BOGUE, Kan. - In his speech last December at Osawatomie KS High School, President Obama cited Theodore Roosevelt's remarks there a century earlier.

Republican President Theodore Roosevelt served from 1901 to 1909. In 1912, representing the Bull Moose Party, he lost to Woodrow Wilson--the only time a 3rd Party candidate has finished as high as second. Every place I looked, Theodore Roosevelt ranks in the top 10 US Presidents, and in none lower than 6th.

In 2010, 238 participating presidential scholars at Siena College Research Institute concluded: "Teddy Roosevelt had, more than any other president, the 'right stuff,' and tops the collective ranking of a cluster of personal qualities including imagination, integrity, intelligence, luck, background and being willing to take risks." He is one of the four U.S. Presidents honored on Mt. Rushmore.

Roosevelt was an environmentalist. He led in establishing 5 national parks, 18 national monuments, and 150 National Forests. I have little doubt as President today he would work with climate scientists to deal with the reality of global warming. As governor of Kansas, he would demand something beyond pious rhetoric to end mining of the Ogallala. But...

WICHITA, Kan. - The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) is calling on The Boeing Company to meet all commitments to employees here who worked diligently to help secure the $35 billion U.S. Air Force KC-767 tanker program only to learn Wednesday morning the plant is being shuttered and their work is going elsewhere.

BOGUE, Kan. - Here's a three-part essay about gifts: wildly exaggerated, sadly expensive, and stupid.

Part I

You probably won't remember, but a couple of columns back I wrote that estimates of new jobs promised by the Keystone XL pipeline carrying tar sands oil varied wildly. Last week, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) claimed 20,000. So where'd he get that?
CNNMoney took a closer look. The 20,000 estimate comes from TransCanada, the corporation who would build the pipeline. They figured 13,000 construction jobs plus 7,000 manufacturing jobs making pipe, etc. But, whoa.

In 'TransCanada-speak' 20,000 means 10,000 jobs lasting for the two years of construction. Using the same formula, one job lasting 5 years would be 5 jobs.

BOGUE, Kan. - Today, piles. No, not the physiological kind. Although the comparison will be useful.

What prompted this column was an unsolicited, anonymously authored email forwarded from an Ellis deep thinker. Well, maybe not so much. It goes like this --

A kindly (or smug, your choice) man accosts his neighbors' "little girl." Both parents, "liberal Democrats," stand by. He asks her what her goal in life is. Wants to be President, she says. Okay, the kindly-smug man asks her what she'd do. Give food and shelter to the homeless, she says. Her parents nod approvingly.

Kindly-smug man says, 'Wow. What a worthy goal. You don't have to wait until you're President to do that!" She can mow his lawn and pull weeds for $50 bucks. Then, he says he'll escort her to where the "homeless guy hangs out," so she can give him the $50 for "food and a new house."

Little girl thinks it over. "Well, why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do
the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

Kindly-smug man says, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

Hoo boy, gotcha!

See, it's just that simple, right? Homeless and hungry people are all alike. Lazy bums won't work. Democrats (aka liberals, progressives, socialists, commies) don't get it. Right?

COLBY, Kan. - I just read a recent contribution of Rep. Tim Huelscamp (KS-1) in our local paper. He was right when he said we had a spending problem, but he certainly wasn't very coherent in his math accounting for taxes and individual taxes paid.

When he validated that Warren Buffet appeared to only pay 17% taxes on his actual income, he was probably close. But when he claimed that the bottom 50% of earners paid an average of less than 2% of their annual income in taxes, he was a bit lacking in honest assessment of reality.

Demagogues through history have known that big lies, repeated often enough, start being believed -- unless they're rebutted. These seven economic whoppers are just plain wrong. Make sure you know the truth - and spread it on. (The Seven Biggest Economic Lies, Robert Reich)

BOGUE, Kan. - The Occupy protesters are sometimes faulted for being "unfocused" -- meaning, I suppose that there are a variety of concerns -- thus far not sufficiently sewn together.

But I'd say the economic disparity between the rich and the rest of us -- now greater than at any time since the Great Depression and which has been widening since the "government is the problem" heyday of Grandpa Ronnie -- is the common denominator. If you agree with what Reich is saying, I hope you'll spread the word. Without a doubt, the banksters and corporate fat cats are nervous now, and will do all they can to discredit, disrupt, and dismantle any informed citizen activism threatening their power and greed. Part of that effort is to lie often and eagerly.

Reich will dismantle their propaganda ....

WICHITA, Kan. - The Occupy Wall Street movement sparked by demonstrations on Wall Street has spread across the country, even to Kansas.

Here is a video from Wichita's first occupy moment on Sunday, October 2.

COLBY, Kan. - What is Occupy Wall Street all about? What are they protesting or supporting? How many of the participants have any idea of how to correct the inequities they are protesting? How many of the masses have the ability and fortitude to accept responsibility, if given the opportunity to manage their own financial affairs and daily work agenda and schedules?

I admire their willingness to face the elements and stand their ground in protest. I agree with them in their assessment of unfair rewards for individual contributions toward the success of the capitalistic system of commerce and manufacturing enterprises.

BASEHOR, Kan. - The Wall Street Journal editorial in the August 6-7 edition, titled Repatriation Games, extolls the economic miracles that would abound if U.S. multi-national corporations were allowed to "repatriate" their foreign-earned capital to the United States at atrociously low tax rates. New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, in spite of his everyman-champion image, is a shill for Wall Street and has proposed a one-year, 5.25% repatriation rate. Economist Allen Sinai, in the same editorial, is reported to have estimated that there is more than $1 trillion abroad waiting to be repatriated -- if only the rates go down.

Unfortunately, the editorial leaves out one inconvenient fact when it comes to the argument that repatriation of foreign capital will produce jobs: lack of customer demand.

TOPEKA, Kan. - Jane Carter, executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees (KOSE), issued the following statement in response to Governor Brownback's proposals for voluntary retirement incentives:

I am quite disappointed by the Administration's announcement of the Voluntary Retirement Incentive proposal. To be very clear, KOSE is not opposed to voluntary retirement plans in general. However, it is essential that all factors be considered before enacting a Voluntary Retirement Incentive. The State has not, at this point, considered those factors nor met its legal obligations to KOSE. [Read more here]