Friday, November 08, 2013

Kansas' shift from far right to very wrong...,


pitch | Suicides are up in Kansas — way up.

An October report from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment revealed that 505 Kansans killed themselves in 2012, a startling 31.5 percent jump from the 384 suicides committed in 2011.

That sobering increase can be attributed, in part, to ripple effects from the recession. Suicide numbers tend to climb in economically challenging times.

But the spike also correlates to state policy. From 2009 to 2012, Kansas cut 12.4 percent from its mental-health budget — the ninth-largest decrease in the nation over that period. In Sedgwick County, where 88 people took their lives in 2012, the community mental-health center has lost more than half its state funding since 2009.

The KDHE's report shines a morbid light on one of the consequences of a business-obsessed state ignoring the needs of its citizens: More people die.

Poke around Kansas and you'll see variations on this theme. Government agencies and institutions that are already squeezed end up starved by the state and further stretched, and citizens struggle to receive basic services. In Kansas, this isn't merely the product of a lousy national economy. It's the result of Gov. Sam Brownback and a willing state Legislature testing the crackpot tea-party idea that gutting government operations, while eliminating business and income taxes, makes Kansas a desirable place to live and work.

But life under Brownback is a bewildering existence, and some days that seems almost by political design. Every week, there's news of some new budgetary atrocity or comically backward piece of legislation being floated. Are guns really allowed in courthouses now? Are public schools actually so underfunded that the revenue formula is unconstitutional? What was that thing about outlawing all sustainable practices? Was that an Onion article? How are you even supposed to keep up with all this nonsense, let alone keep your head above the mudslide?

Before the clowns in the Kansas Legislature suit up for another season of high jinks in January, here's The Pitch's guide to all the depressing events occurring in the state. Remember: Brownback is up for re-election next year, and his approval rating is hovering around 35 percent. No flower blooms forever, not even in the Sunflower State.

11 comments:

BigDonOne said...

" Suicides are up in Kansas — way up....."
Overpopulation consumes precious critical resources: e.g., energy, food, water, health care, means-tested benefits, jail & prison space. Therefore, the more LOOZerz that voluntarily delete themselves, the better off is society......

CNu said...

lol, no sane person would ever consider the vast and sparsely populated flyover territory of Kansas "overpopulated".


Inquiring minds as opposed to "badly crystallized minds" would be keenly interested to know what your elders and betters are up to out here in Oz, such that some of your little pasty simian cousins just.can't.take.it anymore..., summ'n not right out here on the yellow brick road Dorothy.



Since what's going on up and down the pasty killer-ape chain is a good and clear glimpse of exactly what the silverhaired alpha silverbacks have in mind for you and your'n - you might want to put down the WND crack pipe for a minute and find out exactly how ruthless the threshing floor is about to become.


When (if) you can pull your thumb out of your mouth for long enough to stop fantasizing that it's an "other" on whom their cull-sights are set, then then you may actually have a miniscule prospect of preparing your little bonobos for the cold, hard truth that they're the overwhelming majority of the food-powered, unprofitable herd that's about to be slaughtered.

CNu said...

You.just.can't.make.this.shit.up;And in a bit of valedictory grandstanding, Brownback has also signed what has come to be called the Second Amendment Protection Act. This one exempts firearms manufactured in Kansas from federal regulation. So if the feds come into the state and try to enforce federal gun laws, well, then Kansas law enforcement could, in legal theory, arrest the feds.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder immediately threatened legal action against the state, just as everybody who has ever taken a social studies class knew he would.

"Kansas may not prevent federal employees and officials from carrying out their official responsibilities," Holder wrote to Brownback, declaring the obvious. "And a state certainly may not criminalize the exercise of federal responsibilities."

Brownback countered with a meaningless statement about how "the people of Kansas have expressed their sovereign will," forgetting to add, "but we still want farm subsidies!"

BigDonOne said...

Well, since you brought up 'killer apes' and 'bonobos', it happens just yesterday, Home Depot's ad agency had a Freudian Slip with their "One of these things is not like the other" promotion (image below).....
http://www.latintimes.com/articles/10039/20131107/home-depot-racist-scandal-company-tweets-offensive.htm

CNu said...

lol,


One thumb irretrievably buried up to its knuckle in your pie-hole, the other thumb irretrievably buried up to its knuckle in your a-hole - as the patriarch of your little merry band - do you maintain this level of self-calming denial across the generations for which you're "responsible"?

Nakajima Kikka said...

This whole thing gets even more perverse when you consider that the reason the majority of these cancer patients have stage 4 colorectal cancer is that they didn't comply with the earlier (and much less expensive) treatment regimen designed to knock their stage 1-3 cancer into remission and keep it there. Irrational fears of potential (as opposed to actual) side effects being far and away the most common reason for non-compliance.

This country has a built-in cultural imperative driving the need to concentrate biomedical research on medicines for treating late-stage/end-stage disease at astronomical cost. No other modern country in the world is like this.


This is the two-ton polka-dot elephant in the room few people are willing to talk about.

John Kurman said...

It's abundantly clear what the Koch business plan is. When you are in the extractive industry, there's nothing to do but squeeze the sponge dry. If you trash the place in the meantime, icing on the cake: http://youtu.be/5ydqjqZ_3oc

Vic78 said...

California enlisted the people of the state to fix it's GOP problem. http://www.calitics.com/diary/14774/what-california-can-teach-america-about-stopping-extremist-obstruction

BigDonOne said...

Stop amnesty. Low-riders (old large gas-guzzling V-8's) get *lousy* gas mileage.....

Vic78 said...

Here's some tea hadi fuckery. This is what they listen to.
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/11/wtf-glenn-beck-spends-nearly-10-minutes-incoherently-playing-with-wizard-of-oz-dolls/

Vic78 said...

An example of people taking things into their own hands:http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=12051#more.

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