Kansas

In today’s installment of NPR Hates Conservatives, we offer a story from Saturday’s All Things Considered. Conservatism is killing Kansas under Gov. Sam Brownback, apparently. Anchor Jacki Lyden reported: “One political writer says it's time to write the state's obituary, and he did.”

Jason Probst read the first line of his screed out loud on national radio: “The great state of Kansas passed away on March 31, 2013 after a long and difficult battle with extremism.” Lyden added: “And that's our cover story today: Red or Dead? The new Kansas experiment.” With the exception of a few thoughts from Gov. Brownback, Lyden focused in on the leftists and their complaints that progressivism is being cast aside:  

Kansas conservatism, red in tooth and claw.? New York Times reporter John Eligon reported from Topeka on the latest disturbing sign of heartland conservatism: "Kansas' Governor and G.O.P. Seek to Eliminate Income Tax." Text box: "Skeptics see a path to economic devastation in a conservative bid."

Eligon actually led off with an accurate description of President Obama's "expansive liberal agenda," but then went overwrought, taking the "starkest view of the crimson ideology" of Republicans.

A label-crazy New York Times report from John Eligon in Kansas City, Mo., on a kerfuffle over Obama's birth certificate featured loaded language about "far-right Republicans" pushing "stringent social policies."

"Citing a wave of angry backlash, a Kansas man on Friday withdrew a petition in which he argued that President Obama should be removed from the state’s election ballot because he did not meet citizenship requirements," he wrote.

Yesterday, it was John Burton, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, who "compared Republican tactics during the presidential campaign to the 'big lie' strategy most famously employed by Nazi propagandists." According to the Associated Press, Burton, "'humbly apologized' to anyone offended by his comparison" (that's not an apology, as he didn't admit to doing anything wrong, but it's the best one can expect from a leftist).

Today, it was Pat Lehman, a woman from the Kansas delegation, described as its "dean," and it looks like she's digging in. Geez, how many such references aren't being noted by the Obama-friendly press in Charlotte? First, from the original report at Kansas.com via the Wichita Eagle's Dion Lefler:

New York Times reporter John Eligon filed a "conservative"-loaded story from Topeka on Monday on the battle between conservatives and moderates in the Midwest: "In Kansas, Conservatives Vilify Fellow Republicans."

Eligon's story could be the paper's all-time winner as far as labeling density, with a staggering 33 uses of the word "conservative" in non-quoted material within the 1,367-word article, plus two labels in photo captions, plus the one in the headline. By contrast, the common conjunction "and" appeared a mere 27 times under the same parameters. (Yet the Times find it very hard to locate liberals.)

Liberals have always cartooned conservatives as the ones who would say "America, love it or leave it." But with Barack Obama in the White House, they want the Obama critics to go back to Africa. Or at least that's what "Hunter" wrote on the Daily Kos on Wednesday night.

"This won't be a particularly insightful post, mainly because I'm just tired of these people and wish they would go away, or secede,' he wrote. Although it was one long run-on sentence: "...or whatever it is they need to do to separate themselves from the rest of modern society and live out their lily-white no-immigrant no-Muslims no-athiests [sic] no-gay-people no-liberals no-moderates no-funny-dressers Talibanesque fantasies about how a country should be run (tip: land in Somalia is very, very cheap these days)." The target was Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback:

You'd expect to see this in the liberal blogosphere or possibly some of the national mainstream media outlets with an obvious agenda. But now some of the preemptive strikes against Republican senators leading up to the Senate confirmation hearings and eventual vote to confirm President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, are finding their way into local newspapers.

An op-ed published in The Anniston (Ala.) Star on May 28 by Ari Rabin-Havt, the managing director of the left-wing Media Matters Action Network, attacked the new ranking Republican of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. He alleged that if Sessions and other Senate Republicans didn't commit to taking a filibuster off the table for Sotomayor's confirmation, they would be guilty of hypocrisy.

News editors need to retake Journalism 101 or move to features when stories about the White House dog take precedence over a controversial veto by the President's unconfirmed appointment to Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill, House Substitute for SB 218, April 23 which would have placed additional restrictions on third trimester abortions and allowed more criminal charges over late-term procedures to occur.

With the exception of "Special Report with Bret Baier" that night and "Fox and Friends" the morning of April 24, the broadcast media avoided covering the controversial decision. But "Today," "The Early Show," and "Good Morning America" all had time to cover Michelle Obama talking about the first family's new dog Bo the morning of April 24.

In a breaking story, the recently elected Democrat Attorney General of Kansas has found himself caught up in a sex scandal and it's one he isn't even completely denying. A.G. Paul Morrison is admitting that he had a relationship with former staffer, Linda Carter (No, not of TVs Wonder Woman fame). And now, ladies and gentlemen, we get to play one of our favorite sex scandal games, "Democrat or Republican," where we see if in MSM reports we find out if our scandal enmeshed politician is a nasty Republican or a somehow unmentioned Democrat. But THIS story is going to make it hard on our left spinning MSM, because Paul Morrison is both a Democrat AND a Republican -- well, at least he was a Republican until he switched parties in 2005. The MSM are going to lose their tiny minds trying to spin this one!

Here's the story from the Kansas City Star:

As much as liberals decry major corporations that act as if they’re above the law, there’s always quiet when the subject is Planned Parenthood, America’s number one corporate provider of abortions. During its 2005-2006 fiscal year, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America performed a record 264,943 abortions, reported a tidy profit of $55.8 million – and received a record high in taxpayer funding of $305.3 million.

This is one corporation the media hold in the highest regard. They’re not "merchants of death." That would be the tobacco companies, or gun manufacturers, or hamburger joints. These are the heroic "providers" of "a woman’s right to choose."

They’re also sleazy in their business practices. In Aurora, Illinois, Planned Parenthood planned to build the biggest abortion clinic in the country, but they lied by omission to the city. Throughout the construction process, the McDonald’s of the abortion industry applied for permits by listing the owner as "Gemini Office Development," not as Planned Parenthood.

A Kansas court of appeals has ruled that it's illegal for an illegal alien to enter the country, but not illegal for an illegal alien to be in the country if the illegal alien can illegally make it past the Border Patrol without getting caught.

Huh? What? I like to think I can wield the mighty power of semantics with the best of them - but, huh? What? I thought the "illegal" in illegal alien spoke for itself. Apparently not.

Ruling that it is illegal to enter the country without the proper documents and permissions, but it is not necessarily illegal to be in the country if you don't get caught upon entry, the court threw out the sentence of an illegal immigrant who pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and endangering a child.

Washington Post arts writer Sarah Kaufman, who just two weeks ago celebrated the new ballet where George W. Bush assaults women and kills them, mentioned that and other "anti-war" (not "Bush-hating") dance works as her highlights of 2006 in the Sunday Arts section:

In the past year dancers have given the term "antiwar movement" new meaning. One legacy of the bloody, intractable Iraq war may well be its role as an artistic inspiration.

Starting with American Ballet Theatre's revival of Kurt Jooss's "The Green Table" at the Kennedy Center last February, protest works have made an impact, as company directors have put uneasy -- even brutal -- views of war onstage.

Two of the works felt especially political. ABT performed Jooss's 1932 treatise on bureaucrats with blood on their hands the very night that President Bush was delivering his State of the Union address. A coincidence, probably, but a particularly delicious Washington moment nonetheless.

It was artistically rich as well. This work, a historical treasure of enduring relevance, is full of drama and outsize characterizations: the stuffed-shirt politicians who drive the conflict but remain at a safe distance, soldiers in battle, mourning women and the magnetic figure of Death, which dancer David Hallberg injected with arrogance, charisma, menace and seductiveness. He was a stalker and a lover: the ultimate predator. This work makes its point with eloquent economy: What begins at a conference table ends in hell.

They also followed that party line in Kansas City. But Googling also found that Sarah Kaufman also whacked at Bush and the oblivious people who voted for him on December 9 in telling readers what to go out and see:

IF THE SEASON IS getting too predictable -- too many Sugarplum Fairies, too much "Messiah" -- the Paul Taylor Dance Company offers a tempting antidote. Never sweet, sometimes sour, often sardonic, Taylor puts a refreshingly clear-eyed spin on things in his upcoming program of four works. His 2005 work, "Banquet of Vultures," takes on the cruelties of war, dogmatic leadership and an oblivious populace. (Hmm, what could have inspired that?)