General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat the Republicans have done to Kansas should be all over the news every day.
The Republican default approach to governing has been to cut taxes on the wealthy and wait for the magic bean sprouts to grow. That approach is a proven failure. Why then, when I bring up the Kansas economic train wreck, do I get blinking incomprehension from my (admittedly few) Republican friends?
Until the mess they've made of things in Kansas with their unfettered winger approach is common knowledge, we are at risk of more of the same, eventually.
Tell the damned truth, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Faux. Do your damned job!
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/steve-rose/article61369767.html
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article63634462.html
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)Response to mahina (Original post)
rjsquirrel This message was self-deleted by its author.
leftyladyfrommo
(18,874 posts)Kansas people are Republicans and they vote Republican no matter what.
You would think they would have revolted by now. There have been tons of editorials in the KC Star day after day.
Talk about having their heads in the sand. It's just the weirdest thing.
Response to leftyladyfrommo (Reply #3)
rjsquirrel This message was self-deleted by its author.
c-ville rook
(45 posts)helping out Michigan, Detroit, and Puerto Rico -- do not save Kansas, Louisiana, or Alabama.
TheFarseer
(9,328 posts)Than who ruined the budget and education system.
greymattermom
(5,754 posts)was the governor of Kansas before she took a job in the Obama administration.
leftyladyfrommo
(18,874 posts)Then Brownback came in and everything has to hell in a handbasket.
Johnson County is where a while lot of professional people in the KC area live. Most of them chose to live there because if the excellent schools.
But now Player county, Mo and Clay county, Mo are getting those people. They are building up like crazy with big subdivisions of really nice homes. There is good shopping and great highway access to just about everywhere.
Kansas is really starting to hurt.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Sounds like NC!
But getting rid of the movie industry and making being a teacher generally suck in NC I think was a plan to DELIBERATELY get people they think are "liberal" to leave the state. Then the Bathroom Bill got people they don't want to leave leaving.... oops!
And trickle down Reaganomics.... STILL?.... fer Christ sake! Could it be more obvious it doesn't work (as they say it does....does work for one group...ka-ching ka-ching)
Have you noticed that every time conservatives try to set up their conservative dream utopia, it's a complete disaster?
CobaltBlue
(1,122 posts)fasttense
(17,301 posts)certainot
(9,090 posts)at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, deregulation, hate, and swiftboating
and the left continues to scream about money in politics while ignoring that!
and the fact that 90 major universities support 268 limbaugh stations.
there never was any need for states to fall apart - all the left has to do is stop ignoring rw radio
disillusioned73
(2,872 posts)definitely onto something there.. I live in red country PA and I can't have a sane conversation with ANY of the RW radio listeners or Faux newz loyalists around these parts.. I know, I know - they're one in the same
It iz literally like talking to a bumper sticker.. they are convinced that the poor are to blame for all the countries ills and corporations & business men(like Trump) are our salvation from the liberal economy we have suffered under Prez Obama.. itz just another variation of Reaganomics.. they re-package it and sell it anew every 4 years or as needed. I am really starting to believe we're going to have to hit rock bottom before any real changes come to pass..
certainot
(9,090 posts)by protesting those 90 universities and petitioning
the local GOP will go nuts screaming free speech, the media will notice, and whatever the university wants to do won't matter - advertisers will flee those stations.
the unis that do look for apolitical alts for sports broadcasting will shame others into following
all rw radio will lose advertisers, they will lose money and community stature, and if they don't have to change programming they will at very least lose their ability to enable and intimidate media and politicians all over the country.
what the talk radio gods are saying will get more scrutiny and correction, trump and gop politicians all over the country will get RUSH tattoos on their foreheads, and politicians and media will be unable to repeat the talking points as freely.
going on offense re talk radio has never been tried and maybe it should before we try rock bottom and the revolution - without the rw talk radio monopoly democracy can work to achieve the major reforms bernie is talking about - or push hillary left and give them supermajorities.
LuckyLib
(6,822 posts)Democrats and Obama. They are profoundly clueless -- my 93 year old mother shakes her head at their stupidity. They claim she lost it when she moved to California in her 20's! Yes, she did. Then raised 4 liberal children.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)with what her generation left us. At least her children must be a comfort.
K&R, Mahina. Good post!
PJMcK
(22,069 posts)The policies that Governor Brownback and the Kansas Legislature have enacted present a nearly perfect implementation of the Republican economic plan. Inexplicably, they do not see the actual results of these policies even though they are living with them.
I have a cousin (Republican, of course) who lives in Kansas and I'm completely at a loss to understand him when we talk about the differences between his State and New York where I live. It's as if we use the same words but they mean different things to each of us.
Kip Humphrey
(4,753 posts)No need to cross borders to discover failed states right here at home. Sad.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)The only thing slowing him down right now is a democratic legislature
trof
(54,256 posts)We're broke.
FailureToCommunicate
(14,031 posts)rurallib
(62,478 posts)of both Louisiana and Kansas and what the two respective governors (Jindal and Brownback) have done to their states.
Not only should what they have done be hammered on nightly, but in contrast what a difference good governance could make by comparison plus the fact that decent government does not, in total cost any more and most likely costs less.
Sadly the only news companies that might do such a report would be the now defunct Al Jazeera and RT. No US company, including the vaunted NPR would ever touch such a story. - ooops, DemocracyNow! would.
houston16revival
(953 posts)they got all the money from the tax cuts, everything is fine in their
neighborhoods
DhhD
(4,695 posts)Jindal and the Republicans had almost destroyed the state. Check out the Threads in the Louisiana Group, if you can.
gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)... because they are congenitally incapable of governing on even the most rudimentary level. When rigid ideology rooted in pathological selfishness and magical thinking is substituted for logic and reason, the outcome is invariably disastrous.
A fatally flawed philosophy can only be supported by lies. When malice and deceit are the cornerstones of a political philosophy, it will always ALWAYS fail, and those least able to defend themselves will always be the scapegoats for the gross ineptitude and malfeasance of the lying sacks of rat excrement they were conned into electing. Those sacks of rat excrement nearly always escape any punishment for their crimes. But that may change soon. The corporatists have overplayed their hand, and the retribution they will suffer will be extremely severe, and extremely well deserved.
Let's start by televising the spectacle of former Chief Justice Roberts and his malignant minions perp-walked into oblivion.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)did'nt they vote the fascist bastard back for a second term?
Why aren't they in the streets?
DhhD
(4,695 posts)stopped a recount type of law suite, last month, March, I believe.
Stevepol
(4,234 posts)and yes Kobach is responsible more than any other single individual for the collapse of the KS government and economy. Brownback, the guv, has given tax breaks to the big business in KS and billionaires generally and increased sales taxes on food and necessities, in other words, making up for the shortfall in revenue from those able and actually, in some cases, even asking to be taxed, by putting the burden on the poor and the needy, and now he sits around waiting for the money too start filling the coffers as it is written in the Gospel of the Trickle.
The fact that trickle down has never trickled down and will never trickle down is just one of many obvious facts that Repubs will never believe as long as Repubs exist as a sub-species, so there's no way to do anything about some airhead like Brownback and his policies once he (it?) is in office. There's a line twenty miles long with airheads waiting to take Brownback's place.
Kobach has layers of lies and deceit making it next to impossible to get people like Brownback out of office. Many many people are fed up, but what can be done? Let's look at just two of the layers.
1. The voting machines. Kobach, who is in charge of the voting mess in KS, while pretending to want to guarantee the validity of the vote, always fights as hard as possible to prevent anybody from ever checking the validity of an election. Currently, he has stonewalled Beth Clarkson's efforts to look at some of the elections where there's very good evidence that the vote is probably a machine fabrication. She has been trying to look at the votes but without any luck for years now.
2. Voter suppression. Kobach is one of the most vocal state officials in requiring the use of voter ID, birth certificates or driver's licenses or visas, etc. This is in support of his and the Repub's phony claim that there is massive voter fraud happening in the country. There is zero evidence of voter fraud; there is MASSIVE evidence of election fraud.
3. He is also leading the efforts all over the country to use lists of voters around the country who have supposedly voted or are currently registered somewhere from voting somewhere else (i.e., a James Brown in KS can be disqualified from voting because a James Brown in TX has committed a crime or for some other reason isn't supposed to be qualified to vote. Kobach has done much to spread this obviously illegal tactic around the country especially in, but not limited to, Red states.
Incidentally, Kobach in the last election cycle was in a dogfight with another very good candidate. They were very close in the pre-election polls I think, but Kobach ended up winning by 17% points, a very good bounce that I'm sure was pretty easy for the voting machine companies using one of about 3,000 methods for maliciously programming a voting machine or perhaps by having some employee or ideologue pull it off. The machines are specifically made now (I believe) to make it possible to steal elections.
UNTIL DEMS START SCREAMING TO HIGH HEAVEN DEMANDING THAT THE VOTE BE VERIFIED, THERE'S NO WAY TO GET THESE GUYS OUT OF OFFICE NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO. AS IT IS NOW, THE THE VOTING MACHINES ARE NOT VERIFIED IN ANY WAY TO ASSURE THE VOTER KNOW THAT THE RESULTS ARE INDEED ACCURATE. EVERY ELECTION ON SUCH MACHINES SHOULD BE AUDITED, THAT IS, A FAIRLY LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THE PAPER BALLOTS FROM SOME RANDOM PRECINCTS SHOULD BE RECOUNTED BY HAND TO MAKE SURE THEY SQUARE WITH THE SO-CALLED RESULTS IN THOSE PRECINCTS AND IF THERE ARE STATISTICAL PROBLEMS, THE WHOLE VOTE MUST BE RECOUNTED.
And all this is compounded by the voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc. etc. The mafia is in charge of the country and the average person is being held hostage and is helpless to do anything about it.
KS is one of the most corrupt examples but the voting corruption exists all over the country, even in blue state like MA, where the optiscans are used and paper ballots are retained in case of a need to audit or recount (which has never happened in MA to my knowledge, at least at the statewide level. I would be happy to learn that I'm wrong about this BTW).
Botany
(70,639 posts)Republicans in Kansas didn't like him either but somehow he won.
Botany
(70,639 posts)They want to kill the US Post Office, public education, and women's health care too.
Takket
(21,702 posts)i cannot believe that would hold up for a minute in a court of law. they should sue. Just sickening. not bad enough that we allow global warming to spiral out of control, a few people try to go to solar and get the boom lowered on them for daring to do so.
Botany
(70,639 posts)You would think in sunny Neveda you would want to boost clean free energy
as a good thing but not if it takes $$$ from the rich and powerful.
* Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho are lost cases.
brush
(53,971 posts)Everyone knows of the solar energy potential that is now being wasted, but don't know of how windy it gets in Nevada, where there is also geothermal energy that can be developed. Energy storage and transmission solutions should be being developed here as we have abundant solar, wind and geothermal sources to get it all perfected, and with Tesla's huge new electric auto plant coming to Reno and their competitor Faraday coming to Las Vegas, both will be moving to expand from just automobiles but to home energy generation and storage systems as Tesla has already begun.
All of these energy sources are being wasted because the repugs want to protect their big energy clients who are still trying to preserve their old model of relying on fossil fuels to generate energy. They are becoming dinosaurs and don't even know it.
Botany
(70,639 posts)the problem w/solar is that it goes right to the house and you can't bill for it.
brush
(53,971 posts)Takket
(21,702 posts)MariaThinks
(2,495 posts)allan01
(1,950 posts)took getting rid of most of the rs to get things done. many neocons cant accecpt the fact that we now have a surplus again.
kimbutgar
(21,270 posts)Brownback won by 33,000 votes. And who really knows how many votes were tossed and not counted.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kobachs-voting-restrictions-hitting-young-new-voters-hardest
And then there's this:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/kris-kobach-voter-registration-aclu-lawsuit#bookmark-modal
Something really smells in Kansas, kind of like an organized crime party took it over.
leftyladyfrommo
(18,874 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)I guess she wants to take incremental steps.
book_worm
(15,951 posts)ffr
(22,677 posts)Republicans win because their base votes for their shitty candidates mostly based on wedge issues, like LGBT, gun ownership, religion, fear of terrorism, etc...
Democrats need to get off their dead asses and get to the polls so we can have elected officials who will approve the president's SCOTUS nominees, support clean air and clean water for future generations, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...
Not directed at you. Just venting about all those phucking whiners who rant about all the wrongs the Republicans do, but yet find every excuse possible to not show up on election day.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)lame54
(35,345 posts)To the contrary looks like things are working out pretty well in KS, by well I mean for the rich. People still have not figured out that these policies are designed to keep them uneducated and poor which makes them desperate and controllable.
valerief
(53,235 posts)If we want news, we have to go outside the U.S.
mudstump
(342 posts)there are SO MANY things they could be talking about, but we hear crickets. Does DWS even see or take the many opportunities to hammer the republicans and point out that their philosophy is fatally flawed? Even in campaign season we hear....what? Nothing. Using the republican run Kansas as a prime example is right there before their eyes and they say nothing. Attacks on women's rights and they say nothing. There are a million sounds bites that should be talked about every chance they get, but the DNC is pathetic. And, they wonder why people don't vote.
pampango
(24,692 posts)The conservative hits just keep on coming.
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)in the matter of oppressing the poor.
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)Great cover for not covering the real stories. They kept talking about journalism the other night at the WHCD I laughed out loud.