What Fiendish Medicaid Fuckery is Bevin Planning Now?

First he reversed the denial of vision and dental coverage, and now he's cancelled the higher co-pays.

He didn't do it because a judge ordered him to, he didn't do it because he suddenly saw error of his libertarian ways, and he sure as fuck didn't do it out of the kindness of the sewage pump that pretends to be him heart.

He did it to throw everybody off while he perfects some massive plot to eliminate all the Kentucky poors, once and for all.

For the Zillionth Time, Stop Wasting Money on Repugs Who Will NEVER Vote Democratic

The DINO poobahs and consultants still selling the same old centrist bullshit that has failed for 20 years do not have Democratic best interests at heart.  The hand-wringers pleading for the compromise with people who Want. Us. Dead. are not on our side. The repug trolls who handed the election to the Pumpkin Traitor and now dare to dispense campaign advice cannot be trusted.

Listen to Zandar:

White evangelical Christians will never, ever, ever, ever leave Donald Trump, and Democrats need to stop wasting time, resources, manpower and money chasing after them, and I hope the Washington Post article on the members of a Southern Baptist church in Alabama makes this painfully clear.  They are lost.

SNIP

They are lost.  They thought Obama was going to "end racism" by absolving white America of slavery and Jim Crow and lynch mobs and history, and when Obama pointed out that racism still existed, they turned on him and the Democrats in frightening numbers.  And they are lost.  They aren't coming back.  Not when Trump's GOP is gladly the white supremacy party.

SNIP

They are lost, and they are done.  Trump's evil won't repel them, and appeals to economic populism will fall on deaf ears.  They believe their reward for fighting for Trump and for white Christianity lies in heaven.  They are a lost cause.  All Democrats are doing is ignoring their own base in order to try to shave a few off the margins in the suburbs and exurbs, and it's coming at the direct expense of black, Hispanic, and Asian voters.  It's a fool's trade.

SNIP

Their hearts are closed and their minds are made up.  We have fifteen weeks left from tomorrow.  If Dems do not regain control of the House at the minimum, we are done as a nation.  The damage by the time November 2020 rolls around will be incalculable if they still control the country. I understand the need to grow the Democratic party brand, but that means getting new voters out that we can reach, not chasing Obama-Trump voters who are not coming back this year and may never come back.

If we don't get our crap together now, we will be the ones who are lost.  If the events of this week where it became clear that Trump is compromised by Russia and no longer cares if the world knows about it didn't cause a crippling and obvious collapse in support for Trump, there is nothing that will, save Donald Trump becoming a Black Lives Matter fan on national TV.

It is time to move on.

"No Colusion (sic) = "It's Not Treason Because I'm the President"

Down with Tyranny:

Civility Never Won Anything

Erik Loomis at LGM warns us not to fall for the civility trap.

This of course included ACT-UP one of the bravest and most successful protest movements in American history. These are the actions that we should follow and emulate. Don’t listen to this civility garbage. It’s just a ploy by conservatives to stop the left from succeeding. Unfortunately, liberals will all too often fall into this trap themselves and fret about what those crazy radicals are doing. They also should be ignored. The future of change is direct confrontation with power. Go for it. 

How the Free Market Kills People

This is capitalism without regulation, without universal health care, without anti-monopoly and anti-price-gouging laws and heavy enforcement.  This is killing poor people for profit.

Did you know there is an actual vaccine against HIV and has been for six fucking years?  But unless you can afford $20,000 a year for it, you're fucked.

Erik Loomis at LGM:

Well, this is infuriating.

On July 3, 1981, this newspaper wrote about a “rare cancer” killing gay men in New York and California. Though few knew it, what followed would be a generation-defining battle: for attention, for legitimacy, for our very lives. Today, after 37 years, we finally have a proven pathway to ending the AIDS epidemic in this country.

The only catch? Poor policy and pharmaceutical price-gouging have blocked the way, making critical drugs a luxury rather than an imperative.

The solution comes in a pill: Taken daily, Truvada, the brand name for a type of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is up to 99 percent effective at preventing H.I.V. infection. Used as directed, it’s one of the most effective methods of preventing a viral infection ever discovered, as good as the polio vaccine, the miracle of modern medicine. When you combine PrEP’s effectiveness with the discovery that people living with H.I.V. cannot transmit the virus to others once they become undetectable, we could be on the verge of a swift end to the epidemic.

Truvada was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012. But over six years later, the United States is failing miserably in expanding its use. Less than 10 percent of the 1.2 million Americans who might benefit from PrEP are actually getting it. The major reason is quite clear: pricing. With a list price over $20,000 a year, Truvada, the only PrEP drug available in the United States, is simply too expensive to become the public health tool it should be.

