Releasing some of the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as Barack Obama proposed Monday, could have an immediate, though temporary, impact on oil prices, unlike lifting the federal bans on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Still, the proposal strikes me as pandering, similar to John McCain’s call for a summer gas-tax holiday.
Given that Kansas is 45 percent registered Republican and 27 percent registered Democratic, you’d expect the Kansas Republican Party to dominate in fundraising. But the Kansas Democratic Party is showing unexpected strength, raising $3 million to the Kansas Republican Party’s $600,000 over the past six reporting periods. Christian Morgan, state party executive director, responded that GOP fundraising extends to more groups than Democratic fundraising, and predicted the state GOP party’s role will increase after the primary.
“As I listen to leading voices and thinkers on the right pondering the condition of their ideology, it is increasingly clear to me that they face a fundamental dilemma — one that cannot be resolved anytime soon and that might well leave the conservative movement out to pasture for as long as we progressives have been powerlessly chewing grass,” wrote Greg Anrig of the Century Foundation. “That choice is whether to stick with rhetoric and policies wedded to free markets, limited government and bellicose unilateralism, or to endorse a more robust role for the public sector at home while relying more on diplomacy and international institutions abroad. Either way, conservative Republicans seem destined to have a much harder time winning elections for the foreseeable future. Just ask McCain how much fun he’s having.”
In the wake of the suicide of anthrax suspect Bruce E. Ivins, some critics argue that the government’s response to the anthrax mailings of 2001 was counterproductive: Previously, Ivins was one of only a few dozen military researchers with access to high-grade strains of anthrax.
After Sept. 11 and the anthrax attacks, the Bush administration greatly increased bioterror funding as well as the number of workers and labs with access to deadly biopathogens — hundreds of people now work with these once tightly restricted substances.
The move arguably increases the chances that another twisted individual will carry out a plot from within, and makes it much more difficult to narrow the list of suspects.
“We are putting America at more risk, not less risk,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of a House panel looking into safety lapses at bioresearch labs.
New York Times columnist David Brooks said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that John McCain isn’t running the campaign he’d hoped to run, but that he and his advisers have decided that Barack Obama is the race. And the anti-Obama ads, though “cheesy,” are working, Brooks said. “When I write about Barack Obama, I get a huge response. When I write about John McCain, it’s like an arrow into the darkness. People love Obama. This is about Obama. Who is this guy? Who is this phenomenon? So McCain people decided, ‘every time we talk we have to talk about Obama. That’s the only way we can get coverage.’”
Kudos to the Sunrise Rotary Club of West Sedgwick County and sponsoring businesses and donors for building the new wheelchair-friendly playground in Sedgwick County Park. The playground — the first of its kind in the state — is designed to be fun for all children and includes slides and swings accessible for children with disabilities. The project has been a long time in the works and still isn’t completed. Thanks, Sunrise, for persisting and for caring about these children.
