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Monthly Archives: December 2006
Top 10 issues of 2007
Dec. 31, 20061:03 a.m.
We took a crack at ranking the Top 10 public policy/political issues of 2006. We tried to give preference to local and state issues. But issues such as Iraq and illegal immigration that generated a lot of public passion were high on our list. Obviously, this is very subjective. So we’d like to hear your thoughts. Would you have ranked issues differently? Did we miss a big issue?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Respect businesses’ rights to be concealed-carry free
Dec. 31, 20061:02 a.m.
An article in The Eagle’s Business Today section explored how businesses are getting ready to handle concealed-carry, which becomes law in Kansas on Monday. Some businesses that want to bar anyone from coming onto company property while carrying have to post signs; others don’t, because they are exempted in the law. Many will agree with Brad Elliott, president and chief executive of Equity Bank, which won’t post signs barring guns. “It’s the person that doesn’t register and has a concealed weapon that I’m concerned about,” he said.
As Kansas adjusts to the law, the hope is that concealed-carry proponents will be respectful of business owners’ right to decide whether to welcome concealed guns, rather than harass sign-posting businesses for being anti-gun.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Year in political cartoons
Dec. 31, 20061:01 a.m.
Check out Richard Crowson’s review of 2006 cartoons. It’s a year that provided a lot of great material for a cartoonist.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Can a Kansan charm Iowa?
Dec. 31, 20061:00 a.m.
The Weekly Standard assesses the chances of Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., in the nearby Iowa caucuses, in which social conservatives have represented 25 percent to 30 percent of voters. Chuck Hurley, an Iowa lawyer on Brownback’s exploratory committee, tells the magazine: “He’s optimistic, he’s aspirational, he’s comfortable in his own skin. The more people he meets, the more people there will be who say, ‘I am really impressed.’” The article also notes that a Brownback autobiography is coming soon, “to introduce him to a skeptical nation and a dismissive punditry.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s the 2006 Weepers!
Dec. 30, 20061:04 a.m.
Check out our annual Weeper awards. They are designed to recognize extraordinary achievement in the area of public fiascoes, flops and foolishness. Here are a couple of the winners:
The “Great Moments in Kansas Oratory” Award — To former Kansas House speaker Doug Mays (in photo), who said that Wichita attorney Alan Rupe, who was representing schools in the state funding lawsuit, could “shove it up his a—.”
OK, so it wasn’t the Lincoln-Douglas debates. But Dick Cheney would approve.
The “Dr. Kinsey Sexual Pioneer” Award — To Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who explained to a rapt but puzzled Wichita courtroom that he thought a boy performing oral sex on a girl is probably a sex crime worth reporting, but not a girl performing oral sex on a boy.
Teenage boys everywhere celebrated Kline’s testimony with high-fives! Right on, dude!
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Lieberman wants more troops
Dec. 30, 20061:02 a.m.
“Independent Democrat” Sen. Joe Lieberman (in photo) argued in a Washington Post op-ed for more troops in Iraq. “The most pressing problem we face in Iraq is not an absence of Iraqi political will or American diplomatic initiative, both of which are increasing and improving; it is a lack of basic security,” he wrote.
Lieberman contends that we’ve never had enough troops in Iraq. He supports a troop surge but said it “should be militarily meaningful in size, with a clearly defined mission.”
He acknowledges that more troops won’t guarantee success, but he thinks it is a prerequisite. “Just as the continuing carnage in Baghdad empowers extremists on all sides, establishing security there will open possibilities for compromise and cooperation on the Iraqi political front — possibilities that simply do not exist today because of the fear gripping all sides.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
2006′s politics had it all
Dec. 30, 20061:01 a.m.
Here are Slate’s “five best political moments of 2006”:
1) “Cheney’s Got a Gun.” (When Vice President Dick Cheney shot his hunting buddy.)
2) “Blogger power!” (How bloggers took down Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., though only until November.)
3) “George of the Bungle.” (Sen. George Allen’s “macaca” comment, etc.)
4) “Foley: The Final Insult.” (The career-ending text messages of Rep. Mark Foley — in photo — plus Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, etc.)
5) “Rummy Felled.” The piece concludes: “The president and his aides may want to get their memoirs out before Rumsfeld does.” No kidding.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Is ‘Best of Opinion Line’ an oxymoron?
