We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Thank God.

I want to feel sorry for the citizens of Kansas. Their governor, Republican Sam Brownback, is imposing a doggedly conservative political agenda that is turning Dorothy Gale’s loving home state into a welfare dependent, gun slinging, poor bashing, economic hell. I say I want to feel sorry for them, but for reasons that escape all logic, the voters of the Sunflower State sent Brownback back to the Capital for a second term knowing that his economic policies were dragging them to the poor house.

Brownback and his Republican cronies are now resorting to stealing money from education and much needed infrastructure to try and stave off the economic hemorrhaging caused by his tax cuts and misplaced trust in trickle-down economics. And on top of everything else, Brownback thought it was important that gun owners in Kansas be allowed to carry firearms around with no license or gun safety training requirement.

My hope is that Democrats running for office in 2016 will shine a big bright light on the Brownback debacle. “Kansas is what America will look like if you vote for Republicans,” they should pound home. “The conservative policies of Brownback have been a total failure and are a destroying a once great state. Do you want that to happen to your country?” Kansas is a laboratory where conservative policies are being tested, and the results so far are painfully obvious: They don’t work.

If Dorothy went to Oz in 2015, I don’t think she would be so anxious to get home.

Will the Brownback failure in Kansas change any minds?

Here’s the question of the day: How much pain and punishment will voters endure before they realize Republican ideas are rubbish? Unfortunately for the people of Kansas, the answer seems to be “a lot.” Republican Governor Sam Brownback won a tight race last November even after it was clear that his experiment in supply side economics was failing miserably and creating a huge budget deficit.

Today, the deficit stands at $344 million and his answer to this dilemma is to further cut funds for education, syphon off money from the state’s pension program and raid funds for essential infrastructure projects. Oh, and yesterday he took time out from his slash and burn activities to remove gender identity and sexual orientation from the classes of protected Kansas government employees. Busy boy.

Aside from the reality that Brownback is a genuinely horrible human being, the facts in this case seem indisputable; Brownback’s economic experiment is a disaster by every standard and is sucking Kansas into a quagmire of debt. This was already evident last November prior to the elections, yet voters again gave him the green light to savage the state even further. The loyalty of conservatives to their ideological foundations is incredibly strong and will not be shaken by reality. Reality is wrong, they answer through their votes.

How bad will things have to get before the people of Kansas, and the United States, say enough to failed conservative ideology?

This week’s repugnant Republicans

I know, revealing the Right’s lunacy is like shooting fish in a barrel. All a Louie Gohmert or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin have to do is open their mouths and you have your quota of insane quotes for the day. But heck, it’s Friday and I need to vent. Here is your weekly dose of repugnant Republicans doing what they do best, being complete morons:

Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton doesn’t want Satan getting in the way of his legislation. His bill to repeal a decades-old ban on crude oil exports was introduced Tuesday as House Bill 666. By Wednesday, Barton had successfully lobbied to get its number changed to a less-Satanic 702.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback says he will cut funding for public schools and universities in a bid to keep the state solvent through June after aggressive tax cuts left gaping budget shortfalls.

A Republican state lawmaker said Thursday that women who become pregnant from sexual assault should not be exempt from an anti-abortion measure, because childbirth resulting from rape is "beautiful." "Obviously rape is awful," West Virginia Del. Brian Kurcaba (R) said during a committee hearing on a new abortion restriction. "What is beautiful is the child that could come from this."

Louisiana Governor Bobbie Jindal’s speech at the American Principles Project’s conference highlighted the need to strongly support public education. But Jindal is currently trying to cut the budget of the state colleges by as much as $300 million —nearly a third of the system’s current budget.

Speaking on Saturday at the Educational Policy Conference in St. Louis, former U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway denounced the notion that conservatives are waging a “war on women,” asserting that sexual libertinism has “impoverished women” and created a culture in which child porn is acceptable.

An Alabama congressman with virulently anti-immigrations beliefs has a new theory on who may be causing the current measles outbreak: “illegal aliens.” Appearing on the Matt Murphy radio show Tuesday morning, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) sees a correlation between immigration and the measles outbreak that has erupted in the United States.