Many Americans favor limiting government and are attracted to libertarian ideals. But why are there no libertarian countries? asked Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. He noted that tea party members “say they want to shrink government in a big way but are uneasy about embracing this concept when reducing Social Security and Medicare comes up.” Dionne also wrote: “This matters to our current politics because too many politicians are making decisions on the basis of a grand, utopian theory that they never can – or will – put into practice. They then use this theory to avoid a candid conversation about the messy choices governance requires.” Suggesting no ideal state of any kind will ever exist, columnist Jonah Goldberg responded: “The revolution wrought by John Locke, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and the Founding Fathers is the only real revolution going. And it’s still unfolding.”
It is great to see Emporia State University, which is renowned for training teachers, step forward to honor those who have died in the line of duty with a National Teachers Hall of Fame Memorial to Fallen Educators. Of course, it would better if teachers faced no threat in the workplace, whether from gunmen or natural disasters, and if there were no names to be engraved on what will resemble a 10-feet-tall open book of black granite on the ESU campus. The memorial, which had a groundbreaking last week, is expected to be ready for dedication in August.
What is most troubling about the NSA’s data-collection program “is that Americans are not particularly troubled by any of it,” columnist Leonard Pitts wrote. “According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post, most of us – 56 percent – are OK with the monitoring of metadata, a process then-Sen. Joe Biden called ‘very, very intrusive’ back in 2006.”
“It is not that young voters are enamored of the Democratic Party. They simply dislike the Republican Party more,” according to a recent report by the College Republican National Committee. Actually, they dislike the GOP quite a bit more. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that found that 65 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 think the Republican Party is out of touch with concerns of most people today, while 47 percent of them think the Democratic Party is out of touch. However, 58 percent of younger Americans think President Obama is “in touch” with concerns of most people, which is one reason why he dominated the youth vote the past two elections.
The $66 million in state budget cuts to higher education over the next two fiscal years makes the Legislature’s approval of $2 million to help start the Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City seem even more ridiculous. KU never asked for the center. It was an idea dreamed up and pushed through by Kansas senators, including Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita. Lawmakers even named the center. Kansas Board of Regents member Ed McKechnie wondered if the money for the center could be diverted to help cover the budget cuts, but other regents members didn’t think that wasn’t a good idea, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.
Some opponents of Common Core education standards have claimed that the government will be collecting vast amounts of data about children, include their religious and political affiliations. That’s completely false. Common Core does not increase data collection beyond the basic academic information that states already gather. “There is no further data gathering because of Common Core,” Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker told the Lawrence Journal-World.
No Kansan knows more about state budgeting than Duane Goossen, who served three governors as budget director and is now the Kansas Health Institute’s vice president for fiscal and health policy. And what does he make of the 2014-15 budget passed by the Legislature? He noted this year’s tax plan is a net tax increase of $777.1 million over five years and that the fiscal-year ending balance will be a healthy $515.6 million in 2014 but then steadily dissipate. “Policymakers have more work to do to create a stable financial outlook,” Goossen wrote on his blog for the institute. “The budget/tax plan now in place is only sustainable if future revenue collections exceed expectations and if new demands on spending – school finance lawsuit, Medicaid expansion, inflation, salary increases, etc. – are avoided.” Those are some huge “ifs.”
Neither Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts nor Jerry Moran could claim any of the 641 total appearances by senators from 2010 through June 3 on the big Sunday news shows. But they have plenty of company. According to the New York Times, 40 other sitting senators were similarly unseen on the shows during the period, while Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., logged 61 appearances and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., had 58. “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace acknowledged sometimes thinking that McCain and others appear on the show a lot. But “the fact of the matter is they are good guests,” Wallace said.
What possessed Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, to give a speech on the House floor last week claiming that Islamic religious leaders across America don’t publicly and frequently condemn acts of terrorism? What’s more, he said their “silence” makes them “potentially complicit in these acts, and more importantly still, in those that may well follow.” U.S. Islamic leaders regularly and repeatedly condemn terrorism and say that it violates the core tenets of Islam. Muslim communities also have been instrumental in preventing terrorism by reporting extremist activities. And Muslims, of course, serve in the U.S. military and law enforcement, fighting on the front lines against terrorism. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, called on Pompeo to correct his “false and irresponsible” remarks and provided him with links to dozens and dozens of statements by U.S. Muslim leaders condemning terrorism. “It is difficult to understand how an elected official with the resources available to any member of Congress missed such an overwhelming amount of material,” a CAIR official wrote. Pompeo responded that he was “not backing down.”
There is no bigger Kansan at the moment than 2-year-old Titus Ashby, the Derby tot whose YouTube trick shots landed him a running “Clash of the Titus” gig with Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. “I’ve never been nervous in my life, but this kid makes me nervous,” said Metta World Peace, moments before Titus bested the Los Angeles Laker 11 baskets to six on Thursday. On earlier shows, Titus tied Laker Kobe Bryant and skunked legend Shaquille O’Neal, and Titus’ original trick-shot video has nearly 12 million views on YouTube.
UPDATE: Titus’ father, Joseph Ashby, hosts a local radio talk show and also appeared on the Kimmel programs (and produced the YouTube video). He has behind-the-scene photos of the Kimmel appearances on his radio show’s Facebook page.
Good for Gov. Sam Brownback and Commerce Secretary Pat George for planning to join the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition and businesses such as Beechcraft Corp., Bombardier Aerospace and Spirit AeroSystems at the Paris Air Show this week. With $2.07 billion in exports last year and more than 30,000 workers, Kansas’ aerospace industry remains a global heavyweight. But the fight to defend and build market share is fierce. For example, Wichita’s three business jetmakers now build 38 percent of all corporate jets, down from 70 percent less than a decade ago. As Brownback told The Eagle’s Molly McMillin this month, it’s time to promote Kansas’ aviation industry to the world and drum up new business. “We have to go sell that,” he said. He’s right to do so personally.
“I don’t want to lose people to Texas. I want to beat Texas.” – Gov. Sam Brownback (in photo), talking to the Wall Street Journal about his tax cuts
“It’s reminiscent of Marie Antoinette: ‘Let them eat cake.’” – Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, linking the governor’s tax bill and trip to the Paris Air Show
“They passed something they didn’t think we’d pass. Basically, it was, ‘You won’t shoot the hostage.’ ‘Oh? Watch.’ And we did.” – Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, in Rolling Stone, on how the 2012 Kansas Senate got played by the House on tax cuts
“This isn’t right! This isn’t right!” – U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., in a Senate hearing, holding up a 3-inch-thick binder detailing what Kansas had to agree to for its No Child Left Behind waiver
“As we speak of defecating, that to me is a harder incident to observe unless an officer is just right there. How does that work?” – Wichita City Council member Lavonta Williams, chuckling, before the council banned defecating and camping on public property and also defecating on private property in view of others
“OK, let’s limit the discussion on this.” – Mayor Carl Brewer, in response (but “it happens,” Williams said)
Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old National Security Agency whistle-blower, is a hero. In revealing the colossal scale of the U.S. government’s eavesdropping on Americans and other people around the world, he has performed a great public service that more than outweighs any breach of trust he may have committed. Like Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who released the Pentagon Papers, and Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who revealed the existence of Israel’s weapons program, before him, Snowden has brought to light important information that deserved to be in the public domain, while doing no lasting harm to the national security of his country. Snowden uncovered questionable activities that those in power would rather have kept secret. That’s the valuable role that whistle-blowers play in a free society, and it’s one that, in each individual case, should be weighed against the potential harm their revelations can cause. In some instances, conceivably, the interests of the state should prevail. Here, though, the scales are clearly tipped in Snowden’s favor. – John Cassidy, New Yorker
Edward Snowden is neither a hero nor a whistle-blower. He is, rather, a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison. Snowden wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety. The question, of course, is whether the government can function when all of its employees (and contractors) can take it upon themselves to sabotage the programs they don’t like. That’s what Snowden has done. The American government, and its democracy, are flawed institutions. But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. They can take advantage of federal whistle-blower laws; they can bring their complaints to Congress; they can try to protest within the institutions where they work. But Snowden did none of this. Instead, in an act that speaks more to his ego than his conscience, he threw the secrets he knew up in the air – and trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. – Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker
“The notion that we should trust government is foolish and dangerous,” columnist Cal Thomas wrote, responding to the NSA data-mining operation. “Government officials, like all human beings, have the capacity to do wrong as well as right. That’s why the founders gave us a Constitution, to control government that ‘the blessings of liberty’ might be secured.”
A performance of “Stop! In the Name of Love” by original Supreme Mary Wilson with backup singers Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., actress Lynda Carter and others? Yes, tragically, that happened – in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall on Thursday, to celebrate 86-year-old Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., for being the longest-serving member of Congress.
It was disappointing that Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., voted against allowing debate on a bipartisan immigration reform bill – one of only 15 senators (all Republican) to support a filibuster. Doesn’t he think the Senate – supposedly the world’s greatest deliberative body – should debate and vote on the reform? Or is this another case of Roberts moving further to the right in order to ward off a GOP primary challenge next year?
Kansas politics are profiled (unfavorably) this week in Rolling Stone magazine. “Rogue State: How Far-Right Fanatics Hijacked Kansas” by Mark Binelli chronicles Gov. Sam Brownback’s time in office, focusing on the Legislature and the purging of GOP moderates from the Kansas Senate. Several Wichita-area lawmakers are mentioned, including Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover (who Binelli says “speaks in an odd, husky purr”), Rep. Jim Howell, R-Derby, and former Sens. Dick Kelsey and Jean Schodorf. Kelsey says that one reason he got on the bad side of Brownback and Americans for Prosperity is that he opposed last year’s tax-cut plan. “The bill was designed, frankly, to take care of Koch Industries,” Kelsey says. “I could see that it took money from very poor people and benefited me, personally, too significantly. And I’m not poor.”
