When leaders are cowards, citizens must defend themselves

The St. Louis police who confiscated Patricia McCloskey’s inoperable handgun last week proved that when she stood by her husband’s side June 28 to defend their lives and property against a violent Black Lives Matter mob in their St. Louis suburb, she might as well have been pointing a summer sausage.

If something isn’t done to abet the rampant victimization and murder of our citizens underway by the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization, future responses by gun owning Americans will not be so inert.

St. Louis prosecutors were kind enough to have McCloskey’s handgun taken apart and reassembled to make it lethal prior to the pur­suit of the circuit prosecutor’s charges against the couple. While it still amounts to evidence tampering, their assistance provided the McCloskeys with a valuable service for which they would otherwise have most likely paid a full hour’s bench time at any local gun shop.

But the criminal case against the McCloskeys is compromised. At least for now but depend­ing on the continued coddling of violent mobs associated with the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization, brandishing a sausage is still not a crime in Missouri.

It’ll be interesting to see how that fact plays into the criminal charges against the McCloskeys, who have been rushed to the status of folk heroes among right-thinking Americans who are justifiably horrified at the destruction and murder wrought by BLM virtually unfet­tered by leadership in the nation’s urban areas.

What will not be resolved by the now compro­mised criminal case against the McCloskeys is the maturing mood among most of America that it is only those who follow the rules – not those who break them – that are subject to the conse­quence of law. The belief is justified, growing and dangerous.

The point has no more perfect illustration than the incident with the McCloskeys, who because of a lack of police protection took the last resort available to them to protect their lives and their property by arming themselves, standing their ground and confronting a defin­able threat. When the government fails or abdi­cates its responsibility to protect American families, what else can they do?

While the McCloskeys are quite accessible to the long arm of the law in their alleged fire­arm handling violations, accountability has been only sparingly asserted against the mob of thugs who tore down a security gate marked “no trespassing” to gain access to the McCloskeys’ private neighborhood. That’s typical for what has become the wanton violence and destruc­tion pursued by BLM against individuals and property owners of all races and tax brackets. Led by its avowed Marxist founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, BLM saw a perfect smokescreen for its attack against America in the murder of George Floyd. Mainstream media has ignored the organiza­tion’s Marxist roots, and generally failed to condemn its attack on the country.

In city after city, American property owners have been victimized to the tune of billions and numerous citizens murdered, yet leadership in these cities still refuses to treat BLM as the enemy it is. The ludicrous rebukes by mayors of these urban muck pits to President Trump’s assignment of federal protection there speaks volumes as to whose side they’re really on. They lack the courage and the will to protect their citizenry, then they castigate the federals who try to cover for their neglect and cowardice. The immediate demands of citizens’ safety justify seizing to their own means of protection as they await an election to throw these left-leaning incompetents from office.

If leadership won’t act, the citizenry has no other choice but defend itself. And they won’t be pointing sausages. ###

–Dane Hicks in publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kansas.

The cartoon, Kelly's over reach, the Holocaust and fact-checking the NYT

Happy Independence Day everyone! Following is the response I sent the Associated Press and to the New York Times about the cartoon. I wanted to be sure the UNCUT version was out there after they edit me... let's see how right they get it!

Happy 4th!!

From: Dane Hicks 
Date: Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 6:34 PM
Subject: Fwd: Questions
To: michael levenson

Hi Mike- The person who has my old cell number forwarded me your message
(remember- it's a small town!!) here's a Q&A I did for our local AP guy. If
you have any other questions reply to this email. Thanks!

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dane Hicks 
Date: Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: Questions
To: Hanna, John D. 

John- I am the owner of the Review, we are an independent weekly.

1) I am a member and former president of various civic organizations
locally, none of which influence the newspaper or vice-versa. I am and have
been chairman of the county Republican party for a number of terms (I can't
remember how long off hand).

2) I photoshopped the cartoon. I'm no artist.

3) Political editorial cartoons are gross over-caricatures designed to
provoke debate and response- that's why newspapers publish them – fodder
for the marketplace of ideas. The topic here is the governmental overreach
which has been the hallmark of Governor Kelly's administration: absconding
with Kansans' additional federal tax refunds after Trump's change to the
tax law; a disastrous statewide shutdown that torpedoed businesses and
schools in scores of counties in Kansas that had no Covid-19 cases-
treating them just like virus hot spots in Johnson & Wyandotte counties; a
second blanket dictum that every Kansan would have to wear a mask in public
places, which would have certainly led to a resurgence in the "freak out
factor" with Kansans being reminded of the virus everywhere they turned,
resulting in a new wave of economic malaise. The most telling example of
authoritarian government I can think of is Nazi Germany – you'll recall
various media personalities and Trump Haters constantly making the analogy
between the president and Adolf Hitler – I certainly have more evidence of
that kind of totalitarianism in Kelly's actions, in an editorial cartoon
sort of way, than Trump's critics do, yet they persist in it daily.

Other Republicans? I have no idea- you would have to ask them.

4) Criticism and troll attacks: I've been in this business 35 years come
this December. Churchill said of criticism: “You have enemies? Good. That
means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.” I've found
that a poignant mantra in this business.

5) Apologies: To whom exactly? The critics on the Facebook page? Facebook
is a cesspool and I only participate to develop readership. I post much of
my writing there and my trolls are like family. I like to refer to them as
my narcissistic flea circus - I make them jump and I give them free rein
to attack me for my views and only rebuke them for vulgar language. I would
never apologize to them. They're liberal Marxist parasites who are
literally applauding and in some cases taking part in the burning and
commandeering of both public and private property in our country. As a
traditional American, they are my enemy.

If there are holocaust survivors or their relatives or Jews who take
offense to the image, I would certainly apologize and I intended no slight
to them. But then again they better than anyone should appreciate the
harbingers of governmental overreach and the present but tender seedlings
of tyranny.

6) Publication: I got the idea for the cartoon after last week's paper came
out so I put it on Facebook. It will run in the July 7 edition.

Sorry this took so long- if you have other questions reply and cc both this
address and 

On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 12:37 PM Hanna, John D.  wrote:

Mr. Hicks,

               I am a reporter for The Associated Press, and I would like to talk to you about a cartoon posted on the Anderson County Review’s Facebook page that is getting some notice. It’s the one about Gov. Kelly’s mask order with the caption that ends, “and step onto the cattle car.”

               My questions, to start:

• You are listed on the state GOP’s website as the Anderson County GOP chairman. Do you still hold that position?
• Did you post the cartoon yourself, or did a staffer do it?
• If a staffer did it, did you sign off beforehand?
• What was your thinking in posting the cartoon?
• How do you respond to criticism of the posting as “offensive” and “repulsive” from critics who think the comparison between the mask order and the Holocaust is inappropriately extreme?
• Does this cartoon represent the views of your fellow Republicans?
• Will you apologize?

John Hanna

Correspondent

Associated Press

300 S.W. 10^th Ave.

Room 37H-E

Topeka, Kan., 66612

785-234-5654 (office)

The information contained in this communication is intended for the use of the designated recipients named above. If the reader of this communication is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this communication in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify The Associated Press immediately by telephone at +1-212-621-1500 and delete this email. Thank you.

K-State: Tell your football team "you're fired"

Kansas State University should fire the student athletes on its football team, women’s basketball team and any others who refuse to play their sports as directed by their programs, or risk the staggering moral and financial costs other universities have suffered.

Two reasons: First, university management is and should be in charge of its athletic and for that matter its academic programs, not the students. This accountability and responsibility is a point that has somehow been lost on those cowardly leaders now in charge of some cities, police departments and even state governments since this, the Summer of the Black Lives Matter Lie.

Second, K-State and its other students and faculty don’t deserve the kind of negative financial repercussions that will follow if the university doesn’t assert that it – not "woke" student narcissists and agitators who have nothing to lose – is in charge. 

That case in point should be clear except that 2015- 2016 is, in these Twitter-warped times, a long, long, long time ago. 

Ever hear of a place called the University of Missouri? 

