Science in Our Upcoming Elections, State by State

Another fascinating article out this week, this one on the national elections, state by state.

The Most Important Science Policy Issue in Every State

Lots of these issues have to do with flooding, wildfires, chemical runoff and corporate farming.

Missouri’s contribution to this is fascinating and at the forefront of an issue and change.

Missouri: The fake-meat debate

Missouri has become the epicenter of a fracas between meat producers and the burgeoning “fake meat” industry, a market that has jumped 24 percent since 2015. This past May, the legislature passed a bill that bars makers of flesh substitutes from using the word “meat” on their labels. Backed by the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association and pork producers, the bill could stifle growth of a new industry, according to meat substitute producers. Columbia-based Beyond Meat, for instance, could likely have to change its name, and warns that the measure could result in job loss. The company, together with University of Missouri researchers, has developed plant-based burgers, chicken strips, and sausages that closely resemble real meat. Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown says the bill would do little to convince consumers to opt for the real thing.

This part is especially interesting.

In late August, vegan food maker Tofurky, along with the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, filed suit against the state, arguing that the new law stifles free speech and hampers competition.

From Kansas, it’s one more example, and a great one, of why we need newspapers and their reporters. In this, the Wichita Eagle-Beacon came to the rescue.

Kansas: Dry-cleaning chemicals in residents’ water

This past summer, an investigation in the Wichita Eagle newspaper found that hundreds of residents drank and bathed in water fouled with the dry-cleaning chemical perchloroethylene (PCE) for more than six years—and that state officials failed to inform the communities. At one site, PCE levels in the groundwater were 8.1 parts per billion; EPA limit is 5 ppb. As many as 22 other contaminated sites may have gone unaddressed, according to the investigation. A 1995 state law lobbied for by the dry-cleaning industry appears to be largely to blame. The Kansas Drycleaner Environmental Response Act included a provision that directed state regulators to refrain from looking for contamination from dry cleaners and “make every reasonable effort” to keep sites off the EPA’s Superfund list. Residents are calling for the state to scrub up the areas and for lawmakers to strike the part of the legislation that bars checking for PCE leaks in groundwater.

All these, from state to state, point out why we so desperately and completely need government—state and federal both. If we don’t have these governments, there are no ways to keep our air, water and soil clean and clear. Corporations would be able to do whatever they wish, people and animal life be damned.

You might also check out Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Virginia and their issues, especially.

What We're Getting With and From This President

Columnist Leonard Pitts puts it very well today.

So here we are, six months later. How time has trudged.

But the calendar does not lie. On Thursday, we will be half a year through the Trump Era. And, contrary to his signature promise, America seems less great by the day. Nor are his other promises faring particularly well.

There is no sign of progress on that border wall, much less any idea how he is going to make Mexico pay for the thing. His promise to preserve Medicaid and provide healthcare for everyone has dissolved into a GOP bill that would gut Medicaid and rob millions of their access to healthcare.

Meantime, the guy who once said he would be working so hard he would seldom leave the White House spends more time on golf courses than a groundskeeper.

But for all that Trump has not achieved, there is, I think, one thing he indisputably has. He has taught us to live in a state of perpetual chaos and continuous crisis. Six months later, the White House commands the same horrified attention as a car wreck or a house fire.

In that sense, last week’s revelation that the Trump campaign, in the person of Donald Trump Jr., did in fact collude with a hostile foreign power to influence the 2016 election was just another Tuesday. Sure, it might have been shocking from the Bush or Obama campaigns. But under Trump, we live in a state of routine calamity.

Besides which, a few days from now, there will be something else. With Trump, there inevitably is. Things can always get worse — and usually do.

And when they can do, we can count on the GOP, that inexhaustible fount of righteous outrage, to stand tall and courageously look the other way. For almost 20 years,the party has never seen a minor episode (“Travelgate”), a sheer nothing (Whitewater) or even an international tragedy (Benghazi) it could not turn into Watergate II. Yet, as credible accusations of treason, obstruction, collusion, and corruption swirl about this White House, the GOP has been conspicuous in its acquiescent silence. It seems the elephant has laryngitis.

But the rest of us can’t stop talking.

Indeed, from the studios of CNN to the bar stools of your neighborhood watering hole, amateur psychoanalysis has become America’s favorite pastime in the last six months. Dozens of theories have been floated, all aimed at answering one question:

What is wrong with him?

But I have come to believe that question misses the point. Sixty-three million people voted for this. And make no mistake, they knew what they were getting. It was always obvious that Trump was a not-ready-for-prime-time candidate, but they chose him anyway. And the rest of us need to finally come to grips with the reason why.

It wasn’t economic anxiety. As a study co-sponsored by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic reported in May, people who were worried for their jobs voted for Hillary Clinton. But people who dislike Mexicans and Muslims, people who oppose same-sex marriage, people mortally offended at a White House occupied by a black guy with a funny name, they voted for Trump.

That’s the reality, and it’s time we quit dancing around it.

This has been said a million times: Donald Trump is a lying, narcissistic, manifestly incompetent child man who is as dumb as a sack of mackerel. But he is the president of the United States because 63 million people preferred that to facing inevitable cultural change. So I am done asking — or caring — what’s wrong with him. Six months in, it’s time we grappled a far more important question.

What in the world is wrong with us?


Links to more of Mr. Pitts columns:

Republican Party has ‘flat out lost its mind’

Mr. President: ‘Just who the hell do you think you are?’

No, Donald Trump isn’t crazy, but he’s not very smart, either

President Trump is an 'F' student

Kansas, You're Killing Us Here

So Kansans elected and then re-elected the Right Wing, Republican, uber-conservative, "trickle down economics" demagoguing numbskull that was and still is Sam Brownback as governor and we all know how that's gone.

Deficits, slashed school spending, robbing children of state funding for programs, lowered state debt rating, etc., etc.

It's not gone well, to say the least.

And with all that, it seemed they were learning, finally, at long last. Kansans had and have a large disapproval rating of Mr. Brownback, albeit far too late. So you'd think they'd be learning, right?

Well, turns out you'd be wrong. This broke in the last 24 hours.

Poll: Trump leads Clinton in Kansas

What the freak?

Are you kidding me?

Do you people not know Donald "Don't Bother Me With the Facts" Trump supports the same kind of slash-the-taxes-for-the-wealthy policies as your failed and failing governor? Do you not know that?

Do you learn nothing?

Not only that but The Donald is far more emotional and less educated in politics and government than the Guv'. This guy is and would be a walking nightmare.

But what the heck. It isn't like we don't have our own problems over here in Missouri. Eric Greitens, Catherine Hanaway and the entire Republican roster for our own governor being the source of many.

Las Vegas billionaire contributes $200,000 to Greitens campaign

Link:  The Shameless Catherine Hanaway

Vulnerable GOP Senators In-Line with Dangerous Trump/Pence Agenda

The Republican, Right Wing Nightmare Kansas Has Become

Along with Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback wanting to take money from the state's pension fund in order to pay for his and the Republican Party's fiscal screw ups and nightmares, there's this, too:

Gov. Sam Brownback is cutting aid to Kansas schools by $44.5 million

I won't paste the entire article here, describing what these irresponsible putzes are doing or trying to do but here's a snippet:

Brownback’s plan takes $28 million, or 1.5 percent, out of elementary and secondary education, including $5 million from Johnson County schools. The districts taking the biggest hits will be Olathe, Shawnee Mission and Blue Valley. The Republican governor also sliced more than $16 million, or 2 percent, from higher education.

So much for the education and growth of our children for our own and their futures, huh?

It's a pretty important article. I would absolutely recommend any and every adult Kansan read it and see what these chuckleheads are doing or trying to further do to your state and take from your children and even you, yourself.  

Really, Kansas.  You're better than this.  You were always smarter, much smarter than this.

Could we dispense with that whole "trickle down", cut the taxes for the wealthy and corporations idea now, locally and nationally?

Please? Finally?  Forever?

Meanwhile, seems the Republicans just don't have anything going right for them over in our neighbor state:

Director of Governor's Council of Economic Advisors arrested after DUI

Put another way, this news makes much more sense:

Brownback advisor arrested on suspicion of drunk driving

For a "Brownback advisor" to be drunk. 

Yes, I have to say, that explains a lot.

It explains, maybe, the last several years of governance in Kansas.

How Is What Kansas Governor Brownback Wants To Do Even Legal?

Kansas Governor Brownback and his very Republican cohorts are at it again.  Some more.

They haven't screwed up the state enough so they've come up with yet another terrific idea.  Have you seen this?

Brownback defends using public pension funds to fill Kansas budget hole

This is incredible.

There they are, Kansas pensions---people's money, retirement money, at that, just sitting there, like a big pile of rescue for Governor Sam "I Can Screw Up Anything" Brownback  and he wants to tap into it, take money away from and out of it, and all because he and the Republicans in his state slashed taxes for the rich and corporations, screwing up Kansas' budgets.

This is conceivable, sure, just as sure as the first robbery by one person from another ever was. 

What it also is, however is unconscionable.  

He and his Kansas Republican Party screw up, they deplete the state's coffer and budgets and so what does he want to do to fix his empty bank accounts?

He wants to take money from former and current Kansas state employees pensions and all because, well, hell, it IS just sitting there, after all.

I ask again---how in God's name is this even legal?

Why can a sitting state governor arbitrarily tap into an already set up retirement fund of working people when it has and had nothing, ever, whatever to do with a state's budgeting or taxes?

And more, is there no one in Kansas to stand up and call this out for the blatant, ugly, irresponsible, misplaced theft and wrong that it is?

No Kansas Churches or clergy or ethicists or ANYONE in the entire state who cannot and will not call him out on this?

Anyone??

Bueller?

I ask again, how is this legal?  Why is this legal?  Can't it be made illegal and soon as possible so this highly immoral travesty doesn't take place and so it can't possibly happen again, in the future?

Anyone?

At least there's this. At least our own Kansas City Star is standing up against this theft, this nonsense.

Don’t let Gov. Sam Brownback delay payments for Kansas pensions

Kansas Financial Woes Getting Worse

It keeps getting worse over the state line in Kansas. This, yesterday, from the Wichita Eagle-Beacon:

Kansas lowers estimates for cash reserves less than a month into new fiscal year

A bit of the story:

The state’s cash balance could be even smaller next June than lawmakers realized when they approved a tax plan in June.

When lawmakers left Topeka last month, it was with the understanding the state would have $86 million in its cash reserves by the end of June 2016, which marks the end of the fiscal year, if the governor went ahead with $50 million in cuts.

But those estimates have already been lowered less than a month into the 2016 fiscal year. The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Research Department now says that the state will have about $67 million in its reserves by the end of the fiscal year – and that’s assuming Gov. Sam Brownback makes a full $50 million in cuts.

So far, the governor has identified only $2 million in cuts.

Since Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his Republican cohorts have taken over in Topeka, things have gone to bad to worse and now, to getting much worse.

Kansans need an election.

A great, big, fat, many state officeholders election, those poor things.

As further proof of the rather ugly financial, Kansas situaion, this broke late last evening:

Despite strict budget, midyear cuts could occur, Wichita schooldistrict superintendent says

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article27954994.html#storylink=cpy

Kansas Crazy

The story is 2 weeks old but still, it's so surprising, even disappointing, it's difficult to believe. What's not difficult to believe is that it's out of Kansas.

Kansas allows concealed guns in Statehouse without permit

Stunning. Some information:

Visitors to the Kansas Statehouse now can bring concealed guns into the historic building without a state permit.

The new law took effect July 1 and ended a requirement for residents 21 and older to obtain a state permit to carry a concealed firearm, The Wichita Eagle reported. The state last year began allowing people to carry concealed guns into the Statehouse if they had a permit.

Ending the permit requirement means people don’t have to undergo a background check or complete eight hours of firearms training to carry a concealed gun. Kansas is among a handful of states without such restrictions.

While dangerous, at least, they get credit for not being total hypocrties. They support guns everywhere. This will help give them just that.

Not hypocritical. 

Just dangerous.

And stupid.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article26734369.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article26734369.html#storylink=cpy

How Far Down, Kansans, How Far Down?

How far down, Kansans, are you going to let Governor Brownback and the Republicans take you before you finally, finally say "Enough!"?
Now, this, today, from the Wichita Eagle-Beacon, no less, from right in the heart of the state:

Technology education incentives cut for Kansas school districts

Kansas school districts this year will get less than half the monetary incentive they expected from the state as part of a 2012 initiative to enhance career and technical education.

A memo sent to school districts from the Kansas State Department of Education last week says the per-pupil payment for students who obtained certificates in certain high-demand fields will be “approximately $450” for the just-completed school year. That’s down from a $1,000 per-student incentive promised in the initial legislation.

“It’s been a great program. It’s been highly successful,” said Dale Dennis, deputy education commissioner. “But the appropriation was just reduced due to the state’s fiscal condition.”

So it's a great program, it's for the kids, for the students and for education in technology but due to Governor Sam Brownback's and his Republican Party's "trickle down" tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, the program gets cut and the kids go wanting.

Less education.

Less experience.

And this is a good idea how?

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article25701169.html#storylink=cpy

How Much More Can----and Will---Kansans Take?

Everything Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his political party cohorts have touched, fiscally, financially and dealing with taxes, it seems, have turned to debt and red ink.

We've all been following them for these few years now and watched the debt rating be downgraded and debts rise and budgets be slashed, sure. But the latest budget cuts, now to the schools, are being the unkindest and even worst, the most painful and even hopeless, of all.

I saw this last evening:

Wichita schools would lose $22 million on possible state spending cut

And that, I thought, was horrible, for one not-that-large a school district.

But then I saw this:

Schools could lose $197 million under spending 

cut scenario

Truly horrible.

Just short of 200 million dollars, nearly one quarter of a billion dollars, to be cut from the school budgets across the state.

How do you have hope for your children, for the future, for your state, if you don't--hell, can't--invest in the next generations?

Article and video on Wichita, KS and the Koch brothers in NYT today

First the video:

Koch County, Kansas

The Koch brothers have their name on a lot of things in Wichita, home of Koch Industries - a zoo exhibit, a YMCA, a basketball arena. But even in a city they've given millions to, there are skeptics.

And then the article:

In Wichita, Koch Influence Is Revered and Reviled

For residents of the Kochs' hometown, Wichita, Kan., the brothers are known less for their political agenda and more for their extensive philanthropy, which some see as a mixed blessing.

Sam Brownback's Kansas

Did you see the latest results of Republican Governor of Kansas Sam Brownback's and his cohorts handiwork?  It's a real beauty:

Census shows more people leaving Kansas

A bit from the article:

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - New census figures show that more people have been moving out of Kansas than have been moving in recently.

From 2010 to 2013, Kansas lost 10,197 people because of outward migration, according to numbers released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The census also showed that Kansas gained 16,752 people from international migration over the last four years, but lost 26,949 to other states, which resulted in the net 10,197 loss.

From 2000 to 2009, Kansas had a net migration loss of 17,574, with most of it occurring from 2001 to 2005, when Kansas had a net loss of more than 27,000 people.

As if that isn't bad enough, it really does get worse:
As if Kansas was among the bottom 10 states in the number of people who moved in from other states compared with the number who moved out during the 12 months ending July 1, 2013. Kansas ended the year with a net loss of 12,557.
Now, sure, the people leaving very rural, nearly empty Kansas isn't completely, totally due to the results of the Republican work of slashing the taxes of the already-wealthy and heaping those taxes, instead, on the middle- and lower-classes but one thing's for sure, it surely isn't helping. It isn't helping the workers and working class people of the state, it hasn't helped businesses increase and/or expand in the state and it surely hasn't helped the budget of the state or of their schools.

