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Kansas, I Love You
But your extremist politics is breaking my heart
If you haven’t yet heard, on Friday, August 10, small-town cops raided a small-town newspaper office — The Marion County Record — the publisher’s home, and even reporters’ homes in Marion, Kansas. Marion is a teeny town of only 1,900 people. The cops took all of the paper’s computers and equipment, and publisher Bill Meyer isn’t sure how they’ll produce the next weekly paper.
This blatant attack on First Amendment rights was horrifying enough, but Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, who lived with him and was co-owner of the paper, died from stress a day after the the raid. Her son reports that after the raid, his mother was unable to sleep or eat, thoroughly rattled by what she called “Hitler tactics.”
The Marion County Record reported on her death:
“Stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after an illegal police raid on her home and the Marion County Record newspaper office Friday, 98-year-old newspaper owner Joan Meyer, otherwise in good health for her age, collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home.”
Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said the police raid is unprecedented in Kansas: “An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an…
