Readers share thoughts on Kris Kobach, the baseball playoffs and Gov. Sam Brownback
Fun with Kobach
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s record of legal incompetence continues unabated. Kobach was again on the losing side of a court decision, twice in the last few weeks.
I wish Star copy editors were allowed to have some fun with Kobach’s losing streak. How about, “Court KO’s Kansas Keystone Cop Kris Kobach, again.”
And here’s one I’d like to see the day after election: “Kobach’s campaign kaput; Kansans kick Kris’ keister.”
Talis Bergmanis
Fairway
Koster lawsuit
When Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed litigation over California’s laws to provide minimal care of animals on behalf of his Big Ag buddies, Missouri taxpayers had to pick up the tab (10-4, A6, “Koster weighs options on California egg law”).
Our tax dollars gave industrial agriculture cover to continue abusing millions of laying hens in our country by cramming them into cages where each bird has living space smaller than a notebook-sized piece of paper.
And now Koster has been thrown out of court by a federal judge and told not to come back.
Thanks for squandering our tax dollars on behalf of multimillion-dollar corporations.
The only folks this could have helped were those in Big Ag.
How much did Koster spend? We deserve an answer.
Lynne Rees
Kansas City
True blue to Royals
Thanks, Royals, for reminding local television stations and The Kansas City Star that there is another professional sports team in Kansas City besides the Chiefs.
Before September, once the Chiefs’ training camp opens, it was hard to see or find anything about baseball in Kansas City.
I hope the news media continue to be true blue in the future, as many fans are.
Janet Livingston
Olathe
Oust Brownback
Kansans should be not fooled by Gov. Sam Brownback’s deceptive and dishonest campaign ads.
Here’s the truth:
▪ Thanks to Brownback’s failed income-tax experiment, Kansas is broke. The budget is balanced only by drawing down reserves dangerously low, and they will be exhausted by fiscal year 2016.
▪ Because of Brownback’s devastating income tax cuts, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s bond-rating agencies downgraded the state’s credit rating.
▪ The governor’s education-funding cuts were the largest in the state’s history. According to Kansas Families for Education, school funding had declined $500 million since 2009 and per-student funding is $950 less than six years ago.
▪ Brownback refused Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act. Kansas is the only state that had a significant increase in the number of uninsured, according to Gallup poll data. Sadly, 100,000 hard-working, low-income Kansans have no access to health insurance.
Brownback’s income tax cuts and radical policies have virtually bankrupted the state, endangered public education and increased the number of Kansans without health insurance.
Kansas cannot afford another four years of Brownback.
Jane Toliver
Leawood
Sleaze, greed TV
I’m pretty sure that my wife and I are not the only people offended and angered by the airing of the Viagra (particularly) and Cialis television commercials during the American League Division Series games between the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Angels this past week.
Any family, particularly with younger children, must have flinched. Another low for sleaze and greed TV.
Albert Teepen
Overland Park
Employing youths
Five years have passed since the end of the Great Recession, yet 16 percent of young Missourians are unemployed. At the same time, small employers are struggling to fill job vacancies that are critical to both individual company success and overall economic growth.
To help address this problem, Small Business Majority launched a national sign-on campaign asking small employers to pledge to help bridge the gap between youth who are out of school and out of work and small businesses having a hard time filling entry-level positions.
The pledge asks small-business owners to commit to taking one or more actions to create opportunities for our youth, such as increasing the number of opportunity youth hires within their company or expanding intern positions.
Far too many young Americans are struggling to find jobs after they leave school, which hurts our workforce and economic demand.
To learn how you can get involved, check out the campaign at www.smallbiz4youth.com.
Mary Timmel
Missouri
Outreach Manager
Small Business
Majority
St. Louis
No on Amendment 2
The Kansas City Star, in supporting Amendment 2, is backing legislation that singles out a segment of society, specifically men, women and juveniles who are accused of sex crimes, and twists the law and our constitutions to give the courts and prosecutors an unfair advantage not allowed over any other persons accused of any other crimes in Missouri (10-4, Editorial, “More harm than good on Missouri’s ballot”).
Regardless of the accused or the accuser, this amendment is an affront to our Missouri Constitution and our justice system. This amendment is not a fairly balanced, reasonable or necessary measure by any stretch of the imagination.
The Star outrageously supports different legal standards for a person accused of a sex offense as opposed to any other crime.
Simply because other states have stooped to this level to prejudice a jury in order to secure a conviction does not make it constitutionally conformable to justice or law. It is undeniably unfair and neither just nor evenhanded.
I would like to think that the citizens of Missouri can see through this amendment’s bias and worrisome legal implications.
Lance Martinez
Hermitage, Mo.
Steve Rose column
Steve Rose’s Oct. 5 column, “Given Orman’s uncertainty, I’m for Roberts,” touts the mediocrity of Sen. Pat Roberts and chooses him over the “very evasive” Greg Orman.
Rose maintains Congress needs both chambers controlled by Republicans to get anything done. I guess he looks to Kansas and Missouri as examples of Republican legislative chops.
Rose prefers to go back to the future with the senator, opting for the certainty of performance from the man who has been in Washington, D.C., since 1981. Yep, 33 years of Roberts’ influence on the direction of our country. Why wouldn’t we want more of the same?
Yes, I live in Missouri, and Roberts is from Kansas. But as a U.S. senator, he also represents me and shapes the future of our country.
It’s time to take a chance and allow the good senator to enjoy retirement in Kansas.
John Meyer
Blue Springs
Stop attacking EPA
My representative, Sam Graves, sends emails using words like “biggest bully of the bunch,” “crushing regulation,” “ideological agenda,” “out of control regulatory agency” and on and on in an attempt to foster fear and loathing against the Environmental Protection Agency and the federal government.
His use of hyperbole is misleading. Although I support a vigorous study of what any governmental regulatory agency is doing, I am tired of attacks on the good these regulatory agencies have done to make our daily lives healthier and happier.
Graves is gravely misinformed when he chooses to protect “clean coal energy” over our right to breathe clean air and drink clean water. What he calls “federal government overregulation” I call sound science and protection of my rights to live in an environment that is not trying to kill me.
I object to Graves’ misguided legislation, Stop the EPA Act. Congressman, it is your job to protect our air and water for future generations and not the coal industry, which provided 19th- and 20th-century energy solutions.
To quote Carl Sagan, “Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water.”
Bernadine Kline
Liberty
This story was originally published October 7, 2014 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers share thoughts on Kris Kobach, the baseball playoffs and Gov. Sam Brownback."