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Sam Brownback

Samuel Dale Brownback (born September 12, 1956) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as a United States senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011 and as the 46th governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, Brownback also served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom during the administration of President Donald Trump and was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2008.

Born in Garnett, Kansas, Brownback grew up on a family farm in Parker, Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in agricultural economics in 1978 and received a J.D. from the University of Kansas in 1982. He worked as an attorney in Manhattan, Kansas, before being appointed Secretary of Agriculture of Kansas in 1986 by Democratic Governor John W. Carlin. Brownback ran for Congress in 1994 and defeated Carlin in the general election in a landslide. He represented Kansas's 2nd congressional district for a single term before running in a 1996 special election for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Bob Dole. He won the election and was reelected by large margins in 1998 and 2004. Brownback ran for president in 2008, but withdrew before the primaries began and endorsed eventual Republican nominee John McCain.

Brownback declined to run for reelection in 2010, instead running for governor. He was elected governor of Kansas in 2010 and took office in January 2011. As governor, Brownback signed into law one of the largest income tax cuts in Kansas history, known as the Kansas experiment. The tax cuts caused state revenues to fall by hundreds of millions of dollars and created large budget shortfalls. A major budget deficit led to cuts in areas including education and transportation. In a repudiation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, in 2013 Brownback turned down a $31.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to set up a public health insurance exchange for Kansas. Also in 2013, he signed a bill that blocked tax breaks for abortion providers, banned sex-selection abortions, and declared that life begins at fertilization. In the run-up to the 2014 gubernatorial election, over 100 former and current Kansas Republican officials criticized Brownback's leadership and endorsed his Democratic opponent, Paul Davis. Despite this, Brownback was narrowly reelected. In June 2017, the Kansas Legislature repealed Brownback's tax cuts, overrode Brownback's veto of the repeal, and enacted tax increases. Brownback left office as one of the least popular governors in the country.

On July 26, 2017, the Trump administration announced that Brownback would be nominated as the new U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Brownback was confirmed in January 2018 in a party-line vote; Vice President Mike Pence cast the necessary tie-breaking votes to end a filibuster and to confirm his nomination. Brownback resigned as governor of Kansas effective January 31, 2018, and was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom on February 1, 2018. His ambassadorial tenure ended in January 2021.

Early life and education
Sam Brownback was born on September 12, 1956, in Garnett, Kansas, to Nancy (Cowden) and Glen Robert Brownback. He was raised in a farming family in Parker, Kansas. Some of Brownback's German-American ancestors settled in Kansas after leaving Pennsylvania following the Civil War. Throughout his youth, Brownback was involved with the FFA (formerly the Future Farmers of America), serving as president of his local and state FFA chapters, and as national FFA vice president from 1976 to 1977.

After graduating from Prairie View High School, Brownback attended Kansas State University, where was elected student body president and became a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho agricultural fraternity. After graduating from college in 1978 with a degree in Agricultural Economics in 1978, he spent about a year working as a radio broadcaster for the now-defunct KSAC farm department, hosting a weekly half-hour show. Brownback received his J.D. from the University of Kansas in 1982.

Early career
Brownback was an attorney in Manhattan, Kansas, before being appointed as Kansas Secretary of Agriculture by Governor John W. Carlin on September 18, 1986. In 1990, he was accepted into the White House Fellow program and detailed to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative from 1990 to 1991. Brownback returned to Kansas to resume his position as Secretary of Agriculture. He left his post on July 30, 1993. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 and ran in the 1996 special election for the U.S. Senate seat recently vacated by Bob Dole.

Elections
Sheila Frahm was appointed to fill the seat of U.S. Senator Bob Dole when Dole resigned in 1996 to campaign for president. Brownback defeated Frahm in the 1996 Republican primary and went on to win the general election against Democrat Jill Docking. In 2001, the Federal Election Commission assessed fines and penalties against Brownback's campaign committee and against his in-laws for improper 1996 campaign contributions. As a result of these improper contributions, the campaign was ordered to pay the government $19,000 and Brownback's in-laws, John and Ruth Stauffer, were ordered to pay a $9,000 civil penalty for improperly funneling contributions through Triad Management Services.

In 1998, Brownback was elected to a full six-year term, defeating Democrat Paul Feleciano. He won reelection in the 2004 Senate election with 69% of the vote, defeating Democratic former lobbyist Lee Jones.

Throughout his U.S. Senate career, his principal campaign donors were the Koch brothers of Wichita-based Koch Industries, who donated more to Brownback than to any other political candidate during this period.

Tenure
Brownback was a member of the Judiciary Committee, the Appropriations Committee (where he chaired the Subcommittee on District of Columbia when the Republicans were in the majority), the Joint Economic Committee, and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, which he at one time chaired. The Helsinki Commission monitors compliance with international agreements reached in cooperation with Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

In 2000, Brownback and Congressman Chris Smith led the effort to enact the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. President Clinton signed the legislation in October 2000. According to Christianity Today, the stronger enforcement increased the number of U.S. federal trafficking cases eightfold in the five years after enactment.

By August 12, 2007, in the 110th Session of Congress, Brownback had missed 123 votes due to campaigning (39.7 percent)–surpassed only by Tim Johnson (D) of South Dakota who due to a critical illness had missed 100% of the votes of the 110th Session, and John McCain (R) of Arizona with 149 votes missed due to campaigning (48.1 percent).

In 2006, Brownback blocked a confirmation vote on a George W. Bush federal appeals court nominee from Michigan, judge Janet T. Neff. He objected to her joining the bench solely because she attended a same-sex commitment ceremony in Massachusetts in 2002 that involved a next-door neighbor who was a close childhood friend of Neff's daughters. Brownback's action blocked confirmation votes on an entire slate of appointments that had been approved by a bipartisan group of senators. In July 2007, Brownback lifted the block that had prevented the vote, and the Senate confirmed Neff by an 83–4 vote. Brownback was joined in opposition by just three other conservatives, then-Senators Jim Bunning, Jon Kyl, and Mel Martinez.

In the mid-1990s, Brownback hired Paul Ryan as his chief legislative director. Ryan later became a member of Congress, vice-presidential candidate, and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

CREW complaints
In 2009, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed an ethics complaint over a fundraising letter signed by Brownback for a conservative Catholic group which they alleged violated Senate rules by mimicking official Senate letterhead. The letter had targeted five senators for being both Catholic and pro-choice: Maria Cantwell, John Kerry, Robert Menendez, Barbara Mikulski, and Patty Murray. A spokesman said Brownback had asked the group to stop sending the letter even before the complaint was filed.

In 2010, CREW lodged an ethics complaint claiming a possible violation of the Senate's gifts rule by four senators and four congressmembers. The congressmembers lived in a $1.8 million Washington, D.C. townhouse owned by C Street Center, Inc., which was in turn owned by Christian-advocacy group The Fellowship. CREW alleged that the property was being leased exclusively to congressional members, including Brownback, and that the tenants were paying rent that was below market value. Senator Tom Coburn's spokesman asserted that the rents charged were fair.

Committees

 * Committee on Appropriations
 * Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies (Ranking Member)
 * Subcommittee on Defense
 * Subcommittee on Homeland Security
 * Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies
 * Subcommittee on the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
 * Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
 * Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
 * Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
 * Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet
 * Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion
 * Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security
 * Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
 * Subcommittee on Energy
 * Subcommittee on National Parks
 * Subcommittee on Water and Power (Ranking Member)
 * Committee on Foreign Relations
 * Special Committee on Aging
 * Joint Economic Committee
 * Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

2008 presidential campaign
On December 4, 2006, Brownback formed an exploratory committee, the first step toward a presidential candidacy. In reporting on his potential candidacy, CNN and The Washington Post called Brownback a "favorite" of the religious right; Rolling Stone called him "God's senator" in 2006. His views placed him in the socially conservative wing of the Republican Party, and he stressed his fiscal conservatism as well. "I am an economic, a fiscal, a social and a compassionate conservative", he said in December 2006.

On January 20, 2007, in Topeka, Brownback announced that he was running for President in 2008. On February 22, 2007, a poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports held that three percent of likely primary voters would support Brownback. On August 11, 2007, Brownback finished third in the Ames Straw Poll with 15.3% of all votes cast. Fundraising and visits to his website declined dramatically after this event, as many supporters had predicted Brownback would do much better, and speculation began that the candidate was considering withdrawing from the campaign. This sentiment increased after his lackluster performance in the GOP presidential debate of September 5, broadcast from New Hampshire by Fox News Channel. He dropped out of the race on October 18, 2007, citing a lack of funds. Brownback formally announced his decision on October 19. He later endorsed John McCain for president.

