Free Republic

Jawanda Mast helps her daughter Rachel, 14, write thank you notes Rachel has Downs Syndrome. In the 14 years since her daughter, Rachel, was born with Down syndrome, Jawanda Mast has always been clear that she’d change the condition if she could. “I couldn’t love her more, but I would give almost anything to take away that extra chromosome,” the Olathe, Kansas, mom wrote on her blog. “While I may know she’s perfect, the world doesn’t.” But when Massachusetts scientists announced recently that they’ve found a way to silence the chromosome that causes trisomy 21, also known as Down...

Kansas laws could be targeted as the U.S. attorney general on Thursday announced a new federal offensive against state restrictions on voting rights. Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that he is shifting resources in the Justice Department to pursue more legal action against state-by-state voting restrictions. He said his efforts will begin with Texas and expand to other states where voting issues have surfaced. Joan Wagnon, chairwoman of the Kansas Democratic Party, applauded Holder’s speech and said she’s considering contacting the Justice Department over the issue of more than 12,000 Kansas voters whose registration is “in suspense” because of...

While Governor Nixon travels the state telling taxpayers he can’t cut their taxes, Kansas cuts taxes and welcomes new jobs. When Kansas passed a series of tax cuts for businesses and individuals during the 2012 legislative session, the media and liberal politicians scoffed. “How can state revenues grow if taxes are cut?” they asked. Gloom and doom followed. Media and politicians across the country, even within the state borders, predicted financial chaos, massive state service cuts, even bankruptcy.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and the attorneys general of 11 other states sued the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday, demanding that the agency turn over documents the states allege will show the agency cooperates with environmental groups as part of a "sue and settle" legal strategy to develop regulations. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, alleges that binding consent decrees between the EPA and environmental groups that have sued the agency over the years have led to new rules and regulations for states without allowing their attorneys general to defend their interests and those of its...

House GOP leaders took a big gamble Thursday in bringing a farm bill without food stamps to the floor, and it paid off — just barely. The House passed the bill 216-208, inching across a 213-vote threshold without a single Democrat supporting the measure.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In light of the Obama Administration’s recent announcement that it will delay the ObamaCare employer mandate until 2015, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) co-sponsored two amendments today that would delay the individual and employer mandates. The amendments were introduced by U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (Kan.) to the FY2014 Labor-HHS-Ed appropriations bill. “Picking and choosing which aspects of this flawed law to postpone is like riding a bike with one wheel – it simply does not work,” said Blunt. “I’ll continue to support efforts to repeal and defund ObamaCare so that we can prevent this deeply flawed law...

The Kansas Legislature and the Kansas Supreme Court appear headed for a colossal train wreck. The Kansas Supreme Court is likely to rule that current funding for schools is constitutionally inadequate. I asked Speaker of the House Ray Merrick what the Legislature would do if the Kansas Supreme Court ordered $600 million in additional funding go toward K-12 schools. Merrick answered, “I really have no idea.” But I do think he knows one thing for near-certain. This Legislature is not about to raise taxes, and there is likely no other way to increase spending by anything like that amount. So...

A Kansas City man and two other aspiring holy war combatants in the U.S. thought their contributions to Al Qaeda would buy them front-row seats in global jihad, but instead the money was divvied up among leaders in Yemen for their personal gain, according to court records. Ouazzani, Hanoff and Wesam El-Hanafi, who was an information security specialist in Brooklyn with Lehman Brothers before moving to Dubai around 2005, all aspired to "support violent extremist Islamic causes," prosecutors have said. The three also sent watches, cold-weather gear, Garmin GPS units and a remote-control car to the terrorist leaders.

Police were still looking late Wednesday afternoon for an intruder who apparently was shot by a Wichita resident earlier in the day, police said.A second suspect was arrested near the scene and booked into Sedgwick County Jail, Lt. Doug Nolte said.One of the two residents at the house in the 1300 block of South Wichita, near Lincoln, was away from the house shortly before 5 a.m. when he received an intruder alert, Nolte said. He said he didn’t know if the resident received the alert on his cellphone or by other means.The man returned to his house to find two...

A Jewish student from Kansas was denied entry into Britain for a summer job several weeks ago—apparently due to a customs agent’s anti-Semitism. After being detained for more than nine hours, he was put back on a plane to the United States by customs officials. During that time he was never told why he was being denied entry. According to the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, the British man who had offered Louis “Chip” Cantor summer work experience, Kevin Shilling, said the British border agent he spoke to in his attempt to get Cantor admitted into Britian made more than one...

The chief federal judge in Kansas refused Sunday to temporarily block parts of a new state abortion law, including a requirement that providers' websites link to a state site with information they dispute. But U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil's ruling Sunday in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood came after a state judge ruled Friday in a separate challenge that Kansas couldn't enforce the website requirement for now. Vratil noted the previous ruling, in a case filed by two doctors, in concluding that Planned Parenthood would not suffer irreparable harm if she didn't do the same. The rule was to...

The Kansas Health Foundation has awarded more than $830,000 in grants...

The U.S. Army is slashing the number of combat brigades from 45 to 33, and shifting thousands of soldiers out of bases around the county as it moves forward with the long-planned move to cut the size of the service by 80,000... at 10 Army bases in the U.S. by 2017, including in Texas, Kentucky, Colorado, North Carolina, New York, Kansas and Washington.

...ceremony officiated by lesbian Baptist minister directly across the street A lesbian couple gave the bigots at the Gay-hating Westboro Baptist Church a taste of their own medicine by tying the knot in an outdoor ceremony across the street from the church. The Westboro members, who are infamous for staging anti-Gay protests at the funerals of fallen soldiers, were forced to watch as Kimberly Kidwell and Katie Short said “I do” just 50 feet from their front doors in Topeka, Kan. Same-sex marriage is not legal in Kansas, but the couple proceeded with the ceremony with the help of an...

INGALLS — The Ingalls USD 477 school board agreed it was a good idea for top administrators to bring handguns to school. Then, the district learned it would lose its liability insurance coverage through EMC Insurance Co. if it authorized guns in school. "At this point, we are dropping the idea of this," Ingalls USD 477 Superintendent Dave Novack said Wednesday of handguns at school.

When 17-year-old Kansas boy Daran Wankum was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he gave up on his dream of joining the United States Marines. He didn't plan on how the Marines would rally to his side...

After most of the world’s population is wiped off the map by a wayward meteorite or hail of nuclear missiles, the survival of the human race might just depend on a few thousand people huddled in recreational vehicles deep in the bowels of an eastern Kansas mine. That’s the vision of a California man who is creating what he calls the world's largest private underground survivor shelter, using a complex of limestone caves dug more than 100 years ago beneath gently rolling hills overlooking the Missouri River. “I do believe I am on a mission and doing a spiritual thing,”...

Working off clues from a blurry image of an 11-year-old girl wearing pajamas in the back of a car, federal agents scrambled to find the pedophile who posted the image on the Internet and asked how he should rape the little girl. Determined Homeland Security agents in Washington, D.C., analyzed the photo for any possible clues that could lead them to the girl’s location. Agents were ultimately able to beat the odds and save the girl in an operation they called “Sunflower.” -snip The suspect turned out to be only 16-years-old. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve 48...

... In short, Mr. Obama is about to hammer the American energy industry, and he's doing it for money. The real elephant in the room is the Keystone XL pipeline project intended to bring Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast refineries and the resulting products onto the international market. In fact, the title of the Bloomberg article cited above includes the words "Keystone foes." Mr. Obama has already delayed Keystone, once and a final decision is coming up. While Keystone has received a lot of press attention, there are two interrelated aspects that have not yet come to the surface....

