s identity was known, the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s office wisely filed criminal charges under the name “John Doe” so the statute of limitations would not expire before someone was identified.
— And, finally, Steve Kraske deduced from results of a new Quinnipiac poll that Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton in November…Wait a minute. That’s not such good news! (At least to most of us.)
Let’s take a closer look…Kraske deduced from a Quinnipiac University poll that a Trump-Clinton match would be close — and Trump could win — if he prevailed in three swing states with lots of electoral votes: Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. The Quinnipiac survey indicated that if the election were held now, the vote could be close in those three states.
Ah, but before we allow The Great Kraskini to rattle us too much, consider an alternate analysis by Chris Cillizza, who writes a political blog called “The Fix” for the Washington Post. Cillizza says:
“Start with the best-case scenario map for Trump and Republicans in which he holds every state Mitt Romney won in 2012 and adds Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania to the GOP column. Trump wins 273 electoral votes — and the White House — under that map. But his margin for error is tiny — three electoral votes! — and this map assumes that he not only wins Florida and Ohio, both of which President Obama carried in 2008 and 2012, but also Pennsylvania, which no Republican presidential candidate has claimed since 1988.”
Under a second scenario Cillizza examined — where Trump wins the upper Midwest, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, but loses Florida due to the state’s large Hispanic population — Clinton ends up with 294 electoral votes to 244 for Trump.
The third scenario Cillizza posed gives Trump Ohio and Florida but has Clinton winning Pennsylvania. Trump loses that round, too, gathering 253 electoral votes to 285 for Clinton.
Cillizza concludes that “even if Trump is able to continue his competitiveness in these (three) states, it will take something close to a running of the table for him to get to 270.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m not worried. And The Great Kraskini should stop dropping his crystal ball on people’s toes.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I can easily imagine a couple of scenarios wherein Trump walks into the White House:
1. Another terror attack on American soil would do it. The resultant fear and panic would be more than enough for Trump to manipulate into electoral votes; a ‘strongman’ candidate would easily best Hillary. I would further note that the attack would not necessarily need to have its origins abroad – a native militia action that took even one life would suffice. In fact, the “attack” could even be a Trojan horse for such an outcome, with the parties involved denying responsibility. Sadly indicative of the populace’s reasoning skills? Yes. Quite feasible none the less.
2. Trump runs his general campaign well to Hillary’s left – this might attract enough Sanders supporters to split the Democratic party. He won’t mean it, of course, but his verbiage would convince a lot of folks who WANT to believe we aren’t stuck with a choice between a simple, egotistical blowhard and yet another corporate career pol. If Trumps pushes leftward AND stays on target with The Wall, the mass deportations of everyone not white and his refusal to allow ANY Muslim close enough to read the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, he could cruise into the presidency.
Neither hypothetical speaks well of us as a people; should Trump win in November we ought to do a thorough examination of the nation’s water pipes to see just how much lead we’ve ingested over the years.