Policy and Politics
tfk | December 15, 2006Workers at a Topeka Goodyear plant have been part of a national strike by the United Steelworkers, seeking retirement security and job safety. You can sign a petition to support the workers as the strike heads into the holidays.
And given that 16,000 USW workers nationwide are going to be on strike through the holidays, now is a good time to help them out. Every penny donated to the strike fund will go to striking workers.
Three years ago, the USW's workers and retirees gave Goodyear big concessions to keep the company out of bankruptcy. Now the company has healthy margins and executives…
tfk | December 11, 2006The KS GOP Insider and the Star both confirm that outgoing pantysniffer Attorney General Phill Kline is working for votes to take the job of the guy who took his job. Paul Morrison has been the Johnson County DA for a long time, serving as a Republican. He switched parties and booted Kline out of office. A few days ago, Kline switched his voter registration to a Kansans for Life apartment in Johnson County, which fueled speculation that he was going to make a bid for Morrison's old job.
The way this works, is that Morrison had to step down as DA. That means that the party he was elected…
tfk | December 11, 2006The first bill filed for next year's state senate session would ban thimerosal in vaccines. Thimerosal is a preservative formerly used in many vaccines, now mostly found only in flu vaccines. Because it contains a form of mercury, people have tried to link its use in childhood vaccines with rising autism rates. As the Lawrence Journal-World's Scott Rothschild notes:
Federal officials maintain there is no association between the disorders and thimerosal. Critics, however, say the studies are flawed and note that mercury is a known toxin.
Unfortunately, he leaves out a lot of background.…
tfk | December 8, 2006As new Board of Ed candidate Shaver prepares to take office, she is laying out a pretty sound agenda:
Shaver said priority number one would be to hire a new commissioner of education after former commissioner Bob Corkins resigned recently. Shaver said she thought the new commissioner would need experience in education and managing large groups of people, along with communication and financial skills.
After that, Shaver said there are several key issues to work on.
"When I was out campaigning and talking to folks, parents, teachers, everybody is concerned about No Child Left Behind and the…
tfk | December 7, 2006I never had terribly high hopes for the Iraq Study Group. It smacked too much of Papa Bush trying to put little Georgie on the right path, not like a serious effort to come to grips with the catastrophe that Iraq has become (and which, I hasten to note, I and others predicted it would become). And from what I've seen of the report, it seems basically to be what I predicted.
Setting aside the details of the recommendations, we can see the problem in looking at Kansas politicians' reactions to it:
Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., said he particularly likes the concept of developing a broad…
tfk | December 6, 2006Administration Officials Brace for Departures:
Important Bush Administration officials are ready to leave the government rather than undergo two years of hell from Democratic committee chairmen in Congress. Leading the exodus are officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fearing investigation by two chairmen, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI).
Apparently they really believed all the noise about creating a permanent Republican majority, and acted as if there would never be a demand for accountability. So the poor babies are doing what they always do,…
tfk | December 5, 2006Brownback forms committee:
Topeka Republican U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback formed a campaign exploratory committee Monday to measure the nation's appetite for his possible run for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2008.
Voters across America ignored this event. The Anti-Sam, back from hiatus during campaign season, has a nice review of the top Brownbackers.
tfk | December 5, 2006Melvin Neufeld:
even though the November election results produced a more moderate House, the Republican caucus went further to the right in selecting Neufeld, who was seen as the most conservative of the three speaker candidates, which included Mike O’Neal of Hutchinson and Kenny Wilk of Lansing. …
In 1994, Neufeld grabbed headlines when he was accused of blackmailing a legislator on a House vote by calling the legislator’s wife about allegations of sexual misconduct. Neufeld acknowledged making the call but said he wasn’t trying to blackmail anyone.
KS RINO helpfully dredges up the decision…
tfk | December 5, 2006Retrospectacle points out an interesting radio experiment:
At the end of [a] one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, [host Jerry] Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.
"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL, which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland
"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear…
tfk | December 2, 2006The AP reports:
Gov.-elect Deval Patrick complained Friday about Gov. Mitt Romney's decision to appoint a budget planner to be executive director of a board overseeing state funding for stem cell research.
Aaron D'Elia, a 35-year-old assistant secretary in the Executive Office of Administration and Finance, was approved Thursday by the board by a 4-1 margin to head the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. The post pays $125,000 annually.
University of Massachusetts President Jack Wilson voted against the appointment, saying it was made without a search. …
D'Elia's views on stem cell research…
tfk | November 30, 2006Publius descends into the madness of the right wing blogosphere, it's commentariat and Presidential hopefuls and concludes:
It’s more than a little ridiculous that I feel compelled to defend the First Amendment (tomorrow – "Why Water is Good: A Reply to Ledeen"), but there are a couple of points that need to be made.
There are many points that need to be made, mostly about the absurdity of Newt Gingrich, by all accounts an intelligent and historically informed person, needing to be reminded that people fought a fair share of wars precisely in order to have a right to speak freely.
He even…
tfk | November 30, 2006Chris Mooney finds Justice Scalia being proudly clueless as he prepares to decide whether the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, if it permits such regulation, or whether the state of Massachusetts has a right to even get into that argument.
JUSTICE SCALIA: your assertion is that after the pollutant leaves the air and goes up into the stratosphere it is contributing to global warming.
MR. MILKEY: Respectfully, Your Honor, it is not the stratosphere. It's the troposphere.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I'm not a scientist.
(Laughter…
tfk | November 29, 2006Undoubtedly this rent in the GOP's former unity will get as much airtime as squabbles over Democratic leadership positions.
Tiahrt's run for head of the conservative caucus in the House may tear the GOP asunder before the new session begins:
A major fight is brewing among conservatives in the House to elect the next chairman of the Republican Study Committee.
Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) have been calling members of the increasingly influential committee to ask for their support in the election next Wednesday. …
Hensarling led a small band of upstarts who, over the…
tfk | November 29, 2006A big part of the 6 for '06 agenda that Nancy Pelosi proposed as the agenda for the incoming Congress was allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Forbidding that simple expedient was by far the most foolish thing (among many foolish things) in the Bush prescription drug plan. The VA negotiates drug prices as does every other prescription drug plan. But Bush had too many friends in Big Pharma, so they get to charge the taxpayer whatever they want. Huzzah!
The argument advanced against negotiating those prices is something like this (from Kevin Drum): "If the feds negotiate prices, then…
tfk | November 27, 2006An oldie, but a goodie. Way back in February of 2003, D-squared Digest said:
give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:
1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
2. It was significant enough in scale that I'd have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
3. It wasn't in some important way completely fucked up during the execution.
It's nearly four years later, and I remain unable to think of an example. Discuss.
As you discuss, feel free to suggest helpful ways in which this situation could be remedied. For…
tfk | November 26, 2006Right before the long Thanksgiving weekend, incompetent, unqualified hack:
Education Commissioner Bob Corkins resigned Wednesday, ending a short and stormy tenure as Kansas’ education chief before a new Board of Education could do it for him.
In a 7-3 vote, the board accepted the resignation “with regret” and agreed to provide Corkins with a severance package that includes 30 days’ pay and benefits.
Janet Waugh voted not to accept the resignation "with regret," since she has none. Personally, I only regret that this story will get buried in the Turkey Day newspaper, which is why I'm running…
tfk | November 21, 2006Bob Corkins is the classic lame duck. Since August, he knew that the first action the new Board would take in January was to can him and start looking for a replacement. He has only been on the job for a year, and has managed to get most school administrators and teachers against him. And since firing him was a major part of the platform that won elections in 3 of five Board races, it's hard to imagine that the public wasn't against him, too.
It looks like his time in office has ended earlier than expected. A meeting called by the Board is fueling speculation that Corkins will be fired…
tfk | November 20, 2006Sandy Levinson tackles the issue of Religion and politics after reading Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael Honey:
Almost every single chapter of Honey's book makes clear, once more, the absolute centrality of churches to the civil rights (and labor) movement in Memphis. This is most obvious with regard to African-American churches. King was only the most famous "reverend" to play a key role in the Movement. But there are also the white clergy (and rabbi); usually, they were pusillanimous and hesitant to move more than a step or two…
tfk | November 17, 2006Ryun dissects election defeat:
Ryun, of Lawrence, said his campaign volunteers were lulled into a false sense of confidence because he easily defeated Boyda in 2004.
"It was difficult to get them engaged because they said, 'Well, you won by 15 points last time.' " Ryun said. "I want to say this, I knew from the beginning it was going to be a tough race."
I guess he would have won if his supporters hadn't held him back.
One day, he may realize that his volunteers didn't get engaged because no one really liked him that much.
tfk | November 17, 2006Presidential wannabe McCain took a swing at the White House and the leadership of NOAA:
"They're simply not complying with the law. It's incredible."
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) raised eyebrows yesterday with that comment regarding the Bush administration, made before a crowd of several hundred at a Washington, D.C. event.
At issue is a report on climate change that Congress requires every ten years. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is responsible for producing the document, last filed a report in 2000. A new report -- the first to be filed by the Bush…