Suddenly Embarrassed to be from Missouri

 I'm stunned.

GOP Lawmakers in Missouri Propose Bills Making It Legal to Hit Protesters With Cars

Missourians! Know What's On Amendment 3 This November!

Coming up in November, with our election, is Amendment 3. We need to know what's in it and what's being attempted.

Below is the language for Amendment 3-The Dirty Missouri Amendment that is about rigging maps to protect incumbent politicians-that will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot.

It is important to read the entire amendment. If one only reads the first two sections you might be inclined to vote yes, but it is a definite NO vote you should cast.

Don’t be fooled by the first two sections. It would reduce the lobbyist gift limit by $5 dollars only and it would lower the contribution limit for state senate candidates by only $100 - That’s it. That’s the list. That’s how politicians are hoping to dupe you. It is the remainder of the ballot that does the damage to Missouri voters and would reinstate gerrymandered districts and make it all but impossible for voters to oust embedded and corrupt politicians.

Why are politicians trying to overturn the will of Missouri voters?

2020 is politicians’ last chance to set things up for gerrymandered maps in 2021 that would last through 2030. They want: 

• Unfair, noncompetitive districts to limit voters’ ability to hold their leaders accountable
• New rules to let lobbyists and political operatives draw lines in back rooms
• Explicit allowances for extreme partisan gerrymandering
• To not count kids or non-citizens in Missouri’s population
• Unprecedented restrictions on citizens’ abilities to challenge unfair maps in court

In 2018 Missourians voted 2 to 1 for clean government reforms. The Republicans said Missouri voters didn’t know what we were doing-WE DID-and now they want to overturn the will of the people - and have succeeded in getting confusing language on the ballot.

For more details go to https://www.cleanmissouri.org/dirty-missouri/

Ballot language is below -

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to: 

• Ban gifts from paid lobbyists to legislators and their employees: • Reduce legislative campaign contribution limits: 

• Change the redistricting process voters approved in 2018 by: (i) transferring responsibility for drawing state legislative districts from the Nonpartisan State Demographer to Governor-appointed bipartisan commissions: (ii) modifying and reordering the redistricting criteria. State governmental entities expect no cost or savings. Individual local governmental entities expect significant decreased revenues of a total unknown amount.

VOTE NO

Link:

Clean Missouri - Join us Today!

This Coronavirus Pandemic and the Tough State Of and For Kansas

There's a pretty comprehensive article in today's New York Times, covering the overall situations across the nation with this pandemic, no surprise.

Testing Remains Scarce as Governors Weigh Reopening States

In both red and blue states, governors, health departments and hospitals are finding innovative ways to cope, but still lack what experts say they need to track and contain outbreaks.

Interestingly, tellingly and helpfully if probably also unfortunately, they have an entire section of it dedicated to the State of Kansas.

Credit...John Hanna/Associated Press

“We are nowhere near where we need to be with testing supplies,” Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas said.

Herewith the segment of the article, with some occasional commentary. Also, occasional bolding of type within the article for emphasis.

Kansas: ‘There Will Be Death.’

After getting 2,000 tests kits to southwest Kansas and assessing the scale of the outbreak there, Ms. Kelly decided it was not necessary to close the meatpacking plants.

But she said the tortuous path to freeing up even minimal supplies for testing remains the biggest reason she was reluctant to lift the stay-at-home order she imposed on March 28.

“We are nowhere near where we need to be with testing supplies,” she said on Thursday. “I’m looking down a lot of rabbit holes trying to figure out how we are going to get those test kits here. It’s imperative if we are going to be able to lift that stay-at-home order.”

Kansas has one of the lowest Covid-19 testing rates in the nation. Dr. Lee A. Norman, the state’s top health official, estimated that Kansas needed tens of thousands more testing kits.

The state is so short of plastic test swabs that he has appealed to dentists to manufacture them in their offices by modifying 3-D printers used to make dental models.

Since March 20, Kansas has sent the Federal Emergency Management Agency nine requests for medical supplies, including for 235,000 testing swabs, 60,000 kits to transport samples and 178,200 kits to analyze them. As of Wednesday, the agency had sent “nothing,” said Jonathan York, the state’s coordinating officer. Federal officials told him that other states were in more desperate shape.

In mid-April, the federal government delivered 273,000 surgical masks, the kind needed to protect medical workers who administer tests. But Dr. Norman said the masks, which had been privately donated, “were so substandard they wouldn’t even make a good coffee filter.”

Late Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has helped the state obtain some supplies, told officials it intended to ship at least 25,000 of the 80,000 test kits it had requested.

