Free Republic

Yet another rejection of constitutional principles by the Supreme Court has been overlooked in the furor over the pro-Obamacare and same-sex marriage decisions. This time, it’s not what the justices said, but what they refused to say that is noteworthy. Reuters reports that the high court’s refusal to hear an appeal of the decision in the case of Kobach, et al. v. Election Assistance Commission, et al, had the effect of upholding the ruling handed down last November by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A judge's decision to block Kansas from banning a common second-trimester abortion procedure eventually could reshape the state's legal climate and intensify conservative Republicans' push to change how the highest court is selected. The law prohibiting a procedure that critics describe as dismembering a fetus likely creates too big an obstacle for women seeking abortions, Shawnee County District Court Judge Larry Hendricks ruled last week, an order that'll remain in effect until he reviews a lawsuit filed by an abortion rights group. He also declared that the Kansas Constitution creates a right to an abortion that...

The Supreme Court effectively blocked an attempt by Arizona and Kansas to require voter ID after the high court declined to hear an appeal. By rejecting a joint appeal by the states, the high court left in place a November 2014 ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That appeals court decided that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that oversees changes to state voter registration procedures, was not required to grant the states' request that proof of citizenship be added to registration requirements. The Election Assistance Commission was established in 2002 to support and enforce...

To keep conservative rebels in check, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his allies have been doling out punishments at an aggressive clip in the 114th Congress. From kicking unruly members off the Rules Committee and GOP whip team to stripping a lawmaker of his subcommittee gavel, leadership has been growing more comfortable with taking retaliatory measures to try to enforce party discipline. But several Tea Party targets haven’t gone quietly. They’ve been fighting back with help from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which successfully pressured leaders this week to return a subcommittee gavel to one of their...

A Kansas judge has temporarily halted a newly-passed state law that bans dismemberment abortions that tear babies limb from limb. Planned Parenthood, which does abortions in Overland Park, and Trust Women, which operates a Wichita-based abortion clinic were behind the lawsuit. The latest abortion figures in Kansas showed abortions going down but the number of dismemberment abortions, or D&E abortions, rising from 584 in 2013 to 637 in 2014. They constituted 8.8% of the total 7,263 Kansas abortions reported. Here’s more on the ruling: The decision from Shawnee County District Court Judge Larry Hendricks came in a lawsuit filed from...

Attorneys at a hearing to determine who would receive temporary custody of the 5-year-old boy told a judge Friday morning that his mother and an aunt had been notified that the hearing would take place but that neither were in the courtroom to speak on his behalf. His father hadn’t yet been found, and the grandmother who abandoned him Tuesday at Kohl’s when she bolted from a shoplifting stop was still on the run from law enforcement, Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Amanda Marino said. The judge placed the child in the temporary custody of the state.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican leaders pushed a new plan for raising taxes through the Kansas House early Friday morning, hours after top aides to GOP Gov. Sam Brownback warned them that failing to erase a budget deficit risked funding for universities and invited a downgrading of the state's bond ratings.

TOPEKA, Kan. - The Kansas Senate passed Sunday what would be the largest tax increase in the history of the state of Kansas. The measure passed by a 21-17 margin. Kansas Sen. Julia Lynn, who represents Johnson County, Kan., was the deciding vote on the bill. Details on the $471 million tax increase: The sales tax increases to 6.55 percent from 6.15 percent. The cigarette tax will go up by 50 cents each pack, bringing the total tax to $1.29. The food tax will drop on July 1, 2016. However, it will be 6.55 percent until that time. Most itemized...

With a wave of legalization measures in recent years, marijuana in some form is now legal in 38 states. But in the 12 where it is not — a swath of the west and Midwest, including Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and in the rust belt states of Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania — parents whose use of the drug would be legal elsewhere are losing their children and often seen as irresponsible parenting pariahs. In March, Child Protective Service workers took Shona Banda’s 11-year-old son from her home in Garden City, Kansas, saying her use of marijuana to control debilitating...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Brothers Molham and Mohammad Kayali spray-painted anti-government graffiti around Aleppo University in northern Syria in early 2012 and held up flags in protest against President Bashar al Assad's government. Worried that their lives were in danger, they gave up on school and fled to Turkey in September 2012. They were reunited last year with their younger brother, Ebrahim, at Emporia State University, a small school in Kansas, joining among about 700 "academic refugees" now in the U.S. who either fled from the long-running violent conflict, attended universities that have closed or couldn't safely travel to...

