Kathleen Sebelius

Analysis: The Sebelius Court

January 20, 2009

Somehow, notice of a few things slipped by. First is the excellent Kansas Supreme Court Blog. I don’t know who is writing this blog, but it contains a great deal of information about its narrow topic. Second: From this blog I learned that the lawyer that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius recently appointed to the Kansas [...]

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Kansas Budget Lacks Solutions for Reform, says AFP’s Sontag

January 13, 2009

TOPEKA — The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity — Kansas released the following statement in response to the Governor’s FY 2009 and FY 2010 budget proposal: “The budget proposal released today offers no real solutions for budget reform, leaving it up to the Legislature to demonstrate some leadership at this important time,” said AFP [...]

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Not All Agree With New Kansas Energy Plan

January 13, 2009

Currie Meyers of the Kansas Federalist has a few issues with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius‘ energy plan. I can’t link directly to Meyers’ article, so I’ll reproduce it in its entirety here. Sebelius New Energy Plan Lacks Energy Governor Kathleen Sebelius unveiled weak and pathetic energy proposals that she hopes will help Kansas capitalize on [...]

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Kathleen Sebelius State of the State 2009: Collectivism Lite

January 13, 2009

In Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius‘ 2007 State of the State address collectivism was the theme: “Only a failure to act as ‘One Kansas’ can compromise our future and dash our hopes.” As shown in my post The Collectivism of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, this drive towards collectivism is a threat to liberty and the individual. [...]

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Sebelius’ Proposed Cuts Not Likely Enough

January 12, 2009

Martin Hawver explains that as bad as the Kansas budget situation is, Governor Kathleen Sebelius — at least for now — isn’t required to recognize the full depth of the crisis. The Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, comprised of fiscal wizards who, well, estimate future revenues into the State General Fund, predicts that revenues will fall [...]

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Kansas Speaker Mike O’Neal at AFP Summit

January 12, 2009

Representative Mike O’Neal, Republican from Hutchinson, is the new Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives. He spoke on January 10 at Americans For Prosperity‘s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita. His speech warned of tough times ahead, with a difficult job for both the legislature and citizens. Part of the problem is that [...]

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KU Study an Embarrassment to Sebelius

December 22, 2008

In the first study to measure the result of pouring all that money on the noggins of schoolkids, the University of Kansas’s Center for Applied Economics has released a study poetically entitled, “The Relationship between School Funding and Student Achievement in Kansas Public Schools.” The verdict? So far, the funding has produced “little evidence of improving student outcomes as measured by test scores.”

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Low marks for Gov. Sebelius on Cato Institute grade card

December 5, 2008

Americans For Prosperity — Kansas reported last month on Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius regarding taxation and spending in Kansas. As reported in Low marks for Gov. Sebelius on Cato Institute grade card, she doesn’t fare well. While supporting some business tax cuts, spending in Kansas has been out of control for some years. This rapid growth in spending and the constituencies that have become accustomed to it is what makes me believe that spending cuts will be difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish in the upcoming legislative session.

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Hard to believe, but not everyone in politics wants a free lunch

December 3, 2008

Writing in the Wall Street Journal (Governors Against State Bailouts), the governors of Texas and South Carolina argue against bailouts: “It is also taking our country in a very dangerous direction — toward a ‘bailout mentality’ where we look to government rather than ourselves for solutions.” Unfortunately, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius doesn’t agree. She’s very [...]

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Bailout-mania spreads to the states

December 2, 2008

Bailout-mania spreads to the states, and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is at the forefront. As reported in Kansas Liberty: Sebelius , a Democrat and vigorous Obama supporter who is rumored to be a candidate for a cabinet appointment, formally presented Obama with a request on behalf of the National Governors Association for $40 billion to [...]

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Susan Wagle for Kansas Senate President

November 30, 2008

Tomorrow, the Kansas Senate meets to select its leadership. Senate Republicans could do Kansans a favor by electing Susan Wagle of Wichita to be senate president.

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Climate change alarmism in Kansas is expensive

November 10, 2008

Today’s Wichita Eagle reports on the high cost of climate change mitigation. (Climate cleanup costs could trickle down) Before Kansans commit to expensive courses of action that will be ineffective, we need to consider the wisdom of this action.

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Untruths about carbon and its regulation at the Wichita Eagle

October 30, 2008

The Wichita Eagle’s recent editorial by Rhonda Holman takes a few Kansas legislators to task for statements regarding regulatory uncertainly in Kansas (No ‘regulatory uncertainty’ in Kansas, October 28, 2008 Wichita Eagle). She claims their statements “don’t reflect reality” and that their untruths are harming Kansas’ ability to bring in business.

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Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius: Different from You and I

October 24, 2008

Do different laws exist for Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and the rest of us? (At least the conservatives and libertarians among us?) The Kansas Meadowlark reports this: “Apparently Sebelius is exploiting a loop hole in Kansas law in using her PAC to attack conservatives. The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission said a similar new ‘Leadership’ PAC [...]

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How a Sub-prime Lender Influences Kansas Energy and Environment Policy

October 1, 2008

In an American Thinker article titled How allies of George Soros helped bring down Wachovia Bank, you can read about the business activities of Herbert and Marion Sandler: Herbert and Marion Sandler, a New York lawyer and Wall Street analyst respectively, bought a small California thrift in 1963 and built it into GDW [Golden West [...]

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Sebelius out of the office campaigning for Obama

September 25, 2008

Kansas Liberty reports that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is spending quite a bit of time out of our state campaigning for Barack Obama. The article Sebelius out of the office campaigning for Obama provides details. The article reports that some Kansas Republicans are not pleased with the governor being out of town so often, and [...]

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Rhonda Holman’s Kansas Energy Policy: Not Good for Kansas

September 24, 2008

Wichita Eagle editorialist Rhonda Holman writes “[Kansas Governor Kathleen] Sebelius gets it. Too bad the Kansas Chamber does not.” This is the end of her lead editorial from today titled Kansas Chamber protecting past. In it, she claims that the Kansas Chamber of Commerce is out of touch with the reality of global warming, and [...]

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Ohio School Choice Improves Public Schools

September 9, 2008

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has produced the report Promising Start — An Empirical Analysis of How EdChoice Vouchers Affect Ohio Public Schools, which finds these results:

This study finds that the EdChoice program produced academic improvements in voucher-eligible public schools. … This study adds to a large body of empirical research that consistently finds vouchers improve academic outcomes at public schools. Vouchers allow families to choose the right schools to meet their children’s needs and introduce competitive incentives for improvement that are lacking in the traditional government-run education system.

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Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group: Its Heritage

August 20, 2008

Paul Chesser of Climate Strategies Watch has done some investigative work looking into the background and affiliations of the Center for Climate Strategies. This is important because CCS is the radical environmentalist group that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is using to run the activities of the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or KEEP. [...]

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Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group: Hiding Budget Numbers

August 13, 2008

Paul Chesser of Climate Strategies Watch writes about the budget transparency of the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or KEEP. Kansas government often has troubles with transparency. One of the main problems with KEEP is that policy is being formulated under the guidance of an outside radical environmentalist group, instead of in the [...]

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Maryland Previews Kansas Climate Change Panel

August 11, 2008

In Kansas, the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or KEEP, is meeting and planning the future of Kansas energy policy. If we want to see what the conclusions of this effort will look like, we can look to the just-completed effort in Maryland. Yes, we’ll have to make a few adjustments, as Maryland [...]

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Kansas owns the carbon, says the governor

July 24, 2008

Sometimes I read about the things Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius says and I wonder how does she arrive at such outlandish conclusions.

An example is in the article Gov. Sebelius gives interview to Grist about KS coal controversy, where our governor says this regarding a proposed coal-fired power plant expansion in Kansas: “Very little of the power that was scheduled to be produced was for Kansas. It actually was electricity that would be exported to Colorado and Texas, yet we would own the carbon. “

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KEEP’s Goal is Predetermined and Ineffectual

July 22, 2008

Earlier this year, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius created the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or KEEP. Its goal, as stated in the press release announcing its creation, is to “…explore opportunities in all sectors of our economy to accomplish the goal of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions…” Nancy Jackson of the Climate and [...]

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Jack Pelton, Leader of Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group

July 15, 2008

Earlier this year, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius created the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP) and appointed Cessna Aircraft Company chairman, president and chief executive officer Jack Pelton as its leader. This was a smart political move by Governor Sebelius. She appears to have put the planning for our state’s energy future in [...]

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Kansas Climate Profile: Cause For Alarm?

July 14, 2008

The Science and Public Policy Institute has released a series of state climate profiles. The Kansas Climate Profile is very interesting to read, especially in light of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and the creation of the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or (KEEP). One of the things that I’ve not been able to [...]

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Kansas environmental policy is full of uncertainty

July 9, 2008

A dubious claim made in this editorial is how “Neither Bremby nor Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is ‘out front’ on this issue [carbon emissions].” Jackson claims that Bremby was just following an inevitable trend towards more regulation of carbon emissions. But this is in direct opposition to news reports at the time. The Washington Post, for example, reported “The Kansas Department of Health and Environment yesterday became the first government agency in the United States to cite carbon dioxide emissions as the reason for rejecting an air permit for a proposed coal-fired electricity generating plant, saying that the greenhouse gas threatens public health and the environment.” (Power Plant Rejected Over Carbon Dioxide For First Time)

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Who Owns and Runs the KEEP Website?

July 9, 2008

The Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP) has an impressive-looking website located at ksclimatechange.us. Just by looking at it, you’d think it was an official State of Kansas website, complete with a photograph of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and our state seal. But who actually owns this website? A check reveals that the [...]

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Earthjustice in Kansas: The Press Release

July 2, 2008

I’ve recently learned that the radical environmentalist group Earthjustice played a role in the rejection of a coal-fired power plant in Kansas. I didn’t learn that from any Kansas news source, but only from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and only then long after the permit for the plant was denied. See Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius [...]

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Earthjustice in Kansas: What is Their Agenda?

June 29, 2008

Yesterday I posted Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius at Earthjustice, about Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius speaking at a event hosted by Earthjustice, a group that I believe has a radical environmentalist agenda.

Just what is the agenda of the group? Do they have the interests of Kansas in mind, or something else?

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Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius at Earthjustice

June 28, 2008

On June 26, 2008, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius spoke at an event hosted by Earthjustice (motto: “Because the earth needs a good lawyer”). By the next day, Earthjustice already had a self-congratulatory professionally-produced video available at Earthjustice & Kansas Governor Talk Clean Energy.

Evidently, Earthjustice, previously known as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, was involved in the events leading up to the denial of the permit for Sunflower Electric Power Corporation’s Holcomb Station coal-fired electricity generating plant expansion.

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Socialism And Big Government Expand In Kansas

June 27, 2008

State owned and operated casinos are constitutional and permissible in Kansas. The extremely activist and left-wing Kansas Supreme Court unanimously ruled June 27 that state owned and operated casinos were legal in Kansas. For many statehouse observers this wasn’t a surprise.

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Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group: Good for Kansas?

June 26, 2008

Yesterday’s Wichita Eagle editorial by Randy Scholfield (Climate group could help state) supports Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius and her hand-picked Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP). Together with an earlier article in the same newspaper (Climate group to assist state on energy plan, June 22, 2008), Kansans have plenty to be worried about as our governor seeks to burnish her national reputation as a green governor as she makes plans for her post-gubernatorial career.

