Free Market Health Care Rally at KMBC Channel 9 in Kansas City

A group of more than 60 protesters met outside the KMBC’s studios in Kansas City to promote free market health care, and protest the ABC special “Prescription for America” being aired tonight

The group was made up of modern day patriots from the Kansas City Tea Party and the Kansas City Area 9.12 Project.

General manager Wayne Godsey and KMBC were kind to the protesters by providing water for those in the hot sun and 90+ degree temperatures.

KMBC reporter Jim Flink made a humorous comment about the news coming to them today, since KMBC could report on this event from the perimeter of their studios.  [Jim said his was more common when their studios were downtown.]

See the three videos below made at this event, as well as the video from KMBC reported during their 5 PM newscast by Jim Flink.

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Last Friday Congresswoman Candice Miller (R-Michigan) attempted to make an amendment to H.R. 2868, the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009, to minimize the impact of new regulations on agriculture and farmers. The Democratically controlled committee voted “no” on her amendment with a vote along party lines. Farmers may now suffer increased regulations on any chemical product related to agriculture and farming.

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Dr. Mark Hendrickson

The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy today sponsored a luncheon near the Plaza in Kansas City, MO where Dr. Mark Hendrickson talked about “The Next Great Depression and the Attack of the Watermelons?”

Hendrickson is a professor of economics and international business at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and is a contributing scholar with the Center for Vision & Values think tank. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Latham’s story recently was discussed on Fox & Friends

Tim Latham, a Lawrence High School teacher, was perplexed when his contract was not renewed since he had taught previously for 19 years without complaints. In fact, Latham had always received positive comments about his teaching.

Former LHS students thought Latham was a good teacher and came to his support.  Several of the students spoke at a recent school board meeting asking for Mr. Latham to be retained.

A Facebook page, Save Mr.Latham, Lawrence High History Teacher, has swelled from just under 200 members to just under 2000 members in less than two weeks.

Latham’s story was largely told on the Internet but finally was picked up by Fox News on Monday.

Late today, Latham’s attorney issued a statement saying Tim Latham will have his job at Lawrence High School next year after all: Read the rest of this entry »

Almost 200 Lawrence High School students joined a Facebook group, Save Mr.Latham, in an attempt to save the job of Tim Latham as a government and history teacher at Lawrence High School.

Last night four of those LHS students appealed to the Lawrence School Board to renew Tim Latham’s teaching contract for next year.   See a video of their comments below.

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The U.S. House and Senate approves the spending of taxpayers’ money, but how well do members of Congress manage their own offices?  How do House and Senate committees, and leadership spend money as part of their legislative jobs?  In the past such information has been a bit difficult to find unless you travel to Washington, DC.

The tragic shooting of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita yesterday still shocks and saddens everyone.

Everyone can agree with President Obama’s statement: “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

Activists that use the label “pro life,” as well as those who describe themselves as “pro choice,” all condemned the tragic and senseless murder of a human life.

What is known about Scott P. Roeder, the person of interest in shooting Dr. Tiller, who was taken into custody this afternoon near Gardner, KS?

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A recent Meadowlark article showed how to find the Legislative Resource Center in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC.

One of the pieces of information available from the LRC about each member of the U.S. House is a Financial Disclosure Report.  One can search for the 2008 Financial Disclosure Reports online for any member of Congress in 2008.

One way to find these reports is to select “Kansas” as the state and then specify the district as a two digit number, which is not at all obvious from the online web page:  01, 02, 03, 04.

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No Matter How Small, a Person is a Person

Today in Overland Park a group of about 20, which were mostly Catholic, protested President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit tomorrow to the University of Notre Dame to give a commencement address and receive an honorary degree.

Some frustrated that it was too far to drive to South Bend, Indiana tomorrow decided to show their opposition to this visit here locally.  The event organizer, Noelle Moll, a pro-life mom from Overland Park, was motivated to promote this event even though she has never done anything like this before.

In the video below Noelle explains that she wanted to protest President Obama’s pro-abortion policies since he is “the most pro-abortion president in U.S. History.”   Noelle also said she was standing against Notre Dame and how they are honoring him on a Sunday.  Two others in the video give comments about their signs and the event tomorrow.

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After a secret Executive Session held by telephone conference call today, the Ethics Commission announced the complaint was being dropped against Kris Van Meteren for violation of Ethics Commission confidentiality rules

Kris Van Meteren (left) interacts with Attorney Ryan Kriegshauser before $7500 fine was announced in February

Kris Van Meteren was fined $7500 by the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission in February in somewhat of an unusual case.

In March Van Meteren filed a law suit in Shawnee County District Court asking for judicial review of the case.

There was secret hour-long Executive Session during the April Ethics Commission meeting, with a member of the Attorney General’s staff present.  The result of that secret session was the Answer (see below) filed with Shawnee County District Court last week to Van Meteren’s Petition for Judicial Review.

The Answer contained little new information, so the next action is likely a court hearing.  The status of the case, Kristian D Van Meteren v. The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, can be found by searching for case “09C 000432? here.

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Tape over mouth symbolized Kansas Supreme Court’s gag order on Judge Richard Anderson

In January several marchers at the Rally for Life outside the Kansas Judicial Center wore tape over their mouths to protest an action by the Kansas Supreme Court.  The tape symbolized the Kansas Supreme Court’s gag order on Judge Richard Anderson preventing him from additional testimony in the Planned Parenthood case brought by former District Attorney Phill Kline in Johnson County.

Tomorrow at 9 AM the Kansas Supreme Court will hear additional arguments in the case.  Will the Kansas Supreme Court lift its order for Judge Richard Anderson to be silent about his earlier findings that Planned Parenthood manufactured documents?

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Kansas Attorney General Steve Six will host regional workshops in June to train interested citizens on the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) and the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA).

A flyer on the AG’s web site suggests these free regional training workshops might benefit elected officials, appointed officials, staff for state and local units of government, members of the media, and the general public: Read the rest of this entry »

Julie Burkhart, Chair ProKanDo PAC, at Kansas Governmental Ethics meeting in November

The April 2009 ProVote News, the newsletter of the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition, announced that Julie Burkhart was their new Executive Director.

Kansas newspaper reports as recently as late March quoted Ms. Burkhart as the Executive Director of the ProKanDo PAC, but an April 16 Wichita Eagle article quoted “ProKanDo’s former executive director, Jule Burkhart.”

This is a curious move given Gov. Sebelius’ likely departure from Kansas to be Health and Human Services Secretary.  With Gov. Sebelius out of Kansas, there has been considerable speculation about what Dr. Tiller and his ProKanDo PAC might do politically. Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Simpson, Lawrence. New Ethics Commissioner.

Mark Simpson was introduced as a new member of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission at its meeting last week.  Simpson was appointed by Kansas House Minority Leader, Paul Davis, and replaced Carol Zimmerman on the Commission.

Simpson gave this short introduction to other members of the Commission:

“I live in Lawrence … I’m an Assistant District Attorney in Douglas County.  I’ve been there coming up on a year, and before that I worked in politics.  I worked on some campaigns and things like that.”

What might “worked on some campaigns and things like that” mean? Read the rest of this entry »

An April 11 Meadowlark article gave details about how Gov. Sebelius’ response to Senator Kyl was wrong by $26,000, which was later explained to the world by the AP.  The answer Gov. Sebelius needed for Senator Kyl was in a March 27 Catholic newspaper, which was delivered to many Catholics in Kansas, and possibly Gov. Sebelius herself.  The Catholic Leaven newspaper had a political money scoop on the rest of the press! Read the rest of this entry »

The Sammie Awards

On Saturday night the Sam Adams Alliance held their 2nd Annual Sammies Awards Banquet near Chicago to honor those on the forefront of defending individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom in America.  About 300 attended the event.

The Sammies is a contest recognizing bloggers, filmmakers, open record champions, tweeters, and other government watchdogs committed to advancing individual and economic liberty.  A total of $40, 000 in cash prizes was given to the winners.

Celebrity award presenters were the highlights of the evening, including Michelle Malkin, Stephen Moore, John Fund, Jonathan Hoenig, Vicki McKenna, Mary Katharine Ham, and Paul Jacob.

While Bob Weeks from the Voice from Liberty in Wichita and I normally cover Kansas issues, we attended this event to network with SamSphere Chicago friends from last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday’s Lawrence Journal-World reported Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ responses to written questions asked of her by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee as part of her nomination to be HHS Secretary. But, one of her responses is wrong by $26,000 and newspapers are not reporting the correct figures. Read the rest of this entry »

A few Kansans will vote today in local elections for city and school officials in many areas. Turnout will likely be light and few problems are expected.

Kansans last went to the polls statewide in Nov 2008 during the presidential election. Few problems were reported and few, if any, prosecutions have occurred from any voting irregularities.

However, testimony at a Kansas Senate hearing on March 4 from Kathy Perry from Sedgwick County revealed possible problems that could affect the integrity of our elections in Kansas and this received no attention from the press.   Read the rest of this entry »

Today the National Institute on Money in State Politics announced they had updated their data for Kansas for the 2008 elections. 

FollowTheMoney.org obtains data from the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission and updates its database and analysis for both candidates and political parties, and provides that information online for free.  Their grid page shows they’ve processed 1517 reports from 393 Kansas recipients.

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