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A spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "unhinged" on Monday, after Reid charged Republicans may have had a helping hand in emboldening Russia to annex Crimea. "Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions last work period, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases," Reid said on the Senate floor Monday. "It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice." Reid was referring to the stalling of a Ukraine aid...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that Republicans may have helped Russia annex Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in a surprisingly sharp attack ahead of a test vote on a bill authorizing more U.S. sanctions on Russia and $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine. […] Reid’s charge comes despite widespread support among Republicans and Democrats in Congress for providing Ukraine with much-needed economic assistance and hitting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government with sanctions. …

As we begin debate on this aid and sanctions package, I also hope that Republicans who stopped action on this legislation prior to the break have considered how their obstruction affects United States’ national security.” “In light of such clear-cut Russian aggression against Ukraine, it’s difficult to believe Republicans blocked this package at all. But it’s almost unimaginable why they blocked it – to protect the anonymity of their own big-money donors. ““Democrats fought hard four years ago to pass this landmark expansion of quality, affordable health care. And we will fight just as hard to make this law work...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–Nev.) is facing a revolt among Republicans for adding controversial language to an aid package for Ukraine.The Senate is expected to vote on the Ukraine measure next week. The controversial provisions, which have support of the Obama administration and liberals from both parties, would increase U.S. financial support to the International Monetary Fund.A growing number of Republicans warn that attaching the IMF language would reduce U.S. power while expanding Russia’s influence on the global stage in the wake of its annexation of Crimea.>>> Q&A: Why Do Conservatives Oppose the IMF Reform Package?Yesterday, Sen. Ted Cruz...

It seems as if Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius has ruined any possible shot at a career in comedy. Last Tuesday she was attending a fundraiser in Washington state for fellow Democratic governor, Chris Gregoire. Gregoire praised her state's well-known wines. Sebelius cracked an attempt at a feeble joke when she said, "You should be thankful we don't make wine in Kansas," Sebelius said. "If you ever see Kansas wine, don't drink it." Obviously, this joke did not set will with Kansas winemakers, and I can certainly understand why. From 49 News: Holton wine makers Ray and Becky Campbell say they're...

From Indiana Street near the edge of the University of Kansas campus, you can barely see the top of Georgia Bell’s house. Georgia Bell bought her modest home near the University of Kansas campus in 1946 for $850. On Wednesday, she was formally offered $600,000 for it. A five-story residential and retail complex could soon spring up uncomfortably close by. The developer says she can stay, but things will be very different. It sits at the bottom of 26 old, steep and uneven concrete steps. Two city officials descended those steps recently to talk to Bell about selling her place...

.......there is in the United States only one memorial and museum dedicated to the Great War. Located in Kansas City, Mo., the Liberty Memorial and National World War I Museum opened in December 2006 and is a state-of-the-art tour de force.

n most states, elected officials, usually state legislators, are responsible for assessing what education funding in the state should be and will be. Recently, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that in fact, the judicial branch has jurisdiction over this crucial area of the budget. Although the Court didn’t answer the broad question of what constitutes the “adequate school funding” requirement in the Kansas State Constitution, it did say that lawmakers must fund schools equally. And while this ruling will have some impact on present school funding formulas, the Court made sure to clarify that it has jurisdiction over what counts...

by John Urban | Top Right NewsIn a victory for fair elections, a Federal judge ruled Wednesday that Arizona and Kansas may require residents to prove they are U.S. citizens in order to register to vote -- a clear rebuke to the Obama Administration, which had strongly fought the move.The ruling by U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren, which applies to the federal voter registration form, imposes the same requirements as Arizona's and Kansas' state registration forms. Arizona voters passed such a requirement as part of the landmark Proposition 200, way back in 2004. But liberal justices had blocked the rule...

The Kansas House Standing Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice has introduced a bill that will require private citizens who file complaints against police officers to sign an affidavit, acknowledging that if their allegations are proven false, they can be charged with perjury, which is a felony charge. Furthermore, this bill prohibits a Kansas law enforcement agency from opening an investigation into a complaint if another law enforcement agency has already investigated the complaint and found in favor of the officer. In other words, this bill would allow police departments to arrest the people who file complaints against police officers....

~snip~ But the dealership took exception, and fought back: The result has been an outpouring of comment on Twitter that can’t be pleasing to the union bosses. Twitchy has a round-up The union went a couple of steps too far when it posted this union flyer on its website:

Jones had been living in Deerfield Beach under the alias Bruce Walter Keith since at least 2005, the U.S. Marshals Service saidOne of the U.S. Army’s “15 Most Wanted” fugitives – on the run since he escaped from a military prison in Kansas in 1977 – was arrested Thursday when he showed up for work in Pompano Beach, authorities said. James Robert Jones, 59, had been using a fake Florida driver’s license since 1981 and had been living in Deerfield Beach under the alias Bruce Walter Keith since at least 2005, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Accused Florida Theater...

As with most things, there are good and bad aspects of the Tea Party movement. And all the bad ones were on display March 6 in a speech by Ted Cruz to the Conservative Political Action Conference that replayed every silly thing ever said by conservatives and added some riffs of his own. He began with a mocking refrain about "presidents" Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney (two of them veterans impaired by their trauma), chiding them for not being his kind of conservative. He also asked if we remembered their reigns. Well, we do remember, and we remember...

Sen. Pat Roberts's (R-Kan.) primary challenger, radiologist Milton Wolf, picked up a national Tea Party endorsement on Thursday, an indication recent controversies haven’t sunk his campaign. The Tea Party Express became the latest national conservative group to throw its weight behind the candidate. He also has the support of the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Madison Project. Wolf faced questions this week about graphic X-ray images he posted to Facebook with off-color comments, which have been deleted but were reported in local newspapers in Kansas. Critics and medical experts alike have called the posts inappropriate, and they became fodder for...

On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that Texas’ amendment banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. While Judge Orlando Garcia stated that same-sex marriage should be legal in the state, he allowed his ruling to be stayed until an appeals court has a chance to review it. Therefore, at this moment, gay and lesbian couples cannot get married in the state of Texas. This is just the latest step in what will surely be the complete toppling of same-sex marriage bans across the country. Currently, gay marriage is legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia. At the same time, there...

I agree with Glenn Reynolds who has more to say at link below. I’ve said the DC GOP and its apparatchiks would prefer a Democrat to a potentially rogue Conservative Republican. I believe that, especially when it comes to clowns like Brad Dayspring of the NRSC. By the time he and his buddies get to K-Street, they can profit from both parties. Genuine reformers, not so much. It’s a career path just like any business to most of the folks in DC, including many elected pols. I’m so concerned about whatever Wolf posted, I haven’t even bothered to look. As...

A Kansas radiologist running for Senate posted grisly X-rays of patients who had been shot on his Facebook page and engaged in joking online banter about the images.Milton Wolf, challenging Sen. Pat Roberts in a Republican primary, acknowledged Sunday that he posted “insensitive” comments online, which he described as “mistakes.”He was responding to a devastating story in the Topeka Capital-Journal, which reported that he wrote that a patient could not complain about the awkward way his head was positioned for an X-ray, published on Facebook, because he was dead. He said a man decapitated by gunfire resembled an alien in...

**SNIP** Midterm elections are often a reflection of the approval rating of the incumbent president and now President Obama stands at 42.8%. And elections in the 6th year of a PresidentÂ’s term are usually not good for the incumbentÂ’s party. To make things even worse for Democrats, the issues of a weak economy and Obamacare make November look bleak for Harry Reid and his Senate Democratic cohorts. â—¾Alaska, Mark Begich â—¾Arkansas, Mark Pryor â—¾Louisiana, Mary Landrieu â—¾Michigan, Open Seat (liberal Democrat Carl Levin retiring) â—¾Montana, John Walsh â—¾North Carolina, Kay Hagan â—¾South Dakota, being vacated by retiring Democrat Tim Johnson...

"OVERLAND PARK — U.S. Senate candidate Milton Wolf posted a collection of gruesome X-ray images of gunshot fatalities and medical injuries to his Facebook page and participated in online commentary layered with macabre jokes and descriptions of carnage."

The Buck Who Carried His Rival’s Head While it may look like a grisly trophy, the story behind the picture of the antler-locked bucks above is one of survival and endurance. I recently spoke with Luke Laha, a wildlife management instructor in Kansas, about how he and his students rescued an antler-locked deer that had been carrying around the head of his rival. So how did this deer come to be wearing such bizarre headgear? Laha said that there was once a body attached to that head, before the coyotes came. Laha works as an instructor at Pratt Community College’s...