Opinion

THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

My sister and I told my mother we were throwing her a party for her 90th birthday.

“Not everyone knows I’m 90!” she said.

“Well, it’s good we tell them,” I said. “We told everyone that Dad turned 90 last year, and we don’t want people to think he robbed the cradle.”

Mom saw the sense in that, and we sent out invitations to friends and family, and even though a few people couldn’t make it at the last minute, we still had 34 guests. A spattering of rain sent everyone indoors, but everyone found a place to sit and eat appetizers and snacks and salads and cake, and we toasted to Mom’s 90th year.

GUEST COLUMN, Vance Ginn, Kansas Policy Institute

Panasonic’s special rate deal shows how corporate favoritism quietly shifts costs onto Kansans

Kansas taxpayers have already given Panasonic nearly $829 million in incentives to build its massive electric-vehicle battery plant in De Soto — the largest economic-development deal in state history. Now, as Sunflower State Journal reports, Kansans could soon be paying again — this time through their monthly Evergy utility bills.

Evergy has asked the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) to approve a 10-year “special contract” that would grant Panasonic electricity rates lower than what other large industrial users pay. The company insists this will make Kansas more competitive and ultimately help other customers. But when a state-regulated monopoly–with guaranteed profits–offers discounts to one of the world’s largest corporations, someone else has to make up the difference. That “someone else” is you — the ratepayer.

L&T Staff Member Elly Grimm

The No Kings 2.0 protests from Oct. 18 brought out more than 7 million citizens throughout the U.S., and more turned out in other countries throughout the world. I was one of nearly a dozen people who joined the protest here in town that weekend, and a frequent comment I saw, which I consider rather unfounded, is “None of these people even know what they’re protesting.”

I’m here to say, right now, I know exactly why I joined the protest here in town and why I was one of those more than 7 million attendees.

GUEST COLUMN, Bob Ford

To Stump: In politics, stumping refers to an act of campaigning for office by traveling and speaking. A stump speech is a standard repeatable address a candidate delivers many times introducing themselves and their message to voters. The term stumping came from the early 19th century where candidates on the frontier would stand on stumps from a cut down tree, giving them a platform.

Lincoln was very good at it!

On “Honest Abe’s” second trip across Missouri he ventured into Kansas delivering numerous stumps.