State officials have had no luck trying to buy supplies themselves. Dr. Norman said Kansas had standing requests with private suppliers for $43 million in equipment, a “staggering” sum equivalent to nearly a third of his department’s annual public health budget.

“But the pipelines have pretty much dried up,” he said.

Kansas is still dealing with the hangover of seven years of draconian budget cuts under former Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican. Ms. Kelly said the state health department “had been pretty much decimated” by the time she became governor in 2018, with the laboratory that now processes many Covid-19 tests resembling “something out of the past...”

Thanks, Governor Brownback! Thanks, Republicans!

...The state plans to rely heavily on volunteers to create a corps of 400 workers to monitor the contacts of people who test positive.

Although the state is far from meeting the broad guidelines for testing capacity the White House has recommended for reopening, Ms. Kelly is under growing pressure to allow her stay-at-home order to expire as scheduled on May 3. The Republican-controlled state legislature has moved to curb her emergency powers, and protesters gathered on Thursday on the statehouse grounds.

“What is an acceptable level of risk?” Dr. Norman asked. “We cannot get it down to zero, so how can we guarantee that people won’t get sick?”

So there you have it, campers. Not a good or pretty situation over there next door in Kansas regarding this pandemic. At least Governor Kelly had the good sense to shut the state down early and pretty completely with her stay at home order. Now if she and they could just get some tests from Washington.

You know, the tests this Republican Party President Trump says are so plentiful.

Meanwhile, this from Trump's own lead on the pandemic.

Dr. Fauci says the US needs to double coronavirus testing before the economy reopens

Heavens help Kansas.

Help us all.

Kansans! What You Need To Know About Changes In Voting This Year!

From our hard working friend, Davis Hammet, over at Loud Light.



You can find more about this great group here:

Loud Light

Maybe help them, if you can?

Kansans: The Topeka Statehouse, the Coronavirus and You

From our friend and hard worker Davis Hammet over at Loud Light.



Follow Loud Light here:

Loud Light

And maybe contribute, if you can.

Be safe out there, campers.

And be good to one another.

Kansans! You Need to Watch This Video!

Yes sir, all voting age Kansans should watch this brief but informative video just put out by young Davis Hammet of the Loud Light organization.

I've posted here before who Mr. Hammet is and what good work he does. He came to Kansas from Florida, of all places, and has been doing fantastic work educating now fellow Kansans on their state government. This is just one more of his excellent videos.



Once you've watched it, you'll know more about your government, what it's doing and which way you maybe want to vote this Fall.

Link:

Loud Light

Why We Need Newspapers, Why We Need the Star

Two excellent examples, presently, from our own Kansas City Star of why, exactly, we need newspapers, yes, and our own Kansas City Star. It's this kind of reporting.

Why was Missouri conservation director paid for years of comp time after termination?

Worlds of Fun was sued for polluting. Then Missouri loosened its pollutant limits

Who, exactly, does the footwork, does the research for articles like these on local and state government if newspaper reporters aren't out there?

Local bloggers?

Certainly not.

On top of these examples, there was the series they did earlier in the year about the nearly complete lack of transparency of the state of Kansas government to its residents.

Effectively, our local paper covers local, city governments of several cities in the area, but also 2 state governments, of course, in Missouri and Kansas.

If you already subscribe to the Star, either the online or paper versions, or both, good on you. Keep it up. If you don't subscribe presently, please do so. At minimum, subscribe for the online version.

Republicans? "Small Government"?

Kansas Republicans in general but Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback, too, more specifically, keep proving, time and again, that Republicans in Kansas and really, across the nation, are no more into "small government" than birds are into concrete. We got further proof just this week:

Kansas conservatives advance bill 

on impeachment of judges

It seems "conservative" Republicans in that state don't like that the judges in their area are independently selected and placed. Enough of that none political nonsense, they think it should be done by political parties and partisan government representatives, instead. This in spite the fact that the current system has served Kansans very well the last several decades, at least.

To top it off, those same Kansas, conservative (and I use the term loosely, very loosely), "small government" Republicans also tried last week to have the governor, of all people, take over the distribution of the education budget. Check this little beauty out:

Kansas senator cancels hearing on control-of-school-finance bill

It's not enough Governor Brownback and all the Republicans in Topeka slashed taxes for the already-wealthy and for corporations, thereby putting the state in a downward spiral of tax revenue so they're in the red and had to slash their education budget:

Gov. Sam Brownback cuts higher education as Kansas tax receipts fall $53 million short

Now they want to hand over the reins of the state education budget to the Guv and make the court judge's appointments political ones, instead. Independent judiciary, be damned.

