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Trade row deepens: China ups tariffs on $60B in US goods

BEIJING (AP) — Deepening a trade battle and sending financial markets spinning, China announced Monday it was raising tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods in retaliation for the latest hike in U.S. tariffs on its exports.

The Finance Ministry said Monday the new penalty duties of 5% to 25% on hundreds of U.S. products including batteries, spinach and coffee will take effect June 1.

That followed Trump’s increase on Friday of duties on $200 billion of Chinese imports from 10% to 25% after charging that China had backtracked on commitments it made in earlier negotiations in a dispute over Beijing’s technology ambitions and perennial trade surplus.

Resuming his messages over Twitter early Monday, President Donald Trump warned Chinese President Xi Jinping  that China “will be hurt very badly” if it doesn’t agree to a trade deal.

Trump tweeted China “had a great deal, almost completed, & you backed out!”

Trump insisted the tariffs the U.S. has placed on Chinese goods don’t hurt American consumers, saying there is “no reason for the U.S. Consumer to pay the Tariffs.”

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow acknowledged Sunday that U.S. consumers and businesses pay the tariffs. “Both sides will pay,” he told Fox News.

China had vowed “necessary countermeasures” on Friday against Trump’s escalation of the tariff conflict.

Frazzled by the uncertainty, shares sank Monday across the globe. Futures contracts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were down 2 percent before markets opened on Wall Street.

Beijing is running out of U.S. imports for penalties due to the lopsided trade balance between the world’s two largest economies. Regulators have targeted American companies in China by slowing down customs clearance for shipments and processing of business licenses.

The new tariffs are likely to hurt exporters on both sides, as well as European and Asian companies that trade between the United States and China or supply components and raw materials to their manufacturers.

The increases already in place have disrupted trade in goods from soybeans to medical equipment and sent shockwaves through other Asian economies that supply Chinese factories.

Forecasters have warned that the U.S. tariff hikes could disrupt a Chinese recovery that had appeared to be gaining traction. Growth in the world’s second-largest economy held steady at 6.4% over a year earlier in January-March, supported by higher government spending and bank lending.

The tensions “raise fresh doubts about this recovery path,” Morgan Stanley economists Robin Xing, Jenny Zheng and Zhipeng Cai said in a report.

The latest U.S. charges could knock 0.5 percentage points off annual Chinese economic growth and that loss could widen to 1 percentage point if both sides extend penalties to all of each other’s exports, economists say. That would pull annual growth below 6%, raising the risk of politically dangerous job losses.

The latest talks ended with no word of progress on Friday. Chinese officials said they hoped that the U.S. side would meet them halfway, describing the standoff as just a “setback.”

Trump might meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during next month’s meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Osaka, said Kudlow, his economic adviser.

Chinese officials have invited the top U.S. envoys – Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin -to Beijing, Kudlow said on Fox News. But he said there were no “definite plans.”

China’s state media has sought to reassure businesses and consumers that the ruling Communist Party has the resources and policy tools to respond to the dispute with Washington.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” said the party newspaper People’s Daily. “The U.S.-instigated trade war against China is just a hurdle in China’s development process. It is no big deal.”

Trump started raising tariffs last July over complaints China steals or pressures companies to hand over technology.

Washington wants Beijing to roll back government support for Chinese companies striving to become global leaders in robotics and other technology. The U.S. and other trading partners say such efforts violate Beijing’s free-trade commitments.

A stumbling block has been U.S. insistence on an enforcement mechanism with penalties to ensure Beijing carries out its commitments. Economists say Chinese leaders probably reject that as a violation of Chinese sovereignty.

The abruptness of Trump’s announcement on May 5, just days before the last round of talks, about raising tariffs to 25% made companies see doing business in China as more uncertain, said Jake Parker, vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council, an industry group.

No matter what Washington and Beijing decide, “there is an enormous risk in the background that tariffs could come back into play at any moment,” he said.

Marvin ‘Red’ Wycoff

Marvin “Red” Wycoff of Shawnee, KS passed away Monday, May 6, 2019.

