Brownback stays mum

Former Republican Kansas Gov. Mike Hayden has endorsed Democrat Laura Kelly in this year’s race for governor. That means only one living Kansas governor has stayed totally out of the race: Republican Sam Brownback.

Though out of office, Brownback remains an issue in the election, said Washburn University Political Scientist Bob Beatty.

“His shadow looms really large, both for the people who liked him and didn’t like him,” Beatty said. “This election is still in many ways a referendum on Sam Brownback.”

Kris Kobach, Republican, has worked to distance himself from  Brownback, though he has said he would reinstate his tax cuts.

Hayden served as governor from 1987 to 1991 and later worked in Democratic administrations as the secretary of wildlife and parks. Hayden said Kobach would repeat policies from the Brownback years.

Sitting Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer quickly endorsed Kobach after Kobach beat him in the primary election.

Former Democratic governors Kathleen Sebelius, John Carlin and Mark Parkinson have backed Kelly.

Former Republican Gov. Bill Graves endorsed Kelly last month.

Kansas works to speed up driver’s license renewals

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials say several changes should decrease the time people spend renewing their driver’s licenses.

Starting today, people ages 21-50 can renew licenses through the Department of Revenue’s iKan mobile app and online at https://ikan.ks.gov/ .

The department said in a news release Monday that people who want a Real Id must go into a driver’s license office but the state plans to eventually make that process available through the iKan app.

The department also has updated its KanLicense software program, which should decrease processing time.

And most driver’s license offices in Kansas will be open longer, starting next week. Most offices are adding Monday service and will be open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Offices will still have the option to open on Saturdays during peak times.

Remains of WWII soldier to be buried in Kansas

ARCADIA, Kan. (AP) — The remains of a Kansas soldier killed in World War II will be laid to rest in his home state Wednesday.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency says the remains of 33-year-old Army Pfc. Leslie E. Shankles, of Arcadia, are being returned to his family for burial in Fort Scott with full military honors.

Shankles’ remains were accounted for July 12. He was killed by enemy fire in October 1944 in Hurtgen Forest in Germany.

The agency says a local German resident discovered remains in 1947. They could not be identified so they were buried as unknown in the Neuville Cemetery, now Ardennes American Cemetery, in Belgium.

Shankles’ name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Margraten, Netherlands.

Eisenhower statue dedicated

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A statue of President Dwight D. Eisenhower has been unveiled on the Statehouse grounds.

Gov. Jeff Colyer praised Eisenhower at the dedication Monday as a man who “changed the face of America forever.” He noted Eisenhower’s role as Supreme Allied Commander during World War II and then later his presidential accomplishments, which included creating the interstate system.

The privately funded 7-foot tall bronze statue depicts Eisenhower speaking to a group of U.S. soldiers preparing to parachute into Normandy in June 1944.

Eisenhower was born in Texas but was raised in Abilene, Kansas. He also is honored at the Statehouse with a folk-art statue in the second-floor rotunda and a smaller one in the basement visitor’s center. His portrait hangs outside the governor’s second-floor office.

Master gardeners complete training

Nineteen individuals recently completed the Master Gardener training sponsored by the Southwind Extension District. The class participants received in-depth classroom training on all aspects of gardening, flowers, turfgrass, trees and fruit production. During the spring and summer of 2019, class participants will complete 40 hours of community volunteer service on projects centered around horticulture.

Cotton crop faces rain trouble

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — Recent heavy rain is threatening Kansas’ cotton crop, which is ready or nearly ready for harvesting.

Rain can dislodge cotton lint from the plant and decrease yields, The Hutchinson News reported. Water can also cause color from the plant’s stems or leaves to bleed onto the lint and damage the quality.

Rex Friesen, a consultant for Southern Kansas Cotton Growers, said the crop appears to be holding up despite the wet weather.

“It could be a problem, but it turns out the more I’m getting out into fields, the more impressed I am,” he said. “Hard driving rain can knock cotton off the plant, but so far I haven’t seen a lot of that happening.”