It seems there's nothing those people in the Kansas statehouse don't want to get their hands on.

Small government, my *ss.

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

From Kansas: Letter to the Editor

I saw this letter to the editor to the Editor of the Lawrence Journal-World yesterday, Sunday, out on Facebook.

Letter: Sad state of affairs

To the editor:

I became an avid newspaper reader in 1939 and have maintained that practice into my eighth decade. In all that time, through wars and depression, I have never been as concerned about our political system. From the deadlock in Washington to the would-be oligarchs in Topeka, I believe our democracy is threatened. I will limit this letter to two immediate concerns.

Our education system is under attack. In our state, the teaching profession has been decimated by the failure to fund schools and the removal of teacher rights. As a retired teacher at Lawrence High School, I am concerned about the exodus of good teachers and the quality of education for ALL our youth. Democracy is dependent on an educated and informed electorate.

After retiring, I secured a position as a bailiff in the district court. In 23 years, I worked for a number of judges, some still on the bench and some retired. Every one of them, in my opinion, was well-qualified and fair-minded. Training to correctly interpret and apply the law is a long and difficult process. Our current administration would change a fair method of selecting judges to make it political. It appears to be a clear violation of the separation of the powers of our government.

So what next? Shall we build a wall around Kansas to prevent a mass exit of teachers, judges and our youth? Maybe we could fund it without raising taxes by transferring funds from education, transportation or anything that would benefit those of us who are not wealthy.

You can't say it any better than that.

Mr. Brownback? Kansas Republicans?

Republican Fiscal Programs Worst

The Kansas City Star covered a Business Insider article which ended ranking Kansas and Missouri economies 2 of the 10 worst in the nation.

Missouri and Kansas economies are two of the unhealthiest in the nation, report says 

A Business Insider ranking of state economies places Missouri and Kansas in the bottom 10 when it comes to the state of their economies.

The survey released last week, which examined the economies of 50 states and the District of Columbia, ranked Missouri 47th and Kansas 43rd.

47. Missouri

Missouri is home to 26 Fortune 1000 companies, including Emerson Electric, agricultural giant Monsanto, O'Reilly Automotive, and Energizer.

Missouri had a low rate of employment growth, with nonfarm payrolls growing just 0.8% between June 2014 and June 2015. The state was slightly below average on all our other metrics, like its 5.8% June 2015 unemployment rate, higher than the national rate of 5.3%.

43. Kansas

Kansas' economy has huge agriculture and aerospace sectors. Among the most disproportionately common jobs in Kansas are livestock wholesalers, cattle ranchers, turkey producers, and airplane manufacturers.

Kansas' over the year wage growth of 2.6% was somewhat weaker than the national rate of 3.5% between Q4 2013 and Q4 2014. Job growth was also below average, with nonfarm payrolls growing by only 0.8% between June 2014 and June 2015. Despite the slow change in employment, Kansas' June 2015 unemployment rate of 4.5% was quite a bit lower than the national 5.3% rate.Also worth note is that Right Wing, Republican New Jersey's economy, what with 2016 presidential candidate Chris Christie leading it, also comes in near the bottom at number 44.

In the meantime, California's increasing taxes on the wealthy paid off their debt last week and their economy has grown.

California pays off $14 billion in costly debt from 2004

So the question is, the question still is, at what point do people from these states--heck from the entire nation--recognize and accept that "supply side", "trickle down" economics of the Right Wing and Republican Party just patently don't work?

Cutting taxes for the already-wealthy and corporations just plainly, plainly does not work or even remotely help.  Economists warned it's a bad idea yet off these states have gone and these are the clear, obvious, even paiinful results.

Can we stop this nonsense now, at along last?

Link to original article: 

RANKED: The economies of all 50 US states and DC from worst to best

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

More Reports From Brownbackistan Today

Once again, Kansas and Republican Governor Sam Brownback are in the news--never in good ways, dependably, unfortunately, even tragically. And once again, it's from and in The New York Times‎. Seems the good Guv wants to get his hands on the state courts:



Courts Budget Intensifies Kansas Dispute Over Powers

The fight between Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas and the state’s judicial branch has escalated, with the governor last week signing into law a bill that could strip state courts of their funding.

 

The measure, at the end of a lengthy bill that allocated money for the judiciary this year, stipulates that if a state court strikes down a 2014 law that removed some powers from the State Supreme Court, the judiciary will lose its funding.

