Local news and editorials - Page 66

mlurp · #**651** (**permalink**) 12-03-2013, 12:23 PM

1 st., the next

of the above LINKs will be reduced some. Mostly the KS. links, as I have a few new ones I want t get in there and it is about as full as can be.

Most states do this very same thing, and one might want to know a bit more about how this works and whom really does benefits by the loss of taxes.

Here in KS. we had our property taxes just increased plus the many cut backs to those in need in many of this "special Needs Area" as well as schools plus the city & country parks & recreations. All have been cut by large amounts or even dropped then combined into an already short of funds program.

So this does effect all with in the each state that does these things thinking this special committee is doing their jobs correctly.

And is far to long to post it all. I had to delete 5,500 words.

Quote:

'Border War' obscures PEAK data

Nearly one-third of companies examined by auditors came from KCMO

Posted: December 2, 2013 - 5:10pm

By Andy Marso

andy.marso@cjonline.com

JOHNSON COUNTY — When the law firm of Bottaro, Morefield, Kubin & Yocum was looking to move to new offices a few years ago, Kansas wasn’t even on its radar initially.

Then the partners’ real estate agent told them about the Promoting Employment Across Kansas program.

PEAK, operated by the Department of Commerce, allows companies that relocate to or expand within Kansas to keep 95 percent of the employee withholding state income tax for five to 10 years for jobs that exceed the median county income.

Seven out of 12 positions at the firm qualified, which made the incentive deal exceedingly attractive, especially because six of the seven people who held those positions already lived in Kansas.

“We only moved our office maybe two or three miles to the west and maybe six or eight blocks south,” said Rick Morefield, one of the partners in the firm that moved from Kansas City, Mo., to a Leawood office park. “We didn’t move very far. It improved the commute for most of us.”

The question of how many job shifts of that nature PEAK has brought is one that colors all estimates of the program’s economic benefit to the state.

PEAK has been under scrutiny since a September audit levied charges of mismanagement and questioned the economic impact of the $21 million in incentives PEAK provided to the companies the auditors examined. Auditors pointed out the prevalence of the Missouri-Kansas border hopping and said it was difficult to account for its effects.

The Department of Commerce took issue with the audit, pointing to its own data and a Docking Institute of Public Affairs study the department commissioned that says the program, with 147 participating companies and growing, will bring 16,000 jobs and billions of dollars in economic benefits to Kansas.

But no one, from the auditors to the department to the Docking Institute, seems to have accurate data on how many of those jobs were already held by residents of Kansas or are now held by residents of Missouri who stayed in their homes and commute across the state line. Most of the companies declined to talk about PEAK when contacted by The Topeka Capital-Journal in recent months.

I will now stop marking the main points.

Thirty of the 94 PEAK companies — and more than one-fourth of the associated jobs — examined by the audit hopped over the border from Missouri, raising questions about whether the program is fulfilling its mission.

Rep. Barbara Bollier, R-Mission Hills, who represents a border district, said the legislative intent of the program was to promote job growth, not job movement.

“I would love to have specific information about the creation versus the transfer,” Bollier said. “To me, that’s what’s significant when you’re talking about the companies that (border) hop, hop, hop. And that seems to be a significant portion of what’s going on. The real question is, has it changed the number of Kansans employed? That’s the data I’d like to see, because that should be the goal.”

Dan Lara, spokesman for the Department of Commerce, said that isn’t possible.

"Commerce does not have any way of tracking where individual employees reside," Lara said via email.

Border battles

PEAK is one tool Kansas uses to compete in a company-luring battle states have waged for decades, to the consternation of some economic experts.

In 1994 two officials from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Melvin Burstein and Arthur Rolnick, warned that using tax incentives to woo companies from one state to another would have no net benefit nationally, would create instability and suck resources away from infrastructure that benefits all commerce, like schools, roads, police and fire protection.

“Competition among governments based on their general tax and spend policies leads to a better outcome for the overall economy,” Rolnick and Burstein wrote. “However, when that competition takes the form of preferential treatment for specific companies, the overall economy is made worse off. Such competition results in a misallocation of resources and, in particular, too few public goods.”

Rolnick and Burstein titled their paper “Congress Should End the Economic War Among the States,” arguing that the solution could only come from the federal government, because once the economic incentive genie is out of the bottle, states wouldn’t unilaterally disarm for fear of their jobs being poached.

But Congress hasn’t acted to curtail the practice, and its effects have become even more pronounced in metro areas that straddle a state border, like the New York-New Jersey metroplex, the Chicagoland area and Kansas City.

Kansas enacted PEAK in 2009. It mirrors a program enacted on the other side of the state line in 2005 called Missouri Quality Jobs that was itself subject to a “blistering audit” last year, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In April 2011, a group of 17 exasperated business executives from Kansas City companies, like Hallmark Cards’ Donald J. Hall Jr. and Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s David Gentile, sent a letter to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon saying the competing incentive programs were contributing to a border-jumping bonanza.

“There are companies taking out short-term leases in hopes of taking advantage of the incentives more than once,” the letter asserts. “This shuffle is a two-way street as one state lures businesses and the other responds in kind. Neither state will benefit as the stakes in this ‘economic arms race’ continue to escalate, and we squander available tax incentives by fighting amongst ourselves.”

Talk of ending the border battle has come from both governors, but thus far no concrete action has been taken.

Pat George, secretary of the Kansas Department of Commerce, says he has voluntarily declined to offer PEAK benefits to two “iconic Missouri companies,” one of which was looking to move from Kansas City and the other from Joplin after that town was hit by a serious tornado.

“It just didn’t feel right,” George said. “Here’s somebody that just got kicked in the teeth.”

But George said Kansas sometimes offers incentives to keep Kansas City companies from leaving the metro area entirely.

George said the ball is in Missouri’s court.

“Really, it’s come down to them,” George said. “On the Kansas side, we have discretion on pretty much all the deals we do. On their side, it’s entitlement.”

Nixon laid out a plan to end the incentive battle in a speech earlier this month, in part by asking the state's legislature to give him discretion over which companies receive the breaks. But Missouri lawmakers expressed reluctance to hand him that authority. Meanwhile, some legislators on the Kansas side described Nixon's speech as "surrender" and vowed to continue offering incentives.

The companies

Twenty-nine of the PEAK companies auditors examined moved from the Kansas City, Mo., area to Johnson County or Wyandotte County. One company, Orthopaedic Specialists of the Four States, moved from Joplin in southwest Missouri about six miles west to Galena.

The Capital-Journal attempted to contact all 30 companies by phone, email and, in some cases, in-person visits to their offices.

Four agreed to talk about PEAK. The rest either didn’t respond or declined to comment publicly about their incentives.

George said companies are notified prior to accepting incentives that their participation is public record and the department places no prohibitions upon the companies when it comes to speaking to the media.

A spokeswoman for Fishnet Security, which accepted PEAK for its move to Leawood, said company officials would be happy to talk about its cyber-security work but wouldn’t comment on their participation in the tax-break program.

According to a Nov. 15 story in the Kansas City Business Journal, Fishnet founder and CEO Gary Fish is still living in Missouri. The story details a visit to Fish's mansion in the gated community of Loch Lloyd that surrounds a country club. It highlights the "in-home theater; the racquetball court, with a FishNet logo laid into the flooring; the cavernous wine cellar; the indoor golf simulator; the garages where Gary’s Ferraris and muscle cars and his wife’s Bentley are parked; and, of course, the huge built-in aquarium."

Of the business leaders The Capital-Journal attempted to contact, Morefield was the most accessible and forthcoming. He said Bottaro, Morefield, Kubin & Yocum was looking to move anyway, but PEAK was a “pretty significant factor” in the firm ultimately settling in Kansas.

Denny Meier, of the advertising firm Muller Bressler Brown; Roxanne Southwell, of RED Development; and Chris Andersen, of Hoefer Wysocki Architects, said PEAK played a similar role in their relocation plans.

While Morefield said his firm’s roster has stayed fairly static since the move, Meier and Andersen both reported adding jobs since they came to Kansas.

Andy Marso can be reached at Capital: (785) 233-7470; Office: (785) 295-5619 or andy.marso@cjonline.com.
CONTINUED AT:

'Border War' obscures PEAK data | CJOnline.com

mlurp · #**652** (**permalink**) 12-04-2013, 03:16 PM

This what I was saying above. These incentives deplete from the General Funds which most items are funded from. So say 10 years of tax breaks mean another increase some where else. And in say 5 years another property tax increase, plus more state sales taxes.

Boeing already has plenty of reason to say in our state and they know this. So MO., is trying to pull them into their state. Which means a complete restart from training all of these worker to all of the other needs they already have most of here in KS.

Quote:

Kansas joins bidding for Boeing contract with economic incentive package

Company's 777X commercial aircraft could result in 7K-10K jobs

Posted: December 4, 2013 - 12:15pm

By The Associated Press

Kansas is assembling an economic incentive package geared at landing a new Boeing contract to build the aviation giant’s 777X commercial aircraft.

Administration officials say Wednesday they can’t divulge details of the Kansas package, citing a nondisclosure agreement signed with Boeing when talks began in recent weeks.

Gov. Sam Brownback has said that Kansas would make a run at landing the contract, which could result in between 7,000 and 10,000 new aviation jobs in the Wichita area.

Unlike Missouri, where legislators are meeting to approve a financial package, Kansas is relying on existing economic incentive programs related to job training, workforce development and provisions that could allow the expensing of new equipment purchases over several years.

Kansas joins bidding for Boeing contract with economic incentive package | CJOnline.com

mlurp · #**653** (**permalink**) 12-04-2013, 03:38 PM

... Again my

to each reader.

:CJOnline.com

Newspapers US and Worldwide - refdesk.com

Newspapers.com | Search over 10,000 Newspapers Online!

World Net daily
Maintaining our right to keep and bear arms

News Max.com
Breaking News, Politics, Commentary

The Huffington Post
Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post

USA Today
News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com

The BBC
BBC NEWS | News Front Page

Forbes.Com
Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News

Politico News
[B]Headlines - POLITICO.com

McClatchy Homepage
McClatchy | Homepage

The NY Times
The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Reuters
Reuters.com - World News, Financial News, Breaking US & International News

The Wall Street Journal
Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com

Calgary Herald
Calgary Herald − Breaking news, business, sports, video and classifieds

MSNBC: Search Results- msnbc.com

Chicago Sun Times: News articles and headlines from the Chicago Sun-Times

FOX NEWS: FoxNews.com - Breaking News | Latest News | Current News

NY TIMES International: The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Kansas City Star: Kansas City's Best Source for News, Weather, Sports & More | KansasCity.com

The Detroit News Detroit News.. News, sports, features, blogs, photos and forums from Detroit and Michigan

Philly.com: philly.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

The Star Ledger: New Jersey Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather - NJ.com

Vincennes Sun Commercial: Vincennes Sun Commercial > Front

NPR: News: U.S. and World News Headlines : NPR

Wichita Eagle: Local and breaking news for Wichita and Kansas | The Wichita Eagle and kansas.com

Winnipeg Free Press: Police: Suspect in deadly US shooting spree commits suicide; daughter among his victims - Winnipeg Free Press

Middle East News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Asia News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Latin America News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Europe News Headlines - Yahoo! News

The Afghan War Casualties: iCasualties | OEF | Afghanistan | Fatalities Details

The US Govt. Webportal: USA.gov: The U.S. Government's Official Web Portal

The Google Search Engine: Google

The M$ Malicious Software Removal Tool: Just click skip, then download it to where ever your D/L go then open that place and drag it to your desk top so you can use it when you log off.

Yet B-4 you take it from the D/L spot, delete the old one on your dest-top then replace it with the newer one.

NEW SITE: ABCNews.com - Breaking News, Latest News & Top Video News - ABC News

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

New Sites

Our National Debt: U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Govt. Accountability Office Site: U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)

Govt. Recalls of Products: Recalls.gov

USGS Site: Welcome to the USGS - U.S. Geological Survey ...........................

mlurp · #**654** (**permalink**) 01-31-2014, 01:14 PM

big time lose for many Vets. Yet now they mght just get better care.

Quote:

ER services suspended at Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center

Topeka facility's status downgraded to urgent care clinic; staffing issue cited

Posted: January 31, 2014 - 10:30am

AUGUST 2013 FILE PHOTO/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

The Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center's emergency room services have been suspended pending a federal review.

Related Stories

■Lawmakers looking for answers on VA staffing
■Sexual abuse and suspicious prescriptions at VA hospital
■Shinseki responds to Jenkins' Colmery-O'Neil concerns
■VA doctor loses license for behavioral troubles, deceiving board

By The Capital-Journal

Emergency room services have been suspended at Topeka’s Colmery-O’Neil VA Medical Center pending a review by the Veterans Health Administration, regional officials of the Veterans Administration announced Friday morning.

The Topeka VA facility will continue to operate as an urgent care clinic — a standard below that of a full-services emergency room — and veterans reporting there will be triaged and given appropriate care, according to a news release from the public affairs office of the VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System.

Officials are advising veterans with a major medical emergency to call 911. They said contacts have been made with Topeka hospitals and the ambulance service to ensure that veterans needing emergency room care can obtain it by being diverted to Topeka’s two local hospitals.

At a late Friday morning press briefing, officials said the suspension resulted in part from the Topeka center having a staff physician present in the emergency room for 124 of 168 hours in a week. A physician’s assistant staffs the center at all other hours with a staff physician on call, officials said.

Emergency room accreditation requires 24/7 full-time staffing by a staff physician.

Officials said the suspension of ER services was considered temporary while the VHA examines policy, procedures and staffing at the Topeka facility.

Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, immediately blasted the move as another failure of the Veterans Administration.

“Veterans who have served our nation with duty and honor deserve access to quality health care when they need it,” Moran said in a news release. “Because Kansas is a rural state, many of our veterans are already forced to travel long distances to visit a VA hospital. Now, Topeka veterans are losing access to the emergency care services they could need at any moment.

“This is outrageous. It is far past time for Secretary Shinseki (Eric, Secretary of Veterans Affairs) and the VA to do their job. I have asked time and again about their failure to address the tremendous shortage of VA physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. It is causing a new VA backlog — a backlog of our nation’s heroes who are not receiving the health care they need.”

Moran in November 2013 introduced legislation to expand emergency care treatment reimbursement eligibility for veterans.

He noted that current law prohibits the VA from reimbursing emergency room care at non-VA facilities for veterans who haven’t received care at a VA clinic or hospital within the past two years. Moran’s bill would waive the two-year requirement and allow veterans to be reimbursed for emergency medical care at non-VA facilities. The measure is awaiting a vote in the full Senate.

U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins has communicated with local and federal VA officials in recent months about allegations of deficiencies in health care at Colmery-O’Neil.

And as usual like most in Politics Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, has shot off his mouth a bit to soon.

“While I am disappointed it had to come to the temporary closure of operations in the emergency room,” Jenkins said in a statement, “I am pleased that these allegations are being taken seriously and that concrete steps are being taken to ensure veterans in Northeast Kansas get the absolute greatest care they are entitled to.”

Jenkins said she will work with the VA during what she hopes “will be a thorough investigation with swift corrective actions to make this a fully functional VA medical center.”

ER services suspended at Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center | CJOnline.com

18 Local Comments at the site.

HOME PAGE: CJOnline.com

mlurp · #**655** (**permalink**) 05-13-2014, 07:53 PM

I haven't been using my home town online news paper sense it only allows for several news articles before asking you to subscribe and kicks you out if you don't. But I have noticed salty been using this newer siggy about voter requirements and how it is not to

as some might be what ever...

Well I have no problem with proving I am a citizen and it doesn't interfere with my voting. So what is this objection?

I do know a few years ago we had (and they still use the same figures) 11 million non citizens the Democrats want to allow as citizens. And by now that number is closer to 20 million.

So are they wanting to allow non citizens to vote in Americas State, Local and National elections... I say yes they do. Because like Unions it benefits their Party. They are using the National Voter Registration Act to pervert the system of voting.

Well I know 2 states that want change in the election laws. AZ. & KS.