2010 gubernatorial election
In 2008, Brownback acknowledged he was considering running for governor in 2010. In January 2009, Brownback officially filed the paperwork to run for governor.

His principal Senate-career campaign donors, the Koch brothers (and their Koch Industries), again backed Brownback's campaign.

Polling agency Rasmussen Reports found that Brownback led his then-likely Democratic opponent, Tom Holland, by 31 points in May 2010.

On June 1, 2010, Brownback named Kansas state Senator Jeff Colyer as his running mate.

On November 2, 2010, Brownback defeated Holland, winning 63% of the vote. He succeeded Governor Mark Parkinson, who was sworn in after former Governor Kathleen Sebelius resigned from her position and became U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in 2009.

2014 gubernatorial election
In October 2013, Kansas state representative Paul Davis, the Democratic minority leader of the Kansas House of Representatives, announced he would challenge Brownback in the 2014 Kansas gubernatorial election.

In July 2014, more than 100 current and former Kansas Republican officials (including former state party chairmen, Kansas Senate presidents, Kansas House speakers, and majority leaders) endorsed Democrat Davis over Republican Brownback, citing concern over Brownback's deep cuts in education and other government services, as well as the tax cuts that had left the state with a major deficit.

Tim Keck, chief of staff of Brownback's running mate, Lt. Governor Jeff Colyer, unearthed and publicized a 1998 police report showing that Davis, 26 and unmarried at the time, had been briefly detained during the raid of a strip club. Davis was found to have no involvement in the cause for the raid, and was quickly allowed to leave. Responding to criticism of Keck's involvement in the campaign, Brownback spokesman Paul Milburn commented that it was legal to use taxpayer-paid staff to campaign. Media law experts expressed amazement when they learned that the Montgomery County's sheriff released non-public investigative files from 1998 in response to a mere request. Brownback's campaign capitalized on the 16-year-old incident.

Brownback was reelected with a plurality, defeating Davis by a 3.69% margin (50%-46%).

Tenure
Brownback took office in January 2011, in the early years of national recovery from the Great Recession. Also in 2011, Republicans resumed control of the Kansas House of Representatives with their largest majority in half a century. Most Republicans in the Kansas Legislature were members of the Tea Party movement who shared Brownback's conservative views.

Two of Brownback's major stated goals were to reduce taxes and to increase spending on education.

By April 2012, Brownback had an approval rating of 34 percent according to a Survey USA Poll. A Republican polling company found his approval rating to be 51 percent in May 2012. In November 2015, Brownback had an approval rating of 26 percent according to a Morning Consult poll, the lowest among all governors in the United States. Three separate polls between November 2015 and September 2016 ranked Brownback as the nation's least-popular governor  —a September 2016 poll showing an approval rating of 23%. In the state elections of 2016—seen largely as a referendum on Brownback's policies and administration—Brownback's supporters in the legislature suffered major defeats. In 2017 after a protracted battle, the new Kansas Legislature overrode Brownback's vetoes, voting to repeal his tax cuts and enact tax increases.

Brownback, who had a 66% disapproval rating after the repeal of his signature law, left office in 2018 as one of the least popular governors in the country.

The Kansas City Star was named a finalist in the Public Service category for a 2018 Pulitzer Prize due to its series entitled "Why, so secret, Kansas?" The Star reported that Kansas's already-secretive state government had only grown worse under Brownback.

Legislative agenda
Brownback proposed fundamental tax reform to encourage investment and generate wealth while creating new jobs. Consistent with those objectives, he also proposed structural reforms to the state's largest budget items, school finance, Medicaid, and Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS), which have unfunded liabilities of $8.3 billion. Brownback sought to follow a "red state model", passing conservative social and economic policies.

Taxes
As governor, Brownback initiated what he called a "red-state experiment"—dramatic cuts in income tax rates intended to bring economic growth. In May 2012, Brownback signed into law one of the largest income tax cuts in Kansas' history —the nation's largest state income tax cut (in percentage) since the 1990s. Brownback described the tax cuts as a live experiment: [On] taxes, you need to get your overall rates down, and you need to get your social manipulation out of it, in my estimation, to create growth. We'll see how it works. We'll have a real live experiment.

The legislation was crafted with help from his Budget Director (former Koch brothers political consultant Steven Anderson);    the Koch-sponsored American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC); and Arthur Laffer, a popular supply-side economist and former economic adviser for President Ronald Reagan.

The law eliminated non-wage income taxes for the owners of 191,000 businesses, and cut individuals' income tax rates. The first phase of his cuts reduced the top Kansas income-tax rate from 6.45 percent down to 4.9 percent, and immediately eliminated income tax on business profits from partnerships and limited liability corporations passed through to individuals. The income tax cuts would provide US$231 million in tax reductions in its first year, growing to US$934 million after six years. A forecast from the Legislature's research staff indicated that a budget shortfall will emerge by 2014 and will grow to nearly US$2.5 billion by July 2018. The cuts were based on model legislation published by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

In a May 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled "A Midwest Renaissance Rooted in the Reagan Formula", Brownback compared his tax policies with those of Ronald Reagan. Brownback anticipated a "prosperous future" for Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri because they had enacted policies based on economic principles that Reagan laid out in 1964.

The act was criticized by law professor Martin B. Dickinson of Kansas University for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers, with the top income tax rate dropping by 25%. Under Brownback, Kansas also lowered the sales tax and eliminated a tax on small businesses. The tax cuts helped contribute to Moody's downgrading of the state's bond rating in 2014. They also contributed to the S&P Ratings' credit downgrade from AA+ to AA in August 2014 due to a budget that analysts described as structurally unbalanced. As of June 2014, the state had fallen far short of projected tax collections, receiving $369 million instead of the planned-for $651 million.

The tax cuts and their effect on the economy of Kansas received considerable criticism in the media. Critics of the tax cuts included Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, the editorial board of The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Bloomberg Businessweek. The New York Times described Brownback's policies as "too far to the right". Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform defended the tax cuts as a model for the nation.

In February 2017, a bi-partisan coalition presented a bill that would repeal most of Brownback's tax overhaul to make up for the budget shortfall. The Senate passed SB 30 (38–0, with 2 not voting) on February 2, 2017. The House passed SB 30 as amended (123–2) on February 22, 2017. The Conference Committee Report was adopted by both the House (69–52) and Senate (26–14) on June 5, 2017. On June 6, 2017, the bill was sent to Brownback for signature, but he vetoed the bill. Later in the day both the House and Senate voted to override the veto. Senate Bill 30 repealed most of the tax cuts which had taken effect in January 2013.

Brownback's tax overhaul was described in a June 2017 article in The Atlantic as the United States' "most aggressive experiment in conservative economic policy". The drastic tax cuts had "threatened the viability of schools and infrastructure" in Kansas.

The Brownback experiment didn't work. We saw that loud and clear. Heidi Holliday, executive director of the Kansas Center for Economic Growth 2017

Education
In April 2014, Brownback signed a controversial school finance bill that eliminated mandatory due process hearings, which were previously required to fire experienced teachers. According to the Kansas City Star: The bill also allows school districts to hire unlicensed teachers for science and math classes. And it creates a tax break for corporations that donate to private school scholarship funds. The resulting cuts in funding caused districts to shut down the school year early.

Economy
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, during the period from 2008 to 2018 (Brownback was governor from 2011 to 2018), Kansas averaged an annual GDP growth rate of 0.9% -- exactly half the national average. During that same period — when national employment increased and wages rose — job growth in Wichita (Kansas' largest city, and hometown of Brownback's principal funders, the Koch family) dropped 3.2%, and the city's average annual wages stagnated.

In 2015, the job growth rate in Kansas was 0.8 percent, among the lowest rate in America with only "10,900 total nonfarm jobs" added that year. Kansas had a $350 million budget shortfall in February 2017. In February 2017, S&P downgraded Kansas' credit rating to AA−.

Despite Kansas' major role in the aerospace,  telecommunications  and GPS technology industries, a 2019 report from the KC Tech Council reported that Kansas growth in tech jobs ranked next-to-last in the nation — losing 220 tech jobs between 2017 and 2018 (Brownback's final year as governor), according to the Computing Technology Industry Association — while over 40 other states grew tech employment. Despite slowing the rates of decline following the Great Recession, 59% of telecommunications jobs in the Kansas City telecommunications industry — and 600 jobs in Wichita's (aerospace-dominated ) manufacturing industry — were lost during the Brownback administration.

By the last year of the Brownback administration, 2018, Kansas had the second-highest farm-bankruptcy rate increase in the nation (after New York) — a decade-high rate for the state.

Health care
In August 2011, over the objections of Republican Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, Brownback announced he was declining a $31.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to set up an insurance exchange as part of the federal health care reform law. In May 2011, Brownback had directed the state's insurance commissioner to slow the implementation timeline for the exchange development. Upon announcing the refusal of the budgeted grant money for the state, his office stated: There is much uncertainty surrounding the ability of the federal government to meet its already budgeted future spending obligations. Every state should be preparing for fewer federal resources, not more. To deal with that reality Kansas needs to maintain maximum flexibility. That requires freeing Kansas from the strings attached to the Early Innovator Grant. The move was unanimously supported by the delegates of the state party central committee at its August 2011 meeting, but a New York Times editorial criticized Brownback for turning down the grant which could have helped ease the state's own budget: Instead of letting Kansas design its own model program for an online computer exchange to help people choose among health insurance providers, Mr. Brownback's rebuff increases the likelihood that the state must design one at its own expense or see federal officials create an exchange, as required under the new law.

Brownback also signed into law the Health Care Freedom Act, based on model legislation published by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Abortion
Brownback signed three anti-abortion bills in 2011. In April 2011, he signed a bill banning abortion after 21 weeks, and a bill requiring that a doctor get a parent's notarized signature before providing an abortion to a minor. In May 2011, Brownback approved a bill prohibiting insurance companies from offering abortion coverage as part of general health plans unless the procedure is necessary to save a woman's life. The law also prohibits any health-insurance exchange in Kansas established under the federal Affordable Care Act from offering coverage for abortions other than to save a woman's life.

A Kansas budget passed with Brownback's approval in 2011 blocked Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri from receiving family planning funds from the state. The funding amounted to about $330,000 a year. A judge has blocked the budget provision, ordered Kansas to begin funding the organization again, and agreed with Planned Parenthood that it was being unfairly targeted. In response, the state filed an appeal seeking to overturn the judge's decision. Brownback has defended anti-abortion laws in Kansas, including the Planned Parenthood defunding. "You can't know for sure what all comes out of that afterwards, but it was the will of the Legislature and the people of the state of Kansas", Brownback said.

In May 2012, Brownback signed the Health Care Rights of Conscience Act, which "will allow pharmacists to refuse to provide drugs they believe might cause an abortion".

In April 2013, Brownback signed a bill that blocked tax breaks for abortion providers, banned sex-selection abortions and declared that life begins at fertilization. The law notes that any rights conferred by it are subject to limits set forth in applicable U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

On April 7, 2015, Brownback signed The Unborn Child Protection From Dismemberment Abortion Act, which bans the most common technique used for second-trimester abortions. Kansas became the first state to ban the procedure.

Prayer rally
Brownback attended Texas Governor Rick Perry's prayer event in August 2011. Aside from Gov. Perry himself, Brownback was the only U.S. governor who attended. About 22,000 people attended the rally, and Brownback and Perry were the only elected officials to speak. Brownback's participation in the rally resulted in some controversy, and editorials published in The Winfield Daily Courier and The Kansas City Star expressed disappointment.

Nomination and confirmation
In March 2017, it was reported that Brownback was being considered by President Donald Trump to be appointed either as his U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. for Food and Agriculture in Rome, or as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom in Washington, DC. On July 26, 2017, the White House issued a statement that Brownback would be nominated as the new U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. As a senator in 1998, Brownback sponsored the legislation that first created the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Due to his positions and actions on Islam and LGBT issues, Brownback's nomination was criticized by figures such as Rabbi Moti Rieber, the executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, Robert McCaw, director of government affairs for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), as well as the American Civil Liberties Union.

As of the end of the 2017 session, Brownback's Ambassadorial nomination had not come up for a confirmation vote. As it failed to receive unanimous support for it to carry over to 2018 for approval, it required renomination to come to a vote. He was renominated on January 8, 2018.

On January 24, 2018, the Senate voted along party lines, 49–49, with two Republicans absent, to advance his nomination to the floor, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tie-breaking vote to end the Democrats' filibuster. With the Senate again locked at 49–49 later that day, Pence again cast the tie-breaking vote, confirming the nomination. On January 25, Brownback submitted his resignation as governor. Brownback's resignation was effective January 31, 2018, on which date Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer was sworn in as governor.

Tenure
Brownback was sworn in on February 1, 2018. He became the first Catholic to serve in the role.

In July 2018, Brownback reportedly lobbied the UK government over the treatment of far-right British activist Tommy Robinson. Arizona Republican Representative Paul Gosar and five other congressmen invited Robinson to speak to United States Congress on November 14, 2018, on a trip sponsored by the U.S.-based, Middle East Forum. He was expected to get visa approval by the State Department despite his criminal convictions and use of fraudulent passports to enter and depart the U.S.

Brownback's tenure as ambassador ended on January 20, 2021.

Issues
Brownback promoted religious freedom as a means of promoting individual and economic flourishing and reducing terrorism and other types of religion-related violence.

Brownback repeatedly condemned China's record on religious freedom, saying, "China is at war with faith. It is a war they will not win". He highlighted the persecution of China's Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners, and Chinese Christians. In remarks made at the United Nations, Brownback strongly condemned the Xinjiang re-education camps where more than one million Uighur Muslims are reported to have been detained.

In his first trip as Ambassador, Brownback traveled to Bangladesh to meet with Rohingya refugees from Myanmar at the Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Brownback stated that the accounts of violence he heard were as bad as anything he had ever seen, including in his visits to Darfur, Sudan in 2004. Following the trip, the State Department highlighted Myanmar's intensification of violence against its ethnic minorities. In the 2017 International Religious Freedom Report, the State Department described the violence against the Rohingya that forced an estimated 688,000 people to flee Myanmar as "ethnic cleansing."

At the 2020 Ministerial to Advance Freedom of Religion or Belief in Poland, Brownback spoke about COVID-19's effect on freedom of religion.

Abortion
Brownback opposes abortion. He was personally anti-abortion though politically pro-choice during his early career. In 2007, Brownback said that he saw abortion "as the lead moral issue of our day, just like slavery was the lead moral issue 150 years ago." On May 3, 2007, when asked his opinion of repealing Roe v. Wade, Brownback said, "It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom."

In 2007, Brownback said he "could support a pro-choice nominee" to the presidency because "this is a big coalition party."

Arts
In May 2011, Brownback eliminated by executive order and then vetoed government funding for the Kansas Arts Commission in response to state defiance of his executive order, making Kansas the first state to de-fund its arts commission. The National Endowment for the Arts informed Kansas that without a viable state arts agency, it would not receive a planned $700,000 federal grant. Brownback has said he believes private donations should fund arts and culture in the state. He created the Kansas Arts Foundation, an organization dedicated to private fundraising to make up the gap created by state budget cuts.

Capital punishment
Brownback said in an interview: "I am not a supporter of a death penalty, other than in cases where we cannot protect the society and have other lives at stake." In a speech on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he questioned the current use of the death penalty as potentially incongruent with the notion of a "culture of life", and suggested it be employed in a more limited fashion.

Darfur
Brownback visited refugee camps in Sudan in 2004 and returned to write a resolution labeling the Darfur conflict as genocide, and has been active on attempting to increase U.S. efforts to resolve the situation short of military intervention. He is an endorser of the Genocide Intervention Network, which called him a "champion of Darfur" in its Darfur scorecard, primarily for his early advocacy of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act.

Economic issues
As governor he urged a flattening of the income tax to spur economic growth in Kansas. In December 2005, Brownback advocated using Washington, DC, as a laboratory for a flat tax.

Evolution
Brownback has stated that he is a devout believer in a higher power and rejects macroevolution as an exclusive explanation for the development over time of new species from older ones. Brownback favors giving teachers the freedom to use intelligent design to critique evolutionary theory as part of the Teach the Controversy approach:

"There's intelligence involved in the overall of creation ... I don't think we're really at the point of teaching this in the classroom. I think what we passed in the U.S. Senate in 2002 the Santorum Amendment is really what we should be doing, and that is that you teach the controversy, you teach what is fact is fact, and what is theory is theory, and you move from that proceedings, rather than from teaching some sort of different thought. And this, I really think that's the area we should concentrate on at the present time, is teaching the controversy."

