“The whole world is in recession. But the United States is the only wealthy country in which the economic catastrophe will also be a health care catastrophe – in which millions of people will lose their health insurance along with their jobs, and therefore lose access to essential care,” wrote columnist Paul Krugman. He argued that “this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!”
Barack Obama reached out to the Muslim world in his inaugural address and in a recent interview with al-Arabiya television network. But columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks that message has been needlessly defensive and apologetic.
“In these most recent 20 years – the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world – America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them,” he wrote. “It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved – and resulted in – the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. The two Balkan interventions – as well as the failed 1992-93 Somali intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) – were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?”
“It was just one vote in the early days of a new Congress and a new presidency, but it was hard not to see Wednesday’s big zero – not one of 177 House Republicans supported the economic stimulus bill – as an ominous sign that Washington is still stuck in the bitterly polarized politics that has blocked progress on big issues for years,” a USA Today editorial argued. “The process was a textbook example of what President Obama was talking about in his inaugural address when he referred to the ‘recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.’ In this case, Democrats wanted more spending programs; Republicans wanted more tax cuts. The Democratic majority refused to yield, so the Republicans all voted no.”
Meanwhile, Republican leaders are hailing the unanimous “no” vote as a return to GOP principles of small government. “How about those House Republicans?” bragged Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C..
When the U.S. Supreme Court let Goodyear get away with having paid far less to Lilly Ledbetter than to her male colleagues over a period of years, it was up to Congress to make it right for others in the same position. It seemed absurd that the court expected Ledbetter to have brought suit within 180 days of the company’s first act of discrimination against her, as if employees have ready access to such payroll information. Two years after the court decision, President Barack Obama signed a bill into law Thursday that rightly counts each new paycheck as an unlawful practice, while limiting potential back pay awards to two years. Unfortunately, only one member of the Kansas delegation, Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, saw fit to vote for the commonsense legislation, which also protects those discriminated against because of race, religion, national origin, disability or age. Kansas Republicans on Capitol Hill have echoed GOP leaders’ contention that the bill was an overreaching gift to “wealthy trial lawyers.” But it’s significant that all 16 women in the U.S. Senate, including four Republicans, voted for the bill. And with their votes against it over the past week, Republican Reps. Todd Tiahrt of Goddard, Jerry Moran of Hays and Lynn Jenkins of Topeka and Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts signaled they were content to let pay discrimination go unpunished in cases where the companies were lucky enough to keep it secret for at least six months.
The decision by Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, to run for U.S. Senate next year already has three Republicans vying for the 1st Congressional District seat – state Sen. Tim Huelskamp of Fowler, former Sam Brownback aide Rob Wasinger of Hays and Pratt businessman Timothy Barker. But it’s been awfully quiet in the 4th District, where Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, also is expected to run for Brownback’s Senate seat. Perhaps the Kansas GOP’s Kansas Day hoopla in Topeka this weekend will turn up some contenders. Ditto the Kansas Democratic Party’s Washington Days next month. So far, speculation about possible GOP wannabes focuses on state Sen. Susan Wagle of Wichita, Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt (left) of Independence (yes, it’s in the 4th District, barely) and two Schlapps – son Matt (a former Tiahrt and Bush aide) and mom Sue, a Wichita City Council member. The most likely Democrats are state Reps. Raj Goyle (right) and Jim Ward of Wichita, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and Kansas Board of Regents vice chairwoman and Wichita investment adviser Jill Docking (who made a strong challenge to Brownback in 1996).
The following satirical headlines come from borowitzreport.com:
STARBUCKS ELIMINATES COFFEE, CUPS, STIR-THINGIES; Latest Cost-cutting Measures
OBAMA SENDS BIDEN ON ‘SPECIAL MISSION’ TO ANTARCTICA; High-level Trip Could Last Four Years, President Hints
OBAMA POISED TO BECOME MOST ASS-KISSED PRESIDENT IN HISTORY; Suckage Reaching New Heights, Historians Say
BUSH REPEALS ENGLISH LANGUAGE; Last Official Act as President
OBAMA HOPES TO CALM AMERICANS WITH SERIES OF BORING SPEECHES; Economic Address Contains Opposite of Stimulus
The four-day impeachment trial of Rod Blagojevich has ended with the Illinois governor joining the ranks of the unemployed. He’s the first U.S. governor to be impeached in more than 20 years (since Arizona’s Evan Mecham). By the way, during his rambling 47-minute closing argument to the Illinois Senate today, he defended his legally challenged effort to import Canadian drugs by saying, “If you’re impeaching me, then we need to impeach to governors of Wisconsin, of Kansas, of Vermont,” because Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and others were involved in the drug plan, too. But there was a lot more behind the 59-0 vote than imported medicines. “We have this thing called impeachment and it’s bleeping golden and we’ve used it the right way,” said Democratic state Sen. James Meeks of Chicago, mocking the governor’s wiretapped words.
