Happy Friggin' Birthday, BB!

Holy God- we've been doing this for a year!

More than 400 posts and 30,000 hits later this little blog has made a real life impact on political blogging in Kansas and about Kansas.

We brought you "Making Tom DeLay Smile" and "The Jenky Tax."

We caused the Republicans of the state fits of apoplexy (including sending our former arch rival Bounce Boyda off the deep end....and straight into the Jenkins campaign. Oh, drat, did we say that?).

We've been linked to on the front page of Daily Kos, Swing State Project and Crooks and Liars, and we've had very public fights with Kansas GOP Executive Director Christan Morgan and Kansas Americans for Prosperity Chief Minion Alan Cobb (we miss you Alan...)- two men that really, really should have something better to do than pay any attention to little ol' us.

Above all else, we did exactly what we set out to do: We've trumpeted Congresswoman Nancy Boyda's successes and beat the living hell out of folks who dared liar about her work in Congress...and we had a lot of fun at Jim Ryun (we miss you, too!) and Lynn Jenkins' expense whenever the opportunity arose.

We'd like to thank all of our readers, everyone who comments (particularly Jenkins & KS GOP office staff), and we'd like to just ask all of you keep reading- this is going to get lots more wild before we're all done!

One Used-Up Athlete & One Ambitious Self-Promoter File Against Boyda

The filing deadline in the state of Kansas has passed, and there weren't any surprises associated with the filings for the 2nd Congressional District.

Republican Party:
Jim Ryun
Lynn Jenkins

Democratic Party:
Nancy E. Boyda

UPDATE: And two more!

Libertarian Party:
Robert Garrard

Reform Party:
Leslie S. Martin

Very early in Boyda's term various other names were bandied about by the national press as potential challengers, including State Representative Lee Tafanelli, Frm. Speaker of the Kansas House Doug Mays, Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, and leader of the crazy brigade (Kansas Americans for Prosperity) Alan Cobb.

For one reason or another they all decided against challenging Boyda....Schmidt didn't want to run in a district he didn't live in, Tafanelli got burned early by writing an editorial saying Boyda has lost millions for the military bases when she actually hadn't, and we're just guessing Doug Mays' life is a lot easier now that he doesn't have to deal with partisan politics. As to Alan Cobb...well...he had blogs to bother instead.

Anyway, the line up is now official, and exactly has it had been for months.

By the way- we've seen some Jim Ryun yard signs in Topeka...this puppy's about to hit full swing!

KS AFP's Alan Cobb doesn't like us much

We've spent much of last Friday e-mailing back and forth with Alan Cobb, Executive Director of the Kansas branch of Americans for Prosperity.

He doesn't like us much.

Why? Because he doesn't like the way we represented his organization in our post about the AFP meeting of anti-government hacks in Topeka- at which Jim Ryun & Lynn Jenkins spoke.

Mr. Cobb demanded we issue a retraction- heck, take the whole post down- because we were "knowingly making a false statement(s)" about AFP.

We, very politely, told him we had done no such thing.

He, generally, didn't like that we had said AFP's stated goal was devastating cuts to government programs. We tried to explain to him that, well, his own mission statement says the goal of the organization is to cut taxes and reduce the size of the budget, which, at the federal and state level would lead to cuts in something. We just guessed as to where those cuts would be.

He didn't like that.

Excerpts of said e-mail exchanges follow. :-)

From Alan Cobb:

You have intentionally and deliberately posted false information on your blog. You have yet to provide any evidence or source for your statements about budget cuts we advocate.

No, no we haven't posted anything false- and, certainly the Americans for Prosperity web site serves as a beautiful source. He is right to say, though, that they don't lobby for specific cuts, just great big general ones. We'll get back to that in a moment.

He went on to say:

I understand you and other bloggers need to be politically provocative, but it is certainly intellectually weak, and illegal, to knowingly post untruths about groups with whom you disagree. Is the actual truth not good enough to get your folks riled up?

Gosh, tossing out insults certainly is the sign of an intellectual giants, of course. As to the "illegal" part, he supports his point by quoting for us a definition of libel.

li·bel

1. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
2. The act of presenting such material to the public.

I suggest you change your statements to more accurately and truthfully reflect our organizations specific goals, and ideas.

Tossing out scary legal terms in an effort to strong-arm a poor, defenseless blogger into doing what you want certainly isn't very nice. Neither is knowingly misrepresenting the law in an effort to do the same thing.

Everyone, please read the definition provided by Mr. Cobb. Note the word "person's."

A plain text reading of the Kansas statute that happens to be applicable (K.S.A. @ 21-4004 for those few, few who care) and even to Mr. Cobb's definition, says libel is an offense against a person. Americans for Prosperity is a group, not a person, and, thus, would have some pretty significant hurdles to jump before they could even attempt to bring a defamation suit. We believe Mr. Cobb is an attorney, and knows that full well- which makes it that much more unfortunate that he'd threaten us so.

But all of that is silly to discuss (as we told Mr. Cobb), because nothing we've posted anywhere on this blog ever even approaches the Kansas statutory definition of defamation (which, of course, isn't nearly as simple as the cute little quote Mr. Cobb lobbed at us in his e-mail). In the end, all we've done is offered a perspective Mr. Cobb doesn't like. Unfortunately for him, that's just not illegal.

Anyway, we responded thusly:

From: Boyda Bloc
To: Alan Cobb
Subject: RE: your blog

Mr. Cobb, we will have to continue to disagree. This blog posted nothing false about your organization, we merely correctly stated your organization leads the charge for reduced federal/state spending- reduced spending equals reductions in services. The two cannot be separated.

Your STATED goal is budget reduction, lowered taxes. Your STATED goal results in massive budget cuts and the slashing of social services. Nothing we've said is false, unless you live in a world where actions have no consequences. We, sir, do not.

We've published opinion & fact & logical extensions of AFP's mission statement, and you don't like our take on it. That doesn't make it libelous, sir.

We'll gladly do one thing for you: We'll clarify. We'll be happy to point out it isn't Social Security and Education you want to see cut. It's everything- literally all programs- that could see devastating cuts due to your efforts. It wasn't precise of us to limit it to the social programs we listed, and we apologize.

We should have been more broad.

And we should also say you don't care what gets cut, who gets hurt, and what kind of havoc you cause- as long as taxes go down, and budgets don't grow. The people of Colorado thank you, I'm sure.

-BoydaBloc

In the end, Alan's right- we misspoke. We didn't commit libel, we merely didn't expound enough. They aren't calling for specific cuts in anything. They're championing cuts- ridiculous cuts- to pay for irresponsible tax policy. It might not be social programs, it might be Defense, or infrastructure maintenance- something will get cut if you cut the monies available.

So, yes, Mr. Cobb, you were right. We weren't clear. We put limits on the real damage you and your organization could do. We're dreadfully sorry- and thank you so much for giving us the chance to clarify that fact.

By the way...Mr. Cobb e-mailed us a several more times- finally saying he was asking "one more time" for us to make the changes he demanded. Hopefully this post will placate him- though, for some reason, we don't see that as a likely outcome.

And, just for giggles- here are a half dozen stories about exactly what could happen if Alan Cobb gets his way...and, wow- cuts to social services, education- even public safety as Colorado Springs is in such awful shape 55% of the city's budget is generated by sales tax..and can't afford enough people to answer 911 calls.

A Taxing Debate, BEWARE: TABOR is coming; After devastating government services in Colorado, the "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" threatens to spread, Commission's Revenue Cap Proposal Would Require Cuts in Education, Health, and Safety, and Harm Business Climate, Springs' 911 callers give up, Business leaders learn Colo. is still short on money for critical services, Fund our higher education.

(Credit where credit is due: The above picture was taken from the Americans for Prosperity web site. What on Earth are they doing to those children?)