U.S. Attorney on duty on Election Day to address allegations of fraud

Officials say they're on guard against voter fraud

As the November elections approach, officials seem to be taking steps aimed at reassuring voters in a close election that only the votes that should be counted will count.

Acting U.S. Attorney Marietta Parker announced today that she would be on duty election day to respond to allegations of fraud and voting rights violations.

Parker’s announcement comes on the heels of an advisory issued earlier this month by Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh to county election officials. [ Read more...]

Greg and Missey Smith criticize JoCo judge's politicization of Kelsey's murder trial

Murdered teen's parents speak out for judicial selection reform

The parents of Kelsey Smith, the Olathe teen who was kidnapped and murdered in 2007, are speaking out in favor of changing the judicial selection process for Johnson County judges.

Greg and Missey Smith recorded radio advertisements urging Johnson County residents to vote for changing the selection process to a direct election.

Currently judges are selected by a 14-member judicial nominating commission, which is chaired by Lee Johnson, a Supreme Court justice. Under the current system, seven lawyers and seven non-lawyers who are political appointees refer their top candidates to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius who makes the final decision of which judge to appoint. No public scrutiny of judges is conducted.[ Read more...]

Archbishop defends church's 'rights and responsibility' to teach morals

Naumann says most important issue to Catholics is abortion

Last week the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kansas City, Kan., declared abortion should be the most important issue for Catholics to consider when deciding on who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election. This week, observers are still discussing the impact of the comment.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann, said other problems facing the United States today, including the war in Iraq, should be considered less important than the right to life.

“The church in the United States always cherished its rights and its responsibility to form the moral (conscience) of the country,” he said during his visit at University of Kansas' Dole Institute of Politics. [ Read more...]

One problem: The numbers came from the troubled newspaper itself.

Kansas City Star dismisses falling circulation report

There is no question that, like many newspapers, the Kansas City Star’s circulation numbers have declined dramatically recently. How much? It depends on who you ask.

According to an Audit Bureau of Circulation report that reflects a six-month period ending September 2008, the Kansas City Star’s daily circulation has declined 2.3 percent to 239,358. Sunday’s circulation experienced an even greater decrease - 5.3 percent to 324,837.

The latest figures appear in Editor & Publisher, a trade publication.[ Read more...]

Goodbye revenue. Gaming commission to consider pulling track licenses Nov. 7

Racetrack owners say no thanks to slots at tracks

When pro-gaming legislators concocted a plan, without a public vote, to allow slot machines at racetracks, they forecast that the state would enjoy a $12.3-million windfall in fiscal year 2008, and a whopping $101 million in fiscal year 2009 and beyond.

But when track owners got a look at the formula by which racetrack slot machine revenue would be divided up between the state, track owners and other entities, track owners had second thoughts.

It appears likely that no revenue will ever be forthcoming from racetrack slots, even though the budget office still lists just under $24 million in revenue during fiscal year 2009. [ Read more...]

Conservatives claim the Senate leadership is rooting for the Democrat to help protect their positions, but Morris says he doesn't support Goodwin.

Abrams-Goodwin battle could determine Senate leadership

The battle between Democrat Greta Goodwin, of Winfield, and her GOP challenger Steve Abrams, of Arkansas City, is one that could determine who gains the state Senate leadership in the 2008-2009 legislative session.

If Goodwin wins, she'll prevent Abrams, a conservative Republican, from joining the Senate's angry conservative bloc who have battled the GOP's "moderate" leadership under Senators Steve Morris, John Vratil and Derek Schmidt.

If November's elections send one or two more conservatives to the Senate, the leadership will pass to their side. [ Read more...]

Ways and Means chair reimburses campaign treasury for questionable purchases

Umbarger yields to ethics pressure, repays fund

The chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee has reimbursed his campaign fund for gasoline purchases and other transactions that have been questioned by a political foe.

Sen. Dwayne Umbarger, a Thayer Republican, is declining comment on the case, as is the Kansas Ethics Commission.

The repayment comes in the wake of complaints filed with the Ethics Commission by Kris Van Meteren, who served as a spokesperson for Iris Van Meter, his mother and Umbarger’s primary campaign opponent. The commission is refusing, as a matter of policy, to acknowledge whether a complaint was received or whether an investigation is taking place. [ Read more...]

Network forced by law to broadcast Obama campaign spots - and uses the money to create anti-Obama ads of its own

Bott bites back at Barack

Most people have talked back to a radio advertisement they didn't like. But it's not every day that a radio network talks back to its own advertisers.