Marvin was born in Radium, KS to Estol and Golda Wycoff; he was the youngest of five children. Marvin grew up in Radium, KS but moved to Huntington Park, CA for five years with his family when he was a teenager, before returning to Kansas. He graduated from Radium High School and attended Fort Hays State University in Hays, KS. Marvin served in the Army from 1954 to 1956; he was the Secretary to the General at the 225th Station Hospital in Garmisch, Germany.

In 1958 Marvin purchased the Varsity Bowl Drive In in Hays, KS, which he operated until 1992. The Varsity Bowl was a popular place for teenagers to hang out and “Red” was liked and respected by many of his customers and former employees. He also sold real estate in Hays, KS for Ellner-Bickle Realty (Dean Ellner Realtors) and in Kansas City with JD Reece (Reece-Nichols). In his retirement, Marvin also worked for Enterprise and made many good friends there.

Marvin married the love of his life, Mary Trimble, on December 18, 1960. He is survived by his wife, Mary, Shawnee, KS; his daughter and son-in-law Kim and Chuck Pisano and his beloved grandson, Adam Pisano, all of Lenexa, KS. He is also survived by his sister in law May Wycoff and many loving nieces and nephews. Marvin was preceded in death by his siblings, Arlys (Margaret) Wycoff, Otis Wycoff, Vivian (Marty) DeSantis and Lloyd Wycoff.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, June 1 at 11:00 a.m. at the Shawnee United Methodist Church 10700 Johnson Drive, Shawnee, KS 66203. A luncheon will follow at the Village Cooperative 12830 Johnson Drive, Shawnee, KS 66216.

Albert Edward Newton

Albert Edward Newton passed away May 4, 2019, at the age of 94, in Hutchinson. He was born January 27, 1925, near Dexter, to William W. and Jennie Belle (Rosenberry) Newton.

During World War II he served as a medic on a transport ship that carried troops across the Pacific into combat and brought home the wounded. Albert was an elementary school teacher and coach at Nashville, Shallow Water, Brookville, Cambridge, Carlton, White City and Benton, all located in Kansas. In 1969, after earning his masters degree from Emporia University, Albert became a grade school principal at Northern Valley School District. Albert later served as Superintendent of Grinnell, El-Saline and Conway Springs school districts, where he retired in 1985.

He married Barbara Ramsey in 1950, in Arkansas City. She survives. Other survivors include: sons and daughters-in-laws, Chris and Janet, Hutchinson, Craig and Kristy, Decatur, TX, and Clint and Joann, Salina; seven grandchildren; ten great-grandchildren; and one great-great- grandson.

Graveside service will be 1:00 p.m. Saturday, May 25, 2019, at Hope Cemetery, Arkansas City. A reception will follow at Saint Paul’s Church in Arkansas City. Memorials may be made to Arkansas City Retired Teachers’ Scholarship Fund, in care of Elliott Mortuary, 1219 N. Main, Hutchinson, KS 6750

La Crosse to dedicate historic one-room school to fallen veteran

The Society moved the former Pleasant Point one-room school from its location six miles south of Nekoma to Grass Park in La Crosse in February 2015. The school is one of the last remaining from a time when there were over 80 in the county. Pictured is the school building on the original site in 2014.

Rush County Historical Society

LA CROSSE — The Rush County Historical Society will be hosting a dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 25, at the museum complex on West 1st Street in La Crosse for the Pleasant Point School Museum and the Roger Greenway Memorial Flagpole.

Records for District 24, Pleasant Point School, date back to the 1880s. In 1907, George Sheets built the present building six and one-half miles south of the town of Nekoma in southwestern Rush County. After consolidation closed the school in the spring of 1959, the Seltman family, many of whom had attended the school, maintained the building and preserved nearly all of its original books and furnishings. In the fall of 2014, the owner of the building donated it and its contents to the Historical Society to ensure its preservation for future generations. On February 18, 2015, the Society moved it to the museum complex in La Crosse citing its value as “an educational resource to tell the story of a time when over 80 one-room schools dotted the landscape of Rush County.” In addition to its original collections, the school will also house collections from innovative pioneer educator Howard Barnard, founder of Entre Nous College near McCracken.