Hundreds of pro-immigration goons stormed Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s home this past weekend. The mob brought megaphones and rallied on his front porch. And they hurled threats at his family. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) The leftists dared the Secretary of State to come outside. Todd Starnes at Townhall reported: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is calling for a criminal investigation after a huge mob of illegal alien supporters surrounded his private home Saturday and held a rally on his front porch. At least 200 members of Sunflower Community Action were bussed into Kobach’s Kansas City-area neighborhood on Saturday – to...

When life gives you lemons A 5-year-old girl hoping to add a little sugar to the bitter Westboro Baptist Church set up a lemonade stand outside its front doors not to antagonize but to spread peace. What she got was harassment from its adult members calling her among names a "satanic liar" — as well as more than $16,000 raised from supporters across the U.S. "Jayden and I went out there to raise money for Planting Peace," her father, Jon Sink, told WBTV. The purpose was to "spread love, to spread compassion," he said. But with her blond hair pulled...

<p>Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is calling for a criminal investigation after a huge mob of illegal alien supporters surrounded his private home Saturday and held a rally on his front porch.</p> <p>At least 200 members of Sunflower Community Action were bussed into Kobach’s Kansas City-area neighborhood on Saturday – to protest his staunch anti-illegal alien views.</p>

A 5-year-old girl set up a lemonade stand across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church compound, and now the group is targeting her. ... The efforts have clearly irritated Westboro members, Equality House resident Davis Hammet said. "She was so awesome. She was such a sweetheart," Hammet said. "She was right in front of this hate group. She was unfazed and unafraid, and they are so very vile and rude to people." ... Jayden told her father that she wanted to set up a lemonade stand to help a charity. After doing research, they settled on Equality House because...

Nearly 300 activists with a leftist, pro-immigration group marched on the Kansas secretary of state’s home over the weekend, dropping shoes on his lawn that they said belonged to “the fathers he’s deported.” Sunflower Community Action nonprofit members branded Kansas’ Kris Kobach as a “King of Hate” on its group Twitter feed, accusing him of being the brains behind Arizona’s tough immigration law and the reason for so much perceived backlash against illegal immigrants, The Blaze reported. The group’s basic principles are that all are owed basic “human rights” that include “food, shelter, medical care, education and a job,” it...

In a scene reminiscent of the SEIU’s siege of a Bank of America executive’s home in 2010, a mob of around 300 open borders protesters from across the country today descended on the home of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is also counsel to the Immigration Law Reform Institute and, according to the following tweets from 501(c)3 Sunflower Community Action, the “King of Hate.”

A group supporting an open-borders policy on immigration is trying to use the nationwide release of Man of Steel to further its cause. We Are the American Way, a project from Define American, has a new site dubbed "Superman Is an Immigrant" meant to piggyback on the cultural conversation around the superhero film. "Superman is an American. Like Superman, we are the American way," the site's sub-head reads. Born on Krypton, he came to this country with the promise of Hope - the symbol he bears on his chest. Many of our families also have a history of immigration. We...

A Midwestern lawmaker is calling on his colleagues in Congress to offer cover to an Army soldier under fire for his conservative political views and religious faith, and accusing the Obama administration of “creating a tyrannical culture of political correctness in the military.” Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., is introducing an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent the Army from conducting a court martial of Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers until the military first files a report for Congress to review. “The Secretary of the Army shall provide to Congress a report on activities with respect to Master...

TOPEKA, Kan. – Fresh off a series of legislative victories across the country, the National Rifle Association has launched a new effort starting in gun-friendly Kansas seeking to clamp down on the use of government money to lobby on gun-control issues.

URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED TORNADO WATCH NUMBER 262 NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK 330 PM CDT FRI MAY 31 2013 THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A * TORNADO WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AND NORTHEAST OKLAHOMA * EFFECTIVE THIS FRIDAY AFTERNOON FROM 330 PM UNTIL MIDNIGHT CDT. ...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION... * PRIMARY THREATS INCLUDE... SEVERAL INTENSE TORNADOES LIKELY NUMEROUS VERY LARGE HAIL EVENTS TO 4 INCHES IN DIAMETER LIKELY NUMEROUS DAMAGING WIND GUSTS LIKELY WITH SEVERAL SIGNIFICANT GUSTS TO 80 MPH POSSIBLE THE TORNADO WATCH AREA IS APPROXIMATELY ALONG AND 65 STATUTE MILES...

