Don't Stop There, Alison: Go for the Recreational Gold

Calling for medical marijuana is so 1990s, Secretary Grimes.  All the cool states are legalizing recreational pot and raking in billions of tax dollars.

Demand Kentucky become the first southern state to reject the ridiculous War on (some classes of people who use some) Drugs, tell Jeffy Sessions to fuck off and die and join the coalition of smart states.

Do that, Alison, and you'll crush Gov. Sniveling Heartless Worm in a landslide in 2019.

From the Courier:

Could legal medical marijuana be on the horizon in Kentucky? 

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said Wednesday she wants to legalize medical marijuana in the Bluegrass State by 2018. 

A task force, led by Grimes, will also study and propose potential implementation and regulation processes. 

In a statement, Grimes said, "2018 is and must be the year when Kentucky finally steps up on medical marijuana. We have to get this done to help Kentuckians who are hurting."

Judge to medical marijuana users: Talk to lawmakers about legalization, not me

State Rep. John Sims, D- Flemingsburg, will co-chair a task force alongside Grimes the statement said.

"Kentucky is getting left behind on this issue. Already 29 states and the District of Columbia have enacted medical marijuana legislation to help their people," Sims said in the announcement. "The research is done. The studies have been conducted. It works, and it's time we end our idling and start having conversations to bring medical marijuana to the Commonwealth."

Grimes to Kobach: You. Shall. Not. Pass.

She knows what the trumpie repugs are up to.  She knows their goal is to suppress and eliminate every Democratic vote they can get their hands on. She knows what's at stake: not just the 2018 and 2020 elections, but redistricting after the 2020 census, which will be in the hands of whoever has the Kentucky General Assembly after those elections.

From the Herald:

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes has once again declined to give detailed information about Kentucky voters to a committee President Donald Trump set up to investigate election integrity.

The request, sent from the committee’s vice chair Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, once again asked for detailed voter information including names, addresses, party affiliation, last four digits of Social Security number and voter history from 2006 onward.

“The compilation of every American voter’s information would build a national voter registration database, which is unnecessary to improving our elections, opposite our constitution and state’s rights, and puts voters’ privacy and personal data at risk,” Grimes said.

Oh, and a big Fuck You to Kentucky repugs specifically:

“Alison Lundergan Grimes is using her office to grandstand and further her political career,” said Tres Watson, the communications director for the Republican Party of Kentucky. “In doing so, she has taken actions in an official capacity that clearly lie outside the powers vested in her as Secretary of State.”

Grimes’ office shrugged off the allegation.

“Not sure what part of ‘chief election official’ in KRS 117.015(2) is unclear to the party,” said Bradford Queen, the spokesman for Grimes.

Yep, repugs definitely shitting their pants over having to run against Grimes for a Congressional seat next year or Governor in 2019.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article163932767.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article163932767.html#storylink=cpy

Your All-Purpose Response to Anything Repugs Do

From Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who was talking about the Trump Gestapo's demand for private data on every Bluegrass voter, but who hit on the perfect response for all repug/trumpian stupidity:

There is not enough bourbon here in Kentucky to make this seem sensible.*

* Keeping in mind that Kentucky is the galactic capital of bourbon production and at any given time there are several million metric liquid fucktons of bourbon sloshing around the Commonwealth.

The Resistance: KY SoS Tells Trump's Nazis to Fuck Off and Die

No, of course she didn't use those words.  She's a lady.  I'm not.

State officials from Virginia, California and Kentucky said Thursday that they will refuse a request for voter roll data from President Trump's commission on election integrity.

Earlier Thursday, it was reported that the commission sent letters to all 50 states asking for voters' names, birthdays, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their voting history dating back to 2006.

SNIP

Later in the evening, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) said she too wouldn't offer up the information requested by the panel.

"The president created his election commission based on the false notion that "voter fraud" is a widespread issue – it is not," Grimes said in a statement Thursday.

"Indeed, despite bipartisan objections and a lack of authority, the President has repeatedly spread the lie that three to five million illegal votes were cast in the last election," her statement continued. "Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country."

Kentucky voters, you could have sent her to D.C. to restore Kentucky's integrity that Mitch McConnell has spent 32 years destroying, but no. And now you're going to die sick and penniless in a ditch, thanks to the motherfucker you preferred to vote for.

KY Takes Small Step to EXPAND Voting

Weird, right?  Kentucky already has one of the most restrictive voting rulebooks in the country: no early voting, no weekend or evening voting hours, ID required, etc.

But now this.



Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Kentuckians can now register to vote online.

Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes touted the state’s new online registration system, GoVoteKy.com, Monday at a news conference in the Capitol Rotunda.

Grimes, the state's chief election official, said Kentucky voters also can use the system to change their existing registration information, such as political party affiliation.

Before, Kentuckians had to register to vote or change voting information by mail or in person using voter registration cards.

The new system will be more convenient, said Grimes, noting that 30 states already have online registration.

The system was activated March 1.

“Already, a 93-year-old went online to update her registration,” Grimes said.

Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw, who attended the news conference, said about 100,000 voters in Jefferson County have used the new system in the last 10 days to either register or to update their registration.

Bevin to file a lawsuit against online registrants in 3, 2 ....

Good job, Alison.  Now let's establish vote-by-mail and turn this state blue again.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article65982842.html#storylink=cpy

Hey Alison: Show Bevin How It's Done

Good government, that is.  Use your power as Secretary of State to demand vote-by-mail.

Forget voting machines, polling places, poll workers, absentee ballots and voter ID.  Save money, time and effort and double turnout with just one cheap and easy change.

Political Animal:

Vote by mail saves money, simplifies elections, and eliminates voting lines. It renders moot the debate over photo ID rules, and lets election officials avoid spending billions on software-enabled (but vulnerable to big-impact hacking) voting equipment. Best of all, it promises double-digit increases in registered voter turnout.

Yes of course it increases Democratic votes because when everybody votes, Democratic candidates win.  That's the repugs' problem.  Let the Connecticut Yankee Lying Coward explain why he doesn't want every eligible Kentucky voter to vote.

Good On 'Ya, Alison. Now Let's Have Some Real Voting Rights

Like a month of early voting, polls open 18 hours seven days a week, open precinct voting, more voting machines to eliminate lines, signature-only ID, and vote-by-mail.

Then I might vote for your DINO ass Nov. 3.

Jack Brammer at the Herald: 

Kentuckians will be able to register online in time to vote in next year's presidential elections, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said Tuesday.

Grimes, the state's chief election official, also said online registration will allow Kentucky voters to change their information, such as political party affiliation, on their own computers.

Now, Kentuckians may register to vote or change voting information by mail or in person using voter registration cards, which can be downloaded and printed, or can be picked up at local county clerks' offices.

Register online, so you don't have to see the hate-filled freakazoid face of Kim Davis and her allies.

Fifty Years of Voting Rights, and It's Just Getting Harder

Kentucky may not demand photo ID, but it still makes it next to impossible for anyone who works or doesn't have a car to get to the polls during the 12 hours on Election Day that is the only time you can vote.

And is Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, running for re-election, making easing Kentucky's voting restrictions part of her platform?  Is gubernatorial candidate Jack Conway or attorney general candidate Andy "I Shill for MotherFrackers" Beshear?

They are not.  Repugs with Ds next to their names, all of 'em.

Ed Kilgore:

Thursday is the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And since said act was largely vitiated by a conservative majority of SCOTUS in 2013, and congressional Republicans have barely lifted any fingers to restore it, the president’s going to do everything possible to force voting rights into the national consciousness that day, and perhaps even into the GOP debate, as reported by The Hill’s Jordan Fabian:

President Obama will call for the restoration of the Voting Rights Act on its 50th anniversary Thursday, the White House said.

Obama will hold a teleconference to commemorate the landmark legislation and call for its renewal, following a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that voided one of its central provisions.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who rose to prominence in the 1960s as a civil rights leader, will participate.

The event will allow Obama to draw a sharp contrast with Republicans, many of whom argue some provisions of the 1965 law went too far. It will take place on the same day as the first GOP presidential primary debate.

Also in no coincidence, there's a new book out on voting rights.

In Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, journalist Ari Berman looks not just at the significance of this landmark civil rights law, but at what's happened to voting right in America since Lyndon Johnson signed the VRA in 1965.

Rolling Stone recently spoke to Berman about his new book, the trauma of the 2000 Florida recount and what the gutting of the VRA means for the upcoming presidential election.

QOTD: KY Governor's Race

Zandar:

As I've repeatedly said, the entire point of Republicans killing Medicaid expansion is simple: you either die or move to another state.  Either way, you're no longer that state's problem.

