The Bloomberg headline was shocking: “Grisly Language Propels Kansas Anti-Abortion Bill as U.S. Model.”
Bloomberg journalist Esme E. Deprez was tasked with informing readers about the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Act, which last month was introduced in both Kansas and Oklahoma. The writing experience obviously wasn’t pleasant for her.
On the eve of the midterms, Time’s Joe Klein listed “5 Things to Watch for in the Midterm Elections.” But the funniest one was number three. He titled it “Kansas Rejoins The Mainstream.”
Klein gleefully foresaw that in the defeat of Gov. Sam Brownback, “the myth of extreme supply-side economics might finally be put to rest.” But Brownback won, 50 to 46 percent. The grip of voodoo Reaganism continues:
New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel discovered What's the Matter With Kansas? and his name is Kris Kobach, Kansas's worryingly activist and conservative secretary of state: "He Pushed Kansas to the Right. Now Kansas Is Pushing Back." Kobach is locked in a tough re-election race, and the Times smells blood in the water.
Following a segment that aired on Sunday night’s NBC Nightly News on President Obama’s unpopularity ahead of the midterm elections, the evening news program with two more midterm election segments on Tuesday. Both segments, however, were not without liberal bias, as one segment promoted the “close” Kentucky Senate race and the other discussed three Senate races to watch that present “big hurdles” for a Republican Senate majority.
"The chancellor of the University of Kansas announced Thursday that a journalism professor suspended over a tweet that angrily targeted the National Rifle Association after the Navy Yard shootings will not return to his classroom in 2013," John Milburn of the Associated Press reported yesterday. "[David] Guth will be given nonclassroom assignments, including service and administrative duties, which will be completed away from the Lawrence campus as much as possible. The decision is effective Friday," Milburn added later in his article, noting that KU's administration made the decision out of a concern for guarding against a disruption of the "learning environment" on the Lawrence, Kansas, campus. [h/t my colleague Dan Gainor]
Guth, you will recall, angrily tweeted a death wish on the children of NRA members, as well as his wish that God would "damn" gun-rights advocates who oppose more gun control legislation. You will also recall that Guth stubbornly doubled-down on his statements when given the chance to recant by Campus Reform reporter Katherine Timpf.
The Associated Press, in story carried at Channel 6 in Lawrence, reported (HT Twitchy) that a Kansas University professor has been "placed on administrative leave" after he issued the following tweet concerning Monday's Navy Yard murders: "The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you." A NewsBusters post by Ken Shepherd yesterday, since updated to note his placement on leave, noted that Guth is an avid gun-grabbing advocate and that his Twitter account links to KU.
The AP apparently wants those who peruse its national site to skip their story on Guth. The item's headline belongs in the "this is boring, don't waste your time" wing of the Journalism Hall of Shame:
In today’s installment of NPR Hates Conservatives, we offer a story from Saturday’s All Things Considered. Conservatism is killing Kansas under Gov. Sam Brownback, apparently. Anchor Jacki Lyden reported: “One political writer says it's time to write the state's obituary, and he did.”
Jason Probst read the first line of his screed out loud on national radio: “The great state of Kansas passed away on March 31, 2013 after a long and difficult battle with extremism.” Lyden added: “And that's our cover story today: Red or Dead? The new Kansas experiment.” With the exception of a few thoughts from Gov. Brownback, Lyden focused in on the leftists and their complaints that progressivism is being cast aside:
Kansas conservatism, red in tooth and claw.? New York Times reporter John Eligon reported from Topeka on the latest disturbing sign of heartland conservatism: "Kansas' Governor and G.O.P. Seek to Eliminate Income Tax." Text box: "Skeptics see a path to economic devastation in a conservative bid."
Eligon actually led off with an accurate description of President Obama's "expansive liberal agenda," but then went overwrought, taking the "starkest view of the crimson ideology" of Republicans.
A label-crazy New York Times report from John Eligon in Kansas City, Mo., on a kerfuffle over Obama's birth certificate featured loaded language about "far-right Republicans" pushing "stringent social policies."
"Citing a wave of angry backlash, a Kansas man on Friday withdrew a petition in which he argued that President Obama should be removed from the state’s election ballot because he did not meet citizenship requirements," he wrote.
Yesterday, it was John Burton, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, who "compared Republican tactics during the presidential campaign to the 'big lie' strategy most famously employed by Nazi propagandists." According to the Associated Press, Burton, "'humbly apologized' to anyone offended by his comparison" (that's not an apology, as he didn't admit to doing anything wrong, but it's the best one can expect from a leftist).
Today, it was Pat Lehman, a woman from the Kansas delegation, described as its "dean," and it looks like she's digging in. Geez, how many such references aren't being noted by the Obama-friendly press in Charlotte? First, from the original report at Kansas.com via the Wichita Eagle's Dion Lefler:
New York Times reporter John Eligon filed a "conservative"-loaded story from Topeka on Monday on the battle between conservatives and moderates in the Midwest: "In Kansas, Conservatives Vilify Fellow Republicans."
Eligon's story could be the paper's all-time winner as far as labeling density, with a staggering 33 uses of the word "conservative" in non-quoted material within the 1,367-word article, plus two labels in photo captions, plus the one in the headline. By contrast, the common conjunction "and" appeared a mere 27 times under the same parameters. (Yet the Times find it very hard to locate liberals.)
Liberals have always cartooned conservatives as the ones who would say "America, love it or leave it." But with Barack Obama in the White House, they want the Obama critics to go back to Africa. Or at least that's what "Hunter" wrote on the Daily Kos on Wednesday night.
"This won't be a particularly insightful post, mainly because I'm just tired of these people and wish they would go away, or secede,' he wrote. Although it was one long run-on sentence: "...or whatever it is they need to do to separate themselves from the rest of modern society and live out their lily-white no-immigrant no-Muslims no-athiests [sic] no-gay-people no-liberals no-moderates no-funny-dressers Talibanesque fantasies about how a country should be run (tip: land in Somalia is very, very cheap these days)." The target was Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback: