Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You Stealing State Property

And I don't mean pens.  I mean a whole, entire, official STATE PARK.  Stolen in the middle of the night and handed over to a bunch of freakazoids with no notice to the public - you know, the TAXPAYERS who actually OWN that piece of property.

It's not Bevin's property.  It doesn't belong to him.  He STOLE it.  Why haven't the state police arrested the motherfucker and thrown him in the dungeons below Eddyville?

The theft and the handover to a church are also blatant violations of both the Kentucky and U.S. Constitutions.  Why are KY Dems not screaming for impeachment?

Boone Station State Historic Site in southeast Fayette County is no more. Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration last month closed the 46-acre park and gave it to David’s Fork Baptist Church with no public input, notice or comment.

Daniel Boone, Kentucky’s most famous pioneer and first international celebrity, helped build cabins and a stockade there in 1779 after he left nearby Fort Boonesborough. He lived at Boone Station for about four years with other settlers. Since the 1990s, the property has been a small state park.

“Since the State is willing to give away the home of Daniel Boone, are all Kentucky’s historic sites now on the chopping block?” asked Phil Gray, a former manager of Boone Station and Fort Boonesborough State Park.

“The cost to the state for Boone Station is almost nothing,” Gray added. “There is a mowing contract and a very small electric bill each month. Upkeep on the fence. But that is it. When history loses, we all lose.”

Pastor Mickey Hyder said church leaders haven’t decided what to do with Boone Station. “We’re taking our time,” he said, declining further comment.
Yeah, they're gonna lay low until the furor dies down and then sell it for a clusterfuck subdivision.  In Fayette County, that is gonna run into the millions of dollars. Tax dollars that belong to the people of Commonwealth of Kentucky, not to Billionaire Bevin and not to a nest of morons who think an invisible sky wizard runs the world.
Boone Station has two old tobacco barns and a big granite monument the Daughters of the American Revolution erected in 1967. It also contains pioneer graves, which may or may not be Boone family members.

“That historic site is very important to the history of the Commonwealth,” said Leslie Miller of Louisville, the DAR’s state leader. “We hope that whoever owns the property, now or in the future, will continue to honor the historical significance of that place and continue to share the story of those brave early patriots with the public.”

SNIP

Giving away Boone Station is part of a larger Bevin administration effort that William Landrum, secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet, described to legislators last fall as “reducing the footprint of state government.” He said the state is forming “partnerships” — essentially turning over operation and maintenance of some state parks, historic sites and natural areas to local governments or organizations so it doesn’t have to spend money on them.

There’s no doubt Kentucky’s state parks and historic sites have been underfunded. That’s because governors and legislators of both political parties over the past two decades have abdicated their responsibility to fix a broken tax system that doesn’t generate enough revenue to properly fund state government.

With some state parks, local officials could do a better job of developing and maintaining them than state government has. But do they have the resources and expertise to care for, preserve and interpret historic properties?

As I wrote in September, these places have been deemed Kentucky treasures. They have great educational and cultural value. Politicians shouldn’t give them away, especially under a cloak of secrecy. Anyone who cares about preserving Kentucky’s rich history should be asking questions and demanding answers.

Sunday, January 27, 2019

In Re Covington Punks

The little shitheads are guilty as fuck.  Shame on the liberals who retreated at the first conservatard glance.

Charlie Pierce:

... the idea that we can have a fully functioning democracy when one side is willing to use every means, fair or foul, to defend the slightest bit of ideological ground, while the other side's conscience can be pricked with a feather, setting off a paroxysm of penitential maundering, is laughable.

Giant Step Toward Gilead

I've been saying it for years:  These "religious freedom" laws are nothing but a massive power grab by freakazoids.

And there's no place to hide, because the U.S. Supreme Court has just made xian mythology the law the of the land.