Quote:

Kansas, Arizona defend law to require voting documents

States urge an appeals court to lift an emergency stay

Posted: May 13, 2014 - 3:00pm

By The Associated Press

WICHITA — Kansas and Arizona argued Tuesday they have a sovereign right to require proof of citizenship for voters in their states, even for federal elections.

The two states urged the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing to lift the emergency suspension of a ruling from U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren that orders the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to modify its federal voter registration form to add special instructions for Arizona and Kansas residents about those states’ documentation requirements.

Circuit Judges Carlos Lucero and Jerome Holmes granted on Thursday the temporary halt sought by the commission and voting rights groups, a day after Melgren rejected a similar request to suspend his ruling during the appeal. Melgren had ordered the commission to carry out “without further delay” his March 19 directive.

Opponents of proof-of-citizenship requirements contend that the added documentation burdens result in an overall decrease in registration of eligible citizens, undermining the purpose of the National Voter Registration Act. The states argue the requirement protects the integrity of their elections by ensuring noncitizens aren’t voting.

Plain BS!

In addition to arguing against a stay of Melgren’s order, both states also opposed in their latest filing the election commission’s request for expedited hearing by the 10th Circuit as soon as this summer on the merits of the case.

............................................ CONTINUED AT ........................................

Kansas, Arizona defend law to require voting documents | CJOnline.com

7 decent comments at the site.

mlurp · #**656** (**permalink**) 09-27-2014, 12:37 PM

This was more local till about 2 weeks ago... Then Senator {for life} Roberts
saw he had a fight on his hands.

This is the only time I want to see Roberts win it. Sense this so called Independent who is really a Dem on the very liberal side....
So far he has helped the Dems with fund raising etc. And has donated money to their DNC as well as Obama, Raid and Lady Poliskie. So whom do you think he will vote with.

Chad Tayor dropped out {he is a Dem} and Orman has picked up his followers.

Quote:

Fate of US Senate might rest with this guy

WASHINGTON — With control of the U.S. Senate on the line, pundits and politicians nationwide have become obsessed with a tantalizing question: If elected, which party would Greg Orman choose?

Orman, an independent candidate for the Senate in Kansas, is polling ahead of incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. If victorious, he could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

"What will Greg Orman do?" pondered one recent headline in The New York Times. NBC News called the 45-year-old businessman from Olathe "the most interesting man in politics this November." The Huffington Post even coined a new phrase: "The Orman Factor."

Orman's own caginess has added to the intrigue. He gets to choose whether to caucus with Democrats or with Republicans, and he has said he'll side with whichever party holds the majority to give Kansas a stronger voice.

But if neither party has a clear majority, he says, he'll talk with both sides to determine which party is "most committed to solving our country's problems."

This kind of tiebreaker scenario could bestow Orman with extraordinary bargaining power in negotiations with party leadership and likely would guarantee him his pick of plum committee assignments.

"He may be the most important guy in the Senate for a few days in January if he gets elected," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

.................................................. ......................................... SKIPPED SOME

The Roberts campaign is eager to paint Orman as a closet Democrat. But for now, it's to Orman's benefit if he can be seen as above the political fray.

Meanwhile, political analysts and columnists are scouring his past for clues as to which way he's leaning.

Orman has been both a registered Republican and a registered Democrat over the years. He made a run against Roberts as a Democrat in 2007 but backed out of that race before the official filing deadline.

He's donated to candidates from both parties, but primarily to Democrats at the federal level — records show he donated $4,600 to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in November 2007.

Orman recently told The Washington Post that he voted for Obama in 2008 and for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

........................................... CONTINUED AT ..........................................

Fate of US Senate might rest with this guy

mlurp · #**657** (**permalink**) 01-20-2015, 02:42 PM

Not just the poor I bet every home owner will be paying higher home taxes in the end.
Sam has been in DC and now our state [won again] Governor. And the courts have been at him to increase school spending per student for a while now. He keeps coming up with new ways around...

The poorest people in your state will bear the brunt of your mistakes, Sam Brownback

01/18/15 03:06 PM—Updated 01/18/15 03:26 PM

By Melissa Harris-Perry

OK, #nerdland, fill in the blank. Few issues divide Americans along party lines more than ______________. Race? Reproductive rights maybe?

