Kansas views on TPP, campus carry, transgender bathroom, Pompeo
TPP – President Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership – a move that was unsurprising but still jarring in its implications for Kansas, the rest of the country and the world. It will take many years to develop a workable alternative to an agreement as significant as TPP, and there’s no guarantee that the Trump administration will even try to do so.
Campus carry – Lawmakers should return to sensibility and exempt the state’s universities from a law that requires them to allow concealed firearms on campus. Then, if individual colleges want to allow the carrying of firearms, they’ll be free to do so. But at least the decision can be made at the local level and take into consideration the student body, faculty and community and make a decision that is both local and reasonable for each institution.
Bathroom bill – A Wichita lawmaker’s bill to prevent transgender students from using bathrooms associated with their gender identities is a solution to a nonexistent problem and should be defeated. Kansas faces a severe budget crisis. The last thing the Legislature needs to spend serious legislative time on is an unnecessary transgender bathroom law.
Pompeo – As the new director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo has a to-do list that already includes heroic lifts like helping us stay ahead of potential attacks by Islamic State and other terror groups. But to do right by the agents and analysts, he also must make good on his only semi-airtight promise to keep the Trump administration from reopening CIA black sites and reinstituting interrogation techniques that were a betrayal of our values and a boon to our enemies.
This story was originally published February 6, 2017 at 5:25 AM with the headline "Kansas views on TPP, campus carry, transgender bathroom, Pompeo."