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