Let me recap the story of how my dear ole’ alma mater lost the faith and confidence of the parents of Missouri college-students-to-be as well as that of donating alumni due to the the Black Lives Matter disaster of 2015-2016. 

In a nutshell, racial unrest on campus around the time of the Ferguson riots led to the Mizzou football team stomping its feet and going on “strike” due to racial tension on campus until former University President Tim Wolfe was fired or resigned. Spineless head football coach Gary Pinkel backed his players instead of firing them and playing the walk-ons from places like Florissant, Mountain Grove Thayer and Koshkonong, who would have done anything to play for Mizzou.

Lacking that, Pinkel and the players should all have been fired for insubordination and the Tigers taken the field that season with the C and D teamers, or simply forfeited their games. Then, Wolfe should have been fired as well because of his ongoing incompetence and cowardice.

To Mizzou’s ill fate, none of that happened. Instead, university management let the whole thing blow up in their faces. Protestors took over the university's famed quadrangle, confronting journalists trying to cover the events, in order to help control the story. In one instance, a communications professor named Melissa Click asked for "some muscle" to throw a photojournalist out of the protest area – on university property, no less.

In the ensuing years black and white enrollment both dropped at Mizzou. Some 4,500 students – 13 percent of enrollment and a number that translated to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tuition, housing and beer sales – left Columbia. Also lost were donations from disgusted alumni for all manner of university causes. Dorms closed; faculty was cut; the university’s famed agricultural and medical research went undone or was set back. The hemorrhaging of dollars only ceased recently with meagerly recovering enrollment. 

K-State, you don’t want to go there. Much better to assert control of your university now and show the world the adults are in charge. Better to make the hard decisions and suffer the immediate consequences rather than capitulate to naive student bullies following Marxist agitators who will throw away the honor of a D1 athletic slot because someone said something that offended them. 

Jaden McNeil’s tweet that started the K-State trouble: “Congratulations to George Floyd on being drug free for an entire month!” was an off color joke, but only because of the bogus pre-election inflammation cooked up by the Black Lives Matter movement. Sure it’s inappropriate – lots of humor is. But certainly no worse than the old Saturday Night Live breaking news joke: “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” If you're too young to remember, Youtube it.

McNeil made a salient point in his own defense: “I condemned George Floyd’s life of violent crime and Twitter gave me a 12 hour suspension for ‘glorifying violence.’ ” 

That kind of logic, even if you don’t agree with it, is lost on these modern purveyors of Cancel Culture. Offend me, this new cultural phenomena says, and my mob will force my will on you. Unfortunately there are too many cowards in positions of leadership these days to fight back.

It’s a spooky place for America to be, and it’s incumbent upon heretofore sensible universities like K-State to draw the line. If the Wildcats cave in, the costs – both financial and in basic morality of right and wrong – may be devastating.

-Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kansas.

The dark lie of Black Lives Matter

Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. The world witnessed Floyd’s last conscious moments on video shot by bystanders. Chauvin was fired and has been charged in Floyd's killing, which most people regardless of color agree was brutal and unnecessary.

Black Lives Matter wants you to believe systemic racism – racism built into our social system aimed at blacks and to a lesser degree other non-whites – is responsible for confrontations between primarily young black men and police – predominantly white police. This is a smokescreen which denies the facts and falsely impunes police and other citizens around the country.

That’s because there’s a common denominator of criminal behavior in many of these confrontations – certainly the high profile ones that have generated an apparent justification to loot and burn neighborhoods and now to literally occupy a multi-block area of Seattle after city government surrendered it.

Back in 1991 Rodney King was driving drunk, leading police on a high speed chase through Los Angeles because a DUI would violate his parole on a robbery conviction. That was no excuse for the beating he got from cops, but King himself controlled the beginning of his story that night.

Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., stole from a convenience store and shoved a clerk after what may have been a drug deal there got rough, then fought a cop for the policeman’s gun back in 2014 before the cop shot and killed him.

George Floyd, whose criminal record dated back decades and amounted to numerous stints in jail and prison, tried to pass a fake $20 bill at a Minneapolis store before the incident that led to his police confrontation. He resisted getting into the patrol car and was subsequently subdued and handcuffed before Chauvin held his knee on a handcuffed Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes, killing him. Toxicology reports said Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system when he died. Store employees who confronted Floyd about the bogus $20 bill before calling police said he was very intoxicated and “not in control of himself.”

If we can’t ignore the element of race in these incidents, we also can’t ignore the role criminal activity played. The chronology is too often the same regardless of the race of the subject involved: Subject is confronted or apprehended for a crime or suspected crime, suspect resists arrest, police reaction ends in subject’s death. At least part of the solution should be simple: Number 1, don’t be a criminal; and number two, don’t resist police authority to enforce the law.

Black Lives Matter wants to focus on race as the issue instead of criminality, but the statistics don’t support the fervent emotion of that claim. Last year nine unarmed black men were killed by police, while 19 unarmed white men were killed by police. Black men – overall 6 percent of the population – commit 44 percent of all murders and 50 percent of violent crime. The number one cause of death for black men age 15-34 is homicide – and 93 percent of all homicides are victims of someone of their own race.

Most Americans regardless of race live by the rules. We go to our jobs, we pay our taxes, we drive at least somewhere close to the posted speed limit. Most of us don’t drive drunk or high, we don’t shoot at members of rival gangs and hit innocent bystanders, and we don’t fight the police if we’re in a situation where we’re detained or arrested. This doesn’t mean we’re not flawed or that we’re some kind of heroes, but it does indicate we at least have a core respect for the society we live in and the laws we enact to protect us.

It’s apparent that the black lives that matter most to Black Lives Matter are those that can fit a false narrative of surging racism and rampant police brutality that can be leveraged for political gain, not the black lives being forfeited every day on the streets due to gang violence and homicides committed by other blacks.

How unfortunate that the energy that’s gone into protests and the sacking, looting and burning of some of America’s cities apparently can’t be brought to bear against the foundational problems that far and away cost the most black lives. ###

– Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kansas.

Quick Batman, before they sober up

Take notice, every local economic development chief, chamber of commerce director and real estate salesman in rural Kansas; David Toland – stop wishing for more wind farm subsidies from your spacious Kansas Department of Commerce office cubicle and pay attention – the mayors of America’s largest cities are about to give you an early Christmas gift. 

They’re talking about dismantling… yes, that’s right, I said DISMANTLING their police departments in the wake of the George Floyd killing.

So, yeah, that means… well, we presume… no more cops? 

At least that’s the plan in Minneapolis, Minn., where city council president Lisa Bender and her veto-proof majority of council members are working to better serve the citizens of Minneapolis – by dismantling the only thing standing between them and total bedlam. 

No, I’m not kidding. It’s like the script of the next Batman movie. In the first act, the Joker pumped city hall full of Stupid Gas and revoked Commissioner Gordon’s Target Rewards Card. 

Remember those pictures of the Oklahoma land rush? It’s easy to envision at the city limits of Minneapolis – hoards of cutthroats, thugs and criminals massing at the borders with St. Paul, South Park and Edina, ready for the last city police paycheck to clear the bank – and likewise a hoard of law-abiding business people and upstanding citizens ready to high tail it south on I-35 for Burnsville and parts beyond. 

It all makes perfect sense, under the influence of Stupid Gas. White cop murders a doped-up black career criminal while in police custody, and criminal thugs and political anarchists rush in to take advantage of mass protests to loot and burn black-owned businesses right along with everything else they can get away with. Their deeds – and those free 50-inch TV sets – mix with plenty of outside instigation to inspire similar criminal assaults nationwide. Astute city leadership’s response is crisp and effective: 

First, disband the police. 

I mean, what else would competent civic leadership do? 

And Minneapolis isn’t the only city to embrace this genius plan. New York (of course), Houston, Los Angeles – others have taken a whiff of the dastardly villain’s half-witted redolence. The secondary explosion should and will send tens of thousands of small business people out of those urban hellholes in search of sanity and a new place to hang their shingle. 

That’s where our local economic development gurus and their statewide grand poobah should have their marketing guns cocked, locked and ready to rock. Every newspaper, TV or radio station, Facebook Page, church bulletin and matchbook cover in those cities should have an ad from Kansas that says something to the effect of: “Looted, burned, and now no police protection? Bring your small business to Beloit or Council Grove or Wakeeney or Plainville– we’re more decent here.” 

How many of those poor abused business people wouldn’t really rather live where people wave when they drive by whether they know you or not; where arguments are more civil; where police are still on duty and where the sunrises and sunsets are gorgeous? 

Call that kind of opportunism inappropriate if you want, but you can’t tell me a lot of people in those cities aren’t asking themselves right now if it's worth rebuilding their business just to await the next unfettered urban assault from a bunch of thugs. Most of these city leaders couldn’t move fast enough to shut those businesses down and make their customers stay home during the coronavirus scare, but their authority was nowhere to be found to combat the criminals that beat those business owners, shot them and burned homes and businesses to the ground. 

If this was Hollywood, Batman would have met the looting hoards with some superior firepower and outwitted the Joker to land him in jail. In the meantime small towns should make lemonade out of these lemons and like the rest of the country – pray we see the Bat Signal soon.

–Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Ks.

Governor Kelly continues the needless agony

Governor Laura Kelly’s one-size-fits-all approach to the reopening of Kansas after the Covid-19 shutdown further damages the bureaucracy-hammered Kansas economy, and puts her in the running with her friend and former governor Kathleen Sebelius for the title of most economically damaging governor in state history.

Last week Kelly laid out a three-phase blanket plan for the reopening of Kansas that leaned fully on top-down administration and centralized authorization. Its mandates were based on the assumption that every county, city, neighborhood, nook and cranny of the state was at equal risk from a resurgence of Covid-19. Every restaurant, car dealership, hair salon, bank, livestock sales and auction company, insurance office, and other potential commercial or recreational gathering place was ladled with another helping of state-mandated restrictions, which in reality varied only slightly from the rules in place prior to May 3 and which will extend through at least May 18.

That, despite a continuing confirmation of the ratio between infections and population which has chronicled the outbreak from the beginning: heavier concentrations of population have shown themselves to be consistently more at risk.

Case in point from Saturday’s Covid-10 report from Kansas Department of Health and Environment: of Kansas’ 105 counties, 23 had recorded no cases of people sick with the virus since public health officials began counting, and 57 counties had fewer than 10 cases. Those case counts began when the beginning of the “crisis” was broadly recognized in mid-March and they don’t account for the individuals who have since recovered from the bug.

Still, under both the initial shutdown mandate and even the reopening order from the Governor’s office, the Cactus Club Restaurant in Ness County where no cases were ever recorded was torpedoed with the same executive fervor as was J. Gilberts in Johnson County, where nearly 600 residents tested positive.

Kelly’s carpet bombing order of the Kansas economy is evidenced by state tax revenue figures for April which are less than half the $1.18 billion Kansas took in during April 2019. March unemployment claims skyrocketed as well in the state to more than 20 times the most recent weekly average.

What’s worse, Kelly’s phasing in of a reopening plan that treats the whole state with the same precautions needed where the virus is more present – Johnson and Wyandotte counties for instance – ensures a continuing erosion of the state’s economic might.

This level of damage wasn’t necessary.

Had Kelly the foresight to see past the need for government to seize the roll as sole protector of the populace, she might have judged the legitimate but measured health concerns in view of the more global damage to be done by such all-encompassing orders. Governors of states like South Dakota, Nebraska, Arkansas and others made recommendations and set guidelines for their populations and their commercial sectors, then trusted in the logic and judgment of their citizenry. They were never under shutdown orders, and their economies saw less damage and have better prospects moving forward. By population, demographics and geography, they are greatly similar to Kansas.

In Kansas the tally of the carnage is yet incomplete, but Kelly’s debacle will most certainly approach that of her friend and cohort Kathleen Sebelius in the latter’s derailing of a $3 billion private investment to expand a coal-fired electric generating plant at Holcomb some years back. Sebelius’ embrace of green principles was intended to put her on President Obama’s political short list for bigger things. Indeed, her appointment to the cabinet post of director of Health and Human Services during the roll out of Obamacare left much to be desired. For her floundering ambition, the Kansas economy paid a historic price.