Gilead Sciences, the company that makes Truvada, maintains a monopoly on the drug domestically. In other countries, a one-month supply of generic Truvada costs less than $6, but Gilead charges Americans, on average, more than $1,600, a markup from the generic of 25,000 percent.

Infuriatingly, American taxpayers and private charities — not Gilead — paid for almost all of the clinical research used to develop Truvada as PrEP. Yet the price stays out of reach for millions, and will for at least several more years.

The disparities in PrEP access are astounding: Its use in black and Hispanic populations is a small fraction of that among whites. In the South, where a majority of H.I.V. infections occur, use is half what it is in the Northeast. Women use PrEP at drastically lower rates than men, and while there’s no national data on PrEP and transgender Americans, it’s almost certainly underused. The issue of PrEP access has become an issue of privilege.

But hey, what is more important in New Gilded Age health care than very rich people making even more money? Actually, I know the answer–it’s taxpayers funding the research that rich people make even more profit from and terrible racial and gendered disparities.

Keep Calling Amy McGrath a Radical Liberal, GOP: It'll Get Her a Landslide Win

The more you lionize her as a liberal, the more you burnish her progressive bonafides, the more disappointed dems you draw back to the polls. 

And Candy Barr's cowardly lying and hiding since Monday guarantees he'll get none but the most fanatically trump-taint-licking votes.  That won't be enough.  Even in Kentucky.

From the Herald:

The Republican Party of Kentucky criticized Democratic congressional candidate Amy McGrath Tuesday for her opposition to President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, their latest attempt to paint McGrath as too liberal for Kentucky’s only swing district.

Republicans were responding to a Facebook post McGrath made a week earlier, on July 10th, in which she echoed the concerns many of national Democrats about Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“Despite Ms. McGrath’s attempts to con the voters of Central Kentucky into believing she is a moderate, her attack on the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh shows the real Amy McGrath: a far left liberal who will be another cog in the Pelosi political machine,” said Sarah Van Wallaghen, executive director of the Republican Party of Kentucky.

SNIP

 “He has shown himself to be against women’s reproductive rights, workers’ rights, consumer protections, and will be among the most partisan people ever considered for the Court,” McGrath said of Kavanaugh on Facebook. “Apparently, he will fall to the right of (Neil) Gorsuch and (Samuel) Alito on ideology, and just to the left of the arch conservative (Clarence) Thomas. Kavanaugh will likely be confirmed and we are starkly reminded, again, that elections have consequences, and this consequence will be with us for an entire generation.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article215036320.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article215036320.html#storylink=cpySNIP

Candy Barr Still Hiding While McGrath Speaks Out

So what do you say, Sixth District Democratic voters?  Is this fighter pilot worth getting out to vote for?

From the Herald:

Democratic congressional candidate Amy McGrath said she was “outraged” Monday with President Donald Trump’s refusal to support the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. 

“Today, the commander-in-chief again sided with a foreign adversary rather than on our own intelligence community,” McGrath said. “It’s breathtaking. When will Republicans in Congress put the country before their political party and flat out condemn these actions?”

The retired Marine fighter pilot was reacting to a Monday summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a joint news conference after a one-on-one meeting between the two world leaders and their translators, Trump did not push back when Putin denied that his government attempted to interfere with the U.S. Presidential election.

SNIP

Trump’s remarks brought swift criticism from both Republican and Democratic politicians, but U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, was not among them. Jodi Whitaker, his spokeswoman, said Barr was in meetings and hadn’t seen Trump’s comments.

SNIP

When McGrath was asked about Putin Saturday as she opened her Anderson County campaign headquarters, she made a similar criticism of the Republican-led Congress.

“It does come down to leadership, it does come down to putting your country above your political party,” McGrath said. “There is a reason Congress is doing nothing right now and it’s because it’s controlled by Republicans who care more about their political party and the ramifications of this to their political party than their country.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article214965550.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article214965550.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article214965550.html#storylink=cpy

Well Of Course It's Treason

The dotard admitted it, live on TV, with the whole world watching.

Paul Campos at LGM:

Today was a dark, dark day in American history.  The president openly admitted that he was OK with a foreign power installing him in office, and nothing is going to be done about it.  This is how democracy dies and authoritarianism triumphs.

Digby:

In fact, in the Sean Hannity interview he sounded downright frightened:

I thought President Putin was very, very strong. I think we're doing really well with Russia as of today. I thought we were doing horribly before today. I mean, horribly, dangerously,I think it was great today, but I think it was really bad five hours ago. I think we really had a potential problem.

It's possible that Trump is trying to pass this off as another example of him "solving" a crisis that doesn't exist. But when you think about it, it sounds for all the world as if Putin threatened Trump in that 2 hour private meeting and Trump did exactly what he was told to do in that press conference. If Putin does have something on him it's got him scared to death.

