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.

KY Repugs Throw Bevin Under the Bus

He disdained them, ignored them, disrespected them, turned his Yankee elitist nose up at them, and then expected them to overturn an election he probably lost by a lot more than 5,000 votes.

A growing number of Republican lawmakers are urging Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a fellow Republican, to either provide evidence of the voting “irregularities” he has alleged or concede Tuesday’s election to Gov.-elect Andy Beshear, who defeated him by 5,189 votes.

“The best thing to do, the right thing to do, is for Governor Bevin to concede the election today so we can move on,” said Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville.

Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, first raised the possibility of the tight election being decided by the Republican-led legislature Tuesday night when he explained the process that would occur if Bevin decided to challenge the results of the race. Bevin bolstered that speculation Wednesday by claiming that thousands of absentee ballots were counted illegally without presenting any proof to back up his claim.

Republicans in the legislature aren’t buying it.

Why aren't they buying it?  Not because repugs wouldn't burn down the state to gain and keep power (with their supermajorities in both houses of the General Assembly, they are confident they can stop Governor-elect Beshear from doing anything.)

But because, as Joe Gerth puts it, Bevin is a jerk.

No Rest for the Resistance in Kentucky

The Kentucky repugs are already gearing up to steal the governship from Andy Beshear, and they're not even trying to hide it.

There are obstacles, but they could definitely do it.  This isn't politics anymore; it's fighting to the death.  Every day, over everything large and small.

But there are election results far more disturbing than possibly losing the governorship.

Repugs have taken the only two state officers held by Democrats, and they are the most important ones:  Attorney General and Secretary of State.

With those in Democratic hands even while repugs took the entire fucking legislature and the Governor's Mansion, Democrats could still protect Kentuckians from the worst of Bevin's attacks on women, teachers, and families of disabled children, and from the massive voter suppression and election fraud repugs always run when they have the Secretary of State position.

The repug AG and SoS have more power than even a repug governor like Bevin had, and they will try to turn Kentucky into fucking Mississippi as fast as they can.

If they succeed, We. Are. Completely. Fucked.

There's only one way to stop them: Donate to the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, who will be filing a blizzard of lawsuits to try to stop the Mississippification of Kentucky.

Keeping Beshear in the Governor's Mansion is great.  Obstructing the repug Attorney General and Secretary of State is absolutely critical.

Of Course the Motherfucker Is Refusing to Concede

But. He. Is. Out.  Moscow Mitch is on the run, and so is the Pumpkin Traitor.

5,151 votes is four tenths of one percent.  There will be a recount.

Kentucky voters appeared to reject Gov. Matt Bevin Tuesday, bucking a statewide Republican trend as they turned their backs on a politician known as much for his blustery personality as his conservative values.

Democrat Andy Beshear, who ran a campaign as the anti-Bevin and stuck to a script of “kitchen table issues” — education, pensions, health care and jobs — declared a narrow victory over the incumbent governor.

As of 10 p.m., unofficial results from the Associated Press showed Beshear leading Bevin by 4,658 votes with 100 percent of precincts reporting. More than 1.4 million votes were cast.

Bevin refused to concede the race.

“Would it be a Bevin race if it wasn’t a squeaker? I mean come on,” Bevin asked the crowd at the Galt House in Louisville. “This is a close, close race. We are not conceding this race by any stretch.”

Instead, he said he wanted every vote to be counted and for the “process to be followed” before the next governor takes office. The State Board of Elections typically approves the official election results within a few days of

Bevin did not specify whether he would challenge the results of the race, but he has 30 days after the results are certified by the State Board of Elections to decide whether to formally contest the results, according to state law. Typically candidates request a recanvass of voting machines, and then a recount, before contesting an election.

A contested election in Kentucky is extremely rare. According to Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, the last contested election for governor involved the 1899 election of Democrat William Goebel. (Who was assassinated in the aftermath.)

“After tonight this election is over,” Beshear told supporters as he declared victory. “After tonight, we move forward with every other Kentucky citizen as team Kentucky.”

Vote to Kick Out KY's Trump TOMORROW

Every day, you see someone Bevin has fucked over, if not completely destroyed their lives.

The teachers going into debt to buy school supplies for their students because Bevin gave school funding to charter school con artists and tax cuts for his rich buddies.

The single father taking care of his disabled child getting kicked off Medicaid because Bevin's new rules demand he get a job.

The mother of three children in Knox County who can't afford the three days off work and the 150-mile drive to Louisville for an abortion.

The farmers going bankrupt because of the idiotic and destructive trade war Bevin supports.

The laid-off workers still waiting for the jobs Bevin lied about providing, and unable to qualify for the Medicaid health insurance Bevin make impossible to get.

The non-christian children in public school intimidated and terrified by the unconstitutional Jeebus signs and classes.

Vote Bevin mini-trump out and show the world that Kentucky Democrats have had enough and Mitch McConnell is next.

Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m.  Find your polling place here.

VOTE!  Or shut the fuck up forever.

Only One Thing Will Stop Bevin's War on Women

Everybody getting the fuck out November 5 to VOTE.

From the Courier:

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services has denied an abortion license for Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.

The pro-choice group announced the decision in a release late Friday night.

“While Governor Bevin is once again on the wrong side of history, we will continue to fight this decision and the slew of unpopular decisions that take away reproductive health care and abortion access in the Commonwealth," PPINK CEO Chris Charbonneau said in a statement. "This decision shows the true motive, which is to purposefully place undue burdens on pregnant Kentuckians. Shame on Gov. Bevin and CHFS Secretary Adam Meier.”

The release went on to say that "Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) has once again weaponized a regulatory process to deny an abortion facility license to Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky (PPINK). ...

"... CHFS continues to refuse to comply with the court’s orders — its decision today is a blatant attempt to take the ongoing proceedings outside of the courts and bypass the authority of U.S. District Court Judge Greg Stivers. CHFS’s baseless denial of PPINK’s license will not stand."

Stivers previously ordered the state to expedite its review of the license Planned Parenthood was seeking to provide abortions at its Louisville clinic and report back to him no later than Aug.19 with a decision.

For now, EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville remains as the only abortion clinic in Kentucky.

The Real Public Charges

The hardest-working and most economy-supporting people in this country have the lowest-paid jobs.  Those would be the jobs the rest of us literally can't live unless somebody else does them:  the lettuce-pickers and all the other food crop harvesters, the toilet cleaners and the garbage collectors, the diaper-changing, vomit-mopping-up caretakers of our infants and our elderly.

They are the ones who keep this country running.  They are the ones whose hard-earned taxes repugs are giving to the real public charges:  the oxygen-wasting idle rich.

One desperate guatemalan refugee cleaning hotel rooms while hiding from ICE does more real work in A SINGLE HOUR than Ivanka fucking Trump has done in her entire grifting, cheating, pissing-on-the-poor life.

Wonkette: 

One of Stephen Miller's top priorities for fucking over America's legal immigration system is finally about to take effect, assuming it survives the many lawsuits that will be thrown at it. The new rule would sharply restrict the ability of low-income people to get permanent residency or even temporary visas by screening out virtually all applicants who have ever used federal assistance like Medicaid, food stamps, or public housing. The rule will be published in the Federal Register Wednesday, and then go into effect in October, despite an overwhelming majority of public comments opposing the change.

 

The rules are an attempt to inject steroids into a relic of the Immigration Act of 1882, which prohibited immigration by anyone deemed likely to become a "public charge" -- that is, likely to become a burden to the taxpayer. That term was never explicitly defined by Congress, so Miller and his allies in the Trump administration decided it should be defined as restrictively as possible, to keep out anyone who's used any of a whole raft of public assistance programs for any amount of time.

Let's emphasize right up front that this is not about undocumented immigrants: This is an attempt to punish legal migrants who legally received benefits that Congress said they legally qualify for.

Just for shits and giggles, because reality doesn't exist in the Pumpkin Traitor's America, have some facts:

Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal:

Like all of this president’s immigration policies, this one is based on lies. Here are the facts.

–  Legal Permanent Residents (LPR’s)–sometimes referred to as green card holders–do not have full access to all public benefit programs and are subject to limitations before being eligible for federal means-tested benefits…such limitations include the “five-year bar,” which requires the individual to have maintained LPR status in the U.S. for five years before being eligible for benefits…

– Legal immigrants use federal public benefit programs at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens…

– Both documented and undocumented immigrants pay more into public benefit programs than they take out ...

Not infuriated yet?  Have some Rude Pundit.

This Might Not Be Radical Enough

Via PZ Myers at Pharyngula:




Ramen

Engage With Reality

From thunderclapnewman at TPM:



Everybody knows that since July 1, Kentucky has open and concealed carry everywhere NO PERMIT REQUIRED, right?

Why Immigrants From Shithole Countries Make the Best American Citizens

Via Undercover Blue at Hullabaloo, Rep. Ilhan Omar:

I started attending political caucuses with my grandfather, who cherished democracy as only someone who has experienced its absence could.

Go on, just try to read that out loud without choking up.  I dare ya.

Crush Them

Kevin Drum:

Republicans believe that wrecking the fabric of the country is their only hope of staying in power, and they’re right. If working-class whites abandon them even a little bit, they’re toast.

So all we can do is try to crush them. What other options are there? Reactionary American whites, as always, won’t give up their power unless it’s taken from them by either a literal or figurative war.

