Wichitopekington

Tiahrt

Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, has introduced a bill in Congress to halt further spending to bail out financial institutions and automakers.

Tiahrt’s bill is called the “Ensure TARP Expires Act of 2009,” and would block Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner from spending any more money on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, more commonly known as TARP.

Begun under the Bush Administration and continued by President Obama, TARP has injected hundreds of billions of dollars in capital into failing investment, banking, insurance and automotive companies in an effort to stabilize the financial system.

Supporters credit the program with staving off a worldwide depression by rescuing banks and other institutions that are “too big to fail” without causing dire economic consequences.

But the program’s popularity has plummeted in recent months amid reports that some large companies that received bailout funds have returned to giving lavish executive bonuses and perks now that they have returned to profitability.

“We must put an end to Secretary Geithner’s authority to funnel billions of bailout dollars to irresponsible institutions,” Tiahrt said in a statement announcing his current bill.

According to his office, Tiahrt has four co-sponsors for the measure so far: Mark Souder, R-Ind., Bob Inglis, R-S.C., Sam Johnson, R-Texas and Charles Boustany, Jr., R-La.

Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, who is running against Tiahrt for the Senate seat being vacated by Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, is also in support of putting an end to TARP, a spokeswoman for his office said.

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Parkinson

Gov. Mark Parkinson told the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce Wednesday that while the recession is “really brutal” for Kansas government, he thinks he and the Legislature can come together to balance the budget in a “post-partisan” manner.

Parkinson has taken on himself most of the responsibility of making $260 million in cuts that will be needed to bring the the 2010 budget back into balance.

That should allow the Legislature to focus on 2011 issues when it returns in January.

Parkinson said the past several years of budget shortfalls have burned away the waste in state government and there’s “no question we’re (now) affecting basic services.”

He said cuts must be a “shared sacrifice” across departments and will be “painful, but not crippling,” so departments will be able to rebound when the economy improves.

Six

Kansas will receive about $45,000 of a $3 million, multi-state settlement with Vonage, a company that provides voice-over-Internet phone service, Attorney General Steve Six announced Monday.

Attorneys general from 32 states had alleged that Vonage, one of the nation’s largest providers of Internet phone service, violated consumer-protection laws.

Vonage denied any violations.

The states had alleged that customers received unexpected and nonrefundable charges after signing up for “free trial” offers with Vonage.

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ABILENE — Harkening back to the homefront of World War II, the Dwight Eisenhower Library and Museum is looking for quilters who want to make wounded soldiers more comfortable.

The library is launching its first “Quilts of Valor” challenge, seeking Kansas quilting enthusiasts who will have about a year to stitch something together for the troops.

The goal is to put the quilts on display at the presidential library for Veteran’s Day, 2010, and then distribute them to wounded service men and women.

The impulse is the same one that drove women to sew for the soldiers under Eisenhower’s command in WW II, said Jan Hottman, the library staff member who is organizing the quilting project.

Back then, quilting was more of a practical necessity than the hobby and art form it is today.

“The cotton and everything was used for military supplies,” Hottman said. “They (civilians) were rationed seriously, so women would take old clothes and tear them apart to make blankets. With all the (war) injuries, a lot of women would make them for the hospitals.”

The quilt drive is being run in conjunction with the Quilts of Valor Foundation, which Hottman discovered while reading a quilting magazine during the summer.

Catherine Roberts, a quilting enthusiast and retired nurse and midwife, started the foundation in 2003 when her son, Nathanael, was called up for duty in Iraq. He was wounded in action and has since left the military, although her daughter, Hannah, is deployed with the Navy.

Wanting to do something for wounded soldiers like her son, she recruited a few volunteers to piece quilts together. To distribute them, she contacted a chaplain at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, whose wife also happened to be a quilter.

Since then, the group has grown to include thousands of volunteers and distributed more than 26,000 quilts.

Roberts said she is thrilled to be working with the presidential library because — little-known fact confirmed by the museum — Eisenhower was a quilter. He and his brothers helped their mother, Ida, make quilts while growing up in Abilene.

“My message is everyone can get involved, as President Eisenhower did when he was a small boy,” Roberts said.

Hottman said quilts are a good way to show support for the wounded because of the amount of time and handwork that goes into them.

“There’s just something about a quilt, knowing that somebody made that for you, that’s just very comforting,” she said.

In addition to soldiers injured in current conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the museum also hopes to present quilts to veterans wounded in earlier wars.

To participate, contact the museum at 785-263-6700 or toll-free at 877-746-4453 or visit www.eisenhower.archives.gov.

Rivoli Revue, scheduled to sing at tea party

Wichita’s Tea Party IV will be a much more national affair than the first three, according to organizers who have now released the speaking and music lineup.

Instead of the local political figures who have addressed the conservative gatherings in the past, the event scheduled Wednesday at the Lawrence-Dumont Stadium parking lot will feature leaders of national political action committees and a man who claims to have been beaten outside a town hall meeting in Missouri for his opposition to national health care.

The event will center around a visit by the “Tea Party Express II,” a bus tour titled “Countdown to Judgment Day.” Read More »