Talk:Jon Kyl

Initial comments
I came here to read more about Jon Kyl, featured in the national news tonight as John McCain's Senate replacement. Why are we reading a justification of Planned Parenthood's work? Not relevant. Take it down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EdithStein4SD (talk • contribs) 23:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous: "He promotes lower taxes, national defense, tough crime and drug laws, victims rights, health care, and education." Well no kidding. I think we'd ought to list issues that take a personal meaning to the particular congressman or that have been part of campaign strategy. Being tough on crime and drugs, promoting health care and education are non-statements. No politician in the US is against education, and similarly, none are against health care.

Now, these issues may be defining to his term in office. For example, if he were for nationalized health care, privatizing education, or had specific drug and crime law legislation proposed, it would make sense to list these here. Otherwise, I'm removing them this week. I'll actually check and see what his official position on each of the listed items is, and replace the dumb, non-statement with one that actually informs.

If anyone else sees similar sentences on other politician pages, please do the same. --ABQCat 07:03, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've removed a sentence about how he's strongly opposed to the Akaka bill. It seemed odd to devote a whole paragraph to an issue that is, at the national level, fairly minor. Meelar (talk) 03:57, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Wiki Sponsored Bill Policy
I think adding potential bills that Senators sponsor is a good idea, and I would like to add information on it, particularly here and at John Cornyn. The particular bill is about collecting DNA from suspects and placing it indefinitely in federal databases, regardless of conviction or acquittal. --Iosif 22:24, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

term limits
I think there should be something about term limits. Jon Kyl campaigned on the promise of term limits and that he would stay in office for two terms as senator. He signed the Contract with America (The Citizen Legislature Act) to that effect. Now he is running for a third term as senator. QuestioningAuthority 15:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, that's not true. He signed the Contract with America while he was in the House of Representatives, stating that's where he would only run for two terms. Then he ran as senator. KyleUpDATER 14:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The Contract with America isn't relevant for two reasons - first, as pointed out, Kyl was not a Senator then; second, the Contract said that signers would support a constitutional amendment. So signing does not in any way commit someone to personally observe term limits.


 * Having said that, it's true that a number of Republican politicians DID, individually, promise that they would limit themselves. My guess is that a majority of those who so promised did not, in fact, observe their promise.  I've personally updated a half-dozen or so wikipedia articles, where there was evidence of such a personal pledge/promise, based on this blog posting and discussion and its links.


 * In short, if there is something else besides the Pledge to point to, then yes, add information about a pledge/promise. I suspect there ISN'T anything else, based on a google search I just did, but I didn't check every result.  John Broughton 19:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Attempt To Mislead Supreme Court
I just restored my wording around the Kyl / Graham amicus brief in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case.

The apparent attempt to mislead the supreme court is the reason why this brief is notable; from the article (and several references quoting it) the "extensive colloloquy" 'appears to have been' an attempt to create a ficticious transcript (including staged interruptions, asking if they had time left, etc.) and pass it off as real senate discussion--hence the title of the reference (Invisibile Men : Did Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl mislead the Supreme Court?)

Haven't been through the edit history so I'm not sure quite how it got dropped--with the recent run on vandalism / clean up it may just have been dropped accidentally. If anyone does have a POV concern please feel free to suggest alternate wording --Cambridgegames 01:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Restored it again--I guess I jsut have a vague sense that elected officials getting caught 'appearing to' deliberately attempt to mislead the supreme court is a notable event. As above--very happy to take suggestions for different wording if you can come up with a more NPOV way of describing what happened68.239.36.140 02:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I've removed a statement that says Pederson is the odds-on favorite to beat Kyl. Polls have consistently shown Pederson to trail Kyl, although the race is expected to be close. An article in today's AZ Republic backs this up: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1018sen-pederson1018.html

Online Gaming Ban section removal
I removed the section on Kyl's part in an online gaming ban. It seems more appropriate to start a new article on the subject, and I know of other instances where different figures' statements or actions about certain things (Katrina, etc) have been removed wholesale from their articles. Anyway, could we generate some discussion on this? If the editor chooses to register a username and present a case, I'm sure their concerns would be taken seriously. --JMurphy 05:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * WTF? Why was this removed?  People need to know that we don't want leaders like this.

He was key figure in two attempts to try and control what the american people do in private. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.58.149.18 (talk) 22:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It was removed because except for one sentence ("Jon Kyl was a major House supporter of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006"), the entire section was about the act (how it was passed, why it was a bad thing). Senators may vote on hundreds of controversial bills every year; if we devoted an entire section of a Senator's Wikipedia article for each of these, it would be far, far too long - and boring to read.  Editors who want to post a lot of information about a particular law (or controversial bill that doesn't become law) should create a separate article, as JMurphy mentions.


 * Note: if Kyl's role on this law was discussed extensively in newspapers and magazines, then it would not be a WP:NPOV violation to include such information (with multiple cites) in the article. -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 19:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * even more timely would be something about his current involvement in the Reid bill, the 15 month blackout period, and his eventual blocking of its passage (as of 10Dec2010). 199.214.18.223 (talk) 22:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Purposely lying on the floor of the Senate
There seems to be a difference of opinion on whether purposely lying on the Senate floor is trivial and fluff, or if it's a serious breach of trust. '''imo, the egregious lie, the refusal to take responsibility for the lie, and then to blame the American public for believing what he said, combine to make this much more than a trivial 'misstatement' or obvious hyperbole. This was a determined attempt to greatly mislead in a debate many people were following with great interest.''' He may be retiring at the end of his term, but that's no excuse for this disregard for Senate standards. When one speaks on the floor of the Senate, it's supposed to be taken seriously. This was not some cocktail party remak made in passing with friends, but on the floor of the Senate. Flatterworld (talk) 15:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)\

And as I've said already, if the editors in this community are interested in having every single politician's page cluttered with fact-checking of every claim made on the Senate floor, I suppose we can do that. Of course, all that is going to do is create an absurd amount of detail, endless editing wars, and distraction from the basic story about each individual politician/legislator. Every single politician gives speeches with factual claims of questionable accuracy. Every. Single. One. If there ends up being some kind of grand public controversy about one of the misstatements, then perhaps some discussion would be warranted, but I don't care of it's Bernie Sanders or Jim DeMint -- you're talking about taking on a huge burden within the Wikipedia community if you're going to start turning bio pages into places to fact-check speeches. I can think of about 8 misstatements by politicians that I know of off the top of my head that could form the basis of this kind of entry on other pages. Is that a good use of my time? Is the public served? Is the body of knowledge served? I really don't think so, and would urge that this kind of content just stay off bio pages except in the most extraordinary of situations. Otherwise, it's a death spiral. HenryBrooksAdams (talk) 18:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I look forward to reading those eight 'misstatements', although I don't see their relevance. As I said, this is not about a simple misstatement. I have now bolded that part of my post because you obviously missed it. Perhaps, after reading it, you might like to reply and discuss the actual topic of conversation here. Flatterworld (talk)
 * Check the history on this article to see both the interim and final correction I made to your 'contribution'. Clue: March comes BEFORE April. Even assuming CNS News is considered to be a reputable, reliable source (and I certainly have doubts about that), unless their journalists are prescient, your citation was wrong, irrelevant, and apparently part of your spin vendetta. Assume Good Faith is not a suicide pact. Flatterworld (talk) 23:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Sigh. I am baffled as to why you choose to have these discussions while being so disagreeable.  Look at the history for this page for the last 24 hours.  Ask yourself whether any of this was worth the mess the page has become.  And yes, I *do* get paid to work with politicians (not Jon Kyl, and not with Wikipedia -- in other areas), but if you look at what I do, you'll see that I aggressively keep spin OUT of these articles.  You've introduced an inflammatory and petty issue into a straight bio page and now there are tons of crap edits that have to be addressed.  I mean, geez, you did a great job of putting the policy and service parts up front and pushing the politics down.  And on this "eight misstatements" point, how about you just spend an hour during the "one minutes" in the House and start checking the claims?  Or listen to any Pat Leahy speech about judicial nominations in the Bush Administration? Or look at Bernie Sanders's 8 hour speech where he had all kinds of goofy #s?  Or any Bachmann speech about the health care law?  I'm not going to put all that into Wikipedia because I do not WANT to clutter up pages of either Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians or What-Not with fact-checking claims.  A bio just isn't the right place for it.HenryBrooksAdams (talk) 15:44, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Life isn't that complicated. If people DEMAND these representatives do their jobs properly (which includes no outright lying to the public), that's a 'disincentive'. Excusing intentional lies is an 'incentive'. I do understand misstatements. I do NOT understand an outright lie which isn't retracted. I watched the clip and there wasn't a HINT that he was exaggerating to make a point. (I expect he did believe it, was totally misinformed, and didn't want to admit that publicly and/or fire the staff member responsible - or more likely, the paid lobbyist.) Citizens need to be informed, WITH FACTS. "Comment is free, but facts are sacred" (P Scott). Otherwise, why bother with Congress in the first place? Just auction places off to whichever lobbyist