The Golden Rule is NOT christian

I understand what Nancy LeToureau is trying to do here, but she's as dead wrong as every other religious person who thinks religion has anything to do with morality.  It doesn't.  The Golden Rule has nothing to do with Jesus.  It's not in the bible.  Go ahead, look it up yourself (your pastor is lying to you about that as about everything.)

The Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you - and the Veil of Ignorance are, in fact, the foundation of Human Morality.  Which evolved with humanity itself, and became the basis of moral human behavior tens of thousands of years before a bunch of greedy, power-grabbing misogynists invented religion to subdue and impoverish their fellow humans.

The path to restoring the Golden Rule leads far away from the greed, arrogance and IMmorality of religion.  It leads back to human morality, treating others as we want them to treat us.  That is the only thing that matters.  That is the only rule we need.  Religion can't restore the Golden Rule but religion is what kills the Golden Rule.  Make human morality our goal, and fuck this religion shit.

Oh, and the real "reason for the season" is axial tilt.

It has become common to complain that we have forgotten “the reason for the season” when we celebrate Christmas. A theology professor once said something that helped me understand how that happened. He pointed out that Christians tend to celebrate the birth and death of Jesus, but don’t pay much attention to how he actually lived.

That is why my one tradition during these holidays has been to reflect on something kid oakland wrote years ago about the life of the man whose birth so many people celebrate tonight.

SNIP

That does a good job of capturing why so many Christians have abandoned the idea of focusing on how Jesus lived his life. He was a radical—not in doctrine or politics—but in how he treated others.

Throughout history, prophets from every major religion have been telling us the same thing, as Karen Armstrong pointed out.

What we need is a new kind of religious discourse that goes back to the core values of the religion: every single one is based on compassion and on the golden rule, first propounded by Confucius 500 years before Christ: do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain, and then refuse under any circumstance to inflict that pain on anybody else… This is civilization. The golden rule is the basis of civilization.

More than anything else I can think of, that is the antidote to the poison that has infected our system these days. My hope for everyone reading this is that you find a moment of peace to look into your own heart and contemplate your core values.

My core values are religion-free values of human morality.  What are yours?

Can you stand another cool holiday story?

Of course you can.  This one from the Herald is not at all sentimental but will choke you up anyway.

It was lying on its side in the grass between the sidewalk and the street near Two Keys Tavern on South Limestone.

When Robert “Shorty” Eads found the ring in August he knew the owner would want it back. The 2011 Georgetown College football Final Four ring was more than just jewelry — someone had worked hard for that ring.

“I know it meant something to somebody,” Eads said recently. “If it was the last thing that I did, I was going to get that ring back to its owner.”

So Eads spent the next three months trying to find its owner. He called Georgetown College’s athletics department. No one called him back. He got on the internet and searched Facebook. 

Nothing.

Eads, a former electrician who has been homeless for eight years, had his backpack — where he keeps everything he owns — stolen four different times over the next three months. He lost everything. But not the ring.

“I always kept it on me,” Eads explained.

 

Eads has worked on the city’s End Panhandling Now jobs van almost since the program began in May 2017. The program puts would-be panhandlers to work picking up trash and litter and pays them. Frustrated that no one would call him back, Eads asked Jarrod Jones, the supervisor of the jobs van, for help in November.

Jones, a retired Lexington police officer, posted photos of the ring on Facebook. Other retired police officers saw Jones’ post and got on the case. The ring itself had clues. On one side was “Schmitz” and the number 15.

Don Schmitz was at home in Union in Northern Kentucky when his phone rang a week or so before Thanksgiving.

“I almost didn’t pick it up,” Schmitz said. It’s usually a telemarketer.

But he did. On the other line was a police officer. Was Mr. Schmitz related to a Georgetown College football player?

“I said, ‘Wait, did you find the ring?” Schmitz said.

SNIP

Don Schmitz drove to Lexington one Sunday before Thanksgiving and met Jones and got his son’s ring back. He gave Jones $100 to give to Eads. Schmitz said he would have given him more, but he is temporarily out of work right now because he needs a shoulder replaced.

“I would have liked to have met him,” Don Schmitz said of Eads. “I can’t thank him enough. It was a Christmas gift to all of us. There are still good people out there.”

Eads could have pawned the ring.

“If anybody needed the money, it’s him,” Don Schmitz said. “Instead, he kept it and the diligence and the homework it took to get it back to us... He really made our Christmas.”

Tyler Hurst, executive director of the New Life Day Center, the homeless day shelter that oversees the jobs van program, said people often equate morality with wealth. Eads doesn’t have a home. But he never lost his moral compass, he said.

“Robert is a great guy,” Hurst said. “People sometimes only see who that person is today. They don’t know about that person’s past. And they don’t see who they can be.”

The van gives people like Eads a chance to have a job. So many give up and think they can’t get work or no one wants to hire them, Hurst said.

“This gives people purpose,” Hurst said.

The program has also cut the number of panhandlers on Lexington streets, according to recent counts. In May 2017, there were between 150 to 160 panhandlers on Lexington streets within a 12 hour period. In November 2018, there were 21, 11 of whom were picked up and given a job on the van.

The city of Lexington funds the van but also relies heavily on donations to Lexgive. com to pay the would-be panhandlers.

Eads has been a longtime employee on the van. Hurst said they are working to get him off the street.

