Free Republic

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback offered options on Wednesday for dealing with sinking revenue for the state's current and next budgets, including the sale of tobacco bonds. With the fiscal 2016 revenue estimated to drop by nearly $94 million and fiscal 2017 revenue expected to be $134.7 million less than previously projected, the Republican governor said Kansas could raise about $158 million through its first sale of bonds backed by its share of a 1998 multi-state settlement with U.S. tobacco companies.

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A statewide, month long initiative to put the clamps on a Senate bill is underway. Senate Bill 463 is aimed at redirecting highway money to the state general fund. This weekend, the Kansas Contractors Association is running ads targeting lawmakers to get them to just say no. It’s called Detour Greenlight and it’s pointed to 24 legislators they believe detour, or normally vote against protecting road and bridge funding. It also names some who they say are for strong spending on roads. “To redirect the little bit of sales tax that goes into the pot to...

Donald Trump’s effort to reset his campaign following defeat in Wisconsin showed no signs of paying off this weekend, as a series of technical failures by his campaign set his hopes back even further. From Thursday to Saturday, Trump suffered setbacks in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina and Indiana that raise new doubts about his campaign’s preparedness for the long slog of delegate hunting as the GOP race approaches a possible contested convention. He lost the battle on two fronts. Cruz picked up 28 pledged delegates in Colorado. In the other states, rival campaigns were able to place dozens of...

SPRING VALLEY - For the second time in a week, the Orthodox Jewish tradition for the Purim holiday has alarmed non-Jewish members of the Spring Valley community. When News 12 went to the home on Wednesday, the doll was found folded over on the porch. The homeowner declined comment. Residents say the doll was hung by children for Purim to symbolize the death of the ancient tyrant Haman and was not meant to offend. Hundreds took to social media after a black-faced doll was found hanging nearby, on Paikin Drive in Spring Valley. Rockland NAACP President Wilbur Aldridge says he...

The cowardice of Senator Jerry Moran is legendary in Kansas. Former state legislature colleagues tell stories of Moran avoiding tough votes by literally hiding in the state capitol building little boys’ room. Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert singled out Moran in his book describing how Jerry “ran and hid” when he got scared. It’s no wonder that Jerry is the butt of jokes even among his closest allies. His former campaign manager says Moran “represents a weathervane in the US Senate, not the good people of Kansas.” It’s no wonder that Jerry is the butt of jokes even among...

The bad news is that student protesters today are more openly totalitarian than demonstrators of the 1960s. The good news: They’re less destructive. "At the University of Kansas, where I graduated, students torched the student union [in the 1960s]," Hillsdale College professor David Whalen remembered in an appearance at HC’s Washington headquarters on March 22, 2016. "The present surge of violence is not as destructive, perhaps because of self-interest: There will be no place to get your latte without a student union," he wryly noted, "but these protests are against free speech while the ones in the 1960s at least...

A woman in the midst of the protests outside the rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump on March 12 was arrested on Friday for abuse of a police service animal. According to a police report, an officer mounted on horseback was involved in police crowd control outside the Midland Theatre when protesters began moving into the street and blocking traffic, approaching officers on foot. After police verbally instructed the protesters back onto the sidewalk, the crowd continued moving forward and mounted officers moved into position to block the crowd. Police said that’s when the suspect, April J. Foster, 29, approached...

...Khondoker Usama, student body vice president, took a break from partying to go to a local Kwik Shop to get a snack and some gas. And it was there that he said he ran into a Donald Trump supporter with a chip on his shoulder. Usama first noticed the man — white, in his 20s or 30s, motorcycle in tow — because the motorcyclist was berating a black man who Usama thought had asked for some gas money. “The man was yelling at the African American guy, calling him a lazy ass, saying, ‘You guys don’t work,'” Usama told The...

Just hours after Chicago protests forced Donald Trump to cancel a rally Friday, the mayor of Kansas City is urging protesters to remain non-violent ahead of the Republican presidential candidate’s rally there Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Anti-Trump protesters in Kansas City have vowed to shut down his event. “The fascist clown Donald Trump is coming to our city this Saturday,” a Facebook page titled “Trump Out of KC” wrote. “It is our job and our city to unite to #ShutItDown.” The page details the protesters’ plans to demonstrate inside and outside the rally. Mayor Sly James took to Twitter on Friday to...

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A Mexican man who stands accused of murdering five people and was captured Wednesday was in the country illegally and should have been jailed or deported last year, federal immigration officials said, but three times in less than a year, he was arrested and allowed to go free because of procedural errors. Pablo A. Serrano-Vitorino, 40, who was caught after a manhunt across two states, had a felony conviction on his record, had been deported once before and had returned to the United States illegally. In November 2014, he was convicted of a misdemeanor drunken driving...

Republican lawmakers in Kansas, weary of conflicts with a judiciary that has been pushing for more school spending, are beginning to act on a measure to expand the legal grounds for impeaching judges. The move is part of an intensified effort in red states to reshape courts still dominated by moderate judges from earlier administrations. A committee in the GOP-controlled Senate plans to vote Tuesday on a bill that would make “attempting to usurp the power” of the Legislature or the executive branch grounds for impeachment. …

Update at 2 a.m. Wednesday: The Missouri Highway Patrol says that Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, 40, who is suspected of gunning down five people, four of them in Kansas City, Kan., was arrested about 12:18 a.m. Wednesday in Montgomery County, Mo. Serrano-Vitorino was found lying in mud on a hill just north of Interstate 70 outside the search perimeter. He was armed with a rifle, but no shots were fired. Serrano-Vitorino Serrano-Vitorino “He looked exhausted,” said Sgt. James Hedrick of the Missouri Highway Patrol. There is a culvert that runs underneath the interstate, but it was not immediately clear if that...

George Will: "We May Have Passed Peak Trump," Cruz Has Best Chance To Win By Tim Hains Posted on March 6, 2016 George Will reacts to Donald Trump's wins last night in Kentucky and Louisiana, and Ted Cruz's wins in Kansas and Maine.

Thom Hartmann shares a letter to the editor in the Topeka Capital Journal regarding allegations of election fraud in the Sam Brownback election for Governor of Kansas.

Key Presidential Primaries Results by State

Ted Cruz has won the Kansas and Maine Republican caucuses as the Texas senator seeks to use the Super Saturday contests to bolster his argument that he is the only viable alternative to Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders picked up his first win of the night in the Kansas Democratic caucuses, according to the state party. Cruz's robust performance comes on a day of primaries and caucuses in five states that front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump hope to use to solidify their delegate leads in the Democratic and Republican presidential races. The GOP slate Saturday, with 155 delegates up...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz handily won the Kansas and Maine Republican caucuses on Saturday, but Donald Trump is projected to win Louisiana, the most delegate-packed state of the Super Saturday contest, and Kentucky.

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt regarding the instructions that their party's most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump's candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt regarding the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt over the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....