The Reporter newspaper, Camdenton Missouri

The Reporter covers Miller, Morgan and Camden County in Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks and is published once per week on Wednesdays.

(Updated April 2, 2026)

Guest Editorial - Topics galore

(Published April 1, 2026)

Let’s take a look at a few less-covered topics of the recent past.

First off, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act seems likely to die in the Senate. It should have wide support in Congress, because Americans widely support the idea of requiring identification to vote in elections.

A YouGov poll recently shows 80% favor requiring a valid photo I.D. to vote. That poll is not an outlier, as others had similar results.

We can assume this level of support is two-fold. Americans value the integrity of elections, plus they don’t see having proper identification as a burden.

Opponents blast this as voter suppression, and some go so far as to call the notion racist, or “Jim Crow 2.0”.

Often, that type of fear mongering manages to hit a little harder; but, this time out, it lands with a thud.

Why? Because nearly every American already has some type of qualifying government I.D. It’s ludicrous to argue that it’s a hardship to require proper identification when it is routinely required to enter a federal facility.

Just try getting anything done at the Social Security office without a photo I.D. They’ll direct you to the door.

Blocking SAVE seems like protecting the ability to do monkey business. It�s time for a little bipartisan action to move this process forward.

Also on the topic of voting, the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments recently on Mississippi’s rule that accepts mail-in ballots up to five business days after the polls close, as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day. (Five business days translates into a full week in real time.)

States should continue to be in charge of their election processes, so it won’t be surprising if that is where the court eventually ends up.

However, this is another situation which seems in dire need of fixing. Large numbers of people believe strongly that perception matters when it come to voting integrity.

Not that long ago, Election Day meant one specific day. There were exceptions for absentee ballots, but they weren’t common. Almost everyone voted on the same day.

The concern used to be that “every eligible American should exercise their right to vote.”

Somewhere along the line, that got skewed by the notion that people weren’t voting because it was too difficult. And, that has led to wide-spread early voting, over 40 days prior in several states.
Plus, we’ve seen a wider acceptance of mail-in ballots, and a general relaxation of how late they could be received and still be counted.

In the cases of blow-out wins, this means little. For close elections, it’s a spawning ground for distrust and doubt. Especially when votes counted days later change the outcome. Instead of knowing who won on election night, there are those “postmarked, but not here yet” ballots just sitting out there.

It seems reasonable to require that, for votes to be counted, they be in the hands of election officials election day.

Or, better yet, let’s all go back to voting on the same day.

We hear about incivility prompted by political affiliation frequently, but there are some situations which are just baffling.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the Republican governor of Arkansas. She reported that her group was asked to leave a restaurant because her continued presence was deemed intolerable.

I’ll start off with this. You may not always agree with politics, but certain positions deserve respect.

The governor of Kansas is a Democrat in a state which overwhelmingly Republican and heavily conservative.

Yet, it is a certainty that she is able to dine in any public establishment without being kicked out due to her political affiliation.

Gov. Sanders was allowed to eat in the Little Rock establishment in question, but her party was asked to move along. As they left, a person offered a single-finger hand gesture.

The restaurant owners issued a statement which read, in part, “Allowing her to stay risked being perceived as a lack of support for the community that makes up the majority of our team, as well as their families and friends.”

Further, “However, we stand by our choice to support our employees and guests.”

In the last several years, we’ve been inundated by the concept it is immoral to tolerate even the very presence of someone whose political views we disagree with. At holidays, there are always a gaggle of stories about banning a (usually pro Trump) family member.

Perhaps, it would be a better idea for establishments with such limited thresholds of tolerance to post them out front. Then we could all decide to give them our business or not.

I know multiple Second Amendment proponents who welcome the little “no gun” emblems on doors. Then, they don’t have to risk offending the owners or giving them “gun lover” money.

I’m still in doubt about reports that Iran’s newly elected ayatollah is homosexual. If true, it is perhaps the biggest irony in recent history, since being oriented so is punishable by death under their law.

Maybe, the rumors are true, but it does scream of propaganda. What better way to keep a new leader from getting a foothold than to label him abhorrent and a criminal.
That didn’t actually work with President Trump, but the U.S. doesn’t have Sharia law.

I’m convinced that the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service has set a goal of total failure. Little else explains many of their actions.

Reports are coming in that, in many rural towns, outgoing mail will be picked up once per day from the post office in the very early morning hours.

Thus would end any possibility of nextday service in many locations.

We’re long past the point where the country needs to recognize that the USPS is a vital institution deserving of funding from the government and throw out the ridiculous notion they should be entirely self-sufficient. The requirement that every home in the country be serviced every day, makes that nearly impossible.

The suggestion of raising first class rates to 94 cents, tied with slower service, looks like a path to extinction. - Frank Mercer

Guest Editorial - Keeping eyes open

(Published March 25, 2026)

Because terror attacks are a possible response to the military strikes in Iran, we’ve all been cautioned to be a little extra alert for violence here at home.
At the same time, we’re being cautioned not to fall prey to Islamophobia.

Fair enough, there are somewhere around 4 million Muslims in the U.S., and nearly all lead peaceful lives. Not all try to assimilate with American culture... but that’s a different debate.

Maybe we can agree that profiling purely by religion is casting too wide a net, and people should be judged by their actions, not their faith.

However, if a person shouting “Allahu Akbar” throws a bomb, drives a vehicle through the wall of a synagogue, or shoots people, it isn’t Islamophobic to conclude there’s a religious motive.
The major media can’t seem to bring themselves yield to that logic. At least three incidents with clear motivations occurred recently, and the media was slow to get out of the blocks.

The first couldn’t have had clearer motive. One teen (a high school senior) shouted “Allahu Akbar”, and threw an IED at protesters in New York City. This was right outside the mayor’s mansion.
A second teen (aged 19) was also arrested for allegedly supplying the first bomb. These were not smoke bombs, but bottles packed with explosives and nails and screws.

It was reported that both teens told cops they are ISIS supporters. Both are American-born of immigrant parents from Afghanistan and Turkey.

A far-right figure named Jake Lang put together a protest called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York.” It drew about 20 people. A far greater number of counter protesters appeared for a counter protest called “Drive the Nazis Out of New York.” So far, that’s well within the bounds of how protest is supposed to work in the U.S. Then, it gets real ugly.

Video shows the bomb thrower chucking his IED at the right-wing group, and over the head of a counter-protester who was talking on a loudspeaker. Ironically, the speaker was saying, “We want everyone here to stay in New York...”

The media rushed reports; and, for the initial stories, the villain was “Islamophobic” protesters, not kids with IEDs. Those initial stories served only to muddy the waters, with headlines like this from The New York Times, “Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor’s House.” You can bet if it had been one of the “Stop the Takeover” bunch which hurled the explosive, The Times would have called it a bomb and said who the target was.

That’s still better than one local news outlet, City and State New York, which went with “Islamophobic demonstration outside Gracie Mansion leads to 6 arrests.” Talk about a lack of clarity.

CNN tried multiple times to frame events as an attack on New York City’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Slowly, it began to be undeniable that this was a terror attack. The two bombs used contained TATP, an explosive commonly used by terrorists because it is made from readily available ingredients. (They also call it “Mother of Satan” because it has a tendency to go off accidentally and kill the bomb makers.)

The attack failed, not from lack of effort, but from shoddy bomb design.

Elsewhere; 41-year-old naturalized citizen Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, originally from Lebanon, drove his car through the wall of a Detroit area synagogue. He engaged in a firefight with the armed security Temple Israel had hired for fear of such an incident. The attacker shot himself.

The synagogue’s preschool was in session at the time, and none of the more than 140 people inside was injured in the attack. One security officer was struck by the pickup, and 30 first responders were hospitalized for smoke inhalation after the building filled with smoke when the truck caught fire.

Law enforcement said that the attacker was stuck in the truck cab after crashing through a wall. Afterward, it was discovered he had a large quantity of commercial-grade fireworks and several jugs of gasoline in his pickup.

Investigation showed that the attacker bought over $2,000 worth of fireworks the day before the incident. (Which, according to store workers, was not remarkable because people routinely buy $5,000 to $10,000 worth for private celebrations.)

The media was quick to stress that the suspect had lost several family members, including a niece and nephew, in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon the week before. Much harder to find was the fact that two of his brothers, who were also killed, were both known members of Hezbollah.

This seemed to almost justify the attack in many of the headlines. It should be clear that having terror organization linked family members killed by Israeli bombs doesn’t give someone the right to attack random Jews in the U.S.

The third incident took place at Old Dominion University in Virginia, where a gunman, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, killed one and wounded two others.

The gunman was a naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone who had served eight years in prison for trying to aid ISIS. He shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire on an ROTC class. His attack was brought to a stop by students in the class. He was reportedly killed with a knife by a student.

The quick action prevented further casualties, but Lt. Col. Brandon Shah died. He was a former helicopter pilot with over 600 combat hours and two Bronze Stars and was an ROTC leader at the university.

The attacker had been a member of the Virginia Army National Guard before quitting after hearing radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki lectures. Prosecutors who sent him to prison said Jalloh had hoped to do something similar to the shootings at Fort Hood.

Following a trip to Nigeria to make contact with ISIS members, the FBI set up a sting, and he was arrested after buying weapons.

In this case and with the two American-born bomb throwers in New York, it is said they were radicalized online.

The same people who warn about the evils of Islamophobia have no hesitation in shouting from the rooftops about the danger of Christian nationalists. Yet, polling shows roughly 30 percent of our population hold views deemed “right-wing Christian nationalist”.

So we shouldn’t label every Muslim in the country a terrorist or every “Christian nationalist” as dangerous.

But we also shouldn’t ignore or try to obscure that some are. - Frank Mercer