organizations are willing to pay the most. If this sort of intentional lying (claiming 'facts' which are easily proven to be lies) is that common, then we at least need to add the specific links to PolitiFact, MediaMatters, and all the rest to the Template in External links. An encyclopedia provides information. We can argue about how this is best done, but I'm not going to stand, or settle, for claims that they're all crooks and liars so it's not even worth mentioning. People get the government they deserve, and I deserve an excellent government. I'm going to insist I get one, and I'm going to complain when I don't. As should everyone else in the world. Flatterworld (talk) 16:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I can correct your 'helpful additions' as long as you want to keep trying to mislead our readers. You've made t clear you're adamantly 'pro-life' by using such absurd phrases as 'already pregnant mothers' - which did NOT appear in your citation. And you didn't want to identify the source (the conservative National Review) either, did you? That's what we call blatant POV and attempted proselytizing. Consider this an official warning against playing games like that. We're an encyclopedia, not a propaganda source. If you're not willing to edit in good faith, you don't need to edit at all. Flatterworld (talk) 05:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Without taking a written position on either side of this argument, I'll simply ask everyone who contributes here to keep the comments civil and focused on the issue, not the editors. There is no deadline to come to agreemnt on how this should be worded. Let's remain calm and give some thought to our comments before writing them. Thanks. Cresix (talk) 14:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I included a footnote to the actual PP annual report which provides the figures. The assumptions made in the National Review article do NOT reflect the actual numbers. PP provides many pregnant women with services such as cancer testing, same as they do non-pregnant women. Stating 98% of the pregnant women receive abortions paints quite a different image, it's pure spin, and it's not true. We're an encyclopedia, not a propaganda outlet. If others wish to repeat the spin and 'loaded language' and 'talking points' provided by lobbyists, that's their choice. Not at Wikipedia. Flatterworld (talk) 17:37, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Spare me the high-and-mighty about "Not at Wikipedia" -- as though every politically-related page isn't carefully crafted by advocates on all sides. But to the main point, this is a law professor's argument. The fact that he's posting at National Review Online doesn't make him not a law professor who, unlike you and me, posts under his real name and is subject to review publicly. HenryBrooksAdams (talk) 17:49, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Because I'd like to move on from this spat, I'm going to decline to work in this article at The Atlantic by Ross Douthat, who now writes at the New York Times, which discusses the flaws behind Planned Parenthood's 3% claim. Your latest edit certainly makes it relevant to understanding of what's going on at the clinics, but it's not conclusive, and as with this whole section, it's not really that important to a bio of Jon Kyl. See: http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/my_tax_dollars_at_work.php HenryBrooksAdams (talk) 18:03, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much anything in the NY Times or the Atlantic would be heavily biased toward the Left. But then most of Wikipedia is biased toward the Left. Nobody but a leftist can edit Wikipedia and have his/her change remain. Any change which doesn't tilt toward the Left Wing is promptly changed with the claim that it is "inflammatory" or "hate" or some such nonsense, and that is the same tactic used by all of the big tech giants to censor out and de-platform anybody who dares to think beyond standard leftist ideology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.152.216.213 (talk) 15:26, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Law professor at NRO
The article says "A law professor writing at National Review Online suggested that perhaps Kyl's comments..."

Michael New, the person who wrote the article, isn't a law professor. He is a political science professor and pro-life strategist. The article should be changed to reflect this (unless that was not intended to be a factual statement either). 198.169.15.6 (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I changed "law professor" to "political science professor". -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 198.169.15.6 (talk) 16:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120204122835/http://gawker.com/5791100/watch-stephen-colberts-defense-of-planned-parenthood to http://gawker.com/5791100/watch-stephen-colberts-defense-of-planned-parenthood
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120206010205/http://gawker.com/5791496/stephen-colbert-gives-jon-kyl-a-taste-of-his-own-medicine to http://gawker.com/5791496/stephen-colbert-gives-jon-kyl-a-taste-of-his-own-medicine
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senior United States Senator for Arizona
I have a question. If Jon Kyl is comeing back to the US Senate. would Jon Kyl become senior United States Senator for Arizona?96.36.68.29 (talk) 04:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * No, it's based on who has been there longer in continuous service. Flake was the junior senator, and is now the senior senator.  When he leaves office, Kyl will become the senior senator. hbdragon88 (talk) 22:15, 6 October 2018 (UTC)