President Bush exhibited his old resolve in his first White House press conference of the year this morning on issues from the Iraq troop surge to Iranian interference in Iraq to the North Korean nuke deal to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of U.S. foreign policy. Most striking were his words about the threat the administration says Iranian bombs are posing to U.S. troops in Iraq ("I’m going to do something about it") and his indifference to House Democrats’ Iraq debate ("They have every right to express their opposition, and it is a nonbinding resolution").
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has left Iraq and has been living in Iran for the past several weeks, the New York Times reported, citing senior Bush administration officials. But if he has gone — an aide to Sadr denies that he has — it’s not certain why he left. Officials in Washington told the Times and ABC News that Sadr fled from the coming surge of U.S. troops. But Sadr has family in Iran and has traveled there in the past.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Kansas is not in the half of the states that require newly former legislators to effectively sit out of the game before becoming lobbyists. That’s why former House Speaker Doug Mays is already lobbying for several groups, including a payday lender, a pharmaceutical company, one group promoting a casino in southeast Kansas, and another that opposes wind farms in the Flint Hills. Three others who just left office also are among the two dozen former lawmakers registered to lobby their former colleagues. In the unlikely event that such job changes bother lawmakers, they can give serious consideration to a bill from Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, to bar legislators from becoming lobbyists for two years after leaving office.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Wichita district’s 2007-08 school year will start the same day as it did last year, Aug. 15. But the school board’s vote Monday to begin enrollment on July 27 effectively will abbreviate summer for some staff and parents. The district’s move away from its late-August-to-late-May calendar still makes sense, especially because it better aligns with suburban districts’ and colleges’ schedules. An earlier start also was one of the promises of the 2000 bond issue. But we can’t help but begin to wonder: Is Wichita inching toward year-round school?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
You won’t find this idea in President Bush’s energy plan, but 40 of 47 top economists recently surveyed by the Wall Street Journal said the most effective way to boost new energy alternatives is a tax on fossil fuels. Boosting the cost of gasoline and other fossil-fuel products would make alternative energy much more competitive, they said, without picking a winner or intervening in a heavy-handed way through subsidies.
‚”A tax puts pressure on the market, rather than forcing an artificial solution on it,” said David Wyss of Standard & Poor’s Corp.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Barack Obama suggested on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that if his campaign ran into trouble, it wouldn’t be because of past mistakes (such as his admitted marijuana and cocaine use) but because of future mistakes. Then he made new mistake No. 1: telling an Iowa crowd over the weekend that we “have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.” He repeatedly has apologized, calling it a “slip of the tongue.”
Maybe so, but whether or not Obama says the “w” word, it’s implied in his harsh characterizations of the war.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