 

The 2014 law took the authority to appoint district court judges from the Supreme Court and gave it to the district courts themselves. It also deprived the state’s highest court of the right to set district court budgets. Critics said the law was an attempt by Mr. Brownback, a Republican, to stack the district courts with judges who may be more favorable to his policies.

 

The budget bill that Mr. Brownback signed on Thursday was related only to the judiciary. He said he wanted to ensure that the courts would remain open while lawmakers sparred over the larger budget issues. Lawmakers have been debating how to fill a $400 million shortfall, which will most likely require tax increases that Mr. Brownback and many in the conservative-dominated Legislature oppose. If a budget is not passed by Sunday, state workers may be furloughed.

 

But in passing a separate budget bill to keep the third branch of government from shutting down, Republican lawmakers took the opportunity to insert language that would shield the 2014 law.

 

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Matthew Menendez, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, which is helping to represent a Kansas judge who is challenging the constitutionality of the 2014 law. “It seems pretty clear that these mechanisms have been an effort by the governor and the Legislature to try and get a court system that is more in line with their philosophy.”

 

Richard E. Levy, a constitutional law professor at the University of Kansas, likened the measure in the judiciary budget bill to Congress’s passing a law outlawing abortion and then telling the judicial branch that it will lose its funding if it finds the law unconstitutional.

 

“That kind of threat to the independence of the judiciary strikes me as invalid under the separation of powers principle,” Mr. Levy said in an interview on Friday.

Can you imagine what the Republicans would be saying and, in fact, how loudly they'd be screaming if a governor in Kansas tried to pull such governmental stunts while they were in office?

What part of "small government" is this, exactly?

How "conservative" is this?

Let's be clear here, Governor Sam Brownback is a power-hungry, governmental abuser. There's nothing he doesn't want to get his hands on and control and/or change and to his and his political party's and their supporter's own benefit.

The fact is, if a governor from the Democratic Party tried to do or did all the things he's either done or tried to accomplish, he and his entire Republican Party would be screaming that they're "big government" kooks. There is nothing remotely small government or Conservative about this guy, what he's done, what he's doing or what he is trying to achieve. And it's all for himself, his own temporary power, his political party and the wealthy and corporations in Kansas it can benefit.

Kansans need, desperately, to vote all these Right Wing extremists out of office, post haste. The damage they and the Republican Party have put on that state has been bad enough already, as we keep seeing.

Jefferson City Republicans not Legislating for the People

Well, there they go again.



The Republicans down in Jefferson City were at work today and look what they came up with:

Missouri bill would ban public access to police camera footage

It seems we maybe were getting closer to our local police departments being more and more held accountable for what they do on the job but lo and behold, the "small government" Republicans want to jump in and protect the police, not the people.

The police are going to start getting cameras on themselves, likely, filming their day at work, and these people want to keep any results of that video away from the people.

Once again, does this make any sense at all?

If the officers have cameras on and they are on and running, but you can't see the video, was it ever really there?

Missourians and Americans would simply like to know our police are doing a good job and being fair and, yes, following the law. Is that too much to ask? That's all this was or is for. We'd just like them to be lawful and fair and accountable.

The Republicans want nothing of that for us, clearly.

Link--here's an example of what we'd like to avoid:

Body Camera Footage Captures Fatal Shooting By Police

Video here:

Fatal Shooting Involving Oklahoma Police Officer Captured

Don't You Wish You Had Control of Your Own Raise?

It's going on again down in Jefferson City:

Proposed raises for state elected officials: $1,994,336

It seems clear they decided they wanted $2000 more per year but they didn't want to be too terribly obvious. 

Doesn't everyone wish they could propose and then vote on their own pay raise with all your fellow co-workers, all your pals?

And before anyone goes all nutso on this, yes, I know a state commission came up with this plan. It's just that it seems pretty cushy for them. Their pay raises get considered every 2 or 3 years and they themselves do vote on them.

The bigger question, for me, is how soon are we going to, first, get the minimum wage up to a true, "livable wage", say in the range of $15 per hour? Whose looking after the "little guys and gals" on the street? And then, second, how soon--if ever---can we get it pegged to rise with the inflation rate? It's only then that people will get and have that true, livable wage and we'll get that much closer to having better demand for goods in the nation. It would benefit all, all around.

Let's get this party started.

The Problems With Our Government--and Our Elections

The problems with our government are that

a) the elections for our representatives in our governement go on forever

b) we've made "campaign contributions" legal and

c) we've made unlimited spending on these campaigns not just legal but unlimited. That's insanity.

This is true for our national as well as state elections, too.

The fix?

We need to do what the Brits did, years ago, and limit our elections to one or, at most, two months in length, by law. This way, the big campaign money wouldn't be needed.

It's simple. It's badly, wildly needed. It's long overdue. It's simple.

But Americans and especially the wealthy and corporations won't easily go along with this just as so many don't understand the benefits of the Fairness Doctrine in our media we used to have.

We can only hope.

Fight and work for change.

And hope.

Link:  We could learn a lot from the U.K. election

Finally, some good news out of Kansas

And that good news out of Kansas is this, earlier this week, from The New York Times:

School Funding Deal in Kansas Complicates Governor’s Campaign for Re-election

It seems the Guv's and Republican's earlier legislative work, IS, in fact, coming back to haunt him and hopefully, his political future:

Kansas lawmakers agreed over the weekend to send more money to the state’s poor school districts, addressing a State Supreme Court ruling last month that school financing had to be equalized around the state.

But policy changes that lawmakers added to the bill, most significantly diminishing job protections for teachers, seem all but certain to become a thorny campaign issue for Gov. Sam Brownback, a conservative Republican, as he seeks a second term.

In a state where a debate over financing for education has simmered for years, Mr. Brownback has yet to say whether he will sign the measure, approved late into the night on Sunday. But a statement from his office suggested support, reading, in part: “The bill ensures that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently, putting money in the classrooms to help teachers teach and students learn.”

If anything, the measure — and a grueling, round-the-clock battle in recent days to reach it — was an election-year reminder to Mr. Brownback and other state leaders of the complexities of Kansas politics: While the state capital is firmly controlled by Republicans, they are by no means of a single view.

It seems the Republican Party in Kansas is once again deeply split on an issue. Some are for the bill, others against. The state's Supreme Court said more money needs to go to poorer school districts, too, which a lot of Republicans want to fight but others, wisely, want to support. Then there are the extra "ornaments" which were put on the bill they're also fighting over.

It all gives Democratic Representative Paul Davis far more political ammunition and ability to stand up for the schools and school funding and so, for the people of Kansas, the "little people", the working-, middle- and lower-class people who mostly make up the state and not the top "1%."

As I've said before, I love the smell of Republican division, if not self-destruction, in the morning.

And afternoon. 

And evening.

Missouri, our children, high school, privacy and the military, all in one

It seems the Gestapo Right Wing just can't get enough of their "small gubmint" and their ability to reach into people's lives.

How much more ironic and hypocritical is this?

It seems the state wants more and more of our children to be automatically tested for a career in the military while they're in high school:

Missouri Program Requires High School Students To Take Military Enlistment Test

Check this from Truthout earlier today:

The Missouri School Improvement Program, which is set to take effect beginning with the 2014-15 school year, establishes five standards of accountability used to rate school performance. The third standard calls on high schools to administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Career Exploration Program (ASVAB-CEP) to determine whether students are "College and Career Ready." 

The ASVAB is the entrance exam the military gives to recruits to determine their aptitude for various occupations. The test also is used as a recruiting tool in 11,700 high schools across the country. The ASVAB is the most important component of the Pentagon's school-recruiting program because it provides information on the cognitive abilities of students, something the Department of Defense cannot purchase or find online.

Participation in the ASVAB-CEP allows high schools to take advantage of the career exploration component of the testing regime while prohibiting the release of ASVAB results for recruiting purposes. ASVAB results include three hours of test data, sensitive personal demographic information on children and Social Security numbers. There are no privacy protections built into the Missouri School Improvement Program. ASVAB results are the only student information leaving Missouri's schools without providing for parental consent.

We can't just let our children go to school, we have to automatically have them tested for the military and share that information with that same military and the government.

Weimar Germany would have loved this.

First we'll have them join the Boy Scouts and wear their little brown shirts and get ranks and badges and such, then, once in high school, we'll automatically test them for the military.

Sure, that's perfect.

Kansas, in the news

Kansas in a commentary, anyway.

This one:

Human Stupidity Is Destroying the World 

"In sum and all averaged out, it’s safe to say about 37 percent of Americans are just are not very bright. Or rather, quite shockingly dumb. Perhaps beyond reach. Perhaps beyond hope or redemption. Perhaps beyond caring about anything they have to say in the public sphere ever again. Sorry, Kansas."

Largely, we can thank the Republican takeover of the Statehouse in Topeka for this along with, now, Governor Sam Brownback and his goal/desire to run for the Presidency in 2016 on the backs of the middle-, lower- and working-classes of his state.

I post this here not to insult Kansans but partly to lament the loss of what was, the intelligence that used to come out of the state and partly to challenge Kansans to take their state back from these ignorant, selfish, corporate troglodytes.