Has Sen. Pat Roberts moved to the right in recent years?

In the July 7 issue of The Kansas City Star, reporter Steve Kraske wrote about how Republican "moderates" in Kansas are frustrated because they have the choice between two conservatives in the U.S. Senate primary race, i.e., Pat Roberts, the incumbent, and Milton Wolf, a Tea Party favorite.

"Dick Bond, the onetime president of the Kansas Senate from Johnson County, considers three-term incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts and finds him too far right'" Kraske wrote. "Roberts’ most serious challenger, tea party favorite Milton Wolf? Much the same.

"'I don’t even have a horse to ride,' Bond said."

"I’ll be doing something that I am not pleased with," said former Republican state Rep. Nancy Brown, a moderate. “I simply do not (plan to) vote for either one."

"[Roberts'] been a longtime friend, and obviously he has totally changed,” Bond said. “He drank some Kool-Aid or something."

Kraske reinforced Bond's claim that Roberts has changed by noting that "In 2013, the nonpartisan National Journal ranked Roberts as the eighth-most conservative senator. In 2005, he came in as the 38th-most conservative."

Of course, the National Journal is the same publication that ranked Barack Obama as the most liberal senator in 2007. At that time, many of Kraske's fellow liberals dismissed the ranking as ridiculous. In any case, note that Kraske cherry-picked two years out of the many years Roberts has served in the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. What happens if you consider all of Roberts' 18 years in the Senate?

The American Conservative Union ranks U.S. senators and representatives every year, with 100 being a perfect conservative score. ACU's website has Roberts' scores for every year he has been in the Senate except for 1997 and 2011. I have taken his scores for the available years and put together a chart, which you can view below:

As you can see, Roberts' ACU scores have been fairly consistent since 1998, with an 84 in 1998 and an 84 in 2013. In fact, he has appeared to have gotten slightly less conservative during recent years. His ACU lifetime rating was 87.05 in 2001, while it dropped to 86.40 in 2013.

According to Kraske, two of Roberts' actions "caused considerable angst among moderates":

One was his call last October for Kathleen Sebelius, then the secretary of Health and Human Services, to resign for “gross incompetence” in connection with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. The demand came just days after Wolf entered the race. Roberts and Sebelius had been friends, and Roberts spent 12 years as the top aide to 1st District U.S. Rep. Keith Sebelius, the father-in-law of the woman who went on to become governor and HHS secretary. 

“I know that made me uncomfortable,” Jones said. “I know the relationship between Pat and the Sebelius family.” 

The other action was Roberts’ opposition to a personal plea in 2012 from his mentor, former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, to back a United Nations treaty on the rights of people with disabilities. Dole said the treaty would require nothing of Americans but would spur help for disabled people around the globe. Even with Dole making a dramatic appearance on the floor of the Senate in a wheelchair, Roberts voted no.

The moderates often look back at Dole as a model senator. However, Dole's ACU scores would suggest that he is the Kansas senator who "totally changed" during his years in Washington. ACU does not have all of Dole's years available online, however Dole received a 53 in 1975, a 67 in 1980, a 76 in 1981, a 60 in 1982, and a 64 and in 1983. Dole's lowest score after 1983 was a 77 in 1987. During the 1990s, his lowest score was 83 (1990). His subsequent scores were 86 in 1991, 93 in 1992, 88 in 1993, 100 in 1994, and 90 in 1996.

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Which Party is Controlled by Extremists?

Sarah Palin called for the impeachment of Barack Obama this week. Steve Kraske of the Kansas City Star reacts to Palin in today's The Buzz:

Palin cited the influx of young illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border as that “last straw.” The thinking in some quarters is that talk like this could wind up hurting Republicans in a year that shapes up as a good one for them. Why? It suggests that the GOP is run by extremists.

Liberals in the media are always suggesting that the GOP is run by extremists. However, they never suggest that the Democratic Party is run by extremists. Consider that about 80 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives belong to the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) helped then-Rep. Bernie Sanders, a self-described "democratic socialist," and others set up CPC during the early 1990s. DSA even hosted CPC's webpage until the late Balint Vazsonyi exposed that fact during the late 1990s. DSA and CPC continue to work together today, as demonstrated by this question and answer on DSA's website:

Q: Aren’t you a party that’s in competition with the Democratic Party for votes and support?
 No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
 The process and structure of American elections seriously hurts third party efforts. Winner-take-all elections instead of proportional representation, rigorous party qualification requirements that vary from state to state, a presidential instead of a parliamentary system, and the two-party monopoly on political power have doomed third party efforts. We hope that at some point in the future, in coalition with our allies, an alternative national party will be viable. For now, we will continue to support progressives who have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means left-wing Democrats.

Note that DSA is an arm of the Socialist International, which, according to Michael Harrington, who chaired DSA until his death in 1989, claims “direct descent from Marx’s International Workingmen’s Association.”

Given this, which major political party is actually run by extremists?

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article693288.html#storylink=cpy

More Hokum from Hoeflich

Two months ago, Lawrence Journal-World columnist Mike Hoeflich wrote an opinion piece entitled "Something's wrong in Kansas." Hoeflich was not happy with the direction Governor Sam Brownback and his fellow "radical" Republicans are taking Kansas, and he wanted readers to know that he is darn angry about it. Hoeflich is still upset.

In his July 2 column, Hoeflich wrote the following:

The announcement of the June tax receipts, $28 million below the estimates, and the final total tax receipts for the just closed fiscal year, $338 million below the estimates, makes it absolutely clear that Brownback, members of the Kansas Legislature who hastily and intemperately voted for the draconian tax cuts, and anyone else who supported these cuts, have betrayed one of the principal tenets of traditional American conservative thought: "fiscal responsibility."

There is currently a debate concerning what has caused the failure of tax receipts to meet estimates. Hoeflich, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Paul Davis, and numerous editorial pages throughout Kansas blame the tax cuts. Brownback and many Republicans blame other factors, including tax increases implemented by the Obama administration.

In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, vetoed a tax-cut bill in 2013, and the Republican-dominated legislature failed to override his veto. "It’s a defining moment,” Nixon said at a news conference after his veto on the tax-cut bill was upheld. “Today was about protecting our economy, our communities and, especially, our schools from this costly and misguided bill."

However, on the same day that Hoeflich wrote that "draconian" tax cuts are responsible for the $338 million shortfall in Kansas, KMBC reported that Missouri's tax revenues for fiscal year 2014 fell $308 million short of Governor Jay Nixon's projections. Apparently, something is also wrong in Missouri.

So the Republican Brownback signed "draconian" tax cuts into law in 2013 and now tax receipts in his state are now $338 million below projections. The Democrat Nixon prevented "draconian" tax cuts to be enacted in his state in 2013 and tax receipts are now $308 million below projections. Given that two very different approaches towards tax cuts resulted in very similar shortfalls would appear to suggest that Brownback is correct when he blames external factors for the shortfalls. In other words, there is something wrong in Washington, D.C.

Anti-Hobby Lobby protest a bust in Lawrence

On the Facebook page "We Support Birth Control and We Vote," more than 120 people said they would participate in the anti-Hobby Lobby protest in Lawrence, while another 54 said "maybe" to going. As you can see from the photo above, which was taken just before 11 a.m. today, just about 30 people showed up (those on the far left of the photo are members of the media). They barely mustered enough demonstrators to rival a Phelps family protest.

Vanessa Sanburn, Lawrence school board member and former "educator" for Planned Parenthood in Wichita, was one of the few to show up today. Her sign reads "People Too" with arrows pointing to her and her younger daughter. I'm not aware of anyone who has said they are not people, so I'm not sure what message she is attempting to convey here.

The messages on these signs are a bit more clear. The one on the far left reads, "Your Bible Doesn't Belong in my Vagina." Again, I am not aware of anyone making the argument that a Bible belongs in anyone's vagina. That sounds unsanitary and uncomfortable.

After taking a few pictures, I went inside Hobby Lobby to buy a few drinking cups for a conservative event this evening and a $50 gift certificate for my daughters to use later. If you support Hobby Lobby, please consider stopping by today to spend a little money with them.

UPDATE: Giles Bruce's article in the Journal-World is fairly accurate. However, he could have been more clear when he wrote, "Last Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not require closely held corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraceptives because it violated federal protections for freedom of religion." Hobby Lobby actually supports 16 forms of contraceptives, including: male condoms; female condoms; diaphragms with spermicide; sponges with spermicide; cervical caps with spermicide; spermicide alone; birth-control pills with estrogen and progestin; birth-control pills with progestin alone; birth control pills, extended or continuous use; contraceptive patches; contraceptive rings; progestin injections; implantable rods; vasectomies; female sterilization surgeries; female sterilization implants.

The Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby should not be forced to provide coverage for just four types of contraceptives that prevent implantation of the embryo.

And, for the record, my t-shirt does not say "Obama Lies." It is a parody of the Shepard Fairey "Hope" poster and merely says "Liar." I also was not a "motorist" while I was taking photos. I was outside of my vehicle and just a few feet from the protesters.

Lawrence School Board members to take part in anti-Hobby Lobby protest

Local liberals, including the Douglas County Democratic Party, announced via the Facebook page "We Support Birth Control and We Vote" that they will be protesting the Hobby Lobby store in Lawrence on Monday, July 7, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Scanning through the comments on this page, I noticed the names Kris Adair and Vanessa Sanburn. "I am putting myself as maybe so I can invite friends," Adair wrote. "We will be out of town. For sure I will never shop there again." Sanburn noted that she will be at the protest.

Adair and Sanburn are both members of the Lawrence School board. In an earlier item, I noted that the Lawrence School Board has approved the spending of more than $300,000 with Glenn Singleton's Pacific Educational Group (PEG) and his "Courageous Conversations" program. Ostensibly, the program's goal is to narrow the achievement gap between white and minority children. However, a perusal of PEG's classroom materials makes it clear that the program's actual objective is to promote socialism in government schools.

If Adair and Sanburn's support of "Courageous Conversartions" is not enough to convince you that they are left-wing radicals, their political activism regarding the Hobby Lobby case should seal the deal for you.

This shows why it is important for conservatives to get involved locally. We need to have representation on the school board. We may not be able to stop radical programs like "Courageous Conversations." However, with a voice on the school board at least we can make the public aware of them. I would estimate that at least 95% of Lawrencians know anything about "Courageous Conversations."

Don't think you're qualified to serve on the school board? Sanburn lived in Lawrence for less than a year before running for the school board in 2009 at the age of 27. She hadn't been a teacher in the classroom, although she did work as "a health educator for Planned Parenthood in Wichita." Her bio on the USD 497 website doesn't mention that, but Sanburn does mention her priorities include a "Focus on improving achievement for all students" (that's straight out of "Courageous Conversations") and "Make decisions based on facts and sound scientific data, not on ideology." She would have been more accurate if she had said "not on ideologies other than mine."

One last note: Adair says she is boycotting Hobby Lobby. That's her prerogative. Personally, I'm not a big fan of boycotts. However, those who support Hobby Lobby's position on religious freedom should keep in mind that Adair and her husband, Joshua Montgomery, own Wicked Broadband in Lawrence. According to the Lawrence Journal-World in May 2014, "Wicked was seeking a $500,000 economic development grant from the city, plus the waiver of multiple city fees, in exchange for undertaking a $1 million pilot project that would bring 1 gigabit broadband service to downtown and much of East Lawrence." Further, "Wicked now is asking the city to also underwrite its $500,000 loan it will need to build the pilot project."

Journal-World columnist suffers from amnesia

Trudy Rubin, foreign affairs columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has a column in today's Lawrence Journal-World in which she accuses former Vice President Dick Cheney of having amnesia. However, it appears that it is Rubin herself who has suffered memory loss.

Rubin claims that Cheney used "deliberately distorted intelligence ... to justify the invasion." Apparently, Rubin has forgotten that the Clinton administration as late of January 2001 claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and, therefore, was a "clear and present danger at all times." She also appears to have forgotten that, after the invasion of Iraq, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton said, "The intelligence from Bush 1 to Clinton to Bush 2 was consistent," and "The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared."

Rubin also writes that Cheney "swallowed the claims of Ahmed Chalabi, his favorite Iraqi expat." Rubin seems to have forgotten that, like the intelligence regarding Iraq's WMD, Bush and Cheney inherited Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) from Clinton and Gore. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with the INC on September 14, 2000 and noted the Clinton administration’s support for Chalabi and the Iraqi opposition. “The United States salutes the courage of Iraqis everywhere in the Opposition,” Albright said. “I wish them success in presenting to the world the true hopes and needs of the Iraqi people, and ultimately in bringing democracy and the rule of law to their country."

Albright’s meeting with the INC was not the first time a Clinton administration official met with the opposition group in 2000. According to the BBC, a Clinton administration official met with a nine-man INC delegation led by Chalabi in June 2000 and “reiterated the administration’s view that the Iraqi leader should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The article also noted, “The Clinton administration is trying to beef up the INC after nearly 10 years of sanctions on Iraq have brought the world no closer to bringing down the Iraqi leader.” Part of beefing up the INC included a pledge from the Clinton administration to provide the INC with $8 million.

Who was the member of the Clinton administration who met with Chalabi and the INC? Why, it was none other than Vice President Al Gore, the same man who in 2004 criticized the Bush administration for putting its trust in Chalabi, a man who “had been convicted of fraud and embezzling 70 million dollars in public funds from a Jordanian bank” eight years before Gore met with him. Gore also must have been suffering from amnesia.

Rubin claims that American troops who "died because the Pentagon failed to provide body armor or up-armored humvees in Cheney’s time." She has forgotten that after American troops entered Baghdad after just a few days, Democrats claimed that Bill Clinton deserved credit for the speedy victory. Reportedly, Al Franken, who is now a U.S. senator, approached Paul Wolfowitz and said, “Clinton's military did pretty well in Iraq, huh?" Fred Kaplan of Slate.com made a similar argument. “Weapons systems and war strategies often take years, even decades, to evolve,” Kaplan wrote. Further, “[T]he wonder weapons of Gulf War II—the weapons that allowed for ‘a combination of precision, speed, and boldness the enemy did not expect and the world had not seen before,’ as the second President Bush put it in his victory speech last night onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln—were developed and built during the presidency of Bill Clinton.” Of course, after our troops started being killed by improvised explosive devices, no Democrat would acknowledge that the Clinton administration failed to develop and build defense systems to protect our troops from those weapons.

Unfortunately, Bush (and Cheney) Derangement Syndrome appears to affect one's memory.

Journal-World reporter throws hissy fit after his liberal bias is exposed

Lawrence Journal-World reporter/liberal activist Peter Hancock didn't care much for Douglas County Conservative's item about his biased reporting two months ago. Here is what Hancock wrote to Douglas County Conservative in an email:

Dear Douglas County Conservative: Yes, I put my name on my stories. And you are free to quote me and attribute information in my stories to me. But if you're so opposed to the use of anonymous sources, why don't you put your name on your stories? Or is that a standard you only apply to other people? 

Your information about Public Citizen's contributors is a matter of public record. And you can thank Public Citizen for that, since they are the ones who, in 1974, lobbied hard for Congress to pass - over President Gerald Ford's veto - a certain "radical liberal" law known as the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA), which is basically why you were able to access to that information in the first place. Don't worry. You can thank them later. 

It might be worth noting, though, that you left off a few other major contributors, like the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation, just to name a few. And that's not counting the 300,000-plus individuals who freely contribute because they support Public Citizen's mission. 

Meanwhile, just out of curiosity, where is your financial disclosure list? Or do you even have one? I only ask because when I click on the link to your Blogspot Profile, I see that you only have one follower, which I assume to be yourself. 

Peter Hancock
Reporter | Lawrence Journal-World
phancock@ljworld.com | (785) 832-7259645 New Hampshire, Lawrence, KS 66044

Hancock seems to believe that those Foundations balance out the liberals and socialists who sit on Public Citizens boards. However, the Capital Research Center reports "Since the 1960s, [the] Ford [Foundation] has funded many radical social experiments and it remains a major donor to liberal causes, especially the defense of racial preference programs." Martin Morse Wooster, senior fellow at Capital Research Center, describes the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as “a second-tier member of the liberal philanthropic establishment.” Regarding the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation, Wooster characterizes it as a "bastion of liberalism."

Hancock's history is off a bit regarding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He claims that President Gerald Ford vetoed the act. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed FOIA into law on July 4, 1966, eight years before Ford became president. Also, Hancock says we should thank Public Citizen for lobbying hard for Congress to pass FOIA. Public Citizen was founded in 1971, five years AFTER Johnson signed FOIA into law.

By the way, before Hancock joined the Journal-World, he wrote an opinion column from the liberal perspective for the Topeka Metro News. In that capacity he lied about Phill Kline running a racist ad in 2006. You can read about that here.