Bevin absolutely is running for governor of the Commonwealth on that platform, and right now he's ahead in the polls because of it.  Meanwhile, Jack Conway is going to learn that as with Alison Lundergan Grimes, if you run away from Obama, you're going to lose.

Work for Grimes to Do

Instead of sitting on her ass waiting for another "gimme" election to roll around, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes might consider spending her second term doing her actual job: making it easier for all Kentuckians to vote.

Kira Lerner at Think Progress:

Voter turnout in the U.S. during the last midterm election hit the lowest point since the 1940s. The number of Americans heading to the polls each election has been declining for the last fifty years and lawmakers have recently been pushing efforts to keep even more people away from the polls.

People do not exercise their right to vote for various reasons, some of which are easier to solve than others. According to a U.S. Census report from 2013, 14 percent of nonvoting respondents were unable to participate because of an illness or disability, 8.6 percent were out of town, 12.7 percent did not like the candidates or campaign issues and almost 19 percent were too busy. Some people cannot take time off from work on a Tuesday in November, which has led lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to call for making Election Day a federal holiday. Others may not feel engaged in politics or informed enough to vote, while 5.85 million U.S. citizens are prohibited from voting due to a felony conviction on their records.

Voting advocates, including those who spoke at the Elections and Voting Summit (two weeks ago), have been developing and pushing for new ways to get more people to the polls. Unlike laws that restrict access through voter ID laws, shorter registration and early voting periods and disenfranchising felons, these proposals are likely to have support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and would not be difficult to implement to get voters to turn out in higher numbers.

Make registering to vote easier

SNIP

Streamline and simplify voting

SNIP

 

Allow people to vote online

SNIP

Hire invested and engaged poll workers

SNIP

 

Get people excited about politics between elections

 

SNIP

 

If Grimes had spent a minute of her first three years in office working to make these improvements for Kentucky voters, she might not have lost the U.S. Senate race last year by 15 points to the most hated politician in the Commonwealth.

NOW Grimes Decides to Challenge Repugs

UPDATE: AynRandy responds. 

The best part of this will be the screaming toddler tantrum the Tribble-Toupeed One throws at not getting his way.

Steve Benen at Maddowblog:

* In Kentucky, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) made clear yesterday that Sen. Rand Paul (R) cannot legally run for president and the U.S. Senate at the same time in 2016. She's prepared to take him to court to prevent the Republican from trying to circumvent Kentucky law.

Why You Should Be Glad Grimes Lost

One fewer fucking DINO to get rid of in 2018.  Already, six Senate repugs with Ds next to their names are preparing to give Mitch McConnell his 60-vote filibuster-proof majority, and the dem leadership has surrendered the lame-duck session.

No wonder nobody wants to vote for Democratic candidates: what the fuck are they good for?
 

Alex Ruthrauf at Wonkette.

On Monday, beltway bullshit scorecard POLITICO reported that nominal Democratic senators like Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, and Heidi Heitkamp appear eager to help the new Republican majority advance legislation. Manchin even called the idea of not working with Republicans to promote their agenda “bullshit.” They probably think that burnishing their “moderate centrist” credentials in this way will help them keep their jobs when they face the voters in 2018. They are wrong.

Assuming a Democrat is elected president in 2016, and middle class wages remain stagnant or continue to shrink, here is what will happen to Joe Manchin and Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp in 2018: They will lose.

It will not matter if Joe Manchin literally shoots every climate bill that hits his desk. It will not matter if Claire McCaskill personally lays the Keystone XL pipeline’s ceremonial Golden Pipe. And it will not matter if Heidi Heitkamp drinks a Bakken oil smoothie for breakfast every morning.

All of them will lose.

SNIP

Let them lose. Then start running Democrats who are recognizable as Democrats in a blind taste test. Even in places where the conventional wisdom says they won’t play well. These candidates will almost certainly lose too, at first. But at least the party’s resources will be spent on promoting candidates who support the core agenda that rank and file Democrats go out and vote for. Maybe undecided voters in “red states” won’t trust that agenda in Round 1, but as things stand now, they’re not even being asked to evaluate it. They choose between the Republican and the Republican with a “D” next to their name.

SNIP

So why do we just assume that Democrats in “red” or “purple” states can’t take liberal positions? Probably because they so rarely try, because they’re cowards who don’t deserve to be nominated. So let’s stop nominating them.

You think a candidate promising a higher minimum wage, an FDR-style jobs program funded by taxing the shit out of Wall Street and  universal pre-K couldn't get elected in Kentucky?

Prove it. Run one.

Yeah, I Know. Vote for Grimes, Anyway. Polls Open at 6 a.m.

Just keep repeating: "I'm voting against Mitch. I'm voting against Mitch. I'm voting against Mitch."

And you want to be able to bitch about the repug Congress for the next two years, don't you?  If you don't vote, you can't.

New Twist on Voter Suppression in Kentucky

This is just genius. Telling people that if they vote for a candidate who lies, they are committing voter fraud.  Just. Fucking. Genius.

Don't fight it, Alison; use it.  Accuse everyone in Kentucky who ever voted for a repug of having committed voter fraud.  That might just be genius enough to get the 900,000 Obama voters to change their minds about staying home and actually vote for you.

Joe Gerth at the Courier: 

Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes' Senate campaign has filed a lawsuit accusing the Kentucky Republican Party of sending mailings aimed at suppressing voter turnout Tuesday.

SNIP

The mailer is labeled as an "Election Violation Notice" and warns recipients they're at risk of "acting on fraudulent information." It says Grimes has tried to deceive voters in her campaign to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Run As a Democratic Candidate, Alison

Elizabeth Jensen in Kentucky's Sixth, an un-funded challenger to incumbent repug Andy Barr, is running as an actual Democratic candidate, proudly supporting Obamacare and President Obama, and not wasting time trying to appeal to repugs who will never, ever vote for a Democratic candidate.

If Jensen wins and Grimes loses - or even if Jensen loses by less than Grimes does - that will be why.

Beverly Mann at Angry Bear:

If you want to run a Washington-vs.-our-state campaign as a Democrat, you need to make that campaign about the issue of who it is that determines specific Washington policy—in other words, about whether it’s the Kochs who effectively write legislation and dictate what legislation is filibustered or never brought to a vote, or instead small-business owners or ordinary individuals who play some meaningful role in this process.  A campaign for Congress by a Democrat that amounts to a generic ideological “Washington vs. our state” is a campaign that is incoherent. Grimes’ campaign is Exhibit A, but it’s certainly not the only current Exhibit.

The Louisville Courier-Journal, in its endorsement editorial, points out that Grimes supports such policies as a raise in the federal minimum wage and federally sponsored universal access to preschool.  But these are federal programs; she’s running for the United States Senate, not the Kentucky Senate. “Washington vs. our state” as a generic ideological precept precludes these. If Grimes’ ideology is really the same as Joni Ernst’s, then she should switch parties.  If it’s not, then she should make that clear, and make clear why it’s not.

And if Grimes wins, it will be precisely because of why it’s not—and because McConnell, not Grimes, finally made that clear to Kentucky’s voters.

And next time someone like Ashley Judd wants to run for Senate in a state like Kentucky, the Democratic Establishment should not insist that she not run because, after all, a “centrist” would have a better chance.  Judd would win this election comfortably, I’d bet.

Grimes Finally Attacks Mitch on Voter Suppression

Voting in Kentucky is not quite as near-impossible as it is in Texas - you  have to present a form of identification but it doesn't have to be government-issued or have a picture - but without early voting or excuse-less mail-in voting, it's still a system that forces minorities, students, the elderly and working people to jump through fiery hoops.

When I started voting almost 40 years ago, all you had to do to cast a vote was to sign your name in the registration book, right next to the signature you made the last time you voted or registered, and as long as it matched you were gold.

Grimes did not go so far as to demand the return to that system, but at least she called out the voter suppression motherrfuckers for fucking their mothers. And lying about it.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

The campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes claims in two radio ads that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to take the right to vote away from black people.

The most recent ad, launched earlier this week, is narrated by Georgia Powers, a civil-rights advocate from Louisville and the first black person elected to the Kentucky Senate.

In it, Powers says "Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are trying to take away our right to vote."

The Ad That Could Save Alison - If She'd Run It

I am sure Bruce Braley would be happy to let her steal it.

And equally sure she wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

Not Even Congressman Awesome Can Save Alison Now

Talk to some Kentucky Democratic voters - and those of us who actually vote Democratic are ALL liberal, thank you very much - and what you'll hear is anger. Red-hot, hopping mad fury at Alison Lundergan Grimes for expecting us to vote for a repug-lite, coal-excusing hater of President Obama.

