Scott Stanford: Liar

Conservatives in Douglas County are well aware of the liberal bias exhibited by the Lawrence Journal-World (J-W). For many years, Scott Rothschild served as that newspaper’s Statehouse reporter. It didn’t seem to matter to J-W management that, at the very same time he was supposed to be providing objective reporting, he was also serving as the president of a liberal organization in Topeka. Last year, Rothschild left the J-W and accepted a position as a propagandist for the Kansas Association of School Boards. Unfortunately, he was replaced at the J-W by Peter Hancock, who, like Rothschild, is merely a Democratic Party operative with a byline.

What some conservatives may not be aware of is how the J-W’s liberal bias excludes many conservatives from sharing their opinions on the newspaper’s online forum. These conservatives essentially broke an unwritten forum rule, i.e., "posting while conservative." In the process, those left to comment on the J-W website make up a virtual Council of Coprophagia, in which liberals feed off the waste deposited by their fellow liberals.

I had this happen to me at the end of May. My account was suddenly gone and all the comments I had offered were removed as well. I reviewed the forum rules again to see if I may have violated one. However, I could not find any rule that I could have violated. I emailed Nick Gerik, the J-W’s digital editor, and asked him why my account was removed, but received no answer. Therefore, I can only speculate as to why my account was removed. I had written a letter to the editor about the Pacific Educational Group and USD 497 earlier in May, and then added more information in the comments section. I believe I may have raised questions that caused some in the local educational establishment a little discomfort. 

While J-W General Manager Scott Stanford was with the Steamboat Pilot & Today in Colorado, his wife, Kelly, was the director of curriculum and instruction at the Steamboat Springs school district. After the couple moved to Lawrence, Kelly took a position with Communities In Schools of Mid-America, Inc. Like the Pacific Educational Group, Danette Clark's education blog lists Communities in Schools as a liberal indoctrinating organization. In Texas, Clark has noted that the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development "partners with many liberal education organizations, including the Houston Annenberg Challenge, CES Small Schools Project, and Communities in Schools of Texas." Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground terrorist and current education "expert," has been associated with both the Annenberg Challenge and the "small schools movement." As I noted in a blog item last year, Ayers is also closely associated with the "critical race theory" upon which Pacific Educational Group's program is based.

 I was on vacation for the beginning of June, so I dropped the issue for a while. But then I read a letter to the editor from an individual who bashed Kansas and said he was moving to California. I don't like when people denigrate my adopted state, so I responded with my own letter to the editor. After reading several personal attacks (which are violations of the forum rules) directed at me, I decided to contact the J-W’s general manager, Scott Stanford, on July 7. I will include the full exchange with Mr. Stanford so that I cannot be accused of taking his comments out of context:

Mr. Stanford: 

This comment was offered on your forum today by a David Carson: 

"More 'blah blah blah' from Kevin. In my 48 years I have never run across someone so arrogant, hateful, and unhappy."
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/jul/07/letter-kansas-not-so-bad/ 

I'm trying to figure out why comments such as this one are allowed to stand on your forum, yet I was booted from the forum after violating not a single one of the forum rules 

I have spoken with many conservatives in Lawrence over the past several years, and, like me, they believe that the J-W inconsistently enforces its forum rules. Conservatives are routinely kicked off of the forum, while liberals are allowed to violate the rules with impunity. Many conservatives say they simply refuse to comment on the forum since they are subjected to many personal attacks when they do so. 

There are also several forum users who are obviously violating the forum's rule regarding the use of actual names. These folks set up bogus Facebook accounts in order to start an account on the J-W forum. It's probably not a coincidence that these same users tend to be among the least civil. Among these users are "Lawrence Freeman," "Paul Beyer" (whose sole Facebook friend is John Ayo from Nigeria), and James Howlette (a comic book character).* 

It's your forum and your rules, so I suppose you can enforce them as you like. However, the inconsistent enforcement does not reflect well on your publication. 

Sincerely,
Kevin Groenhagen

I received a response the same day: 

Kevin: 

Thanks for your email and feedback. Enforcement of rules on the forum involves a fair amount of subjectivity. Our editors try to be fair and reasonable.

Unfortunately, history has proven that debating forum decisions is generally counter-productive. Instead, I encourage users who are unhappy with our forums to participate in other community forums that are moderated differently. 

I have passed along your note about Lawrence Freeman, Paul Beyer and James Howlette so that those fake users can be removed. 

Thanks again for your note and feedback.
 ----
Scott Stanford

My second email:

Thank you. 

I have asked your moderators to give me an explanation concerning why my account was terminated several weeks ago. I never heard a response. I have read the forum rules, and cannot see where I violated any of them. 

BTW, the user "Barb Gordon" has also set up a fake account at Facebook. See https://www.facebook.com/barbara.gordon.92798 

Like "James Howlette," Barb Gordon is a comic book figure, i.e., the alter ego of Batgirl. 

Kevin Groenhagen

I received no response to this message. After noticing the users with bogus names continued to have active accounts, I emailed Mr. Stanford the next day:

Mr. Stanford: 

"I have passed along your note about Lawrence Freeman, Paul Beyer and James Howlette so that those fake users can be removed." 

 Looks as if those three fake users, as well as Barb Gordon and Philipp Wannemaker (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009691412326&sk=friends), are still there. A bogus account is a violation of the forum rules:
 http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/oct/09/journal-world-websites-require-commenters-identify 

David Carson's personal attacks (which are explicitly against your forum rules) are also still there:
 http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/jul/07/letter-kansas-not-so-bad/?letters_to_editor 

Meanwhile, I cannot post after following the forum rules. Again, the J-W seems to have one set of rules for liberal users and another set for conservative users. That does not reflect well on your publication and its employees. 

Sincerely,
Kevin Groenhagen

Mr. Stanford's final response to me:

Kevin: 

Thanks for your email. 

This isn't something we're going to debate. As you have noted before, it's our forum to moderate as we think best. 

I understand and accept your criticism of our publication and our employees. That criticism does not change any of our decisions. 

Best regards,

 ----
Scott Stanford

My final message to Mr. Stanford:

So you lied to me when you said the bogus accounts would be removed?

It’s been six days since Mr. Stanford wrote, "I have passed along your note about Lawrence Freeman, Paul Beyer and James Howlette so that those fake users can be removed." However, all those users, as well as Barb Gordon and Philipp Wannemaker, continue to have active accounts. Unless I am misreading the meaning of Mr. Stanford’s words, he clearly lied to me.

While Mr. Stanford does not appear to be a man of integrity, he did say something we conservatives should consider:  “I encourage users who are unhappy with our forums to participate in other community forums that are moderated differently.”

We have had the discussion before about having our own forum, but really haven’t moved on making that happen. Would it be beneficial to have our own forum, or is emailing to one another sufficient? Is there anyone who can set up a decent forum for us? If it costs a little to buy the software and host the forum, are there others who would join me in providing the funds to make it possible? Can we come up with a set of rules that, unlike the J-W’s, are consistently and uniformly enforced.

Any ideas?

* If you visit the Facebook pages of those I mentioned to Mr. Stanford, you will find that they have no listed friends or, as in the case of Paul Beyer, just a single friend, i.e., John Ayo from Nigeria. Perhaps Mr. Beyer is a bit like Jack Nicholson’s character in “About Schmidt,” where the only person he seemed able to talk to was a Tanzanian boy named Ndugu Umbo. However, I think Nicholson’s character would also have family members, fraternity brothers, former co-workers, etc., listed as friends. It appears to me that these individuals started bogus accounts on Facebook so that they could skirt the J-W’s new forum rules, which allows them to issue personal attacks against others anonymously.

Bush Derangement Syndrome: Decade 2

David Burress hates George W. Bush. In fact, in January 2003 he helped the far-left Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice raise funds by hosting a "Sorry-Ass State of the Union" house party. Sadly, Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) appears to be a long-term affliction with some. Burress presents an example of this phenomenon. 

On February 26, the Lawrence Journal-World published the following letter from yours truly:

To the editor: 

In his Sunday column, Leonard Pitts writes the following: “…the wheels began to come off the Bush administration’s argument for invading Iraq, i.e., to find the weapons of mass destruction. But of course, there were no such weapons, an inconvenient truth to which Team Bush responded with a new, after-the-fact rationale. Now, the argument for war was and always had been the need to free the poor, suffering Iraqi people.” 

First, as noted by the New York Times last October, WMDs were found in Iraq. Of course, Pitts would argue that these were “old” WMDs. That may be the case. However, in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, Saddam Hussein was required to destroy ALL of his WMDs. If he failed to do that, isn’t it likely that he failed to destroy newer WMDs as well? There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Saddam sent WMDs to Syria prior to the invasion.* There is precedent for this since Saddam sent most of his air force to Iran prior to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. 

As far as the after-the-fact rationale, the Bush administration cited several rationales before the invasion. WMDs was one. However, freeing the Iraqi people was also a major rationale cited prior to the invasion. Pitts may have forgotten that the operation to remove Saddam from power was called Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The point of my letter was to point out that Leonard Pitts, the Pulitzer-prize-winning prevaricator, was not truthful when he wrote that no WMDs were found in Iraq and that the Bush administration then cam up with an after-the-fact rationale, i.e., freeing the Iraqi people. Note that I did not express an opinion regarding whether or not I believed it was a good thing to invade Iraq. I believe I merely presented the facts in a dispassionate manner.

Well, Burress, a retired KU professor and current president of the Ad Astra Institute of Kansas, took issue with my letter and offered what I suppose he considered a rebuttal:

To the editor: 

Connecting the dots in his evasive letter of Feb. 26, Kevin Groenhagen appears to be claiming that:

1. President Bush could have persuaded us to go to war against Iraq even if he had admitted that any WMDs left in Iraq were useless rusted hulks; and

2. The invasion of Iraq was a good idea because Bush had a secondary goal of “freedom for Iraq” — even though the actual result was instead a combination of chaos, anarchy, and warlordism. 

If that’s what Groenhagen means, his judgment is just plain wacko. If that’s not what he means, his letter makes no sense.

Of course, there was nothing evasive about my letter. It addressed facts that Burress could not refute. Regarding his two points, note that the first ignores the "dot" regarding the fact that there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Saddam's newer WMDs went to Syria. Ignoring that "dot" is an actual example of evasiveness. Burress also implies that Bush knew beforehand that "any WMDs left in Iraq were useless rusted hulks," but didn't admit that. What Burress and others with BDS fail to acknowledge is that, just a few short months before the invasion, the Clinton administration argued that Saddam had WMDs and, thus, was "a clear and present danger at all times." In other words, if those on the left believe it was a lie to say Saddam had WMDs, then they must acknowledge that that lie originated with Bush's predecessor. Those with BDS also seem to forget that even those who opposed the invasion of Iraq, including Joe Wilson, believed Saddam had more than just WMDs that were "useless rusted hulks."

On Burress' second point, again, I never expressed an opinion regarding whether the invasion of Iraq was a good or bad idea. In other words, contrary to his claim in his final paragraph, I offered no judgment, wacko or otherwise.

Unfortunately, BDS can cause many, even those with Ph.D.'s, to lose their senses and ability to offer cogent arguments.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Being limited to 250 words, I was unable to go into the evidence suggesting that Saddam's newer WMDs went to Syria prior to the invasion. Iraqi General Georges Sada has claimed that Iraq’s WMDs were flown to Syria prior to the invasion.

According to Sada, “On June 4, 2002, a three-mile-long irrigation dam, which had been drawing water from the Orontes River in the northwestern district of Zeyzoun, Syria, collapsed, inundating three small villages and destroying scores of homes…. As soon as word of the disaster was broadcast on television, help began arriving from all over the Middle East.”

Iraq was one of the countries to send aid to Syria. However, Sada claims that the Iraqi planes and trucks that traveled to Syria did not carry supplies for those in need. “Weapons and equipment were transferred both by land and by air,” Sada wrote. “The only aircraft available at the time were one Boeing 747 jumbo jet and a group of Boeing 727s. But this turned out to be the perfect solution to Saddam’s problem. Who would suspect commercial airliners of carrying deadly toxins and contraband technology out of the country? So the planes were quickly reconfigured.”[1]

Indeed, according to Agence France Presse (AFP) on June 9, 2002, “Iraq said Sunday it has sent 20 planeloads of humanitarian assistance to Syria to help victims of Tuesday’s Zeyzoun dam collapse in the north of the neighbouring country.” AFP noted that Iraq would send foodstuffs, pharmaceutical products, and “teams of specialised doctors, surgeons and chemists to Syria.”[2]

Satellite imagery also picked up unusual activity on the Iraq-Syria border before and during the invasion. James R. Clapper, who headed the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in 2003, has said U.S. intelligence tracked a large number of vehicles, mostly civilian trucks, moving from Iraq into Syria. Clapper suggested the trucks may have contained materiel related to Iraq’s WMD programs.[3]

In a January 5, 2004 letter to Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who had defected from Syria to Western Europe, said he knew of three sites in Syria where Iraq’s WMDs were kept. One of those sites was a series on tunnels under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. Reportedly, the tunnels were part of an underground factory built by North Korea for producing a Syrian version of the Scud missile.[4] Interestingly, al-Baida is located near the Zeyzoun dam.

That same month, David Kay, who had recently resigned as the head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said, “[W]e know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”[5]

---

[1] Georges Sada, Saddam’s Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein, p. 259.

[2] http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/ACOS-64BRQW?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=syr

[3] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/30/iraq/main580883.shtml

[4] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39182

[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wirq25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixnewstop.html

Courageous Conversations: A Colossal Failure

Several months ago I wrote about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the Lawrence school district has spent on a socialist and, frankly, racist program known as "Courageous Conversations." USD 497 has contracted with the San Francisco-based Pacific Educational Group (PEG) since 2010 to bring this program to Lawrence. The stated goal of the program is to reduce the achievement gap between white and minority students.

Unfortunately, USD 497 appears to have gotten little, if any, return on its investment with PEG. Consider these charts:

As you can see, the percent of African American students scoring proficient or above in reading grew significantly between 2006-2009. However, the percent scoring proficient or above has essentially leveled off since then, despite hundreds of thousands spent with PEG since 2010.

The percent of African American students scoring proficient or above in math also grew significantly between 2006-2009. Gains were made in 2011 and 2012. However, the percent scoring proficient or above in 2013* is actually lower than it was before the district contracted with PEG.

Like African American students, white students are doing slightly better in reading than they were doing in 2009. However, like African American students, in math white students made significant gains between 2006-2009. And, like African American students, white students performed better in 2009 than they did in 2013.

If we compare the percent of students scoring proficient or above in 2009, which is before PEG began working with the district, with 2013, we see that the gap between white and African American students has narrowed by just .4%. However, the gap in math proficiency has grown by 2.8%.

Unfortunately, this lack of progress appears to be common with districts that have worked with PEG. For example, after paying PEG more than $850,000 over three years, the achievement gap between white and black students in St. Paul, Minn., remained unchanged. The achievement gap between white and Hispanic students actually widened. Nevertheless, in 2013 the school board there voted to spend another $380,000 with PEG for the 2013-2014 school year. That's equal to the salaries and benefits of 7.5 teachers. 

* Kansas did not release data for 2014.

Peter Hancock's reporting is on shaky ground

Peter Hancock has replaced liberal activist Scott Rothschild as the Lawrence Journal-World's statehouse reporter. However, he appears to have the same odd obsession with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as Rothschild had. In a December 5 article, Hancock writes about Kansas state legislators attending an ALEC meeting. In the article, Hancock makes the following claim:

ALEC has come under fire in recent years, and several of its corporate members have dropped out. Some of those, such as General Motors, have cited ALEC's support for "Stand Your Ground" laws that allow people to use deadly force to defend themselves in any place where they have a lawful right to be if they reasonably believe they face an immediate threat of bodily harm or death. 

A Florida version of that law was used in 2013 to acquit George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.

Of course, Stand Your Ground was not used to acquit George Zimmerman, as ABC News noted earlier this year:

When a Florida jury deadlocked on the first degree murder charge against software developer Michael Dunn, the state's controversial "Stand Your Ground Law" was once again hoisted into the media spotlight. 

Dunn was convicted on four other charges in the case, in which he fired 10 times at an SUV after an argument with the teens inside about how loud their music was, and will likely be sentenced to a minimum of 60 years behind bars.

As in the case of George Zimmerman, acquitted in the killing of Trayvon Martin, the public outrage was often directed or misdirected, at the Florida law. 

Many, including legal commentators who should know better, repeatedly citing the statute as a crucial issue in both cases. 

And yet neither defendant invoked the controversial aspects of Florida's law. In fact, both defendants argued basic self defense law that would have been similar in just about every state in the nation.

Praeger the Prevaricator

Sandy Praeger, the RINO Insurance Commissioner for the state of Kansas, has stepped into the 2nd Congressional District between the incumbent, U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, and her Democrat Party challenger, Margie Wakefield of Lawrence.

According to the Topeka Capital-Journal on October 24, "Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger said in an interview information shared by Jenkins on Medicare cuts, premium rates and policy cancellations was 'just across-the-board wrong.'" Praeger was then quoted as saying the following: "

No polices have been canceled due to [the Affordable Care Act]."

That is a flat-out lie. The fact that millions of Americans had their policies canceled due to Obamacare was the basis for Barack Obama's oft-stated claim, i.e., "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," being named as PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" for 2013. According to PolitiFact, "So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong." 

The cancellations did not stop in 2013. According to Politico on October 17, 2014, "More than 22,000 Coloradans were informed in the past month that their health coverage will be canceled at the end of the year, state insurance authorities disclosed this week, a spike in cancellations already roiling the state’s fierce campaigns for the Senate and governor’s seat." Further:

Health plan cancellations in late 2013 exploded into a national controversy that only subsided when President Barack Obama rewrote Obamacare rules to let states and insurers revive canceled health plans and continue them for up to three years. 

Colorado was one of those states, but the Rocky Mountain State only agreed to let substandard plans continue through 2015. Ten insurers have agreed to continue their plans through 2015, Salazar noted, but the nearly 200,000 people covered by those insurers face the same cancellation notices next year if they haven’t obtained coverage that meets Obamacare standards by then.

Make no mistake about it--these plans are being canceled due to Obamacare. Praeger lied to the Capital-Journal, which should surprise no one since she has a long history of lying to advance her left-wing agendas.

Lawrence Journal-World blames Democrat's education cuts on Brownback

In the October 19 issue of the Lawrence Journal-World, "reporter" Peter Hancock engages in the mainstream media practice of citing a study from a far-left think tank without telling readers that it is a far-left think tank with a far-left agenda. In this case, Hancock cites the Center for Budget Policies and Priorities (CBPP). In The Practical Progressive: How to Build a Twenty-First Century Political Movement (2008), Erica Payne, co-founder of the Democracy Alliance and former Deputy National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee, lists CBPP as an organization that is part of the "Progressive Infrastructure." It's board of directors includes many who would be recognized as those on the left.

But what was really egregious about Hancock's article, which claims, according to CBPP, "direct state funding for public schools in Kansas is still nearly 15 percent less than it was before the start of the Great Recession," is that Hancock blames Gov. Brownback for education spending cuts that took place under Mark Parkinson, Brownback's Democratic predecessor.

Below is a chart that shows the average spending per pupil in Kansas from 2005-06 to 2014-15. As you can see, the average amount per pupil dropped during the 2009-10 school year and then again in the 2010-11 school year. The average amount then began to increase again year after year beginning with the 2011-12 school year.

Note that Gov. Mark Parkinson became governor in 2009 when Gov. Kathleen Sebelius went to Washington, D.C., to serve in the Obama administration. Parkinson was also governor in 2010, when the state budget was set for fiscal year 2011.

However, this is what Hancock reported: "Kansas began cutting budgets in 2008, under then-Gov. Mark Parkinson, a Democrat, when state revenues began to plummet following the collapse of the financial industry and national housing market that fall. They continued in 2009 after Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, took office."

Again, Brownback did not become governor until January 2011 (also, note that Sebelius, and not Parkinson, was governor in 2008).

Is this a case of liberal historical revisionism or extremely sloppy reporting? Who knows? However, the Journal-World's readers deserve a front-page correction to this front-page article.

Margie Wakefield doesn't love Obamacare?

Just how unpopular is Barack Obama in Kansas? In a October 10 Facebook post, Margie Wakefield, Democrat candidate for the the U.S. House, takes issue with incumbent Rep. Lynn Jenkins, who linked Wakefield to Obamacare in new commercial.

"Congresswoman Jenkins has a new, negative television ad that claims that I said that I love Obamacare," Wakefield whines. "That is a lie, plain and simple. I have never said that I love the Affordable Care Act because it does have flaws that need to be fixed."

Wakefield did not elaborate on what she believes to be the Obamacare flaws that need to be fixed. Of course, saying that something or someone has flaws does not mean we do not love that something or someone. For example, we love our spouses and children, regardless of their flaws.

Apparently, Wakefield's "I don't love Obamacare" stance is a relatively new one. On her personal Facebook page, she has a March 23, 2013 post in which she "liked" a post from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Facebook page. That page was promoting a bumper sticker with the message "I 'Heart' Obamacare."

As far as lying, in a May 8, 2014 article in The Iola Register, Wakefield is quoted as saying, "The majority of Americans like the new health insurance law." In truth, there has never been a poll that has shown Obamacare has majority support. In fact, in July a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that Obamacare is more unpopular than ever. Just 37% of those poll had a favorable view of the law.