Not only that but it's not expected to get any better any time soon, according to the Lawrence paper:

Study: Kansas' population to drop more | CJOnline.com

 

WICHITA — A decades-long decline in population is likely to continue in Kansas, particularly in the west of the state, and four counties could have fewer than 1,000 residents by 2040, according to a study by Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research.

 

All I can say is, Paul Davis can't become governor soon enough.

 

 



Kansas' WuShock and WSU in today's NYT

Big sports article:

The Pride of Wichita State, Whatever It May Actually Be

"Small government" Republicans?

Oh, sure they are.    Well, until it comes to bringing home the bacon for their own district.

I got this email last evening from none other than Kansas Senator Jerry Moran:

NBAF Funded in Omnibus Bill
Today, we received good news — the Omnibus appropriations bill includes $404 million for construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan. For those who have questioned whether NBAF will be built in Kansas, the passage of this funding bill will provide a clear answer: yes. This investment means Kansas will become a research epicenter, and the construction of this modern, world-class facility will ultimately create jobs for Kansans in the fields of engineering, science and technology. The talented young men and women who grow up here will have the opportunities they need to stay in Kansas.

As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I have worked to make certain NBAF remains a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security, the Administration and among Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle. I am grateful to Governor Brownback, the Kansas legislature and Kansas State University President Kirk Schulz for their leadership and support as this process continues.

A January 2012 economic impact report found the NBAF will employ approximately 326 permanent employees and support some 757 construction jobs. The facility is expected to have a $3.5 billion economic impact on Kansas in the first 20 years alone. In addition to creating an economic boom for Kansas, NBAF will protect our national economy by researching foreign animal disease threats, which are very real with devastating impacts. The cost of an outbreak far outweighs the NBAF construction cost, not only in the loss of human life but also its damage to the animal and agricultural industry.

The state-of-the-art biosecurity lab is to be built adjacent to Kansas State University. The main laboratory will boast safety and security features recommended by the National Academies of Sciences. The state of Kansas showed its commitment to this project by contributing $202 million. A funding commitment was also made to provide infrastructure repairs at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center to guarantee a smooth transition of research from Plum Island, N.Y., to Manhattan, Kan.

And of course, that wasn't enough pork, oh, no. He's not done yet:

Basing Tanker at McConnell AFB Funded in Omnibus Bill
The Omnibus appropriations bill also includes $219 million in military construction funding for upgrades to McConnell Air Force Base (AFB) to accommodate the new KC-46A tankers. The KC-46A tanker fleet will begin arriving at McConnell in 2016, bringing more than 200 airmen to the base. The economic impact in Wichita and around the state will be felt before their arrival, as military construction of the infrastructure necessary to safeguard and house the new, larger tankers begins. 

The various McConnell facility projects include: installation of the weapon system trainers to be ready for the aircraft arrival in 2016; construction of fuel cell and corrosion control hangars; construction of a parking space and hydrant fuel system; and, construction of a squadron operations and aircraft maintenance unit building. This investment is great news for our state and the city of Wichita, which is and will remain the air capital of the world. The Omnibus appropriations bill is expected to be voted on in the U.S. House and Senate this week.

Oh, yeah, they're "small government" all right.   As long as it's the other government representative that isn't getting money in HIS or her district, sure, they are.

In the meantime, this is the political party that wants to cut your, our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, folks.

Small spending, my eye.

He goes on to say, in his email about "Discussing the Best Ways to Create Jobs and Opportunity."

Never once in the following information did he say anything of, say, a jobs/infrastructure bill he or his fellow Republicans might propose.

So much for growth in our economy, eh?

You're blowing Kansas cash, Gov. Brownback and we're not talking a lottery here

From Kansas Representative Paul Davis on his Facebook page today--a link to an article from the Wichita Eagle newspaper about their statehouse budget/tax mess:

House rejects compromise tax bill

TOPEKA — The Kansas House of Representatives on Tuesday soundly defeated the latest tax plan to come before it, leaving no clear path to end the contentious legislative session that is already well into overtime.

By a 71-42 vote, the House rejected a conference committee compromise on the tax bill, House Substitute for Senate Bill No. 84.

The bill would have set the sales tax rate at 6 percent – lower than the current 6.3 percent but higher than the 5.7 percent that will automatically take effect July 1, when an emergency sales tax increase passed in the depth of the recession three years ago expires.

The bill would have reduced base income tax rates but would also have trimmed tax deductions, including the standard deduction used by many taxpayers.

Rep. Davis' response to yesterday's actions--and the article:

This was not a compromise. This was an $856 million tax increase on Kansas middle class families, proposed to pay for income tax cuts for millionaires and big corporations. The legislative session has now been in overtime for 6 days, costing Kansas taxpayers $45,000 a day. How long will Governor Brownback let this continue?

So Kansas, Kansans, you, ladies and gentlemen, have had a grand total, as of last evening, of $270,000 spent in your name--that the state coffers didn't have anyway--all so you can, if Governor Brownback and the Republicans in the legislature have their way, raise taxes on the middle- and lower-classes and lower the taxes of the already-wealthy and corporations. A quarter of a million dollars that Kansas doesn't have, wasted and each day adds another $45,000.

Great day to be a Kansan, isn't it?

Ain't it great to be rich?

Don't you wish YOU were?

A story the Star needs to do

I read in the Kansas City Star today that a local soldier died in Afghanistan this past Wednesday:

Liberty soldier drowns in Afghanistan

May 17
BY RICK PLUM LEE
The Wichita Eagle

A soldier from Liberty, Mo., died this week in Afghanistan after drowning while attempting to cross a body of water during combat operations, the defense department announced Friday.

Sgt. 1st Class Trenton L. Rhea, 33, drowned Wednesday in Kandahar. He served with the 200th Military Police Command, U.S. Army Reserve, in Belton, Mo.

Rhea was on his second tour in Afghanistan. He had previously served a tour in Iraq and at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

He is survived by a wife, Leah, and three daughters.

He grew up in the small western Kansas town of Oakley.

Now, what should happen, what hopefully will happen, is that someone down at our local newspaper will get inspired and realize this is a story they should cover. Up to this point, for that matter, all they did was take a story off the AP wire, from the Wichita Eagle Beacon, and repaste.

This is a story right in our own back yard coming, as it does, out of Kansas and now Missouri, nearby Liberty, for one thing.

Second, we're right here, in May, virtually right on top of Memorial Day. The timing is right for that reason, too.

Third, I don't believe they've done any local stories on any soldiers from Missouri or Kansas in these wars for quite some time, if they ever did one.

Fourth, look at all this soldier has been through and done. He was from Liberty, he was out of the Army Reserve in Belton, he had been in Iraq and at Guantanamo and served two tours of duty in Afghanistan. If anyone's life might tell what we've been doing out across the world for the past decade, it looks as if this soldier's story would.

Finally, the fact that he leaves a wife and three daughters deserves this story be told, if they, the family, would and will allow.

I hope they would and I hope the Star does it.

I don't think enough of us here in America know what our soldiers have done and are doing for our country. This might just be the perfect time and place to tell one of those stories.

Here's hoping.

Gonzaga loses?? To who??

Number one seed Gonzaga loses, that's big news but to whom??

Wichita State knocks out top-seeded Gonzaga

Kansas, you're taking it in the pocketbook because of your Governor

 

From the Kansas Democratic Party FB page today:

Gov. Brownback is lining up support behind taxing working Kansas families through higher sales taxes so he can pay for even more tax breaks for large corporations and the wealthiest Kansans. And this is after he eliminated the food sales tax credit, increasing taxes on working Kansans and making it harder to raise a family on a modest income.

Nice, eh?

More importantly, there is this from the Wichita Eagle-Beacon:

Eagle editorial: Flip-flop on sales tax?

Given how strenuously conservative lawmakers and anti-tax groups opposed the statewide sales-tax increase in 2010, it is hard to believe that the Legislature would even consider going back on its word and not allowing the tax to expire on July 1. Yet Gov. Sam Brownback and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce already have flip-flopped; lawmakers may do so, too.

When the Legislature approved the temporary tax increase, conservative lawmakers protested that it would wreck the economic recovery. The Kansas chamber condemned the budget deal as catering “to the needs of those at the government trough,” and it targeted for defeat lawmakers who “voted to impose higher taxes on job creators and families.”

Brownback also criticized the tax increase when he campaigned for governor that year. But after he was elected, he changed his view.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/01/02/2620816/eagle-editorial-flip-flop-on-sales.html#emlnl=Morning_Headlines_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Kansans, you're--we're--being taken for a ride, all so this Governor can, in his hopes, be the next president of these United States.

He need to hear from you and I, from all of us.

Wichitans do what Kansas Citians won't

Breaking news yesterday:

Voters group seeks city resolution against Citizens United decision

A coalition of voting-rights activists came to Wichita City Hall Tuesday asking the council to support a constitutional amendment to push corporate money out of politics.

About 30 residents — part of a new group called “We the People of Kansas” – stood up in the meeting to ask the council to pass a resolution supporting a proposed amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision.

And heaven knows we need to overturn and kill that God-awful ruling.

Thank you, Wichita, Kansas.

You beat us in city-wide celebrations with your annual River Festival and now this.

At least they have these things going for them.

Now, it's up to you Kansas City. Your move.

Link to original article: http://www.kansas.com/2012/07/17/2411510/voters-group-seeks-city-resolution.html#storylink=cpy

On the demise of the American newspaper

"We draw ever closer to the once-unthinkable day when some major American city has no newspaper whatsoever."

That quote is from a column by Leonard Pitts, Jr. of the Miami Herald newspaper this past Saturday. (Link, as usual, below).

When this happens--heaven forbid, though it seems as though it's going to happen--that a city or cities across America won't have newspapers, it will not just be a sad day for that city or those cities and even America, it will be a tragic day, a dangerous day for all of us.

When there aren't reporters to ferret out stories about our government representatives or our government overall, we will lose yet more power in our societies.

When those newspapers aren't there to pay those reporters to search out stories about our corporations and what business is doing in private, with or without those same government representatives and/or institutions, we will be a weak people, indeed.

There are other problems and losses, too, like the fact that newspapers could and frequently did give us both sides of an issue and the fact that we all had a common basis--that newspaper--from which to draw our common background, whether we accepted or believed it all or not.

So go ahead, make fun of your local newspaper or reporters or what have you. Tbey may not be great, they may not be perfect, they may not be what they once were but they gave us what information we would not otherwise have gotten.

It may have been some backroom deal. Some "sweetheart deal." Some illegal or even just unfair or unethical one.

But without that newspaper and without their payroll and without, again, those reporters, we know nothing.

Or we run that risk, surely and simply.

Link to original article: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/23/2863825/these-are-not-ordinary-times-for.html#morer

Quote of the day--on current Kansas politics and politicians (and lessons for the rest of us)

Fantastic writing today from The Wichita Eagle-Beacon:

"Faith is powerful, but it’s no substitute for analysis or facts or shrewd political deal making. Moreover, in politics and policymaking, pure faith can be destructive. For one thing, the true believer 'cannot compromise over the holy without compromising the holy.'

Yet compromise on substance constitutes the essence of politics and policymaking in the American system.

The election of 2010 swept into office a wave of true believers – from Brownback to Secretary of State Kris Kobach to 30-plus Kansas House members. Cabinet members were recruited as much for their beliefs as for their skills.

The faith in small government runs rampant. Not small, effective government, but small government, period. Likewise, the belief that privatization of Medicaid will save money and provide better services, all the while producing profits, trumps careful analysis.

To be sure, belief – true, encompassing belief – is a remarkable leap, and one that we should hold in awe. But it’s incompatible with governing a state as a steward for the entire population." --Burdett Loomis, University of Kansas Political Science Professor.

Complete, brief article here: http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/06/2322974/belief-is-not-enough.html#storylink=cpy