The panel featured Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, Kansas Secretary of Health and the Environment Dr. Lee Norman, researcher and professor at the University of Kansas Dr. David Slusky, and president of the Bluford Healthcare Leadership Institute Dr. John Bluford. The discussion was moderated by William Jewell College’s Dr. Gary Armstrong.

American Public Square provided a program and a basic facts sheet to inform the audience. The panelists often referred to information provided on the fact sheet during the discussion. 

Among the points discussed were the differences between Medicaid and expanded Medicaid, the Kansas bill for Medicaid expansion and how it would be funded, and how those on Medicaid would be affected by the expansion.

Denning explained that in Kansas, funding for traditional Medicaid comes in a constantly changing ratio of federal and state contributions. At the time of the panel, 60 percent of Medicaid was funded by the federal government and 40 percent was funded by the state. This is revised periodically. 

Funding for Medicaid expansion is different. Ninety percent of funding for the expanded program would come from the federal government, with only 10 percent coming from the state.

Denning also explained the sources of funding for Medicaid within the state. Traditional Medicaid is funded mostly out of the state checking account. About 13 percent comes from a tax on HMO insurance. The Kansas Legislature, specifically Denning, is attempting to find sources of funding for the expansion that would require no further draw upon state checking account funds. This would include a tax or surcharge on hospitals and a greater HMO tax. 

Panelists mentioned that states have already lost millions of dollars that could have been put toward Medicaid and healthcare programs by not expanding. 

Bluford argued that the human element of Medicaid and expansion is often overlooked. Most of the people who are on Medicaid would rather not have to be, and it provides care for those who otherwise could not afford it. However, it can be difficult to find doctors who take Medicaid because the payout is below cost for the treatment and can often come in payments months after treatment happens. This is a problem that needs to be fixed. Medicaid expansion would help narrow the gap and address this. 

In September Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House will launch an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. 

Hearings in the House have proceeded, with recent testimony by Ambassador Bill Taylor bringing more evidence to light about Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine. 

Furthermore, Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top expert on Ukraine on the National Security Council, has testified that parts of the actual call had been omitted from the transcript released to the public, including Trump mentioning possible recordings of Joe Biden talking about corruption in Ukraine. 

But what is impeachment, and is it even feasible?

“The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” Article II Section 4 of the United States Constitution states.

In the past, 19 federal officials have been impeached: 15 judges, one cabinet secretary, one senator, and two presidents: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton – Nixon resigned before impeachment proceedings were completed.

Article I Section 2 states that only the House of Representatives has the power of impeachment. Only the House can pass a resolution to start an inquiry and impeach the president. If the vote passes by simple majority, the president is impeached and the Senate can proceed to trial. This, however, does not mean the president is convicted or removed from office. 

Past this point the Senate has all the power. Once the resolution is passed by the House the Senate can decide whether or not to continue proceedings and try the president.  In other words, even if the House passes the resolution, if the Senate decides against it a formal trial on impeachment will not commence. The Senate may also acquit the president of charges, which happened in the cases of both Johnson and Clinton.

If the Senate decides to proceed, the Senate members act as a trial court and play the role of judge and jury, although House members have historically acted as prosecutors. The president can be convicted by a two-thirds vote: this means at least 20 Republican senators would have to vote to impeach President Trump, as well as all Democratic senators, to convict and remove him from office. 

But is this possible or likely? And even if it is, would impeaching the president be a good thing? In an interview for the Hilltop Monitor, Dr. Gary Armstrong, professor of Political Science and Associate Dean for the Core Curriculum weighs in. 

But first, Dr. Armstrong has recommended three resources for anyone thinking about impeachment:  two articles from the Atlantic and a podcast in which Attorney Alan Dershowitz and Allan Lichtman, two scholars with opposing views, debate and discuss whether or not Trump should be impeached. 

Given the political nature of the question of impeachment, what is the current likelihood of President Trump being impeached by the Senate?

“I would say the probability of Donald Trump being impeached by the House is very high and probably urgent. It’s really hard at this point to say whether or not he would be convicted by the Senate; that will depend on a bunch of things. The key point is that the fate of the president is in the hands of the Republicans in the Senate. There would need to be 20 Republicans in the Senate who would need to vote to convict the president, and that would only be to fulfill the minimum two-thirds requirement. It would be safer for a lot of people if there were to be 25 Republicans.“

“It is hard whether to say if that is possible, likely or probable at this point. I’ve felt that for the last couple of weeks that the pressure behind the Republican dam of support for the president is building very strongly, and that dam may break. It seems to me that it is definitely possible that a majority of Republicans would vote to convict and remove the president, but it is too soon to tell if that is likely or probable.”

Does Ambassador Bill Taylor’s recent testimony change anything?

“Ambassador Taylor’s testimony profoundly changed things. If his testimony is confirmed by a couple of national security council officials, and most importantly, if it is confirmed by former national security advisor John Bolton, then the situation for the president could be very serious.”

Because there are multiple theories upon which impeachment can be brought, what theories do you think we will be seeing during the impeachment probe?

“The Constitution is very clear that the president can be impeached for bribery, treason or other high crimes of misdemeanor. I think it is most likely that the president will be impeached with a focus on the Ukraine scandal, not, for example, on obstruction of justice arising out of the Mueller report and not on accusations of racist conduct, which is, by the way, the charge in the first bill of impeachment that has been filed in the House of Representatives.” 

“If they charge him on the Ukraine scandal, I think the charge will have something to do with abuse of powers, in particular the abuse of the national security authority of the President. The president’s national security powers are awesome. They can include, under emergency circumstances, the seizure of the media, seizure of the public airways, decisions to kill people abroad or at home, and those powers have to be held in public trust or for the public trust.“

“There is now a very serious accusation that the president has abused the national security powers of his office for personal and partisan reasons. I think the charge that – if I were a Democrat – I would be most interested in would be something like this: The president stops military aid to a friendly government under attack in wartime to pressure that government for the president’s personal and partisan gain. That is really serious. If the evidence of that is good, my general feeling is in what universe would that not be impeachable?”

Is there any relation to the charges brought against Trump and the kinds of charges leveled against Johnson, Nixon and Clinton during their impeachment?

“Clinton was being impeached and tried because he had lied under oath involving personal misconduct, or misconduct in his personal life. He was being charged with the kind of thing that anyone involved in accusations of rape and sexual harassment will have to answer to. It is not as though he was being charged with simply private matters; it’s much more complicated than that. But it did not rise, most people thought, to the level of corruption of the inherent authority of the president. The Nixon and the Trump cases do rise to arguments about corruption of the constitutional authority of the Office of President. And it always strikes me that those are the more serious.“

“The heart of [Nixon’s case] is a cover-up in the 1972 Watergate break-in. As far as I know, there is no evidence that Richard Nixon knew about and ordered, or had authorized, the Watergate break-in. What he did was cover it up in a series of very controversial illegal actions involving the national security community. And that’s why he was going to be impeached, almost certainly was going to be removed, and that is why he resigned his office. There is at least some similarity between the Nixon and the Trump cases because they involve accusations about the national security authority of the president. The thing that is really striking to me is that Richard Nixon resigned. He knew he was going to be impeached and convicted, and a group of Republican Senators led by Barry Goldwater had gone to him and said, ‘You need to resign for the good of the country and the good of the government and the good of the Republican Party.’ And he did.“

“But Richard Nixon had an entire lifetime of service in politics, and he knew you could be defeated and come back. I think he knew he would never have a chance to run for public office again when he resigned, but he thought he had a chance to recover his reputation, and he [worked] hard on that for the next 20 years.“

“Donald Trump has never served in government, has no significant government experience, has never been defeated and come back in public life, and I think there is a really important question about whether he has a narcissistic personality that is so strong that even if he knew he was going to be defeated and members of his own party said ‘You’ve got to resign,’ that he would refuse to resign.”

Who are President Trump’s biggest supporters in these proceedings? 

“The heart of the matter is going to come down to the Republicans in the Senate. He has some that are strong supporters, but it’s already interesting how many are being very careful and non-committal when asked about whether or not they will support the president. Several of them, for example Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, has already made it very clear that she is a potential juror and she is not going to make comments until she sees all the evidence. “

“There will be a lot of Republican, conservative, pro-Trump, tea party people who will support the president probably, I think, until the bitter end. And one of the key questions is whether or not they can bring enough pressure on Republicans in the Senate to keep them from convicting and removing the president.“

“I continue to believe – and I could be wildly naive about this – that a majority of Republicans in the Senate would be willing to convict and remove the president under two conditions: the first that there are good facts, and the second that there are good politics. But a friend of mine who works for a Republican Senator says that we are now so polarized that he does not believe anyone will agree on what good facts are.”  

Conversely, what will be his biggest weaknesses?

“The President’s most important vulnerability is Donald Trump himself. The President regularly misstates facts, incorrectly characterizes facts and outright lies.” 

Recently, it came out that former Chief of Staff John Kelly said that he had warned President Trump that if Kelly were replaced with a “yes man” Trump would likely be impeached. What do you think of this news?

“I think it would be very hard to be an advisor to Donald Trump. I think the evidence now is very clear that he is almost unadvisable. I think it is pretty clear he is not studying carefully how Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton responded to impeachment. If he were to study carefully how Bill Clinton responded to impeachment and to focus with very strong discipline in doing what Bill Clinton did, he might have a chance. But that is not what he is doing.“

“I think it is because he thinks he has the best instincts, he knows more than the political professionals, he knows more than his national security advisors and he knows more than his generals. He says this kind of stuff repeatedly. So I think it is really hard to advise the president. If he cannot tell the truth, if he cannot avoid lying in public and under oath, then the president is almost certainly in very deep trouble.”

When discussing whether or not the president should be impeached, Dr. Armstrong answered, 

“I don’t know whether it is wise to impeach the president. Some people argue as if impeaching the president is an obligation, and I don’t see it that way. I think it is an option, but it’s not an obligation. And if a person’s most important objective is getting Donald Trump out of office, it is not clear to me yet that impeaching the president is the wisest course of action. I would argue that this could be a time when there is a pretty significant gap between the ethics of intention and the ethics of consequence, between the ethics of constitutional morality and the ethics of political responsibility.“

“I would urge people that if we think there is no reason to believe that the Senate will convict and remove the president, to think very carefully about whether or not they support impeaching the president.“

“I believe the highest version of the charge against the president would be to add the word ‘only’; the president of the United States stopped aid to a friendly government under attack in wartime only for the president’s personal and partisan interest. If you have great evidence that this is ‘only’ [personal and partisan interest was the only reason the president did so], then I think the president could be in deep trouble. “

“Right now, I would say we have good but not great evidence for ‘only’. And there are going to be some people who say, ‘look, if it wasn’t only for corrupt purposes, if there could be other reasonable reasons for stopping military aid to Ukraine, then you could start building a reasonable case to defend the president that a lot of Americans would wind up accepting.” 

The impeachment process is still ongoing. The House is slated to vote on formalizing the process on October 31. What happens from there is still to be seen.

Youtube lists are really common and overdone, I know. So why am I doing a Top 10 YouTube Channels? Well, there are a few channels I think do not get enough credit and are too often overlooked. That profile does not fit every channel on this list, but it does fit a few. They are important for different reasons: bringing to light important issues, explaining concepts, experiences, or advice or being a good way to unwind. These YouTube channels deserve some love, so hang on for the list. 

1. Special Books for Special Kids (SBSK)

SBSK is run by a man named Chris, who goes around the world interviewing people of all ages and races who live with disabilities. He has entire playlists of interviews with people living with autism, genetic conditions and mental illnesses. Not only are the interviews educational, but you get to hear from people with various conditions and empathize and understand them. The channel promotes inclusivity, respect, positivity and collaboration. What could be more important? The exact ranking of the other channels is debatable, but this is number one. 

2. Associated Press

The Associated Press is a huge news organization that covers all types of important issues and current events. They are considered one of the least biased news sources as well, so you are more free to make your own conclusions. Keeping up to date on issues and educating yourself is very important in this day and age in order to be a good world citizen.

3. Minute Earth

Minute Earth is a channel that explains all sorts of questions that have to do with Earth and science. The videos are short, so you aren’t sitting through any droning lectures, and you get to learn something new.. 

4. The Financial Diet

This channel gives you all kinds of good tips on finances, saving, budgeting and investing. We’re all just trying to adult, why not learn some tricks for it? 

5. Binging with Babbish

This is a really good, interesting cooking channel. Not only does Babbish have videos on all the basics for beginners, but he recreates dishes from popular culture. Babbish has  a good sense of humor too, and his videos aren’t boring to watch.

6. ChilledCow

This channel offers 24-hour live lo-fi music and a playlist of copyright free songs. Sometimes music like this is just what you need to unwind or focus.

7. Angry Ram

This channel is full of videos of a family of rams getting angry and ramming into stuff. It’s the same rams just being rams. The videos are funny and cute, and the person running the channel gives occasional updates on the ram family.

8. Gus Johnson

Gus is a comedy YouTuber, and he’s ridiculous. His comedy is nonsensical and his videos are basically just long vines.

9. Numberphile

This channel is all about videos explaining math concepts in easy to understand ways and applying them to real life. The videos are informative, interesting and well-made. The length of the videos varies, but they are usually not over 15 minutes.

10. Wednesday Campanella / 水曜日のカンパネラ

This is the channel for a Japanese band, and I just really like their music. It’s important, okay? They are really good. Have a listen. They have a series of songs inspired by the legends and fairytales of different cultures. It’s cool.

The American Public Square, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose goal is to change the tone and quality of public discourse, has announced a new partnership with William Jewell College, and has rebranded as the American Public Square at Jewell. 

The organization, founded in 2013 and headed by former Ambassador to Portugal Allan Katz, encourages honest, open, and civil discussions on important national issues, with the goal of fostering a better understanding of different perspectives and the eventual respect, compromise and resolution between groups.

The partnership between American Public Square and William Jewell was formally announced with a lecture by Ambassador Katz Sept. 17 in the Yates-Gill College Union on campus. The lecture was titled “Bringing Civility Back”. 

In his lecture, Ambassador Katz recounted the events leading to the founding of the American Public Square and its prototype, The Village Square, which he used to explain the reason for and goals of The American Public Square.

In 2006, while Ambassador Katz was a city commissioner for Tallahassee, Fla. there was a dispute about whether or not to build a coal plant near the city. While observing the argument between the two sides Katz decided that something must be done and joined with a Republican colleague to create Village Square, a space where people could “at least talk to each other”. 

The Village Square was conceived with a specific intent in mind by Ambassador Katz.

“As a sort of model of how you could talk about a controversial subject in a way that really was in keeping with the Founders’ approach of what America really was,” Katz explained. “You could agree to disagree without necessarily vilifying people on the other side.”

“Part of the basis of this country is that we owe to each other a certain amount of consideration, and our community has needs which we all have to work together and achieve,” Katz said. 

Following the lecture and question time there was an informal reception. During this time, Ambassador Katz agreed to an exclusive interview for the Hilltop Monitor.

Q: What kind of internship opportunities and ways to get involved will be available to Jewell students?

“There will be programs here, there will be programs around the community, which we hope students will attend. We would like to get students involved. We have a program committee, we have a membership committee, and we are always looking for new ideas and ways that we can involve more young people in what we do. Plus, we have a student initiative geared towards high school students, and we would love to get input from students on how to bring that into colleges as well.”

Q: When do you think these opportunities will start?

“Well, we have the office here now, we have programs scheduled now for the next three months. One will be here on the fourth of November on medicaid expansion. I’m hoping by mid-October we will have a much clearer idea. [By mid-October we are hoping to have] an infrastructure and framework in place so when a student shows up to be an intern we know what they’re going to be doing.”

Q: This organization has been going for several years now, since 2013. Are there any examples of times you have seen that your organization is making some impact on the community? 

“About two years ago we had a program called Muslims in the Metro, and we had a state representative from Kansas on the program and about five panelists, including a young woman who was part of the Muslim Student Association at KU. The state representative made some comment about her hijab, sort of referring to it as a costume.

“She was very, very calm and said, ‘I know you don’t mean to be offensive, but it’s part of who I am.’ By the end of the session, the state representative turned to one of the other Muslim panel members and said, ‘you know, I’ve never looked at things this way before. Would you please come out to my district where I can get some people and have you explain this to them?’ You never expect that to happen. It’s like out of a movie. 

“We never have a program where several people don’t come up to me and say, ‘I want to thank you for starting this. I’m so tired of all this other noise”. “[But for what comes next] It’s not like I’ve said, ‘here’s the plan and here’s what we’re going to get done.’ It’s up to all of us.” 

Q: Have you seen an increase in the size of audiences at your programs in recent years? How large of an audience do you see?

“Yes. The first program we did had 140 people. The largest we had was one at the end of February where we had 950 people. The range has usually been from somewhere around 100 to 150. We had a fake news program and there were 850 people, we had something on guns with 650 people, we had something on the death penalty that had 400 people. 

“Part of it is to reach out to the community [and spread information on events]. We have a very small staff. That is something interns could help with.”

Q: Are there any other ways you are hoping to make an impact on the Jewell community?

“I would love to see Jewell students decide – if they think they can organize themselves with some help from us – to create their own American Public Square on campus, with students running it. They can staff it, they can find the speakers, and we would be happy to help them do it. That would be great.” 

Dr. Katz will serve as a Distinguished Professor in Residence in Jewell’s Department of Political Science.

The American Public Square has a satellite office at William Jewell on the first floor of the Yates-Gill College Union. The organization is also continuing to maintain its headquarters in the Plexpod Westport Commons.
The first American Public Square event on William Jewell campus will occur Nov. 4, titled “Medicaid: Expansion vs. Status Quo – What’s the Price?”. Doors open at 5 p.m., the buffet opens at 5:30 p.m. and the program begins at 6 p.m.