Policy and Politics
tfk | October 10, 2006The tagline from a new ad by Wichita-area Congressman Todd Tiahrt is "The safety of American ports must never be sold off to a foreign bidder." It ends a spot that seems aimed at distancing himself from the White House over the Dubai ports deal.
The entire enterprise is bizarre, not least because Tiahrt is as much a rubber stamp as anyone else. Better than that, though, is that “There is probably no other critical infrastructure—besides port security—in the U.S., where so much of it is in foreign hands,” according to Stephen E. Flynn, the Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National…
tfk | October 9, 2006Fire Phill Kline points out this exchange in a Chat with Attorney General Phill Kline:
kugrad: Exactly how many cases did you try in court, meaning you were the lead attorney in the courtroom giving oral arguments, prior to becoming attorney general? If you must estimate, use small incremental steps such as 0-5, 5-10, 10-15, etc. Thank you, kugrad
Attorney General Phill Kline: My practice primarily consisted of construction mediation and arbitration. Early in my career my caseload was more substantial in number and less substantial in size of the case. I would average about 20 cases at a time…
tfk | October 9, 2006"To follow Jack Abramoff's money trail, we will be coming back often to this red door. The townhouse at 132 D Street is just three short blocks from Tom Delay's office at Capitol Hill. 'The Safe House' his staff called it."
So begins chapter two of "Capitol Crimes," Bill Moyers overview of the Abramoff scandal. Today, 132 D Street is owned by Congressman Jim Ryun, and not by Delay's Chief of Staff's nonprofit. The Chief of Staff, Ed Buckham, bought the house with Abramoff's money. Tom Delay used what is now Jim Ryun's bedroom to make calls that would have been illegal if made from…
tfk | October 7, 2006Via Kansas RINO, we learn that:
Sen. Rick Santorum … has politely declined an offer to campaign for him by a favorite of Christian conservatives, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.
Apparently, our Senator is too freaky to help Santorum hang onto his Senate seat in swing state Pennsylvania. That pretty much buries any hopes for Brownback's White House bid. Even as a VP. If you can't win swing states, you can't win.
Of course, I'm sure Santorum will tell Sam that he comes not to bury him, but to praise him for his staunch conservatism.
tfk | October 6, 2006Elevated from the comments. Reader CSA writes:
Even when Bacon *does* show up, physically, he doesn't contribute much. Consider these excerpts from the minutes of the August 2006 KSBE meeting:
p. 18: Mrs. Waugh moved, with a second by Dr. Wagnon, that the Board include in its FY 2008 budget recommendation $24 million for the first year of a three year phase-in of universal all-day-K for those schools wanting to offer it. Chairman Abrams asked if the $24 million would be on top of the $149 million included in SB 549. She indicated it would. The motion failed on a vote of 5-4-1, with Dr. Abrams…
tfk | October 6, 2006SurveyUSA sez:
43% of Americans Say Hastert Should Resign From Congress, Another 20% Say Resign As Speaker But Remain in Congress
He allowed a sexual predator to abuse his power over pages and has run one of the least effective Congresses in modern history. Of course he should resign the Speakership.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi is laying out a very attractive vision of a Democratic House.
Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."
Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.…
tfk | October 6, 2006Gitmo guards brag of beatings:
Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.
A sergeant talking with a group of soldiers reported their nonchalant recollections of beating prisoners with no consequences. "From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the sergeant wrote. "Everyone in the group laughed at the others stories of beating detainees."
Bear in mind that a report based on DoD numbers showed that 92% of the Gitmo…
tfk | October 6, 2006Via Tony, we get Steve Rose explaining why Johnson County is turning Democratic:
in the 56 years we have been publishing in Johnson County, this basically has been a Republican newspaper … I can name on two hands over a half century the number of Democrats we have endorsed for public office.
This year, we will do something different. …
But I could not help but put in perspective a more global phenomenon that has led us to re-evaluate our traditional support for Republicans …The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally … To win a Republican primary, the candidate must…
tfk | October 6, 2006In the last week, there have been three candidate fora
Oct 3, Olathe Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum, Bacon was a no-show.
Oct 3, Candidate Forum in Osawatomie, no Bacon
Oct 5, Candidate Forum in Ottawa, no Bacon
As Don Weiss tells me "One might think he doesn't care."
You'll have a chance to help Don at a fundraiser on October 19th from 4:30 – 7:00 PM. The reception is at the home of the Andersons, 15927 W 161 Terrace, Olathe, KS 66062.
And as a special bonus people who pony up the $15 contribution, the astoundingly popular Governor Sebelius will swing by to talk to the crowd at…
tfk | October 5, 2006Today's editorial from The Parsons Sun:
The race is on
Voters can tell when there's a real race by the big guns that come out, and we in the 2nd Congressional District have a real race. Challenger Nancy Boyda is taking another run at Congressman Jim Ryun, and the one-time Republican has Ryun searching for help.
