Voice For Liberty

Month: September 2010

  • Good intentions, and planners, can sap a city’s soul

    The following article by Kansas City writer Jack Cashill, courtesy of Ingram’s Magazine, explains some of the problems with city planning of the type Wichita is undertaking at this time.

  • Subsidy for Planeview Save-A-Lot grocery store bad for Wichita

    I am troubled by what I see the Wichita city government doing to the owners of the Checkers Grocery store located near the Wichita Planeview neighborhood. At the public hearing before the Wichita City Council on September 14th, one of the Checkers owners testified that their grocery business has been serving the people of Planeview…

  • For Wichita city hall, ‘stakeholder’ has a narrow meaning

    Recently the City of Wichita held a stakeholder meeting regarding Community Improvement Districts and the city’s policies regarding them. While the term “stakeholder” is vague and means different things to different people, you might think that such a gathering might include representatives from the community at large. In an effort to achieve diversity, you know.…

  • Photos of Wichita Planeview grocery stores

    Supporters of a proposed Save-A-Lot grocery store in Wichita’s Planeview neighborhood claim that there are no grocery stores nearby. Therefore, the city is willing to grant over $800,000 in special tax treatment to this store. This special tax treatment — let’s call it what it is: corporate welfare is not available to the store’s competitors…

  • Raj Goyle anti-outsourcing plan likely to backfire

    A plan advocated by Democratic Party candidate for Congress Raj Goyle to reduce the outsourcing of jobs from the United States is likely to produce the opposite effect, according to the Wall Street Journal.

  • Mine safety regulations: do they work?

    The mainstream media attack on Charles Koch, David Koch, and Koch Industries has reached the state of West Virginia. This time a newspaper criticizes the Charles G. Koch Foundation for supporting a “conservative Morgantown think tank and several positions at the West Virginia University economics department.” A specific target of criticism is West Virginia University…

  • ‘Fire Pelosi’ bus in Wichita

    Yesterday the Fire Pelosi Bus Tour stopped in Wichita, primarily to support the candidacy of Republican Mike Pompeo in the race for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas.

  • Texting bans haven’t worked

    In an attempt to increase highway safety, many states have passed bans on texting while driving. But the bans haven’t worked, and some states have experienced an increase in crashes.

  • Rasmussen: Tea party is grassroots, not Astroturf

    A new book by national pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Douglas Schoen explains that the Tea Party movement is a genuine grassroots movement, not a corporate-led Astroturf falsehood as critics allege.

  • Kansas needs citizen-powered democracy

    Following is an op-ed by Paul Jacob that recently appeared in the Wichita Eagle, although this is the version he sent to me. Jacob is president of Citizens in Charge Foundation, a national organization that promotes the rights of initiative and referendum. The citizens of Kansas enjoy neither of these.

  • Wichita City Council subsidizes pizza and doughnuts for Planeview

    At the September 14th Wichita City Council meeting the public was treated to tales of the helpless nature of Wichita’s Planeview residents. It sounded as if residents are being held in an open-air prison, victims of society, greedy QuikTrip stores, and price-gouging cab companies, unable to obtain the necessities of life without trekking an entire…

  • Sedgwick County Commission candidates to appear

    On Friday October 1, 2010 at the Wichita Pachyderm Club, Republican candidates for the Sedgwick County Commission will speak.