The National Priorities Project calculated the per capita financial cost of the war in Iraq, then totaled the spending based on each state and congressional district. Counting the funding that’s already been appropriated and what’s up for vote, it calculates Kansans’ share at $3.6 billion. The share for those who live in the congressional district of Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, is $894 million, according to the group. For that same amount of money, the groups contends, nearly 130,000 Wichita-area children could have received health care for the length of the war, or nearly 11,000 affordable housing units could have been built.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Nobody should have expected former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to go quietly. "The Hammer" has written a new memoir, "No Retreat, No Surrender: One American’s Fight," in which he calls Newt Gingrich an "ineffective" House speaker and writes: "Nearly every other day he had a new agenda, a new direction he wanted us to take. It was impossible to follow him." DeLay also confirms that "Gingrich was having an affair with a staffer during the entire impeachment crisis," characterizes former House Majority Leader Dick Armey as a liar "blinded by ambition," and says President Bush "may be compassionate, but he is certainly no conservative in the classic sense."
As columnist Robert Novak says of DeLay’s account of when Republicans ruled the House: "His revelation that GOP leaders did not constitute a band of brothers helps explain why 12 years of control produced much less than was anticipated."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ use Tuesday of the passive phrase “mistakes were made” — about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys — was quite a contrast to the recent head-rolling in Washington, D.C., in the veterans’ health care scandal. Probably most closely associated with Ronald Reagan’s 1986 description of the Iran-contra affair, those three wimpy words are rarely followed by action in the service of accountability. Political observer William Schneider once said: “This usage should be referred to as the past exonerative.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
“Bong hits 4 Jesus”?
Somehow, you don’t think stuff like this rises to the level of U.S. Supreme Court controversy.
But the message — displayed on a banner by an Alaska high school student — is at the center of what experts say could be the most important student free-speech case since Vietnam.
The student, Joseph Frederick, insists it’s all about free expression: “I wanted to use my right to free speech, and I did.” High school authorities counter that it’s all about their right to stop pro-drug messages during a school-sponsored event.
It’s an interesting case (read one take on the legal arguments here), but you wonder if school officials didn’t overreact just a bit to a student prank. Still, it will be fun just to hear Supreme Court justices debating this one. What a trip.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Millions of Americans likely have felt a little dumb for not knowing some of the answers on the Fox network’s “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” But in her recent article, Eagle reporter Suzanne Perez Tobias spoke with educators who pointed out that “being smart is more than just memorizing details,” especially when technology has put all those dates, battles and state capitals at our fingertips. Our schoolchildren need to have some of those “details” in their heads in order to build upon them. But they also need to see the big picture.
Posted by Patrice Hein
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is working hard but is still having trouble raising his profile in the 2008 presidential race. A New York Times article Monday reported that Brownback “has been running a shoestring campaign with a heavy focus on three early voting states — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — hoping a favorable showing will help catapult him from the second tier of Republican candidates.” But it noted that he isn’t drawing crowds or much local media attention at his campaign appearances, and voters who do like his message — which Brownback describes as “bleeding heart conservative” — are still concerned about his electability.
Meanwhile, Brownback’s campaign wasn’t helped by the Cal Thomas column in Wednesday’s Eagle, in which Thomas suggested that conservatives are mature if they don’t just vote for someone who shares their social values. “Put it this way: If you were about to have major surgery and your only choice was between a churchgoing doctor with a high mortality rate and an agnostic with a high success record, which would it be?” he asked. “I’d choose the agnostic.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