Dec. 30, 20061:00 a.m.
Brace yourself. It’s time again for our “Best and worst of Opinion Line” feature. The winners (or losers) include:
Is the man I saw urinating at the corner of Broadway and Waterman the other morning classifed as a street perfomer?
If a woman breast-feeds her baby while lunching at Hooters, would other patrons be offended?
In order to curb teen sex, all youths should be married immediately. It’s been my experience that once you’re married, all the sex ends anyway.
It would be nice to have my phone tapped. At least they would hear my needs. Nobody else listens.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Saddam’s execution may be nigh
Dec. 29, 20063:09 p.m.
The death of Saddam Hussein seems imminent, with the New York Times reporting today that Iraqi officials were drafting the formal notice of execution: the same “red card” Saddam’s secret police used to inform countless others of their impending demise. The execution could follow within hours.
The speed of the process has surprised some American observers. And at least one Iraqi official expressed fears that it might undermine the perception that real justice was being served.
Posted by Dave Knadler
Could Kansas’ proposed coal-fired plants kill polar bears?
Dec. 29, 20061:03 a.m.
It’s extraordinary that the Bush administration now proposes listing polar bears as a “threatened” species, which draws a tricky link between climate change and species protection. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have concluded that polar bears could be endangered within 45 years because the Arctic ice on which they depend is receding; from 1987 to 2004, the bear population in the Western Hudson Bay in Canada dropped from 1,194 to 935. Unlike many obscure or small species at risk, the polar bear makes a powerful poster child for those worried about global warming. But is this administration really ready to take the next step — regulating Americans’ output of greenhouse gases?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Another year, another new border casino
Dec. 29, 20061:02 a.m.
Expanded gambling seems no more likely to clear the Legislature in 2007 than any other year, especially with the state’s improved revenue collections. Still, legislators should be pressed on why they are content to watch Kansas gambling dollars increasingly go into others’ coffers. Coming in February: a new $8 million Osage Nation casino on about 40 acres west of Bartlesville, Okla., which feasibility studies indicate will attract Kansas gamblers with its 600 gaming machines and more.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
All the business news that wasn’t?
Dec. 29, 20061:01 a.m.
We’re not above adding to the endless succession of year-end lists. At least the “Media’s Top 10 Economic Myths of 2006,” from the Virginia-based pro-free enterprise Business & Media Institute, provides some food for thought about the state of American business, and of American news reporting on business:
10. American manufacturing is obsolete.
9. The American dream has become a nightmare.
8. You can’t be trusted with a fork and spoon.
7. Wages are stagnant.
6. Global warming doom grows ever nearer.
5. Increasing the minimum wage will help the millions of poor workers.
4. The housing bubble has burst.
3. Bird flu is going to kill us all.
2. Gasoline is a conspiracy — going up or coming down!
1. The U.S. economy is hopeless — again.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
No, Sebelius doesn’t own guns
Dec. 29, 20061:00 a.m.
It turns out that syndicated co-columnists Steve and Cokie Roberts recently overstated Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ red-state attributes. In noting she fits the criteria that the Democrats need in a 2008 presidential pick, they characterized Sebelius as “gun-owning.” Spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran told Harris News Service: “Our guess is that they assumed she was a gun owner because she’s bagged a couple turkeys” — in the governor’s annual turkey hunt in El Dorado. But for that event, Corcoran said, Sebelius borrows a gun from Mike Hayden, the former governor who serves as her secretary of wildlife and parks.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Ford thought Iraq war was a mistake
Dec. 28, 20061:10 p.m.
Former President Gerald Ford told Bob Woodward in a July 2004 interview that was embargoed until Ford’s death that he would not have gone to war in Iraq. He also criticized how President Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney justified the war.
“Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq,” Ford said. “They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction. And now, I’ve never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do.”
Ford also said, “I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.”
Ford’s observations of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were interesting. “Henry publicly was a gruff, hard-nosed, German-born diplomat, but he had the thinnest skin of any public figure I ever knew,” Ford said, adding that “any criticism in the press drove him crazy.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Edwards wants to be your president
Dec. 28, 20061:08 p.m.
John Edwards announced his 2008 presidential bid today in New Orleans, arguing against a troop surge in Iraq and in favor of ending poverty, guaranteeing health care and fighting global warming. It’s interesting that Edwards seems a viable 2008 candidate when his top of the ticket in 2004, John Kerry, does not. Edwards’ star is brightest in Iowa, where he came in second to Kerry in the 2004 Iowa caucus. But it’s not as if Edwards has gained more applicable job experience in the past two years. He’s still a much-maligned “trial lawyer” with a brief “record in the Senate that’s not very distinguished,” as Vice President Dick Cheney famously noted in their 2004 running mate debate.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Revenue idea one toke over the line
Dec. 28, 20061:04 a.m.
If Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the Legislature need some easy money, they might check out the “untapped source of revenue” reported by the Bulletin of Cannabis Reform, which recently claimed that Kansas has the nation’s 31st largest marijuana production among states, estimated at $64 million of the nation’s total $35.8 billion crop. (That compares with $23.3 billion for corn and $7.4 billion for wheat.) But don’t hold your breath. (Or inhale.)
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Tough-on-crime laws come with a price
Dec. 28, 20061:03 a.m.
Our editorial Wednesday noted some costly consequences of Jessica’s Law, including the need for 1,880 more prison beds over the next 10 years, at a possible cost of $192.4 million in construction and $63 million a year for operations, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections. The 2007 legislative session could see action on two other tough-on-crime measures: one for repeat drunken drivers that could add 4,000 inmates over the next decade and one sending registered sex offenders back to prison if they are caught in places where kids can be found. Expect more debate on whether Kansas should get into the private prison business but little talk of freeing up capacity by cutting sentences for nonviolent offenders. (Remember the attorney general campaign fight over Senate Bill 323, anyone?)
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Ethics reform could spotlight Murtha
Dec. 28, 20061:02 a.m.
Democrats’ demands for more transparency in federal funds to home-district projects and a required pledge that no earmarks personally benefit a member of Congress could put a bad spotlight on Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the Washington Post reported. Murtha helped create and secured federal funding for a nonprofit group called the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals With Disabilities (PAID). And though the group has helped people with disabilities find jobs, it also has been a conduit for lobbyists and others trying to gain assess to Murtha and his influence on the defense appropriations subcommittee. The Post reported: “That arrangement over the years has yielded millions of dollars in federal support for the contractors, businesses and universities, and hundreds of thousands in consulting and lobbying fees to Murtha’s favored lobbying shops, according to Federal Election Commission records and lobbying disclosure forms. In turn, many of PAID’s directors have kept Murtha’s campaigns flush with cash.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Saddam rethinks the hate thing
Dec. 28, 20061:01 a.m.
Nothing like the prospect of imminent death to change one’s outlook. In the case of Saddam Hussein, it’s made the Butcher of Baghdad start sounding like Mahatma Gandhi.
A day after an Iraqi appeals court upheld his death sentence and ordered him hanged sooner rather than later, a farewell letter from Saddam was posted on the Baath party’s Web site, urging Iraqis “not to hate.”
“Hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking,” the letter said.
Meanwhile, some Saddam loyalists — apparently unmoved by his message — are threatening to avenge his execution by hitting U.S. interests everywhere.
Posted by Dave Knadler
Come to a Kansas school; help us get state funds
Dec. 28, 20061:00 a.m.
International exchange students can help American kids learn about other cultures and boost good will between countries. So here is hoping that the Coldwater school district in southwest Kansas doesn’t end up hurting exchange programs by using these students to boost its enrollment and gain more state funds. Of the 81 students in Coldwater’s high school, eight are exchange students, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. These students will generate $60,000 in additional state funds for the district this year. If many more small districts follow suit, the Legislature may have to intervene.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Who is Phill Kline trying to fool?
Dec. 27, 20062:18 p.m.
Outgoing Attorney General Phill Kline is appointing Wichita attorney Don McKinney, an anti-abortion activist, to handle his case against Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller — regardless of what happens at today’s Sedgwick County court hearing on whether to reinstate misdemeanor charges against Tiller. “This appointment of an independent special prosecutor will remove this investigation from a highly charged political process,” Kline claimed. Oh, please. This appointment is about trying to continue an ideologically motivated investigation and forcing incoming Attorney General Paul Morrison to have to end it.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
UPDATE: Judge Paul Clark refused today to reinstate the charges against Tiller.
