For those who thought that, with the new year, nuclear power had turned a page and put its “annus horribilis” behind it–as if the calendar were somehow the friend America’s aging reactors–let’s take a quick look at January 2012.

Gary Jenkins, who brought us Negroes to Hire, joins us again tonight with another compelling and carefully crafted documentary about Kansas, slavery and the Civil War. With Freedom Seekers: Stories from the Western Underground Railroad, Jenkins traces the history of “Bloody Kansas,” and its place in the abolitionist movement. The Kansas Territory was key in the balance of the states before the Civil War, as neighboring Missouri was a slave state, bordered by two free states, Illinois and Iowa.

Racism in the GOP? Nah… just class from the state of Fred Phelps and the personal email of Rep. Mike O’Neal, via Pat Cunningham of the Rockford Register Star.

Shawnee Mission East (Kansas) high school principal Karl R. Krawitz bravely stood up to the office of Governor Sam Brownback over a visiting student’s joking tweet about the Governor. Brownback’s communications office, reviewing social media scrupulously for messages related to the obviously thin-skinned governor, took great offense to high school senior Emma Sullivan’s Monday tweet from the back of a student tour group as Brownback delivered an anodyne greeting about public service and civic engagement:

“Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot”

For decades now, the Republican party has talked about social issues to get votes from an economically depressed middle class and used the power of office thus obtained mainly to depress the middle class further. Thomas Frank famously asked, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” in 2005. I hope he won’t write a second book in 2014, “What’s the Matter with Greenwich Village?”

Despite the struggles of the Great Recession and the need for jobs, Republican legislatures across the country have engaged in a concerted effort to legislate a woman’s right to choose. There is settled case law that abortion is a legal medical procedure in the United States, and yet several states have banned late-term abortions after 20 weeks, the so-called “fetal pain” bill, so far this year. This conflicts directly with the fetal viability standard ruled by the Supreme Court, and seems destined for a challenge.

The murder of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita in 2009 changed the landscape for women in the state of Kansas and the medical personnel who provide services to them. With Sam Brownback’s election as governor, the legislature rushed to take advantage of this new landscape, and by mid-May had passed new restrictions on abortion providers.

The specific rules and regulations were just announced, and they take effect July 1, leaving the three providers about a week to meet the new requirements. One has already announced that they won’t be able to do so.

Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore. It’s looking more and more like Gilead.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach campaigned heavily last year on stopping voter fraud by illegal immigrants and manipulation of elections by “unscrupulous attorneys.” Fast forward to last Thursday, when the FEC accepted an audit of the Kansas Republican Party’s books during 2007 and 2008 that shows illegal contributions from businesses, misstatements of contributions and expenditures, and undisclosed expenses for delegates to the 2008 GOP national convention.

The head of the Kansas GOP at the time? Kris Kobach. Sounds like he really knew what he was talking about when it comes to unscrupulous attorneys trying to manipulate elections.

In one of the local Kansas City area school districts, a proposed levy increase that would have put an end to three years of major budget cuts failed, and so the cuts continue even as enrollment rises. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, cuts are driven not so much by the economy but by union-busting politicians. Elsewhere in the US, teacher layoffs are being announced. ‘Tis the season . . .

And yet, despite all this, the teachers still teach.

I am so grateful for those who taught me, and even today I am still realizing just how much of a gift they gave me.

Today’s installment of Republicans Are Totally Not Racist At All Nope pays tribute to Kansas state rep. Connie O’Brien, who has zeroed in on a foolproof way to identify undocumented immigrants: