From Tim Huelskamp:Ben,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Brian Weber 620-253-0255

April 20, 2009

National Pro-Family Leaders Endorse Tim Huelskamp for Congress
Two leaders in the Pro-marriage and Pro-family movement — Phil Burress and Colin Hanna — announced today their endorsements for Tim Huelskamp for Congress (KS-01)

An influential conservative leader who heads the Citizens for Community Values, CBN News’ David Brody recently described Phil Burress as, “one of the key guys in the room when James Dobson, Tony Perkins and others gather to discuss key social issues.”

Colin Hanna is president of Let Freedom Ring USA and is co-chair of the influential “Weyrich Conservative Luncheon” — a weekly-gathering of key conservative leaders in Washington, DC.

“I am proud to endorse a proven and experienced leader like Tim Huelskamp — who authored the Kansas Marriage Amendment and spearheaded its passage,” said Burress.

Hanna noted that, “We need leaders like Tim Huelskamp in Congress as we seek to protect the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill Clinton signed into law back in 1996.”

“Phil Burress and Colin Hanna are both influential national conservative leaders,and I am honored to have received their support for Congress,” said Huelskamp.

Huelskamp continues to accumulate conservative endorsements at an impressive clip. Burress and Hanna join Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Kansans for Life, Concerned Women for America PAC, Rev. Lou Sheldon, Family Research Council Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell, and Pro-Life Leader Jill Stanek, in endorsing Huelskamp for Congress.

While Huelskamp has received tremendous support from national conservative leaders, he is also enjoying tremendous support from Kansans. In addition to the Kansans for Life endorsement, 94% of Huelskamp’s 1st quarter donations came from Kansas and 62% from the 1st district.

*Mr. Burress and Mr. Hanna are both endorsing in their private capacity and not on behalf of any organization.

-30-

Paid for by Kansans for Huelskamp

Scorecard:

The poll shows over three-quarters of Pennsylvania Republicans (77 percent) never heard of Gerlach, though he is viewed favorably by those who do.

Meanwhile, Toomey sports an outstanding net favorability rating with GOP voters, with 29 percent viewing him favorably, and only five percent viewing him unfavorably. And Toomey’s favorables (and name ID) among Republicans are only bound to go up, as conservatives view him as the candidate who knocked out Specter.

That means if Gerlach runs for the Senate againt Toomey, he won’t automatically be able to rely on his political success in a Democratic-trending district to prevail in a Republican Senate primary. He’ll have to introduce himself to the entire GOP electorate, whose verdict on him is still out.

Link:

HAMILTON - A third-grader was expelled from a local private school after a “hit list” of students and a teacher was found in his desk.

A menacing report was filed Tuesday, April 28, with the Hamilton Police Department indicating that a student at Immanuel Lutheran School, 1285 Main St., had written down names of students and a teacher that he apparently wanted to kill.

Michael Mayo, the school’s principal, said he acted on a tip and found the list in the student’s desk. The student has been removed permanently from the school, Mayo said.

“We never believed for a second that people were truly in danger,” Mayo said. “But this sort of thing in this day and age, you just can’t do that. It will never be acceptable.”

Get that?  NY Post:

ALBANY — Gov. Paterson, who raised state taxes by $8 billion last month, just cost state taxpayers $300,000 more.

The state has secretly settled an embarrassing federal racial-discrimination lawsuit, The Post has learned. The suit accused Paterson, back when he was Senate minority leader in 2003, of firing a white Senate photographer in order to replace him with an African-American.

US News:

Economics has long been called the dismal science. The general economic outlook today is indeed dismal, but that doesn’t mean job prospects in the field are. “There is no unemployment among Ph.D.’s in economics,” declares John Siegfried, a Vanderbilt University professor. Just do the math, and you’ll see why: In the current academic year, the American Economics Association has listed approximately 2,200 job openings worldwide-but U.S. universities will grant only 950 Ph.D.’s in economics.

Kansas Liberty:

Sen. Sam Brownback said Tuesday that the possibility of a swine flu pandemic was a major reason he supported Gov. Sebelius’ nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

But the next day, his Kansas colleague, Sen. Pat Roberts, issued a statement suggesting that the threat of a pandemic was being overblown, particularly by the news media.

“…I have to say that I do not think the 24 hour news cycle is doing (the swine flu issue) justice and is unnecessarily creating fear among the American public and some of our trading partners,” Roberts said in the statement.” If you watch the newscasts on this issue, you’d think a pandemic was already occurring. Bottom Line: The American people need to be aware and able to protect themselves from the H1N1 virus, but we don’t need to terrify them.”

Kaw and Border:

In fact, according to today’s article in the Star by Jim Sullinger, the board’s attorney, Mark Ferguson, told the board in March that no violation occurred because the budget reduction list was presented to the board during an evaluation of Calaway.

Is this seriously their new defense?…

Steve Howe by all accounts is doing a good job. But, he is a politician like the rest of them and he was elected on a coalition that included some of these country club types that permeate the board. One can only guess that these folks would simply like this issue to go away, and for Howe to, in his opinion, rule that no violation occurred, vindicating their secret meetings and as such, their post-offense ridiculous exchanges with Hodge. To put it simply, they are assuredly all hoping D.A. Howe squashes that annoying wasp once and for all.

Of course, not all feel that way and that includes this blog. Even if the original violation was minor, there is no doubt, if the Kansas Open Meetings Act is to have any validity, that the JCCC Board of Trustees, by presenting budget information in an executive session, and by coordinating efforts in private in a letter to the Star, violated that law — both in word and in spirit.

As noted earlier, what’s the entire point of having such a law if BUDGET discussions are going to be held in private?

Steve Rose:

The coal-fired plants will be approved, not vetoed, under Sam Brownback.
Late-term abortions will be abolished in Kansas.
Every conceivable anti-abortion piece of legislation that is constitutional will be approved by Sam Brownback.
And all the right-wing anti-tax organizations, basically ruled by the powerful Koch Industries family in Wichita, which would eliminate all taxes and take us back to the Stone Age, would have an ally in the governor’s office.
On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, we will also have a governor who is committed to local control for schools. According to what Sam Brownback has to say today, he is a champion of returning much of the funding for schools back to the communities. Whether he could get that through the Legislature is another matter. But if Sam prioritizes that, it might get done.
So, goodbye moderate voices at the top. Gone will be the agendas of the moderate Republicans and Democrats who have ruled Kansas. Gone are the checks and balances.
The time will soon come for the far right to rule, whether you like it or not.

Jim Sullinger:  “Legal opinion sought on alleged JCCC meeting violations”

Benjamin Hodge, a member of the Johnson County Community College board of trustees, has wondered for weeks whether the board violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act on two separate occasions.

He has raised the speculation at board meetings and on his Johnson County blog site on www.redcounty.com.

His assumptions are now being put to a legal test. He has asked Steve Howe, Johnson County’s district attorney, for a formal legal opinion on these issues.

Click here to view trends.  On day 1, his index was +28.

Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 33% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +1 (see trends and recent demographic highlights). The number of people who consider themselves Republicans declined slightly in April while the number of Democrats held steady.

Forty-two percent (42%) of voters say that Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party will have a significant impact on Senate legislation. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of GOP voters say Republicans in Congress have lost touch with their base. As President Obama prepares to make his first Supreme Court selection, voters are evenly divided as to whether his pick will be too liberal or about right.

Jim DeMint editorial:

No Child Left Behind didn’t win us “soccer moms,” but it did cost us our credibility on locally controlled education. Medicare prescription drugs didn’t win us a “permanent majority,” but it cost us our credibility on entitlement reform. Every year, another Republican quality was tainted: managerial competence, fiscal discipline and personal ethics.

To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a “big tent” party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — must be freedom. The federal government is too big, takes too much of our money, and makes too many of our decisions. If Republicans can’t agree on that, elections are the least of our problems.

If the American people want a European-style social democracy, the Democratic Party will give it to them. We can’t win a bidding war with Democrats.

Redstate:

They act as if conservatives want a small tent, to continue to use this tired and overused metaphor (used by many who have never been in a tent other than those put up at a horse race, wedding or fundraiser - by rich people for other rich people). Specifically, they misinterpret Senator DeMint’s recent remark suggesting he’d rather have 30 conservatives in the Senate than 60 unreliable ones to mean he wants to be in the minority.

NO. NO. NO. Of course he doesn’t (nor do any of us) want a minority Party. But he is saying, I believe, that if our Party cannot unite behind freedom and limited government, then what is the point of having 60?

HT Hot Air.  Somebody has received a trademark for Hope.

This is unfortunately not a joke.

Cliff May at NRO:

Update: a couple of nights ago, Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show:

The other night we had on Cliff May. He was on, we were discussing torture, back and forth, very spirited discussion, very enjoyable. And I may have mentioned during the discussion we were having that Harry Truman was a war criminal. And right after saying it, I thought to myself that was dumb. And it was dumb. Stupid in fact. So I shouldn’t have said that, and I did. So I say right now, no, I don’t believe that to be the case. The atomic bomb, a very complicated decision in the context of a horrific war, and I walk that back because it was in my estimation a stupid thing to say.

Me: I give the man great credit for saying that. Like most people in the media (news and entertainment alike and the line between the two grows fuzzier every day) Jon Stewart is a liberal defender of the NY/LA Establishment conventional wisdom. But he also is a smart guy, an extraordinarily funny and talented guy and, by the way, a gentleman - not so common nowadays

Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard:

To his credit, Jon Stewart acknowledges how “stupid” and “dumb” it was to accuse Harry Truman of war crimes his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan. As we noted yesterday, the charge came in the middle of an interview with Cliff May, head of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who appeared on the show Wednesday night. Contrary to Stewart’s apology, the comment didn’t just slip out. He seemed to think long and hard before making and then repeating it later in the show. As for the apology itself, I’ll let Allapundit do the dissection:

The closest we get to an explanation is that the decision to drop the bomb was “complicated,” but of course that’s why Cliff May brought it up - to draw a parallel with the decision to waterboard terrorists. The moral calculus about how far to go in roughing up jihadis to save how many lives is difficult, as was the calculus about how many lives would be saved in the long run by incinerating Japanese kids in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war. The fact that Stewart is a hard no on the former yet considers the latter iffy suggests a mentality I simply can’t fathom. Is it just a matter of Truman having been a Democrat, whose motives were therefore pure, as opposed to Bush supposedly getting his Republican rocks off by torturing terrorists? Or is it that Truman’s already been vindicated by history and isn’t safe to criticize the way Bush still is?

The AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) - One day after saying he wouldn’t travel in tight quarters because of the swine flu scare, Vice President Joe Biden rode a train Friday from Washington to Delaware.

Known for speaking freely, Biden told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday that he had urged family members to avoid airplanes and subways for fear of contracting the H1N1 flu virus.

“I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said.

NY Post:

The New York Times Co. overnight gave the unions at the Boston Globe a bit more breathing room to negotiate $20 million in concessions, extending the deadline until midnight tomorrow.

The extension, which was granted after this morning’s midnight deadline came and went without a resolution, will enable both sides to work through the weekend in order to save the 137-year-old newspaper from being put out to pasture.

Nearly any well-thought out, defensible argument should be respected.  And Artur Bagyants is not at all alone in supporting Kansas’ law providing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.  Indeed, it could be accurately called a 50-50 issue — or, more accurately, we suspect that about a third of the population will passionately defend either side, with the rest of the population largely indifferent.  But Bagyants.com needs to more accurately state the issue at hand.

The amendment would have ended the practice of giving in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants. In December I wrote about this exact subject and gave my reasons for opposing such a measure.

What’s inspiring is that after a lot of debate, this terrible amendment failed on a vote of 50-67. What’s depressing is that there are 50 representatives who think that it’s a good idea to make it more costly for children to go to college.

There are two misleading comments:

1. Unless money-devouring Kansas K-12 public schools have markedly improved in recent years, very few Kansas children attend college.  These are adults who are able to vote, fight in the military, and who ought (Bagyants should agree with us on this one) to be able to purchase alcohol and gamble.
2. It is not merely the parents who have an illegal status.  It is these adults — the adults who wish to receive in-state tuition — who are also classified as illegal immigrants.

Mark Perry:

KOKOMO, Ind. - Beginning in June, the Purdue College of Technology at Kokomo will offer a two-year accelerated bachelor’s degree program, targeted toward displaced workers in the automotive and manufacturing sectors.

Reuters:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - AT&T Inc is in talks with Apple Inc to extend its exclusive U.S. agreement to sell the iPhone from 2010 to 2011, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said in an interview that he plans to shift the company’s focus away from the U.S. landline phone business into wireless.

Apple’s iPhone has sold 17 million units worldwide since it was launched in June of 2007.

AT&T declined to comment on the report and repeated its previous statement that it had a multi-year agreement with Apple. An Apple spokeswoman also had no comment on the Journal report.

Mark Perry:

From “How Environmentalism Misses the Forest for the Trees,” by Edward L. Glaeser in the NY Times Economix blog:

Homes in coastal California use much less energy than homes in most other places in the country. New building in California, as opposed to Texas, reduces America’s carbon emissions. Yet, instead of fighting to make it easier to build in California, environmentalists have played a significant role stemming the growth of America’s greenest cities.

Why is California so green?

The primary reason is climate. January temperature does a terrific job of explaining carbon emissions from home heating and July temperature does almost as well at explaining electricity usage. California has the most temperate climate in the country and as a result, homes use less heat in the winter and less electricity in the summer. In hot, humid Houston or frigid Minneapolis, people use plenty of energy to artificially recreate what California has naturally.

Politics Nation:

In 2004, some feel that Arlen Specter pulled off a primary against the more conservative Pat Toomey because of the strong support of then-President Bush (not to mention then-Sen. Rick Santorum). It appears that six years later, Specter can once again look forward to presidential backing as he seeks a sixth term, this time as a Democrat.

White House press secretary, when asked today if President Obama wouldn’t rather see a stronger Democrat holding the Senate seat, simply repeated the message that Obama delivered personally to Specter, that he has his full support. Asked later whether that pledge included political backing, Gibbs confirmed that it did.

Pollster:

I attended a presentation last week at the Pew Research Center (sponsored by the DC AAPOR chapter) on some of the practical issues they have encountered in their innovative work on cell phone polling. I’m still catching up from a few hectic days that have followed but want to pass along a few interesting details they shared.

Most of what was new in the session will be of more interest to pollsters than to political junkies wondering about how pollsters are dealing with the growing number of Americans without landline phone service. Fortunately, for those of you in the latter category, the PRC shared most of their more general data obtained from calling cell phones during the 2008 campaign in a report released this past December (see their summary, full report pdf and our review).

Financial Times:

Mexico prepared on Thursday for the shutdown of all but essential services to help combat the spread of swine flu as a major US food producer rejected speculation that one of its pig farms in the country was the origin of the disease.

Essential businesses such as supermarkets, hospitals and pharmacies were told to stay open. But from Friday until Tuesday only critical government health and security workers would be on duty. A nationwide school closure was already in effect.

Officials in Mexico City said there was no evidence of an exponential growth in the number of flu victims after 176 deaths throughout the country that might have resulted from the disease. Eight have so far been confirmed as linked to the new virus strain.

Mark Perry:

Federal spending is growing by leaps and bounds. The budget hit $3.9 trillion this year, double the level of spending just eight years ago. The government is also increasing the scope of its activities, intervening in many areas that used to be left to state and local governments, businesses, charities, and individuals.

By 2008, there were 1,804 different subsidy programs in the federal budget. Hundreds of programs were added this decade-ranging from a $62 billion prescription drug plan to a $1 million anti-drug education grant-and the recent stimulus bill added even more. We are in the midst of the largest federal gold rush since the 1960s.

~From the study “Number of Federal Subsidy Programs Tops 1,800,” by Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies, Cato Institute

Andy Roth at Club for Growth:

The Senate confirmed her, 65-31. Zero Democrats voted against her, while the following 9 Republicans voted for her (or 8 if you don’t count Specter):

Bond (MO)
Brownback (KS)
Collins (ME)
Gregg (NH)
Lugar (IN)
Roberts (KS)
Snowe (ME)
Specter (PA)
Voinovich (OH)

Rockefeller (D-WV), Sessions (R-AL), and Kennedy (D-MA) did not vote.