And the People's View has the Case for Treason laid out. It concludes:

What Bob Mueller did today was begin to lay out the case for treason. Not for obstruction of justice, not for mere conspiracy. The Russian military conducted a cyber attack against this country. Our cities aren't in ruin. But something equally as precious is under threat: the idea of who we are as Americans. That can be just as destructive.

Read the whole thing.

KY's Congressmen on the Pumpkin Traitor: Two Turncoats, Three Cowards and Congressman Awesome

Yeah, AynRand Paul and the soul-less Thomas Massie decided that just shitting on the poors isn't enough; they're ready to join the Tangerine Twat in pledging allegiance to the Russian Thug.

Meanwhile, Candy Barr lied about being in "meetings" - c'mon, there isn't a meeting on the planet that wasn't interrupted yesterday so everyone could watch the dotard lick Putin's taint live on TV.  I bet Amy McGrath's "where's he hiding" commercial is already in production.

John Yarmuth, of course, demonstrated true American patriotism by denouncing the mangy cocksucker in no uncertain terms.

Thomas Novelly at the Courier:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and several other Kentucky representatives said they agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, breaking with Donald Trump's comments after his friendly meeting with Vladimir Putin. 

“As I’ve said repeatedly, the Russians are not our friends and I entirely agree with the assessment of our intelligence community," McConnell said in a statement to the Courier Journal on Monday. 

Trump received immediate backlash from politicians on both sides of the aisle when he met with Russian President Putin. During the meeting, he accepted Putin's claim that the Russians did not interfere, contradicting the U.S. intelligence community's research. 

SNIP

Kentucky's delegation in the House of Representatives, which consists of five Republicans and one Democrat, was split on the matter.

Rep. John Yarmuth, the lone Democrat from Louisville, said he believes Russia unequivocally meddled with the 2016 election, according to spokesman Chris Schuler. 

"President Trump showed the free world today that they cannot rely on the U.S. as an ally because Vladimir Putin now calls the shots," Yarmuth said in a statement. "This is a disgraceful chapter in American history and proof that U.S. interests are not even a factor in the decision making of this president."

Rep. Andy Barr, from Kentucky's 6th District, had "been in meetings all day" and did not have a chance to respond, according to spokeswoman Jodi Whitaker. Rep. Brett Guthrie and Rep. James Comer did not return a request for comment. 

But Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky's 4th District, and Sen. Rand Paul, the two self-proclaimed libertarians of Kentucky's delegation, were less critical of Trump's meeting and welcomed the chance for discussion. 

"I believe that dialogue with other countries is important and President Trump was right to meet with Russia to promote peace and commerce, just like President Obama was right to meet with Cuba," Massie said in a statement. 

Rep. Hal Rogers, from Kentucky's 5th District, stood by Paul's comments, according to spokeswoman Danielle Smoot. 

(Hal Rogers is 163 years old, wins by double-digits and doesn't give a shit.)

SNIP

Yarmuth added that he was disgraced at the state of the United States presidency after the summit.  

“The President of the United States made his choices clear today in Helsinki," Yarmuth added. "He chose a murderous dictator over his own intelligence community, propaganda and bullying over a Constitutional free press, his own political aspiration over U.S. election security, and frankly, Russia over America."

What is "exhibiting characteristics of an armed person" and why is it punishable by death?

Easy answer, of course: breathing while black in proximity of a cop.

Read Simon Balto at LGM  then read Charles Preston on Twitter.

jesusfuckingchocolatecoveredchristonapogostick, '50s Mississippi wasn't this bad.  Fuck, apartheid south africa wasn't this bad.

But of course neither one of them had the Orange Loser.

Patriotism

From Down with Tyranny:

But One Country by Chip Proser

This Is Not the Religious Liberty You're Looking For

The freakazoids are going to take this as proof that first, government bureaucrats are out to get them, and second, that the Transportation Cabinet's reversal means that the freakazoids can force everyone else to do what they say.

Both are false.

Of course you can buy a vanity license plate that reads "Pray 4."

No, of course you can not force the state to produce at taxpayers' expense license plates promoting your invisible sky wizard.

Actually, Kentucky should immediately revoke the driver's license of everyone who requests an "in god we trust" license plate.  Why?  Because drivers who put their trust in a mythological being are not putting their trust in speed limits, rules of the road or driving defensively.

The Only Answer is Abortion on Demand

We should have started massive protests back in 1976, when the Hyde Amendment barred using Medicaid funds for abortion.  And ramped them up in 1992, when the Supreme Court told freakazoids they could restrict abortion with bullshit laws.

