The Bush administration may have misread how badly the Dubai Ports World deal was playing with the American people, but the company itself didn’t, announcing today that it’s giving up its management stake in some U.S. ports to a U.S. entity (though it isn’t clear yet how DP World would manage the divestiture). The decision comes after the House Appropriations Committee’s stunning rebuke of the White House on Wednesday, in the form of a 62-2 vote to block the ports transfer. Senate GOP leaders also were unable to block a push by Senate Democrats and some Republicans to vote on stopping the port deal.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Not surprisingly, The New York Times editorial board isn’t impressed with the Senate Intelligence Committee plan, approved this week on a party-line vote, to give Congress more oversight of the Bush administration’s wiretapping program but not to investigate it. Its editorial today calls the decision “breathtakingly cynical,” arguing that “faced with a president who is almost certainly breaking the law, the Senate sets up a panel to watch him do it and calls that control.”
The Times also isn’t impressed with Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts’ work:
“It was no surprise that Mr. Roberts led this retreat. He’s been blocking an investigation into the domestic spying operation for weeks, just as he has been stonewalling a promised investigation into how the White House hyped the intelligence on Iraq.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Electioneering resumes this summer. That means many voters will be deluged with the same kind of mailings and automated calls and ads they endured in 2004 — including over-the-top or flat-wrong information with little or no explanation of its source. So state lawmakers need to hurry up and pass House Bill 2559 or something like it, to require prompt reporting of political expenditures and contributions, and disclosure of the sponsors of taped phone messages and the backers of groups that bankroll election-season third-party “issue” ads. The shadowy tactics of 2004 may have faded from voters’ memories, but the problem only promises to get worse this year. Legislators need to act.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, under indictment for alleged campaign-finance violations, pulled out an easy victory this week in a low-turnout Republican primary race, defeating three opponents and winning 62 percent of the vote in his suburban Houston district.
DeLay said GOP voters had rejected the “politics of personal destruction.” Right. It will be interesting to see whether that claptrap plays with a general audience this November, when he faces Nick Lampson, a seasoned and well-financed Democratic foe, in what promises to be a tough, nasty race.
Still, don’t underestimate “The Hammer” — he’s a hardball player and a survivor. I wouldn’t put money on his losing.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Gordon Parks hadn’t lived in the state for many decades, but Kansans took so much pride in his singular genius and groundbreaking success that his death Tuesday at age 93 hit very close to home. The photographs he took for Life will forever grab their viewer by the conscience, depicting compelling truths about riots in Harlem, segregation in the South, a street urchin in Brazil and even haute couture in Paris. His vast array of creative pursuits, from poetry to painting to directing “Shaft,” will continue to inspire Kansans. As he told a group of Wichita high school kids in 1994, “I’m not going to let anybody set limits on what I can dream. I’m going to go out there and dream and dream and dream.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Never mind how the proposed repeal of the 2004 in-state tuition law related to illegal immigrants came to another dead end in the Kansas House this week. What matters is that it did, and that a lawmaker such as Rep. Mario Goico, R-Wichita, once a Cuban refugee himself, had the wisdom to defend such a commonsense, compassionate law. Goico was correct in telling his colleagues that repealing the law would take away some young Kansas residents’ only chance to succeed. Now, Goico and the too-few members of the Wichita-area delegation willing to underscore the law’s worth Tuesday should help ensure it remains on the books.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Did anyone really believe San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds and other big-league Popeye look-alikes when they said they weren’t doing steroids? Now a new book seems poised to topple Bonds’ house of lies, with a bombshell installment in Sports Illustrated exposing how since 1998, Bonds injected, ingested and otherwise partook of a cornucopia of illegal steroids of every variety in an effort to enhance his performance.
Did it make that much of a difference? Consider: Before 1998, says the article, Bonds averaged one home run every 16.1 at bats. After he began his alleged doping regimen, Bonds nearly doubled his home-run average (one every 8.5 at bats), despite being in his mid-30s.
Major league baseball still needs to come clean on this scandal. The biggest mess will be deciding what this means for Bonds’ records. Should they stand? Contain a “dope-aided” asterisk? Be tossed?
Every athlete seeks to get an advantage or edge — but is this an unfair advantage? Seems so to me. What do you think?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The good news is that the empty Omnisphere at 220 S. Main is about to be returned to productive use, its $330,000 purchase by Fidelity Bank having been approved Tuesday by the Wichita City Council on a 6-1 vote. The bad news is that the beautiful landmark now leaves public hands for the first time since it was built as a Carnegie Library in 1914, with no prospect of public use in its future. To his credit, Mayor Carlos Mayans sought to delay the sale and allow others to enter the bidding. But seeing the building in Fidelity’s hands is far preferable to seeing it further deteriorate.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