A man charged with raping a 100-year-old woman during a break-in at her southeast Wichita home last fall may be charged with murder in her death three weeks after the attack. Prosecutors have asked Sedgwick County District Judge David Dahl to grant a new preliminary hearing in the case against Kasey Nesbitt in light of an autopsy report that says the woman’s death from a blood clot is a homicide. The clot developed in her body and traveled to her lungs. Martha Schell of Wichita died Oct. 21 at a local nursing home and rehabilitation center, 21 days after she...

(Reuters) - A father-daughter doctor team on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging a Kansas state law due to take effect in July that would ban a common second trimester abortion procedure that lawmaker supporters termed "dismemberment abortions." The ban "will undermine their patients' rights to be free from unnecessary medical procedures and to make medical decisions, in conjunction with their physicians, that are in their best interests," the doctors' state court lawsuit said.

With the state facing a $400 million budget hole for the coming fiscal year, the conservatives who dominate the Legislature here say they are agonizing over the likelihood of doing something that did not seem to be in their DNA: raising taxes. Just three years ago, many of these lawmakers passed the largest tax cuts in state history, saying they would lead to economic growth. But that growth did not appear, and after repeatedly trimming spending to close shortfalls, legislators again find themselves in a prolonged budget battle with no easy answers, where both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature are...

The manhunt for a third suspect in the shooting of an Oklahoma police officer ended Friday with the person’s capture. Police caught Alejandro Garcia shortly just past 7 a.m. in Liberty, Kansas, after several car chases, Fox23 reported. Earlier, Cesar Rios, 23, and Roxanna Mendoza 20, were taken into custody after Oologah police officer Charles Neil was shot in the head during a traffic pursuit late Thursday, police said. South Coffeyville Police Chief Wade Lamb told the Tulsa World that the incident began when a Talala officer tried to stop an SUV in Rogers County, Oklahoma, but the vehicle sped...

HUTCHINSON, Kan. – Two of five teenagers accused of conspiring to carry out a shooting at Hutchinson High School were back in court Tuesday morning where one entered a “not guilty” plea to the charges, that being 16-year-old Takota Bowman (shown above). Later, 16-year-old Dominic Collins was before Juvenile Judge Patty Macke Dick where his attorney asked that he be released from custody, arguing that his client had no history with the court or history of violence. Attorney Mike Robinson also argued that he has done well in detention. But Assistant District Attorney Cheryl Allen argued against it citing things...

'The Westboro Bapstist Church has inadvertently declared its hatred of the Ivory Coast, after printing the Irish flag backwards on their posters. The infamous church, which pickets the funerals of U.S soldiers and has a real obsession with homosexuality, were up to their old tricks again over the weekend. Naturally, the hate-speech spouting church took to the streets to picket Ireland’s historic same-sex marriage referendum. And, given their horrible “God Hates homosexuals” rhetoric, they weren’t huge fans of the Emerald Isle’s vote for equality. There was just one problem – the WBC had the wrong flag. So, instead of protesting...

[full title] GOP’s demonic new crusade: Right-wing zealots look for even crueler ways to treat the poor like garbage Happy Memorial Day! But if you’re in Wisconsin, and relying on food stamps, remember that Republicans don’t want you to have ketchup on your hamburger. They’d probably rather you didn’t have a hamburger at all, but Wisconsin farmers and ranchers have clout, and so proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program made room for Wisconsin products. But they still don’t want you to have “crab, lobster, shrimp, or any other shellfish.” Or ketchup. Or spaghetti sauce. Really. For now, that’s...

A Kansas furniture store owner is closing up shop and leaving town, but not before he tells other residents what he thinks about them. Bob Fyfe, the owner of Payless Furniture in Lawrence, has polarized the community by posting signs on a large truck in his store parking lot that attack the town. The main sign reads; 'Lawrence: Commie and Candy Ass Capitol [sic] of Kansas. Goodbye Obamaville.'

A 21-year-old woman says she was attacked in her Overland Park home and her security system caught it on camera. Katie O'Connor is too frightened to go back to her own apartment and feels partly responsible because she trusted a friend.

Republican leaders are considering bringing the Iran nuclear measure — overwhelmingly approved by the Senate last week — and a proposed overhaul of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program to the floor this week under special rules that would limit lawmakers’ ability to offer changes to the bills. The strategy is intended to hold off amendments — so-called poison pills — that could cause backing for the measures to fall apart. Though the bills would each need a supermajority to pass, both measures enjoy strong bipartisan support and would most likely be approved, sparing amendment headaches for the leadership....