The 5–4 ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby prompted a now-famous dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who condemned the court’s decision to use RFRA, a law originally intended to protect religious minorities, to legalize discrimination. “No tradition,” Ginsburg noted, “and no prior decision under RFRA, allows a religion-based exemption when the accommodation would be harmful to others.” Through Hobby Lobby, the court had transformed RFRA from a shield into a sword, creating a license to discriminate with no clear limitations.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration proved Ginsburg right. In a decision of startling breadth, the Department of Health and Human Services declared that, under RFRA, a federally funded foster care agency in South Carolina has a right to discriminate against non-Christians, closing its doors to would-be parents of different faiths. As Ginsburg predicted, the administration’s interpretation of the law has no limiting principle: It all but announced that taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care agencies may now engage in flagrant discrimination without consequence, so long as they state a religious rationale for their actions. The grim future that Ginsburg foresaw in Hobby Lobby has arrived.
Need proof?  Here are the freakazoids demanding tens of millions of Kentucky tax dollars to indoctrinate children with their evil mythology

With several hundred students from private schools looking on in the cold Thursday morning outside the state Capitol, several public officials touted a proposal to offer tax deductions to provide school scholarships.

The event was a rally at the Capitol to celebrate school choice and National School Choice Week.
House Majority Leader John “Bam” Carney, R-Campbellsville, told the crowd that he will file a bill in early February that would grant a generous tax credit to those who donate money for student financial aid at private schools.
Yeah, no.  "School Choice" does not mean you get to steal money from public education.  "School Choice" does not mean you get tax dollars because your invisible sky wizard wants it.
SNIP

Vandiver said the bill is expected to generate $25 million to help about 7,000 families.
The tax credit would amount to up to 95 percent of the contribution. “You donate $10,000, you get $9,500 credit,” he said.

SNIP

The measure has never gotten out of a legislative chamber’s committee, “but we are optimistic this year,” he said. He acknowledged that the revenue bill would have to receive at least 60 percent of the vote, instead of a majority in each chamber, to pass since lawmakers are not scheduled to pass a two-year state budget this year.

Stephanie Winkler, president of the Kentucky Education Association, said her group has “a strong belief that school choice already exists in Kentucky.”

“Our organization fights hard for for the commonwealth’s constitutionally-mandated system of common schools that allow any child, no matter their abilities, to have the right to a high quality education,” Winkler said. “The local public schools of these ‘school choice’ activists would benefit greatly from the energy and financial support they give to this cause.”
No biggie, you say?  It is within the memory of people still alive when xians exercising their "religious freedom" punished homosexuality by firing you from your job, evicting you from your home and denying you civil rights.

It is within the memory of people still alive when xians exercising their "religious freedom" got away with lynching black people for the crime of getting uppity, because the bibble tells them so.

It is within the memory of people still alive when xians exercised their "religious freedom" to imprison women in abusive marriages, to beat children to death for disobedience, to force women to give birth annually until they died.

Every tyrant in history has used this kind of "religious freedom" to justify every form of oppression, torture and genocide.

Forget the Russians.  "Religious freedom" is where Democracy dies.

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Why We Must Tax Billionaires Out of Existence

Via Down with Tyranny:

Benedict Mitch

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

Painfully White Guy Picks a Different Minority for Useless Job

No, it's not weird. It's exactly what the kind of racist who adopts black children to prove the superiority of white people does.

In 2015, African-Americans and women were "in," so he picked the unknown Jenean Hampton as his running mate.  Today, it's Hispanics, so he dumps Hampton and goes for another unknown with a Mexican-sounding name.


From the Herald:

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin announced Friday afternoon that state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, will be his lieutenant governor running mate as he seeks re-election in 2019, putting an end to speculation about his political plans.
When asked why he chose not to run again with Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, the Republican said “because I chose to run with Ralph Alvarado.”
Well, that explains it.

“This is somebody who moves with a sense of urgency that I think is needed as we look forward,” Bevin said of Alvarado. “He’s a guy who has relationships and strong ones with the very constituencies that are going to be imperative as we move forward.”

SNIP

Bevin described Hampton, who was the first black person elected to statewide office in Kentucky, as “a dear and personal friend,” but said Alvarado represents the American dream and aligns with what he would like to see “moving forward.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article225085955.html#storylink=cpy
Oh, gag.

Hispanics constitute barely 1.5 percent of Kentucky's population, and that's only if you count the migrant workers Kentucky farmers pretend aren't undocumented.

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You is playing to a national audience here.  He's gonna run for president as the repug who luuuuurrrrrvvves the blacks and the browns.

Let's see how far he gets against the likes of Kamala Harris.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article225085955.html#storylink=cpy

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Caught Showing Your Racist Ass? White Privilege to the Rescue!

Fuckhead's parents wasted money on a repug PR firm; the White Male Supremacy cavalry was already on the way with free excuses.