We should have been screaming then that abortion is a civil and human right and none of your fucking business.

Instead we've treated abortion like a shameful special favor that women get only after abasing themselves and enduring humiliation.

The Orange Loser's Supreme Court nominee is going to kill abortion rights in this country.  Never mind just overturning Roe v. Wade; the anti-abortion motherfuckers are going after contraception, employment, and the right to vote.

Oh, not that explicitly of course. Every small step they make sound sooooo reasonable, until women can't move without permission.

Scott Lemeiux at LGM:

The focus on term limits is a diversionary tactic intended to conceal a pincer movement carefully designed to strangle a woman’s right to choose. On the one hand, the number of weeks a woman has to obtain an abortion gets smaller and smaller; on the other hand, the hurdles for women seeking an abortion in a timely matter grow higher and higher.

This is particularly important because permitting onerous regulations targeted at abortion clinics is one way the Supreme Court can empower states to make abortion inaccessible without immediately and explicitly overruling Roe.

Stop saying OK, just this one little rule, then we can still have some abortions, in some states, for some (rich) women. That's how women are losing everything.

Abortion on Demand!  Free of charge, no questions asked, 24-7 clinics on every street corner.

Don't listen to me; listen to Michelle Wolfe:

Run, Attica, Run

Yeah, Andy Beshear's a good candidate, and with a teacher as his running mate plus his history of fighting Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You at every turn, he can probably beat him.

But young as he is he's still a representative of the White Guy Caucus that's been running this state for 226 years (Martha Layne Collins was one of them, too.)

How about someone really different?  Someone who has been fighting for progressive Kentucky values her entire adult life? Someone who can light Democrats aflame and get the stay-at-home non-voters out to the polls with a vengeance?

Democrats of Kentucky, I give you Attica Scott.

Democratic state Rep. Attica Scott said Thursday she is leaning toward what would be a historic run for Kentucky governor in 2019 after months of encouragement from supporters.

"I've definitely had a lot of people from across Kentucky, whether rural, urban or suburban and Appalachia, asking me to run and I'm seriously considering it," she said.

Scott, a Louisville Democrat, gained national recognition two years ago for being the first African-American women elected to the state legislature in nearly two decades. That earned her a place among Essence Magazine's "Woke 100 Women" list that featured black women trailblazers in politics, business and entertainment.

In that short period of time Scott has been one of the more outspoken members of the House's minority caucus. Mostly recently she questioned the Kentucky State Police for keeping demonstrators from the Poor People's Campaign out of the Capitol Building.

The attorney general said in an opinion that such an action was illegal.

Scott, who previously served on the Louisville Metro Council, said she would likely announce her gubernatorial campaign intentions after November. She doesn't face a challenger in the general election for her District 41 seat, which stretches from parts of western Louisville into the St. Matthews area.

"If, and when, I decide to run it's going to be a serious campaign based on uplifting the issues that people across Kentucky have said are important to them," Scott said. "And making sure we're building a base of support of people who often feel they're not part of the processes because they're often done by people in the status quo, establishment or their families have been part of politics for decades in Kentucky."

There is going to be a metric fuckton of Democratic candidates in the gubernatorial primary next year, but none of them will look or sound like Attica Scott.

The first time I heard Attica Scott speak, I had just been discussing with several other people the utter dearth of decent Democratic candidates to challenge Bevin. Then she spoke.  And on our feet, cheering, we looked at each other, thinking the same thing.

There she is.

Candy Barr Cheers Bevin Killing Kyians Just for Being Poor

The only thing you have to know about Candy is that he's a trump-taint-licking repug, and all his fake concern for caged babies on the border can't hide it.

From the Herald:

U.S. Rep. Andy Barr said Monday he supports Kentucky's ability to determine who receives Medicaid benefits, a day after the Bevin administration eliminated access to vision and dental coverage for 460,000 Kentuckians on Medicaid.

SNIP

(Democratic challenger Lt. Col. Amy) McGrath was critical of the Bevin administration's decision to eliminate dental and vision coverage for the 460,000 Medicaid recipients who received coverage when former Gov. Steve Beshear expanded Medicaid eligibility under the federal Affordable Care Act.

"Bevin's obvious goal is to take health care away from Kentuckians," McGrath said. "He tried to do it by instituting his unconstitutional work requirements. When that didn't work, he's just going through with taking health care away any way he can."

 

The Message That Beat the Democratic Old Guard

I am sure she would be thrilled if every Democratic candidate in the nation stole and used this whole thing.  Because THIS is how we're going to win.

Down with Tyranny:

Steve M:

Assuming that Ocasio-Cortez wins in November -- which is likely, because it's a solidly Democratic district -- the seriously lefty platform she ran on is now within the Overton window.