The perjury trial isn’t over, but it’s not looking good so far for "Scooter" Libby (in photo). The former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney is on trial for lying about his role in disclosing the name of former CIA agent Valerie Plame and for obstructing the investigation. Libby claims that he didn’t lie; he just had a faulty memory. But prosecution witnesses have indicated that Libby was so involved in spreading this information that it is highly unlikely he forgot about it.
Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller said Libby spoke to her about Plame on June 23 and July 8, 2003 — yet Libby told the FBI and a grand jury that the first time he heard about Plame was on July 10. Five government officials also have testified that they spoke to Libby about Plame before July 10. And Libby’s own notes indicate that Cheney told him about Plame on or about June 12.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
As our editorial today argues, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is right to demand hardship pay for Kansas National Guard members whose tour of duty was recently extended to meet President Bush’s troop surge.
She also shares other governors’ concern that the Defense Department’s heavy reliance on National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq is undermining state emergency and disaster readiness.
The Iraq war is affecting Kansas, and state leaders need to protect the interests of the state, its citizen-soldiers and their families.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction reported that the U.S. government has wasted tens of millions of dollars in reconstruction aid. When you spend more than $300 billion to help rebuild a war-torn country, there’s going to be a certain amount of waste and fraud. Still, this isn’t acceptable, and the report’s timing hurts President Bush’s new request for an additional $1.2 billion in new reconstruction aid.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
A long-awaited five-year United Nations climate report, to be released later this week, is expected to be the most dire yet, as well as the most conclusive about a human link to warming. The study reportedly cites a 90 percent probability that human activities are to blame for most of the warming trend of the past half-century.
But some top scientists are saying the report isn’t dire enough, and doesn’t take into account recent major melting events with arctic ice, which some think could mean flooded coastlines much earlier than previously thought.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Sen. Sam Brownback has been heralding himself as the only rock-solid social conservative in the GOP presidential field — in his self-history, he emerged fully formed on the political scene as an anti-abortion crusader.
And in a recent interview he questioned former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s credentials on abortion, saying “there’s going to be a lot of discussion about where do people actually stand on the issues and where have they been and where are they now and how reliable are they to stay that way.”
Brownback should expect some discussion of his own past and whether he was always solidly against abortion. There’s disagreement on that point, as this Lawrence Journal-World article shows.
Former Kansas GOP chairman Tim Shallenburger says he gathered from a conversation with Brownback during his first congressional run in 1994 that Brownback “was not pro-life.”
David Gittrich of Kansans for Life also said of Brownback during this time, “He didn’t know whether he was pro-life or pro-choice.”
Confronted about this on “Fox News Sunday,” Brownback rejected the notion that his position has evolved over the years. “My position has become more clear, but it’s not evolved.”
Is that clear?
Here are the issues busying state lawmakers nationwide, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures:
Immigration (32 states approved 84 new laws on immigration in 2006; expect more in 2007). Homeland security and standardized ID cards (states will have to spend at least $11 billion over the next five years to comply with the federal Real ID Act). Budget pressures. Health insurance. Sexual offenders and predators (Congress is requiring states to meet new requirements on how information about sex offenders is collected and shared). Energy and environment. Minimum wage (39 states now have a minimum wage above the federal requirement; Kansas has the lowest minimum wage). Higher education reform. Privacy (identity theft, Social Security number protection, etc.). Obesity (trans fat may be the new tobacco).
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Rep. Sharon Schwartz, R-Washington, chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, recently warned her panel members against text-messaging during meetings, to ensure that the debate is out loud and lawful. “I think we need to be careful that we don’t violate the open meetings law,” Schwartz said. True, few of those serving in Kansas government text like teenagers — yet — but it’s something all Kansas government boards should guard against as technology takes over communications.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Given the Bush administration’s record of ignoring scientific findings that don’t match its ideological views, the public should be skeptical of President Bush’s directive last week ordering that political appointees run the regulatory policy offices at federal agencies. The White House said the executive order is "a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable," and some business groups hoped that it would reduce the burden of federal regulation — which can be excessive at times. But Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the New York Times that "the executive order allows the political staff at the White House to dictate decisions on health and safety issues, even if the government’s own impartial experts disagree. This is a terrible way to govern, but great news for special interests."
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Defeated Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun says he’ll be back to take on Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Topeka, in 2008 — but will GOP stalwarts still be there backing him? Ryun could be seen as damaged goods, especially if a stronger GOP challenger emerges; Republican state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins reportedly may run. Meanwhile, Ryun has blamed his loss mostly on the media and a national anti-GOP surge, not on himself. "I was on the wrong corner (at) the wrong time," he said.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
“We have become, I think, a nation that is less small-r republican and more royalist than it used to be,” Michael Barone wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary about the political dynasties of the Bush and Clinton families. And he concluded with this chilling forecast: “George P. Bush will be eligible to run for president in 2012. Chelsea Clinton will be eligible to run for president in 2016. So will Jenna and Barbara Bush, who will turn 35 several days after the election. And Jeb Bush, who had a fine record in eight years as governor of Florida, will be younger in 2024 than John McCain will be in 2008 or Ronald Reagan was in 1984. Royalism may be here to stay.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Speaking of Jeb Bush for president. . . . The former Florida governor rallied the conservative faithful at a conference last weekend in Washington, D.C., hosted by the National Review Institute. He argued that the reason Republicans lost last election wasn’t because voters rejected conservatives. Rather, “it’s because we rejected the conservative philosophy in this country,” he said, noting how Republicans in Congress lost their fiscal way.
