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Those looking for a true conservative to enter the Republican presidential field might be feeling a bit perplexed in the wake of the performance Sam Brownback on this morning's Fox News Sunday. The senator from Kansas: Endorsed the ISG report and appeared to strongly support negotiations with Iran and Syria.Called for a timetable for US withdrawal.Spoke approvingly of a Bidenesqe division of Iraq into three ethnic regions.Declined to swing at the softball host Chris Wallace lobbed at him regarding Mitt Romney's flip-flops on abortion and gay rights.Seemingly described himself as a "compassionate conservative." Invited by Wallace to comment on the...

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback billed himself as a "full-scale conservative" Tuesday as he courted activists in the state where precinct caucuses have traditionally kicked off the presidential nominating season. Brownback said the lessons Republicans should take from the November elections in which Democrats won both houses of Congress is that that they face enormous trouble when the party's conservative base isn't energized. "Our ideas weren't repudiated, our execution was," said Brownback. "Our base was lethargic because of too much spending and the Washington corruption cases." Brownback filed papers Monday creating an exploratory committee allowing him to travel the country and...

Day 1 (Friday) The Values Voter conference poses a unique setting to look at many of the 2008 presidential potentials speaking on the same day, to the same crowd, on similar issues. A crowd which you may note, that many consider to constitute the base, or a large portion of the primary election base. For those unaware, the Values Voter Conference is sponsored by the Family Research Council (and Dr. James Dobson). An interesting note: who's not here? Rudy Giuliani, John McCain Speakers, in order of appearance.... Speakers, in order of appearance. (TP = Talking Points. Notes on each speakers...

Only a few politicos paid attention last month when Sen. Sam Brownback held a hearing on the way doctor-assisted suicide impacts society. No legislation emerged from the session. None is forthcoming this year. Major news media did not pick up on the item until weeks later. But during that May 25 meeting of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, those who oppose Oregon’s controversial experiment met their new legislative champion. Since the 2003 retirement of Sen. Don Nickles, the Catholic Republican from Oklahoma, it was not clear who would step in as chief opponent of assisted suicide. Brownback, a Kansas...

Today Kevin talks about Haditha - and sets the record straight, and he's saying on air that he will have Senator Sam Brownback and Hugh Hewitt's blogbabe Mary Katharine Ham. Plus he says he will review the "Ball For Life" that was held in NYC last friday...

The court-ordered dehydration death of 41-year-old Terri Schiavo one year ago today sparked ire and prompted pledges of reform from a galvanized Capitol Hill. A year later, the ire has evaporated and the pledges remain unfulfilled. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, was the only lawmaker who appeared with Schiavo's parents and siblings yesterday at the launch of the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation in Washington, D.C., which WND reported seeks to combat the "medically sanctioned killing of the disabled." Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who sponsored the unprecedented congressional bill that sought a federal court review of the Schiavo case, announced plans to...

Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, has proposed using the District as a "laboratory" to test how a flat federal income tax would affect its residents and economy. Mr. Brownback said the District is perfect for the experiment because it is not a state. "Here you have a federal enclave, as much as maybe people in the District don't like that terminology," he said. "Doing it in the District would give a real-world venue where we could witness what it could do for the country." The proposed system would tax District residents at a flat rate, instead of taxing them under...

Topeka — U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., on Friday said the Bush administration needed to answer questions about spying on Americans without court authorization. And Brownback said he disagreed with the administration’s legal rationale, which he said could hamper future presidents during war. “There are questions that should be examined at this point in time,” Brownback said during a news conference.

For two years the Bush administration has made commendable efforts to improve the lives of people in Darfur. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick has become personally invested in the crisis, recently completing his fourth trip to the region in the past seven months. The United States has spent almost $1 billion aiding refugees and displaced persons who might otherwise have died of disease or starvation. And the U.S. military has helped airlift and fund African Union troops stationed in the Darfur region of Sudan. Yet, despite American engagement, Darfur's humanitarian, security and political conditions are deteriorating. If the United...

Six months after announcing a plan to give $3 million to promote democracy in Iran, the U.S. State Department has yet to release the funds, says a USA Today report. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who put the $3 million in the budget, expressed frustration: "This money should be made available immediately for those seeking to express their opposition to the hard-line Islamic government and to promote internationally recognized human rights.” Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said the delay is bureaucratic. "There are no outside political considerations affecting these decisions,” he said. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack noted that projects...

RUSH: I've been thinking about this Harriet Miers problem, folks. I got a solution. Everybody's got their ideas. One of the ideas is that Harriet Miers resign, withdraw, and that Bush nominate her to the appellate court - and let her get some seasoning and go through some hearings there and get out of it that way. I have a different idea but -- oh, before I give you my idea -- I saw a news story yesterday. Let me tell you what I think of it. Sam Brownback and the vice president, Lindsey Graham, both-- (interruption) No, wait. They...

Senator Sam Brownback says he and other conservatives have ``a great deal of skepticism'' about Harriet Miers, President Bush's latest nominee for the Supreme Court. The Kansas Republican is disappointed Bush did not pick a candidate with more of a track record. He had urged Bush to nominate someone who opposes the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Brownback compared the nomination of Miers -- Bush's White House counsel -- to that of Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Souter was nominated to the high court by the first President Bush and was believed to be a conservative, but he later...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Thu, Jul. 21, 2005 Brownback wary of Roberts’ record By MATT STEARNS The Star’s Washington Correspondent Brownback WASHINGTON –– Sen. Sam Brownback isn’t sold on John G. Roberts, Jr. just yet. Not by a long shot. The senator from Kansas is saying and doing some of the things a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee is supposed to be saying and doing about President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee: talking up Roberts’ resume and calling for a fair confirmation process. But Brownback, one of the Senate’s leading social conservatives, has concerns about Roberts’ views on key issues, such...

He hopes to build on the 'tens of millions of dollars' the Bush campaign spent to mobilize evangelical Christians. In 1988, the arrival of the religious right and social conservatism as formidable and entwined forces in the Republican Party was signaled when Pat Robertson received 25 percent of the vote in the Iowa presidential nominating caucuses, second to Bob Dole's 37 percent. Seventeen years later, when Robertson wasasked on ABC's "This Week'' who he thought might make a fine Republican nominee in 2008, he began his answer: "There's an outstanding senator from Kansas ...''Sam Brownback, 48, won the Senate seat...

With avenues to keep Terri Schiavo alive closing in the state of Florida, they were opening in the nation's capital Thursday . The tide turned decidedly in favor of the parents who want to prolong their brain-damaged daughters life. Just a scant eight days before the court ordered deadline to remove her feeding tube, Republicans on Capitol Hill rallied around the case that has become a 'cause celebre' of conservative and religious groups. Florida Sen. Mel Martinez and Rep. Dave Weldon's bill to require the incapacitated without living wills to be appointed attorneys before life support is terminated, introduced on...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Sam Brownback's naming to the Senate Judiciary Committee was duly noted in Washington on Tuesday, as the addition of the staunch abortion opponent signaled Republican willingness to take on controversial issues in upcoming judicial nominations. "He has strong commitments to protecting unborn life," said Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a Washington D.C.-based conservative church group. "I think that it signals to people on our side of this debate just how focused the anti-choice movement is on seizing control of the Supreme Court," said David Sedlin, spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice America, which seeks...

Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers on Thursday called on Congress to finance studies on "porn addiction" and launch a public health campaign about the dangers. "We're so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material," said James B. Weaver, a Virginia Tech professor who studies the impact of pornography. Internet pornography is corrupting children and hooking adults into an addiction that threatens their jobs and families, a panel of anti-porn advocates told the hearing organized by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., chairman of the Commerce...

It may be a little late to start for most, but Robert Bork, the former Supreme Court nominee who has written books decrying the decline of Western culture, has just been baptized. Rev. C. John McCloskey, who represents the conservative and activist Opus Dei arm of the Roman Catholic Church and oversaw the baptism, said, "I can confirm that he was received in the Catholic Church." Bork, a scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was raised a Protestant and had called himself a "generic Protestant." He was known more for his conservative legal views, which some Democrats used to...

<p>Members of Congress yesterday joined a raucous crowd of roughly 1,000 Iranians on the lawn of the Capitol to voice their support for student uprisings against Iran's Islamic fundamentalist government.</p> <p>"We are here to stand with the Iranian people, who are resisting an oppressive regime, a regime that has refused to reform," said Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, who led the crowd in chants of "Iran Ahh-zad," which means "Free Iran."</p>

Senate Democrats are all but conceding it'll be impossible for them to retake control given the way their recruitment for 2004 is going. Part of this private concession is due to Sen. Jon Corzine's failure as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to find any suitable candidates to challenge Sen. Kit Bond in Missouri and conservative stalwart Sen. Sam Brownback in Kansas. Bond was considered a potential target for Democrats given their successes in recent years in Missouri. But Bond's formidable fundraising ability and longtime service to his state has scared off just about every potential Democratic challenger. Brownback,...