The pinata party continues on Michael Brown, the former Federal Emergency Management Agency head who was forced to resign after Hurricane Katrina.
Facing a storm of criticism himself, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Congress this week that he relied on Brown as his point person in the hurricane response. And he pointedly said that he didn’t agree with Brown that state and local officials were the problem.
Chertoff pledged to retool FEMA to make it better able to respond to massive disasters. With another big one approaching, let’s hope they get the bugs worked out in the next day or two.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Supporters of Bob Corkins say that one of his key qualifications for the job as Kansas education commissioner is his experience working with the Legislature. But it is mostly only conservative lawmakers who have much good to say about Corkins. The former Republican chairwoman of the Senate Tax Committee, Audrey Langworthy of Prairie Village, banned Corkins from her office when he was a tax lobbyist for the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. Former Senate President Dick Bond, R-Overland Park, told the Journal-World: “I do recall many of the (tax) committee members didn’t have a lot of respect for his testimony and questioned at times the information he gave the committee.” And former Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, told The Eagle that legislators value accuracy and open-mindedness. “That’s not something I thought I had seen with Mr. Corkins over the years,” he said.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The details of Matthew Limon’s record make him a lousy poster boy for the issue at the core of his case. But what the U.S. Supreme Court has said on this issue and what the Kansas Supreme Court said Friday on Limon’s case should compel state legislators to do the right thing and fix state law so that it treats consensual sex between teens who are close in age equally, regardless of whether the act was heterosexual or homosexual. Though Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline is no fan of Limon, whom he terms a sexual predator, what Kline said two years ago still applies: “I would be the first to say the Legislature should change the law. . . . It should be orientation-neutral.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
“According to the latest polls, just 39 percent of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing. The White House is jumping on this 39 percent thing, they’re saying he’s now the president who represents minorities.”
— Jay Leno
Posted by Randy Scholfield