Harvesting should resume this week if the weather remains dry, Friesen said.

About 77 percent of bolls have opened in Kansas, up from 70 percent this time last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Crop Progress and Condition Report. About 2 percent of cotton had been harvested earlier this month before rain halted work, the USDA said.

Parts of the southeastern U.S. have also been hit by rain from Hurricane Michael. Georgia, the second largest cotton producing state, had many cotton fields decimated. The Texas Panhandle has also seen its cotton crop suffer because of drought.

“You can’t take that much cotton out of the system without it affecting the market,” Friesen said. “We don’t like to see that happening to producers in those states, but prices could potentially go up because of it.”

Sonny Perdue to speak at KSU

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Agricultural Secretary Sonny Perdue is speaking next month at Kansas State University.

Perdue’s Nov. 1 appearance is part of the Landon Lecture series. The series is named for former Kansas Gov. Alf Landon, who was the 1936 Republican nominee for president. The series was established in 1966 to bring in speakers to discuss issues facing business, politics and international relations.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

China has heartland in cross hairs

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — China’s propaganda machine has taken aim at American soybean farmers as part of its high-stakes trade war with the Trump administration.

The publication last month of a four-page advertising section in the Des Moines Register opened a new battle line in China’s effort to break the administration’s resolve. U.S. farmers are a key political constituency for Trump, and Beijing has imposed tariffs on American soybeans as retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on hundreds of billions in Chinese imports.

China regularly disseminates propaganda in the West through its China Daily newspaper to try to influence public opinion. But the advertorial in the Register was unusual for deploying not a national publication in New York or Washington but a newspaper in the farm state of Iowa.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this in a heartland city,” said Matt Schrader, who edits the China Brief newsletter for the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington research institute that monitors China’s actions.

The Iowa newspaper section was explicitly labeled a product of China Daily, China’s official English language newspaper. The articles were clearly geared to try to soften the image of China and its president, Xi Jinping. With headlines ranging from “Dispute: Fruit of a president’s folly” and “Book tells of Xi’s fun days in Iowa” to Kung Fu skill helps light up life path” and “China seeks pacts on robotics,” the message was a not-very-subtle one about the friendly way Beijing wants to be seen in the farm belt.

Ken Doctor, a longtime media analyst, noted that newspapers have been struggling to replace revenue lost from declining subscriptions and print advertisements moving online. He suggested that when publications run propaganda like the “China Watch” sections, they should take care to be fully explicit about the source.

“I’d like to see newspapers that run this include an editor’s note to be transparent about what this is,” said Doctor, who runs the Newsonomics website.

Many experts say they doubt the propaganda drive in the United States will likely succeed. Chinese officials are used to operating at home, where the central government controls all major media outlets.

“U.S. farmers and manufacturers are smart enough to understand their self-interest,” said Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations. “They don’t need a Chinese newspaper insert to tell them how to think about the relationship between tariffs and their exports to China.”

 

Letter to the editor — October 23, 2018

Dear editor,

Good morning!! When I stepped out onto my porch to get my mail this morning, a flyer was in my mailbox. You might keep in mind, as you read this, that there was a reason, a big one, that I not only promoted Bruce Symes in the primary election, which he won, but helped with serving the constituents water, ice cold lemonade, and candy bars, along with basic information on Bruce’s  history here in Allen County during the Allen County Fair back in August of this year. On this flyer, Mr. Brocker makes a point to underline and put in bold typeface the statement that neither Bruce nor the third candidate owns property  (I haven’t checked this supposed fact yet myself) and then goes on to assert that neither have a “vested”  interest in our county, based solely on this assertion. 

Bruce has worked in, and lived in the county as long as I can remember … both for the Iola Register and for Allen Community College. No “investment” in our community? I don’t think that is accurate at all.

Look at the list Mr. Brocker compiled on this flyer, which he drove around our neighborhood stuffing them into mailboxes (by the way, this is not allowed per the United States Post Office) this past weekend. 

What really caught my eye?  The items where he will cut our property taxes yet improve our infrastructure.

