Famed “moderate” Kansas Governor Laura Kelly further confirmed her “middle of the road” political ideology last week, throwing her full and unwavering support behind the president who brought you $8 bags of potato chips, and she still had time to give an appreciative pat on the head to the dog who fetched her stick in the 2022 Kansas Governor’s race.
One might think the implosion of the Biden Administration after the President’s Waterloo-esque debate with Donald Trump and the revelation of the grand lie of his competency that’s been perpetrated on the American people by the liberal media would give pause to a governor so rooted in dispassionate objectivity. A balanced review of the facts which has been so illuminating to the rest of the country and the world would logically bring a conscientious reevaluation of America’s current political scenario to such a “moderate” observer.
Of course that’s assuming one has been blind to the conspicuous evidence of disaster thus far – massive price increases for groceries and consumer goods since Biden and congressional Democrats’ blow-out, Covid-excused spending spree; the evaporation of the nation’s southern border for the purposes of restocking the Democrat electorate; the elevation of deviant sexuality to a place of national prominence, including the biologically ridiculous assertion that gender is an imaginary choice and that fairness dictates boys should be able to compete in girls sports.
Those aren’t the only signals of moral and directional destitution, but they should be the easiest to ascertain for someone like Kelly, who prizes such a neutral and temperate analysis of fact in her politics. However, her “balanced” assessment brought her to the conclusion that ‘the President’s record of delivering bipartisan results speaks for itself’ in her statement of support last week.
And by all accounts, she said it with a straight face.
Of course Kansas has seen that Kelly’s assertion of her political neutrality has been nearly as big a lie as the cloak thrown over Biden’s debilitating mental incompetence and his striking policy failures. The Kansas media’s reluctance to execute a Brownbackian level critique of Kelly’s performance is certainly as scandalous. While the largest tax increase in Kansas history from 2015 drained the household incomes of Kansas families and fattened the state’s coffers, Kelly vetoed 11 bills aimed to provide relief to those who were funding the surplus. Even as Biden’s poor management of the country resulted in skyrocketing prices for gasoline and consumer goods and put first-time home mortgages out of reach, Kelly continued to deny common sense submissions from Kansas legislators that would have allowed Kansas taxpayers to keep more of their own money. Those sky-high tax rates were sucking unneeded funds from taxpayers wallets as late as this past April.
It was all rooted in Kelly’s vindictiveness for the Republican-dominated legislature’s denial of her Holy Grail – Medicaid Expansion – which if granted would have acknowledged Kelly’s reputation as a good soldier in the progressive mission to massively expand government and justify future public finance conscription by Washington, D.C. Kelly kept up the ruse, unfettered by any critique from most all Kansas media, until election year pressure forced her to relent in the interest of supporting Democrats attempting to retain their seats this fall in the state legislature.
Kelly’s Ace in the Hole was of course was Hiawatha State Senator Dennis Pyle, who at one time purported to be a Republican before sabotaging his supposed party’s effort to wrest control of the governor’s office from Kelly when he ran as an Independent in 2022, draining votes away from Attorney General Derek Schmidt. In perhaps his most Shakespearean moment of hypocrisy, Pyle once made a campaign declaration that Schmidt and Kelly were ‘two peas in a pod.’
The irony of his analysis was like a Fourth of July fireworks display last week in Holton, where Kelly went out of her way to honor Pyle at a ceremonial acknowledgment of his sellout not just of Republicans but of Kansas taxpayers as a whole. Kelly lauded Pyle as an accomplice in her past obstructionism to tax relief. With two Republicans running against Pyle in next month’s primary and with no Democrat filed in that race, taxpayers in Senate District 1 will finally deal with Kelly’s loyal sidekick.
Despite the pandemic level gaslighting from the Biden and Kelly Administrations, voter understanding of these recent public revelations won’t be denied. If the tea leaves are correct for the upcoming primary and general elections, that’s about to be made very clear. ###
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
