Monday, August 10, 2020
Locally owned since 1867
Royals sweep past Minnesota
iolaregister.com
On a collision course By JIM MCLEAN Kansas News Service
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COVID hits college towns hard PAGE A2
Opinion: State GOP a shadow of its former self PAGE A3
Daughter’s finances worry mother PAGE B3
TOPEKA — A near sweep by conservatives over moderates in several primary races this week sets up more conflict over the next two years between the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. “There will be a lot of feuding and fighting going on, particularly given the COVID situation,” said Rep. Tom Phillips, a moderate Republican from Manhattan who isn’t seeking a fifth term. Republican leaders could further limit Kelly’s power to guide the state’s response to the pandemic and power past her objections to reducing corporate taxes. Outgoing Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, said the primary showed “Kansans want to live in a culture of limited government.” “My focus now is to preserve our veto-proof majority in the Kansas Senate to keep a check on Laura Kelly’s lib-
Weiner staying put in Garnett By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
eral policies,” Wagle said in a statement. In each of the past two years, Kelly had enough lawmakers committed to expand Medicaid. But in both of those sessions, Wagle succeeded in blocking votes on the issue that Kelly made the signature of her campaign for governor. The primary results make expansion and even longer shot, Phillips said. “Unless the governor has
some grand compromise that she’s willing to work out with the conservatives,” he said, “I just don’t think it moves forward.” Several moderate Republican senators who supported expansion and voted to repeal Republican former Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax cuts lost to conservatives in Tuesday’s primary. Many of those races See PRIMARY | Page A2
GARNETT — Garnett City Manager Christopher Weiner, who had agreed to contract terms last week that would have made him Iola’s next city administrator, is staying Christopher in Garnett. Weiner Garnett City Commission members gathered for a special meeting Friday, at which time they forwarded a new contract to retain Weiner, along with a pay raise. “It was extremely difficult to pass up the opportunity to go to Iola,” Weiner told the Register this morning. His new contract with See WEINER | Page A4
Trump’s executive order sews confusion, disbelief BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s end run around Congress on coronavirus relief is raising questions about whether it would give Americans the economic lifeline he claims and appears certain to face legal challenges. Democrats called it a pre-election ploy that would burden cashstrapped states. “When you look at those executive orders ... the kindest thing I could say is he doesn’t know what he’s talking about or something’s wrong there,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “To characterize them as even accomplishing what they set out to do, as something that will take the place of an agreement, is just not so.” After negotiations with lawmakers on the next package of pandemic economic assistance hit a wall, Trump used what he said were the inherent powers of the presidency to forge ahead on tax and spending policy that Congress says it is granted by the Constitution. Trump asserted he had the authority to defer payroll taxes and extend an expired unemployment benefit, although at a lower amount than what the jobless had been getting during the crisis. His reelection chances imperiled by the pandemic, the Republican president contended his orders “will take care of pretty much this entire situation, as we know it.” But the orders appeared to carry less weight than
Donald Trump Trump promoted and cut federal relief spending by shifting more onto the shoulders of struggling states. Critics said the actions crossed a legal line and fell well short of what is needed to help right the fragile economy. Though certain to further strain relations with Congress, the moves were framed by the White House as the president breaking through the Washington gridlock in order to directly distribute aid. Advisers hope it will sustain an economic recovery that Trump likely needs to defeat Democrat Joe Biden in November. With an eye on reversing his slide in the polls, Trump took full credit for the measures, which he signed at his New Jersey golf club on Saturday after congressional talks broke down this past week. Democrats initially sought a $3.4 trillion package but said they lowered their demand to $2 See ORDERS | Page A4
Many of the gravestones in Cottage Grove cemetery are shattered and broken due to time and neglect; some rest within the confines of special family plots. REGISTER/TREVOR HOAG
‘Day after day after terrible day’ As night falls in Cottage Grove cemetery, that’s when the screams begin. Old settlers used to claim there were panthers in the woods nearby, enormous cats with claws and fangs that move on deathly silent paws. When children heard their terrorizing calls, they swore it had to be someone condemned to hell, begging for a merciful end. As I walked the path to the cemetery entrance an icy wind sliced through me like blades. I swore I, too, heard voices and that every echoing step through the cold might be my last. Despite the irony of dying in a cemetery, at least my final remains wouldn’t have
Trevor Hoag Just Prairie far to travel. BEFORE being called Cottage Grove, the cemetery was named Oak Grove, and before that, the Phillips family graveyard. Its hauntingly moving aesthetic is immediately apparent upon approach, as are the impressive boulders that wrap around the site — which “Tales of Early Allen
County” describes as being akin to “a protecting arm.” Despite innumerable times the hungry waters of the Neosho have crawled from their banks, intent on consuming this elegant city of the dead, the barrier has nonetheless held fast, clothed in its ancient armor. In winter, the enormous limestone blocks were draped in long, white icicles trailing to the ground, dripping slowly, slowly, eating away at the structure, meticulously shaping them, as has happened for countless millennia. If the cemetery stands as a series of monuments to the lives of the human dead, to See CEMETERY | Page A4
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