{"id":494,"date":"2010-02-26T11:49:50","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T16:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/?p=494"},"modified":"2010-02-26T11:49:50","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T16:49:50","slug":"the-endangered-species-of-thoughtful-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=494","title":{"rendered":"The Endangered Species of Thoughtful Politicians&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/GRBJ0747.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-493\" title=\"GRBJ0747\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/GRBJ0747.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"362\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/GRBJ0747.gif 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/GRBJ0747-300x193.gif 300w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/GRBJ0747-464x300.gif 464w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Originally published in the <em>Grand Rapids Business Journal<\/em>, February 15, 2010<\/p>\n<p>As I alluded to last week, my local congressional representative <a title=\"Vern Ehlers\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vern_Ehlers\" target=\"_blank\">Vern Ehlers <\/a>recently announced he has no intention of running again this fall. Good for Vern. He\u2019s a physicist by training, and I\u2019m sure he will get much more enjoyment pursuing his scientific interests (Honey, I\u2019m going to build a cyclotron in the basement!) than dealing with a dysfunctional congress. Ehlers is a decent guy &#8212; a Republican and fiscal conservative with an open mind, particularly for environmental issues. Or, as the cartoon refers to him, an endangered species.<\/p>\n<p>So it will be interesting to see who wins the Republican nomination, which is essentially the de facto winner for our district. Already there are true bloods lining up to out zealot each other with \u201cI hate government, government hates us\u201d this and \u201ctaxes ruin everything always every time\u201d that. Bad for us. Perhaps if Ehlers has something left in his tank for serving his country, he will work toward devising a ray gun that can be used on politicians who follow their party\u2019s line too closely &#8212; the beam would stimulate the disused reason and thoughtful consideration parts of the brain back to activity. How about it, Vern? Please?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 15, 2010 As I alluded to last week, my local congressional representative Vern Ehlers recently announced he has no intention of running again this fall. Good for Vern. He\u2019s a physicist by training, and I\u2019m sure he will get much more enjoyment pursuing his scientific interests [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-rapids-business-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}