Not only did a Johnson County grand jury decline to indict Planned Parenthood, it called for a review of the law used by anti-abortion activists to impanel it. Kansas is one of only six states that allows citizens to force the creation of taxpayer-financed grand juries simply by collecting signatures on a petition. No evidence of a crime is required, only an allegation. “It is the feeling of this grand jury that the current statute that addresses the formation of a grand jury be evaluated as to evidence required to call the grand jury,†the jurors said in a one-page statement released Wednesday.
Plus, “the grand jury also feels that the statute also be re-evaluated as to the percentage of the population required to convene a grand jury.†In the Johnson County grand jury’s case, that was 3,739 signatures — at least 2 percent of the number of people who voted in the last governor’s race, plus 100.
Good advice, but will the Legislature take it?
Two words about underdog Mike Huckabee’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, which he finally and graciously ended Tuesday night: well done. Where the former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist preacher triumphed in primaries and caucuses — in Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia and Louisiana, as well as Kansas — his campaign seemed fueled more by prayers than dollars. His appeal cut across partisanship and ideology, though, making him a Republican to watch for the future. For the rest of 2008, the key question for the GOP becomes: Will Huckabee’s faithful in Kansas and elsewhere fall in line behind John McCain?
President Bush’s response to $103-a-barrel oil and $3.15-a-gallon gas has been to call for more U.S. drilling and, as he did Tuesday after meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, to urge OPEC to pump more oil. But the New York Times editorial board — frustrated with the Senate’s Bush-sanctioned refusal to offset tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable fuels by eliminating equal credits for oil and gas producers — reminded Bush of something he said just three years ago: “I will tell you with $55 oil we don’t need incentives to the oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives. What we need is to put a strategy in place that will help this country over time become less dependent.†Then the Times asked: “If that was true at $55 a barrel, why isn’t it even more valid and urgent at $100 a barrel?â€
Hillary Clinton’s Texas and Ohio firewalls held Tuesday, and she regained some crucial momentum — but was it really enough to put her back in contention?
As Democratic strategist Jim Jordan pointed out, “Her durability is impressive if not astonishing, but she is still looking at some pretty cold, hard numbers in the race.†Clinton would need to win by landslide margins — more than 60 percent — in remaining states to overtake Barack Obama in pledged delegate counts. He called the prospects of her nomination, even with wins in Texas and Ohio, “impossible, really.â€
Still, Clinton can now argue that she’s proved she can win most of the big blue states and some important swing states such as Ohio, and that neither candidate can win outright on earned delegates. So it all comes down to superdelegate arm-twisting.
It’s still a long shot for her, but impossible? I’m not so sure.
Obama’s campaign has to be rattled and disappointed by this missed opportunity to put her away. Once again, it raises the question: Can Obama close the deal with voters? He’s still not there.
It’s hard to get three-quarters or even two-thirds of Kansans to agree on much these days, but the Air Force succeeded: In a SurveyUSA poll sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12 in Wichita, 80 percent said the contract to build a U.S. military airplane should not go to the lowest bidder if it’s a foreign company, as it did in the case of the refueling tankers. Asked if Boeing’s loss of the refueling tanker contract will have a major impact on the local economy, 68 percent said it would. Plus, 62 percent said they thought such a plane would be less safe if built by a foreign company.
Not only did a Johnson County grand jury decline to indict Planned Parenthood, it called for a review of the law used by anti-abortion activists to impanel it. Kansas is one of only six states that allows citizens to force the creation of taxpayer-financed grand juries simply by collecting signatures on a petition. No evidence of a crime is required, only an allegation. “It is the feeling of this grand jury that the current statute that addresses the formation of a grand jury be evaluated as to evidence required to call the grand jury,†the jurors said in a one-page statement released Wednesday.