Members of the Greenway family donated the Roger Greenway Memorial Flagpole in memory of SSG Roger K. Greenway, great-grandson of William Mottern Greenway who homesteaded in Rush County in 1880. Staff Sergeant Greenway was born in La Crosse, Kansas on July 4, 1947 to Milford K. Greenway and Ruth Lebsack Greenway. He enlisted in the United States Army on March 27, 1968, began his tour in Vietnam on March 13, 1969, and was killed in action at Quang Tin Province, Vietnam on January 1, 1970. As part of the ceremony, the family will donate a collection of Greenway family records and photographs dating back over 100 years.

The Rush County Historical Society now operates the former District 24, Pleasant Point school as a museum and hands-on educational facility. The school contains most of its original furnishings.

A collection of handmade toys built by Wesley, Harvey, and Marvin Becker while they attended Pleasant Point School in the late 1920s will be on display during the dedication. The three brothers were serving in the United States Navy on the USS Arizona during the attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Wesley and Harvey went down with the ship but Marvin survived.

Local businessmen incorporated the Rush County Historical Society in May 1963 to maintain a collection of historical records and to preserve and protect the heritage of Rush County and the region. In addition to the Pleasant Point School Museum, the Society operates three other museums, the Post Rock, Rush County Historical, and Nekoma Bank. The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum is also located in the complex.

For more information, visit the website at www.rushcounty.org or call 785-222-2808.

Larry Kent Hrabik

Larry Kent Hrabik passed away on Friday, January 18, 2019 at his home in Omaha, Nebraska at the age of 82. Larry was born on April 30, 1936 in Wilson, Kansas to Henry and Viola (Cook) Hrabik. He grew up in Wilson, Kansas and graduated from Wilson High School with the Class of 1955. After graduation, he joined the United States Air Force in 1956. He was united in marriage to Phayllis (Boothe) Hrabik in 1957 in Topeka, Kansas. To this union Mike and Ron were born.

When Larry was discharged from the Air Force, he moved to Omaha, Nebraska in the late 50’s, then back to his hometown in 2001 until 2015 and after the passing of his wife, he moved back to Omaha, to be closer to his kids. For the majority of Larry’s life he spent it working as a water well driller for Layne-Western. His spare time was spent fishing, doing some farm work, and he was known for his Tin-Man creations which he sold over a broad area. Larry wasn’t only lucky in love and friendships but he was a High Roller gambling man and enjoyed playing his luck at casinos.

Larry is survived by his sons, Mike and Ron Hrabik of Omaha, NE; brothers Henry Jr. Hrabik of Colorado Springs, CO, Don and wife Janice of Merriman, KS; sister Pat and husband Fred Inbody of Independence, MO; grandchildren Jon Therkildsen, Christopher Lancaster, Jessica Therkildsen, and Mike Hrabik; and one great-grandchild Emma Therkildsen.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Henry and Viola Hrabik; and wife Phayllis Hrabik.
A book signing will be on Thursday, May 23, 2019 at Plumer-Overlease Funeral Home in Wilson from 2:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. Memorial Graveside service will be held at the Wilson Cemetery on Friday, May 24, 2019 at 1:00 p.m.

Memorials are suggested in Larry’s name and may be sent in care of Plumer-Overlease Funeral Home, 320 SW 2nd Street, Plainville, KS 67663.

Legendary actress and singer Doris Day dead at 97

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Doris Day, the honey-voiced singer and actress whose film dramas, musicals and innocent sex comedies made her a top star in the 1950s and ’60s and among the most popular screen actresses in history, has died. She was 97.

Courtesy Doris Day Foundation

The Doris Day Animal Foundation confirmed Day died early Monday at her Carmel Valley, California, home. The foundation said she was surrounded by close friends.

“Day had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia, resulting in her death,” the foundation said in an emailed statement.

With her lilting contralto, wholesome blonde beauty and glowing smile, she was a top box office draw and recording artist known for such films as “Pillow Talk” and “That Touch of Mink” and for such songs as “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” from the Alfred Hitchcock film “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

But over time, she became more than a name above the title: Right down to her cheerful, alliterative stage name, she stood for a time of innocence and G-rated love, a parallel world to her contemporary Marilyn Monroe. The running joke, attributed to both Groucho Marx and actor-composer Oscar Levant, was that they had known Day “before she was a virgin.”

Day herself was no Doris Day, by choice and by hard luck.

In “Pillow Talk,” released in 1959 and her first of three films with Rock Hudson, she proudly caught up with what she called “the contemporary in me.” Her 1976 tell-all book, “Doris Day: Her Own Story,” chronicled her money troubles and three failed marriages, contrasting with the happy publicity of her Hollywood career.

“I have the unfortunate reputation of being Miss Goody Two-Shoes, America’s Virgin, and all that, so I’m afraid it’s going to shock some people for me to say this, but I staunchly believe no two people should get married until they have lived together,” she wrote.

She never won an Academy Award, but Day was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, as George W. Bush declared it “a good day for America when Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff of Evanston, Ohio decided to become an entertainer.”

In recent years, she spent much of her time advocating for animal rights. Although mostly retired from show business since the 1980s, she still had enough of a following that a 2011 collection of previously unreleased songs, “My Heart,” hit the top 10 in the United Kingdom. The same year, she received a lifetime achievement honor from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Friends and supporters lobbied for years to get her an honorary Oscar.

Born to a music teacher and a housewife, she had dreamed of a dance career, but at age 12, she suffered a crippling accident: a car she was in was hit by a train and her leg was badly broken. Listening to the radio while recuperating, she began singing along with Ella Fitzgerald, “trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words.”

Day began singing in a Cincinnati radio station, then a local nightclub, then in New York. A bandleader changed her name to Day, after the song “Day after Day,” to fit it on a marquee.

A marriage at 17 to trombonist Al Jorden ended when, she said, he beat her when she was eight months pregnant. She gave birth to her son, Terry, in early 1942. Her second marriage also was short-lived. She returned to Les Brown’s band after the first marriage broke up.

Her Hollywood career began after she sang at a Hollywood party in 1947. After early stardom as a band singer and a stint at Warner Bros., Day won the best notices of her career with “Love Me or Leave Me,” the story of songstress Ruth Etting and her gangster husband-manager. She initially balked at it, but the 1955 film became a box-office and critical success.

She followed with another impressive film, Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” starring her and James Stewart as an innocent couple ensnared in an international assassination plot. She sings “Que Sera, Sera” just as the story reaches its climax and viewers are beside themselves with suspense. The 1958 comedy “Teacher’s Pet” paired her with an aging Clark Gable as an idealistic college journalism teacher and her student, an old-school newspaper editor.

But she found her greatest success in slick, stylish sex comedies, beginning with her Oscar-nominated role in “Pillow Talk.” She and Hudson were two New Yorkers who shared a telephone party line and initially hated each other.

She followed with “The Thrill of It All,” playing a housewife who gains fame as a TV pitchwoman to the chagrin of obstetrician husband James Garner. The nation’s theater owners voted her the top moneymaking star in 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1964.

Her first musical hit was the 1945 smash, “Sentimental Journey,” when she was barely in her 20s. Among the other songs she made famous were “Everybody Loves a Lover,” ”Secret Love,” and “It’s Magic,” a song from “Romance on the High Seas,” her first film.

Critic Gary Giddins called her “the coolest and sexiest female singer of slow-ballads in movie history.”

“Romance on the High Seas” had been designed for Judy Garland, then Betty Hutton. Both bowed out, and Day, recommended by songwriters Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, won the role. Warner Bros. cashed in on its new star with a series of musicals, including “My Dream Is Yours,” ”Tea for Two” and “Lullaby of Broadway.” Her dramas included “Young Man with a Horn,” with Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall, and “Storm Warning,” with Ronald Reagan and Ginger Rogers.

Her last film was “With Six You Get Eggroll,” a 1968 comedy about a widow and a widower and the problems they have when blending their families.

With movies trending for more explicit sex, she turned to television to recoup her finances. “The Doris Day Show” was a moderate success in its 1966-1973 run on CBS.

Disillusionment grew in the 1960s when she discovered that failed investments by her third husband, Martin Melcher, left her deeply in debt. She eventually won a multimillion-dollar judgment against their lawyer.

She had married Melcher, who worked in her agent’s office, in 1951. He became her manager, and her son took his name. In most of the films following “Pillow Talk,” Melcher was listed as co-producer. Melcher died in 1969.

In her autobiography, Day recalled her son, Terry Melcher, telling her the $20 million she had earned had vanished and she owed around $450,000, mostly for taxes.

In 1974, Day won a $22.8 million judgment against Jerome B. Rosenthal, her lawyer and business manager, for mishandling of her and Melcher’s assets.

Terry Melcher, who died in 2004, became a songwriter and record producer, working with such stars as the Beach Boys. But he was also famous for an aspiring musician he turned down, Charles Manson. When Manson and his followers embarked on their murderous rampage in 1969, they headed for the house once owned by Melcher and instead came upon actress Sharon Tate and some visitors, all of whom were killed.

Day married a fourth time at age 52, to businessman Barry Comden in 1976. She lived in Monterey, California, devoting much of her time to the Doris Day Animal Foundation.

Science and Mathematics Education Institute summer camps for 2019

FHSU

Robo Challenge Camp   https://www.fhsu.edu/smei/camps/2019-robo-challenge

Are you interested in robotics and want to challenge your skills in problem solving and programming, then, this robotics camp is for you. Students will face a variety of challenges where   creativity and critical thinking will allow you to build a custom robot that can operate in real world situations.  Space is limited to first 24 participants.

Who:   Students Entering  Grades 6th – 8th in Fall 2019

When:  June 3 – 6, 2019    1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Where: FHSU, Custer Hall

Cost:    $55 per camper

 

Adventures in Science Space Camp   https://www.fhsu.edu/smei/camps/2019-adventure-in-science-space-camp

This camp will be out of this world!  We will explore a day on the Mars Rover and learn about scale models. We will be getting to explore many different areas of space as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Space is limited to first 24 participants.

Who:   Students Entering   Grades 6th – 8th in Fall 2019

When:  June 10 – 13, 2019  1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Where: FHSU, Custer Hall

Cost:    $55 per camper

SIGNUP DEADLINE FOR BOTH IS MAY 17.

Sewer repairs begin Monday in south Hays

CITY OF HAYS

Beginning Monday, May 13, 2019, M & D Excavating, Inc. will be conducting multiple sanitary sewer point repairs in Hays.

The second four repair locations are in the parking lot of Fort Hays Auto Sales, in the concrete alley behind Subway between 13th and 12th Streets, in the alley between Pine and Allen Streets between 10th and 11th and in the concrete alley west of Ash Street between 5th and 6th Streets.

The project is scheduled to be completed by June 1, 2019.

Signs will be in place to direct the traveling public. The traveling public should use caution and if possible avoid areas of construction.

The city of Hays regrets any inconvenience this may cause to the public. If there are any questions, please call the Office of Project Management at 785-628-7350 or the contractor, M & D Excavating at 785-628-3169 or 785-650-3802.

Names of 4 Kan. law enforcement officers will be added to national memorial

Deputies Patrick Rhorer and Theresa King

Washington, DC—The names of 371 U.S. law enforcement officers including four from Kansas who have died in the line of duty will be formally dedicated on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial during the 31st Annual Candlelight Vigil held on the National Mall in Washington, DC, at 8:00 pm on Monday, according to a media release from the National Law Enforcement Officer’s Memorial.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr will deliver special remarks and lead in reading the names of the fallen officers.

Deputy Robert Kunze

The names of Sedgwick County Deputy Robert Kunze, Wyandotte County Deputies Patrick Rhorer and Theresa King and Jefferson County Undersheriff George Burnau and 367 other officers added to the Memorial this year include 158 who made the ultimate sacrifice in 2018, in addition to 213 officers who died earlier in history but whose sacrifice had not been previously documented.

With these additions, there are 21,910 officers’ names engraved on the Memorial, representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, federal law enforcement, and military police agencies.

A convicted felon on a crime spree shot and killed Deputy Kunze in September 2018. Deputy Sheriff Theresa King and Deputy Sheriff Patrick Rohrer were shot and killed as they transported a prisoner to court in Wyandotte in June of 2018. In March of 2019, Undersheriff George Burnau suffered a fatal heart attack while involved in a foot pursuit of a mental subject

Each May 13, an estimated 30,000 people assemble for the Candlelight Vigil, a signature event of National Police Week. For the 11th year, the ceremony will be streamed live over the Internet so that everyone can witness this annual tribute to America’s law enforcement officers. Individuals interested in the free webcast can register online at www.nleomf.org/vigil.

“The annual Candlelight Vigil allows us to honor the officers who sacrificed their lives for the protection of ours,” said Lori Sharpe Day, Interim Chief Executive Officer of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. “By attending the ceremony in person or by viewing it online, we are able to show support for the families of these brave men and women who serve.”

The names of the 371 officers added to the National Memorial this year can be found at www.LawMemorial.org/2019RollCall. For a complete schedule of National Police Week events in Washington, DC, visit www.LawMemorial.org/PoliceWeek.

FIRST FIVE: Losing our core freedoms by not knowing we have them

Gene Policinski

Ignorance may well have been bliss to 18th-century English poet Thomas Gray, but in 2019, widespread ignorance of our core freedoms and how our government functions is just plain dangerous.

A just-released Survey of Civic Literacy, conducted by the American Bar Association (ABA) and released May 1 to mark national Law Day, finds many of us do not know much about either subject.

The survey’s theme and the ABA’s Law Day focus was on “Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society.” The survey findings are generally in line with the Freedom Forum Institute’s annual State of the First Amendment survey, conducted since 1997: Many — sometimes a majority — of us get our rights “wrong.” History tells us that if we are not aware of our freedoms, it is that much easier to lose them.

There is some good news in the results, particularly in strong support for free speech: More than eight of 10 respondents of the 1,000-person sampling said we should be able to publicly criticize a president or any other government leader and that we should have the right to ask for government records and information. Three of four agree the government should not be able to restrain the press in reporting on political protest.

Then there are these findings:

  • 18 percent don’t know freedom of the press or the freedom of assembly are elements of the First Amendment;
  • 30 percent of respondents believe freedom of speech applies only to U.S. citizens rather than correctly to all in this nation;
  • 23 percent said Ruth Bader Ginsburg is chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; just 49 percent correctly said it’s John Roberts;
  • 18 percent thought the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution are called the Declaration of Independence; 75 percent correctly identified them as the Bill of Rights.

It is reassuring that 88 percent of respondents know that the government does not have the “right to review what journalists write before it is published,” but that means more than 10 percent wrongly believe government does have a right to censor.

Again, it is good that a strong majority sees no problem in openly criticizing public officials. But nearly 20 percent are opposed or unsure whether or not we should have that right, which is more than unsettling — it’s sizeable doubt about a core principle of what it means to be an American.

Sometimes the ignorance shown in the survey concerns current law: 54 percent said there is no free speech right under the First Amendment to burn a U.S. flag in political protest. In fact, in a 1989 decision, Texas v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court said just the opposite, setting up flag burning as a demonstration to the world of our commitment to freedom of expression.

The ABA’s survey is just the latest demonstration of the need for a new national campaign by schools and civic and professional groups to educate our citizens about the meaning and importance of the role and purpose of First Amendment freedoms and, beyond that, how our government works — and why it works.

Without that effort, the warning signs are in – thanks to the ABA’s survey and others – that we could lose our basic freedoms, our representative form of self-government and undermine the basic rule of law for simply the sorrowful, sad, embarrassing reason that many of us simply will not know, or perhaps even care, that they are gone.

[The ABA Survey of Civic Literacy 2019 is available at: https://www.americanbar.org/news/reporter_resources/civic-knowledge-survey/]

Gene Policinski is president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Institute and an introductory speaker at the May 1 release of the ABA’s Survey on “Free Press, Free Speech, Free Society.” He can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.

NORLIN: Justice … more than just us

David Norlin, Salina.

Pity the poor public servant.

Legislators, Commissioners, and agency managers must sort facts and opinions to make the best decisions for the public good.  It is critical to hear from the public — and then sort through those comments carefully, thoughtfully, and compassionately.

They’ll get advice.  Some good, thoughtful, constructive.  And some mean-spirited, resentful, and cringe-worthy.  The latter often emanates from people claiming the mantle of stern adult responsibility, bent on teaching what, for them, pass as Christian values.

Consider two citizen commenters at a Saline County hearing on a possible new Salina jail.  One cited the Bible encouraging use of “the rod of discipline.” For him, jail seems “too comfortable.”  Three meals a day, warm in winter, cool in summer free medical, no work required, TV—all were seen as coddling.   So, to make jails really rehabilitate, we’ll just shut down air conditioning in 100+ degree temps.

“Known murderers” (disregarding recent examples of false convictions) should be executed “in a timely manner.”  God’s word in Genesis so decrees, said he.  His solution?  Teach his version of religion in schools.

Another cited excess alcohol use and drug abuse as choices, not diseases.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, including the US’ No. 1 standing as incarcerator-in-chief,  he cited the “social experiment of the past 60 years’ as ’soft on criminals’” and “the biggest failure this country has ever seen.”  Again, air conditioning, heat and three meals a day became soft, coddling measures to be dispensed with.

Where does one begin responding to such illogic and incitement to riot? First impulse is to shrug off these sentiments as aberrations and dismiss them.  But these attitudes constitute a canary in our coal mine.

Though not as extreme, other similarly dismissive, jarring attitudes are impacting public policy as we speak. Sadly, they come from public servants themselves, not the testifying public.

And here, pity for public servants comes to a screeching halt.

Case in point: the KS ledge’s last days.  As Kansas Interfaith Action so clearly spells out, “Medicaid Expansion ……[is] a clear moral imperative, and its failure to pass is not just a disappointment, it’s an injustice. . . . . The failure to hold hearings, the refusal to allow a vote in the Senate, are nothing less than moral failures, and blame for them rests solely at the feet of House and Senate leadership.”

On top of that, another large tax cut was passed, replacing the one vetoed by the Governor.  Says KIFA, “The fact that a big tax cut that will largely benefit multinational corporations and the wealthiest Kansans can pass, but a policy that will help working people, and is supported by 70% of Kansans, by a majority of the legislature and by the governor, cannot, shows how twisted the priorities of legislative leadership were this session.”

Now, 150,000 Kansans are denied access to health insurance, and approximately 627 Kansans may die this year in the absence of expansion. “Justice delayed is {not just] justice denied,” says KIFA, “[it] is life denied.”

KIFA’s life-affirming, compassionate, faith-tradition-taught values stand in stark contrast to the pious, judgmental, punitive attitudes displayed in the latest legislative last-minute games.  Adhering to the best of our religious values means revering and supporting all our fellow creatures.

Attitudes to the contrary must be called out at their root, in public meetings, on-air or in-print, in social media, in private conversations, and at the ballot box.

Those adopting such attitudes should not be allowed in positions where their rhetoric becomes reality.

Allowing that to happen is immoral and, well … un-Christian.

David Norlin is past Chairman of the Salina Planning Commission, former President of Salina Access TV, and an occasional Salina Journal columnist. He is a retired College English Department Chair and Director of Broadcasting. He has twice run for the Kansas Legislature.

4 jailed for attempted robbery at Kan. State Fairgrounds RV park expected in court

RENO COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are investigating an attempted robbery and the four suspects allegedly involved are expected to be in court this week.

Kerrah Shulze, Blaine White, Kaleb Beard and Richard Fenters photos Reno Co. Sheriff

Just after 4:30p.m. Friday police were dispatched to the Kansas State Fairgrounds for an active shooter with a “machine gun.”

Armando Castillo Jr, of Mineral Wells, Texas reported being confronted by four individuals while inside his 5th wheel camper. He was battered but was able to grab a firearm he had hidden in the camper. Castillo fired several shots to try and get the neighbors to call 911.

Everyone involved was still on scene when officers arrived. No injuries were reported due to gunfire. During the investigation, it was discovered that the suspects came to Castillo’s camper to get cash.

Police arrested four suspects identified as 22-year-old Kaleb Schyler Beard, 23-year-old Kerrah Schulze, 20-year-old Richard Fenters and 22-year-old Blaine White all of Wichita. They were jailed on requested charges of attempted aggravated robbery, according to the release. Three had bonded out of jail. Fenters was still in custody, according to online jail records.

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