It was no surprise that Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, was among the minority of House lawmakers who voted today against expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, given that he has opposed it in the past. But it was disappointing that Kansas’ newest delegation member, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, also voted against helping insure more kids. In defending her vote, she repeated the bogus claim that expanding coverage would somehow hurt low-income children. To their credit, Kansas’ other delegation members, Reps. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, and Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, put kids before ideology and were among the overwhelming majority that approved the needed measure.
A Wichita woman wrote a commentary today’s Eagle complaining about how some retailers ask to see your receipt before you can leave the store. “Why do stores insult their customers by treating them like thieves?” she asked. She plans to keep walking when they ask her, and then sue for false imprisonment if they detain her.
This is actually an interesting legal question. It is OK if stores such as Sam’s Club ask to see receipts, because that’s part of their membership agreements. But other retailers are supposed to be able to show reasonable cause to suspect someone of being a thief. Refusing to show a receipt isn’t reasonable cause.
From picking Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation to sticking with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to proposing $300 billion in business tax breaks as part of the stimulus package, Barack Obama’s decisions are making liberals queasy. Plus, according to the New York Times, the economy-focused Obama camp may want to defer campaign promises such as a renegotiated NAFTA, immigration reform, carbon regulation, a rollback of the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, and allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
U.S. News & World Report blogger James Pethokoukis says the far left’s “angst and agita are can’t-miss signs of a little understood liberal malady, Clinton Derangement Syndrome: the crippling fear that the progressive president you just elected to launch a pricey new New Deal and nationalize health care will, once in office, morph into a budget-balancing, tax-cutting, free trade-loving disappointment.”
One of Texas’ objections to the selection of Manhattan for the new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility is meteorological. John Kerr, chairman of the effort to bring the lab to San Antonio, sent a letter to the Homeland Security Department complaining that, among other things, the site selection didn’t factor in Kansas’ tornado track record. Arguing that Kansas has had recent twisters big enough to damage such a lab, Kerr wrote that “the (Homeland Security) site selection utterly ignored this obvious risk and found the risk of a catastrophic outbreak (of disease) to be no different at any of the sites, an absurd conclusion.” Texas has threatened to sue if the decision isn’t reconsidered.
As if a gaping budget hole weren’t dramatic enough, state Rep. Dale Swenson further stirred things up in Topeka this week by exchanging the “R” that has always followed his name for a “D.” OK, this surprises no one who has long watched the Wichitan vote in ways that put him at odds with the GOP and in favor with labor unions and other blue-collar causes. Only Swenson can say whether the postelection timing was a matter of plan (though that didn’t stop the Kansas GOP from accusing him of lying to voters). And only District 97 voters can say whether Swenson’s switch matters, assuming he runs again in 2010 for a ninth term.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, and other state leaders are correct to vehemently oppose a provision proposed in the second phase of the financial industry bailout requiring companies that get government aid to divest their corporate aircraft fleet or jet leases. Tiahrt, who filed an amendment that would strip that requirement from the bill, said the provision would kill jobs and called it “a symbolic slap in the face” of general aviation workers. The heads of the Big Three automakers made a bad public relations move last year in flying to Washington, D.C., on corporate jets to beg for a bailout. But using corporate jets can be a smart business decision that saves money and increases productivity.
It was no surprise that Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, was among the minority of House lawmakers who voted today against expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, given that he has opposed it in the past. But it was disappointing that Kansas’ newest delegation member, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, also voted against helping insure more kids. In defending her vote, she repeated the bogus claim that expanding coverage would somehow hurt low-income children. To their credit, Kansas’ other delegation members, Reps. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, and Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, put kids before ideology and were among the overwhelming majority that approved the needed measure.