And for pissing away our best chance in 30 years to get rid of McConnell.

Some of us are still going to vote for her, because we are Democratic voters and we are liberals and we're voting against the Turtle. But not all of us.  And not enough of us to lift her to victory.

And that is 100 percent her fucking fault.

Sam Youngman at the Herald:

Yarmuth, speaking before Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, did something that Democrats in Kentucky have been going out of their way to avoid doing:

He embraced, defended and praised President Barack Obama.

"Nobody has inherited a tougher job than Barack Obama did," Yarmuth said to wild applause from more than 4,000 Democrats Wednesday night.

As the Grimes campaign has taken on water in recent days for her refusal to say if she voted for Obama and for her decision to run an immigration ad condemned by liberal groups, Yarmuth is working overtime to keep Grimes' liberal base intact.

"I think that is part of my role with her," Yarmuth said Thursday in a phone interview with the Herald-Leader.

The liberal base of Kentucky's Democratic Party is not wholly different than it is nationally — 30 percent of Kentuckians still give Obama a thumbs-up — and Grimes needs every last one of them to show up on Nov. 4 if she hopes to deny U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a sixth term.

But it is a restless base.

Cowardly Democrats Always Lose

Why? The Rude Pundit explains:

Nearly every election, we've gotta go through this. We gotta watch as Democrats desperately try to portray themselves as salt-of-the-earth right-wingers (cue the ads of Democrats shooting shit). This time around, like in 2010 and 2014, we get to see them do the distancing dance, saying that they're not nigger-lovers, oh, no. They're "Clinton Democrats," as Grimes and others have called themselves, which is one of the most bullshit, racist phrases the Rude Pundit's seen since "urban youth." Once more, we're watching Democrats try to appeal to the yahoos when they should just rip the heads off their opponents and use the head to suck them off or eat them out like a fuck puppet.

And then, if someone does put out an ass-kicker of an ad, Democratic pussies run away, acting like their delicate sensibilities were just offended. Take, for instance, Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis's ad against her wheelchair-bound opponent, the odious scum-eater, Greg Abbott. In "Justice," we see an empty wheelchair as a serious narrator tells us that Abbott sued the fuck out of someone whose tree fell on him and won millions of dollars and then, as a lawyer, fought against others receiving compensation for their injuries. Yeah, Abbott's that special kind of hypocritical bastard, one who loves the taste of the sweat and tears of others: he speaks out against lawyers who try to get money for their injured clients.

So while Abbott gets to roll away from the substance of the ad, Davis gets excoriated.

SNIP

Davis is losing, so you could call it a "hail Mary," but it's a gut punch. Why are we not getting ads from Grimes saying that McConnell will take away people's health insurance? Is it because it will force Grimes to mention the-Negro-who-shall-not-be-

named?

SNIP

The failure of Democrats to show that Republicans would take away health care from millions of people and are responsible for our crumbling infrastructure and slow jobs recovery is a failure of imagination, messaging, and leadership. It's cowardice, purely and simply, and it's once again allowed Republicans to set the rules of engagement. Texas could have used a leader for the 21st century, not the mid-20th.

Advice for Alison From Somebody Who Knows Coal Far Better Than She Ever Will

Run on progressive solutions to economic problems, and stop running away from the Democratic Party.

George Zornick at The Nation:

The midterm elections are twenty-seven days away, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has been keeping a relentless road schedule campaigning for Democratic candidates. One thing he’d like to see more of: talk about basic economic fairness issues.

“I think more populism, or more focus on the economic issues, would be helpful,” he told a small group of reporters at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, DC. “I think it would help drive turnout as well. I think the candidates that focus only on negative things, doing everything negative, have a real danger of having their base go flat.”

Trumka said that in talking to workers on the campaign trail, he frequently confronts a problem that has bedeviled Democrats in many past midterms: apathy. Union members wonder why it matters if they vote.

“They say that at the plant gate, at doors, on the telephone,” Trumka said. “I try to explain to them that the economy is not like the weather. Those that are in power, and those that want to be in power, want us to believe the economy is like the weather—there’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t bother. But the economy…it’s nothing but a bunch of rules. And those rules decide the winners and losers, and those rules are made by the men and women we elect. That’s why this election is important.”