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.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
It’s shameful that Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature have yet to allow a federal expansion of Medicaid, even though the expansion would bring needed health insurance to about 150,000 Kansans, inject more than $3 billion into the state’s economy, help stabilize funding to hospitals, and actually save the state money. One reason the state could save money is that it currently helps pay for mental health care for people who are uninsured. A new report by the National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that more than 21,000 uninsured Kansans who have mental illness would be covered by expanded Medicaid. “Expanding Medicaid will help people living with a mental illness get back to work,” Rick Cagan, executive director for NAMI Kansas, told the Kansas Health Institute News Service. “It will help them recover and become more productive. It’s the most important step our state can take right now.” It’s also a step that Brownback keeps putting off.
Though the issue is sure to return next year, it was good that lawmakers balked at giving Secretary of State Kris Kobach prosecutorial powers. Kobach has been pushing for that power so he can continue his quixotic crusade against voter fraud. But the Kansas County and District Attorneys Association opposed the bill, noting that voter fraud comes under local prosecutors’ jurisdiction. Some lawmakers also were wisely concerned about giving Kobach more power.
Public universities were among the biggest losers in the state’s new budget – despite Gov. Sam Brownback’s pledge to protect their funding. The university system will be cut $23.3 million next fiscal year and an additional $32.8 million in fiscal 2015. According to the Kansas Board of Regents, that translates into operational budget cuts over the next two years of $3.1 million at Wichita State University, $5.3 million at the University of Kansas and another $8.3 million at its medical school, and $6.9 million at Kansas State University and its veterinary school and another $4.8 million at K-State’s research and extension services. And these totals don’t include cuts in capital-improvement funding. A KU official said the funding cuts mean the KU Medical Center will lose at least 30 slots for nursing students and 15 residency positions and the Lawrence campus will lose 38 faculty positions. “Nationally, this says terrible things about the priority of higher education in Kansas,” said Tim Caboni, vice chancellor for public affairs at KU. The funding cuts are also causing the universities to propose large tuition increases, including 8.1 percent at Wichita State University.
Managers with the Internal Revenue Service were unable to provide auditors with accurate data or supporting documentation on many costs for a conference in Anaheim, Calif. – one of 225 conferences the agency held in fiscal years 2010 through 2012 at an obscene cost of $49 million, the Washington Post reported. Yet if citizens and businesses tried to claim such expenses without documentation, the IRS would reject them and possibly press charges for tax evasion.
Though both parties have been terrible about blocking judicial nominations, President Obama is correct that GOP obstructionism is “unprecedented.” Sheldon Goldman, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, developed an “Index of Obstruction and Delay.” The rating for the most recent Congress was the highest ever recorded. “It approached total obstruction or delay,” he told the Washington Post. The Congressional Research Service also recently concluded: “President Obama is the only one of the five most recent presidents for whom, during his first term, both the average and median waiting time from nomination to confirmation for circuit and district court nominees was greater than half a calendar year.”
Cuts to the state’s prison system aren’t as bad as lawmakers initially proposed, but they are still deep and could endanger public safety. Jeremy Barclay, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections, said the minimum cut to the department would be $5.6 million next fiscal year, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. As a result, KDOC expects to eliminate $2 million for a new community corrections initiative and $1.2 million in community corrections grants, and it will lay off 10 employees who provide programming for inmates preparing for release and another 10 who work in parole operations. The budget also cuts $700,000 for juvenile corrections and $600,000 that would have funded a dozen correctional officer positions, the Capital-Journal reported. “It does make Kansas less safe any time you make cuts to programs that rehabilitate or restrict parole officers,” Barclay said.
President Obama’s big electoral win in the 2012 president campaign was closer than it might have seemed, the Washington Post reported. Obama defeated Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida and Virginia by only 429,000 votes. If Romney could have won just more than half of those voters (a big “if”), he would have won in the Electoral College. Of course, close elections aren’t new. John Kerry needed fewer votes than that in 2004 to win Ohio and the presidency, and Al Gore only needed a few hundred votes to win Florida in the 2000 election.
It took 99 days (nine more than the 90-day allotment and 19 more than legislative leaders said would be needed) for lawmakers to agree to set the state sales tax at 6.15 percent instead of allowing it to fall to 5.7 percent on July 1 as promised, our editorial Tuesday noted. Along with a phasedown of income-tax deductions, the tax increase is expected to raise about $777 million over the next five years. The extra revenue will help cover the shortfall created by last year’s tax cuts, but it won’t eliminate the state’s budget problems. Estimates show the state burning through its cash balances by 2018. And that doesn’t factor in the likelihood that the Kansas Supreme Court will order an increase in K-12 funding of about $500 million.
Thank goodness that enough lawmakers in the Kansas House came to their senses and didn’t block the implementation of Common Core education standards. Early efforts this session to defund the standards couldn’t even make it out of committee. Yet the issue was revived during the final days of the overtime session as a way to leverage votes for a tax increase. Much of the opposition to the standards was based on misinformation and false claims about the federal government taking over education. “It’s all about black helicopters,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka. “This bill is why, on occasions in the past, the state of Kansas has become the laughingstock of the country.” At least Kansas won’t be a punch line this time.
The website Kansas Watchdog compiled its list of the top 10 bizarre bills of the 2013 Kansas legislative session. The list included an attempt to force the University of Kansas to play Wichita State University in basketball and bills to ban unmanned aerial luminaries, increase golf cart speed limits and regulate strippers. It also included resolutions declaring that drugs are bad and recognizing the Boy Scouts of America and the Miss Kansas pageant winner. “For every reasonable piece of legislation that passes through the halls of the Capitol building,” the website said, “there’s at least one or two bills that make residents question the motives or intelligence of the elected officials pushing the matter.”
Changes to the National Baseball Congress’ annual tournament announced last week by city and NBC officials sound promising, both for teams and fans. Reducing downtime between games and providing hotel and meal discounts will make the tournament more affordable for visiting teams. Lower ticket prices and more buyout nights and promotions also should draw more fans. The NBC World Series has struggled in recent years. It is encouraging to see city leaders engaged and committed to restoring the tournament’s prestige.