No white guy's life is ever going to end because he was cruel to women or minorities. The sneering Nick Sandmann will probably be on the Supreme Court shortlist in a few decades. During the Trump era, the "cruelty is the point," and a disturbing number will rush to protect those who are cruel in Trump's image.
And this, from the Root.

Monday, January 21, 2019

Fuckhead student blames Native Elder; repug rep Massie "proud" of racist assholes

What else did you expect?

Entitled little shit spews lies:

A statement has been issued by a student who said he was the youth “confronted by a Native American protestor” in a widely circulated video that provoked intense criticism of Covington Catholic High School over students’ treatment of the elder American Indian.

The backlash against the school was severe and continued Sunday. The Covington Diocese and the school have condemned the students’ behavior, apologized to the Native American and said they were investigating. The incident occurred in Washington D.C. where the students had traveled for a rally.

Nathan Phillips, the Native American standing opposite Sandmann in the video, gave his own account of the events in an interview with the Associated Press. 
The following is the complete statement issued by Nick Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic:

I am providing this factual account of what happened on Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial to correct misinformation and outright lies being spread about my family and me. 

I am the student in the video who was confronted by the Native American protestor.
And it gets worse.  Definitely auditioning for the Pumpkin Traitor's next Supreme Court appointment.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article224846990.html#storylink=cpy

Billionaire shit shows own racist ass:
Rep. Thomas Massie came to the defense Sunday evening of the students from Covington Catholic High School who were involved in a confrontation with a Native American man this weekend in Washington, D.C.

The Kentucky's 4th District representative, which includes Northern Kentucky where Covington Catholic is located, tweeted that after watching "over an hour" of video on the incident, he believed the students were there participate in the March for Life and got a "brutal lesson in the unjust court of public opinion and social media mobs."

"I urge everyone to watch the other videos before passing judgement. Would you have remained that composed at that age under those circumstances?" he said on Twitter.

Massie added that it was his honor "to represent them."
Of course the MAGA bully was "composed"; he was the one committing the intimidation.

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Catlick Pieces of Shit From KY Show Their Racist Asses in D.C.

UPDATE Below.

Yeah, tell me again what a positive force in the world is religion. 

From Crooks and Liars:

So yesterday this happened at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. MAGA-wearing prep school boys taunting a Native Elder is pretty much symbolic of this entire disgusting era of Trump.
(Also the continuation of 500 years of Catlick abuse of Native people worldwide.)
Shameful.

Details are unclear, but it appears that an entire class from a private, all male boys school (Covington Catholic High School in Covington, Kentucky) were the culprits. Apparently they were bussed in to attend the March for Life event, the same thing the Pences attended.

Source: Indian Country Today

Native Twitter has gone ablaze as a Native American elder singing the AIM Song in Washington DC during the Indigenous Peoples March was ridiculed, taunted and mocked by a group of non-Native youth.

The video, which was posted by YouTube account holder KC NOLAND, was also screen captured and shared on other social media accounts with views shortly gaining tens of thousands of views.

The elder is Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder who is also a Vietnam Veteran and former director of the Native Youth Alliance. He is also a keeper of a sacred pipe and holds an annual ceremony honoring Native American veterans in the Arlington National Cemetery.
 Click over to watch the disgusting videos.

UPDATE: Apologies and expulsions, my ass.  This is nowhere near enough.
“the behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”
Are you FUCKING kidding me?  Those kids were there for the "March for Life."  You know, the one that advocates forced birth because uterine tumors are more important than the adult women who want to be free of them. The school took them there to teach them that women are just incubators.  Not really fully human.

Just like the Native they abused.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/article224806590.html#storylink=cpy

Mulch the Rich

Also, it is evil to try to convince children to believe the super-rich should be objects of pity. They should instead be eaten. Or rather, mulched, for environmental and health reasons.

David M. Perry

@Lollardfish
Eat the rich.
outrageoboros @1stnameNounvrbr

Someone pointed out that due to biomagnification of toxins being concentrated in predators going up the food chain, we might be better off mulching the rich, vice eating them and absorbing all those toxins ourselves.
And there was rejoicing ("Yay").

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Shutdown Not a Game

Real people are really suffering, as is the case with everything the Pumpkin Traitor does.

This isn't a fucking game. The harm that Trump claims will come to the United States without his stupid wall is a fantasy. The very real harm that is being done to Americans, many in states that voted for Trump, needs to end. Whatever dumb fucking point Trump wanted to prove has failed. The assholes who think this proves the government is too big have failed to do so. People need their government to function.

On so many things, we are pushing people to the brink. Someone's gonna commit crimes to get the medications they need. Someone's gonna get killed because they don't want their kids to starve.  And it won't be an immigrant who does it. It might as well be Trump and the GOP with the gun in their filthy hands.

Today, the airport. Tomorrow, the Rotunda.

Now, commission a statue of Ali to stand in the Capitol in Frankfort in place of the Traitor in Defense of Tyranny now despoiling the Rotunda.

Muhammad Ali once said his "greatness came and started in Louisville."

Now his name will be among the first things visitors and travelers see when they fly into his beloved hometown. 

City officials announced Wednesday that Louisville International Airport will be renamed after the boxer and humanitarian often called "the Greatest."

The new name: Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.

"Muhammad Ali belonged to the world, but he only had one hometown, and fortunately, that is our great city of Louisville," Mayor Greg Fischer said.
"Muhammad became one of the most well-known people to ever walk the Earth and has left a legacy of humanitarianism and athleticism that has inspired billions of people.

"It is important that we, as a city, further champion The Champ's legacy," Fischer continued. "And the airport renaming is a wonderful next step."


Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Gov. Cowardly Worm Begs Lege to Protect Him From Mean Old Judge

I don't know how Phillip Shepherd can function these days, helpless from hysterical laughter as he must be.

A lot of state government's big legal cases in recent years have landed in front of Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd. And they haven't always gone the way the governor or General Assembly want.

A Senate bill filed Friday would let Gov. Matt Bevin or other state officials avoid going before Shepherd.

Senate President Robert Stivers, upset with Shepherd’s handling of the big pension case last year, sponsored the measure, filed as Senate Bill 2. The low number indicates it’s a top priority of the Senate Republican majority.

Stivers, a Manchester Republican, complained in a floor speech Friday that all big state government cases and constitutional challenges should not be heard by judges elected from a single county.
Hey moron: State government cases are heard in the "single county" of Franklin circuit because that's where state government exists.
“It’s not appropriate. As I’ve termed it, it’s a super circuit judge,” Stivers said.

But Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, responded that he’s uncomfortable with the legislature meddling with the courts because it is angry over the outcome of a particular case.

“Initially, I am very skeptical of any piece of legislation which is directed particularly at one judge and one court,” McGarvey said.

Stivers' bill says claims against state officials and/or state agencies that now must go to Franklin Circuit can be redirected if a defendant requests a special judge. No reason for the request is required. And the chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court would be required to randomly appoint a special judge.

In an interview last fall, and again on the Senate floor on Friday, Stivers acknowledged that it is Shepherd’s handling of last year’s lawsuit against the pension bill that sparked his interest in in the issue.

Shepherd struck down the pension bill – Senate Bill 151 – last June for two procedural reasons. He said the rapid one-day passage of the bill violated part of the Kentucky Constitution that requires lawmakers have time to consider a bill. He also said the bill was an appropriations bill, which required at least 51 votes in the House to pass. (The House vote on the bill was 49-46.)

In December, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed Shepherd. In a 7-0 ruling, the high court agreed the rapid process violated the Kentucky Constitution, but it was silent on the question of whether the bill was an appropriations bill requiring 51 votes.

SNIP
One veteran Louisville attorney who has represented both Republicans and Democrats in major state government cases, Sheryl Snyder, said Monday he believes the current system is preferable.

“I think choosing judges at random for those kinds of state government and state constitutional issues would be at the cost of the expertise that the Franklin Circuit judges build up over the years by handling those cases…” Snyder said. “Also, the decisions of those Franklin Circuit court judges are always appeal-able to the Court of Appeals and/or the Supreme Court.”

SNIP
Robert Lawson, a retired professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said Franklin Circuit judges have always properly handled such state government cases and that it is “ridiculous” to make such a change because of disagreement with a particular judge.

“This whole criticism of Judge Shepherd is outrageous,” Lawson said. “He’s very fair-minded, very competent."
Shepherd also knows repug bullshit when he hears it.

Saturday, January 12, 2019

KY Repug Rep. to Federal Employees: Fuck Off and Die in the Gutter

Massie's a billionaire and a libertarian.  If a few thousand federal employees get thrown into the street in the middle of winter because of a missed check, he probably thinks they deserve it for failing to save a couple of million dollars out of their minimum wage income.

From the Courier:

But U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was among the handful of House members who voted against guaranteeing those furloughed workers get paid.

The five other members of Kentucky's congressional delegation — Republicans James Comer, Brett Guthrie, Hal Rogers and Andy Barr and Democrat John Yarmuth — voted in favor of the legislation.

"I don’t believe anyone should be required to work without pay and I would have voted to pay all of those affected by this current shutdown," Massie said in an emailed statement to the Courier Journal.
Yeah, that's a lie.  Billionaire, libertarian, repug = motherfucking liar.  And of course he's cashing his own congressional paycheck.
In previous shutdowns, Congress has quickly approved legislation to provide back pay after the government reopened. 

But Massie said his objections to this bill were because it guarantees payment for employees affected by any future closures. He said that would "only make it easier for politicians to cause future shutdowns. This is irresponsible and I want to prevent future shutdowns from happening."


Those representing federal workers in the region took offense with Massie's vote, however.

"It is completely despicable that he would vote against that measure to grant back pay to the federal employees affected by the shutdown," said Victoria Martin, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1438, which represents most of the roughly 1,700 U.S. Census Bureau workers in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Friday, January 11, 2019

Strip Search is Sexual Assault. On a 12-year-old, It's Damn Near Rape.

The reason excuse for doing it is irrelevant.  It's inexcusable.  Especially since it was probably committed on a non-conforming child for the express purpose of intimidating her into obedience.  No doubt the school officials got sexually aroused by it.

The father of a 12-year-old girl on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against the Clark County Public Schools board alleging her rights were violated when she was strip-searched at school.
The girl, only identified in the lawsuit as “K.K.” , was called to the counseling office at Roy D. Campbell Junior High School in Winchester in October. She was asked to” strip down to her underwear” and searched by counselor Becca Boyd and assistant principal Kris Creteau, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit does not say why the girl was searched. 

It alleges that the school board had not adequately trained the employees on investigating students and the legal rights of children. It said that Boyd and Creteau severely “frightened, alarmed and humiliated” the girl and as a direct result, she suffered emotional anguish.

The lawsuit said the girl’s constitutional rights were violated when she was subjected to arbitrary action, unreasonable search and deliberate indifference for her civil rights. It alleges that Boyd and Creteau are liable, “under state law, for invasion of privacy, assault, negligence , and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

The child’s father is seeking compensatory and punitive damages in an unspecified amount sufficient to deter the Clark employees and other school officials from engaging in unconstitutional conduct, the suit says.

Clark County Schools officials did not immediately comment.

More Proof Bevin Wants to Bankrupt Kentucky

This is not rocket science West Virginia tried forcing their state workers into the stock market, only to see their retirement revenues plummet toward bankruptcy.  Returning to a defined-benefit pension plan restored the retirement system to solvency.

But bankrupting the retirement system in Kentucky is Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You's goal.
 
A national credit rating agency said Thursday that proposed changes to Kentucky’s troubled pension systems are unlikely to affect the state’s credit rating, contradicting claims made by Gov. Matt Bevin as he pushed lawmakers to pass a pension bill during a December special session.

Fitch, a credit rating agency based in New York City, said the state’s ability to maintain full funding for pensions and eliminating its reliance on one-time money to fund ongoing programs are the most crucial factors in its credit-rating of the state, not the proposed changes to the pension systems.

“Even if the legislature and governor enact replacement legislation, Fitch anticipates further litigation,” the agency wrote, referencing the recent Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that struck down a pension overhaul bill lawmakers passed last spring. “Given the modest savings anticipated, the proposed pension benefit changes, and any related litigation, would not affect the state’s rating.”

The report contradicts the urgency Bevin claimed when he unexpectedly called the legislature into special session last month the week before Christmas.
He's already ripped health care away from hundred of thousands of Kentuckians, wrecking the pension system is going to be dessert.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Fuck "Medical Marijuana;" Only Full Legalization of Recreational Pot Will Work

The catch here is Kentucky's horrific, patient-killing law "KASPER."  Intended to put opioid-pushing doctors out of business, its draconian punishments have terrified Kentucky physicians away from prescribing needed painkillers.

The result has been that people in chronic, disabling pain have had to turn to street pushers and those very pill-pushing doctors to get the pain relief KASPER denies them.

"Medical Marijuana" would simply add pot to the list of needed pain relievers Kentucky sufferers cannot get because legitimate doctors are terrified of losing their medical license under KASPER.

Only fully-legalized pot can solve multiple problems:  provide over-the-counter pain relief to people who need it, put opioid pushers out of business, and pour billions into Kentucky's economy.

This bill is a fucking waste of time.

A small group of Republican lawmakers on Wednesday announced their support for medical marijuana, filing a bill that would allow doctors to prescribe it when they believed it medically appropriate.

But the effort faces a chilly reception from legislative leaders, who say they are skeptical of the medical value of marijuana and wary of its side effects, such as its effect on brain development in youths.

“Where is the study?” Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, asked in a floor speech Wednesday. “Deliver me the study. An appropriate Tier 3 study with control groups that says it is medicinal or therapeutic.”

Thirty-three states have legalized medical marijuana since California led the way in 1996. Kentucky should not continue to outlaw a natural drug that could help the state’s estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people living in chronic pain because of various health problems, said state Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville.

“I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life,” Nemes said at the news conference introducing House Bill 136.

“But let me tell you, and I want to say it clearly, and I would say it in front of every camera in Kentucky. If my son or my wife or my parents or one of my brothers or sisters would benefit from medical marijuana, tell me where to get it. Even if it’s illegal. And I would submit that 99 percent of Kentuckians would do the same thing,” Nemes said.

The 149-page bill lays out the terms for how medical marijuana would be prescribed, taken and — in certain limited circumstances — grown by the patient, with information about plants grown in the home to be reported to local law enforcement.

The Kentucky Office of Alcoholic Beverage Control would regulate the practice. State-licensed dispensaries would sell cannabis in its various forms, such as edibles or salves, with law enforcement able to track prescriptions through a database to prevent widespread abuse, sponsors said.

“Kentuckians want the opportunity to help themselves when they’re sick. We’re going to trust the doctors,” Nemes said.

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Medicaid Torture

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You right here in Kentucky started this shit.  How dare impoverished people - no matter how sick, disabled or already working - dare take a penny of tax money that should be going to make Bevin and his billionaire buddies even more filthy rich?
 
Making sick people work in order to get health care is right up there with the most dissonant policies they've ever came up with. It makes even less sense than usual.

Look for them to start saying people need to work to get social security and Medicare as well. After all, just because they're old doesn't mean people shouldn't "take responsibility" for their retirement and health care, amirite?

I wish I could understand what it is about sick people getting health care that makes these people so angry that they lose their humanity.
It's the same reason we can't have all the nice things European socialists have:  because American motherfucking racists hate everything that puts a penny into the pocket of a ni**er or a spic.

Trump: Emergency Powers for Wall. Bevin: Hold My Beer.

That's the people's house, motherfucker.  It doesn't fucking belong to Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You.  It belongs to me and 4.5 million of my closest Kentucky friends.

We will go anywhere we want in it, and sit or stand or walk as we please.  We will exercise free speech and freedom of association any way we damn well please.  We will carry signs and we will cheer and boo as appropriate.  FUCK your rules.

Visitors in Kentucky’s Capitol Tuesday, the opening day of this year’s legislative session, found more security and less freedom to roam around the august building and its annex.

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin on Jan. 4 signed an emergency regulation outlining procedures for the state Finance and Administration Cabinet to implement to “protect the health, safety and welfare of visiting members of the public, as well as staff” in the two buildings and other state facilities and grounds.

“Over the years, public interest in and attendance of, the regular business of the Kentucky Legislature has steadily increased to the extent that concerns have arisen regarding the healthy, safety and welfare of visiting members of the public and staff,” said Bevin’s statement. “With a regular session of the Kentucky Legislature imminent, the provision of this administrative regulation should be given immediate effect.”

The Capitol and its grounds were flooded last spring with protesters upset with a public pension bill backed by Bevin and the Republican-controlled House and Senate. The legislature approved the bill but the Kentucky Supreme Court last month declared it unconstitutional.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article224094650.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin’s move meant that Capitol visitors found more security checkpoints — especially in an underground tunnel between the Capitol and Capitol Annex — security officers, and areas where people can’t stand.

The Kentucky Democratic Party posted its opinion of the new rules on Facebook.
It showed a photo of three uniformed state police troopers standing at the bottom of the steps that lead to the state House and two more in front of the House chamber’s main entrance.