Brownback spoke out against the denial of tenure at Iowa State University to astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, a proponent of intelligent design, saying "such an assault on academic freedom does not bode well for the advancement of true science."

Health care
Brownback opposes government-funded elective abortions in accordance with the Hyde Amendment. He has been a strong supporter of legislation to establish a national childhood cancer database and an increase in funding for autism research. Brownback supports negotiating bulk discounts on Medicare drug benefits to reduce prices. In 2007, Senators Brownback and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) sponsored an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007. The amendment created a prize as an incentive for companies to invest in new drugs and vaccines for neglected tropical diseases. It awards a transferable "Priority Review Voucher" to any company that obtains approval for a treatment for a neglected tropical disease. The prize was initially proposed by Duke University faculty Henry Grabowski, Jeffrey Moe, and David Ridley in their 2006 Health Affairs paper: "Developing Drugs for Developing Countries."

Brownback has supported a bill that would introduce price transparency to the U.S. health care industry, as well as a bill which would require the disclosure of Medicare payment rate information.

On December 16, 2006, Brownback gave an interview to the Christian Post, stating: "We can get to this goal of eliminating deaths by cancer in ten years."

Senate record
Brownback had a Senate voting record that has tended to support higher legal immigration levels and strong refugee protection. Brownback was cosponsor of a 2005 bill of Ted Kennedy and John McCain's which would have created a legal path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already present. On June 26, 2007, Brownback voted in favor of S. 1639, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. Brownback supports increasing numbers of legal immigrants, building a fence on Mexican border, and the reform bill "if enforced." While he initially supported giving guest workers a path to citizenship, Brownback eventually voted "Nay" on June 28, 2007. Brownback has said that he supports immigration reform because the Bible says to welcome the stranger.

Record as governor
On April 25, 2016, Brownback issued executive orders barring state agencies from facilitating refugee resettlement from Syria and other majority-Muslim countries, in concert with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). He maintained they presented security risks, and his decision entirely removed Kansas from the program. The ORR served notice that it would instead work directly with local refugee resettlement organizations. Kansas was the first state to withdraw from the federal refugee resettlement program.

As a result of Brownback's action, Kansas lost about $2.2 million annually that had been provided to support resettlement agencies. The state had been working with three such agencies, among them Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, in making appropriate placements. In the seven months preceding his order, 354 refugees were resettled in Kansas, with 13 Syrians placed in the Wichita or Kansas City areas in the previous 16 months. Representative Jim Ward from Wichita called Brownback's announcement "a distraction", intended solely for political purposes, as Kansas faced a $290 million budget deficit.

Iraq
Brownback supported a political surge coupled with the military surge of 2007 in Iraq and opposed the Democratic Party's strategy of timed withdrawal:

"It does mean that there must be bipartisan agreement for our military commitment on Iraq. We cannot fight a war with the support of only one political party. And it does mean that the parties in Iraq – Sunni, Shi'a and Kurds – must get to a political agreement, to a political equilibrium. I think most people agree that a cut and run strategy does not serve our interest at all, nor those of the world, nor those of the region, nor those of the Iraqi people. So I invite my colleagues, all around, particularly on the other side of the aisle, to indicate what level of commitment they can support."

In May 2007, Brownback stated: "We have not lost war; we can win by pulling together". He voted Yes on authorizing use of military force against Iraq, voted No on requiring on-budget funding for Iraq, not emergency funding and voted No on redeploying troops out of Iraq by July 2007. He has also condemned anti-Muslim bigotry in name of anti-terrorism.

On June 7, 2007, Brownback voted against the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 when that bill came up for a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Brownback sits. (The bill was passed out of the committee by a vote of 11 to 8.) The bill aims to restore habeas corpus rights revoked by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Israel and the Palestinian Territories
In October 2007, Brownback announced his support for a plan designed by Benny Elon, then-chairman of Israel's far-right-wing National Union/National Religious Party (NU/NRP) alliance. Elon's positions included dismantling the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas and rejecting a two-state solution. The plan calls for the complete annexation of the West Bank by Israel, and the deportation of its massive majority Arab population to a new Palestinian state to be created within present-day Jordan, against that latter country's historic opposition.

LGBT issues
In 1996, as a member of the House of Representatives, Brownback voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage for purposes of federal law as the union between a man and a woman. Brownback has stated that he believes homosexuality to be immoral as a violation of both Catholic doctrine and natural law. He has voted against gay rights, receiving zeros in four of the last five scorecards as a U.S. senator from the Human Rights Campaign. He opposes both same-sex marriage and same-sex civil unions. He opposes adding sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crime laws. He has declined to state a position on homosexual adoption, although a candidate for chair of the Kansas Republican Party claims he was blackballed by political operatives affiliated with Brownback for not opposing homosexual adoption. Brownback supported "don't ask, don't tell," the U.S. government's ban on openly homosexual people in the military. Brownback has associated with organizations such as the Family Research Council and American Family Association.

In 2003, Brownback worked with Alliance for Marriage and Traditional Values Coalition to introduce a Senate bill containing the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would federally prohibit same-sex marriage in the United States. The bill was a response to Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts state court decision finding that same-sex couples had the right to marry in Massachusetts. In reaction to the Goodridge decision, Brownback stated that same-sex marriage threatened the health of American families and culture.

In 2006, Brownback blocked the confirmation of federal judicial nominee Janet T. Neff because she had attended a same-sex commitment ceremony. At first, he agreed to lift the block only if Neff would recuse herself from all cases involving same-sex unions. Brownback later dropped his opposition. Neff was nominated to the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan by President George W. Bush on March 19, 2007, to a seat vacated David McKeague and was confirmed by a vote of 83-4 by the Senate on July 9, 2007. She received her commission on August 6, 2007.

In April 2011, Brownback began work on a Kansas government program to promote marriage, in part through grants to faith-based and secular social service organizations. In June 2011, the administration revised contract expectations for social work organizations to promote married mother-father families. It explained the change as benefiting children.

In January 2012, Brownback did not include Kansas's sodomy law in a list of unenforced and outdated laws that the legislature should repeal. Gay rights advocates had asked his administration to recommend its repeal because the law has been unenforceable since the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003.

In February 2012, the Brownback administration supported a religious freedom bill that would have stopped cities, school districts, universities, and executive agencies from having nondiscrimination laws or policies that covered sexual orientation or gender identity.

In 2013, after oral arguments in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court case striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, Brownback publicly reaffirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage.

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court denied petitions to review several federal appellate decisions overturning state bans on same-sex marriage. The court's actions favored repeal of Kansas's ban on same-sex marriage because two of the appeals (Kitchen v. Herbert and Bishop v. Oklahoma) originated in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which includes Kansas. In response, Brownback defended Kansas's same-sex marriage ban as being supported by a majority of Kansas voters and criticized "activist judges" for "overruling" the people of Kansas.

On February 10, 2015, Brownback issued an executive order rescinding protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender state workers that was put into place by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius eight years previously. The ACLU generally characterized his actions as being "religious freedom to discriminate."

Stem cell research
Brownback supports adult stem cell research and cord blood stem cells. Brownback appeared with three children adopted from in vitro fertilization clinics to coincide with a Senate debate over the Cord Blood Stem Cell Act of 2005 to show his support for the bill and adult stem cell research.

Other issues
On June 15, 2006, President George W. Bush signed into law the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005 sponsored by Brownback, a former broadcaster himself. The new law stiffened the penalties for each violation of the Act. The Federal Communications Commission will be able to impose fines in the amount of $325,000 for each violation by each station that violates decency standards. The legislation raised the fine by tenfold.

On September 3, 1997, Meredith O'Rourke, an employee of Kansas firm Triad Management Services, was deposed by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs regarding her activities and observations while providing services for the company relative to fund raising and advertising for Brownback. The deposition claims that Triad circumvented existing campaign finance laws by channeling donations through Triad, and also bypassed the campaign law with Triad running 'issue ads' during Brownback's first campaign for the Senate.

Brownback has said he does not believe there is an inherent right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution. He has, however, expressed disapproval of George W. Bush's assertions on the legality of the NSA wiretapping program.

Brownback introduced into the Senate a resolution (Senate Joint Resolution 4) calling for the United States to apologize for past mistreatment of Native Americans.

Brownback was responsible for introducing the Senate's version of a bill that would successfully establish the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Brownback has advocated for closer relations between the United States and Armenia, citing the need to defend the country from aggression by Azerbaijan. In a 2023 Washington Times opinion piece, the former ambassador called for Israel to also support Armenia due to the two nations' shared backgrounds as Judeo-Christian nations populated by ethnic groups that have been the victims of genocides despite geopolitical tensions. On April 24, 2024, Brownback called for sanctions against Azerbaijan and that the United States "can’t let a repeat of 1915 happen again on our watch" at an Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day rally in front of the White House.

Relationship with Koch family
Throughout his Senate career, Brownback's principal campaign donors were the politically influential libertarian Koch brothers of Kansas, and their enterprises, including Kansas-based Koch Industries—and Brownback was one of the candidates most-heavily funded by the Kochs' campaign donations. Over the course of his political career, they donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.

Brownback's signature tax and regulatory policies coincide tightly with the Kochs' position on those issues. It was crafted with the assistance of the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Brownback's first Budget Director, Steve Anderson. Anderson was a former Koch employee who previously worked at the Kochs' principal political organization, the libertarian think-tank Americans for Prosperity (AFP), developing a "model budget" for Kansas, until his appointment as Brownback's first budget director. Anderson remained Brownback's budget director for three years, before returning to a Koch-linked think tank, the Kansas Policy Institute.

Brownback also hired the wife of a Koch-enterprise executive as his spokesperson.

Brownback, however, has denied that the Kochs have an undue influence in Kansas government, and analysts have noted key differences between Brownback and the Kochs in two of Brownback's main gubernatorial policy areas:
 * social issues: (on abortion, Brownback is pro-life, the Kochs pro-choice; Brownback opposes various LGBT rights, the libertarian Kochs accept them); and
 * renewable energy standards for Kansas, which promote renewable energy (supported by Brownback; opposed by the Kochs, whose chief business is the fossil-fuel industry).

Personal life
Brownback is married to the former Mary Stauffer, whose family owned and operated Stauffer Communications until its sale in 1995. They have five children: Abby, Andy, Elizabeth, Mark, and Jenna. Two of their children are adopted. A former evangelical Christian, Brownback converted to Catholicism in 2002 and is associated with the conservative denominational organization, Opus Dei. In 2017, Brownback stated that he sometimes attends an evangelical church with his family.

U.S. House of Representatives
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em; font-size:95%;" !|Year ! !|Democratic !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Republican !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Overall turnout
 * + Results, 1994 Kansas's 2nd congressional district elections:
 * 1994
 * |John W. Carlin
 * align="right" |71,025
 * |34.4%
 * |Sam Brownback
 * align="right" |135,725
 * |65.6%
 * style="text-align:right;"|206,750
 * align="right" |135,725
 * |65.6%
 * style="text-align:right;"|206,750
 * style="text-align:right;"|206,750

U.S. Senator
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em; font-size:95%;" !|Year ! !|Incumbent !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Challenger !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Challenger !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Overall turnout
 * +1996 United States Senate special election in Kansas: Republican primary results
 * 1996
 * |Sheila Frahm (incumbent)
 * align="right" |142,487
 * |41.6%
 * |Sam Brownback
 * align="right" |187,914
 * |54.8%
 * |Christina Campbell-Cline
 * align="right" |12,378
 * |3.6%
 * style="text-align:right;"|342,779
 * |Christina Campbell-Cline
 * align="right" |12,378
 * |3.6%
 * style="text-align:right;"|342,779
 * style="text-align:right;"|342,779

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em; font-size:95%;" !|Year ! !|Democratic !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Republican !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Reform !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Overall turnout
 * +1996 United States Senate special election in Kansas: general election results
 * 1996
 * |Jill Docking
 * align="right" |461,344
 * |43.3%
 * |Sam Brownback
 * align="right" |574,021
 * |53.9%
 * |Donald R. Klaassen
 * align="right" |29,351
 * |2.8%
 * style="text-align:right;"|1,064,716
 * |Donald R. Klaassen
 * align="right" |29,351
 * |2.8%
 * style="text-align:right;"|1,064,716
 * style="text-align:right;"|1,064,716

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em; font-size:95%;" !|Year ! !|Democratic !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Republican !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Libertarian !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Reform !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Overall turnout
 * + U.S. Senate elections in Kansas (Class III): results 1998–2004
 * 1998
 * |Paul Feleciano
 * align="right" |229,718
 * |31.6%
 * |Sam Brownback (incumbent)
 * align="right" |474,639
 * |65.3%
 * |Tom Oyler
 * align="right" |11,545
 * align="right" |1.6%
 * |Alvin Bauman
 * align="right" |11,334
 * align="right" |1.6%
 * style="text-align:right;"|727,236
 * 2004
 * |Lee Jones
 * align="right" |310,337
 * |27.5%
 * |Sam Brownback (incumbent)
 * align="right" |780,863
 * |69.2%
 * |Steven A. Rosile
 * align="right" |21,842
 * align="right" |1.9%
 * |George Cook
 * align="right" |15,980
 * align="right" |1.4%
 * style="text-align:right;"|1,129,022
 * align="right" |780,863
 * |69.2%
 * |Steven A. Rosile
 * align="right" |21,842
 * align="right" |1.9%
 * |George Cook
 * align="right" |15,980
 * align="right" |1.4%
 * style="text-align:right;"|1,129,022
 * align="right" |1.4%
 * style="text-align:right;"|1,129,022
 * style="text-align:right;"|1,129,022

title: Sam Brownback


text:
Dean DeLeo

Dean DeLeo (born August 23, 1961) is an American guitarist known for his work with rock band Stone Temple Pilots. DeLeo is also known for his role in the short-lived bands Talk Show and Army of Anyone. He is the older brother of Robert DeLeo, who plays bass for Stone Temple Pilots.

Early life
DeLeo and his younger brother Robert were both born in Montclair, New Jersey, and raised in the Jersey Shore community of Point Pleasant Beach. They are the younger half-brothers of late actor Scott Marlowe.

Stone Temple Pilots (1985–2003, 2008–present)
Dean's younger brother Robert met future vocalist Scott Weiland at a Black Flag concert. Robert soon after introduced Dean to Scott and an idea of forming a band was brought up. Dean was a guitarist and Robert managed to convince him to join. They eventually hooked up with drummer Eric Kretz, and the band was formed. They took the name Mighty Joe Young, inspired by the movie of the same name. They played gigs in many bars around San Diego and the Hollywood area, and eventually landed a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1992. However, they were forced to change their name, as the name "Mighty Joe Young" had already been taken by a blues musician. Weiland decided on the name "Stone Temple Pilots"; although he stated that it has no real meaning, he just liked the initials "STP".

The band quickly rose to fame with the release of their debut album Core, which sold over 8 million copies. The record sales were propelled by the release of the singles "Sex Type Thing" and "Plush", and helped establish Stone Temple Pilots as one of the many popular grunge bands in the early 1990s. However, they were ripped by critics for jumping on the bandwagon and profiting from the grunge mania. With their second album Purple, they challenged critics and became a genuine commercial rock act. Stone Temple Pilots released a total of five studio albums and managed to sell over 30 million records worldwide. In 2008, after over five years apart, the band reunited. On May 25, 2010, the band released their sixth album, Stone Temple Pilots, the first album released after the band reunited.

Talk Show, Army of Anyone and other work (1997–present)
The DeLeos and Eric Kretz formed a new band, Talk Show, which released one album. DeLeo worked with Laughter Train in the late 1990s. Stone Temple Pilots soon released two more albums, and disbanded once again in 2002. Weiland became the lead singer of Velvet Revolver, Kretz opened a studio in California, and the DeLeo brothers began to work with Richard Patrick, lead singer of the band Filter to compose songs for Filter's fourth album. The end result was a song that the three liked, so they contacted Ray Luzier, a famed session drummer, and Army of Anyone was formed. The band's debut was released on November 14, 2006, and they broke up in May 2007.

In 2021, he teamed up with Tom Bukovac for a new project, Trip The Witch. Debut single "Saturn We Miss You" features Jon Anderson on vocals.

Production work
DeLeo and his younger brother Robert produced Stone Temple Pilots' 2010 album, Stone Temple Pilots. The DeLeo brothers also produced the album TruANT by Alien Ant Farm.

