Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Today in Kansas

Some items I pulled out of the Wichita Eagle today -- working off the hard copy, so I'll leave it to you to find online versions at their website. The common theme is corruption and/or stupidity in high places, which in these parts means Republicans. There's always some of this evident, but today's load is particularly pungent:

  • Uber hires former Brownback campaign manager: Front page article. Back story is that the KS legislature passed a bill this session to insist on more restrictive (i.e., expensive) standards of insurance for anyone who participates in Uber's ride sharing business than the standards that Uber has been pushing state legislatures to adopt. Uber declared that they would boycott Kansas if the bill became law. Governor Sam Brownback vetoed the bill -- I think that's the only bill he's vetoed this term, although there have been dozens that should have been blocked. Uber then announced they would expand their business in Kansas. Now we see who got the check.

  • Earthquake shakes Kansas, Oklahoma: Only measured 4.1, with center 9 miles northeast of Guthrie, OK, a little more than 60 miles south of the KS state line, a little more than 20 miles west of the major pipeline center of Cushing. Cause is almost certainly wastewater injection into oil wells, which is necessary because oil wells in the region are so depleted they pump out more water than oil. Since the practice started, the number of earthquakes ranging from 4.0 up to about 5.8 has increased from zero to a couple hundred per year.

  • Former U.S. Rep. Tiahrt takes job with D.C. lobbying firm: Tiahrt was a Boeing employee before he ran for Congress in 1994, and during his sixteen years in the House he was for all practial purposes a full-time Boeing lobbyist -- so identified with the company that G.W. Bush nicknamed him "Tanker Todd." He left to run for the Senate, losing the Republican primary to Jerry Moran, then tried to regain his old House seat, only to loose again (this time to the Kochs' guy). Meanwhile he's run his own consulting firm, notably advising Boeing on abandoning sixty years in Wichita for even more anti-labor states (first to go was his beloved tanker program). We always figured he'd wind up with a posh DC lobbying firm, and now it's happened.

  • Brownback to re-enact signing of abortion bill: The bill in question is "the nation's first ban on an abortion procedure that is used in the second trimester of pregnancy." Brownback signed the bill when it was passed, but he's so excited it he's going to travel to four corners of the state and re-enact his signing. Three of the locations are Catholic high schools (Pittsburg, Wichita, and Hays). The fourth is a Catholic church in Lenexa (near Kansas City). Catholics are a small minority in Kansas. Brownback converted to Catholicism as he became ever more bizarrely obsessed with anti-abortion ideology.

  • George W. Bush to visit Garden City on Tuesday: "to attend a private luncheon, according to several local officials." Garden City is about 200 miles west of Wichita. It is home to a number of feed lots and the main meatpacking center in west Kansas. The last time I drove through, I noted that there were no clouds in the sky, but there was a layer of white fog 4-8 feet above the ground, mostly the result of trucks that drive around town spraying perfume to counter the stench of cattle manure. The majority of the working population there is of Mexican descent, but it's unlikely that they will be lunching with Bush. More likely the local plant and yard owners, who are most likely to recall fondly Bush's "guest worker" program.

  • Brownback vs. the Topeka board of education? Well, it's Brownback (and the Republical state legislature) against every local school board, but this quotes the superintendant in Topeka.

  • Man to plead guilty in Jewish site shootings: The man is white supremacist Glenn Miller, who shot and killed three people at a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish retirement home in Overland Park. Miller, 74, is ill and unlikely to live much longer anyway. Reportedly, he's willing to plead guilty so he can make a racist speech in court: one final gesture to inspire the white race.

Seems like there was another story about the county commissioners and a real estate boondoggle -- maybe in the part of the paper we've already recycled.

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