After a two-year fight, Attorney General Phill Kline’s office now has edited copies of the medical records of 90 patients who received abortions, Associated Press reported. His investigators are reviewing the records to determine if any crimes were committed. No doubt the pressure will be on to find something to help justify what critics have called an ideologically motivated fishing expedition. But Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney for a Planned Parenthood clinic in Overland Park, says the clinics didn’t do anything wrong. “Nothing whatsoever in those records supports the proposition that our clients have violated the law,” he said.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Here’s a telling prediction from an unnamed presidential adviser to Time magazine about the remainder of George Bush’s second term: “This guy, at 11:59 and 58 seconds on the 20th of January 2009, in the moment before his successor is inaugurated, is still going to be trying to make it work in Iraq. He really believes it can work, and he believes that his will can be part of a formula to make it work in Iraq, and that’s a course for us to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Attorney General Phill Kline ended his first repulsive ad about an old, unproven sexual harassment allegation against his opponent with the words “to be continued.” He wasn’t kidding. His latest repulsive 30-second spot features an unseen Kelly Summerlin discussing the 15-year-old alleged incident as the words “actual sexual harassment victim speaking” are on screen. “He’s ruthless,” she says of former boss Paul Morrison — which will just serve to remind many voters of another ad in which that word is used to praise the Johnson County district attorney for how tough he is on criminals. What is Kline thinking?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
White House spokesman Tony Snow ripped Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for telling students at Pasadena City College that if they didn’t get a good education, they could “get stuck in Iraq.”
“Sen. Kerry not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who’ve given their lives in this,” Snow said. “This is an absolute insult.”
Kerry responded: “I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has issued another dire warning about the need to address global climate change, focusing on a new British economic study that estimates warming could displace 200 million people and wreak economic losses on the order of the Great Depression and the World Wars unless an investment is made in green technologies.
The contrast between Blair and President Bush couldn’t be more striking.
Meanwhile, an in-depth New York Times article reports that for all the hype about replacing fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gases, both U.S. private industry and government have been reducing spending on alternative energy research and development.
Federal spending on all energy research and development is less than half of what it was 25 years ago, adjusted for inflation.
America hasn’t started to take the threat seriously. Don’t say we weren’t warned.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Dutiful voters who value dutiful voting by candidates got some helpful information this week from the Topeka Capital-Journal, which found that the only majority party statewide candidates to vote in every possible primary and general election over the past nine years were David Haley, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, and Bonnie Sharp, the Democratic candidate for insurance commissioner. All the others failed to vote in one to four elections. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh each missed one. GOP gubernatorial nominee Jim Barnett missed three. Attorney General Phill Kline skipped at least one. And Democratic attorney general candidate Paul Morrison missed four.
“It was ingrained in me as a child — if you don’t vote, you don’t count,” Haley said.
Good advice.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