Just keep reminding yourself what they are and why

No, you don't have to be nice to them on "family holidays."  That shit is over.  But do be aware that they are probably armed.

Digby:

The mostly white, evangelical Trump base believe he can do no wrong. And there are a lot of these folks. It appears to be around 40% of the country who identify that way. And I firmly believe they are motivated almost entirely by their loathing for the eggheads, the racial minorities, the non-Christians, the city folk, the uppity women, the immigrants. They do not think they should have to share this country with anyone who isn't like them.  In fact, they are livid about it.

But I think we also have to acknowledge that right wing propaganda on television, radio, and social media has fed these impulses and created such an insular information environment that many of these people simply don't have any idea that Trump is failing on an epic scale. They think the only problem is the "fake news media" that is sabotaging him. They are living in an alternate universe in which only good news about their idol is real and the bad news is all made up. As far as they know, everything's going great!

I do have them in my immediate family.  But even before Benedict Donald, we banned discussion of religion and politics at family get-togethers.  It's a tense and stressful peace, but peace nonetheless.

How to Train Cops Right

This isn't the comprehensive Guardian training that should replace the counter-productive and lethal Warrior training American cops get now, but it's a start.

Crooks and Liars:

Prince George's County is just north of Washington, D.C. in Maryland, and home to the wealthiest majority-minority population in the United States. It also just elected it's first woman as County Executive, Angela Alsobrooks. Their school system educates the largest number of students with disabilities in the state. This makes the partnership between Prince George's Police Department and the Maryland Department of Disabilities so fitting, and such an encouraging move forward.

WAMU reported,

Police officers in Maryland are required to get training on how to handle interactions with people with disabilities. But the law doesn’t say how police academies should achieve that goal. Starting this fall at Prince George’s Community College, people with disabilities are doing the teaching — and they’re doing it through improv.

During one recent training, trainers acted out a short play in front of a small audience: A mom can’t get her teenage son to stop playing video games. Things escalate, and soon the son threatens to hurt her. She calls the police. When they arrive, she tells them her son has autism. Eventually, he opens his bedroom door for the officers, who take the time to calm him down. The mother, son and police officers in the play were all acting, but some elements feel real: The scene was unscripted, the officers are actual police officers and the man playing the son does have autism.

According to the ACLU, "in 2018 alone, police have shot and killed 64 people with mental health disabilities." There are laws that guide how police are required to proceed when dealing with those with disabilities, and when they don't, consequences are tragic and deadly. Rarely are officers held accountable for such deaths.

SNIP

The program is considered "best practices" because it includes people who have disabilities, rather than simply hiring people without disabilities to portray them in the role-playing situation. This creates a more authentic scenario for the police officers, and helps them practice patience, deescalation, and calm. All the while, the person with a disability who has been hired has been trained thoroughly, reassured, and understands this is a role-play situation, and that they are safe.

Repugs Rejecting Democracy

And getting rid of Benedict Donald won't stop it.

 

Krugman on the endgame:

So how do people who think and behave this way respond when the public rejects their agenda? They attempt to use their power to overrule the democratic process. When Democrats threaten to win elections, they rig the voting process, as they did in Georgia.

When Democrats win despite election rigging, they strip the offices Democrats win of power, as they did in Wisconsin. When Democratic policies prevail despite all of that, they use apparatchik-stuffed courts to strike down legislation on the flimsiest of grounds.

As David Frum, the author of “Trumpocracy,” warned a year ago: “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” That’s happening as we speak.

So Pelosi was right about Reed O’Connor’s ruling being a symptom of a “monstrous endgame,” but the game in question isn’t just about perpetuating the assault on health care, it’s about assaulting democracy in general. And the current state of the endgame is probably just the beginning; the worst, I fear, is yet to come.

GOP delenda est.

"Inept, arrogant and weak"

Joe Gerth at the Courier nails Gov. Sociopathic Narcissist:

With the stunning failure Tuesday night of Gov. Matt Bevin’s special session, the Louisville Republican cemented his place in the history books as the most inept, most arrogant and one of the weakest governors in Kentucky’s history.

It was his ineptness that caused him to pick fights with the General Assembly that didn’t need to be fought.

It was his hubris that caused him to call the legislature into session without its consent.

And it was his weakness that allowed the General Assembly — of which his Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses — to walk out on him after being in session less than 24 hours.  

There hasn’t been a weaker governor since the Democratic legislature stripped powers from Republican Gov. "Flim-Flam" Flem Sampson in the 1920s and gave them to a three-member commission composed of Sampson and the Democratic lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Bevin still has considerable power that comes with being governor — especially in a power vacuum created when the legislature goes home — but compared to other governors, he's now the 97-pound weakling in an old Charles Atlas ad.

He’s weaker now than former Democratic Gov. Paul Patton was following the revelation in 2002 of an affair with a Western Kentucky nursing home operator that almost toppled him during his second term.

Weaker even than former Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones was after he appeared on KET during the 1994 legislative session to denounce Democratic leadership when his budget and health care proposal appeared dead.

SNIP

The state's festering budget crisis was built over decades by politicians of both parties, and is by no means solely Bevin's fault.

But the feckless and arrogant decision to call legislators into session without their consent — just one week before the Yuletide? That's all Bevin's.

Lege spanks Baby Bevin, sends to room without dinner

Bevin is KY repugs' dream come true.  That they have defied him this way bodes very ill for Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You's re-election campaign next year.

From the Herald:

Ignoring the pleas of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, the Kentucky General Assembly voted Tuesday night to end the surprise special legislative session Bevin called Monday afternoon to address the state’s ailing public pension systems.

In a passionate speech to the House of Representatives, Speaker Pro-Tempore David Osborne, R-Prospect, said the decision to go home without passing a bill reflected a lack of time and conflicting opinions among the Republican caucus about how exactly to change the pension systems.

“We cannot shirk this, we cannot run from this. But this was not a problem that was created overnight ...” Osborne said. “We cannot solve it within the confines of a 5-day session.”

His announcement was greeted with applause from audience members in the gallery.

Osborne then promised to preside over the “ultimate solution to this problem,” presumably during the regular 2019 General Assembly, which begins January 8.

Outside his office, Bevin told reporters the legislature’s inability to pass a bill could put retirees’ pension checks in jeopardy.

“It should be of great concern to the taxpayers,” Bevin said. “It should of great concern, certainly, to the people who worked for the state and who were promised a pension. The odds of them getting that pension just went down dramatically tonight. It has got to be a priority or those people are up the creek.”

No state has ever defaulted on its pension system. Public pension experts say the most likely course is that all other state funding would be squeezed to honor the obligations.

Bevin's a lying motherfucking piece of shit.  Public pensions are constitutional obligations in Kentucky.  They'll shut down every agency of state government before they stop pension checks.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223287120.html#storylink=cpy

Defeated Bevin Cheating Again

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You is not going to let some state Supreme Court decision stop him from fucking over teachers, state workers and everybody who is not as obscenely rich as he is.

He doesn't have the votes legally and in broad daylight, so he's scurrying around in the dark to get the vile deed done before his targets can get organized.

From the Herald:

Kentucky lawmakers rushed to Frankfort Monday evening for a special legislative session that started at 8 p.m., just four hours after Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin made a surprise announcement that he would convene them to deal with Kentucky’s struggling pension system.

“I am going to use the powers that have been granted to me to call the legislature into special session that will be effective tonight at eight o’clock,” Bevin said in a brief statement. “They will be coming in.”

Shortly after 11 p.m., two pension overhaul bills were introduced, both sponsored by Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Louisville, the chairman of the House State Government Committee. The committee will hold a hearing on the bills Tuesday at 1 p.m. Miller said there will be no vote taken Tuesday on the bills.

Also from the Herald:

School teachers, public employees and their supporters quickly mobilized Monday after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin called a special session of the Kentucky legislature to make changes to the state’s pension systems, giving them only four hours notice.

“I think we’ll see at least as good a crowd as we did the night they passed the sewage bill in the first place,” said Jessica Hiler, president of the Fayette County Education Association.

Advocacy groups said they were scrambling to get their members to the Capitol in time to protest the special session, which was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Anyone who couldn’t make it to Frankfort was urged to call their lawmakers and demand that they adjourn immediately, the groups said.

It would have been better had lawmakers waited until the 2019 General Assembly convened in three weeks so an open, deliberative process involving all interested parties could be used to craft a better pension bill, the groups said.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin and Republican legislative leaders evidently hope to rush a recycled pension bill through the legislative process the week before Christmas before most Kentuckians can understand its contents, said Nema Brewer, co-founder of KY 120 United.

“This is how cowards run a government,” Brewer said. “They’re just raw because they got their hands slapped by the Kentucky Supreme Court for passing a pension bill the last time that was unconstitutional. But we’re headed to Frankfort. We’ll have a presence there. And we’re not happy.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

Legal to Rape in KY, As Long As the Bitch Had a Drink First

This is fucking bullshit.  Shame on you, Lexington grand jury members.

From the Herald:

Rape and sodomy charges against the son of Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton were dismissed by a Lexington grand jury this week, according to court documents.

Patrick Melton, a 22-year-old University of Kentucky student, was accused of “sexual and deviate sexual intercourse” without the consent of the alleged victim on July 7 at his residence on University Avenue in Lexington, his citation stated.

He was arrested in August. The woman allegedly tried to squirm, push and kick Melton, according to his original arrest citation.

Multiple witnesses confirmed the victim’s statements that she was intoxicated and passed out prior to the incident, his citation stated.

The grand jury met Tuesday and dismissed Melton’s first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy charges, according to court documents.

It's Justice Rapey McLiarFace's world now.  We just live in it.

Truth About the War on Christmas

From El Jefe at Juanita's place:  

Alternative

From Wonkette commenter Shanonigan:

The Wrong Way to Legalize Pot

After trillions of wasted dollars and millions of wasted lives, the repugs are finally giving up on the War on (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs.  But not before they make sure all the profits from legalization will keep going to already filthy rich white repug men.

Zandar:

Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved the legalization of marijuana earlier this month in order to gain tax revenue to pay for schools and roads.  But Republicans in the state's lame duck session are making sure that tax money goes to cops instead, with nothing for students, and that the profits go to corporate growers with both deep ties and deep pockets to give to lawmakers.

A bill proposed by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, would significantly change the voter-approved recreational marijuana program in Michigan, including by drastically lowering the tax revenue the state is set to receive.

Proposal 1 passed with 56 percent of the vote Nov. 6. It will take effect next week.

Meekhof, R-West Olive, introduced the bill Thursday.

In addition to lowering the tax rate from 10 percent to three percent, the bill cuts out Michigan's schools and roads from receiving tax revenue from legal marijuana. The state's six percent sales tax would still apply, said Amber McCann, Meekhof's spokeswoman.

"It's disrespectful to the political process and it's disrespectful to the voters of Michigan," said Josh Hovey, spokesman for the coalition behind the ballot proposal, of Meekhof's bill.

"The people of Michigan have spoken. They knew what they were voting on."

Tax revenue from marijuana sales could reach $287.9 million by the time the market matures in Michigan under the tax structure in Proposal 1, according to a Senate Fiscal Agency analysis. It's unclear how much revenue Meekhof's proposal would draw.

Under Proposal 1, Michigan has one of the lowest tax rates on adult-use marijuana in the country. Under Meekhof's proposed bill, Michigan would have the lowest tax rate in the country. The bill redirects the revenue to municipalities (25 percent), counties (30 percent) and county sheriffs (5 percent) that have marijuana facilities, and 30 percent for state police, police training and first responder disability benefits.

Meekhof's bill, Senate Bill 1243, proposes other major changes to the voter-approved Proposal 1; including eliminating the ability for individuals to grow marijuana at home and cutting out a micro-grower's license.

Proposal 1 allows for individuals to grow up to 12 plants at home, and up to 150 plants at home with a micro-grower's license.

Republicans have such a huge majority in Michigan thanks to gerrymandering that there's a chance that this passes, but it'll take Democrats too because the measure would need a 75% margin to pass. But sending all the tax money to counties with state-approved growing operations (all rural, natch) means Detroit gets zero, and it means that the growing can become yet another industry in the pocket of corporate owners and donors.

That was the plan all along, and it's dank as hell.

Rising seas are 500 miles east and 700 feet down, but Global Warming will destroy Kentucky, too

Everywhere on the planet, humanity's days are numbered and the number is few.  Kentucky's distance and elevation from the ocean is not going to save us.

It's all here in Chapter 19 of the official U.S. Government report the Pumpkin Traitor tried to hide on Friday. 


Regarding the Southeast, including Kentucky, the report reads:

While all regional residents and communities are potentially at risk for some impacts, some communities or populations are at greater risk due to their locations, services available, and economic situations. In fact, a recent economic study using a higher scenario (RCP8.5)¹¹ suggests that the southern and midwestern populations are likely to suffer the largest losses from projected climate changes in the United States.

Yep, Governor I Got Mine Fuck You, by stripping Kentucky's treasury, education system and support programs thus keeping us poor, sick and stupid, is making our suffering from global warming even worse than the coasts.

Blood On Their Hands: Bevin and Trump Order 95,000 Kentuckians to Death By Neglect

Even their lies are pathetically obvious. They're not even trying to hide that their goal is to eliminate everyone who is not white, male, straight, rich and republican.


From the Herald:

The Trump administration has again approved new rules for some of Kentucky’s Medicaid population, requiring them to either get a job, volunteer in the community or go to school to keep their government-funded health coverage.

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced the approval on Tuesday, nearly five months after a federal judge blocked the state’s first attempt. State officials say the new rules can begin as soon as April 1 and will be phased in regionally over several months. They will require adults ages 19 to 64, with some exceptions, to complete at least 80 hours per month of “community engagement” to keep their health benefits. That includes getting a job, looking for a job, going to school, volunteering for community service or taking a job training course.

What's the catch?  Working people on Medicaid will have to verify their working hours every month. So, you're struggling with three jobs and taking care of your kids but you have to drop everything and drive to the nearest Medicaid office - oh, you don't have a car?  Well you can call the Medicaid office - oh, you aren't allowed to make personal calls at work so you can't call during business hours? Well, you can go online ... oh, you live in the 95 percent of Kentucky that has no reliable wi-fi?  Well, guess you're shit out of luck.  And the Bevin-Trump plan is working like a charm.

Kentucky is one of 37 states that has expanded its government-funded health insurance program to include low-income adults with no children and no disabilities. More than 400,000 people signed up for the program, dramatically dropping the state’s uninsured rate and propping up some rural hospitals who depend on the revenue.

But Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has criticized the program, saying it is too expensive and does not make Kentucky’s citizens healthier as the state is still behind most of the country in some key health indicators.

Because the best way to make people healthier is to .... wait for it .... take away their health insurance.

Kentucky Voices for Health, an advocacy group, said they were “deeply disappointed” with the decision. Executive Director Emily Beauregard said during the public comment process, thousands of Kentuckians said access to health care was vital to their ability to be productive and successful.

“Reapproving a waiver that makes hardworking Kentuckians jump through hoops to keep their coverage will no doubt have the opposite effect,” she said.

It's perfectly clear.  If you are not white, male, straight, rich, xian and republican, the people who are those things want you dead.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article222012570.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article222012570.html#storylink=cpy

Repugs/ Freakazoids Employ Lies, Mythology in Latest Abortion Case

There has never, in the millenia-long history of abortion, been a baby killed. Not a child, not an infant, not an "innocent life."  All of those things - babies, children, infants, "innocent life" have the same characteristic in common: they breathe air.  Tissue that is removed from a woman's body does not breathe air.  It is not "alive." It is not a human being.  It is tissue rejected by its biological host, also known as a "woman," an adult human being who does breathe air.

But those scientific facts get in the way of freakazoids and conservatards exercising control over women's bodies, denying them bodily autonomy and the humanity of sexual freedom.

So they lie, and make up stories, and cite fiction composed by bronze-age desert goatfuckers, and appeal to the myth of an invisible wizard in the sky.

From the Herald:

Attorneys for Kentucky's socially conservative governor and the state's only abortion clinic opened their latest legal fight Tuesday, this time over a lawsuit challenging a new state law aimed at a common second-trimester procedure to end pregnancies.

Anti-abortion activists gathered outside the federal courthouse and inside the courtroom as the trial began over the law that its critics, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, say would amount to an impediment for women seeking abortions in their second trimester.

During opening statements, an attorney for the clinic told the judge that the law is unconstitutional because it would "all but eliminate" abortions for women past the 14th week of pregnancy. ACLU attorney Alexa Kolbi-Molinas said the procedure targeted by the state law is "safe and medically proven," and she accused the state's lawyers of "demonizing" the method with inflammatory rhetoric.

Steve Pitt, lead attorney for Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's legal team, described the procedure as "brutal, gruesome and inhumane" that results in a fetus being torn apart "limb by limb." He stressed the need to protect the weak, adding: "There are none so weak as an unborn child."

Nope.  There is no such thing as an "unborn child."  If it is a child, it is already born and breathing oxygen.  If it is not born, it is not breathing oxygen and is therefore not a child.

Late-term abortions are not brutal, not gruesome and not inhumane.  They do not tear a fetus limb from limb.  They extract dying, non-viable tissue that will never, under any circumstances, live to breathe oxygen, much less become a human being. 


Second-trimester abortions alleviate the tragedy of a desired pregnancy turned toxic because of birth defects. Forcing a woman to carry a dead or dying fetus for months simply to please the fetus-fetishists is what is cruel, brutal, gruesome and inhumane.

These vicious motherfuckers must be defeated, sent back to their medieval madrassas with their tails between their legs.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article221578385.html#storylink=cpy

 

KY Repugs Cheating to Get Court Wins

Never occurs to them that Judge Shepherd rules against them all the time because they are always wrong. They never consider maybe they should stop passing unconstitutional legislation, and stop breaking laws to get that legislation passed.

No, their solution is to take state cases away from that mean old liberal judge.

From Tom Loftus at the Courier:

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd’s order striking down the new Republican-backed pension law led to a lot of criticism from majority-party leaders, including from the governor himself.

Now, some of those leaders are looking at ways to keep all the important state government cases from going to Franklin Circuit Court.

“You basically have a super circuit judge, or judges, because the venue for so many cases are exclusively here. And that shouldn’t be,” Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said in an interview.

Stivers made the point on Friday as part of a panel discussion at the Health Care Leadership Conference of the Kentucky Hospital Association.

House Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne, R-Prospect, said during the discussion he sees support for the idea. “You’ll see some continued discussion and talk about this…But there are a lot of details that have to be worked out that haven’t been, so it’s a little bit tough to say where it’s going.”

State Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat who – like Stivers – is an attorney, said he believes any such move “would be blatantly political and an abuse of legislative power.”

Shepherd, who has served as a Franklin circuit judge since 2006, declined to comment on the matter.

 That's because whiny-ass titty babies are beneath his contempt.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article221607280.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article221607280.html#storylink=cpy

Simple Answers to Simple Questions: Because Bevin Is A Stone-Cold Racist

And don't be stupid by pointing to his adopted non-white kids.  That is a classic racist move: adopt black kids to prove both that White Supremacy is best for everyone, and that you can't possibly be a racist - you have black kids!

Joe Gerth in the Courier asks "Why didn't Bevin order state flags lowered for the two black victims of the Kroger shooting."

On Thursday, Gov. Matt Bevin ordered the state’s flags to half-staff to honor the 12 people who were killed in last week’s shooting at a California bar.

He did the same thing in the days after a gunman walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and opened fire, killing 11 worshipers.

SNIP

But the question is, why didn’t Bevin order the state’s flags to half-staff to honor the two people who were shot and killed at the Jeffersontown Kroger grocery store just a couple of days before the synagogue shooting?

SNIP

This was more troubling than even the shooting two years ago on Thanksgiving weekend at the Juice Bowl at Shawnee Park. That's because the Kroger shooter appeared to have chosen his victims purely because they were African-American.

“Whites don’t shoot whites,” the shooter allegedly told one white man he encountered during his spree.

And before he went and killed black people at the Kroger, Gregory Bush apparently tried to get into a predominately African-American church — where he would have found more potential victims — but couldn't get beyond the locked doors.

You want a racist governor? Go on, keep voting for the motherfucker.  But don't pretend that you can vote repug and claim to not be a racist.  You are.

Bevin Admin to Give Tax Dollars to For-Profit Charter Scam-Schools

Because  all charter "schools" are scams.  Whether White Supremacy Apartheid charters, christian Dominionism Madrassa charters, Skimming Top Students Away From Public Schools charters, Killing Public Education For Fun and Profit charters or just plain old-fashioned Sucking Tax Dollars Into Private Pockets charters, they are all scams.

And Bevin will strip the public treasury bare to make all his billionaire buddies rich.

From the Herald:

Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis said Friday that he will ask the 2019 General Assembly to create a funding mechanism or process for charter schools, but that doesn’t mean that he is asking for extra money.