I would like to know his plan to do these at the same time.

On the subject of Allen County Regional Hospital, with the exception of the non-informed few, I have heard from the employees (I was formerly employed there) nothing but good, positive remarks about the current state of greatly improved  employee morale. I’ve experienced it as a patient, as well as an advocate, POA (power of attorney), daughter-in-law, and  wife to patients there.  The services that are available there, the new facilities, and the speciality clinics connected to ACRH, in addition to many other improvements leave me wondering which “coffee group” Mr. Brocker is getting his information from, as well as how dated said information is.

The date stamp on the photo on this flyer reads 4-26-2012. 

My point? Mr. Brocker was over-confident in his long-standing existence here in that he assumed he could win the primary simply by “throwing his hat into the ring.”

I watched as Bruce took weeks walking door to door personally asking people what they thought about Allen County and its needs.  And he really listened. He did not attack his running mates verbally to anyone. His integrity is above that nonsense. And that was shown in the results of the primary. 

Mr. Brocker is hoping (again, my opinion only) to blanket Iola with hastily thrown together, generic flyers that list a few, general concerns that will strike a chord with anyone glancing over this flyer.  You might take note:  any information Bruce dispersed included his phone number. And he encouraged people to call if they had further thoughts or concerns. There is no phone number on Mr. Brocker’s information sheet.  Mr. Brocker attached a little card to encourage people to share his face and his effort to win by write-in ballots.

I have to question someone’s sincerity when they didn’t do the work initially to earn the people’s vote and now is doing a “last minute” grab to hold onto the office.  Bruce Symes truly wants to do the honest, hard work of being a county commissioner.  It is not just a passing interest.

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

Sincerely,
Renee Brosseau-Trembly,
Iola, Kan.

 

KU first, KSU 12th in preseason poll

(AP) — The Kansas men’s basketball team is a comfortable No. 1 in the Associated Press preseason basketball poll released Monday.

KU received 37 of 65 first-place votes, which easily outpaced second-place Kentucky when it came to total points (1,581-1,529).

“Obviously we lost a lot off last year’s team with Devonte’, Svi (Mykhailiuk) and Malik (Newman), so I’m a little surprised that the writers put us there this preseason,” KU coach Bill Self said in a statement to the Associated Press. “It’s definitely a spot we welcome and certainly know the goal is to be playing to that ranking by when it counts the most.

“With the young players, we know it’s going to take some time before we’re anywhere close to where we’re going to be, but I do like this team and I think we have a chance to be very good.”

Gonzaga was third, followed by Duke and Virginia.

Kansas State was 12th, while other Big 12 schools West Virginia (13) and TCU (20) also earned an initial ranking.

KU previously was ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP poll in the 2004-05 and 2009-10 seasons.

Preseason AP poll
Team (First-place votes) Points

1. Kansas (37) 1,581

2. Kentucky (19) 1,529

3. Gonzaga (1) 1,461

4. Duke (4) 1,452

5. Virginia (2) 1,286

6. Tennessee (1) 1,268

7. Nevada 1,230

8. North Carolina 1,221

9. Villanova (1) 1,085

10. Michigan State 1,024

11. Auburn 974

12. Kansas State 922

13. West Virginia 678

14. Oregon 638

15. Virginia Tech 630

16. Syracuse 620

17. Florida State 530

18. Mississippi State 451

19. Michigan 437

20. TCU 311

21. UCLA 297

22. Clemson 268

23. LSU 187

24. Purdue 170

25. Washington 165

Others receiving votes: Loyola Chicago 162, Marquette 124, Indiana 98, Florida 71, Nebraska 35, Maryland 28, Wisconsin 24, Notre Dame 22, Cincinnati 21, Alabama 15, Central Florida 15, Arizona 14, Buffalo 14, Louisville 11, Miami 10, San Diego State 9, Butler 6, Southern California 6, Texas Tech 6, Texas 5, Arizona State 3, St. John’s 3, Providence 2, Xavier 2, Davidson 1, Marshall 1, Missouri 1, N.C. State 1.