The proof is in an invitation to a Ryun fundraiser, and the big gun is Vice President Dick Cheney. The whole point of the effort is to help Ryun rake in the dough so he can outspend Boyda, which should be interpreted as buying his seat in Washington for another two years.
The price to…
tfk | October 4, 2006Inc. magazine is Rating the Governors, and only four governors got 4 stars, among them our own:
Kathleen Sebelius
During her 2004 State of the State address, Sebelius said, "State government can't create jobs, but it must create a climate in which businesses can flourish." Ask business owners in Kansas and they'll say she has done just that. Riding a wave of popularity that stems from 22 straight months of job growth, Sebelius will probably waltz to a second term.
By all accounts, she's an expert manager. After inheriting a $1.1 billion deficit, Sebelius balanced subsequent budgets without…
tfk | October 4, 2006
At a Republican campaign lunch, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who once bragged about the memory pills he takes, told the audience that in hindsight, he would not have voted for Iraq war:
During a campaign stop for Kansas Republicans on Tuesday, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that without the claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he said voting for the war would have been difficult.
And who, pray tell, was responsible for vetting those claims in the first place? That's right, Pat Roberts and his colleagues. And 4 years later, he admits…
tfk | October 4, 2006Attorney general misrepresented sex-crime case:
Atty. Gen. Phill Kline had nothing to do with a Sedgwick County case he has repeatedly used to defend an investigation that entangled him in a lengthy legal fight with two abortion clinics, the county’s top prosecutor said Monday.
Kline has pointed to the case of Robert A. Estrada, who pleaded no contest in July to nine criminal charges stemming from the rape and sexual abuse of two young girls.
…
Sedgwick County Dist. Atty. Nola Foulston, a Democrat, said no abortion records were involved in Estrada’s case, only records of live births involving…
tfk | October 4, 2006Last night, tooling down to the Drinking Liberally, someone came up to my window while I was parked at a traffic light. My New York reflexes made me think I had to fend of a windshield washer or a panhandler, but it was the driver of the car behind me. She had a "Morrison for Attorney General" bumper sticker to complement my Boyda and Moore stickers.
tfk | October 4, 2006I called Jim Ryun's office to see where he stands on the Foley issue, and he said that, while what Foley did was "indefensible," he doesn't think all the facts are in. Should Speaker Hastert resign, as conservative activists like Richard Viguerie have demanded? Ryun isn't sure any laws were broken, nor that Hastert knew about anything.
It's always worrying when I know more than congresscritters, especially about the goings-on within Congress.
Meanwhile, a local radio host defends the Speaker by saying:
There is no excuse for what Rep. Foley did. But there is no indication that Speaker…
tfk | October 4, 2006Chilean sea bass is a success story for food marketers, and one of a long string of horror stories from the world's fisheries. Once known as the Patagonian toothfish, a little rebranding turned the fish into one of the most sought after fish on the market. The slow-growing fish (it takes 10 years before it becomes reproductive) couldn't withstand the intense fishing that followed. It went from an unknown and commercially useless fish to a threatened species in a few years. Today, many chefs have agreed to pass the fish by, preferring species that aren't illegal to import.
As…
tfk | October 3, 2006On October 12, Dick Cheney will be heading out to bail out the floundering ship that is Jim Ryun. Despite what state Republican Chairman Shallenburger says, the VP doesn't come out to raise money for a candidate unless there's concern about holding that seat.
Analyses of NRCC spending hasn't shown it polling the Kansas 2nd, where Nancy Boyda is taking on the incumbent Ryun. Signs that the race might be leaning away from Ryun include an internal poll that Boyda released, putting her within striking range, as well as copious Boyda signs, and negative advertising by Ryun.
tfk | October 3, 2006Nitpicker asks "Who's a fucking appeaser?" as:
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Islamic militia and its supporters into the Afghan government.
At the time, of course, al Qaeda was not a priority for the Bush administration. We now know that Condoleeza Rice, then the President's National Security Advisor, was blowing off warnings from the CIA about an impending attack, and then spent years lying about it.
Having finally stirred itself to care about al Qaeda/Taliban…
tfk | October 2, 2006In a debate on a local radio show, Jim Ryun reminds us again why it's important to replace him:
Asked by a caller what the candidates would do about global warming, Ryun said: “Much of the global warming issue has been overplayed. We need to work with sound science,” he said.
Boyda responded: “If you’re going to say global warming is a myth, then everything is going well in Iraq. We need to deal with reality.”
Exactly right. Jim Ryun is from the Inhofe school of climate change denialists.
In the real world, science is telling us a different story. The Proceedings of the National Academies…
tfk | October 2, 2006The (valid) concern over the eminent domain ruling in Kelo v. New London has been misappropriated for some truly awful purposes. Activists in several western states are using it to push the idea that regulations are "takings," and are trying to block environmental regulation (or bankrupt states). As John Echeverria, executive director of the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute, told the Post, "The agenda behind these initiatives is to make it so expensive for local and state governments to regulate land use that they can hardly function at all."
The underlying idea is based…