Anything to attack the Governor

Christian Morgan and the KS GOP will attack the Governor for just about anything these days. It's almost sad. If she wore a jacket that didn't match her blouse, Christian Morgan would probably post a blog saying she was out of touch with Kansas fashion values.

Now, in typical fashion that sounds like it was written by a schoolyard bully with a college education, Morgan is attacking Sebelius for a written statement her office released in response to a bit on the Colbert Report.

Awhile back, Colbert was mocking John McCain's trip while Obama was speaking to 200,000 in Germany, and he said that he was in Canton and "not the Crappy Canton in Georgia, I'm talking about Canton Oh-hi-O". Well, the Canton, Ga. mayor apparently doesn't know how to take a joke. Here is Colbert's response.




Sebelius' office issued a playful response, inviting Colbert to Canton, KS. Morgan apparently takes exception to this.

Apparently the Governor has a lot of time on her hands considering she has been pretty busy these days campaigning for Obama, meeting with radical environmentalists in Colorado, speaking at fundraisers in San Francisco, posing for Vogue photo shoots, hanging out in Ohio, paling around in North Carolina, having tea in England, having more private meetings with the secret bilderberg conference and now, responding to a comedian's lame attempt at a joke.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Governor Sebelius didn't take time out of her day to sit down and write this herself. Moreover, Morgan isn't THAT dumb, he knows that, but he doesn't care if he makes it look like she did. (BTW, who the F cares?)

Also, apparently Morgan has about as much of a sense of humor as Mayor Hobgood. Anyone with half a brain in their head (or that knows anything about Stephen Colbert) should know that this bit is mocking the Canton, Ga., mayor for having the same reaction that Christian Morgan did.

I say, tip of the hat to Gov. Sebelius and her staff for playing along and wag of the finger to Christian Morgan for being a douche with no sense of humor.

The Kansas Republican Assembly is right

Stop the presses folks, the nutjobs over at the Kansas Republican Assembly -- a shell organization which, in effect, runs the KS GOP -- have actually made a good point, though I don't think it was intentional.

In an effort to slander the "Red Star" (some people refer to it as the Kansas City Star, a Pulitzer prize winning newspaper) these radicals have said something intelligent.

A very wise politician once told me, “You’ll know when your opponent thinks you might win when they start attacking you by name.”

They were referring to an admittedly curious development in which Dave Helling over at PrimeBuzz has been specifically referencing The Kansas Meadowlark, the grandaddy of all crazy republican blogs in Kansas. Imagine if the folks at TKR were just a little bit more unstable, but actually did research. Ya, that's Meadowlark.

So, with this quote in mind, do you believe the Republicans when they say Slattery doesn't have a chance?







Neither do I. The worst part? This isn't even all of them. There have been two more TV ads and a radio ad attacking Jim Slattery. Please use our ActBlue widget at the right of your screen to help Jim Slattery fight back. Pat Roberts has millions and this onslaught is not going to stop anytime soon.

Cheese flavored lies

Another post from The Kansas Republican, another lie. Or at least a blind assumption made in the absence of facts.

These clowns read a story on da int-ruh-netz that said a cheese factory decided to locate in Eastern Colorado as opposed to Western Kansas.

OBVIOUSLY this is Gov. Sebelius' fault. Not the Republican-controlled legislature. They eveen linked to the story!

The problem is, the story made no mention of anything even remotely political.

Leprino reportedly chose the location partly due to the quality and availability of milk in neighbouring Weld County. Moerover, in December 2007, FLEXNEWS had reported that Leprino had also considered other locations for the plant in north Colorado and in south west Kansas.

Leprino provides mozzarella cheese to companies such as Domino's Pizza and Pizza Hut and has 9 plants in the US, and 2 in the UK.

Apparently its Governor Sebelius' fault there isn't more/higher quality milk in Western Kansas.

Then, they repeat the same baseless accusations made by their cousins over at Stay Red Kansas, that 1) the recent GAO decision was the result of Roberts, Tiahrt, Brownback and Moran's hard work and 2) Jim Slattery is angry about the decision.

Meanwhile, thanks to tireless work by Senator Roberts, Brownback and the rest of
the DC gang, the GAO ruled that the Air Force's procurement process was not
handled properly.

What, no props for Reps. Nancy Boyda and Dennis Moore?

Nevermind the fact that Slattery released a press release praising the decision or that Roberts and Brownback actively created an atmosphere condusive to the decision while Tiahrt and Moran sat on their hands.

The casual relationship that TKR and SRK seem to have with "facts" and "truth" is starting to get annoying.

TKR - Liars? Idiots? Or Both?

Hey Kansas Republican Party. Just because Boehner says something stupid, doesn't mean you have to repeat it. Yes, I'm talking about this.

Washington Republicans (like Todd Tiahrt and Jerry Moran) really want to get away with voting against our Iraq war vets, but they can't find anything wrong with Webb's G.I. bill - so they're grasping for straws. And, of course, they aren't very clever. So they're recycling their favorite scary phrase: "small business tax."

The new half-percentage tax surcharge is being referred to as a "patriot tax" on individuals earning over $500,000 and couples earning over $1 million. But what they aren't saying is that this tax increase will also affect some 325,000 small business owners across the country.

WOAH! SCARY! EXCEPT...it still only affects millionaires...not your favorite local bar.

According to the Center for Budget & Policy Priorities:

Critics of the House-passed bill maintain that their concern is its impact on “mom and pop” small business operations, which they describe as the engines of economic growth and job creation. These critics should be reassured by the fact that the overwhelming majority of such enterprises will never generate enough profits to make them subject to the surcharge. Importantly, only business profits, not gross receipts, are potentially subject to the surcharge. Some critics have misleadingly implied that the surcharge applies to gross receipts over $1 million.

Moreover, even the “about 1 percent” figure likely overstates the impact of the surcharge on small business owner-operators. The Tax Policy Center data classify as a small business owner anyone who receives any income from an S corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or various other types of businesses.[4] Many of these individuals, however, play no role in managing the business and are simply passive investors who contribute some capital to the enterprise and, in exchange, receive a share of the profits. Their ranks include President Bush and Vice-President Cheney...

Ah HA! So the truth comes out...in voting against education for veterans, Moran & Tiahrt aren't just trying to protect millionaires, they're protecting George Bush and Dick Cheney! WHY ARE WE NOT SURPRISED!?!?!

And the Kansas GOP staff...I mean..."secret bloggers" just spits it all out like it doesn't make them look REALLY REALLY incompetent. But it does. And they are.

Hyperion Hype

We'd like to congratulate our friends over at TheKansasRepublican for finally beginning to grasp one of the most basic principles of blogging: citing your arguments. In their most recent rant about Holcomb/Hyperion, the blogger known as "Custer" links to an "expose" in the Topeka Capital-Journal. Bravo, TKR, bravo. You have discovered a hyperlink. Of course, the story doesn't actually say what you claim it does, but that's OK. Baby steps.

You see, TKR would have you believe that, were it not for KDHE director Rod Bremby's rejection of the plant and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' subsequent decision to thrice veto bills overturning that decision, Hyperion would be on its way to Pottawatomie County. Oh, and apparently gas prices would be like $0.30/gallon in NE Kansas. To prove this, they link to this story in the Capital-Journal written by James Carlson.

What should be noted about this story is that no one from the KDHE or from Hyperion is ever quoted as saying the Holcomb decision caused the plant to go to South Dakota. All the evidence that is given is from a low-level county board member and some vague references to the regulation in emails to government officials.

Obviously, Hyperion was concerned, but according to the story, Bremby did everything he could to land this refinery.

Phillips wrote to Kansas commerce secretary David Kerr on Jan. 22 asking for a commitment to approve the air-quality permit if Hyperion applied in Kansas. Bremby replied Feb. 11, "Kansas remains open for business."

Bremby wrote he couldn't commit to issuing the permit but said if Hyperion submitted the same application as they did in South Dakota, there "should not be a problem with issuance."

Doesn't sound very uncertain to me. Obviously, Secretary Bremby is not going to give them carte blanche by promising to approve a permit he hasn't even seen yet, but it appears to me that he is making it very clear that their chances are good.

This issue, however, is moot. The story confirms once again that, Holcomb decision or not, Kansas had next to no chance at getting the facility anyway. Before any of this happened, Hyperion had already purchased land in South Dakota and was in the process of getting it zoned.

In June 2007, after media speculation about a mystery company buying up land around Elk Point, S.D., Hyperion announced it was considering the South Dakota city as a location.

Soon after, RTP Environmental Associates Inc., a consultant for Hyperion, began work on the permitting process with South Dakota officials.

In September, Colin Campbell, the RTP employee in charge of the Hyperion project, e-mailed the Environmental Protection Agency, saying he would be submitting an air-quality permit application for the South Dakota location soon.

"A different site could ultimately be selected, but we can deal with that circumstance if and when it arises," Campbell wrote.

Carlson acknowledges South Dakota was moving ahead. "We were probably a little behind," he said. "(Hyperion was) renewing land options up there."

The Kansas Department of Commerce points to the South Dakota site announcement and the subsequent months of dialogue between that state and Hyperion as a clue that Kansas was a backup.

"All indications in the summer and fall were that the gears were turning in South Dakota and that South Dakota had emerged as the top candidate," said Joe Monaco, spokesman for the commerce department.

Next time boys and girls, read the article (the ENTIRE article) before you link to it and make sure it doesn't disprove your entire position.

This concludes today's session of Blogging 101.

That jolt you just felt was the Earth as it stopped spinning

There's a new post up over at TheKansasRepublican. And we here at LBK couldn't agree more with it's premise (or at least what we think it's premise is).

Much has been written about Ben Hodge…most of it true. We all know Ben isn’t running for re-election; We all know he doesn’t care about beating Democrats; We all know that he really doesn’t care about anyone but Ben Hodge; We all know he doesn’t have a permanent address. We know all that.

But what we have finally determined is that Ben Hodge is possibly the worst State Representative in the state of Kansas. And that is not hyperbole. His behavior as a legislator has been embarrassing not only to himself, but to his District and to a large extent, the Kansas Republican Party.

Luckily Ben Hodge is not running for re-election. But us here at The Kansas Republican believe we have not seen the end of Ben Hodge. Rumor has it he may run for the House in a different district or run against an incumbent Senator like Barbara Allen or David Wysong. He has exhibited in the past an ability to pop up in any district to run for office, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see him pop up in the wealthy areas of Johnson County to run for office.

It’s too bad when elected officials push their own agendas at the expense of the people of Kansas. There appears to be a lot of that going around in Topeka these days.

Hear, hear, TKR. We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Bravo.