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Despite opposition from most of our Kansas congressional delegation, new federal dollars are coming to Kansas to expand broadband access.

President Joe Biden recently signed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, fulfilling a 2020 campaign promise. The bill had moderate bipartisan support, though every Republican in Congress from Kansas opposed it. The only Kansan to support it was Democratic Representative Sharice Davids.

Kansas will receive about $4 billion from the bill, including about $100 million to expand broadband infrastructure and money to help 669,000 working class Kansans get discounted internet through the Affordable Connectivity Benefit.

Broadband means high speed internet access, specifically a minimum of 25 megabits per second download speed. However, many tech experts argue that this definition is outdated, and suggest a 100 Mbps standard.

Broadband is an economic necessity. Businesses without it struggle to grow. Doctors without it struggle to serve patients. Kansans without it struggle through basic online tasks using unreliable and slow connections.

According to BroadbandNow, which tracks internet provider data, 173,000 Kansans lack home broadband service and 307,000 dont have access to connections capable of broadband speed.

Rural communities generally struggle more to get broadband access. Basic capitalism explains why: Its expensive and not necessarily profitable for businesses to build broadband infrastructure in smaller rural communities with lower population densities and often shrinking populations.

BroadbandNow data shows this divide in Kansas. For example, in urban Shawnee County, 95% of residents have access to 25 Mbps speed and 93% have 100 Mbps. Next door in rural Wabaunsee County, those figures are 65% and 55% respectively. In rural Doniphan County, thats 89% and 12%.

The infrastructure bill has odd politics considering that several provisions like broadband disproportionately help Republican-leaning rural communities. Why would our elected Republicans oppose it?

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Broadband got engulfed in the theater of Beltway partisan politics. In 2016, former President Donald Trump promised a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Trump didnt keep that promise. He then attacked the Biden bill and acted offended at Republicans who supported it.

Even if our Republican lawmakers secretly supported the infrastructure bill and broadband money for Kansas, politics prevented them from being open about it. Maybe they feared ending their political careers in a primary. But rural Kansans getting internet via dial-up or a slow mobile hotspot with limited data probably dont care which presidents signature helps bring them broadband.

Some of our Kansas Republican lawmakers criticized the cost of the infrastructure bill and its impact on debt. Maybe they forgot that Trumps infrastructure plan cost about the same as Bidens, or that Trumps presidency added $7.8 trillion in national debt, per Federal Reserve data. Politics not money seems the real issue.

Some politicians claim they support broadband but oppose the infrastructure bill. Okay. Words wont fix this problem. What legislation have they sponsored to fund broadband separately? And do they support the House Republican CONNECT Act in this Congress that would ban local governments from creating broadband networks to serve their local citizens?

Of all the parts of the infrastructure bill, broadband seems worth the cost, especially if it helps our struggling rural communities integrate into the modern economy and stop population loss. Its unfortunate that Beltway politics kept average Kansans from getting the greater bipartisan support that they deserved here.

Patrick R. Miller is an associate professor of political science at the University of Kansas.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansans will get broadband access despite beltway politics from GOP

See original here:
Beltway politics kept Kansas Republicans in Congress from backing broadband access for rural towns - Yahoo News

The Wyoming Republican party will no longer recognize Liz Cheney as a member of the GOP in a rebuke over her vote to impeach Donald Trump over his role in the 6 January insurrection.

The vote by the state party central committee followed votes by local GOP officials in about one-third of Wyomings 23 counties to no longer recognize Cheney as a Republican.

The vote is the groups second formal rebuke for her criticism of Trump. In February, the Wyoming GOP central committee voted overwhelmingly to censure Cheney, Wyomings lone US representative.

Cheney has described her vote to impeach Trump as an act of conscience in defense of the constitution. Trump incited the mob and lit the flame of that days events, Cheney said after the attack.

It was laughable for anybody to suggest Cheney isnt a conservative Republican, said Cheneys spokesperson, Jeremy Adler, on Monday.

