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A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld a 2011 Kansas law that would stop federal family planning money the state receives from flowing to two Planned Parenthood clinics. The ruling overturned a Kansas federal judge's preliminary injunction that stopped the state from eliminating the federal funding to family planning clinics Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri operates in Wichita and Hays. No abortion services are provided at the health centers and Planned Parenthood has said they would lose more than $330,000 in funding, their eligibility for a low-cost drug-purchasing program and it likely would lead to the Hays clinic...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Kansas can strip two Planned Parenthood clinics of federal family planning money while the organization moves forward with its legal challenge of a state law it says is retaliation for its advocacy of abortion rights. Kansas is among several conservative states that have sought in recent years to strip Planned Parenthood of funding. At issue in Tuesday's ruling is money distributed to states under Title X, a federally financed family planning program. The Title X money targets low-income individuals seeking reproductive services such as birth control, pregnancy testing, cancer screenings and treatment...

March 24, 2014 Boehner Spokesman Calls Reid’s GOP/Crimea Comments ‘Unhinged’ STEPHEN KRUISER Somebody had to say it. “The Senate Majority Leader sounds completely unhinged,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told Business Insider in an email. “The House has acted, and is continuing to act, in a reasonable and responsible way to give the White House the tools it needs to hold President Putin accountable.”Every time Reid opens his mouth something remarkably ignorant comes out of it. Nancy Pelosi may be devious and an awful person, but she’s not stupid (she does dumb it down for the cameras, I believe). Reid, however,...

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...

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...

Fred Phelps Sr., the former head of the Westboro Baptist Church, died late Wednesday night, according to a family member. Phelps' son, Timothy told 13 News that his father died just before midnight. Timothy Pheps works at the Shawnee Co. Jail. Ironically, another son who is a member of the church, attorney Jonathan Phelps told us Thursday morning, "Pastor Phelps is doing just fine." That, of course, could have been a spiritual reference. Over the weekend, we learned that Phelps was reportedly "on the edge of death." In a statement on his Facebook page, Nathan Phelps, who has been estranged...

Does the United States Election Assistance Commission (“EAC”) have the statutory and constitutional authority to deny a state’s request to include its proof-of-citizenship requirement in the state-specific instructions on the federal mail voter registration form? The Plaintiffs— Arizona and Kansas and their secretaries of state—say it does not, and have asked this Court to order the EAC to add the requested language immediately.

Under the oh so august leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, the Obama administration has been doing their very best to thwart various states in their individual endeavors to implement voter ID laws. In this latest iteration of that ongoing battle, the Federal Election Assistance Commission has so far refused to help state officials in Kansas and Arizona change federal election registration forms to include proof of citizenship. Both states have new voter-ID measures measures that require new voters to provide a birth certificate, passport, or other documentation to prove their citizenship, while the federal registration form only requires that...

A federal judge in Kansas on Wednesday ruled that the federal agency which oversees the federal voter registration form must include the state-specific proof-of-citizenship requirements requested by both Kansas and Arizona. The ruling was hailed by Republican officials in both states. And it also does away with the need for the "two-tier" voting systems that were proposed while the case was pending. “This is a huge victory for the states of Kansas and Arizona," Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) said in a statement. "They have successfully protected our sovereign right to set and enforce the qualifications for registering...

Arizona and Kansas can require that those registering to vote must prove their citizenship, and the federal Election Assistance Commission cannot stop them, even on the commission’s own national voter registration forms, a judge ruled Wednesday. The ruling is a significant victory for states that have pushed to tighten voting against potential fraud. It marks a setback, however, for President Obama and other advocates who have argued that stiffer voting checks tamp down on voter turnout. Judge Eric F. Melgren ruled that the EAC, which Congress created in the wake of the 2000 Florida voting fiasco, cannot refuse to include...

Sen. Jerry Moran is in a unique position. The Kansas Republican won his Senate seat in 2010, perhaps benefiting from the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s decision to stay out of what was a vigorously contested GOP primary against a fellow incumbent congressman. But as the current NRSC chairman, Moran is throwing his weight around on behalf of Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, who is facing a primary challenge from Milton Wolf, a radiologist and distant cousin of President Obama. The NRSC took a hands-off approach to GOP primaries in 2012, even where incumbents were running for re-election. But since Moran became...

<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sprint announced that it is closing its Overland Park call center and laying off about 200 local employees who work there.</p>

After finding out Rev. Fred Phelps Sr. was on the verge of death many quipped the Westboro Baptist Church, the very organization he founded, would picket his funeral like they have so many others in the past. It might sound like a joke but apparently it’s the real deal: the WBC will hold a demonstration at the funeral of their former pastor.Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, was reportedly excommunicated from the group.Phelps Sr., 84, began to make headlines over the weekend after his estranged son Nathan posted a note to Facebook where he said...

~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:

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...

TOPEKA (AP) — A Kansas judge has overturned the state medical board's revocation of a doctor's license over her referrals of young patients for late-term abortions. Shawnee County District Judge Franklin Theis ruled that State Board of Healing Arts failed to show that mental health exams provided by Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus in 2003 were inadequate. In a ruling that became public Monday, the judge ordered the board to reconsider its sanctions. The board in 2012 revoked Neuhaus' license to provide charity care over her exams of 11 patients, ages 10 to 18, nine years earlier. The board had ratified...

The Kansas Supreme Court said Friday the state’s current public school funding levels are unconstitutional. In the much-anticipated ruling, the court said Kansas’ poor school districts were harmed when the state made the decision to cut certain payments when tax revenues declined during the Great Recession. The Supreme Court sent the case back to district court for more review to “promptly” determine what the adequate amount of funding should be, but didn’t set a deadline for a hearing. It did, however, set a July 1 deadline for legislators to restore money for two funds aimed at helping poorer districts with...