Yes, a Christian American Party is being formed. A new political party that will REPRESENT “WE THE PEOPLE”. This is for any Christian American who believes in God and is willing to stand up to help restore America back into a Christian nation. God has said you are either for Him or you are against Him. This is the political party for people who are for Him. You know the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have messed up our country, now it is time to restore it. You can NOW choose to be with God or to continue the same old path against God. It’s your choice! If you deny putting your effort into helping God’s party, HE may deny you on your judgement day. This is plain talk. It’s reality. This is what God’s word says. Time is short. There is a lot to do. Join NOW by emailing to [email protected].

Americans are tired and frustrated that the powerful two party system of the Democratic and Republican Parties have devastated our country. Americans who closely follow what is happening in America are calling for the selfish elected politicians who make up the leadership in our once great country to live by their campaign promises. These politicians beg for money to get elected or re-elected but then once in Washington the people who put them there are forgotten. The politicians’ lies and downright deception has caused a crisis in America.

The labor participation rate is as it was in the 1970’s. That means less Americans are working. Or in the other words the same amount of people are working in 2015 as were working in the 1970’s. The problem is our population has increased by over 100 million people. But our politicians point to the stock market as it continues to rise. But very few middle class Americans are in the stock market. The result is that Wall Street has gotten richer and richer while the average worker is struggling to stay afloat.  This is the result of the federal government policies, the politicians, and the Federal Reserve. An example of the poor decisions made by our politicians is that they have provided incentives for businesses to ship jobs overseas resulting in plant closings and layoffs.

The politicians’ policies have incentivized the growth of the big special interest groups. These groups have become powerful and they demonstrate their power by financing politicians to be at their beck and call.

America has gotten away from the “Rule of Law” to the rule of the powerful. Some laws that have been passed are not enforced by President Barack Obama and his allies. The federal courts are not following the Constitution and in some cases have made their own interpretation. The Supreme Court has not decided some cases based on the merits and facts of a case but based their decisions on politics. The result is the deterioration of the American soul and way of life as it had been for almost 200 years.

The Founding Fathers would be appalled if they could see their creation today. The Democratic Party that helped build our great nation has gone so far left that most of their members don’t recognize them anymore. They have become so liberal to embrace a Socialism culture by wanting to provide benefits to many Americans and even illegals. Their control of our government policies has amounted to a unsustainable debt of over 18 trillion dollars and counting. If you consider our annual federal government revenue hit an all time high of $3 trillion dollars in 2014, one can clearly see how difficult it will be to pay the debt off. Obama’s budget for this coming year is a whopping $3.8 trillion dollars. The Republican Party keeps caving in to the demands of the Democratic Party.

There has to be a return to common sense. The Founding Fathers had it right. The Founding Fathers believed the United States of America should be a Republic expressing the fact that the elected politicians should be part-time politicians or clearly stated they should NOT be Career politicians. The Founding Fathers believed that God gave them the courage to fight to become a nation and the wisdom to install a form of government based on the principles that God inspired the writers of the Bible. A Republic, which has at its core a Democracy, can ONLY be sustained according to our Founding Fathers if the majority of the people are Christians. The Christian values and principles are what made the United States of America the greatest nation of all time.

NOW IS THE TIME TO RESTORE AMERICA AGAIN AS A CHRISTIAN NATION, Why let our politicians destroy the fabric and soul of America for their vested selfish interests? By continuing the same old status quo of our politicians we will NOT continue to live as Americans have lived for 200 years, free, independent, and prosperous. NOW IS THE TIME TO GATHER OUR COURAGE TO STAND TOGETHER AS WE FORM A NEW POLITICAL PARTY THAT WILL REPRESENT “WE THE PEOPLE” ONCE AGAIN. A PARTY THAT WILL LISTEN TO “WE THE PEOPLE”. THAT PARTY IS THE “CHRISTIAN AMERICAN PARTY”.

In the 1830’s, French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville toured America. When his tour had been completed, he made this observation:

“I sought for the key to the greatness of America in her harbors; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution. NOT UNTIL I WENT INTO THE CHURCHES OF AMERICA AND HEARD HER PULPITS AFLAME WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS DID I UNDERSTAND THE SECRET OF HER GENIUS AND POWER. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

You know it is the right thing for you to do. Stand up and do your part. Join the Christian American Party. Email me at [email protected].

I am just an ordinary guy. For some reason God speaks to ordinary people. So God spoke to me through the Holy Spirit on Christmas Day to form a Christian American Party. I was overwhelmed to say the least. My background is developing programs and solving problems. Maybe that is why I was chosen. So I quickly sat down and wrote a book to explain what the Christian American Party believes in and stands for. My book is NOW available on www.amazon.com. books. If you want to check it out just put Christian American Party in the search box. History is full of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

OH! I just found out yesterday that someone in Great Britain just formed a Christian political party as of February 27, 2015. God wants Christians to start standing up for HIM.

Roger Ewing, Hays

An old slam on tabloid journalism was that its best practitioners “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

Thanks to Rolling Stone magazine’s abject retraction of a 2014 article, “A Rape on Campus,” we now are offered a new twist on that old saw — never let a lack of facts get in the way, either.

A critique of the article by a three-person team from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, commissioned and released by Rolling Stone itself, boils down to this: The magazine’s editors and the reporter on the story failed to perform the most basic journalistic task — essentially, to verify and present factual information.

The report relentlessly documents the magazine’s failure to follow “basic, even routine journalistic practice” — a failure that “encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking.”

And it says that “the story’s blowup comes as another shock to journalism’s credibility amid head-swiveling change in the media industry. The particulars of Rolling Stone’s failure make clear the need for a revitalized consensus about what best journalistic practices entail, at an operating-manual level of detail.”

Let’s parse those observations. Failure to follow the basics — check. Another shocking assault on journalism’s credibility — check. A need to revisit and reinforce best journalistic practices — double check. And there’s ample evidence of “head-swiveling change.” No need to even “check” that.

But there are even larger concerns raised by the nearly 13,000-word Columbia J-school report — a document longer, The New York Times quickly noted, than the original 9,000-word article.

Clearly, in a drive for the kind of sensational “narrative” account that Rolling Stone and a host of other news operations require, the magazine tossed aside long-validated newsgathering approaches that would have conflicted, complicated, and perhaps eviscerated, the kind of account they intended to get and eventually published.

There has been no lack of reports for some time about the problem of under-reported campus sexual assaults and sexual violence, and complaints about non-responsive or insensitive college officials. And the report concludes that “the responsibilities that universities have in preventing campus sexual assault … are important matters of public interest. Rolling Stone was right to take them on.”

But in a journalism world increasingly defined and validated by a collection of “clicks” and “hits” and algorithmic formulas, was it the need to ramp up the drama, to boost the hype, search out what the report called the “single, emblematic college rape case” that ultimately teased these heretofore solid journalists to betray a core obligation to their readers?

The report touches on that idea, in noting that “‘A Rape on Campus’ had ambitions beyond recounting one woman’s assault.” It says that “the magazine set aside or rationalized as unnecessary essential practices that, if pursued, likely would have led the magazine’s editors to reconsider publishing Jackie’s narrative so prominently, if at all. The published story glossed over the gaps in the magazine’s reporting by using pseudonyms and by failing to state where important information had come from.”

Narrative journalism is a form of news reporting that aims to go beyond the “Who, What, When, Where, Why and How” basic recitation of facts to engage readers in storytelling that attracts, entices and perhaps even enthralls, as it reports.

While such a narrative approach has become the accepted wisdom of 21st century news media gurus seeking the key to rebuilding audiences, its roots were firmly set a century ago, by the so-called “muckrakers” of the Progressive Era of the early 1900s.

McClure’s magazine grabbed the nation’s attention by its riveting reports that investigated official corruption, documented high-level financial shenanigans and that exposed horrific business practices — all based on a storytelling format buttressed by what one historian called “overwhelming facts.” Journalists, including Lincoln Stephens, Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair, wrote compelling accounts that inspired antitrust laws, led to criminal indictments and demanded new laws on public health and safety.

One historian of the period says McClure’s success was due to its reliance on “overwhelming facts” presented in the format of a short-story. Other experts note that as with Rolling Stone’s style, there was no less a point-of-view in the muckrakers’ work — they cared less about objectivity than they did firmly documenting the ills they found through extensive, thorough investigation.

Compare those assessments with the follow up report’s documentation of Rolling Stone’s over-reliance on a single source, whose principal contribution to the retracted article now appears to have been a story that was too good not to use — or even seriously question.

The Columbia team’s report noted that “there is a tension in magazine and narrative editing between crafting a readable story … it can be clunky and disruptive to write ‘she said’ over and over. There should be room in magazine journalism for diverse narrative voicing — if the underlying reporting is solid.”

That’s as good a definition as possible on the difference between “raking muck” and just stirring it up.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. He can be reached at [email protected].

There is a shortage of medical doctors in rural Western Kansas. Why not allow pharmacists, nurses and veterinarians practice medicine? Presume that we have a shortage of lawyers as well. Why not let policemen practice law? We don’t. It would “de-professionalize” these fields. But this is what was proposed at the March Kansas State Board of Education (KSBE) meeting. And it will come to a vote at their April meeting.

In 2012, Governor Brownback signed into law House Bill 2319 creating the “Kansas Coalition of Innovative School Districts (CISD).” This allows “…up to ten percent of the state’s school districts [28], at any one time, to opt out of most state laws and rules and regulations in order to improve student achievement.” An additional 10 percent of USDs can join if they are Title I priority schools. Currently there are only a small number of schools in the CISD. That will rapidly change if they get their request.

Proposals to allow school districts to hire persons without teaching credentials come from two completely different school districts. The proposal from the affluent Blue Valley USD 229 is laden with “innovation spaces” and “digital learning centers.” This district pays well. It has no difficulty recruiting and keeping good teachers.

Reading between-the-lines is the fact that elite private college-prep schools in Kansas do hire college graduates that lack teaching credentials but have a major in the field they will teach. These teachers working in high-tuition, high-salary collegiate schools are turning out high school graduates who are performing quite well. They turn out the best because they only take the best.

On the opposite pole is the rationale from the Hugoton District that represents the completely different plight of the majority of Kansas rural school districts. Asking for “teacher licensure freedom,” Hugoton bases its request to hire-at-will based on the many problems of recruiting qualified teachers to rural Kansas. It asserts: “We want complete and total freedom from the overbearing KSDE licensure requirement.” It speaks to the various tentative fixes, the high cost of tuition, their need to appear at Topeka Review Boards, and other burdens that remain under the conditional (one year), restricted (Transition-to-Teaching and alternate route), interim alternative, and provisional endorsement programs.

Another benefit seen by little rural schools is that switching the granting of licensure to local school districts also allows them to hold the new teacher captive to that district—their local “grow your own” model would not allow these local teachers to transfer their local “license” elsewhere in the state.

Both the Blue Valley “innovative program” argument and the Hugoton “can’t get qualified teachers” argument boil down to asking the State Board to “trust us” to have good people in the classroom even if they are not licensed as teachers.

Both sides will address this issue at the 10:30am open forum at the next KSBE meeting in Topeka, Thursday, April 16. The KSBE will vote that afternoon.

If approved, Kansas will become the very first state to de-professionalize teaching.

Pre-packaged, vacuum-packed, just add water.

Many of us in Kansas live in a world where food comes fast – so fast we all forget how it arrives at our table. We forget it comes from the hard labor and calloused hands of Kansas farmers. Our food also comes from Kansas ranchers who work miles of rangeland in rain, snow and blazing heat.

Fast food?

Not really.

Our lives wouldn’t be the same without the farmers and ranchers who put food on our tables. Just as meat, eggs and milk have always been part of our mealtime routine, caring and providing for the animals that give us these staples are part of a farmer’s daily activities.

These activities continue, often for long hours, throughout the day. Farmers look after their animals first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. Livestock producers often place greater emphasis on their animals than themselves.

Farming has changed throughout the years. Many of today’s farm animals live in carefully supervised environments. No longer do they need to struggle for survival in a driving snowstorm or search for nourishment on parched rangelands. Instead they have heat in the winter, cool ventilation in the summer and clean, dry living areas with food and water all year long.

All of this is provided with hands-on care, education and a long tradition of animal husbandry. Farmers and ranchers go far beyond their role of humane guardians and demonstrate devoted concern for their animals’ health and safety.

They routinely stay up all night to help sows deliver piglets or tend to newborn calves. When it’s 15 degrees below zero on a frigid Kansas winter morning, farmers and ranchers are feeding, watering and caring for their livestock.

They’re God’s creatures and a farmer and rancher’s responsibility. Proper care of animals is a time-honored ethic that also makes economic sense. In order for animals to increase meat, milk, wool and egg production, farmers must take all possible steps to ensure their animals live stress free.

The farmer’s creed has always been to nurture the land, improving it while coaxing forth a bountiful harvest. Farmers hold enduring respect for the land that sustains them and consumers in this country and around the world. Their reward is an abundance of the safest, most wholesome food on the planet.

Today’s consumers enjoy ample yields from this nation’s farms. Success lies with the farmer’s ingenuity and stewardship ethic. Farmers want to leave the land in better shape for their successors.

Advances in crop production enhance the farmer’s natural commitment to providing us all with food. These innovations allow farmers to harvest larger yields with fewer acres, in harmony with the environment.

Yes, it takes plenty of hard work and honest sweat to raise the grain, vegetables, fruit and livestock that are this country’s food. Farm and ranch families take pride from their shared experience living, working and harvesting food from the land.

They believe that through their profession of producing food, they are giving more to the world than they are taking from it. Agricultural producers believe their lives will be measured ultimately by what they have done for their fellow men and women.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

I had a recent submission titled “A president like none other.” In my writing, I mentioned Barack Obama’s upbringing as a Muslim, his admission to doing drugs in high school, mentored by a card-carrying communist, friends with an American terrorist, supported in his campaigns by many socialist groups, accusing Christians of killing in the name of God, and agreeing to a treaty that allows Islamic Iran a pathway eventually to a nuclear bomb.

I didn’t have to think long and hard about how Obama in many other ways makes him extraordinarily unique in the history of America’s presidents, at least recent ones. Looks to me our president is setting records and making history all over the place.

For example, has this country ever had a major piece of legislation, namely Obamacare, which was passed in such a nefarious way, not even getting one single Republican vote? “You can keep your doctor and insurance” came to be a complete and total untruth, although our president said that would be the case over 20 times. Has any other piece of legislation been changed some 40 times out of the blue by our president, changes to the law that should have gone through Congress? Obamacare will go down in history as a failure in its attempt to take over a sixth of our economy unless major changes are made to it.

Before going on with more, let me remind readers our founders envisioned vigorous debate about our government, particularly about those in power. My letter is not hate speech since I do not make up things about Obama. To some, the truth may hurt, but in a democracy, it’s essential to look at the facts. I would remind my dissenters that the left preyed on George W. Bush relentlessly as if he was the devil, and much of what was said by liberal media was stretching the truth. GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz is getting accused of being crazy as we speak by liberal media as they try taking him out, even though millions upon millions totally agree with what he says.

Does anybody believe a Republican president would avoid impeachment with the same record Obama has? Media would make sure there would be impeachment.

Obama set a record for the nation’s debt, now up to $18 trillion. He has added more debt than all the other previous presidents combined. Bush added to our debt, but Obama has exceeded that by whopping margins. Mathematically, it may be impossible to pay it down as this government has mortgaged to the hilt our children and grandchildren’s future. History in the making!

I quote John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., and expert on the Middle East as he says, “Barack Obama is going to sign the worst deal made by a western power since the British sheepishly tried to appease Hitler. Iran is our enemy, and we’re foolish to think they will honor any deal we make with them.” Does Obama’s Muslim upbringing have anything to do with his many concessions to Islamic Iran? It makes one wonder, and it’s not hate speech to question where he’s coming from. Our national security is at stake.

What president would use taxpayer money ($350,000) to defeat Israel’s Prime Minister? Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and has always been an ally, but Obama’s behavior makes one wonder. America has always been throughout most of our history a Judeo-Christian nation, but no longer as we listen to Obama. Iran has said time and again, “it will wipe Israel off the face of the earth, the destruction of Israel is non-negotiable, and death to America.” What is Obama thinking as he partners with our enemy and throws a friend under the bus?

There’s so much more that has occurred since January 2009. My head is exploding as I just think “off the top of my head” how much has changed in America. I have lots more to present and although I just joked about it, we’re at a crossroads like never before in our history. For example, more people than ever on food stamps, more people than ever living in poverty, fewer people in the labor force, fewer full-time jobs and more part-time jobs, lower middle class incomes on the average, etc.

How do you explain a president incessantly preaching income inequality, while under his watch the rich are getting richer? Socialism is many things. In particular, it is big government. Our government has never been bigger or more invasive.

The Obama beat goes on and on in record breaking and historical ways, therefore … to be continued with a Part II.

Les Knoll lives in Victoria and Gilbert, Ariz.