How about this one: tax policy. Just think how reliable that “tax-and-spend liberal” cliche is in American elections.

The partisan debate about taxes is not just about obscure economic theories or deep ideological commitments. It also has measurable effects. In social science we might say, the idea that lowering taxes improves the economy is a “testable” hypothesis.

You remember hypotheses from middle school science. You make your best guess, then you conduct an experiment to see if you are right. Here in the U.S. there has been quite a tax experiment underway for the past two and a half years. The laboratory? The state of Kansas. And the evidence is in.

That is why my letter this week goes to the man who has been conducting the experiment.

Dear Governor Sam Brownback,

It’s me, Melissa.

In your state-of-the-state address this week it seemed you might be ready to concede that your experiment in dramatic tax reduction has failed. You admitted:

“My budget proposal recognizes that the current budget trajectory is unsustainable and that difficult solutions are required by state law as well as by fiscal prudence …”

The current budget trajectory is unsustainable? And who exactly set the current trajectory?

That’s you! Remember when you used your very first state-of-the-state back in 2011 to promise a reset of the Kansas tax code?

Well, you made good in May of 2012 when you signed historic tax cuts into law and claimed that as the state marched toward zero income tax it would quote “create tens of thousands of new jobs and help make Kansas the best place in America to start and grow a small business.” You followed that up with even further income tax cuts in 2013.

But the jobs, and small business growth, and booming prosperity you hypothesized did not materialize. Instead, as a result of your experiment last April, Moody’s downgraded your state’s credit score. And Standard and Poors followed with a credit downgrade for Kansas in August. The downgrades reflected a reality your sunny disposition did not. Your tax cuts have created a 1 billion dollar revenue loss and run up a staggering budgetary shortfall, estimated to be as large as 280 million dollars.

And that is after you cut education funding so ruthlessly that the Kansas Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

Even after you relied on the Obamacare drug rebate program to help stem the financial hemorrhage. The same Obamacare you have strenuously opposed.

So there you stood on Thursday night. A Republican governor, determined to use his state as a laboratory to test the idea that lower taxes are the solution to most problems. You tried it. It failed. And it seemed like maybe you were ready to admit it when you called for greater fiscal prudence and even for new taxes. Whew! Finally, some clarity that Kansas needs more revenue.

Then came the details … Stick with phasing out the state’s income tax. But hike up taxes on cigarettes from 79 cents per pack to $2.29 per pack. And liquor? You plan to raise that tax from 8% to 12%. You certainly are consistent. You still have no intention of asking the highest earners to pay their fair share. Instead, the poorest people in your state will bear the brunt of your mistakes. Because, as The Guardian reports:

“A tax system with zero income tax and high sales tax may seem like the picture of equality, … it’s punishing to the poor. Taxing a tenth of every dollar paid at the corner store isn’t much when there’s millions in the bank, but it’s quite a lot for someone earning minimum wage.”

Looks like you are determined to proceed with your failing experiment despite all the evidence that it is time to stop. At least now, American voters will know better than to let you turn the White House into your next laboratory.

Sincerely,

Melissa

LINKS USED at this site: Explore:
Economy, Income Inequality, Kansas, Melissa Harris-Perry, Open letter, Poverty, Sam Brownback, Tax Policy, Tax Reform and Taxes

MHP: The poorest people in your state will bear the brunt of your mistakes, Sam Brownback | MSNBC

And I understand from our local news this debt is close to $700.00 Million + in the not so far future.

Heck it has made the National News.

mlurp · #**658** (**permalink**) 08-09-2015, 12:51 PM

Sure hope every Dem is happy with the new increases in our energy bills. Here they go up about $6.00 to $7.00 per month.

I just hope this lame a** Republican Governor doesn't mess up and it goes up even higher.

He set backwards the schools and teachers. But his rich buddies did okay.

EPA and their demands. More wind energy.

Lollie · #**659** (**permalink**) 08-09-2015, 11:06 PM

Quote:

Abortion is murder. The federal government should stop funding Planned Parenthood.

Those two sentences are what we call truisms, statements that are obviously true and say nothing new or interesting.

Despite that fact, leftists spend a lot of time and effort trying to convince themselves and others of the exact opposite.

However, because these are truisms, the recent release of videos showing Planned Parenthood officials engaged in the disgusting act of selling fetal parts and fetal cadavers is both unsurprising and further evidence of the truisms mentioned above.

It is, though, a good opportunity to once again try to shake the denial out of the heads of the leftists.

Let’s start with another truism. Life begins at conception. This is a biological truth that is not in much dispute and has been known for more than a century. Mammalian life begins when the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg join. Voila! Male and female DNA combine and a unique individual is formed.

Life begins.

And, if that life is permitted to proceed naturally, it will go from an embryo to fetus, newborn, toddler, child, teen, adult, aged adult and then death. That zygote will never be anything but a human being. Period. Once that sperm hits that egg, it’s future is sealed.

That gives the leftists a dilemma. They either have to deny the personhood of the child or they can decide they don’t care because it is for a greater good.

Either way, it is quite disturbing.

Denying personhood is what white Europeans did to justify slavery and what the Nazis did with the Jews and other Eastern Europeans. And, no, I see no problem in invoking the Holocaust when talking about the mass murder of millions of babies in this country.

That being said, the leftists who deny personhood at least have a conscience. Denying personhood, at least, is a way of rationalizing the horrendous reality of violently sucking a baby out of the safety of the womb. After all, it’s easy to justify excising a mass of cells, it is another thing to brutally kill another human being simply because he or she was inconvenient.

The other leftists simply don’t care about the child. They argue that the baby, even if a living human being, is an invader and the mother has the right to kill it.

That argument also fails. The child is not a threat the life of the mother. Human being have the right to defend themselves. But they don’t have the right to kill another who is simply an inconvenience.

The only legitimate function of government is the protection of its citizens. It is not appropriate for the state to turn a blind eye and give doctors permission to murder babies under the fallacy that they are somehow a threat to the mother’s quality of life or they are not human while they are attached to their mothers’ wombs.

They are correct when they say a woman has a right to her body. No question there. However, your rights, such as the right to your body, end when it interferes with the rights of others. The temporary inconvenience of being pregnant does not give the woman the right to kill a child.

Humans have an obligation not to violate the rights of anyone else, including the right of a human being to life. This is not a religious position, it is a scientific and philosophical one. Human offspring are human beings, parents have no right to engage in violence against an innocent person, and all prenatal humans are innocent. Just as a parent can’t evict a child from a crib, they can’t evict a child from the womb. The parents have a moral and legal obligation to protect that unborn child.

The proper purpose of the law is to side with the innocent, not against them, to protect those who might not be able to protect themselves.

Finally, to state another truism, when someone has such an opinion about unborn children, it should come as no surprise that those who live in that world can dispassionately try to profit from those they kill by selling their body parts. And our tax dollars should not enrich them.

Thomas Lucente: Videos prove the evil of abortion - LimaOhio.com - limaohio.com

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

LinkBacks (?) LinkBack to this Thread: http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/local-politics/2696-local-news-editorials.html
Posted By	For	Type	Date
Top Things Up With a Japanese Geta Shoe	This thread	Trackback	02-01-2011 01:21 AM
Sport Pants	This thread	Trackback	02-01-2011 01:09 AM
Hoodies	This thread	Trackback	02-01-2011 01:07 AM
Origin Of Cowboy Hats - Now and Then	This thread	Trackback	02-01-2011 12:20 AM
How to Walk In High Heels?	This thread	Trackback	01-31-2011 10:11 PM
Info.com - topeka capital journal article anthony m. woltkamp - www.Info.com	This thread	Refback	08-04-2009 03:24 PM
Lake Shawnee \| BoardReader	This thread	Refback	07-19-2008 03:16 PM
Political Wrinkles	This thread	Refback	06-03-2008 08:07 PM

The Following User Says Thank You to mlurp For This Useful Post:
Spencer Collins

The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Lollie For This Useful Post:
loboloco, mlurp