Whenever Congress throws too much into one bill, special interests profit. The massive farm bill — which is already 80 percent food stamps — is no exception.

<p>Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts is calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign.</p> <p>An aide to the Republican senator confirmed for The Buzz Thursday morning that Roberts has become one of the first senators to demand Holder’s ouster. KMBZ Radio first reported the story.</p>

The Democrats are in a swoon over the fact that Senator Dole is complaining about the Republicans. The former Republican leader in the upper house told Christopher Wallace of Fox News that the GOP “ought to put a sign on the national committee doors that says ‘closed for repairs.’” He reckons the GOP lacks for “ideas and positive agendas.” Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Dole whether he could make it in today’s Republican Party “I doubt it,” Mr. Dole said dolefully. “Reagan couldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, cause he had ideas. We might have made it,...

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is nullification — the idea that states can limit the enforcement of federal laws within their borders. --snip-- They’ve wiped the dust from the 10th Amendment with state laws seeking to nullify federal statutes. Over a dozen states, with South Carolina being the most recent, have passed legislation aimed at preventing the Obamacare health care mandate from being enforced in their jurisdictions. South Carolina’s goes the furthest by proposing to grant taxpayers a state tax deduction equal to the federal penalty for failing to purchase health care. Montana, Kansas and...

The Kansas Legislature continues to grind toward a tax agreement today. It’s tempting to snicker at the chambers’ inability to actually pass a budget after working at it for three months, but we should cut lawmakers some slack. Remaking an entire state takes time. Much has been made of the continuing gridlock in our national government, brought on largely by the polarized nature of our two major political parties. Divided national government, in our time, is a recipe for dysfunction. But a much different dynamic is playing out in state governments. There, one-party control is becoming the norm. According to...

Former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 GOP Presidential nominee Bob Dole excoriated the Republican Party on Fox News Sunday, saying the Party lacked new ideas and engaged in too much obstructionist activity in the upper chamber. "They ought to put a sign on the National Committee doors that says 'Closed for repairs,' until New Year's Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas," he said. Additionally, Dole remarked that not only was he doubtful he could "make it" in today's Republican Party, but he believes Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon could not make it either...

Kansas elementary school teacher Daniel Nagel faces a year in prison and job loss for going above and beyond the call of duty and protecting his students with his concealed-carry permit. -snip On Monday, May 20, Dan was teaching gym and carrying his handgun in an inside-the-waistband hip holster. So, there was zero chance that his gun would fall out of his holster or hurt his students and a 100 percent chance that Daniel could defend his students if a gunman breached the school. Daniel is highly competent with firearms; he practices at the range monthly and also takes yearly...

Kansas City councilman Jermaine Reed wanted to have an “honest” discussion on race. But like Attorney General Eric Holder and former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, who made similar pleas before him, he did not really say more than that. Green’s call for honest talk came after three years and dozens of episodes of black mob violence at the Plaza in Kansas City. He wanted an explanation as to why police only cited black people. I could not tell if he was unhappy with the black people for frequent and large-scale episodes of mob violence – or with the police for...

Let me preface by saying that I'm not criticizing Bill Karins for his choice of words. Thank, uh, goodness, we live in a country where we're free to believe in any God or no God at all. But I do see Karins' construction as a sign of the cultural times. The Morning Joe meteorologist today aired dramatic footage of the weatherman at the NBC affiliate in Wichita, Kansas ordering his colleagues to take shelter because a tornado was headed right at the station. Said Karins: "By the grace of whatever, God or whatever else, it lifted the second it got...

