Letters on Clinton e-mails, ACA, GOP sore losers, Brownback’s Big Lie, WSU parking

Clinton mishandled classified data

Many in the media, including The Eagle editorial board, have expressed important and appropriate interest in my remarks that I am hopeful that the FBI and Department of Justice will hold former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accountable for having classified information on her private e-mail server (“Pompeo not reserving judgment on Clinton’s conduct,” Jan. 20 Now Consider This).

I stand by my comments. I am very hopeful that our government will do a thorough investigation. From the information that I have seen, such an investigation can lead only to a single conclusion: Clinton mishandled important, classified data. Failure to secure such information as legally required risks American lives.

A key part of my job as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is to provide oversight of our government’s intelligence activities and protecting America’s most important national security secrets. This is the very type of information that Clinton stored on her private server.

My work to protect America’s most sensitive secrets does not taint my efforts on the Select Committee on Benghazi. Our task on this committee is different, but simple: to conduct a full investigation into the surrounding events on Sept. 11, 2012, so we can provide answers to the American people and learn how to prevent a similar attack in the future. Though our committee uncovered Clinton’s nongovernment server, we are only interested in it insofar as it provides information relevant to the attack.

Kansans would suffer

Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, wanted Congress to override President Obama’s veto of the bill to end the Affordable Care Act, thus killing the health care plan that benefits millions of Americans. Pompeo has said that the plan was too expensive and he would replace it with “commonsense, market-based” reforms.

He also doesn’t like that members of Congress and their staffs are required to use the ACA for their health care coverage. I say it’s a good thing that those in the government are required to live under the same rules as other Americans.

Pompeo’s major argument, that the ACA is too costly, fails to acknowledge the cost when people have no health insurance – a cost measured in illness, suffering and death. With the ACA, many Americans now have needed health care for the first time.

The ACA is market-based. However, ACA rules keep health insurance providers from raising rates without cause. Market-based insurance providers operating without any limitations would force those who can least afford it to give up their health insurance coverage.

Pompeo should realize that if the ACA fails, many Kansans would suffer.

GOP sore losers

When President Obama’s second term is up, one of my most vivid memories will be of how the Republicans refused to cooperate with him in any way. Obama has gone the extra mile to be fair to every side, but the Republicans do not reciprocate. Maybe their hearts were bleeding for those oppressed corporations that the U.S. Supreme Court insisted were “people.”

Whatever the reason, Republican lawmakers have been sore losers who insist on making us the Divided States of America. They need to stop pouting and assume their duties.

Brownback’s Big Lie

The Big Lie – the idea that if you tell a lie loud enough and often enough, people will believe you – is common in politics today. In Kansas, our own governor is using the Big Lie.

Even though the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts both found that Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri had done nothing illegal or unethical, Gov. Sam Brownback continues to make the same false accusations. He continues to use the Big Lie in order to justify defunding Planned Parenthood, an organization that supports family planning and related health services. He continues to say that Planned Parenthood is “trafficking in baby body parts,” even after his own agencies cleared Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.

Apparently the truth is to be ignored when it does not fit with the governor’s agenda.

WSU parking problem

I am in no way a professional construction cost estimator, but wanting to spend $7.2 million for only 220 additional parking spaces at the south end of the Rhatigan Student Center doesn’t seem like Wichita State University is getting its money’s worth (Jan. 27 Eagle). The use of that current parking lot should be designated for visitors. That space would provide WSU’s community supporters much-needed parking when they attend school events, exhibits and meetings.

It is also interesting to evaluate the way WSU allots parking spaces between staff and students. Private businesses have their staffs park away from their buildings so that customers have convenient access to the buildings. But WSU (the business) assigns its staff the prime spaces near its buildings and assigns its customers (the students) spaces farther away.

There’s no question about the need for more parking spaces for students, staff and visitors. The potential for using the tennis courts area for constructing a multilevel parking garage would make a significant contribution to reducing the current parking shortage.

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letters on Clinton e-mails, ACA, GOP sore losers, Brownback’s Big Lie, WSU parking."