Bush has some solid credentials to attempt a presidential run. Except for his last name. As Ed Gillespie, a lobbyist and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in introducing Bush at the conference: “If he were former two-term governor Jeb Smith, he might be in Des Moines today.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback got a surprising workout on “Fox News Sunday,” with host Chris Wallace pressing the conservative hard on his stand on the Iraq troop surge, his claim to be the “only tried and true social conservative seeking the Republican Party’s nomination,” and his view of rival Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. He seemed to want to boil down his nuanced opposition to the troop surge and his vote to confirm Lt. Gen. David Petraeus as the new commander in Iraq to one idea: “We can and we will win in Iraq if we can just pull together.”
Brownback dodged the question about whether Romney is a true Christian but said his Mormonism shouldn’t be an issue: “I don’t think it should be. We don’t have a religious test in this country for public office.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Watching ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” Sunday, we caught up with this Jay Leno joke from last week:
“Also running, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. He announced he is running for president. He said he is running and this is his quote. He’s on the Yellow Brick Road to the White House. The Yellow Brick Road to the White House! Hey, Sam, watch out for the Wicked Witch of New York, OK? Tangle with her and you can kiss your house goodbye.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
After getting pounded by the state’s minority party two gubernatorial elections in a row, the Kansas Republican Party might have sought a new leader likely to unify right and middle. Maybe Kris Kobach of Kansas City, Kan., who was elected state chairman Saturday in Topeka, will turn out to be that guy. But so far the law professor and unsuccessful candidate for Congress has been defined by his intemperate words on illegal immigration, eminent domain and the Kansas Supreme Court.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Sometimes a suffix isn’t just a suffix, or its omission can be an insult. Where the prepared text of the State of the Union speech last week referred to the "Democratic majority," President Bush dropped the "ic" syllable during delivery. That apparently inadvertent echo of Ronald Reagan irked Democrats, for whom "Democratic" is the preferred adjective. "He spends an entire speech talking about reaching out and working together, and a few people who apparently haven’t gotten the message run out and they complain that the letters ‘ic’ were missing from ‘Democratic,’" White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Praise is due Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., for renewing his efforts last week to help more businesses provide child care for their employees, this time via the Senate version of the bill to increase the minimum wage. His measure, which enjoys bipartisan support, would make small businesses eligible for matching grants of up to $500,000 for costs related to providing child care for employees. Unlike many lawmakers, Roberts has long understood that the challenge for many isn’t just finding a job, but also finding the safe, reliable, affordable child care they need to take and keep a job. Roberts said in a statement that small employers “agree their workers deserve a fair wage for a fair day’s work. They admit, though, that they struggle to offer basic benefits to their employees such as child care. With a mandated increase in the minimum wage, that struggle only grows.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
“New power plants will be built, and we would prefer they’re built in Kansas instead of another state.” — State Rep. Carl Holmes, R-Liberal, chairman of the House Energy and Utilities Committee, touting a proposal to exempt new and expanding nuclear plants from property taxes for at least 10 years.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
With the likelihood increasing of a 2008 showdown between presidential contenders Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., it will be interesting to watch how, or even whether, the public and pundits discuss a sorry incident that links the two. At a GOP Senate fundraiser in June 1998, McCain reportedly told this “joke”: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.” (This was when Chelsea was a teenager.) McCain later apologized to President Clinton, then in the thick of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Apology or not, it says something about what McCain considers amusing, at least among Republicans.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Even before Kansas had a concealed-carry law, the 2005 Legislature tried to ensure that locals couldn’t restrict gun rights more tightly than the state. Now, though, some cities are putting their own spin on concealed-carry, following the League of Kansas Municipalities’ view that cities, like other property owners, can opt not to allow concealed handguns in their workplaces and on their property. Wichita “makes the carrying of a concealed weapon by any of its nonpolice employees while in the course of city duties a violation, continuing the long-standing city policy,” according to its legal department. And Hutchinson decided to bar concealed handguns in city-owned buildings or parks. Not surprisingly, all this municipal second-guessing has state Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, promising more legislative action. “It sets hundreds of legal traps for permit holders across the state,” he told The Eagle editorial board.
Meanwhile, concealed-carry supporters are pointing to a recent robbery attempt of a Topeka convenience store that was thwarted by an Oklahoma permit holder as evidence of the law’s positive impact.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
On energy and climate change, President Bush’s team hinted at bold proposals in the State of the Union Speech. They didn’t materialize.
The president emphasized developing fuel alternatives such as ethanol, but noticeably missing was what many in industry and business see as inevitable: mandatory caps on carbon emissions.
A Wall Street Journal front-page article reported that many utilities see the writing on the wall in Congress for some kind of “cap and trade” carbon emissions system and want to be at the table for the regulatory overhaul.
Look for Congress to lead on this issue this year — Bush continues to follow events, not lead them.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
We asked some stakeholders to give us their thoughts on the upcoming farm bill debate. Their short responses are on today’s Opinion pages. For example, Jim French, a Reno County farmer and rancher, and lead organizer for Oxfam America’s farm bill campaign, argues that “current crop subsidies have actually contributed to farm consolidation, rural decline and economic stagnation while distorting international markets and hurting our global trade interests.” Larry Steckline of Mid-America Ag Network/KSN, Channel 3, argues that “tweaking and not a major rewrite of the 2002 farm bill will result in a 2007 farm bill to meet the needs of Midwestern farmers.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee