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Brenda Landwehr

Liberal Kansas internet groupies flip-flop faster than John Kerry

It’s a set of dance moves that would make John Kerry proud.

Government run healthcare supporters gathered in Wichita Saturday to protest the Healthcare Freedom Amendment (HFA). The Amendment, sponsored by Reps. Brenda Landwehr, Peggy Mast and Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, would try to prevent the federal government from imposing fines, or even jail time, to Kansas citizens who choose not to have health insurance. Opponents of the HFA claim that it would opt Kansas out of any “public option” that passes in Washington. However, no where in the two page document are these provisions found.

The Wichita protest was to target Rep. Landwehr for her support of the HFA and was a follow up to a rally in early November in Shawnee targeting Sen. Pilcher-Cook. At that protest, government healthcare supporters were met by a large group of freedom loving patriots.

The spin from the left was that they were all shipped in by Koch Industries, even though they were unable to produce any evidence of this assertion. One would think big buses with a whole bunch of people would be easy to document. Of course, they are unable to do so because it simply doesn’t exist. Any “busing” by Koch or AFP is pure fiction, a grand lie concocted by liberals to convince themselves only the left can produce an uncoordinated, spontaneous grassroots movement.

The Koch lie seems to be in line with previous attacks by the left, where even they admit they were wrong when challenged to provide evidence.

This morning, I received an e-mail from Melissa “Missy” Cohlmia, the Communications Director for Koch Companies Public Sector. In it, Ms. Cohlmia asked:

“Can you point me to the facts behind this statement? The astroturf movement is paid for by David Koch of Wichita-based Koch Industries to the tune of $20 million of his own treasure.”

Admittedly, I failed in my post yesterday to appropriately link that statement. Mostly, however, that failure was because it’s a commonly known fact that Koch Industries is behind Americans for Prosperity, widely reported by the traditional and non-traditional press.

In fact the truth is AFP now has over 700,000 individual donors. Koch donations now account for less than 5% of AFP’s donations.

But as liberals go, they just couldn’t stop themselves and had to go even further.

One way that’s ever so popular with liberals is parading the children around. We must do it for the children, don’t you know! Thus Kansas’ 58,000 uninsured children becomes the call for more government programs. Of course, never mind there’s already a program out there called Kansas Healthwave. To a common sense Kansan that’d be evidence of a government failure, but to a liberal, it’s a call to more government action.

In fact, it seems the lefties have gotten themselves so worked up, they’ve forgotten what exactly happened in Shawnee less than a month ago.

In a weekend update, the left says things never got out of hand.

Despite the tone of our local Fox affiliate, that morning never got ugly. Passions are high on both sides, but never did the event escalate over some shouting matches.

But just a few weeks later, an organizer with the same liberal blog told a very different story to the Wichita Eagle.

“We had a bunch of (tea party supporters) come out and get pretty much in everybody’s faces,” said Sarah Burris, a spokeswoman for Forward Kansas. “They just want to raise a ruckus.”

Could it be liberals change their story based on what they think will get them the most traction in the press?

It also looks as though it’s okay to come from out of town for the rally, just as long as you make the trek for the right side. Just before the Shawnee rally, liberals had this to say:

…none, I repeat none, of the pro-Reform rally members will be bused in from surrounding areas — like American’s for Prosperity and David Koch did in Washington DC yesterday.

But they boasted of all the out of town folks for yesterday’s gathering:

Many of the demonstrators drove to Wichita from cities all over Kansas. Colin Curtis, of Manhattan made the trip because he wanted to ensure his side was represented in the debate

And I guess when flip-flopping on your version of protest etiquette doesn’t yield the results you want, you can always just start calling names.

From Twitter:

  • @sarahburris: If you use teabagger in a press release do we think they’ll use it? #fwks
  • @sarahburris: @immunis the experts say only if its in a quote just FYI #fwks

From the Wichita Eagle:

“We had a bunch of (tea party supporters) come out and get pretty much in everybody’s faces,” said Sarah Burris, a spokeswoman for Forward Kansas.

Now that’s a term even the Wichita Eagle won’t publish, try as the liberals might.

I’m willing to make a decent bet (tea party supporters) was inserted because the liberal’s spokeswoman decided to use a derogatory term for their opponents rather than show a little class.

Unfortunately, facts don’t get in the way of liberals. Their perception is reality, no matter how skewed it is, no matter how little evidence they have to support their assertions.

It’s the kind of insinuations and lies we should expect from this group in the future.

Democrat Garcia backtracks on Gardasil

State Rep. Delia Garcia of Wichita wanted Gardasil given to all high school girls in 2007.

State Rep. Delia Garcia of Wichita wanted Gardasil given to all high school girls in 2007.

Like many, I didn’t understand why politicians thought they should mandate use of a recently approved vaccine for HPV (Human Papillomavirus.) Gardasil is a vaccine for HPV, which has been linked to cervical cancer. Soon after FDA approval however, recipients of the vaccine began to see some very serious side effects, including some deaths.

Even if the adverse effects were unrelated to the vaccine, opponents questioned why it was an “opt-out” requirement rather than “opt-in.” The Wichita Eagle editorial board thought opposition was solely based on the nature of the vaccine.

The proposed legislation to mandate that Kansas sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus has hit a wall in the Legislature in the form of House Health and Human Services Chairwoman Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, who chose not to advance the bill. Her inaction is no surprise. In truth, the bill’s chief advocate, Rep. Delia Garcia, D-Wichita, probably lost most of her cautious colleagues at the phrase “sexually transmitted.”

- Wichita Eagle Editorial Board, March 2, 2007

Women without a family history of the disease and who remain abstinent until marriage have a significant risk reduction in contracting HPV. Why expose these women to unnecessary vaccines? As we’ve been told many times, don’t tell women what to do with their bodies.

After taking a class on vaccines where the evidence of possible problems with Gardasil was discussed, I too began to wonder why there was such a push to get the drug into schools as quickly as possible. At the time, over 20 deaths had been linked to the vaccine.

The unsuccessful push to get the vaccine into schools in Kansas was lead by State Rep. Delia Garcia of Wichita. Garcia received $200 from Merck in October of 2007. Merck is the manufacturer of Gardasil.

Yesterday KAKE 10 in Wichita did a short story about a family who’s daughter is possibly dying because of the vaccine. In the story, Garcia now says she wants answers about the safety of the vaccine.

The HPV vaccine controversy has highlighted the importance of careful thought before acting. Just because an issue involves a sexually transmitted disease doesn’t mean that legislators will oppose it because of an ‘icky’ factor. Sometimes more information and a little bit of time simply makes for better public policy.

Thank you Rep. Landwehr for having a level head and making good policy decisions. Kansans are fortunate that you were able to stop a bad, rushed Democrat proposal.