Of course not.  He'll take the money away from public schools, then use the resulting failure of unfunded public schools to justify making all schools charters.

“It’s simply a mechanism that shows how dollars — already appropriated public schools dollars — would follow a kid to a public charter school if their parents decide to enroll them in a public charter school,” he said.

At a meeting in Frankfort of the newly configured Kentucky Charter Schools Advisory Council, Lewis said he would advocate for anything else the state could do to raise achievement and close achievement gaps.

“It’s my job as Commissioner of Education to do everything that I can to move achievement ... to close achievement gaps ... and high quality public charter schools are one of the tools ... particularly with low income kids, kids of color, that’s what the research shows us.”

That is a blatant lie.  Many studies have shown that the handful of exceptional charter schools - non-religious and non-profit - at best do no worse educating students than do public schools.  Far more commonly, religious charters teach nothing but religion and for-profit charters teach nothing at all because all the funding goes to make the rich owners richer.

The General Assembly passed a law in 2017 to allow public charter schools in Kentucky for the first time. But none have opened.

Those who want to open charters in Northern Kentucky, Louisville and Richmond have said they are hesitant to file applications with their local school board as the law requires because there’s no current funding process for dollars to flow into charter schools, in state law. 

Northern Kentucky, home of Catholic freakazoids and John-Bircher-style conservatives.  I wouldn't put a dog I hated into the kind of charters NKY is likely to come up with.

And it turns out that charter schools make all schools worse because they fail to address the real root of poor schools:  poverty and racism.

Erik Loomis at LGM:

You don’t say! You mean the problem with American education is poverty? Kids living through domestic violence? Kids lacking nutrition? Who fucking knew! Glad Gates spent $700 million discovering that the only way to fix education is to fix poverty and racism. It’s not like he could have discovered that before he spent the money by just asking people. Or, I don’t know, watching Season 4 of The Wire. Speaking of which, I love how David Simon went after charter schools scammers long before it was cool to do so, back when they were supported by internet liberals, not only in The Wire, but in Treme, even as it was a relatively minor theme in Season 2.

But then those solutions don’t fit the profiteers behind charter schools or the privatizers who hate public goods. No money to be made fighting poverty!

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article221407295.html#storylink=cpy

A Meme For Your Repug ... Aquaintences

From Down with Tyranny:

Violence is Repugs' Only Response

They won. Rapey McLiarFace is on the Supreme Court, where he can force the nation into a Lords-n-Serfs economy and an only-rich-straight-white-men-are-human-and-have-rights society.

But constant attacks, death threats and violence is all they know. And domestic terrorism to prevent anyone from ever challenging any rich, white, straight, repug man again is what they do.



From NPR:

Christine Blasey Ford is still being harassed after leveling sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, her lawyers say.

"Justice Kavanaugh ascended to the Supreme Court, but the threats to Dr. Ford continue," said Ford's lawyers, Debra Katz, Lisa Banks and Michael Bromwich, in a statement to NPR.

Kavanaugh stridently denied the allegations about the assault and went on to win confirmation in the Senate. Ford is still working to get her life back on track, her lawyers say.

She has had to move four times, she wrote last month. She has had to pay for a private security detail. She hasn't been able to return to her job as a professor at Palo Alto University. A spokeswoman for the school did not respond to a question about whether there was a timeline for Ford to return.

Ford's accusation that Kavanaugh had assaulted her when the two were in high school — and Kavanaugh's emotional response — took place before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27. Ford detailed the intimidation she was receiving then.

"My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats," she told the committee.

"People have posted my personal information on the Internet. This has resulted in additional emails, calls, and threats. My family and I were forced to move out of our home. ... My family and I have been living in various secure locales, with guards."

Although the spotlight has receded, the danger has not, Ford's lawyers say, but she is not interested in trying to turn her story into something that could make the experience lucrative.

Never Forget: Repugs Win Only By Cheating

Whether by the subtle cheat of voter suppression through denying voting rights to felons, as here in Kentucky (how many McGrath supporters could not vote because of a long-ago one-ounce pot possession?), or poll taxes by another name (demanding street addresses from Native Americans in North Dakota) or the blatant daylight theft of votes we're seeing in Georgia and Florida, the story is the same:

Repugs cannot win a fair election.  They have to cheat. If they don't, they lose.

Every single repug "victory" is stolen.  Every single elected repug is illegitimate.

Remember, and pass it on.  They cheated.  They always cheat.

Because they know that when everybody votes, Democrats win.

Vote Against Fascism

Paul Campos at LGM:

(1) Donald Trump is a fascist.  Whatever the “fascist minimum” may be, he’s now exceeded it as surely as Mike Trout has already exceeded the Hall of Fame performance minimum (Trump and Trout have both constructed first ballot resumes in record time.)

(2) The Republican party is now controlled in every relevant respect by Donald Trump, who is a fascist.  This makes the Republican party Donald Trump’s party, which makes it the party of fascism.

(3) Voting for a Republican candidate for anything is voting for fascism. It’s not “arguably analogous to voting for fascism,” or “uncomfortably close to giving support to fascism,” or “potentially helping the advancement of American fascism.” It’s voting for fascism.

(4) Voting for Democrats is voting against fascism.  You don’t have to like your local Democrat, or even any Democrats.  You just have to hate them less than you hate fascism. Vote against fascism by voting for Democrats.

(5) If you’re even thinking about voting for a third party candidate you need to think again.  A vote for a third party candidate is, objectively, a vote that is not against fascism. A vote not against fascism is, functionally, a vote for fascism.  Don’t vote for fascism.

Your Angry Sarcasm of the Year

From Digby:

There's nothing to see here folks, nothing at all. The fact that members of the Democratic coalition are being violently threatened and killed by people with motivations that echo the grievances stoked by Trump and his cult is purely coincidence.

Anybody else hearing joking-not-joking recommendations that we just lock up all the white men now, as a precautionary measure? 

If four black men had murdered 15 white people, injured a dozen others including three cops and sent pipe bombs to 10 people, including two former presidents, in the space of two weeks, there would be massive nationwide roundups underway.

Maybe lock up just the trump-supporting white men.

3 days

McGrath finally fights back against Candy Barr, and the Herald has it, but can't resist opening with a mendacious slap at the girl in the race.

Democratic congressional candidate Amy McGrath has spent the past few months talking about how she plans to run a different kind of campaign, one without negative attack ads to help restore civility in politics.

But from the opening question of the only debate between U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and McGrath on Kentucky Educational Television, the two candidates went on the attack.

In fact, McGrath has been running a high-road campaign all year, while Candy has run nothing but vicious, lying attacks on McGrath.  Shame on you, Herald.  Bothsiderism is not journalism, it's cowardice and incompetence.

Though the candidates talked about tax reform, the national debt and election security, the majority of the debate centered around the one issue McGrath has made the centerpiece of her campaign, health care. Not mentioned were immigration and abortion, two issues Barr has featured prominently in his attack ads.

At one point, as McGrath was accusing Barr of lying about her stance on health care, the congressman interrupted her.

“Is this a positive campaign?” Barr said. “Calling me a liar?”

McGrath paused.

“Are you done?” she said before continuing.

Across the country, House Republicans have had to defend their votes for an unpopular bill to replace the Affordable Care Act that ultimately failed in the Senate.

Barr defended the bill, saying it was one of the best opportunities Congress had to reform entitlement programs, while emphasizing that he supported replacing the Affordable Care Act in a way that wouldn’t eliminate protections for people with preexisting conditions.

McGrath said she wants to make the Affordable Care Act better and emphasized her support of a Medicaid buy-in plan for people over the age of 55 and a public option for health insurance.

SNIP

McGrath pushed back, calling Barr a liar for continuing to say she supported a single-payer system.

“Look, I came from an institution where if you lie, cheat or steal you get kicked out,” McGrath said.

And Candy belongs to a party that has to lie about everything, because its real agenda of stripping the middle class and giving everything to the idle rich wouldn't get five votes anywhere.

Tuesday.  THIS Tuesday.  6 a.m. to 6 p.m.  If you don't know your polling place, go here. 

The Republican Party IS the problem

And until we defeat it into the ground - with votes! - it will get exponentially worse and harder to solve.

Steve M:

Outside of deeply progressive media, our pols and PACs never simply say simply that the Republican Party is the problem. And we don't link right-wing extremism to the GOP -- Republicans now are pounding the message that Antifa equals the Democrats, even though Antifa despises both major parties, whereas Democrats aren't even running ads linking the pro-violence Gavin McInnes and his Proud Boys to the GOP, despite the fact that this unabashed advocate of violence was invited to deliver a talk at a Republican club, where he valorized a right-wing political assassin from Japan, after which his followers rioted in the streets.

It's the Republican Party, stupid. Democrats will struggle to gain power until they make this their explicit message.

Your Tax Dollars Protecting Treason in Defense of Slavery

Defacing monuments to Treason in Defense of Slavery is patriotism. Protecting those monuments is defense of treason.

 

Think Progress:

President Donald Trump’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has “quietly” spent millions of dollars on private security for Confederate cemeteries since the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.

The effort is “aimed at preventing the kind of damage that befell Confederate memorials across the U.S. in the aftermath of the Charlottesville violence,” according to a new report from the Associated Press, which reveals the VA has already spent almost $3 million on round-the-clock private security for at least eight Confederate cemeteries.

Records obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act show that the VA has spent nearly $3 million on the cemetery security since August 2017. Another $1.6 million is budgeted for fiscal 2019 to pay for security at all Confederate monuments, which could include other sites. The agency has not determined when the security will cease.

There have been no incidents of vandalism in the privately-guarded cemeteries since paint was added to a Confederate monument in Springfield, Missouri right before Trump visited the city in September 2017. A spokeswoman for the VA defended the spending in a statement.

Private security was needed “to ensure the safety of staff, property and visitors paying respect to those interred,” Jessica Schiefer, spokeswoman for the VA’s National Cemetery Administration, said in a statement. The agency “has a responsibility to protect the federal property it administers and will continue to monitor and assess the need for enhanced security going forward.”

Heather Heyer was killed in August 2017 when James Fields Jr., a white nationalist, drove his car into a crowd of protesters. Fields Jr. has pleaded not guilty to federal hate crimes.

Despite near-universal condemnation of the white supremacists who rallied in Charlottesville to oppose the city’s plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, Trump instead said “many sides” were to blame for the violence in an infamous press conference. The president’s remarks were praised by white supremacists.

Numerous Confederate monuments have been torn down or vandalized since the violence in Charlottesville.

Trump has defended Confederate monuments and recently praised Lee at a rally in Ohio.

Here's Your Winning Democratic Speech Calling Out Repug Hate, Lying, Corruption

Courtesy of Kevin Drum.  Send it everywhere.

The entire Republican Party is dedicated to lying all the time. Climate change is a hoax. Sexual assault victims are making stuff up. Tax cuts are for the middle class. Heh. That’s because the closest they ever come to a real middle class voter is some Wall Street broker making a million dollars a year. And now they’re lying about terrorists marching their way up through Mexico to kill us all. They’re all just lies and everyone knows it. The Republican Party has turned into the party of lies.

There used to be at least a few Republicans compassionate enough to feel bad about ripping immigrant children from their mothers. Not anymore. The ugliest, meanest parts of the Republican Party love it when Jeff Sessions takes those babies away. It gets big cheers at all those creepy rallies that Donald Trump puts on for Fox News. The Republican Party has turned into the party of hate.

Democrats believe in the rule of law. Donald Trump believes the attorney general’s job is to help his friends and punish his enemies. And what do Republicans think of this? Well, the ones in Congress sure don’t seem to have any problem with it. The Republican Party has turned into the party of corruption.

The Kroger Shooting Was Racist Violence

White asshole shot just black people, passing up potential white victims, telling one armed white witness "don't shoot me, whites don't shoot whites."

Who do you think he voted for in 2016?

From the Courier:

Minutes before a deadly shooting began Wednesday at the Kroger in Jeffersontown, the shooting suspect is believed to have tried to enter a nearby predominantly black church, authorities said.

Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers said during a Thursday news conference that surveillance footage from First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown captured an individual attempting to gain access into the church on Wednesday afternoon, about 10 to 15 minutes before the shooting at Kroger started.

Background: Louisville Kroger shooting: Here's what we know

The latest: Victims of the Louisville Kroger shooting have been identified

'Whites don't shoot whites': What one man says Kroger shooter told him

 

Rogers said the individual is believed to have been Gregory Bush, the man arrested and charged with killing two people Wednesday at the Kroger at 9080 Taylorsville Road.

The individual was unsuccessful in entering the church, and possible motives for the attempted entry were not immediately available, Rogers said.

First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown is located at 10600 Watterson Trail, about two miles away from the Jeffersontown Kroger.

The first call reporting shots fired inside the Kroger came into MetroSafe at 2:54 p.m. There were reports of "multiple injuries."

By 4 p.m., authorities said they had secured the scene. Two people were dead: a man in the store and a woman in the parking lot.  

According to Jeffersontown police, Bush, 51, entered the grocery store and "gunned down" the first victim, and then exited the store where he killed the second victim. 

We all know goddamn well what's going on here and who's to blame.

A coworker who is a republican and trump voter just commented on a shooting at a Louisville Kroger yesterday, and asked me "what is going on?"

"No comment," I replied, which he took exactly as I meant it:  "we both know goddamn well what's going on here and who's to blame."

We've got a wannabe dictator with the mind and temperament of a toddler who is blatantly ordering his ravening hordes to attack, injure and even kill those he designates as enemies.  Which conveniently includes the entire Democratic Party and the non-Fox media, plus everyone who is not white, male, straight, rich, christian and repug.

And they are following orders.  The pipe bombs weren't the beginning and they won't be the end.

Josh Marshall at TPM reveals how the current fetish for demanding "civility" plays into the hands of the violence-mongers.

Decency, being nice, presuming all speech and political actions are based on good faith rather than ill will – these are all fine enough things if you can manage them. But those mores can be difficult to sustain when society is attempting to litigate fundamental disagreements which are difficult and maybe impossible to solve through compromise.

The real line is the one President Trump crosses almost daily: ‘jokes’ about state violence against political enemies, apocalyptic or dehumanizing rhetoric like calling the press the “enemy of the people” which invites violence, the kinds of casual slanders we hear about Jewish billionaires or the Democratic party organizing hordes of immigrants to storm the country’s borders. These are the kinds of actions that start to make civic life, democratic life, difficult and then impossible.

I don’t deny that a certain level of polarization, coarseness in the way we talk to each other or reflexive presumptions of bad faith can lead us toward Trumpian type rhetoric. But that’s like a gateway drug argument. Sure, it happens with some people. But mostly not. The simple truth is that we can live with our politics being raucous, aggressive and even mean. What kills civic life is not only violence but violent incitement, rhetoric of dehumanization and the politics of aggression and hate that is still largely the exclusive possession of the political right in the United States today.

(emphasis mine)

13 Days

Wisdom from Zandar:

The rest of us have to show up and vote, because there's about a 99% chance guys like Talmadge Strickland will show up and vote.  If we don't, they win every time.  And there's every reason to believe that Americans have been so burnt out by the Trump regime that they just don't see the need to vote, maybe ever and have simply tuned everything out.

So no, I don't buy the big turnout numbers at all.  Like I said a month ago, I'll be shocked if total turnout is above 40%.

But we have to vote or it really won't matter, ever again.

I don't care how many double-digit leads Democratic candidates have in the polls.  Every race is going to be dead close because of repug fuckery.  

Of course repugs are cheating everywhere.  They know that if everybody votes, Democrats win.  They will stop at nothing to prevent Democratic voters from getting to the polls.

The only way we can beat them now is just by overwhelming the polls with every single Democratic, Democratic-leaning, Democratic-curious and Democratic-lapsed voter out there.