Letters on Wagle, GOP lemmings, judicial retention, presidential candidates

Wagle late to admit taxing problem

So now Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, seems to want business owners to be taxed the same as working Kansans (“Wagle says Senate wants to make taxes more fair,” Oct. 8 Eagle). Funny how she rears her head only after the primary elections showed voters are upset with the GOP. Where was Wagle during recent legislative sessions?

Everyone in Kansas above the age of 10 knew the 2012 tax giveaway was choking Kansas and had to be retracted. Only when Wagle and her colleagues feel threatened does she speak out.

And then I read that 70 percent of legislators or their spouses benefit from this tax exemption (Oct. 9 Eagle).

Voters have been screaming for the past several years that the 2012 pass-through legislation was horribly unfair and destroying Kansas’ ability to pay its bills. But the GOP, under the control of Wagle and House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, made sure that the law remained intact.

Funny how Wagle just now sees the sun is not shining in Kansas.

Don’t let this sudden dose of regret on her part fool you. Voters need to send Topeka a very clear message by voting the incumbents out of office.

GOP lemmings

I do not have sufficient expletives in my vocabulary to express my feelings for the Legislature and governor.

Like lemmings on their migration to oblivion, Kansas card-carrying members of the Republican Party have elected and re-elected “public servants” to the U.S. Congress and Legislature simply because they stand under the elephant’s tail and with complete disregard for merit. In turn, these representatives of the people have lined their pockets and the pockets of their supporters at the public trough.

Simultaneously, and in complete and total disregard of the duties of the office to which they were elected, state lawmakers allowed the governor to make nearly all funding decisions of the state without the checks and balances provided for in the Kansas Constitution.

As this election comes to pass, I humbly plead that voters turn out in numbers sufficient to pry the hands of the Republican Party off of the levers of the machinery of Kansas government.

The prospect of living in the Appalachia of the Great Plains is already driving the exodus of capable talent from our midst, and with them goes the future of the entire state.

Vote our justices

There are many reasons why Kansas Supreme Court justices should not be retained, but I will give you the two that I have found most offensive.

▪  The decision to overturn the Carr brothers’ death penalty. The justices are to follow the will of the people when the people are within their right under the Kansas Constitution. The lower court found the Carr brothers guilty and sentenced them to death for their horrendous crimes. These justices overturned the decision of the people based on their own ideology, not the rule of law or the Kansas Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the people and overturned our court’s decision. What a disgrace and embarrassment for the people of Kansas.

▪  The threat to close public schools over 1 percent of a $4 billion budget, which would disrupt and possible damage schools, commerce and communities. How stupid. The court overreached it authority. Again, this is an example of political ideology, not rule of law. The Kansas Constitution gives the Legislative the responsibility to determine what is adequate to spend on education, not Supreme Court justices.

On Nov. 8, I will be voting “no” to retain the Supreme Court justices. It is an easy decision.

Retain justices

The little fictional character Kansans for Life debuted may seem cute or dopey depending on your viewpoint (“Meet ‘Echo,’ Kansans for Life’s unborn spokesbaby,” Oct. 8 Eagle). Wry comments from an embryo strikes me as science fiction, I guess.

Kansans For Life’s other endeavor, trying to oust duly appointed members of the Kansas Supreme Court is, however, not fiction and not cute. This has been its goal for many years, and now they’re piggybacking on the backs of families of victims of Kansas’ most notorious murder spree.

None of us can imagine what these families and loved ones have been through, but shame on Kansans for Life for pretending they care about anything but enacting stricter abortion laws.

I join with those who want to see justice served in the form of the death penalty. But I cannot sit by and see our high court turned into a rubber-stamp for the United State’s most unpopular governor and his policies on anything and everything. It’s called court-packing.

Fair-minded Kansans need to vote “yes” to retain these justices.

Our candidates?

We all knew Hillary Clinton would eventually run for president after her loss to Barack Obama in 2008. She spent that time racking up millions of dollars in speaker fees and attempting to be secretary of state.

The Repubican Party chose Mitt Romney in 2012, and he managed to put his foot in his mouth regarding people on government assistance. Since then, the powers that be for the GOP have managed to come up with nothing. People like Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., were laughable, and the party had no idea what to do.

In the meantime, along comes Donald Trump. He was a person that people thought was against the status quo, and voters nationwide went with him regardless of his crass, egotistical way of expressing himself.

This campaign and the commercials, debates and press conferences have been as disgusting as I have seen. The Republicans have only themselves to blame for not putting a decent candidate to run, and the Democrats are so smug about Clinton that she can break laws and show a lack of leadership in Benghazi.

I’m worried.

Will replace sign

Stealing people’s political yard signs only proves how low a person is – and how determined those of us who get the signs for our yards are.

The sign for my presidential choice is going to be replaced until Nov. 8, no matter how many times it gets stolen

This story was originally published October 16, 2016 at 5:04 AM with the headline "Letters on Wagle, GOP lemmings, judicial retention, presidential candidates."