Equipment and style
DeLeo owns numerous guitars, and he is an avid collector of vintage guitars. Some of his more notable guitars include:
 * Three 1978 Les Paul Standards
 * 1960's Fender Telecaster
 * A Sunburst Telecaster
 * A PRS hollowbody electric by PRS Guitars
 * A Gibson J-45
 * '57 Les Paul Special with P-90's in TV Yellow
 * Gibson J-100 XT

DeLeo's live equipment has been described as "simple yet effective", and allows him to replicate the sounds he gets in studios. He primarily uses a modified Dunlop Cry Baby and a BOSS CE-1 stereo chorus pedal. DeLeo's main live rack is composed of a Demeter TGP-3 Tube Preamp, a Rocktron Intelliverb multieffects processor, a Scholtz/Rockman MIDI Octopus and a VHT 2150 Tube Poweramp. DeLeo's uses his BOSS CE-1 to split his guitar signal and sends it to both his main rack and a Vox AC30 combo amp. For a number of years his rig was switched via a Rockman midi pedal, has since been replaced by a RJM Mastermind midi pedal. DeLeo has been famous for using Rocktron's eight voice chorus as an essential part of both his live and studio tone.

DeLeo also uses an S.I.B. Varidrive pedal for overdrive and distortion.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Dean DeLeo


text:
Saudi

Saudi or Saudi Arabian may refer to:

 * Saudi Arabia
 * Saudis, people from Saudi Arabia
 * Saudi culture, the culture of Saudi Arabia
 * House of Saud, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia

title: Saudi


text:
Pakistani (disambiguation)

Pakistanis are the nationals and citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Pakistani may also refer to:

 * as an adjective, something of, from or related to Pakistan
 * Pakistani language

title: Pakistani (disambiguation)


text:
Peter Lawford

Peter Sydney Ernest Lawford ( Aylen; 7 September 1923 – 24 December 1984) was an English-American actor.

He was a member of the "Rat Pack" and the brother-in-law of US president John F. Kennedy and senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy. From the 1940s to the 1960s, he was a well-known celebrity and starred in a number of highly acclaimed films. In later years, he was noted more for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting; it was said that he was "famous for being famous".

Early life
Born in London in 1923, Lawford was the only child of Lieutenant General Sir Sydney Turing Barlow Lawford, KBE (1865–1953) and May Sommerville Bunny (1883–1972). At the time of his birth, his mother was married to Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Ernest Vaughn Aylen DSO, one of Sir Sydney's officers, while his father was married to Muriel Williams. At the time, May and Ernest Aylen were living apart. May confessed to Aylen that the child was not his, a revelation that resulted in a double divorce. Sydney and May wed in September 1924 after their divorces were finalised and when their son was one year old.

Lawford's family was connected to the British aristocracy through his uncle Ernest Lawford's wife (a daughter of the Scottish 14th Earl of Eglinton) as well as his aunt Ethel Turner Lawford (who married a son of the 1st Baron Avebury). His aunt, Jessie Bruce Lawford, another of his father's sisters, was the second wife of the Hon Hartley Williams, senior puisne judge of the Supreme Court of the colony of Victoria, Australia. A relative, through his mother, was Australian artist Rupert Bunny.

Early childhood
He spent his early childhood in France and, owing to his family's travels, was never formally educated. Instead, he was schooled by governesses and tutors, and his education included tennis and ballet lessons.

"In the beginning," his mother observed, "he had no homework. When he was older he had Spanish, German and music added to his studies. He read only selected books: English fairy stories, English and French classics; no crime stories. Having studied Peter for so long, I decided he was quite unfitted for any career except art, so I cut Latin, Algebra, high mathematics and substituted dramatics instead."

Because of the widely varying national and religious backgrounds of his tutors, Lawford "attended various services in churches, cathedrals, synagogues and for some time was an usher in a Christian Science Sunday School...."

Around 1930, aged seven, he made his acting debut in the English film Poor Old Bill. He also had an uncredited bit in A Gentleman of Paris (1931).

Accident
At the age of 14, Lawford severely injured his right arm in an accident when it went through a glass door. Irreversible nerve damage severely compromised the use of his forearm and hand, which he later learned to conceal. The injury resulted in his being unable to follow a military career as his parents had hoped. Instead, Lawford pursued a career as an actor, a decision that resulted in one of his aunts refusing to leave him her considerable fortune, as she had originally planned.

Early career
In 1938, Lawford was travelling through Hollywood when he was spotted by a talent scout. He was screen tested and made his Hollywood debut in a minor part in the film Lord Jeff starring Freddie Bartholomew.

The outbreak of World War II found the Lawfords in Florida. In a matter of days, they realised that they had been stranded. Their money was in Britain and Britain was at war. Their assets were frozen. Peter, then 16, took a job parking cars. When he saved enough money for the fare, he went back to Hollywood where he supported himself working as a theatre usher until he began to get film work.

Extra work and bit parts
The advent of World War II saw an increase in British war stories and Lawford found himself in demand playing military personnel, albeit usually in uncredited parts. He is briefly seen in Mrs. Miniver (1942) and, both times as pilots.

His first decent role in a major film production was in A Yank at Eton (1942), starring Mickey Rooney, in which Lawford played a snobbish bully. It was very popular at the box office.

Lawford was a cadet in Thunder Birds: Soldiers of the Air (1942) and Junior Army (1942) (starring Bartholomew), a soldier in, , and London Blackout Murders (1943) (directed by George Sherman), and a navigator in Assignment in Brittany (1943). He had a billed part in The Purple V (1943).

At MGM he was a student in, a soldier in Pilot #5 (1943), a naval commander in (with Fred Astaire), and an Australian in The Man from Down Under (1943). He had a minor role at Republic's Someone to Remember (1943) and The West Side Kid (1943), the latter directed by Sherman.

Lawford played a soldier in Sahara (1943) and sailors in Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) and Corvette K-225 (1943). He was a Frenchman in Paris After Dark (1943) and Flesh and Fantasy (1943), and was a student in MGM's and.

MGM
Lawford's career stepped up a notch when he was signed to a long-term contract to MGM in June 1943. The studio signed him with a specific role in mind:, in which he played a young soldier during the Second World War.

Lawford had a small role in and Mrs. Parkington (1944), playing a suitor of Greer Garson.

MGM gave him another important role in.

Leading man
Lawford's first leading role came in Son of Lassie (1945), a big hit.

Lawford was put in a Kathryn Grayson-June Allyson musical, Two Sisters from Boston  (1946) which was very popular. Ernst Lubitsch used him at Fox in Cluny Brown (1946) where he was billed after Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones.

He won a Modern Screen magazine readers' poll as the most popular actor in Hollywood of 1946. His fan mail jumped to thousands of letters a week. With actors such as Clark Gable and James Stewart away at war, Lawford was recognised as a new romantic lead on the MGM lot.

Lawford made My Brother Talks to Horses (1947) with Jackie Butch Jenkins, an early work of Fred Zinnemann which was a big flop. He was reunited with Grayson in It Happened in Brooklyn  (1947), which also starred Frank Sinatra. Lawford received rave reviews for his work in the film, while Sinatra's were lukewarm.

Lawford later admitted that the most terrifying experience of his career was the first musical number he performed in the musical, the film he starred in alongside Allyson. He was lauded for the role in which he used an American accent.

He was Esther Williams' leading man in On an Island with You (1948) and supported Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in, a huge hit, and Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon in Julia Misbehaves (1948), also popular.

He played Laurie in MGM's version of alongside Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor. He was billed beneath Pidgeon and Ethel Barrymore in the anti-Communist The Red Danube (1949) and was one of Deborah Kerr's leading men in Please Believe Me (1950).

He was Jane Powell's love interest in with Fred Astaire and co-starred with Janet Leigh in, both popular.

20th Century Fox borrowed him for, a melodrama shot in Australia with Maureen O'Hara.

Back at MGM he was top billed in some lower budgeted films: You for Me (1953), a comedy, The Hour of 13 (1953), a thriller, and, a war film. The studio then let him go.

Lawford's first film after Metro released him and several other players from their contracts was the comedy It Should Happen to You (1954), wherein he starred alongside Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon.

Television
He focused on television, guest starring on shows like General Electric Theater, Schlitz Playhouse, and The Ford Television Theatre.

In 1954, Lawford married Patricia Kennedy, sister of Senator John F. Kennedy. Lawford would become an enthusiastic fundraiser for the Senator.

Lawford had a regular role on a TV sitcom, Dear Phoebe (1954–55) but the show only ran 32 episodes.

When it ended he resumed guest starring on shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre, Screen Directors Playhouse , Schlitz Playhouse again, Playhouse 90, Producers' Showcase (a version of Ruggles of Red Gap), several episodes of Studio 57, Climax! and Goodyear Theatre.

Lawford had another starring role on a TV series, The Thin Man (1957–59) with Phyllis Kirk, an NBC series from MGM based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. It was more successful, running for 72 episodes.

Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack
In 1959, Sinatra invited Lawford to join the "Rat Pack" and also got him a role in Never So Few (1959).

Peter Lawford and Sinatra appeared in Oceans 11 (1960). Lawford had been first told of the basic story of the film by director Gilbert Kay, who heard the idea from a gas station attendant. Lawford eventually bought the rights in 1958, imagining William Holden in the lead. Sinatra became interested in the idea, and a variety of writers worked on the project.

Lawford played a British soldier in the acclaimed Israeli-set drama for Otto Preminger and had a cameo in. In 1960, he became a U.S. citizen and assisted on his brother-in-law's successful presidential election.

He did a TV remake of The Farmer's Daughter (1962) with Lee Remick and was reunited with the Rat Pack in Sergeants 3 (1962).

Lawford played a Senator in Advise & Consent (1962) for Preminger and was Lord Lovat in, a war film with a star-studded cast.

Producer
In 1961, Lawford and his manager Milt Ebbins formed Chrislaw Productions, which was named after Peter's son Christopher. It signed a three-year deal with United Artists to make three features and two TV series for $10 million. William Asher was to be executive producer. Their first project was to be a remake of the old silent film . Half a million dollars instead went toward the 1963 action film Johnny Cool starring Henry Silva and Elizabeth Montgomery.

Lawford was Bette Davis's leading man in and guest starred on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Profiles in Courage (as General Alexander William Doniphan), Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre and Run for Your Life.

He went on to produce the Patty Duke film and had supporting roles in two Carroll Baker movies, playing her fiancé both times:  and Harlow (1965).

By this time, Lawford had fallen out with Sinatra — who replaced him in Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) with Bing Crosby — but Sammy Davis Jr. remained loyal and got Lawford a supporting role in. He played a washed-up film star in. He and Patricia Kennedy divorced in 1966.

He guest-starred on shows like The Wild Wild West and I Spy and was in.

Lawford went to Europe to star in and The Fourth Wall (1968). He was a popular guest star on TV comedy and game shows.

He produced a film starring himself and Davis,, and had support roles in for Preminger, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968),  with Jerry Lewis, and The April Fools (1969).

Salt and Pepper was popular enough for Lawford to raise money for a sequel, directed by Lewis. He supported George Hamilton in and guest-starred several times on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. In 1971, he married Rowan's daughter Mary.

Later career
Lawford's later films included A Step Out of Line (1971), Clay Pigeon (1971), and The Deadly Hunt (1971). He had the lead role in Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You and guest starred on Bewitched. In 1971 he appeared as Ben Hunter on The Men From Shiloh (rebranded name for The Virginian) in the episode titled "The Town Killer." He had a semi recurring role in The Doris Day Show (1971–72) and even directed an episode.

He returned to MGM for They Only Kill Their Masters (1972), which reunited him with former MGM contract players June Allyson and Ann Rutherford.

Lawford was in The Phantom of Hollywood (1974), the pilot for Born Free, Rosebud (1975) for Preminger, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), Hawaii Five-O, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat , Angels' Brigade (1979), Highcliffe Manor, Supertrain, Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women (1979), Gypsy Angels (1980), Body and Soul (1981), and episodes of The Jeffersons.

His last role was as Montague Chippendale in Where Is Parsifal? (1983).

Personal life
His first marriage, in 1954, was to socialite Patricia Kennedy, a younger sister of John F. Kennedy, then a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts. They had four children: a son, actor and author Christopher Lawford (1955−2018), and daughters Sydney Maleia Lawford (b. 1956), Victoria Francis Lawford (b. 1958), and Robin Elizabeth Lawford (b. 1961).

Lawford became a U.S. citizen on 23 April 1960, in time to vote for his brother-in-law in the upcoming presidential election. Lawford, along with other members of the "Rat Pack", helped campaign for Kennedy and the Democratic Party. Sinatra famously dubbed him "Brother-in-Lawford" at this time. Lawford and Patricia Kennedy divorced in February 1966.

Lawford was originally cast as Alan-a-Dale in the film Robin and the 7 Hoods but was replaced by Bing Crosby following a break in Frank Sinatra's relationship with Lawford. The break stemmed from a scheduled visit to Sinatra's home by Lawford's brother-in-law, President Kennedy, during a 1962 West Coast trip. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who had long been concerned about Sinatra's rumoured ties with underworld figures, encouraged the president to change his plans and stay at Crosby's home, which (it was maintained) could provide better security for the president. The change came at the last minute, after Sinatra had made extensive arrangements for the promised and eagerly awaited presidential visit, including the construction of a helipad, which he later destroyed in a fit of rage. Sinatra was furious, believing that Lawford had failed to intercede with the Kennedys on his behalf, and banished him from the Rat Pack.

Sinatra and Lawford's friendship was over. They only spoke when Sinatra called after his son Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped on 8 December 1963 and needed the help of Lawford's brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy, then attorney general. With the exception of Pat Brown in his unsuccessful re-election as governor of California in 1966 and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey's run for the presidency in the 1968 United States presidential election, Sinatra never endorsed another Democratic candidate. Crosby, a staunch Republican, was cast in Lawford's role.

Lawford married his second wife, Mary Rowan, daughter of comedian Dan Rowan, in October 1971. Rowan and Lawford separated two years later and divorced in January 1975. In June 1976 he married aspiring actress Deborah Gould, whom he had known for three weeks. Lawford and Gould separated two months after marrying and divorced in 1977. Following the divorce, Lawford moved into the Sierra Towers where he lived for the next few years on the 30th floor. During his separation from Gould, Lawford met Patricia Seaton who became his fourth and final wife in July 1984, just months before his death.

Death
Lawford died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve 1984, aged 61, from cardiac arrest. He suffered from kidney failure and liver failure after years of substance abuse. His body was cremated, and his ashes were interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. Owing to a dispute between his widow and the cemetery, Lawford's ashes were removed from the cemetery in 1988 and scattered into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California by his widow Patricia Seaton Lawford, who invited the National Enquirer tabloid to photograph the event.

For his contribution to the television industry, Peter Lawford has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6920 Hollywood Boulevard.

A plaque bearing Lawford's name was erected at Westwood Village Memorial Park.

title: Peter Lawford


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Saint Apollonia

Saint Apollonia ('Αγία Απολλωνία, Ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲁⲡⲟⲗⲗⲟⲛⲓⲁ) was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the persecution of Decius. According to church tradition, her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. For this reason, she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry and those suffering from toothache or other dental problems. French court painter Jehan Fouquet painted the scene of St. Apollonia's torture in The Martyrdom of St. Apollonia.

Martyrdom

Ecclesiastical historians have claimed that in the last years of Emperor Philip the Arabian (reigned 244–249), during otherwise undocumented festivities to commemorate the millennium of the founding of Rome (traditionally in 753 BC, putting the date about 248), the fury of the Alexandrian mob rose to a great height, and when one of their poets prophesied a calamity, they committed bloody outrages on the Christians, whom the authorities made no effort to protect.

Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (247–265), relates the sufferings of his people in a letter addressed to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, of which long extracts have been preserved in Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiae. After describing how a Christian man and woman, Metras and Quinta, were seized and killed by the mob, and how the houses of several other Christians were pillaged, Dionysius continues:

"At that time Apollonia, parthénos presbytis (mostly likely meaning a deaconess) was held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of wood and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words (either a blasphemy against Christ, or an invocation of the heathen gods). Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and was burned to death."

This brief tale was extended and moralized in Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (c. 1260).

Apollonia and a whole group of early martyrs did not await the death they were threatened with, but either to preserve their chastity or because they were confronted with the alternative of renouncing their faith or suffering death, voluntarily embraced the death prepared for them, an action that runs perilously close to suicide, some thought. Augustine of Hippo touches on this question in the first book of The City of God, apropos suicide:

"Saint Apolline.jpg, they say, during the time of persecution certain holy women plunged into the water with the intention of being swept away by the waves and drowned, and thus preserve their threatened chastity. Although they quitted life in this wise, nevertheless they receive high honour as martyrs in the Catholic Church and their feasts are observed with great ceremony. This is a matter on which I dare not pass judgment lightly. For I know not but that the Church was divinely authorized through trustworthy revelations to honour thus the memory of these Christians. It may be that such is the case. May it not be, too, that these acted in such a manner, not through human caprice but on the command of God, not erroneously but through obedience, as we must believe in the case of Samson? When, however, God gives a command and makes it clearly known, who would account obedience there to a crime or condemn such pious devotion and ready service?'"

The narrative of Dionysius does not suggest the slightest reproach as to this act of St. Apollonia; in his eyes she was as much a martyr as the others, and as such she was revered in the Alexandrian Church. In time, her feast was also popular in the West. A later narrative mistakenly duplicated Apollonia, making her a Christian virgin of Rome in the reign of Julian the Apostate, suffering the same dental fate.

Veneration

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox (OCA) Churches celebrate the feast day of St. Apollonia on 9 February, and she is popularly invoked against the toothache because of the torments she had to endure. She is represented in art with pincers in which a tooth is held. Saint Apollonia is one of the two patron saints of Catania.

William S. Walsh noted that, though the major part of her relics were preserved in the former church of St. Apollonia at Rome, her head at the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, her arms at the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, parts of her jaw in St. Basil's, and other relics are in the Jesuit church at Antwerp, in St. Augustine's at Brussels, in the Jesuit church at Mechlin, in St. Cross at Liège, in the treasury of the cathedral of Porto, and in several churches at Cologne. These relics consist in some cases of a solitary tooth or a splinter of bone. In the Middle Ages, objects claimed to be her teeth were sold as toothache cures.

There was a church dedicated to her in Rome, near the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, but it no longer exists. Only its little square, the Piazza Sant'Apollonia remains. One of the principal train stations of Lisbon is also named for this saint. There is a statue of Saint Apollonia in the church at Locronan, France. The island of Mauritius was originally named Santa Apolónia in her honor in 1507 by Portuguese navigators. A parish church in Eilendorf, a suburb of Aachen, Germany, is named in honor of Saint Apollonia.

In some areas of Italy, Saint Apollonia is cast in the role of the tooth fairy, collecting children's fallen baby teeth while they sleep and leaving a gift in exchange.

The Madonna Della Strada Chapel at Loyola University Chicago contains a stained glass window on the north wall depicting St. Apollonia. The windows along this wall correspond with the colleges of the university at the time the chapel was built. The Loyola University School of Dentistry closed in 1993, but the window in the chapel remains.

Presence in England
There are 52 known images of her in various English churches that survived the ravages of the 16th-century Commissioners. These are concentrated in Devon and East Anglia. Most of these images are on the panels of rood screens or featured in stained glass with only one being a stone capital (Stokeinteignhead, Devon). She is also depicted in a tapestry of circa 1499 at St. Mary's Guildhall, Coventry.

By county, some of the locations are:
 * Cheshire: Bunbury
 * Cornwall: Poundstock
 * Devon: Alphington (now gone), Ashton, Combe Martin, Exeter Cathedral (tapestry in St. Gabriel's chapel), Holne, Kenn, Kenton, Kingskerswell (see photo), Manaton, Payhembury, South Milton, Stoke-in-Teignhead, Torbryan, Ugborough, Whimple (now gone), Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Wolborough (Newton Abbot)
 * Guernsey: Chapel of St. Apolline.
 * Lincolnshire: Long Sutton
 * Norfolk: Barton Turf, Docking, Horsham St Faith, Ludham, Norwich (St. Stephen's), Norwich Over the Water (church disused), Sandringham
 * Suffolk: Norton, Somerleyton, Westhall, Chilton

Her image is the side support of the arms of the British Dental Association.

title: Saint Apollonia


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Paweł Włodkowic

Paweł Włodkowic (Latin: Paulus Vladimiri; ca. 1370 – 9 October 1435) was a Polish scholar, jurist, statesman and rector of the Kraków Academy. He advocated a form of religious tolerance and defended Poland and non-Christian Baltic tribes against the Teutonic Knights and the crusading movement in general.

Early life and education
Though it is commonly assumed that "Włodkowic" was a surname, it was in fact a patronymic denoting that he was the son of a certain Włodko or Włodzimierz of the Dołęga family. He was born in Brudzeń Duży near Dobrzyń nad Wisłą between 1370–1373. His family owned land in the Dobrzyń Province and was related to the Lasota family from Mazovia whose notable members include Mikołaj Lasota, the treasurer of Konrad of Mazovia. He was a graduate of the Collegiate Church of St. Michael School in Płock (currently the Marshal Stanisław Małachowski High School) where probably he was ordained as a priest. He studied at Prague University, where he took degrees in 1393. In 1400, he became the Canon of Płock. He continued studying law at Padova, Italy, in 1404–8. It was probably in this period that he visited the Roman Curia in place of Piotr of Kobylin, fulfilling his duties as the Polish King's prosecutor.

In 1411 or 1412 he was made a doctor of canon law at the Academy in Kraków, where he also began to lecture. He was influenced by the philosophies of William of Ockham, Matthew of Cracow and Stanisław of Skarbimierz. In 1413 he served as King Jagiełło's emissary at Buda, Hungary, during disputes with the Teutonic Order. In 1414–1415 he became rector and in 1418 prorector of Cracow Academy.

The Council of Constance Address
Paweł Włodkowic represented Poland at the 1414 Council of Constance, where he delivered a thesis about the power of the Pope and the Emperor, the Tractatus de potestate papae et imperatoris respectu infidelium (Treatise on the Power of the Pope and the Emperor Respecting Infidels). In it he drew the thesis that pagan and Christian peoples could coexist in peace and criticized the Teutonic Order for its wars of conquest of native non-Christian peoples in Prussia and Lithuania.

Due to his religious and political influence, in 1421 Pope Martin V sent Antonio Zeno to investigate the Teutonic Order and its activities, though this investigation was later suspended on the grounds that it infringed upon the privileges of the new Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who wished to conduct his own negotiations between the two parties.

Włodkowic’s address at the council is considered to have been "not only one of the greatest achievements of Poland in their political fight against the Teutonic Order but also a huge contribution to the Christian theory of just war."

At the Council of Constance, Paweł Włodkowic and all the Polish delegation defended Jan Hus.

Later life and death
In 1420 Paweł Włodkowic represented Poland at a conference between Poland and the Teutonic Order held in Wrocław under the aegis of Sigismund of Luxemburg.

As early as the beginning of the 15th century, along with Stanisław of Skarbimierz, Włodkowic strongly supported the idea of conciliarism and pioneered the notion of peaceful coexistence among nations – a forerunner of modern theories of human rights. Throughout his political, diplomatic and university career, Paweł Włodkowic expressed the view that a world guided by the principles of peace and mutual respect among nations was possible and that pagan nations had a right to peace and to possession of their own lands. For this, he, the king of Poland, and the entire Polish nation were virulently attacked by the Dominican John of Falkenberg (himself later condemned and imprisoned for his intemperance), and his thesis somewhat more judiciously rejected by Dominic of San Gimignano, Ardecino de Porta of Novara, and André Dias de Escobar, Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo.

After 1424 he retired from public life to Kłodawa, where he died in 1435.

Selected works

 * Tractatus de annatis camerae apostolicae solvendis (1414-1415)
 * Tractatus de potestate papae et imperatoris respectu infidelium (1415)
 * Puncta accusationis ex parte Polonorum contra Cruciferos (1416)
 * Causa inter reges Poloniae et Cruciferos coram concilio Constantiense ex parte Polonorum dicta (1416)
 * Tractatus de ordine Cruciferorum et de bello Polonorum contra dictos fratres (1416)
 * Scriptum denunciatorium errorum Satyrae Joannis Falkenberg O. P. Concilio Constanteinsi datum (1416-1417)
 * Allegationes pro parte regis Polonie coram Sigismundo Imperatore (1420)
 * Oculi (1420)
 * Ad vivendum (1421)
 * Letter to the Bishop of Kraków (1432)

Critical editions of works

 * Ludwik Ehrlich, Pisma wybrane Pawła Włodkowica / Works of Paul Wladimiri (A Selection) (3 vols., Warszawa: PAX, 1966-69). Latin edition, Polish and English translation.
 * Stanisław Bełch, Paulus Vladimiri and His Doctrine Concerning International Law and Politics (2 vols., The Hague: Mouton, 1965), vol. II. Latin edition.

title: Paweł Włodkowic