From the Olathe Republican Party and Kathy Kist:

Dear Friends and Members of the Olathe Republican Party,

While this is an “off year”, as we all know, election season truly never ends now, as we already see now with the emergence of several strong Republican candidates for the 2010 election cycle. Also, given all the excitement surrounding tea parties across our state and nation, the grassroots are already energized, and as a local city party we want to build on that momentum and that means expanding our party by letting area Republicans know that we are out there! (more…)

From the Sunflower Club:www.sunflowerclub.org

SUNFLOWER REPUBLICAN CLUB MEETING

THURSDAY, May 14, 2009

Invited Speaker:

DERRICK SONTAG

Kansas State Director - Americans for Prosperity
Derrick heads the AFP Topeka office.

Alan Cobb is now National Director of State Operations

Derrick will provide us with a view of the Legislative Summary on budget issues, a view of the Kansas budget, what caused the budget shortfall and how to avoid a budget shortfall in the future.

“CommonSense Budget Proposal - Fiscal Year 2010″

A publication by AFP will be available for purchase ($3.00)

THURSDAY, May 14, 2009
6:00pm - 9:00pm

SMOKEHOUSE BBQ

7121 W 135th Street

(SW corner of 135th and Old Metcalf)

Overland Park, KS

Join us for dinner (on your own) at 6:00pm. Meeting starts at 7:00pm.

Paid for by the Sunflower Republican Club. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Alice Hansen, Treasurer.

WRAL.com:

Oxford, N.C. - Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby’s bedroom in his mother’s Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere - on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.

Redstate:

Secretary Janet Napolitano has gotten a heap of well-deserved criticism for the report that her office rushed out, naming veterans, believers in gun rights, low-tax advocates, and other conservatives as possible terrorists. So far she has failed adequately to explain how her Department issued a report that slanders our military, our law enforcement agencies, and millions of average Americans.

Roll Call reports today that Napolitano has now apologized for this obvious screwup - but she has done so secretly, in a letter to a House Committee Chairman. The letter has not been shared with Republicans:

Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said Thompson did not share the letter with him, and it doesn’t change anything.

“To me this makes it more essential to provide [Congress] with all of the records” related to the report, King said after Roll Call showed him a copy of the letter…

In her letter, Napolitano admitted to Thompson that the report was released despite concerns by the department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, a fact King emphasized.

“It seems like a department not under control,” King said. “Why was a report that was so off target released over the objections of the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties?”…

WSJ:

Washington, D.C.’s school voucher program for low-income kids isn’t dead yet. But the Obama Administration seems awfully eager to expedite its demise.

About 1,700 kids currently receive $7,500 vouchers to attend private schools under the Opportunity Scholarship Program, and 99% of them are black or Hispanic. The program is a huge hit with parents — there are four applicants for every available scholarship — and the latest Department of Education evaluation showed significant academic gains.

Nevertheless, Congress voted in March to phase out the program after the 2009-10 school year unless it is reauthorized by Congress and the D.C. City Council. The Senate is scheduled to hold hearings on the program this month, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised proponents floor time to make their case. So why is Education Secretary Arne Duncan proceeding as if the program’s demise is a fait accompli?

Club for Growth:

This isn’t a surprise. From CongressDaily ($):

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party will give the Employee Free Choice Act new life — if it’s rewritten in Specter’s image.

Specter has said he will still support a Republican filibuster of the legislation. But Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who is spearheading Senate Democrats’ push to pass the bill, said he is using the changes Specter has proposed as a blueprint for a potential compromise. “We’re hoping to put something together. It may be something labor may not like,” he said. He said the process would have three steps: first, writing a bill that could garner 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster; second, making sure it had some support from organized labor; and third, if possible, bringing the business community on board.

[...]How the bill fares will likely play a role in Specter’s electoral fortunes. He could face Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., in the Democratic primary if Sestak decides to run — and while Sestak is an original co-sponsor of the current bill, he has also proposed a compromise. Sestak’s proposal would eliminate the card-check provision and trigger mandatory arbitration after a longer period of time. It would allow unions equal access to workplaces during organizing campaigns.

Video at RCP here.

ABC’s The Note:

ABC News’ Kate Snow and Rick Klein report: What if John Edwards hadn’t run for president in 2008?

What if he had followed the hindsight-is-20-20 advice being offered now by his wife and chief strategist, and decided against another run for the White House because of the risk that his extra-marital affair would become public?

ABC News put that question to Mark Penn, who was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief pollster and strategist during much of her 2008 campaign.

Penn acknowledged that all of this is unknowable. But he said that if Edwards backers had been up for grabs in Iowa and beyond, Clinton would have had a much better chance at defeating Barack Obama.

“No question in my mind, it would have been a very different race if he hadn’t run,” Penn said. “Most likely it would have been a two-way race and would have released a lot of voters who focused on demographics . . . voters who would later vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Washington Examiner:

Asked whether their opinion of the president is favorable or unfavorable, 49 percent of whites in the Times poll say they have a favorable opinion of Obama. Among blacks the number is 80 percent. Twenty-one percent of whites say their view of the president is unfavorable, while the number of blacks with unfavorable opinions of Obama is too small to measure.

Those opinion differences are clear in the traditional “right track-wrong track” question, a key indicator of the public’s mood. Thirty-four percent of whites say the country is headed in the right direction, while 56 percent believe it is “seriously off track.” For black Americans, 70 percent say the country is headed in the right direction, with just 23 percent saying it is off track. (According to the U.S. Census, blacks make up about 13 percent of the population, while whites make up about 80 percent. The Times poll divided respondents into black and white, with no other groups reported.)

On the economy, 55 percent of whites in the poll say they approve of the way the president is handling the issue. Among blacks, the number is 91 percent. Thirty-six percent of whites disapprove of Obama’s economic performance, while just two percent of blacks disapprove.

Heritage:

The Myth of Employer Intimidation of Employees

As James was saying, this law we’re operating under in union organizing today was passed in 1947. We’ve had this law for over 60 years. So you ask the question, why do we want to change it now? And the answer that’s given by organized labor is that employers have taken unfair advantage of the election process by intimidating employees. That’s the total pitch by organized labor as to why this bill should pass. That is not true.

Number one, there are fewer acts of misconduct on the part of management in union elections today than there were back in the days when labor was strong. Labor unions are winning more elections today than they won in the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s, or the ’90s. So there’s less misconduct on the part of management than there used to be; unions are winning elections at a higher rate today than they have in decades past.

Hoover Institute:

Activism has long been part of the fabric of American life. It is often positive, as when it pushes for constraints on undue government intrusion into our lives. Sometimes, however, activism can be destructive. For instance, activists from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the media, as well as some within the government, have targeted a panoply of products, technologies, and industries that they dislike - pesticides, food additives, chemicals in general, pharmaceuticals, nuclear power, and biotechnology, among others - for opprobrium, over-regulation, and even extinction. And it seems that no stratagem, no misrepresentation, no outright lie is too outrageous for them.

Heritage:

1. It’s an Economy Killer

Above anything else, any attempt to reduce carbon dioxide would be poison to an already sick economy. Even when the economy does recover, the EPA’s proposed global warming policy would severely limit economic growth.

Since 85 percent of the U.S. economy runs on fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide, imposing a cost on CO2 is equivalent to placing an economy-wide tax on energy use. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis study of the economic effects of carbon dioxide cuts found cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses of $7 trillion by 2029 (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars), single-year GDP losses exceeding $600 billion in some years (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars), energy cost increases of 30 percent or more, and annual job losses exceeding 800,000 for several years. Hit particularly hard is manufacturing, which will see job losses in some industries that exceed 50 percent.[1]

High energy costs result in production cuts, reduced consumer spending, increased unemployment, and ultimately a much slower economy. But importantly, higher energy prices fall disproportionately on the poor, since low-income households spend a larger percentage of their income on energy.

Heritage:

Regardless of the scientific merit behind doomsday predictions of global warming, President Obama and Congress seem intent on instituting a U.S. policy regime to address the specter of climate change.

The debate on the most effective way to “green” America–cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, tough energy standards and regulations, some hybrid approach, or sticking to open markets–will be a heated one. With affordable green technologies still in development, policymakers need to recognize that the economic cost of limiting U.S. production of greenhouse gases on U.S. consumers and companies will be high–high enough to question whether the costs are worth the equally uncertain benefits such measures would bring.

Costs and Benefits

The projected cost of a climate scheme on the U.S. economy–evidenced from Europe’s problematic climate program and the Kyoto Protocol’s failure to affect emissions in signatory nations–illustrate how difficult it is for governments to impose binding climate restrictions without undermining economic growth.[1]

Financial Times:

Sergio Marchionne, Fiat chief executive, is on Monday due to outline plans to transform the global automotive landscape by spinning off Fiat’s core cars division, joining it with Chrysler and General Motors Europe, and creating a new publicly traded European car company.

Mr Marchionne wants Italy’s largest industrial group to separate Fiat Auto from its other divisions, join them with Opel / Vauxhall, Saab, and GM’s other European operations, and Fiat’s stake in Chrysler to create a company with about €80bn ($106bn) of revenues and sales of 6m-7m vehicles a year - second to Toyota, more than Renault / Nissan or Ford Motor, or GM itself, and roughly as many as Volkswagen.

CS Monitor:

Helsinki, Finland - Jamming on keyboards, bass guitar, and drums, four young men fill a basement room with harmony. The only unusual items here are the colorful squares, triangles, and circles up on a magnet board. The symbols are stand-ins for conventional musical notes - the keys that have unlocked music for the students here.

The Special Music Center Resonaari has a humble, cozy setting - a converted two-story home in Finland’s capital. But for the 170 people with intellectual or developmental disabilities who take music classes here each week, it’s a place where their talents, not their special needs, take center stage.

For music teacher Markku Kaikkonen, the director, it’s also the nucleus of a “cultural revolution.”

Mark Perry:

A few months back I posted on Academic Earth, a website that features thousands of video lectures from the world’s top scholars at some of the top universities (Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc.). Academic Earth now reports that:

Apr 29, 2009 – Academic Earth, a portal for educational video that hosts full courses and guest lectures from leading universities, announced Wednesday that it received more than 1 million visits in the three months since it opened up its public beta. More than half of all visitors came from outside of the United States, representing a total of 213 countries.

“Our goal in founding Academic Earth was to make educational resources from leading universities more accessible to people around the globe,” said founder Richard Ludlow, “we’ve been thrilled to see the site experience such rapid growth, especially from international users.”

The site’s visitors have been drawn to content in a wide variety of fields. The top 10 most visited lectures include Princeton’s Alan Blinder speaking on the Origins of the Financial Mess, MIT’s Walter Lewin’s opening lecture to his introductory Physics course, Yale Professor Shelly Kagan discussing the philosophy of death, and even Berkeley’s Alan Feng teaching strategy for the popular computer game Starcraft.

WSJ:

But behind the scenes, it is clear that some diplomats are challenging the Obama administration to commit to a more aggressive schedule for cutting U.S. emissions.

On Wednesday, France’s special ambassador in charge of climate change Brice Lalonde, pulled the curtain back a bit further on the closed-door talks.

“The question was, ‘could you do better on the targets’?” Mr. Lalonde said, referring to the Obama administration’s call for returning U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The Obama administration has said that cutting emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 - as some European nations want - isn’t politically doable or even necessary, because steeper reductions could make up for less steep cuts in the early years.

Mr. Lalonde says he and his counterparts are not convinced, thus far, this is the case.
“We said, ‘listen, we understand there can be more than one pathway’,” to cutting emissions, Mr. Lalonde said. “But the later you go, it’s more and more difficult.”

WSVN:

WSVN — When you watch a TV show, the Nielsen Ratings Company is supposed to keep track of it, but now in South Florida, Nielsen is being accused of ignoring you.

Ed Ansin, owner, WSVN: “It’s a very bad situation … it’s a very bad situation.”

Ed Ansin is the President of Sunbeam Television and the owner of WSVN-TV.

He told his employees he is suing the Nielsen Ratings Service for violating federal anti-trust laws. Specifically, the lawsuit accuses the company of abusing its power and running a monopoly.

Club for Growth:

According to 2009 Awesome Facts (an iTunes application):

The IRS employees’ tax manual has instructions on how to collect taxes in the event of a nuclear war.

Rasmussen:

Government, government everywhere, that seems to be the sign of the times.

Now it appears the federal government, along with the United Auto Workers union, will soon have a majority say in the operations of Chrysler and General Motors. Too bad that only 18% of Americans think they’ll do a good job running the failing automakers.

That’s not surprising given that 75% of voters say businesses do a better job than government agencies when it comes to handling customer service issues. The Political Class naturally sees things a little differently: 44% believe the government provides better service while just 38% say business does a better job.

Most Americans also expect some funny business if the government takes over GM and Chrysler. Fifty-seven percent (57%) believe it’s likely the government will pass laws and regulations giving those firms an unfair advantage over other car companies. Columnist Michael Barone characterizes the process surrounding the ongoing Chrysler bankruptcy as “Gangster Government,” adding that “It is likely to be part of a continuing series.

Bagyants:

Earlier today the Maine legislature passed and the Governor signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the state:

“In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions,” [Governor] Baldacci said in a statement. “I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”

Good for him.

Prime Buzz:

U.S. News & World Report lists Claire McCaskill as a potential Supreme Court pick.

In fact, the mag’s Mary Kate Cary describes the Missouri senator as her “personal favorite.”

Here’s what Cary writes:

“And my personal favorite, Claire McCaskill: University of Missouri Law graduate, 55, single mom for seven years, then remarried and now has a blended family of nine kids.

Put herself through law school as a waitress; according to her official bio, she worked in a fabric store as a teenager in order to sew her own clothes. Later, she ran the state’s largest prosecutor’s office (in Kansas City) and began its first domestic violence unit. Elected as a state legislator and Missouri State Auditor, now serving as senator from Missouri. Returns to St. Louis every weekend, where her 79-year-old mother, Betty Anne, lives with the family.

Market Watch:

Chairman Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday reiterated his call for newspapers to charge for online content, saying that his company’s experience with The Wall Street Journal has proven that it can be done successfully. “We’re now in the midst of a debate over the value of content, and it’s clear that at many newspapers the current model is malfunctioning.” He also vowed that News Corp. would not feed its content rights to Amazon’s (AMZN: Kindle. “We will control the prices for our content and we will control the relationship with our customers,” he said on a conference call.

Hillsdale College:

I’ll start with the bad news: When we get through the economic time that we’re in right now, we’re going to be confronted with an even bigger problem. The first of the Baby Boomers started signing up for early retirement under Social Security last year. Two years from now they will start signing up for Medicare. All told, 78 million people are going to stop working, stop paying taxes, stop paying into retirement programs, and start drawing benefits. The problem is, neither Social Security nor Medicare is ready for them. The federal government has made explicit and implicit promises to millions of people, but has put no money aside in order to keep those promises. Some of you may wonder where Bernie Madoff got the idea for his Ponzi scheme. Clearly he was studying federal entitlement policy.
Meanwhile, in the private sector, many

HT Ben Cunningham.

Reuters:

PEORIA, Illinois (Reuters) - A 13-year-old boy who police say was caught red-handed a block away was accused on Tuesday of robbing a bank in Peoria.

The unidentified boy was charged with felony armed robbery in juvenile court, accused of threatening a teller with a gun and demanding cash.

He was found hiding in a nearby garage about 30 minutes after Monday’s robbery, stained red from a dye pack that had been placed in the bag of money.

Ben Smith at Politico:

Sharpton, who employed the help of Republican consultant Roger Stone to qualify for public funding for his campaign, violated campaign finance laws widely, and has agreed to pay a $285,000 fine, the FEC said in a press release.

According to the Commission:

During his 2004 presidential campaign, Sharpton traveled extensively and routinely mixed travel for his campaign committee and National Action Network. An FEC audit and investigation revealed that National Action Network and other entities paid $387,192 in campaign expenses. The FEC determined that National Action Network made payments totaling $107,615 for committee expenses and $73,500 in payments to consultants and vendors for campaign-related work, violating the prohibition against corporate contributions. Sharpton’s sole proprietorships, Rev-Als Production and Sharpton Media LLC, also paid $214,577 in campaign travel expenses and an additional $65,000 came from unknown sources. None of these in-kind contributions were disclosed in the committee’s disclosure reports.

