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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Iola Register: Jenkins & Ryun Both Too Stupid to be in Congress

Good golly Miss Molly!

From the Iola Register:

Saturday morning the two Republican candidates for the Second District Congressional seat now held by Democrat Nancy Boyda spoke at the Farm Bureau forum in the high school.

Jim Ryun said he wants his seat back. He held it for 10 years and lost it to Boyda in the 2006 Democratic revival. Ryun spent most of his time at the podium recalling his glory days as a miler, beginning with his high school triumphs in track and cross country.
He'll figure it out eventually: NO ONE IS GOING TO SEND YOU TO CONGRESS BECAUSE YOU USED TO RUN FAST!

Now, the crazy:
Perhaps his most revealing comments came when he was asked if he would favor federal policies that discouraged corporations from paying their chief executive officers enormous salaries and bonuses. No, he said, he would not. That’s the business of the board of directors, he said. Well, then, would he vote for a law requiring company directors to submit CEO salary proposals to the stockholders? No, he would not.

Government, he said, should stay out of the way private businesses are managed.
Oh. My. God. Did Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover teach the Republican Party nothing?
With the nation at the verge of recession, or already in one, because of a housing and credit crisis brought about by reckless decisions made by the very highly paid CEOs of the nation’s top investment banks and mortgage brokers, Ryun’s hands-off- business stances are as curious as they were out of touch with public opinion.
The questions he was asked offered him a great opportunity to talk about today’s shaky economy, what government could do to revive it and should do to narrow the scandalous gap between the nation’s super rich and the rest of the people. He flubbed it.
Exactly!

Now, moving from out-of-touch and stupid on to stupid & dangerously clueless:
Then came State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins. She accused Boyda of running up the federal deficit with reckless pork barrel spending and promised to use her skills as a CPA to cut spending and reduce the deficit — as though inexpert bookkeeping were the problem.

When question time rolled around, she was asked how she felt about the war in Iraq.

My training as a CPA didn’t teach me how to fight a war, she said. “But I know who does have those skills: the generals who are leading the troops. Those are the ones we should listen to on war policy.”
That's twice she's been heard by a journalist saying she didn't know anything about the military (exactly what we need in a time of war) and that she was perfectly comfortable turning over her constitutional duty to, well, really, anyone else.
Jenkins apparently rejects the principle of civilian control of the military, a bedrock principle of our democracy. The generals on the ground do what the Secretary of Defense tells them to do and the Secretary of Defense follows instructions from the Commander in Chief. The president, in turn, is pledged to represent and serve the people at large — which is what the upcoming elections and the political campaigns which precede them are all about.

Voters should expect candidates for election to Congress to have a well-reasoned stand on the course our country should take on Iraq and Afghanistan. Jenkins apparently does not.
What an embarrassment of embarrassments the Kansas Republican Party has turned out for candidates against Congresswoman Nancy Boyda. First, a man who think the same laissez-faire policies that plunged this country into the Great Depression are what we need in the face of our currently lagging economy, and second a woman who is so blithely ignorant of her own responsibilities as an elected official you can almost hear her giggling as she pushes her profoundly depressing lack of a clue.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it worth pointing out this unbiased editorial was written by a guy who has contributed $750 to Nancy Boyda? Nah, probably not.

Anonymous said...

you can whine about who wrote the opinion piece if you want...but you can't debate quotes :-).

don't like the quotes? tell your candidates to stop being ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

So Nancy Boyda favors the federal government regulating the salaries of CEOs of businesses?

Why should their salary be determine by the stockholders when the stockholders elect the Board of Directors to handle business operations and policy? And a lot of stock is held by mutual funds and company retirement plans .... Who decides then?

Anonymous said...

And as far as war strategy .... I believe most people see Congress in an oversight role, the problem with the last several wars is politics and politicians have wanted to have their hands too much into the war and war strategy. It sucks to have politicians with no military knowledge wanting to control the strategy. Military leaders like General Petraeus spend many years honing their knowledge and skills.

Those who want to cut and run want us to forget about the hundreds of thousands of individuals killed in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia when we pulled out suddenly ...... another war that politicians couldn't help but get their hands into

Oversight and accountability to Congress - Absolutely
Politicians with no military experience or knowledge determining war strategy - Absolutely NOT

Anonymous said...

How about the stakeholders (citizens) in this country having a say in Congressional pay and their benefits?

Should we get the chance to vote on them each time they change?

Anonymous said...

So Nancy Boyda favors the federal government regulating the salaries of CEOs of businesses?

who said anything like that?

and to the person who talked about congressional pay- the great thing about this country is if you don't like what your elected officials are doing, kick them out. yeah, you do get to vote on their pay raises- every two years. :-)

Anonymous said...

everytime jenkins says "i'm a cpa so i dont' know anything about the military" she gets farther and farther away from winning.

how can anyone be that dumb? she's running to be a member of congress...it's her JOB to regulate wars- the constitution says so!

Anonymous said...

it's time for responsible withdrawal- stop wasting billions on a failed mission.

Anonymous said...

And shareholders get to vote for the board of directors in publicly held corporations. If the shareholders don't like how the board is doing things like CEO pay ... they can vote them out

Anonymous said...

So you are advocating government control of business? Really? Do you mind fleshing that one out just a little bit? Does Boyda's definition of "moderate" include government mandates like this?

Anonymous said...

Boyda's definition of "moderate" certainly does mean protecting stockholders and pension-holders from disasters like Enron.

The only people that disagree are radical right-wingers like Ryun.

Anonymous said...

the little guys needs protected...ryun's only it into to make sure the millionaires get protected

Anonymous said...

Ryun seems like a heartless turn of the century capitalist and Jenkins just seems D-U-M-B dumb.

This blog is not affiliated in any way with the Kansas Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee, Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, the Office of Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, or the campaign to re-elected Congresswoman Nancy Boyda. All commentary herein not directly attributed must be considered the opinion of the authors of this blog and not of any other individual, including Congresswoman Nancy Boyda.