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The Energy Policy Goals of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius

May 27, 2008

The Kansas Meadowlark gets it just right in this quote from a recent article: “Unfortunately Sebelius’ energy policy is more about winning elections than solving long-term energy problems.”

Most Kansans realize that Kathleen Sebelius’ national ambitions are more important to her than the good governance of the State of Kansas. Her policy switch on the desirability of coal-fired power plants in Kansas helps her nationally, but hurts us here in Kansas.

The Meadowlark’s full story is here: GPACE PAC/Sebelius only want unreliable energy sources for Kansas?

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Kansas Under Kathleen Sebelius: Poverty Grows Quickly

May 13, 2008

Denis Boyles dissects the 2007 Kansas Economic Report and discovers something growing quickly in Kansas under its governor Kathleen Sebelius: poor children. He quotes the report as follows:

The number of Kansans estimated to be living below the poverty threshold in 2004 totaled 297,733, or more than 11.0 percent of the total population. From 2000 to 2004, Kansas poverty increased 26.6 percent while poverty in the U.S. went up 17.3 percent. From 2000 to 2004, the number of people in Kansas living below the poverty level increased more rapidly than the state’s population as a whole, with a 26.6 percent increase in poverty and a 1.7 percent increase in population.

Since a low in 2000, the number of people under the age of 18 in poverty in Kansas has increased by nearly 20.0 percent, reaching more than 98,000 people in 2004. This rate was higher than the national rate which increased at 12.5 percent. Additionally, the number of people under age five in poverty in Kansas has increased 27.5 percent in the past five years compared to 15.1 percent for the nation.

Read the entire analysis as published on Kansas Liberty here: Into poverty, with difficulty.

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It’s Nice to be a Friend of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius

May 11, 2008

The Kansas Meadowlark again stirs up controversy in reporting on the travel of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius.

The “rates” charged for flying an aircraft like this are, in my opinion, totally misleading. The rate may reflect the actual variable costs involved for the time the plane is in the air. I believe, however, that the rates do not account for the fixed cost of owning an asset worth some $4 million.

Read the article here: Friend of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius? Did you get to fly the State of Kansas Executive Aircraft with Kathleen to the NCAA basketball tournament in San Antonio?

(By the way, Meadowlark, I like your switch to a WordPress blog. I especially like that now your site publishes an RSS feed, which I subscribe to.)

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Open records in Kansas

March 6, 2008

Recently I was recruited to participate in the Sunshine Blogger Project. Its purpose is to “find out whether America’s governors properly archive the e-mail that comes into and goes out of their offices, and are able to provide copies of those e-mails when members of the public request them.”

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Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius scores low again

January 15, 2008

In the Cato Institute’s Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors for 2006, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius earns the grade of “D.” She earned the same grade on their previous survey.

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Is the teflon off the Sebelius administration?

December 7, 2007

Second terms are often difficult and contentious for Kansas governors. Bill Graves’ second term was filled with higher taxes, a record long legislative session and imbroglio oversoaring state spending, and a weakened Kansas economy in his last year, 2002.

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The collectivism of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius

November 3, 2007

A few excerpts from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius‘s inaugural address from January 2007:

Yet our opportunities will be limited only if we fail to come together around a shared vision for our state. Only a failure to act as “One Kansas” can compromise our future and dash our hopes.

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It’s not yours to cut

April 24, 2007

It’s the people who “give” tax money to the government, not the government who “gives” it back to the people in the form of tax cuts. If the government cuts taxes, the government gives us nothing. It simply takes less of what is ours in the first place.

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Higher Education Wants A Spending Spree

February 27, 2007

Soaring spending has not been spent evenly. The six Regents universities in Kansas initially asked for $727 million to fix deeply neglected buildings at these campuses. Governor Sebelius has performed a valuable service by responding that the Kansas Turnpike have higher tolls to fund this spending.

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