Well, here is one thing that Republicans and Democrats agree on: They don’t want the U.S. militarily involved in Syria. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that only 17 percent of Democrats and 15 percent of Republicans favor direct military action in Syria to stop the killing of civilians. And only 11 percent of Democrats and 10 percent of Republicans favor providing arms to Syrian rebels. “Even those who voted for President Barack Obama and those who voted for Mitt Romney last year hold virtually identical views on this topic, perhaps uniquely in the panoply of current public-policy issues,” wrote Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal.
After all the past fights about teaching evolution, it turned out that the new state science standards (which include evolution) were overshadowed by debate about Common Core education standards at Tuesday’s Kansas State Board of Education meeting. Teachers, superintendents, state lawmakers and citizen activists spoke for and against Common Core, which is a cooperative effort by states aimed at raising education standards. “The science standards passed late in the afternoon, by which time most of the crowd had already left,” the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. The state board approved Common Core standards in math and English three years ago, but tea party groups are spreading false claims that the standards are an Obama administration takeover of education.
While the state budget awaiting Gov. Sam Brownback’s signature will cut higher education, Kansas’ neighboring states are spending more on colleges and universities in their state budgets. The Lawrence Journal-World reported that increased funding in Iowa (2.6 percent) and Nebraska (4 percent) will be accompanied by freezes on tuition rates, and that Oklahoma, Colorado and Missouri have boosted higher-education funding by $33 million, $30 million and $25 million, respectively. In a statement, Kansas Board of Regents chairman Tim Emert of Independence countered claims that the 2014-15 cuts are “just” 1.5. percent, saying they are $48.7 million or 6.3 percent across two years and include “arbitrary” salary cuts. “At a time when more Kansans are turning to higher education to improve their lives, these cuts will be devastating,” Emert said. Though House Appropriations Committee Chairman Marc Rhoades, R-Newton, referred in a letter to The Eagle to years of “level and increased state funding” for colleges, overall state funding dropped from $829.1 million in 2008 to $763.4 million in 2013, or about 8 percent.
Kansas’ senators split on the $500 billion, five-year farm bill Monday, with Sen. Pat Roberts voting “no” and Sen. Jerry Moran in the 66-vote majority. “I want a farm bill to provide certainty for America’s producers and consumers, but this is not the best bill possible for farmers and ranchers or the taxpayer,” Roberts said in a statement. “Among my concerns, I am disappointed the farm bill includes target prices.” Moran said in a statement: “While I prefer the farm bill that passed a year ago, the new bill’s passage will help to reduce our swelling national debt by reforming costly programs, and gives farmers and ranchers the tools necessary to make certain the United States remains the most food secure country in the world.” Though a Roberts amendment to cut food stamps by $31 billion failed on a party-line vote, the bill includes a cut of about $400 million a year. The House is expected to take up its version of the farm bill later this month. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, predicted: “Unless there are some significant changes and some significant effort, I don’t think this’ll get across the floor.”
Some school district superintendents from across the state plan to attend Tuesday’s Kansas State Board of Education meeting to express their support for Common Core education standards. They are defending the standards against false claims made by some Kansas lawmakers, both federal and state. Who is behind the opposition? One source is the American Principles Project, a group based in Washington, D.C., that has been distributing talking points and helping establish state-level opposition organizations, the Washington Post reported. An attorney for the group has appeared on Glenn Beck’s talk show and at tea party meetings around the country. FreedomWorks, a tea party umbrella organization, and some state affiliates of Americans for Prosperity also have been backing the opposition effort, the Post reported.
Rep. Steve Brunk, R-Wichita, managed to make disdainful comments about government, public schools and the judiciary in a single news article – a rare hat trick. In a Sunday Eagle article about the school finance lawsuit, Brunk said that there is a mood among lawmakers to “give the courts the finger, so to speak.” While complimenting the charity work of the Rev. Jeff Gannon, the Wichita plaintiff in the lawsuit, Brunk disparaged the work of government. He then mocked public schools for asking for more funding – when it is the Legislature that has reneged on its funding promise and is ignoring its own education cost studies.
Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS tax-exempt department, did a bad job overseeing employees and should have immediately told Congress about the targeting of tea party groups, but there is no evidence that the targeting was part of a political conspiracy, wrote Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post. “Given what we know now, the story that best fits the facts is that IRS employees subordinate to Lerner – in Washington or elsewhere – were involved in some unforgivably stupid behavior, and those above them failed to keep an eye on it,” Stromberg wrote.
When last year’s redistricting landed Manhattan in the 1st Congressional District, many Kansans wondered whether fiscal hawk Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, would advocate for the federal funding needed to build the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in the city. Huelskamp stepped up last week as the House debated a $45 billion Homeland Security spending bill that includes $404 million for NBAF, arguing on the floor that “as a Kansas farmer and rancher, I recognize the critical damage that would be done to our livestock industries if we do not proceed forth with construction of NBAF.” The bill passed over the objection of Rep. Timothy Bishop, D-N.Y., who argued: “This NBAF project is a boondoggle. We don’t even have a shovel in the ground yet and already the cost has gone up by 250 percent. It is not needed.” Not coincidentally, Bishop’s district includes Plum Island, the site of the federal research lab scheduled to be replaced by NBAF.
