The week reviewed: Hawley supports Walker, Missouri boosts the rich, kid with autism tased

Abortion payment not a deal-breaker for Josh Hawley

In Republican circles, forget about family values. It’s about political power. The GOP wants to control the U.S. Senate at any cost. How else to explain Sen. Josh Hawley’s continued support of Herschel Walker, a Georgia Republican nominee for the Senate who has insisted a woman’s claim — complete with a canceled check and other evidence — that he paid for her abortion is false?

Hawley isn’t shy about sharing his beliefs. Missouri’s junior senator is unapologetically pro-life. So we are confused at his trepidation in distancing himself from Walker.

Sure, Walker denied the allegation. But The Daily Beast produced receipts from an abortion procedure and a personal check allegedly from Walker to the woman to build its case. On Tuesday, Walker threatened to sue the publication for defamation, but as of press time no such suit has been filed. As for the get-well card and check? Walker says that’s nothing — he sends money and cards to people all the time.

Asked if Hawley still supports Walker after the first of two reports on the abortion were published, a spokesperson told The Star “yes.”

Walker’s contentious midterm race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia could swing power in the Senate back to the Republicans. Hawley’s support for Walker isn’t all that surprising. It recalls legions of GOP senators who stuck with Alabama’s Roy Moore in a 2017 special Senate election despite credible claims he wooed a young teenager when he was in his 30s.

Last year, Hawley enthusiastically endorsed Walker for the Senate, calling the former college and pro football star the “real deal.” There’s no sign yet that he’s retreating from that assessment.

Missouri digs itself a tax cut hole

The Missouri General Assembly’s special session has mercifully drawn to a close, and you may soon find a few more dollars in your pocket.

And, as always, the richer you are, the more money you’ll see.

Lawmakers passed an income tax cut that drops the top tax rate from 5.3% to 4.95% immediately, with further cuts phased in over the next couple of years. It will cost the state about $764 million a year, according to the most conservative estimates, and maybe more.

That means state workers won’t get paid as much as they should, and other programs — mental health services, schools, law enforcement — may suffer. And if the economy tanks, it’ll be nearly impossible for the state to raise taxes to cover shortfalls.

The 501(c)(3) nonprofit Missouri Budget Project says the poorest 20% of Missourians will see about $3 a year, which can all be spent in one place. The richest 1% get a tax cut close to $4,200.

But this was inevitable. Selling a tax cut in Missouri in an election year is easier than selling cold beer at Kauffman Stadium in August.

What comes next? Look for a major assault on corporate income taxes in the 2023 session. That rate, now 4%, is apparently far too high.

What does it take in Kansas to lose a badge?

How is it that a Kansas sheriff’s deputy can handcuff, shackle and hogtie a small, 12-year-old child who has autism, throw him in the back of a cruiser, then taser the boy who was not resisting — and yet the officer is still allowed to continue working in law enforcement?

That child must have been doing something pretty awful to warrant that kind of treatment, right? No. The boy was trying to run away from his Holton, Kansas, foster home. Not a crime. Pretty typical child behavior.

Deputy Matthew Honas, an 11-year veteran with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, was not wearing a body camera when he used “excessive force multiple times” on the child, according to the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training, which investigated the incident. Thank goodness a camera inside his cruiser captured his mistreatment of the child.

The report says the officer shoved, elbowed, applied pressure points, and “hog tied and ultimately tased” the child. Some of this happened while the child was “sitting in the patrol car” and “not actively resisting.” His hands were cuffed behind his back, his legs shackled. This does not sound like good cop behavior.

The sheriff’s department fired Honas. Good move. The commission only reprimanded him for his misconduct, but did not revoke or suspend his license. If it had, he could never be a peace officer in Kansas again and his name would go into the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training’s National Decertification Index. That would mean police and sheriff departments across the country would know what he’d done. As it is now, he can just take his slapped wrists and join some other force.

Call us gobsmacked. If terribly abusing a child for simply being a child isn’t enough to invite the officer to find another line of work, then what the heck is?