Bill targeting sex-selection abortion heard in House committee

Well, I suppose the "No Abortion Under Any Circumstances" crowd will next push for new legislation outlawing amniocentisis and sonograms. Doing that would "defeat abortion choice" by blinding all pregnant women in the future to knowing at any time whether the fetus inside their body is male or female.

Of course, such a ban on those two medical procedures would also blind pregnant women and potential fathers from discovering very early on, by means of amniocentisis, whether the fetus was developing in good health, or instead had already fallen victim to a variety of horrible genetic defects and pre-birth conditions. Not that such considerations count for much to the fanatics.

Why can't people who hate abortions simply...not have one if they get pregnant. Do their own reproduction the way they see fit, and stay out of everyone else's business?

March 21, 2013 at 4:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Election change

It's no accident that our legislature, currently dominated by radical Republicans, wants to move all local government elections to November. Doing this will help confuse, even overwhelm, concerned voters with a blizzard of candidate names; with local, state, national issues to sort out; with candidate media advertising to endure; with issue identification to remember.

Republican fascists are obeying ALEC-issued orders: Attack relentlessly with multiple political distractions to keep salaried workers from organizing a defense against the financial screwing they've been targeted to receive. Attack, attack, attack.

March 20, 2013 at 9:42 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

House rejects exception from abortion restrictions for rape, incest, abuse victims

Let's cut to the chase here: House Bill 2253's real world impact on female citizens capable of bearing children is that Republican conservatives condone rape, incest and child abuse. This bill, if enacted into law, compels female citizens who've been sexually assaulted to have babies they never intended or planned to have.

Every female voter in the state of Kansas should go to the polls next election and throw these fascist pig Republican conservatives out of the statehouse and into the nearest gutter.

March 19, 2013 at 4:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Central power

Mr. Hickam, there are many Journal-World readers who agree with your evaluation of Governor Brownback. Just speaking for myself here, there've been many times in recent months when I was in despair over what, to me, seemed like a near-complete absence of comprehension on the public's part about the threat to democracy posed by Governor Brownback and "conservative" (radical) Republicans, due to their autocratic governing method that is so cold-bloodedly calculated to benefit the wealthy disproportionately.

But on your letter's last point, I respectfully disagree. Not because you're wrong, but because you may be unaware of the groundswell of public disapproval, anger, even open hostility toward conservative Republicans over the damage they are doing, and planning to do, to middle and lower income Kansans.

A useful barometer by which you may confirm this widespread disapproval of conservative Republican policies is to read some of the newspaper editorials being published across the state. (See Kansas Representative Paul Davis' Facebook page, for convenient access to these statewide editorials.)

Newspaper editors and publishers in Kansas are, in most cases, Republicans, true enough. And above all else they are intelligent, fair-minded thinkers. It therefore may surprise you to learn that they are voicing dismay and anger not just at the aims but also the reckless, ruthless lawmaking tactics employed by conservative Republican legislators and Gov. Brownback.

Newspaper editors and publishers do not rise to their positions without a solid grasp of national and world history. Thus when editors and publishers across Kansas lock and load then start laying concentrated fire on the ignorant bills and power excesses of this radical legislative majority led by a so-called Republican governor, the words written in their editorials are not the empty whinings of flaccid intellectuals. Our state's media people are furious; their editorials are a battlefield bugle call. It's the U.S. cavalry charging over the hill to help wipe out this dangerous rabble of goose-stepping, ALEC-trained shock troops.

March 16, 2013 at 10:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Tend to business

The Bodles bring up an interesting point: Almost daily we learn of one or more new bills introduced in the legislature, most seeking to impose some new social control, or remove a common sense regulatory control already in place. Nearly all of the bills being oblivious to the state's imminent budget shortfall.

In reality there's nothing oblivious about this technique. Continuously jarring the public's sensibilities with multiple "social change bills" is calculated to stun voters, make voters less sensitive to recognizing the "conservative" master plan of imposing an old-style colony exploitation model on the state of Kansas. Conservatives are desperate to return our state to the gilded age of the industrial Robber Barons.

In the months leading up to the next general election, always bear in mind that the invisible puppetmasters jerking our chains are multi-billionnaires and multi-millionnaires who've launched a war of total socio-economic control. Whatever deep-seated psychological reasons motivate them to this endeavor is their business.

What makes the puppetmasters aggressive behavior everybody's business is their willingness to spend unrecorded millions training selected state legislators in secret to do their bidding. In Kansas, it is at this point beyond any doubt that Republican conservatives view this contest as a war to the death.

March 15, 2013 at 11:01 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Bill would allow open carry of firearms in the Kansas Statehouse, according to a Lawrence legislator; measures now go to Senate

Armed lawmakers in the statehouse....

Is there still time to modify this bill so that it mandates concealed carry by conservative Republicans only, but requires open carry by moderate Republicans, Democrats and Independents?

That arrangement would give your average statehouse visitor a better sense of which legislators are honest enough to be trusted.

March 15, 2013 at 8:24 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Corporate farms

+1,000

March 13, 2013 at 3 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Kan. lawmaker to offer alternative income tax plan

Instead of driving themselves half crazy trying to pull mathematical rabbits out of a magician's hat, conservative Republicans who authored and supported the 2012 tax plan need first to realize that the philosophical foundation of that tax plan is anti-democracy to its heartless core, and thus doomed to fail. We're supposed to be working together, sharing and sacrificing together in this exercise called freedom. The 2012 tax plan was such a radical shift in taxation benefitting the wealthy that the plan's details should rightly have been spelled out and placed on a statewide referendum for citizen approval. But no: conservative Republicans imposed the plan by committing an arrogation of power.

Therefore, the only way those Republicans can salvage their political careers, and their party in Kansas, is for conservative wing members to muster the courage to confront the mistake they made. Repeal the 2012 tax law, reimpose (and in some cases increase) the taxes they removed from business owners. In other words, reset the pinball machine. (And they'd gain a lot of friends by removing the state tax on food sales.)

What conservatives are doing at the moment is making themselves look silly and desperate by distracting us from the fiscal pain they've imposed. This business of assigning different state representatives to take turns poking us with hot-button issues like arresting ATF federal agents, or drones, or abortion, immigration, conceal carry, union-busting, corporate farms, removing state civil service protection, KDOT assimilating KTA, little green men from Mars...yes, all this is quite effective at stirring up the bee hive. Problem is the bees are figuring out who's trying to steal the honey, and the bees will soon punish the greedy troublemakers with a focused counter-attack.

March 12, 2013 at 10:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Area students capture state chess titles

Congratulations, Lawrence chess players!

March 11, 2013 at 2:57 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Appropriations chairman alleges that head of Kansas Turnpike offered $25 million to kill merger proposal

"Dad, should we nail Bambi now, or wait until next year when he's an 8-pointer?"

March 11, 2013 at 12:44 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )