This is why we vote Democratic

The legal business that repug Matt Bevin spent four years trying - illegally and unconstitutionally - to destroy is free to provide medical services to women, thanks to our new Democratic governor.

Don't you ever try to tell me that there's no difference between the parties.

From the Courier:

Planned Parenthood now has permission to provide abortions at its clinic in downtown Louisville, making it the second facility in Kentucky to offer the procedure at a time when providers in some states are closing clinics under pressure from anti-abortion laws.

The decision by the administration of Gov. Andy Beshear was hailed by Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky as a victory for women’s health and reproductive rights, saying the decision allows it to provide “­a full range of reproductive health care.”

“This week, Kentucky went from one abortion provider to two, which is a significant win for reproductive health care in the state,” said Chris Charbonneau, Planned Parenthood’s CEO for Kentucky and Indiana. “All people in Kentucky deserve to make their own pregnancy decisions and to have access to safe and legal abortion.”

But the decision is sure to infuriate abortion opponents, including Republicans in the legislature who have pushed through more than half a dozen bills to limit or ban abortion in the past three years, though some have been blocked by court challenges.

Just this week, Kentucky abortion opponents rallied outside a federal courthouse in Cincinnati, where judges with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on whether a 2018 Kentucky law to restrict abortions is constitutional.

SNIP

The decision to grant the approval follows a four-year fight by Planned Parenthood with former Gov. Matt Bevin, an anti-abortion Republican whose administration had twice denied it a license to provide abortions.

But in January, the administration of Beshear — a Democrat who supports the right to abortion — rescinded that denial and announced that officials would allow Planned Parenthood to pursue approval. Beshear took office Dec. 10.

Your First 2020 Election Meme

Via wonkette commenter Bill D. Burger

Santa Hates Moscow MItch, Too.

KY Repugs Turn on Bevin; Demand Investigation

Could just be bullshit, given that the new Attorney General is a repug and might just decline to investigate.

Could be they're just piling on a loser they never liked anyway.

But it could be a sign that some repug legislators are willing to turn on a trump wannabe once he stops being useful.

From the Courier:

Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers is calling on the U.S. Attorney's Office to investigate the pardons issued by former Gov. Matt Bevin.

The Courier Journal first reported Wednesday that Bevin issued hundreds of pardons during his last days in office. Those pardoned included a man who was convicted of raping a 9-year-old in Kenton County and other convicted killers.

"From what we know of former Governor Bevin's extreme pardons and commutations, the Senate Republican Majority condemns his actions as a travesty and perversion of justice," Stivers said. "Our citizens, and especially the crime victims and their families, deserve better."

Stivers' statement came hours after two Democratic legislators, Senate Democratic Floor Leader Morgan McGarvey and state Rep. Chris Harris called on Attorney General-elect Daniel Cameron to appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing involving Bevin's pardon of Patrick Brian Baker.

The brother and sister-in-law of Baker, who was convicted of a homicide and other crimes in a 2014 Knox County home invasion, raised $21,500 at a political fundraiser last year to help retire debt from Bevin’s 2015 gubernatorial campaign. That money could go straight to Bevin since he had loaned his campaign money.

Yeah.  Bevin pardoned a motherfucker who committed a vicious murder by beheading because the motherfucker's family gave him money.

Tell me again how evil and corrupt Democratic officials are.

Who Gets In

From Wonkette commenter divegirl:

The Other Booker

Cory's treading water in the  Presidential primary, unfortunately.  But there's another Booker in Kentucky who's making a play to unseat Moscow Mitch.

It’s been about four months since Charles Booker, the Democratic state representative from Louisville who has formed an exploratory committee for a U.S. Senate run, drove to Harlan County to throw his support behind protesting coal miners camped out along a set of railroad tracks. 

The experience, he said, was transformative. 

At the time, a group of out-of-work miners had occupied a railroad line used to haul coal from a Harlan County mine. They were protesting their former employer, Blackjewel LLC., for issuing bad checks to hundreds of Kentucky miners and laying them off with virtually no notice.

 Booker was one of many Kentucky politicians to visit the protest. Others included Democrats Amy McGrath and Mike Broihier, Booker’s would-be primary opponents. 

“I think what that inspired in me is that Kentuckians are ready to work for the change that we need to see, even if that means to be uncomfortable and to stand up and speak out,” Booker said. 

“It changed my life, for sure,” he said. 

On Wednesday, Booker was back in Eastern Kentucky, taking questions from a small crowd of voters at a restaurant in Whitesburg with the hope of gaining some notoriety in a region where few people know his name.

He's sincere, more natural and comfortable on the stump than Amy McGrath, and oh, yeah, he's African-American.

No More White Guys.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238067584.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238067584.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

Mitch Really Is Running Scared: He's Dumping Bevin

Apparently Moscow Mitch doesn't think all those repug voters who split their ballot to elect every repug except Bevin are going to look any more kindly on his traitor ass next year.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday it appears that Gov. Matt Bevin has lost the election for Kentucky governor, but he declined to say whether he thinks the Republican governor should concede.

“I’m sorry Matt came up short, but he had a good four years and all indications are, barring some dramatic reversal on the recanvass, we’ll have a different governor in three weeks,” McConnell said.

Gov.-elect Andy Beshear collected 5,189 votes more than Bevin, which was less than 0.5% of the 1.45 million votes cast Nov. 5. Bevin has requested a recanvass of vote totals, which will take place Thursday.

McConnell, speaking after a news conference at North American Stainless, said he wouldn’t “give the governor advice,” but noted that he won by a similarly close margin when he first ran for U.S. Senate in 1984. He beat U.S. Sen. Walter “Dee” Huddleston by 5,269 votes.

“We had a recanvass, they added it up and it didn’t change and we all moved on,” McConnell said.

Bevin sparked concern that he wouldn’t accept the election results when he cited “irregularities” in last week’s election without providing any evidence to support his claim. Among other things, he alleged that “thousands” of illegally cast absentee ballots were counted inappropriately. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes has said her office has seen no evidence of irregularities.

McConnell, the patriarch of the Kentucky Republican Party, is the latest to distance himself from Bevin’s claims of irregularities. Republican lawmakers, spurred on by speculation that Bevin might try to contest the election in a complaint to the General Assembly, have said there is no need to seek legislative review of the election unless Bevin can produce significant evidence that voter fraud has occurred.
... 

Bevin’s loss made some in Washington D.C. question whether McConnell is vulnerable in his 2020 reelection bid, despite Bevin’s significant unpopularity and the fact that Republicans won all other races on the ballot. 

When McConnell was asked if Bevin’s loss has implications for his reelection bid, he said “we’ll find out.”

re here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article237242199.html#storylink=cpy

 

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article237242199.html#storylink=c

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article237242199.html#storylink=cpy

Trump's Gift to Veterans

I mean grift.

But it should still leave us speechless that only a few days ago the President of the United States was held liable by judge of defrauding veterans to the tune of millions of dollars via a fake charity he used for vainglorious personal and campaign expenses.
...
 
Our eyes glaze over reading this stuff because…well, it’s Donald Trump. But that’s only because our sense of moral outrage has become deadened by his behavior. Try, if you can, to imagine that Barack Obama had raised money for veterans only to spend it on a giant portrait of himself and a bunch of sports memorabilia. It would have singlehandedly destroyed his presidency and would likely have forced his resignation. George W. Bush was certainly no saint, and his administration was guilty of misdeeds of horrendous consequence. But he would never have been so tawdry and venal as to steal money from veterans for such things. If he had, it would likely have ended his presidency. Same for Clinton, Bush Senior, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. None of them would have survived such a revelation.

But in this funhouse horror of an administration, the news that the President of the United States was forced by a judge to repay $2 million to real charities because of these grifter scams was just another Thursday. It wasn’t even the top headline of the day.

Donald Trump skates by because we have come to expect this level of debasement from him. Because they refuse to hold him accountable, we have come to expect it of the entire Republican Party.

Also this indescribable Dishonor .

Veterans and active-duty military luuuurrrrvvve the Pumpkin Traitor and I will never understand it.

Happy Veterans Day.