Liberals need to be as Lincolnesque as possible¹ in this endeavor—we don’t have to win the votes of unrepentent bigots, just the fretful fence-sitters—but we also need to be Lincolnesque in our commitment to winning America’s latest race war.²

¹That is, with malice toward none and charity for all.

²That is, with an iron determination to win.

The McConnell-Trump Economy in Kentucky

Yeah, it's an isolated anecdote, although it explains and confirms a lot of things we've been seeing over the past year, so anyway:

I was in Kroger this morning, in a white, well-off section of Louisville, where I noticed that there were no baggers.

The poor cashiers were struggling to handle long lines of shoppers, backed up because the cashiers had to do the bagging, too.  And because on the busiest grocery shopping day of the week, there were only four checkout lines open.

Recently this Kroger had closed four checkout lines and replaced them with self-checkout, thus eliminating at least four cashier jobs, not including the departed baggers.  There was no waiting at the self-checkout, because everybody hates them.

And even though everyone in line whom I could see and hear was being patient and polite, the stress on the cashiers was evident.

Just as I reached the cashier, an elderly woman in her 70s, her phone buzzed.  She said, apologetically, "may I beg your indulgence?  I have to take this call. My mother just fell and broke her arm."

I'm a liberal Democrat, not a child-caging repug, so of course I said "please, go ahead."  It was the hospital, just texting to let her know her 94-year-old mother had broken her shoulder plus her arm in three places and they were prepping her for surgery.

She kept working.  And she kept thanking me.  And I kept reassuring her that we must support everyone caring for elderly or disabled loved ones.

What the FUCK kind of economy requires a woman in her 70s, with a 94-year-old mother undergoing emergency surgery, to KEEP WORKING instead of going to the hospital to be with her mother.

The kind of economy Mitch McConnell and the Pumpkin Traitor are working to create: Lords and Serfs.

Also, fuck Kroger for trying to force us all into self checkout by eliminating jobs. 

From the Horse's Mouth

Wonkette Commenter Kooolest G:

as a 48 year old white non college straight man, I can tell you, DON'T TRY TO CATER TO ME!!!!!!!!!! every time you try to reach out to 1 moderate old white man, you tell 3 college kids that their issues don't matter to the democratic party and there's no sense in voting cause both parties are the same old shit. also as a middle aged uneducated white man I can tell you WE NEVER ADMIT WE'RE WRONG!!!!!!! so even if there's a shadow of doubt that trump might have conned us, we'll admit and vote against him right after we stop and ask somebody for directions. which means never.

Just Keep Saying It: Ditch Mitch, Ditch Mitch, Ditch Mitch ....

Jesus Fucking Christ, Marine!  Stop answering gotcha questions.  Stop expecting reporters to be fair to you.  Stop saying a single fucking word that is not "Ditch Mitch."

Columnists will rip you new ones every day for it, and the repugs and deplorables who will never, ever vote for you or any other Democratic candidate will point and laugh, but the Democratic voters who don't see any reason to get up and vote for a repug-lite DNC shill will perk up their ears at the words they have been dying to hear from a candidate: "Ditch Mitch."  They will reward you with their long-withheld votes.

Lt. Col. McGrath, what do you think about the migrant situation on the border?

I think it won't get fixed until we defeat Mitch McConnell.

What do you think about impeaching Donald Trump?

I think we have to defeat Mitch McConnell.

The Green New Deal?

Defeat Mitch McConnell

Jobs?

Defeat Mitch McConnell

Abortion?

Defeat Mitch McConnell

Iran?

Defeat Mitch McConnell. Ditch Mitch, Ditch Mitch, Ditch Mitch ....

It's Not About the Fireworks

Adam Serwer:

Black Americans did not abandon liberal democracy because of slavery, Jim Crow, and the systematic destruction of whatever wealth they managed to accumulate; instead they took up arms in two world wars to defend it.

Japanese Americans did not reject liberal democracy because of internment or the racist humiliation of Asian exclusion; they risked life and limb to preserve it.

Latinos did not abandon liberal democracy because of “Operation Wetback,” or Proposition 187, or because of a man who won a presidential election on the strength of his hostility toward Latino immigrants.

Gay, lesbian, and trans Americans did not abandon liberal democracy over decades of discrimination and abandonment in the face of an epidemic.

This is, in part, because doing so would be tantamount to giving the state permission to destroy them, a thought so foreign to these defenders of the supposedly endangered religious right that the possibility has not even occurred to them. 

But it is also because of a peculiar irony of American history: The American creed has no more devoted adherents than those who have been historically denied its promises, and no more fair-weather friends than those who have taken them for granted.

As Molly Ivins wrote, the history of America is one long struggle to bestow the rights the Constitution gave to only rich white men to all those the Constitution left out: black people and female people and brown people and poor people and asian people disabled people and LGBTQ people.

Extending and expanding those rights makes this nation stronger.  Denying them makes us weak.