She is bound by her oath to the constitution. Sadly, a portion of the Wyoming GOP leadership has abandoned that fundamental principle and instead allowed themselves to be held hostage to the lies of a dangerous and irrational man, Adler added.

Cheney is now facing at least four Republican opponents in the 2022 primary, including the Cheyenne attorney Harriet Hageman, whom Trump has endorsed. Hageman in a statement called the latest state GOP central committee vote fitting, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.

Liz Cheney stopped recognizing what Wyomingites care about a long time ago. When she launched her war against President Trump, she completely broke with where we are as a state, Hageman said.

In May, Republicans in Washington DC removed Cheney from a top congressional GOP leadership position after she continued to criticize Trumps false claims that voter fraud cost him re-election.

Cheney had survived an earlier attempt to remove her as chairwoman of the House Republican conference, a role that shapes GOP messaging in the chamber.

Read more here:
Wyoming Republican party stops recognizing Liz Cheney as member - The Guardian

There arent a lot of things you can count on in this life, but one thing on which you definitely, 100% always can is Republicans rallying around the absolute worst members of society. Whether its an unsympathetic teen who killed two people, a colleague who proudly harasses school shooting survivors, or a Supreme Court justice accused of attempted rape, the GOP just loves to go to bat for these people. So naturally, their new pet cause is Steve Bannon, the indicted former Trump adviser who is literally still trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In the wake of the Friday news that a grand jury had charged Bannon for refusing to appear for a deposition with January 6 investigators and refusing to turn over requested documentsneither of which is in dispute!Republican lawmakers have flown to the mans defense, claiming, amazingly, that hes a victim of a zealous Department of Justice and vowing to get revenge against the people who have wronged him.

Now that Democrats have started these politically-motivated indictments for Contempt of Congress, I look forward to seeing their reactions when we keep that same energy as we take back the House next year! Rep. Lauren Boebert tweeted on Saturday, as though theres a single, solitary thing that Republicans do thats not politically motivated. For years, Democrats baselessly accused President Trump of weaponizing the DOJ. In reality, it is the Left that has been weaponizing the DOJ the ENTIRE TIME - from the false Russia Hoax to the Soviet-style prosecution of political opponents, Rep. Elise Stefanikclaimed, apparently forgetting that Donald Trump desperately tried to get the DOJ to prosecute, among others, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Matt Gaetz, who knows a little something about potential indictments, tweeted the hashtag #TeamBannon alongside a photo of the two of them on a tarmac near Air Force One.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan suggested that Republicans will seek retribution for Bannon if they take over the House in 2022, claiming that Biden aides can expect to receive an avalanche of frivolous subpoenas. Joe Biden has evicerated [sic] Executive Privilege, Jordan wrote on Twitter. There are a lot of Republicans eager to hear testimony from Ron Klain and Jake Sullivan when we take back the House. Obviously, Jordan did not mention that Klain and Sullivan do not have information concerning the violent attack on the Capitol that took place last January, nor did he note that Congress is strictly interested in what Bannon might have discussed with Trump in regard to the insurrection, and not legitimate government business. Bannonis viewed as a key witness for the January 6 select committee because he reportedly had conversations with Trump in the weeks leading up to the Capitol attack, was present in the war room of Trump allies as the insurrection went down, andtoldpodcast listeners on January 5, All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. In September, Bannonsaidthat hetoldTrump before the insurrection that he needed to kill [the Biden] administration in the crib early on. In short, the House committee said in itsreportputting forward a contempt resolution against him, Mr. Bannon appears to have played a multi-faceted role in the events of January 6th, and the American people are entitled to hear his first-hand testimony regarding his actions.

For his part, Trump released a characteristically insane, historically inaccurate statement on Sunday, saying, This Country has perhaps never done to anyone what they have done to Steve Bannon and they are looking to do it to others, also. (The people imprisoned in Japanese internment camps would probably like a word. And enslaved people too. Oh, and the ones who died while someone was publicly claiming COVID-19 was no big deal.)

Read the rest here:
Unhinged Republicans Threaten Retribution Over Bannon Indictment - Vanity Fair

Now that Republicans have won control of the Executive Mansion and the House of Delegates, will they be able to roll back some of the new environmental regulations approved by Democrats over the last two years?

