State Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, and other GOP legislators have jumped on a national bandwagon aimed at opting out of national health reform state by state. “We were created to have state sovereignty,” Landwehr said. “We were not set up to have the federal government tell the states who, what, when, where and how.” But their Health Care Freedom Amendment requires two-thirds support in the Legislature and majority approval at the polls, which can be hard to come by in Kansas. And if the constitutional amendment prevailed and Kansans were protected from federal health insurance mandates, would they find it any easier to get and keep insurance and access affordable health care?
“Former Vice President Dick Cheney has accused the White House of ‘dithering’ over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan. The White House said they’re thinking it over, and they should have an answer for him in six to eight weeks.” — Jay Leno
“President Obama just declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency. A couple of weeks ago, it was like, ‘Calm down, it’s going to be fine.’ . . . Make up your mind. This thing is like the Brett Favre of infectious diseases.” — Jimmy Fallon
“In response to Obama’s declaration, the Republican leaders this morning came out in support of the swine flu.” — Jimmy Kimmel
If President Obama is disappointed in his point-woman in the House, he wasn’t showing it Monday at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami Beach. “I don’t think people quite understand. Nancy Pelosi is not simply the first woman speaker of the House,” he told the crowd. “I think she’s going to go down as one of the greatest speakers of all time. And she’s very nice and she’s very friendly, but, boy, she is tough. And that’s what you need when you’re putting up with all the criticism and the carping and the griping — and that’s from the Democrats. I mean, you should see what she has to put up with — from the Republicans. So I could not have a better partner in trying to move the country than Nancy Pelosi.”
As a member of the two U.S. Senate committees tasked with crafting health reform bills, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has played the critic more than the architect, objecting noisily on cost and other grounds. That’s probably why he hasn’t been a go-to guy for reform champion and former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the Democrat now leading President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services. “Even though we know each other very well, she knows how I feel about how health reform, so she’s trying to go where she can get votes,” Roberts told the Kansas Health Institute News Service. “I would welcome — if she had the time — at least an hour discussion to go over these facts (about health reform) with the secretary. I can’t imagine if she were still in her previous role that she wouldn’t be jumping up and down about all this.” Perhaps, but Gov. Mark Parkinson has strongly advocated reform.
Marveling that 15 million Americans are out of work yet the Kansas Democratic Party can’t find one candidate for governor, Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Ric Anderson quipped: “Pretty soon, that guy from ‘Dirty Jobs’ is going to show up. Talk about an opportunity hardly anybody wants to touch.”
This may be the moment for conservative Democrats. More Americans are conservative than are moderate or are liberal, according to a new Gallup poll. Forty percent of Americans polled described their political views as conservative, compared with 36 percent who said they were moderate and 20 percent who said they were liberal. Moderates and conservatives were tied in polling from 2005 through 2008, but conservatism has gained ground among independent voters, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll puts the Republican Party’s favorable rating at its lowest in at least a decade, 36 percent, compared with 53 percent favorability of the Democratic Party.
A proposed November online auction to benefit the legal defense of Scott Roeder, accused of killing abortion doctor George Tiller, surely doesn’t square with eBay’s policy against allowing listings that promote or glorify violence or “instruct others to engage in illegal activity.” The distasteful items to be sold — including an Army of God manual, a recipe book by convicted Tiller shooter Shelley Shannon and drawings from Roeder — seem inseparable from the use of violence and illegal activity aimed at ending abortion. Unfortunately, even if eBay nixes the appalling auction, it probably could find another home on the wild Web. Roeder deserves a high-quality defense, but he does not deserve to be celebrated in cyberspace or otherwise.
Some reactions on ABC’s “This Week” to Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to ease up on prosecutions of medicinal use of marijuana in the 14 states that allow it:
“We have legalized gambling in this country over two generations. It used to be considered a sin and a crime. With no national debate and no decision moment — we just did it — we have legalized prostitution, as anyone who opens a telephone book and looks under ‘escort’ can tell you. And we’re probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana.” — Washington Post columnist George Will
“We won’t see a full legalization of marijuana until somebody figures out that if you tax it, maybe you can pay for health care.” — John Podesta, former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton
“I wish that I believed that this was going to lead to some broader federal look at the whole futile war on drugs.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker
In a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, concern about the economy was paramount across gender lines. But “46 percent of women rank health care as one of their top two concerns, versus 34 percent of men who think that — a 12-point difference,” noted MSNBC’s First Read blog. “On the other hand, a combined 39 percent of men rank the deficit and spending as a top two concern, versus 29 percent of women who do — a 10-point difference.”
Some higher education officials in Kansas already are using the term “state-assisted” rather then “state-funded.” Now, to deal with a state funding squeeze, officials at Colorado State University are debating whether to take the school partially private and go to a tuition system in which students would pay more for degrees that cost more to deliver. Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York also have versions of a public-private model for higher education. But it’s controversial. “Once you start charging more for some degrees, you’re going to price people out of the market,” Chapman Rackaway, associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University, wrote in the Hays Daily News. “State governments across the country already are doing their best to prevent access to higher education for all but their wealthiest citizens. If we start making it harder to get necessary degrees like medicine and engineering, we’ll find ourselves with a shortage of people in those fields quickly.”
The Bushes have joined the “Get Motivated” seminar program. Asked about George W. Bush’s first speaking gig — today in Fort Worth, on a bill including Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Terry Bradshaw, Zig Ziglar and Robert Schuller — University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato suggested the country is beyond asking whether such top-dollar talks should be beneath former presidents. But “Bob Dole selling Viagra — now that lacked dignity,” Sabato told the New York Daily News.
George Tiller’s Wichita abortion practice ended with his murder. Pro-choice Gov. Kathleen Sebelius went to Washington, D.C., leaving a pro-choice successor with no plans to run for the job. Kansas’ likely next governor is Sam Brownback, perhaps the most anti-abortion member of the U.S. Senate. So it was curious to see the reaction of Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, to last week’s resignation of Jack Confer as executive director of the Kansas Board of Healing Arts: “Jack Confer was our last hope against the complete and total corruption of this state by abortion forces,” Culp told the Topeka Capital-Journal, “and with his resignation, no matter what the reason, that hope is dashed.” Whatever drove Confer’s decision, the board seemingly has yet to find its footing after its 2008 overhaul by the Legislature. Kansans need a health care regulatory authority that is professional, apolitical and stable.
In an article on the bonds between residents at the C Street town house in Washington, D.C., Politico characterized Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, has having been “distraught” that prominent socially conservative Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., endorsed their fellow C Street resident Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, in the state’s GOP Senate primary next year. Tiahrt has attended C Street events but isn’t considered a regular at the house, known for its Bible study and fellowship.
DeMint said: “They’re both good guys, so I wouldn’t say anything bad about either one of them. I just know Jerry better. I think he might be able to help shake things up a bit.” Coburn said of Moran: “He’s not an appropriator. He’s in a farm state, and he voted against the farm bill. He demonstrates courage.”
Tiahrt told Politico: “A lot of people are focusing their attention on the candidates in the primary because they know it’s about the future of the party. It’s not based on roommates. It’s based on ideas. And when it’s based on ideas, I get more support.” He also said: “My roommate endorsed me — I’ve been married to her for 33 years.”
Reactions to any White House initiative tend to stay within party lines. So it was surprising to see how Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., regarded the Obama administration’s decision to restrict compensation for top executives at the biggest bailed-out banks. “I have no problem with greed being curtailed,” McCain said.
Apparently Sen. Pat Roberts (in photo), R-Kan., does: “It’s a bad precedent. You have government determining the pay of a company that may be in the business of trying to get the best employees they can to save the company. It’s very competitive out there. I’m not waving flags for people to get excessive pay or golden parachutes — what I object to is the government making that decision.”
“We are Velcroed to them.” — Suzie Ahlstrand, vice president of community advancement for the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce, in one of the recent national articles about Wichita’s slumping aircraft companies
“If I could do it over, I would wear a Bass Pro Shop cap or dress as a caveman.” — Rep. Bill Otto, R-LeRoy, on the flap created by his anti-Obama YouTube rap video, in which he wore a hat labeled “Opossum, the other dark meat”
“So people who dis you and do not agree/Are just not racist and that includes me.” — Otto again, in a new rap video with a more positive tone
Who knew seats on the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council were so coveted? In the end, Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Kelly Parks prevailed Wednesday in his wish to appoint Commissioners Karl Peterjohn and Gwen Welshimer to the council, replacing Commissioner Dave Unruh and Parks himself. But in opposing the passage of a resolution giving Parks the authority to do so with the commission’s consent, Unruh made a worthy point about how the change “politicizes the chair position more than we have ever experienced.” He noted how the county government had always treated the chairman as first among equal members of the commission, and he said that giving the chairman special powers to do things according to his pleasure “establishes the wrong policy.”
“If ever there was a time for the unanimous passing of an amendment, the Franken anti-government contractor rape liability bill would seem to be that,” said Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” Stewart’s bit highlighted the 30 GOP male senators, including Kansas’ Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, who recently voted not to bar federal contracts to defense contractors if they prevent their employees from taking workplace sexual assault and discrimination cases to court. Among the 68 votes that carried the amendment to passage were the only four women Republicans in the chamber: Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
