Kris Kobach In Contempt Of Court

The Honorable Julie Robinson, of the Kansas Supreme Court, a George W. Bush appointee, has held the Kansas secretary of state, Kris Kobach, in contempt of court because he failed to allow some American citizens residing in Kansas to vote. Kris Kobach does not approve of voters who turn in their voter registration cards at local DMV stations, (actually, Kobach is merely worried that voters of races other than white will not be properly harassed and discouraged from voting if they register at DMV's or by mail, but his actions are unlawful for either reason) and prefers that the very same cards bearing the very same information be mailed to other government agencies, instead. He also maintains that a birth certificate is evidence of citizenship, even though citizenship can be changed without the issuance of new birth certificates. Judge Robinson ordered Kobach to mail postcards to all voters affected by his denial of the right to vote, and to register each one, but Kobach failed to obey her order. As of yesterday, he is in contempt of court. Kris Kobach is planning to run for governor of Kansas. Are the people in Kansas stupid enough to vote for someone with a criminal record, such as the one now enjoyed by Kris Kobach?

Kansas Won't Follow Court Order

Surprise, surprise......actually; not so much. Kansas has been in contempt of court since February of this year concerning an order to recalculate the budget for all the public schools in the state. Last week, the Supreme Court gave the Kansas legislature until June 30 to comply, or public schools would not be allowed to open this fall for the 2016-2017 school year. Instead of following the court's order, Governor Brownback, (R) determined that the legislative session should end as scheduled, despite the fact that their job is not done. If a private person reacted this way, it would be contempt of court.

Kansas Public Schools And The Supreme Court

Here we go again. The Supreme Court of Kansas has ruled, once again, that the Republican dominated Kansas legislature has failed the public schools in Kansas by refusing to properly fund them.

The Supreme Court ruled in February of this year that the state is not adequately funding the schools, and the legislature pretended to fix the problem. The court has now ruled that an acceptable budget for schools must be passed and in place by June 30, or schools must remain closed. The schools must remain closed? That seems like a tall order in a country where all children under the age of sixteen years are legally obligated to attend school, except in rare cases wherein children have graduated early. It seems much more likely that Kansas public schools could go into receivership.

The crux of the issue here is the distribution of funds between richer and poorer school districts. Kansas, in an ongoing effort to resist Brown vs. the Board of Education, continues to craft its geographic school districts in a deliberately unequal manner. The Kansas legislature could easily remedy this by consolidating schools, county by county, eliminating the need for multiple school boards and multiple administrations within a county. All of the counties and their school boards would answer to a central authority, the state. This would save money, and make equitable distribution much more possible. If the Kansas legislature would just accept this, and stop resisting the Constitution, the Supreme Court would not have any reasons to stop public schools in Kansas from opening in August for the school year of 2016-2017.

Bye Bye, Oklahoma Theocracy

Now for some less depressing news, reminding us that there is a bright side, and that life is not always one long sigh: after a Supreme Court ruling over two years ago stating that the statue of the ten commandments at the Oklahoma state building needed to be removed, the eyesore was finally taken away from public property on Monday. It was "re-homed" at the Oklahoma Counsel of Public Affairs, which is an organization that advertises Republican candidates for various offices and lobbies for policies that favor theocracy, christian theocracy, and threaten the constitutional rights of everyone. At least the statue is on private property.

No one should think that a demand was made by the people to remove the ten commandments. All that was desired by non-christian citizens, such as The Satanic Temple, was equal space for icons and symbols that favored The Satanic Temple, alongside the ten commandments. It was the Supreme Court that told Oklahoma to remove the eyesore from its front lawn. Thomas Jefferson would agree. No religion should cram government space with icons. Neither should a religion attempt to rule any segment of America's population. It would have been a lot of fun to attend the unveiling of the statue of Baphomet on the lawn of the Oklahoma state building, however. But all is not lost; a letter was sent earlier this week by The Satanic Temple to the state of Arkansas, concerning a similar eyesore at the state capital building in Hope.

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

And now, for the end of the world as some folks know it, we have a Supreme Court ruling that the Christian icon, the statue of the ten commandments at the state capital building in Oklahoma, must come down. There have been previous rulings in lower courts that the statue could stay, but only if joined by Baphomet. Since nasty and selfish religious folk in Oklahoma persisted in blocking this, it became evident that coming into compliance with the law is beyond certain individuals there, so we now have a ruling from the Supreme Court to remove all religious debris from government property.

This blogger would have preferred that the statue of Baphomet sit alongside the other statue, but that would have augured the end of the world as some folks see it.

Federal Law Applies To Kansas, Too

It's really about time. It has been found that the Constitution grants marriage licenses to all couples, regardless of sexual preference, and that the fourteenth amendment offers legitimacy to the marriages of gay men and women. But Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has a problem with America's Constitution. He refers to the Supreme Court as an "activist court", and promises to "review the ruling carefully to understand it's effects on the people of Kansas." Is he serious? When was this governor ever concerned about the effects of anything on the people of Kansas? From fighting Obamacare tooth and nail to stripping public schools of funds, Brownback has not shown much concern at all about the people of Kansas. But now Kansas will be required to recognize marriage, everyone's marriage. And about de-funding public schools; block grants do not work as well in funding numerous, tiny, redundant schools as they do in funding larger, more efficient, better staffed schools. In order for the type of funding for which the Kansas GOP has opted for the public schools in Kansas, the schools will have to be consolidated, county by county, and answerable to the state, rather then to hundreds of "unified school districts". This would actually be a very good idea for Kansas, but the legislature has put the cart before the horse......the small, community schools should have been shut down and reorganized first, into bigger schools. Then, block grants, rather than the yearly handouts based on the number of students each school contains, would have been more sensible. The Supreme Court in Kansas made a decision for Brownback, though: de-funding education this way is unconstitutional. Brownback has vowed to appeal this decision. It seems he cannot get around the Constitution today!

If Kansas Republicans were truly conservative, the Kansas Department of Education and all of the "unified school districts", along with their schools, would have been in receivership a long time ago. Instead of small schools, serving less than one hundred students from kindergarten to twelfth grade in some cases, schools would be consolidated. Rather than forcing tax payers to fund the lifestyles of three or four high school principals in a county that only has three or four hundred high school students, there would only be one high school principal to pay. We could completely eliminate nonsense positions, such as "curriculum adviser", because the curriculum would be dictated by the state and by national and global standards. Allowing small towns in Kansas to waste money on tiny, inefficient schools is a frivolous waste, and no conservative worth his salt would allow such a thing to continue under his watch.

In other news, a legislative panel has dismissed a charge against Congresswoman Valdenia Winn, D; Wichita, Kansas. It seems that some Kansas Republicans did not like it when she referred to them as "racist bigots" when they tried to deny in-state tuition to immigrants. The Constitution strikes again! This time, with the First Amendment! It appears that the Constitution is sending a message to Kansas bigots today.

The First For Riley County Kansas

Congratulations to the first gay couple in Riley County, Kansas to marry! Today was a very special day for Joleen Hickman and Darci Bohnenblust. Despite the ongoing efforts of a small number of Republican officials who pander to a larger number under socialized morons, who live in Kansas, to deny civil rights to some citizens while fully granting them to others, Joleen and Darci were married in Manhattan, Kansas this morning. Such equality, here in Kansas, of all places!

Creativity, Hobby Lobby Style

What a double edged debate Hobby Lobby has provided for the nation! Two things retailers almost never cared to provide for their employees, back in the day, were insurance and lenience in when families required lots of an employee's time. Health insurance has been a highly debated issue for at least two years, and Obamacare has become law. Private insurance companies are running amok with ideas of their own on how to do business, and Hobby Lobby is apparently a Christian corporation. Not that corporations can be Christian, as if they were human, but it has been said that corporations are people, too. 

Because Hobby Lobby is Christian, it's love for it's imaginary icon is expressed by opposing abortion. Not that the bible addresses abortion specifically, among all the instructions to go ahead and kill, bully, and traffic humans, (yeah, slavery is human trafficking and America's economy got strong because of it) but because political lobbies (not to be confused with Hobby Lobby) such as the Moral Majority purport that contraception and birth control are the same as abortion, and as such, are murder. One must wonder what all the good christian corporations and people were doing before Buck v. Bell was abandoned, but NOT overturned, in the United States. One must also wonder why the Catholic Church did not excommunicate Adolf Hitler, who strongly supported abortion, eugenics, and murder.

Back to insurance and leniency in balancing children and work schedules: Hobby Lobby has refused to allow their employee health insurance providers to cover any type of contraceptives. This seems unusual, since most employers would rather not work with pregnant employees or the needs of pregnant employees. Indeed, a birth is a lot more expensive than contraceptives. So is a maternity leave. In fact, it was not until 1993 that an American woman had any guarantee of returning to her job, through the Family Medical Leave Act, after giving birth. Thankyou, Bill Clinton. 

And now, after a woman's maternity leave is over, what is Hobby Lobby going to do about her need for childcare when she returns to work? Retailers traditionally do not care much about the children of their employees, and will often pressure employees not only to neglect their own health needs, but to neglect their children. Sometimes, a retailer will even threaten to fire the employee who refuses to leave his or her children home alone when a choice has to be made. After saying "no" to birth control, will Hobby Lobby be the "creative center" it calls itself in the above picture and provide daycare for all those employees to whom contraceptives were not readily available? At the end of the day, it seems as if it might be more cost effective and simple to just enlist health insurance policies that provide contraceptives.

In Case You Slept Through Church On Sunday

If you slept through church on Sunday in Broward County, Florida, you need not despair. You can still get some religious action by attending a town or county council meeting, or even a state legislative session. Chaz Stevens has respectfully requested the honor of opening these civil gatherings with a prayer, now that the Supreme Court has voted to allow such vehicles to begin their proceedings this way, via Greece v. Galloway. Stevens intends to offer a prayer to Satan, rather than the expected Jesus, or "god". This should pose no problems, as a prayer is a prayer, and one person's religion is just as valid as another's, right? Christians seem to be experiencing serious reactionary symptoms now that a few of them are faced with the requirement of equality.

Federal Conspiracy Charges

Just a short update here, to this post, about His Former Honor, Michael Thornsbury, of Mingo County, West Virginia: he has been charged with three counts of conspiracy. As it turns out, the Supreme Court has a low regard for judges and prosecutors who abuse their positions by charging innocent people with crimes and prosecuting them when no crime was actually committed. Imagine that! It's AGAINST FEDERAL LAW to go to court and file a complaint against another, when that other did no wrong, and it's AGAINST FEDERAL LAW to conspire and make it look as if an innocent person committed a crime when he or she did not. A dim view of such approaches to justice is especially taken when a judge or a prosecuting attorney gets all jealous or angry and misuses criminal court by committing perjury. Thornsbury even insisted that his secretary's husband be arrested several months after an incident during which someone else, unfortunately someone related to the husband, threatened another person with a gun during a dispute. Because the matter had already been disposed, and because Thornsbury's victim was not the defendant in the case, it became a bit of a sticky wicket for Thornsbury in court.

Where's the eye-rolley when I need it? It's almost like paying a random person to take random pictures of houses and scenery on her cell phone, then having the person take her cell phone to police to say that someone else, entirely, took the pictures; then going to court to say the pictures are somehow illegal. The sticky wicket with that, of course, involves the fact that said pictures were never in the possession of "someone else, entirely", but in the cell phone of the person being paid to take them! Right, McFish?

Browncrack Is Doing What He Does Best

....................Sigh. Once again, Governer Browncrack is doing what he seems well adapted to doing here in Kansas, attacking womens' healthcare in the name of religion. Somehow, it pleases an imaginary, white bearded, sandal wearing genie in the sky to try to limit contraception, prenatal vitamins, and other healthcare to women. Only today, the Supreme Court decided not to play his game.

According to WIBW, Aug. 18, "A federal judge won't suspend an order blocking Kansas from denying Planned Parenthood federal dollars for non-abortion services while the state appeals his decision." The more I read this, the more it looks like a really stupid game, played by conservatives, at which the ultimate losers will definately be women and children. Brownback does a lot of fake public praying, but the rest of his actions, particularly cutting budgets for schools and children with disabilities, suggest that the fake prayers are nothing more than fake.

Once again, Governer Browncrack, I will reiterate this to you: if you pay more attention to education, especially of girls, and do more for the economy in Kansas, so that these girls who see nothing more to life than getting knocked up will have futures and careers to which they can look forward, instead. Your imagined problem with abortions in Kansas will be even smaller than it is now. And it's a very small problem .......I don't know how you succeed in getting so many people riled up about it. And................I will stop calling you Browncrack if you will put your character where your legislation is and adopt a disabled child. I may not agree with everything that comes out of your mouth, but I will treat you with a little more respect.

What happens to these children whose parents cannot care for them, anyway, Browncrack? Are you familiar with Adam Herrman's case? Sometimes, people should simply have the means to plan a family instead of having a family just "happen". Where do you suppose Adam Herrman is now, anyway? If he isn't dead, I doubt that he ended up in a place that is safe and happy. Could he have been trafficked? Is that why you don't want birth control available to lower income women, here in Kansas? What a creepy, sinister thought......but hey, when I see government officials "fake pray" in public, that's the kind of stuff that goes through my mind.

                                                             Governer Browncrack

Who's he in bed with, concerning all of his fake prayers in public and foolish legislation, anyway?