The Virginia Clean Economy Act was a landmark piece of legislation for Democrats in 2020. It called for massive investments in offshore wind and zero carbon emissions by 2050. Now that Republicans will be controlling the administration and the House of Delegates, Steve Haner at the Thomas Jefferson Institute says the Clean Economy Act may require some cleaning up.

"The Clean Economy Act is definitely something that people want to revisit and amend," Haner explains. "Whether they want to repeal it outright that's another question. But amendments for sure, and I think the amendments can get through the House."

But the House is only half the story at the General Assembly. Democrats are still in control of the Senate, although they'll no longer have a lieutenant governor to break ties. Senator George Barker is a Democrat from Fairfax County who says Democrats may be able to prevent efforts to gut the Clean Economy Act from ever reaching the Senate floor.

"If the bill, a bill, does come over backing down on some of the climate change types of things from the House, and it's certainly possible it will," Barker says. "I think we have the ability to deal with it in the Senate and box it up and it'll probably never get to the floor and have the bill basically defeated in the committee."

That would be the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, which has 12 Democrats and only three Republicans.

This report, provided byVirginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from theVirginia Education Association.

See original here:
Now that Republicans control the House of Delegates, will the Clean Economy Act be revisited? - WVTF

Republicans are more likely to move to blue states if there are no mask or vaccine mandates (Getty)

Where you live and whom you vote for have never been more closely tied. Mapped election results over the past few decades show the red middle has grown redder and the blue coasts bluer.

But when it comes to settling down in another partys territory, a report by apartment-listing site Zumper shows registered Republicans are more liberal about living among Democrats than the other way around with one caveat.

To conduct the survey, Zumper asked 1,500 people from across the country, Would you move to an area that did not match your political leaning?

Democrats were less inclined than Republicans to lay down roots among people on the other end of the politician spectrum, as 40 percent said they would not move to a red area and only 27 percent said they would.

Republicans, however, were game to mix with the left, with 43 percent of GOP voters saying they would move to an area that did not match their politics and 36 percent saying they would not.

Jeff Andrews, report author and data analyst at Zumper, said Republicans openness to liberal enclaves makes more sense if you split them into two camps upper-middle-class and wealthy constituents who prize low regulation in one, and low-income, rural voters who favor identity politics in the other.

A wealthy Republican who works in finance might prefer to live in New York City, despite its blue leaning, Andrews said, pointing to job location and the perks of living in a cultural hub as factors. Plus, higher earners could afford to relocate.

The lasting popularity of Manhattans Metropolitan Republican Club speaks to that cohorts existence. Just last month, the group sold out its 118th annual dinner honoring Forbes Editor-in-Chief Steve Forbes with the Ronald Reagan Award in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Reagan Tax Cuts.

The Silk Stocking District on the Upper East Side is also routinely the top-donating area to Republican campaigns.

Similarly, in San Francisco, where just over 6 percent of voters are registered as Republicans, some ballots were cast for Donald Trump in 2016. The votes were concentrated in the citys richest areas Pacific Heights and Sea Cliff, among them, the San Francisco examiner reported.

In New York, there are likewise Republican pockets within the cities tight-knit communities, such as Brooklyns Hasidic and Russian Jewish enclaves. Brighton and Manhattan Beach elected a Republican City Council member this year for the first time this century.

Still, Republican openness to relocation knows some bounds, the report found. For many, Covid-19 protocols were a critical catch.

While 86 percent of Democrats said they would move to an area with a mask mandate, less than half of Republicans said the same. Aversions to vaccine mandates held similar sway. Just over one-third of Republicans said they would move somewhere that had vaccination requirements; 82 percent of Democrats said they would.

Considering the strict vaccine mandates for certain jobs and venues in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, it seems unlikely that the three cities will see an influx of Republicans anytime soon.

Contact Suzannah Cavanaugh

Continue reading here:
Republicans game to live in blue states unless theres a Covid mandate - The Real Deal