The local and state economies took another major blow as Cessna Aircraft announced today that it now expects to lay off 4,600 workers, 4,000 of them in Wichita. That’s 2,000 more than the company estimated just two weeks ago.
“When the GOP talks, nobody should listen,” columnist Bob Herbert wrote. “Republicans have argued, with the collaboration of much of the media, that they could radically cut taxes while simultaneously balancing the federal budget, when, in fact, big income-tax cuts inevitably lead to big budget deficits. We listened to the GOP and what do we have now? A trillion-dollar-plus deficit and an economy in shambles. This is the party that preached fiscal discipline and then cut taxes in time of war. This is the party that still wants to put the torch to Social Security and Medicare. This is a party that, given a choice between Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, would choose Ronald Reagan in a heartbeat.”
If next year’s must-see GOP primary – for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sam Brownback – were held now, Jerry Moran (in photo) would beat Todd Tiahrt 41 to 25 percent. That’s according to a poll conducted for Moran’s campaign by Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies. “While it is still very early in the primary campaign, it is currently a lot better to be Jerry Moran than it is to be Todd Tiahrt,” Bolger said in a polling memo quoted by the Washington Post. We’d say it’s Tiahrt’s move, but he already made one Tuesday, announcing a Senate Campaign Steering Committee notable for its recognizable names (including Wichita big hitters Jack Pelton, Bill Hanna, Steve Martens and Jay Allbaugh) and geographical diversity.
Kansas’ 148th birthday finds the 34th state taking the economic bumps along with the rest of the nation and wondering how to pay its bills and seed its future. Fortunately, the moment bears no resemblance to the painful, bloody period that led up to statehood and made Kansas’ chosen motto, “Ad astra per aspera” (To the stars through difficulties), so apt. And Kansas’ past provides reason for optimism about its ability to rebound. As poet Harry Kemp wrote in 1912, “Kansas glories in her days to be, in her horizons limitless and vast. . . .”
Many of the opponents of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan are not arguing in good faith, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman contends. He noted how they have used faulty math to exaggerate the cost of the jobs expected to be created by the stimulus. He also contends that “it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts – and therefore costs less per job created (see the previous fraudulent argument) – because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved.” Rather than accept this, Krugman said, “conservatives take refuge in a nonsensical argument against public spending in general.”
Jim Manzi of National Review Online questions the impact of the stimulus plan when substantially more of the outlays occur in 2012 or later than in 2009. “If this is a ‘normal’ length recession, the spending bill will have the classic problem that fiscal stimulus does – namely, it comes too late to do much good, but right on time to help stoke inflation and misallocation of resources that are suddenly in high demand as the economy enters a recovery. And if this is a very long-lasting recession, more like a U.S. 1930s Depression or Japan 1990s ‘lost decade,’ then the problem is so long-lasting that we’re not really debating a stimulus bill, we’re debating a near-permanent shift of control of resources to the government, which doesn’t exactly have a sterling track record of success. Only if this is a ‘Goldilocks-length’ recession of more than one to two years but less than a decade (which is a pretty hard beast to find in modern American history) would this temporal spending pattern turn out to be wise.”
With President Barack Obama having pledged support for expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, all Democratic congressional leaders needed to do was revive one of the two bills that had been vetoed by President George W. Bush. Instead, they changed the legislation and ended up politicizing a cause that had broad GOP support, including from Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. To Democrats’ contention that 90 percent of the latest bill is unchanged, Roberts said, “It’s the 10 percent that represents barbed wire and a heck of a burr underneath our saddles.” Especially with federal spending going wild, Republicans have a point in questioning whether it’s wise to give states the go-ahead to cover children in families with incomes exceeding three times the federal poverty level – $63,600 for a family of four. Less understandable is GOP outrage over the new provision allowing more children of legal immigrants to be covered; currently, they must have been in the country for at least five years to qualify. Why punish the children of documented immigrants who are paying taxes and otherwise following the rules? SCHIP, known as HealthWave in Kansas, has been a bipartisan godsend to many families over the past decade. It will be regrettable if its long-sought expansion ends up bearing only a Democratic seal of approval.
In response to Barack Obama’s order last week easing restrictions on the use of federal family planning money overseas, Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., declared in a press release that Obama “will be remembered forever . . . as the Abortion President.” Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee thundered that the order reflected “Obama’s sweeping abortion agenda.”
Columnist Davis Merritt responded: “Such overheated language is neither accurate nor helpful. Neither Obama nor anyone else wants more abortions; everyone on all sides of the issue would like to reduce the need for them. But trying to stamp out abortion by legal force or moral persuasion rather than through education is in fact fruitless.”
Merritt argued that women’s health clinics in poor countries by necessity provide a range of education about such things as sexual and neonatal health, maternal nutrition, breast-feeding, contraception and AIDS prevention in addition to information about abortions. “Denying operating funds to such clinics cannot stem the tide of abortions; in fact, the opposite is likely true: that unintended pregnancies – and thus abortions – are reduced by the education those clinics provide.”
“Some are literally salivating.” – House Minority Leader Paul Davis, D-Lawrence, on Republicans eyeing K-12 schools for budget cuts
“Now, they know we won’t love them in the morning.” – Sen. Janis Lee (in photo), D-Kensington, on how schools would be affected by GOP senators’ proposed “sucker punch” cuts
“The solution is not (lawmakers). The solution is the people of Kansas.” – Rep. Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, on the “tough choices” ahead on the state budget
“It felt like a 10-pound anvil was lifted off my head.” – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on how she felt seeing Marine One lift off the Capitol grounds on Jan. 20 with George W. Bush aboard
“I just don’t think that’s the way a president should enter office.” – Former Bush chief of staff Andy Card, on the anti-Bush tone of President Barack Obama’s inaugural address
“I’m a lefty. Get used to it.” – Obama, the sixth southpaw in chief since the end of World War II, speaking as he signed his first official documents
Kansans Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts were among the 34 Republican senators who voted Monday against confirming Timothy Geithner (in photo) as Treasury secretary. Brownback’s stated problem with Geithner, who formerly led the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, went beyond his “inexcusable” failure to pay income taxes. Brownback said: “Geithner was responsible for watching the big financial institutions precisely at the time when they acted most irresponsibly and made decisions that led to our current crisis.”
During the confirmation hearing, Roberts quipped that Geithner, as Treasury secretary, should give a tax holiday to every American who makes a “mistake.” In response, Geithner just smiled.
Calling it “Kumbaya day at the Supreme Court,” a Legal Times blog noted that the court handed down five signed opinions Monday without a single dissent – “a rare alignment for this or any Supreme Court.” Plus, 10 of the 15 signed opinions of the court so far this term have been unanimous, serving Chief Justice John Roberts’ goal of unanimity. Where can Congress get some of that?
Conservatives seem more pleased with Barack Obama’s inaugural address than many liberals. Fred Barnes wrote in the Weekly Standard that “Obama’s ‘new era of responsibility’ echoed the ‘Personal Responsibility Act,’ the third of the 10 planks in the Contract With America. Obama also said that it’s not the size of government which matters but whether it works. Newt Gingrich coined that thought years ago.” Bill Kristol wrote in the New York Times that “Obama’s speech was unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative.”
In what sounds less like a joke all the time, people keep suggesting reopening Alcatraz when Guantanamo Bay is closed. For Republicans, the infamous island prison in San Francisco Bay has the added attraction of being in the district of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “There’s a lot of discomfort about the idea of bringing the detainees in to the United States. That’s why I’ve suggested Alcatraz,” said Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also mentioned the idea Sunday. Meanwhile, Pelosi dismissed it, because Alcatraz is a national park and tourist attraction.
But a Rolling Stone blogger doesn’t see the Rock’s status as a tourist draw as disqualifying. “Also keep it open as a tourist attraction. These guys are not superheroes. They’re not Houdini’s. They’re easily contained. And we should make a show of how toothless they really are,” wrote Tim Dickinson.
“The whole world is in recession. But the United States is the only wealthy country in which the economic catastrophe will also be a health care catastrophe – in which millions of people will lose their health insurance along with their jobs, and therefore lose access to essential care,” wrote columnist Paul Krugman. He argued that “this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!”
