Republican "Laboratories Of Democracy"

BONUS:

BREAKING: Holy, crap, Kansas.
$106 million BELOW tax revenue estimates for FY 2016.
$34 million BELOW in June

— Yael T. Abouhalkah (@YaelTAbouhalkah) July 1, 2016

BONUS II:  Here's another Republican "laboratory of democracy" fail.

Little Bully, Big Bully

There's a monster roaming in the heartland yahoo country, seemingly beyond the reach of the law (our emphases):

Undulating fields of crops and livestock-dotted pastures are the domain of a trigger-happy bully who brags about a political cloak of invincibility keeping him beyond reach of the law in faithfully conservative Linn County [Kansas].

Adversaries say he has woven a liquor-infused tapestry of fear colored by intimidation, abuse and lies. The saga features stalking, death threats, trespassing, drive-by gunfire, massive explosions, cattle theft, loan defaults, hit-and-run driving and marital strife.

Linn County Sheriff’s Department files bulge with complaints about him.

There is trepidation among acquaintances to speak freely, a point accentuated by the number expressing nervousness about reprisal if they were candid. There is genuine fear.

Descriptions of events offered by those willing to speak out converge to reveal a potentially lethal menace. Neighbors allege some in law enforcement responded to cries for help with degrees of indifference or favoritism.

Locals aware of the dynamics shake their head in dismay. In a place where people honor the Second Amendment and revere the self-defense castle doctrine, there is astonishment no one has been gunned down.

Folks in direct path of this prairie hellion pray for an end to what some coined “neighborhood terrorism.”

So far, their nemesis has found no reason to relent.

Who is this sociopathic bully and why won't someone put him in his place (e.g., jail)?

Not when your name is Jim Brownback and you are a brother to Sam, the most powerful politician in Kansas.

Oh, riiight!  So, in other words, you have a family pattern of sociopathic behavior.  It's just that big brother Sam likes to abuse the whole State of Kansas, while little brother Jimbo is confined to creating mayhem in little Linn County.  Ma and Pa Brownback sure knew how to raise their children right!

The link is to a long, well-researched investigative article in the "Topeka Capital-Journal," and is well worth the read, especially if you're inclined to stranger- than- fiction rural Gothic psychological thrillers, with some small-bore political corruption thrown in.  (h/t Balloon Juice)

(Image:  Jimbo's mug shot from his 2006 arrest for nonpayment of child support.  He seems nice.)

Here's What's The Matter With Kansas, Cont.

The increasingly Galtian Republican "paradise" of Kansas, under the "leadership" of recently re-elected (WTF is wrong with you people?!) pea-brain ideologue Gov. Sam "Brownshirt" Brownback, has already made a reputation for itself as a nasty place to live for a low-income person. But, if you're wealthy, Republicans will always be looking out for you:

Wealthier Kansans are paying much less in taxes after Republican Gov. Sam Brownback overhauled the state's income tax a few years ago. Brownback and other Republican officials hoped that more generous policies would stimulate the economy, bringing more revenue into the state's coffers and making up the difference on the bottom line.

It didn't work. Kansas's economy has kept expanding at more or less same plodding pace as the rest of the country. And now, according to official estimates released Monday, the state will have at least a $143 million budget shortfall in 2016, and likely more. Lawmakers are looking for a way to plug the hole.

You think the Republicans would think about maybe rolling back the tax cuts for the wealthy to "plug the hole" they blew in the State's budget?  Dream on:

[I]n a legislature that last week barred welfare recipients from using their benefits to go swimming or watch movies, the proposals that look most likely to succeed are sales and excise taxes that would be paid disproportionately by Kansas's poor and working class.  [our emphasis]

Any other ideas for how to "plug the hole," Republicans, while simultaneously sticking it to another  "Democratic constituency?"

Six school districts in Kansas will close early this year, following budget cuts signed in March by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

Two school districts, Concordia Unified School District and Twin Valley Unified School District, announced earlier this month that they would end the year early because they lacked the funds to keep the schools open. This week, four more districts confirmed they would also shorten their calendars, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

This Republican agenda of starving education and shredding the social safety net while using "trickle down" voodoo economics as a fig leaf to further enrich the rich is in their DNA.  You can see it in Wisconsin, where Koch-endorsed employee Gov. Scott "Koch Head" Walker is slashing education funding while cutting taxes (and skipping debt payments) and giving $200 million in tax breaks to a multi-millionaire sport franchise owner for a new stadium. You can see it pretty much everywhere where Republicans control state government.  And you'll see it if they ever control the Federal government.

(Photo:  Gov. Brownshirt - "Eh!  Who needs education!?  Not the Republican base!")

Distracted Voters And The Pandering Media

Bill Maher (starting around 2:15) talks about the "easily distracted voters," combining with a "shameful, pandering media" (=cough=ChuckTodd=cough=) to make life easy for Republicans like Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (caution: language):



(h/t Crooks and Liars)

Today's Dispatches From The Stupid Party

From the "booming" State of Texas, where they sure know how to keep the public safe, boy howdy:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas House approved a batch of bills Saturday to further soften gun laws that were already among the country's most firearms-friendly, allowing college students to carry handguns in class, putting potentially armed marshals in public schools and exempting the state from any future federal bans on assault rifles, high-capacity magazines or universal background checks.

Nullification and handguns in classrooms all in one legislative session!  Those are some busy Republican peckerwoods down there!  And while he's at it, the Peckerwood-in-Chief, Gov. Rick "Hair" Perry, wants to make a historical atrocity analogy about the Boy Scouts and The Gays (hint:  it's all about having the courage to discriminate!).

Speaking of nullification, let's see what Rethug Gov. Brownshirtback of  Kansas is up to:

... dozens of states are considering bills that attempt to nullify federal gun laws. One such bill became a law last month in Kansas. It exempts “Made in Kansas” guns from federal regulation and makes it a crime for federal agents to enforce federal law.

Attorney General Eric Holder recently wrote to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, saying the law is “unconstitutional,” and that the U.S. is prepared to sue Kansas to prevent the state from “interfering with the activities of federal officials.”

Now, Brownback has fired back.

In a letter to Holder yesterday, Brownback wrote: “The people of Kansas have clearly expressed their sovereign will. It is my hope that upon further review, you will see their right to do so.”

Let's see... if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be John C. Calhoun!

Finally, to Mr. Calhoun's cradle of secession State of South Carolina, where Appalachian Trail hiker "Gaucho Mark" Sanford may be on the verge of winning (or not) tomorrow's off-year Congressional race in a heavily Rethuglican district.  We hear from the estimable Charles P. Pierce (again) about how the disgraced former adulterer Governor could possibly, er, pull it out:

This has become a tribal conflict, and Mark Sanford's tribe is bigger, that's how. Most of the god-bothering yahoos were quite upset with Sanford's intercontinental sins of the flesh but, deep in their lizard brains, they know what counts and Sanford gave them the proper totem to hate and soon, the fever swamps resounded with whooping and hollering and chanting and the reek of burning entrails. This is not political. It is theological. It is not people going to the polls. It is people, maddened by thirst, wandering through the Sinai screaming their prayers into the undying sun.

Hate and stupid:  forces to be reckoned with in today's New Confederate/ Rethuglican/ Stupid Party.