General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWow! Brownback apparently is turning Kansas into a wasteland.
Teabagger government for the people. This type of policy is not going to encourage people or businesses to come to Kansas. What a shame. I hope Brownbagger and the Koch Bros. Inc. are shown the door soon.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/22/1308856/-Kansas-No-Services-Ahead-How-the-Brownback-Administration-has-harmed-Western-Kansas?detail=facebook
SUN JUN 22, 2014 AT 05:23 PM PDT
Kansas: No Services Ahead. How the Brownback Administration has harmed Western Kansas
bytmservo433FollowforKansas & Missouri Kossacks
Last week, I spent time in a lot of places in Kansas. Emporia, Hutchinson. Wichita. Hays. Russell. Manhattan. Council Grove. Fort Riley. Junction City. The countryside in Ellis, Chase, Riley, Lyon, and so many other great counties in Kansas. On the journey between Hays and Russell, I noticed something: closed rest stops.
Leaving Russell, the sign came yet again:
No services ahead. It shouldn't have come as a surprise. KDOT, in an attempt to reduce their budget which has been cash strapped by the Brownback administration has closed off services from these rest areas, bulldozed bathrooms, removed drinking fountains. It's a small thing, for sure, but it represents what is happening to our state: No Services Ahead. It isn't just about a rest stop, it is about what is happening to once proud communities in Western Kansas.
snip
The costs to KDOT were relatively small.. around $9k a year, but it was enough that KDOT simply couldn't afford them any longer. These kind of changes take place everywhere as a common course in the growth and contraction of a county.
What is occurring in Western Kansas, though, can best be stated as a loss of community. These are once proud towns who have fallen on hard times, in no small part due to Brownback's lack of support and interest in keeping these communities going.
more
Turbineguy
(37,127 posts)Republican Paradise.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)over and get some sleep.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Republican governors love those bribes coming in from business interests, after all, rest stops don't have lobbyists.
And the truck stops are overflowing now. You see it.
The theft of the commons continues apace. Soon there will be no government activity allowed that competes with private interests.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)So, even though it's conservatives that continue to make cuts that directly impact their quality of lives, these slow-learners blame liberals because they are told that they should. I continue to remain completely bewildered by conservative thinking.
Also, baby-killers and teh gay!
Conservatives get exactly what they deserve.
Unfortunately, liberals get exactly what conservatives deserve too.
RKP5637
(67,008 posts)vast wasteland and get the hell out before they are also totally run over. Kansas has become a pit, so sad. It's doesn't require one be a democrat or independent to see what is going on in Kansas, it just requires voters to use a tiny portion of their brains to see what is going on and vote these assholes far out of office.
arthritisR_US
(7,256 posts)these people up. It's like they are stuck in stupid and fine to continue on as such.
Bed. Made. Lie. I only feel bad for the ones who didn't vote for this turd and his ilk.
madokie
(51,076 posts)is how the citizens vote
The only way republiCONs win election is by wedge issues like the three I stated.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)marriage!" and it's Katy, where's the "R" lever?
SammyWinstonJack
(44,129 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)You are right too GAGG me
bulloney
(4,113 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)they are completely brainwashed - wouldn't know the truth if it bit them is the ass.
Hate Radio & Fox "News" - the worst things to happen to the US - ever
deminks
(11,001 posts)I remember back in the day when some rest areas had attendants.
I am quite sure the Kochs will buy up the areas, and we will have to pay to use them.
This is what they want for us, complete and utter servitude for the masses. No access. No mobility. Pay to play.
Oh, and Welcome to Brownbackistan.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)for a bowl of beans.
Gothmog
(143,654 posts)Brown back is an idiot
RKP5637
(67,008 posts)and get some brains and get rid of these assholes in office. The stupidity in Kansas is so great it's mind boggling.
This is a fine place to live, and you can find stupidity anywhere.
My neighbors are no more or less intelligent than Americans in other states.
RKP5637
(67,008 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Of Kansas would, now, be receptive to the anti-teaparty message, having seen the results first hand. But if Arizona is to serve as a guide, they will not.
Arizona gave away billions to business and the wealthy and cut government services to the bone ... resulting in rest stop closures ... and the good people of Arizona put the same idiots back in office.
Lrobby99
(33 posts)Kansas joins Oklahoma and Arizona on my Avoid List. If they want to be assholes, then fuck 'em.
hlthe2b
(101,540 posts)But, I used to just bemoan boredom and bedbugs in those small motels.
Well, this should make the corporate farmers happy as those rural towns dry up and land goes for nothing.
KrazyinKS
(291 posts)My sister-in-law from Hoisington took a friend who makes less than 10K a year to the welfare office in Great Bent to sign her up for what she called Obamacare, they told her she did not make enough money. She was confused and asked me what these people are supposed to do, I had to tell her Brownback refused the expansion of Medicaid from the feds, which would have provided for her friend. She looked at me and said well I guess I have been living in a cave. I said that's okay as long as Brownie boy keeps praying in public like he does then Jesus will still let him into heaven even though he don't give a shit what happens to poor people. Needless to say I am not real popular out there.
hatrack
(59,387 posts)And the chief medicine man is pissing on the fire in hopes of keeping things even dimmer and more confused.
VA_Jill
(9,839 posts)only it was a DEM gov that closed the rest stops near the end of his term! The ONE good thing McDonnell did as gov .the ONLY good thing, may I add .was to reopen them. Only now they are all sponsored by GEICO, but what the hey, at least you can stop and pee. NC, as I found out while working there as a travel nurse one summer, does not have rest stops at all. You have to get off the interstate at convenience stores instead .part of their "business initiative", I suppose.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)at a convenience store when you see the truck stops are all filled up. But let that tired, sleepy truck driver driver run over a car and all hell breaks out. It's the truck drivers fault!
GOLGO 13
(1,681 posts)Fly-over state, right?
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)That is one rightwing meme I'd like to retire because it has served to do nothing but create unnecessary divisions in this nation. I would love to see just one Republican effort made to unite people instead of the negative ones of greed, division, and bigotry that have been such common themes for the past 20 years or so. I absolutely do not understand the mindset of people who systematically destroy the nation from its infrastructure to the lives of its people and then wrap themselves in the flag while singing patriotic songs. Now that is cynical and evil at once.
DemoTex
(25,334 posts)Same thing happened under Georgia's GOP goobernor Sonny Perdue. Current Georgia goobernor Nathan Deal is worse than Perdue, and probably more crooked than NJ's Chris Christie.
mountain grammy
(26,553 posts)who should really be on his knees begging forgiveness for the great harm he's done for his constituents and his state. The state is in huge debt while he cuts more taxes for him and his rich friends, but there's not enough rich voters to keep him in office. I hate to say it, but the voters in Kansas are stupid.
VA_Jill
(9,839 posts)to call him Sam Brownshirt. It fits him better.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)This poll is from February but maybe they'll kick him out of office.
Brownback very unpopular, trails Davis by 2
Header-poll-results
Raleigh, N.C. PPP's newest Kansas poll finds that Sam Brownback has continued to become even more unpopular in the last year, and that he slightly trails his Democratic opponent for reelection. Only 33% of voters in the state approve of the job Brownback is doing, compared to 51% who disapprove. That's down from a 37/52 spread when PPP last polled the state a year ago.
Brownback trails Democratic challenger Paul Davis for reelection by a 42/40 margin. Davis isn't particularly well known- only 41% of voters have an opinion about him one way or the other- so those numbers are more a referendum on Brownback than anything else. Davis leads largely because he is winning 23% of the GOP vote, a large amount of crossover support in this polarized political climate, while only 11% of Democrats plan to vote for Brownback. http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/kansas/
progressoid
(49,758 posts)9K? That must be a typo.
yellowcanine
(35,690 posts)Let's see if we can kill the grass around that sign to let Brownback know what we think about his "No Services" policy.
KansDem
(28,498 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)of people now, especially when vile people like Brownback are given positions of power.
KansDem
(28,498 posts)However, Democratic Paul Davis is proving a formidable challenger. My wife and I will be actively campaigning for him! (Talked with his campaign team recently about phone banking).
The polling has been back and forth with the race still a "tossup."
Believe it or not, there are some Republicans in Kansas concerned about the state budget, particularly money for education.
KSstellarcat
(50 posts)Gross.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)or is it Brownshirt?
Blanks
(4,835 posts)For those republicans that don't like the two party system.
I don't know if you'd ever get a dyed in the wool conservative to vote for a democrat, but if you could convince them to throw their vote away on a third party candidate it would increase the chances of the democratic candidate winning.
Kansas has had some democratic governors. I remember when Joan Finney beat out the incumbent republican governor in the early '90's. It seemed her only goal was to take the lottery money and put it into schools. Once she accomplished that - I'm not sure she did anything else.
http://lpks.org/2014/05/01/kansas-libertarians-nominate-1st-amendment-hero/
KSstellarcat
(50 posts)My how things have changed in the past 5 years.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)I was thinking that Sebelius was governor, I just didn't know when (didn't keep up after I had moved).
I never liked Brownback - I'm pretty sure he was elected to the u.s. senate while I was living there. I never understood what anyone saw in him.
It doesn't surprise me that he's a lousy governor.
KSstellarcat
(50 posts)I've lived in Kansas for pretty much all of my life, and I thought it had nowhere to go but up, particularly regarding racism, homophobia, etc. This guy has made all of that worse while systematically destroying our economy, social services, and education. The majority of people that I know are Republicans, and even they despise Brownback.
Cha
(295,543 posts)born and raised.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Kansas is one state over and down. My mother's family came to Iowa through Missouri and Kansas and my grandmother was born in Ft. Scott so I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Kansas. It has been heartbreaking to see the state trashed so thoroughly by these people.
Cha
(295,543 posts)in Eastern Colorado with my grandparents during high school on the Plains. Very much like Kansas with the tumbleweeds on the Prairie.
Who knows Kansas could thrive with the right people in charge. Actually I have a soft spot for every state in our Union.
GeorgeGist
(25,293 posts)one state at a time.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,029 posts)Thanks for the thread, Skidmore.
taught_me_patience
(5,477 posts)that's how it goes...
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)Last edited Wed Jun 25, 2014, 05:47 AM - Edit history (1)
n/t