“The people are once again shut out,” said the post. “Sudden ‘new rules’ restrict access to general public all over the Capitol but especially near the House of Representatives with no notice and no rules changes vote.”

There also is a new “House Gallery Rules” sign with rules for visitors going to the gallery to watch the House in action.

House Sign.JPG
Visitors to the state House gallery now see a sign on how they should behave.
Jack Brammer jbrammer@herald-leader.com

SNIP

House Minority Floor Leader Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy Hook, said he is concerned about Bevin’s emergency regulation and called it “too stringent.”

“I don’t think we need further and more strict access into the Capitol,” he said.

Adkins, who is running for governor this year, said he especially was concerned about restricting access to the tunnel between the Capitol and Annex.

“I think it’s more about making it tough for the general public to come and be a part of the process,” he said.

Monday, January 7, 2019

"My faith in the Constitution is Whole ..."

The most amazing and moving aspect of this to me has always been less what she says and more who she is to say such a thing.  This is an African-American woman born in extreme poverty who clawed her way into law school and becoming the first African-American woman in the Texas Senate.  She tolerate vicious, profane attacks on her personally but never backed down or sank to their level.

She sat as a legislator surrounded by the descendants of the slavers who tortured and murdered her ancestors, her people.  Some of her colleagues, especially in Texas, had probably participated in lynchings of black people, and definitely participated in Jim Crow-era abuse and discrimination.

Yet she rose above it all to begin impeachment hearings on Nixon by declaring her faith in the very document that allowed and justified that slavery, that torture, that discrimination.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Impeach the Motherfucker; Fuck the Pearl-Clutchers

We need more Rashida Tlaibs in Congress. Impeach the Motherfucker should be a central Democratic Party slogan. Let the pearl-clutchers cry in a corner. The future is not with them.
And from Stephen Robinson at Wonkette:
It's possible that in the future, historians won't even bother referring to the 45th president by his birth name but will just call him "that motherfucker."

Friday, January 4, 2019

No More White Guys, No Matter How Great. Just No.

The Democratic Party cannot win without the votes of black women.  Every national Democratic victory since 2006 has been driven by the votes of black women. And now that there are so many excellent female and non-white options, black women are not going to turn out for yet another white guy,  Not Beto, not Bernie, not Biden.  
 
And not Jay Inslee, as intriguing as Digby finds him:
I've been asking people what they think about Washington Governor Jay Inslee for president for the last two years and mostly they say, "who?" Personally, I think that's a selling point. A well-known national profile isn't always such a good thing in presidential politics. (Ask Hillary Clinton ...)

I've followed his career with interest and people I know from the state admire his leadership. So, I'm glad to see that he's decided to enter the presidential fray and he's doing it in an interesting and important way:
What if a meteor were hurtling toward the Earth, about to kill millions and reshape life on the planet as we know it?

And what if the president, instead of doing anything to help, made it worse in just about every way, and called it a hoax (and any solutions a scam) instead of the very real, very clear disaster taking shape?

And what if all the Democrats running to beat him in the next election went on and on about how concerned they were and how it’s our most pressing problem—but none had ever done much more than talk about the problem, and for the most part only started doing that in just the past few years?

That’s where Jay Inslee thinks America is when it comes to climate change. And that’s why he’s going to run for president. The question is whether he can convince anyone else that he’s a big-enough player to be a serious candidate.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Repug Policy


Down with Tyranny:

When Outreach is Foolish and Dangerous

The world has changed.  The old ways don't work any more. Bipartisanship is as outmoded as handwritten thank-you notes.  They still exist, but they are inefficient and counter-productive.

It wouldn't be right to abandon political outreach completely, but it's wise to identify who can actually be reached and who's a lost cause, at least in the short run. It's folly to expect conservative and Republican leaders to develop a conscience. It's dangerous to believe that their donors, who have invested in a long game of increased and hoarded power, want a democracy and a fair system. It's madness to think that rank-and-file conservatives and Republicans will abandon spite or party loyalty. And it's wishful thinking that mainstream corporate media outlets will abandon bothsiderism bullshit and other shallow analysis, no matter how much it hurts the nation. For now and the foreseeable future, the key thing to do about American conservatives and the Republican Party is to vigorously oppose them. It's up to the rest of us who care about good policy and responsible governance to talk, learn from each other, support each other and mobilize.