Modelling Kansas

I've just written about the dangers facing our planet. A nearly equal warning of impending danger is this article about Kansas, the sealed-off laboratory of Reaganomics, the window into what will happen when Republicans pass their tax and budget bills. If humanity is destroying the planet, Republicans have destroyed Kansas, and are ready to do the same to America.

... What’s hidden are stories of regular Kansans who have suffered inside the silence. 

In the course of its investigation, The Star found that: 

▪ Children known to the state’s Department for Children and Families suffer horrific abuse, while the agency cloaks its involvement with their cases, even shredding notes after meetings where children’s deaths are discussed, according to a former high-ranking DCF official. One grieving father told The Star he was pressured to sign a “gag order” days after his son was killed that would prevent him from discussing DCF’s role in the case. Even lawmakers trying to fix the troubled system say they cannot trust information coming from agency officials. 

▪ In the past decade, more than 90 percent of the laws passed by the Kansas Legislature have come from anonymous authors. Kansans often had no way of knowing who was pushing which legislation and why, and the topics have included abortion, concealed weapons and school funding. Kansas is one of only a few states that allow the practice. 

▪ When Kansas police shoot and kill someone, law enforcement agencies often escape scrutiny because they are allowed to provide scant details to the public. The release of body-cam video has become common practice around the country after several high-profile, police-involved shootings. But in Kansas, a new state law is one of the most restrictive in the nation, allowing agencies to shelve footage that could shed more light on controversial cases. 

▪ Kansas became the first state to fully privatize Medicaid services in 2013, and now some caregivers for people with disabilities say they have been asked to sign off on blank treatment plans — without knowing what’s being provided. In some of those cases, caregivers later discovered their services had been dramatically cut. 

The examples, when stitched together, form a quilt of secrecy that envelops much of state government...

There's much more chew-worthy stuff in the article, which deserves a full read. It translates exactly to the inevitable consequences of Republican economic plans; and to the attempts by Trump to discredit investigative journalism and to censor what its departments may tell citizens. What words and phrases are not allowed. As the article says, a spokesman for the Kansas highway department was fired after explaining they don't have the money to fix a deadly stretch of road. Because, you know, tax cuts pay for themselves.

It's well-known to all but the Foxolimjonesified how dramatically Kansas' government is failing its people. And yet our R-controlled national government can't wait to do the same. In the name of enriching their donors.

And in the name of Jesus.