Kelly’s reopening plan should have stair-stepped its phase restrictions based on the documented impact to date of Covid-19 in individual counties, instead of stamping all of Kansas’ communities like the same bottle cap. Her over-governance has hurt Kansas through the days of Covid-19, and will make a longer road back than need be.

– Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kansas.

Kelly, Toland & wind farms: ‘Let them eat cake’

 It’s becoming apparent that Thursday’s misstep by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and Department of Commerce head David Toland wasn’t just bad timing.

While the now rusted and stagnant Kansas economy teetered on the brink of collapse last week and while small business people and members of the public took to the streets of Topeka to beg Kelly to reopen the state and let them get back to making a living, the governor’s chief business guru was touting the wonders of – wait for it – windmills.

It’s reminiscent of the line attributed to France’s Marie Antoinette when she was told the peasants had no bread: ‘Let them eat cake.’

The subsequent revelation is frightening: Kansas’ top business leaders don’t have a plan for defibrillating the state’s government-torpedoed economy to bring it back to life, other than wishing on the rural cancer of wind farms? Maybe Kelly and Toland could help out by sending us a plague of grasshoppers while they’re at it?

No one has yet made a good estimate of the damage in real dollars done to Kansas in the five weeks or so since Kelly ordered us to stay home, forbade gatherings of 10 or more people and stressed that we stay six feet apart from each other. Her order amounted to a Buck Rogers-esque freeze ray for Kansas’ small business operations and revenues. The week of March 21 saw more than 23,000 first-time filings for unemployment benefits in Kansas according to the U.S. Department of Labor – ten times the weekly average over the previous 10 weeks. Claims doubled again the following week to more than 54,000.

That means the difference between the dollars those workers previously earned and their unemployment checks suddenly was no longer circulating in the economy paying rent, mortgage payments, buying furniture, etc., and those now drawing unemployment are likely nervous to spend what little they now have.  Sales taxes from those foregone purchases won’t be collected by the state and redistributed to your city and county. Transient guest taxes paid by travelers at the state’s hotels and other lodgings are mostly gone because travel is curtailed. The economic effects have been seismic. Businesses whose revenues have stopped can’t pay their bills or their employees. They don’t advertise either – many of your favorite radio show disc jockeys have been furloughed, and The Kansas City Star ran an article on Sunday literally asking for public donations.

Perhaps worst hit have been the very hospitals that the jack-booted order sought to protect. Hospitals went to battle stations and girded their loins for an onslaught of Covid-19 patients that never came. They spent extra dollars on Covid supplies while at the time shutting down revenue-generating elective procedures like mammograms, colonoscopies and elective surgeries. Those losses are now catastrophic and have resulted in an entirely new medical crisis in the U.S.- hospitals that are broke.

This debacle and concerns over lost civil rights as a result of Kelly’s order were the issues to which members of the Open Up Kansas movement attempted to call attention on Thursday in Topeka. But neither Kelly nor Toland saw fit to address the group to listen to their concerns.

Instead Toland, who last year heralded his own “Listening Tour” of rural Kansas, on Thursday issued to state media a press release extolling the virtues of wind farms to the state. While nearly all facets of the Kansas economy plummeted, Toland touted the subsidy dependent, corporate tax credit-fueled disasters which have ravaged rural home values, threatened the health of residents, jacked up electric rates and pitted neighbor against neighbor throughout the state’s impoverished rural areas all to produce the most expensive electricity every conjured – but only when the wind blows.

Of course Toland’s wind energy fetish is reserved specifically for those of us in rural areas. After all, for some reason you don’t find wind farms in Johnson County.

But Toland’s derelict approach to the state’s economy is a secondary concern right now. It is Kelly’s choking stay at home order which should be lifted immediately to let Kansas’ businesses and healthcare institutions start trying to heal themselves.

– Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in sunny Garnett, Kan.