For the second time in a week, a respected former Republican Kansas attorney general has cast a vote of “no confidence” in Attorney General Phill Kline.
Carla Stovall Steckline, who said she came forward to endorse a Democrat because “I care about the reputation of the office,” praised Democrat Paul Morrison’s “stellar record” of criminal convictions and said that especially in the attorney general’s office, “the person is more important than the party.”
A visibly angry Stovall then proceeded to blast Kline on everything from his hiring of his legally challenged nephew as chauffeur (she said that neither she nor her predecessor, Bob Stephan, felt they were “important enough” to need drivers) to Kline’s fishing expeditions of abortion records (showing his willingness to “violate privacy rights of Kansans to pursue a narrow personal agenda”) to Kline’s labeling of Senate Bill 323 as “Paul’s policy” (“absolutely untrue”) to the use of out-of-state attack ads (“despicable”).
This one’s going to be hard for even Phill Kline to spin.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
As you might have read, The Eagle editorial board made the news. A group of local Kline backers held a short press conference in front of The Eagle building Thursday afternoon. They claimed that the editorial board knows but hasn’t reported that attorney general candidate Paul Morrison reached a settlement in a 1992 sexual harassment lawsuit. Not true. The Eagle knows of no settlement and has found no evidence of one. In fact, attorneys for both the plaintiff and Morrison have said there was no settlement. Morrison also said there was no settlement.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Few Americans, including the opposition Democratic Party, seem interested in speaking out against the new terrorist detainee bill just signed into law by President Bush.
But for the record, here is what Americans have signed off on:
Congress has given President Bush the unchecked power to declare anyone he wishes an “unlawful enemy combatant” — including U.S. citizens — and throw them in jail without charges or legal representation, and keep them there as long as he wants.
Never in America’s history as a democracy has Congress granted these kind of despotic powers to the chief executive.
Never have we been asked to give up constitutional checks and simply trust the president to do the right thing.
As one constitutional lawyer, Jonathan Turley, said this week of the law: “It’s something that no one thought — certainly I didn’t think — was possible in the United States. And I am not too sure how we got to this point. But people clearly don’t realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I’m not too sure we’re going to change back anytime soon.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Some American men seeking Internet-order brides find it burdensome, but the new International Marriage Broker Regulation Act, whose leading sponsor was Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., seems a smart safeguard against the growing problem of high-tech matchmaking that exploits and endangers women. “This is an unequal partnership where you have somebody dependent on somebody else in a profound way,” Brownback told the New York Times. “It puts women at a significant disadvantage, in a potentially violent situation.”
The number of foreign women applying for permanent residency under the Violence Against Women Act rose from 2,500 in 1998 to 9,500 in fiscal year 2006. Meanwhile, the number of fiancee visas or temporary visas for spouses issued for women was 37,500 last year, up from 9,500 comparable visas in 1998.
Obviously, not all such marriages end up victimizing women. But it just makes sense that U.S. law would require, for example, a bride-to-be to be told of a man’s criminal record and marital history, or would limit a man to two visas for foreign fiancees.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
A new Cornell University study seems to provide evidence of a link between autism and TV watching in early childhood.
One theory is that autism, which is diagnosed in 1 of every 166 children, has a genetic basis but is triggered by unknown environmental factors. The researchers found that autism rates increased dramatically after 1980, when cable TV and VCRs became common in households. They also found that kids under age 3 who spent more time watching TV were more likely to get autism.
Kids now watch about four hours of television daily. Is passively watching flickering two-dimensional pictures messing with their brain development?
The science isn’t conclusive yet. But this is another good reason to limit how much TV your children watch.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