The Bott Radio Network, a Christian news and information group, is responding to government regulations requiring the network to play Obama’s campaign advertisements by launching a few advertisements of its own.

In one of the radio spots, Rich Bott, executive vice president of BRN, listed Obama’s positions on abortion rights and gay marriage as reasons why listeners should disregard Obama’s advertisements broadcast on the network's stations. [ Read more...]

Comment: It's the Kansas two-step, the fastest way possible to change what you don't like about taxes, abortion, education, government sprawl and that nutty governor. Dancing lessons by Denis Boyles.

Step 1: Find the judges. Step 2: Vote them out.

You can stop yanking the Obama signs out of your neighbor’s Chinese communist marijuana garden, because, Presidentially speaking, even if Obama wins, the good news is that he won’t win in Kansas.

Of course, the bad news, if you’re a Republican, is that he’ll win everyplace else.

That means Kansans will have to go along with the rest of the country and memorize that Obama pledge thing they make kids in Chicago do if they want their free milk and Ritalin. In January, we can all huddle around the TV and watch the Rev. Jeremiah Wright administer the oath of office. [ Read more...]

Comment: How can we expect our kids to avoid making the same mistakes those smart Lehman Bros. made? To start with, how about a little financial education? Main Street Moneyman Bill Wyckoff has lesson number one.

When it comes to money, whaddaya know?

“The ATM network must be down because I couldn’t get any money.” 

“I’m sorry sir, there seems to be a problem processing the charge on this card.”

These have become everyday statements in our world today.  We spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on education - yet virtually no time or money is invested in basic financial training for the children in our schools.

No wonder we're all having money problems. [Read more...]

Week on the Web

Find the word, weasel. The Kansas Meadowlark has an excellent look at how Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is using money to keep a grip on Kansas politics, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy legislative seats for candidates who are willing to trade their independence for a fistful of Bluestem dollars. Sebelius already owns the judiciary in Kansas, and of course, she has dibs on the executive branch. According to the Meadowlark, she's trying to buy the legislative branch, too. This happens, of course, because most people don't pay attention to state politics.

That would include James Carlson. That wouldn't matter, except Carlson is theoretically covering state politics for the Capital-Journal, where he continues to underwhelm. Compare his take on Sebelius' money-swamp with the Meadowlark's and see what happens when a local reporter thinks his only future is the dimming hope of finding a job at the Kansas City Star before McClatchy turns out  the lights. "Certain kinds of stem-cell research?" Since when did the word "embryonic" offend? Or maybe Carlson confused it with partial-birth stem cell research.

But Carlson's best comes at the end, when he quotes some guy justifying Sebelius' shopping spree. Try reading this with a straight face:

Loomis said Sebelius for years has been determined to build a stronger stable of Democratic candidates. Republicans rule both chambers of the Legislature, outweighing the Democrats 78 to 47 in the House and 30 to 10 in the Senate.

"It has been a limitation and a frustration to an extent (for Sebelius)," Loomis said. "It's very hard to work with Republicans when they have those kinds of overwhelming majorities."

Any easier, James, and the legislature'll pass a law for her promising to take coal out of power plants and put it all back in the ground.

ID the kook. Can you identify the source of this far-right rant?

The United States once had the world’s top high-school graduation rate. It has now fallen to 13th place behind countries like South Korea, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Worse still, a new study from the Education Trust, a nonpartisan foundation, finds that this is the only country in the industrial world where young people are less likely than their parents to graduate high school.

Most American parents never see these damning international comparisons, which are based on census figures and labor force statistics. Instead, parents who want to know how their schools are doing in terms of vital statistics like graduation rates must rely on phony calculations cooked up by state governments that are determined to hide the truth for as long as possible.

Considering the Sebelius-Supreme Court theory that money buys educational happiness, you might be tempted to say Kansas Liberty. But you'd be wrong. A nearly-illegal cigar to the reader who guessed The New York Times.

Unnecessary roughness. Ask Nancy Boyda a simple question and you get assaulted, according to the Washington Post:

"When someone asks 'Are you a Republican or a Democrat?' I throw my arms around them," said Boyda.

It's all part of Boyda's hide-the-party tactics, a familiar ruse in Kansas politics:

The word "Democrat" does not appear on Boyda's campaign literature, bumper stickers or the outsize signs farmers stick in their wheat and cornfields. In gatherings with voters, she scrupulously avoids mentioning party. Boyda frequently talks about the failings of Washington, even though she has spent the past two years working there as a member of Congress and wants voters to send her back.

Uh, where she'll vote with the Democrats. Because she is one? Who knows? But maybe.

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