The Star:

Crime victim advocate Alvin Brooks is the recipient of the Crystal Kipper and Ali Kemp Memorial Award, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Friday. The award recognizes outstanding work in protecting children from exploitation.

“It’s impossible to measure the immense impact this man has had, and continues to have, in Kansas City,” said acting U.S. attorney Matt Whitworth. “The … award is well-deserved recognition for a lifetime of impressive accomplishments and community service.”

The Star:

Hatred brought Shawnee Mission East students closer together this year.

It also helped the high school kids raise more than $7,000, which they donated to the University of Kansas Medical Center last week.

They raised the money in February, when more than a dozen picketers from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka stood near school grounds and picketed in response to the school electing a gay homecoming king - Matt Pope - in the fall of 2007.

Westboro had warned Shawnee Mission East about the picketing via a Youtube video message earlier in the year.

LJ World:

Petterson, a liberal arts major, competed in the show’s college tournament. The winners of each of the first five shows this week, along with the next four highest money earners, will go on to the semifinals.

Petterson and about 20 relatives and friends gathered Monday at the Red Lyon to watch his performance. His reaction to losing to a Mizzou student?

It was all in the buzzers, he said, and she was just quicker.

“If it was football, I would care,” he said. “If it’s ‘Jeopardy!,’ I don’t really care.”

Rivals.com:

During a recent open gym session at Pine Crest High School in Coral Springs, Fla., a whose who of college coaches flocked to the gymnasium wanting nothing more than to leave a lasting impression on Brandon Knight. So, as the No. 2 ranked player in the class of 2010 did what he does best on the hardwood, a number of coaches looked on in amazement.

Rasmussen:

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of adults say a bigger economic problem than the current lack of credit is that Americans borrow too much money.

Only 19% think the bigger problem is that there is not enough credit available, even as the government proposes trillion-dollar schemes to unfreeze credit in this country. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure which is the bigger problem in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of investors put more emphasis on too much borrowing, compared to 60% of non-investors. Older Americans are slightly more critical of the borrowing habits of their fellow countrymen than are those younger than they are.

Prime Buzz:

Rep. Roy Blunt — stopping in KC Friday in the middle of a statwide endorsement tour — said he would not follow Sen. Claire McCaskill’s lead and reject earmarks if he’s elected to the Senate.

Blunt made the statement in a news conference with Sen. Kit Bond, considered one of the biggest earmarkers in Congress.

Bond endorsed Blunt Friday.

“I think Missouri should compete for those things that others are going to compete for,” Blunt told reporters.

Darrell Moore, who is running for Blunt’s House seat near Springfield, said this week he would refuse earmarks.

To be clear:  McCaskill, like all members of Congress, still tries to bring home some varieties of bacon for the home state.  She opposes earmarks, which are spending proposals dropped into appropriations bills, usually without debate.

Politico:

Despite all the talk of Republicans needing to retool their message, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that blame for the Republican’s loss in 2008 can be layed mainly at the feet of the economy.

“I frankly believe that much of what happened in the last election revolved around the fact that the economy fell apart at the time that we were holding the hot potato,” said Romney, who came in second in the race for the GOP nomination in 2008. Romney also tried to set up an interesting parallel, arguing that President Barack Obama’s spending plans were creating a second bubble that would also collapse. Speaking of Obama’s decision to let Democrats in Congress craft the stimulus plan, Romney said, “That’s going to come back to haunt him.”

Cantor blamed “fear” caused by “a collapse in our financial markets 30 days before the election” for the GOP’s poor showing, and also mentioned the Iraq War as a secondary cause.

Politico has the video:

Standing outside the White House, the unlikely trio of Sharpton, Bloomberg and Gingrich briefed reporters on their education conversation with Obama. Key points:

• Gingrich, an Obama critic, praised the president for showing “courage, during the primaries when it was difficult he showed support for charter schools.”

• Bloomberg presented NYC as a model for school reform - and brushed off a question about AF1’s Manhattan flyby.

• Sharpton, like the others, said the trio was committed to working “across our political and ideological lines.”