News of the involvement of former pharmaceutical company executive and 2010 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wiggans in a federal securities fraud lawsuit in California, and especially of its recent settlement for $12.75 million, only compounds the skepticism about Wiggans’ electability. Republicans already were making much [...]
Everybody now knows who wasn’t invited to the recent White House state dinner but went anyway, Tareq and Michaele Salahi. But those invited included state Rep. Raj Goyle, D-Wichita. Asked by The Eagle editorial board about the now-infamous state dinner, Goyle gave a stately response: [...]
The site near Murdock and Hydraulic being considered by Sedgwick County for a work-release center hardly sounds perfect, especially because of the elementary school at the inmates’ nearest bus stop. But there is no perfect site for such a facility, which nevertheless is needed to counter [...]
“One of the examples I use: Part of our stimulus money went to spaying and neutering pets in Wichita, Kan. The stimulus bag was in fact a grab bag of big spending programs.” — Carly Fiorina (in photo), GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in California and [...]
Climategate is almost entirely a tempest in a teacup. One bunch of e-mails stolen from a British university’s climate center shows that when scientists are communicating privately they can be as catty and nasty as anyone else. It’s good gossip fodder, but nothing more. Another [...]
Should something happen to the president, vice president and House speaker, the succession calls for the president pro tempore of the Senate to be sworn in as president. Currently that’s 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who recently became the longest-serving member of Congress in the nation’s [...]
“The president announced he will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next six months and 2,000 additional troops to Tiger Woods’ mansion in Orlando. Peacekeeping forces.” — Jimmy Kimmel
“The good news, Obama said he expects to start bringing our troops home in two years. The bad news, Bush [...]
Twenty-five years ago today, a gas leak at a pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide killed several thousand people in the Indian city of Bhopal. In the years since, tens of thousands have died related to the industrial disaster, and hundreds of thousands have experienced health [...]
If a U.S. senator strolled by indifferently as someone writhed in pain on the sidewalk, we would think that senator pitiless, columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote. But a new Harvard University study suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having [...]
Overall, 18 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents cited Sarah Palin as the person most representative of the party’s core values, but those who regularly listen to Rush Limbaugh picked Palin by 48 percent, and among Glenn Beck’s viewers, it was 35 percent, The Washington Post [...]
The economic downturn has led to a surge in personal and business bankruptcies. Filings were up 34.5 percent nationally during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. In Kansas, there were more than 10,588 bankruptcy filings, an increase of 22.6 percent from the previous fiscal year.
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“I do find it more than a little interesting how concerned people like Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS-04) and other NRA supporters suddenly became with protecting Americans from the prying eyes of federal investigators when the issue was guns, when they couldn’t mow your rights down fast enough [...]
Though Republicans are overwhelmingly united in disliking President Obama, they aren’t particularly happy with their own party leaders, either. The Washington Post reported that fewer than half of the Republicans and GOP-leaning independents surveyed “see the party’s leadership as taking the GOP in the ‘right direction,’ [...]
The recession and the excesses that preceded it haven’t shaken Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ faith in capitalism, which he called a “phenomenal system” for its innovation, ideas and new products. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Gates said he sees a “reasonable role for government” but [...]
As President Obama and Congress consider ways to counter unemployment — without using the maligned word “stimulus” — New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman suggests a “small-scale version of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration,” more aid to states, and tax credits to encourage [...]
Fox News commentator Fred Barnes wrote that President Obama has failed to change the lobbying culture of Washington, D.C., for three reasons: He misread the 2008 election as a mandate for a liberal revolution, he misread his ability to gain public support for liberal policies, and [...]
“If you want to see a ghost town, go to a college campus on a Friday,” wrote Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Ric Anderson, likening Friday classes to tuition bills or invasive abdominal surgery in popularity. He continued: “Before the Kansas Board of Regents requests a tax increase or approves yet [...]
Though there were 2 million AIDS-related deaths in 2008, AIDS isn’t in the news much anymore. So it is good that today’s World AIDS Day will draw some needed attention to this global epidemic. Most of the focus will be on sub-Saharan Africa, which is home [...]
“After two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to [...]
The Anti-Defamation League singled out Fox New host Glenn Beck among the mainstream media for promoting hate and conspiracy theories. In its new report, “Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies,” ADL said that Beck has acted as a “fearmonger-in-chief,” and that his conspiratorial claims “create an [...]
The political fight over gun records, and particularly the “Tiahrt amendment” regarding release of gun-trace data, has reached the Fort Hood shooting. In a Washington Post commentary provocatively headlined “Enabling the next Fort Hood?” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas [...]
If President Obama decided to visit Wichita, his late mother’s birthplace, to highlight its aviation job losses as part of his year-ending focus on employment, he’d be entering increasingly hostile territory, according to the latest SurveyUSA poll. Last week’s survey, co-sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, found [...]
A Department of Agriculture survey released last week showed that 17 million American households (14.6 percent) were “food insecure” at some point in 2008. That’s up from 13 million households (11.1 percent) in 2007. What’s even more troubling is that among households with children, the percentage [...]
“I’ve started reading it, but it’s going to take a while.” — Sen. Sam Brownback (in photo), R-Kan., placing his hand on the Senate’s 2,000-page health reform bill at an Olathe town hall meeting
“If you’re the least bit politically active, and the party doesn’t have the governor’s [...]
The similarities between Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryan, Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin are striking. This is not to say that they are alike in every respect. Nor is it to say that Palin’s achievements to date rank with the others’. But it’s nonetheless true that a [...]
Columnist and author Thomas Frank finds it “cosmically correct” that James K. Glassman (in photo), the co-author of “Dow 36,000,” will be the executive director of the George W. Bush Institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. “This great Wall Street optimist will oversee the remnants [...]
As if health care, cap-and-trade, the economy and two wars weren’t enough, immigration looms as an unsolved problem, noted columnist Michael Barone. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the status quo is “is simply unacceptable,” calling for stronger enforcement and some legalization. Barone wrote: “Now [...]
“The Obama administration’s plan for stimulating the creation of green-energy jobs is going in an odd direction,” noted Dallas Morning News columnist Jim Landers. Most of the wind-energy projects seeking money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are using foreign-made turbines, often from China.
Meanwhile, [...]
Some administration officials are saying that the progress on health care reform legislation, and the increasing likelihood that it will become law, vindicates President Obama’s largely hands-off strategy to reform. Rather than come out with his own reform plan, as President Clinton did, [...]
What a difference a year has made for Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, mused New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin. Last November, Obama was fresh off his historic presidential election and Palin had been sent packing to Alaska. Now, his approval rating is below 50 percent and Palin [...]
Bankers may have the most to be thankful for today, wrote Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. A year ago, the financial system was near collapse and had to be rescued with hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars. Yet because of its lobbying strength on Capitol Hill, [...]