Live coverage: http://www.ksn.com/weather/live-radar-and-storm-coverage/ Large tornado confirmed on the ground. Weather service has issued a Particularly Dangerous Situation warning.

A Burkburnett man is jailed after allegedly trying to break into a home in Wichita Falls and being met by a resident with a gun. According to a probable cause affidavit: Wichita Falls police responded to a burglary call on Anita Street on April 30. They were told the resident was holding the suspect at gunpoint in the backyard. The resident told officers he heard someone trying to get into the house and saw a man removing the glass from a storm door. He confronted the would-be intruder and held him until police arrived.

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

Authorities on Tuesday were investigating the deaths of three people whose bodies were found on a rural property in eastern Kansas, a day after friends of the residents called police to report a foul smell at the site. Meanwhile, investigators in a nearby county were waiting to see if one of the bodies is a suburban Kansas City mother who has been missing with her 18-month-old baby since last week. The bodies of two adult men and one woman were found Monday on the farm west of Ottawa, which is located about 60 miles southwest of Kansas City, Sheriff Jeff...

Kansas signed the Second Amendment Protection Act (SB 102) into law last month. The bill protects gun owners from from new federal gun control laws and would actually make it illegal to enforce those laws within the state of Kansas. Eric Holder threatened Kansas last week calling the new state law unconstitutional. In response Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, fired back. The general gist of the message was, “You’re wrong. You don’t understand the Constitution. Bring it on.” Via Guns Save Lives: Kobach insisted the State of Kansas was determined to restore the Constitution to protect the right of...

The Obama administration is on a collision course with the state of Kansas over a new law that claims to nullify federal gun controls. Attorney General Eric Holder has threatened litigation against Kansas over the law in what could the opening salvo of a blockbuster legal battle with national ramifications. “This is definitely a case that could make it to the Supreme Court,” Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Friday afternoon. “There is nothing symbolic about this law.” Kobach, a former constitutional law professor, helped craft the statute, which bars the federal government from regulating guns and ammunition manufactured...

The Hill reports that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback just signed into law a statute that "bars the federal government from regulating guns and ammunition manufactured and stored within Kansas state lines." Moreover, the new law makes it a felony for federal authorities to attempt to enforce federal gun control laws, treaties, or rules related to firearms within Kansas state lines. Federal agents would not be arrested but will be prosecuted on "a complaint-and-summons basis." Naturally, U.S. Attorney general Eric Holder is furious. Already he has sent a letter to Brownback promising, “The United States will take all appropriate action, including...

A fight is brewing in Kansas over the constitutionality of laws that aim to bar enforcement of federal gun-control measures. In late April, the Kansas legislature passed and Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a law that blocks enforcement of any federal gun laws on guns produced and used within the state of Kansas. Under the law, “any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas.” Attorney General Eric Holder has written to...

Kansas Governor to AG Holder: We Will Continue to Defend 2nd Amendment Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. As we reported yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Brownback informing him that the Obama administration would ignore a new Kansas law nullifying federal gun control laws. Furthermore, Holder warned the governor that federal agents would “take all appropriate actions” to enforce federal gun control laws, calling the Kansas statute “unconstitutional.” In a response to Holder's letter sent on May 2, Brownback defends his state’s right to protect its citizens’ right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed...

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback received a letter today from Attorney General Eric Holder threatening action against the state should it enforce SB102, the pro 2nd Amendment law Brownback signed into law last month. The new law declares that the federal government has no power to regulate guns manufactured, sold and kept only in Kansas. Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas. The legislation made it a felony for a federal...

A new law in Kansas that criminalizes the enforcement of federal gun controls in the state is unconstitutional, Attorney General Eric H. Holder said. “In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, [the law] directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Mr. Holder wrote to Gov. Sam Brownback in a letter dated April 26. “Federal officers who are responsible for enforcing federal laws and regulations in order to maintain public safety cannot be forced to choose between the risk of a criminal prosecution by a state and the continued performance of...