As he sentenced a troublemaking local pastor to serve probation time, pay $300 in fines and stay at least 1,000 feet away from the Islamic Society of Wichita, Sedgwick County District Judge Phil Journey delivered a worthy message last week not only to the pastor but to the community: The Constitution provides protection for people of all faiths. “What if the shoe had been on the other foot and someone from the Islamic center had come to your place and tried to convert your members and had blocked your driveway?” Journey asked Mark Holick, pastor of Spirit One Christian Ministry. Holick had been convicted of loitering and disturbing business at the Islamic center as local Muslims observed the holy month of Ramadan. Especially as the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 nears, Wichitans and all Americans need to remember that the country was attacked not by Islam but by terrorists who’d twisted Islam to serve evil. As President Bush put it in visiting a D.C. mosque just seven days after the 2001 attacks: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. Islam is peace.”
The Brownback administration announced last week that federal funds will cover 90 percent of the $85 million cost of a setting up a database to stop fraudulent claims for state assistance, including Medicaid and the HealthWave children’s insurance program. Last month the governor returned $31.5 million in federal funds that were helping Kansas set up a health insurance exchange, where individuals and businesses could shop for health coverage. So it’s OK to spend federal dollars to prevent people from getting health care, but not OK to spend federal dollars to help people get health care? So much for Gov. Sam Brownback’s statement, regarding the exchange grant, that “every state should be preparing for fewer federal resources, not more.”
Dave Heineman, the Republican governor of Nebraska, urged President Obama last week to deny the federal permit for the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline connecting Canada’s oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Texas Gulf coast, arguing its path over the Ogallala Aquifer is too risky. But at a time when the U.S. needs jobs, the Obama administration should say “yes” to the pipeline, argued Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson: “TransCanada, the pipeline’s sponsor, says the project should result in 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs. Most would be American, because 80 percent of the 1,661-mile pipeline would be in the United States.” Plus, he wrote, the pipeline would strengthen U.S.-Canada ties, and “we already import about half of our oil, and Canada is our largest supplier, with about 25 percent of imports. But its conventional fields are declining. Only oil sands can fill the gap.”
“Today we will expand our citizens’ ability to exercise their God-given, constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.” — Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau (in photo), as the commission voted to allow concealed guns at some county facilities
“We paint the Indian (statue) on top of the Capitol red and blue.” — Gov. Sam Brownback, joking about what KU stipulated as $4.5 million in construction savings went toward Capitol restoration
“It’s ‘regulations,’ ‘regulations’ and ‘regulations.’” — Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., asked in Salina what Kansans tell him are their top three concerns
“Kansans are tough old birds, and we don’t give up.” — Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, about her Topeka job fair’s 1,100 turnout Thursday
As he sentenced a troublemaking local pastor to serve probation time, pay $300 in fines and stay at least 1,000 feet away from the Islamic Society of Wichita, Sedgwick County District Judge Phil Journey delivered a worthy message last week not only to the pastor but to the community: The Constitution provides protection for people of all faiths. “What if the shoe had been on the other foot and someone from the Islamic center had come to your place and tried to convert your members and had blocked your driveway?” Journey asked Mark Holick, pastor of Spirit One Christian Ministry. Holick had been convicted of loitering and disturbing business at the Islamic center as local Muslims observed the holy month of Ramadan. Especially as the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 nears, Wichitans and all Americans need to remember that the country was attacked not by Islam but by terrorists who’d twisted Islam to serve evil. As President Bush put it in visiting a D.C. mosque just seven days after the 2001 attacks: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. Islam is peace.”
