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

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.

Abortion By Mail Is Here

And just in fucking time.  Details below, but first,  KY AG Andy Beshear again warns the repug state legislature that they are freakazoid misogynist assholes violating the state and U.S. Constitutions.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear sent the legislature’s top two leaders a letter Thursday informing them that he thinks a bill in this year’s General Assembly that would ban abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected is unconstitutional.

Not that they give a shit.  They have been passing unconstitutional forced-birth bills since literally the day after Roe was decided 46 years ago."

All together now:  It's impossible to abort a "baby," "child," "innocent life" or "preborn" anything, because they do not exist inside a woman's uterus.  Inside a uterus is a mass of cells that is none of your fucking business. 

Maybe clinics have a sign outside:  "No children were harmed in the performance of this abortion."

But the ridiculous "heartbeat" bill is not the only forced-birth bill in the KY lege.  From Senator Reggie Thomas:

Senate Bill 50, which passed 30-6, would require that the dispensing of certain prescriptions be reported to Vital Statistics. The report on these drugs, which can be used to induce abortion, would be made available on the cabinet’s website. With so many important health issues facing Kentuckians, I do not understand why we want to use our scarce resources in this manner. These drugs are used for many procedures other than abortion. They are used to dilate a woman’s cervix to insert an IUD to prevent pregnancy; they are used to facilitate a miscarriage, and they are used to accelerate childbirth.  I opposed this bill.  

Fear not, however.  Abortion by mail is here.


From the Washington Monthly:

Contrary to what Sen. Susan Collins would have you believe, the addition of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court means that it is only a matter of time before Roe v. Wade is overturned and the legality of women’s access to abortion is left to the states. That was made obvious by the support Kavanaugh got from court evangelicals and other anti-abortion activists. Conservatives might not go there immediately, opting instead to continue to chip away at the ruling. But there is no doubt about where this is all headed.

As that reality sets in, it is important to keep in mind that a lot has changed since Roe v. Wade was decided back in 1973. The idea that its demise will return this country to the days of back alley and bloody coat hanger abortions is something that should be soundly rejected, because science has provided us with alternatives. That’s why I found this report from Olga Khazan to be extremely important.

For years, an organization called Women on Web has given women a way to perform their own medication-induced abortions at home. The organization would, remotely, do online consultations, fill prescriptions, and ship pills that trigger miscarriages to women who live in countries where abortion is illegal. Several studies have shown that the service is safe.

For American women who’ve wanted pills, though, there’s been one major problem: Women on Web wouldn’t ship to the United States. American women could (and do) instead search online for abortion pills, but some of the medicines and pharmacies they’ve found have been less than reliable. Now Women on Web’s founder, a doctor named Rebecca Gomperts, has launched a new service that she says is just as safe as Women on Web, and it does ship to the United States. The cost is $95, but the website says the service will try to help women who can’t pay.

Just like Women on Web, the new service, Aid Access, will screen women for their eligibility to take the pills—they should not be more than nine weeks pregnant—through an online process. (If the pills are taken later, they are less likely to work.) Gomperts will herself fill each woman’s prescription for misoprostol and mifepristone, which together are about 97 percent effective in causing an abortion within the first trimester and already account for a third of all abortions in the United States. She then sends the prescriptions to an Indian pharmacy she trusts, and it ships the pills to women at their homes in the United States.

Need legal help because your woman-hating state legislature has made self-abortion a crime?  An abortion legal hotline is here for you.

Think Progress:

Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years in prison for allegedly terminating her own pregnancy with medication she ordered online. By the time the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned the feticide conviction in 2016, Patel had been incarcerated for three years.

Patel is one of at least 20 people who was arrested or investigated for a self-induced abortion since 1973.

“We don’t want anybody else to have to suffer that fate,” said Jill Adams, chief strategist of the Self-Induced Abortion (SIA) Legal Team.

The growing hostility to abortion rights could mean an uptick in arrests, and so lawyers with the SIA Legal Team formally launched a free, confidential helpline and website on Tuesday to help anyone who’s criminalized for “self-managing,” or performing an abortion themselves.

 I'm giving the last word to Robyn Pennachia at Wonkette, whose posts on the forced birth motherfuckers are treasures to be read in full and passed on to everyone.

These statements are not made out of a belief that would happen, or concern for babies who might not get to experience the joy of taking one breath at birth and then dying from their crushed lungs. They are made out of a desire to paint women and their doctors and those who support abortion as horrible, cruel and selfish monsters who kill simply for the joy of killing, like so many lady Ted Bundys -- and they're willing to put parents through hell in order to make that point.

 Oh, yeah, one more thing. Andy Beshear is running to beat Gov. Women Are Incubators Bevin.

Cowardly Bevin Terrified of Icky, Scary Transpeople

If we're going to start discriminating on the basis of gender identity, then let's start with cis, hetero white men.

And top of the list to be fired will be Gov. If You Don't Have a Penis That You're Proud Of, Drop Dead.

Think Progress:

A group of sixteen states has filed a brief calling on the Supreme Court to rule that it’s legal to fire people for being transgender.

SNIP
 
The states represented in the suit include Nebraska, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R). Utah and Maine have state laws protecting against anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination, but none of the rest do.

There has already been significant backlash against the brief.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear (D), who refused to sign the brief on behalf of the state, called Bevin’s decision to sign on “surprising” given that Kentucky state employees do enjoy protections against anti-LGBTQ discrimination, thanks to an executive order that Bevin has not rescinded. The Fairness Campaign, Kentucky’s state LGBTQ group, has also decried Bevin’s decision.

 Shut up, Andy: you'll give the motherfucker ideas.

Bevn Attacks KY AG for Saving Women's Lives

Say it with me again:  Abortion restrictions don't stop abortions.  They just kill women.

But Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You doesn't care about grown adult women dying from illegal abortions and forced childbirth.  All he cares about is feeding freakazoid bloodlust in hopes they will catapult him into the White House.

From the Bevin press release:

While Gov. Matt Bevin’s legal team is fighting an attempt by the ACLU and a Louisville abortion clinic to overturn the recently enacted House Bill 454, Kentucky’s attorney general is continuing his track record of failing to defend the Commonwealth’s unborn blastocysts.
 
Attorney General Andy Beshear has reached an agreement with the ACLU and the abortion clinic to be dismissed from the lawsuit against HB 454, which bans the brutal and grotesque practice of live dismemberment the legal, common and safe first-trimester type of abortions. In a similar action last year, Beshear asked to be removed as a defendant in the ACLU’s legal challenge of HB 2, a law requiring physicians to describe an ultrasound to patients prior to performing an abortion.

A)  No such thing as the "unborn."  Babies and children have already been born and are outside the womb breathing oxygen.  Things that are not outside the womb breathing oxygen are not human beings.

B) First-trimester abortions remove blastocysts - the biological equivalent of a tumor.  The only brutal and grotesque thing going on here is Bevin 's freakazoid determination to turn Kentucky into Gilead.

C) By requesting removal from the case, AG Beshear is refusing to defend Bevin's indefensible attacks on Kentucky's women.  Beshear is the one protecting Kentuckians.

AG: Crafting KY Pension Deform In Secret Was Illegal

If it's done in secret, you can be sure it's something that voters will hate.  As proven by the universal outcry against it the instant this fuck-the-teachers plan hit oxygen.

John Cheves at the Herald:

The Kentucky House of Representatives violated the state’s Open Meetings Act with a closed-door conference in August where lawmakers from both parties huddled to discuss their plans to deal with the state’s pension shortfall, Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office announced Monday.

The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a free-market think tank based in Lexington, challenged the legality of the private House meeting, arguing that the public should be able to watch anytime the House conducts business. The attorney general — whose opinion carries the force of law on open meetings and open records issues — sided with the Bluegrass Institute.

“A quorum of the House was present,” Assistant Attorney General Matt James wrote. “In closing the meeting to the public without an authorized exception, the House violated the Open Meetings Act.”

In its response to the Bluegrass Institute’s appeal, an attorney for the House said the entire legislative body did not technically meet that day. Rather, it was “a meeting of the House majority caucus, which was open to members of the House minority caucus,” and “both of these entities are specifically exempt” from the Open Meetings Act, the attorney argued.

That was a stretch, legally speaking, said Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute.

“They have no right to shut the people out of their discussions,” Waters said. “The formation of public policy is just as important as what the final policy turns out to be. And it’s important to remember that the open meetings law is something the legislature has imposed on other public entities to follow.”

Only one lawmaker walked out of the Aug. 29 pension meeting to protest the fact that it was behind conducted in secret — state Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville.

Shame on the dems who did not follow Wayne out the door.

The punishment for violating Kentucky's Open Meetings Act is 30 days in the public stocks.

Sigh, of course not.  At very worst, the repugs will have to release video or audio recordings of the meetings.  Which could be illuminating.  But not as much fun as throwing rotten tomatoes at their faces.

Repug Women Don't Know What Sexism Means

Or they do, but are happy to lie to protect the cowardly guv hiding behind the curtains. A Democratic official stated facts about a female repub offical, therefore sexism. Because reasons. 

From the Courier:

After Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear suggested Senate President Robert Stivers faces political pressure because his wife, Regina, works for Gov. Matt Bevin's administration, a few prominent Republican women have criticized his comments as sexist.

"Women have been standing on their own merit in the workplace for decades. We earned our spots in the Bevin admin," Republican Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton said Thursday on Twitter.

Regina Stivers earns $118,000 a year as deputy secretary of the Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet.

On Wednesday — just before Beshear announced that he plans to sue companies for illegally marketing and selling opioids in Kentucky — her husband, a Republican, publicly questioned whether Beshear has a conflict of interest in a similar case against the maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, which the state settled for $24 million right before he became attorney general.

In response, Beshear criticized the Senate president for politicizing a drug crisis that has devastated thousands of Kentuckians.

"I know that that $100,000 job that the governor has provided to your spouse, who he could let go at any time, creates pressure," Beshear said, directing his comments at Stivers during a Wednesday afternoon press conference. "But this is far too important."

Either Regina Stivers is  a strong professional woman doing her job, or she's a melting snowflake who must be coddled and protected from the heat of professional politics.

Make up your damn minds, ladies - and that's not a compliment.

Because Elected Power is Never Enough for Republicans

They have to have permanent dictatorship. And they'll cheat to get it.

Zandar:

Kentucky Republicans in Frankfort have decided that since the state Attorney General is Democrat Andy Beshear, that maybe the office needs a hefty chunk of its power removed so that GOP Gov. Matt Bevin can do whatever he wants to.

The President of the state Senate has filed a change to a bill that would strip power from the attorney general and give the governor exclusive authority to represent the state in many legal matters. 

On Wednesday morning, attorney general Andy Beshear called the measure “an unprecedented power grab and one of the worst constitutional overreaches since the adoption of our current constitution.” 

“The attorney general is not the governor’s lawyer, he’s not the General Assembly’s’ lawyer, he is the people’s lawyer,” Beshear said. “Because, as the Supreme Court explained, in Kentucky, the people are the sovereign, the people are the king. Not the government and not the governor.” 

Beshear said the proposal amounted to a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for the governor.

 SNIP

Odds are really fantastic that this will pass and that Bevin will sign it.  Whether or not it gets past Kentucky's Supreme Court I couldn't tell you, but giving most of the office's statewide power to Matt Bevin seems like a horrendous idea.
It's also a serious ethical and oversight breach, but then again these are Republicans we're talking about.  Using government power for their own purposes is absolutely fine.  Using it to help the people of the Commonwealth, well that's unfair.

Beshear, Bevin compete to force doctors to rape women with sticks

This is the most disgusting fucking thing I've ever seen.  The state's two most powerful elected officials fighting over who's the most impatient to force doctors to rape their own patients.  Because, again, that's what pre-abortion transvaginal ultrasounds are:  forcing an object deep into a woman's vagina against her will.

USA Today:

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear blasted Gov. Matt Bevin for pushing "alternative facts" during a Facebook Live commentary Wednesday that falsely claimed Beshear is no longer going to defend the state's recently passed anti-abortion ultrasound law.

Bevin took to social media to urge Kentuckians to reach out to Beshear and demand that he defend the new abortion law. Bevin called Beshear's position "absolutely unconscionable" but provided no support for his contention.

Beshear rebutted Bevin's claim, saying his office "is actively defending agencies sued over House Bill 2. In doing so, we have taken the most aggressive action possible, moving to have the entire case dismissed as to those agencies.

"I would suggest in the future that if the governor has any questions on the hard work of my office that he walk across the hallway and ask to meet with me, and not hide behind Facebook.”

The law, enacted this month, requires medical professionals to perform pre-abortion ultrasounds and describe the images to their patients. The law allows the patient to look away from the image. Bevin said significant majorities of Kentucky lawmakers and voters support anti-abortion measures.

"We are a pro-life state," he said.

No, motherfucker. We are an anti-woman, misogynistic hellhole thanks to you and the repugs freakazoids that now own the entire legislature.  Anti-life is what you are.

Though Beshear was firm that he will defend the ultrasound law, he has said he would not defend another new abortion law that imposes a ban on the procedure after the 20th week of a pregnancy if that law ends up being challenged in court, too.

KY AG Defending Law Mandating Doctors Rape Women

It's not an ultrasound; it's rape by object.  Forcing an object deep into a woman's body against her will IS. RAPE.  

 

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear is going to court to defend a law that requires doctors to commit object rape on women seeking abortions.

Deborah Yetter at the Courier:

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear said Tuesday he will fight a legal challenge to a new Kentucky law mandating ultrasounds for women seeking abortions — even though he believes such a defense comes with "risks and potential costs."

But Beshear said he will not attempt to defend another new state law banning abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy — should it also be challenged — saying it is "clearly unconstitutional."

"While these decisions may not please advocates on either side, my duty is to the law," Beshear said in a statement released by his office.

Hypocritical misogynistic DINO piece of shit.  Guess his conservative campaign donors get a much bigger boner from rape than from delays that lead to women dead from back-alley abortions.

KY Supreme Court to Bevin: Stop Strip-Mining State Economy

Really, the best part of all of these court decisions stomping on Gov. Lying Coward's balls is how his propaganda shop responds exactly the way any democratically-elected five-year-old would.

Marty Finley at Louisville Business Journal:

Kentucky's highest court has ruled against a recent round of higher education budget cuts made by Gov. Matt Bevin, which touched off an increasingly hostile legal battle with Attorney General Andy Beshear.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled 5-2 Thursday to reverse a Franklin Circuit Court decision to uphold the cuts, which Beshear has repeatedly argued are illegal.

The Supreme Court's conclusion states that "the Governor's reduction of the allotments of the Universities in this case exceeded his statutory authority to revise allotments under KRS 48.620(1) and his authority to withhold allotments under KRS 45.253(4)."

"Whatever authority he might otherwise have to require a budget unit not to spend appropriated funds does not extend to the Universities, which the legislature has made independent bodies politic with control over their own expenditures," the ruling continued. "We therefore do not reach the question of whether his actions were constitutional, as the statutes do not give him the authority to act as he proposed. For these reasons, the Franklin Circuit Court's order upholding the Governor's actions is reversed, and this matter is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

SNIP

Beshear released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling.

"Today, the Supreme Court enforced Kentucky law, reminding us that 'the governor, like everyone, is bound by the law.' Based on today’s ruling, I am calling on Gov. Bevin to immediately release the $18 million he wrongfully withheld from our public colleges and universities. As the court stated, it is my job as Attorney General 'to vindicate the public rights of the people of the Commonwealth, and I will continue to do so. I am also calling on the governor’s office to use today's ruling as a turning point. It is time for him to stop attacking, and to instead join me in building a better Kentucky. We live in a state where far too many of our children are abused. Our seniors face daily scams that seek to rob them of their hard-earned savings. Thousands of victims of sexual assault have been denied justice based on our rape kit backlog. And our communities face the most deadly drug epidemic imaginable. These are the problems Kentuckians expect us to address, and they are problems that all of us — Democrats, Republicans or independents — can address together. So I would hope that after today, the nasty press releases and name-calling stop, and the governor joins us for the real work that needs to be done to help Kentucky families."

In March, Bevin made an immediate 4.5 percent cut in state spending for colleges and universities in order to ease the burden of the state's $30 billion pension debt at the time.

In April, Bevin lowered the cuts to $18 million— about 2 percent — and restored funding to Kentucky State University. But although Bevin reduced the cuts, Beshear said they were still illegal.

From the trumpist toddler's press release:

"We are disappointed in the Court’s decision today and strongly disagree with its reasoning. The Attorney General clearly does not understand the severity of the pension problem which became the nation's worst funded plan under the watch of his father's administration. 

You already know every word of it is lies. 

Yes, Kentucky's state pension system is a mess.  It's a mess because for more than 20 years - including four years under repug governor Ernie Fletcher and more than a decade with a repug-run state senate - Kentucky has failed to properly fund the pension system as required by law.

The general assembly failed to fund the pension system because it was way easier to steal money from impoverished retirees than to address the Commonwealth's third-world tax system that strips workers of hard-earned income to let millionaires and billionaires - like Matt Bevin - skate.

No, Andy Beshear: Talking to Reporters Is Not A Firing Offense

Such a coincidence that the fired person is the one who makes sure the public knows what its government is doing. (Yes, that kind of reprimand is firing.)

You're a coward and a bully, Andy, and now we all want to know just one thing: What are you hiding?

John Cheves at the Herald:

A longtime champion of Kentucky’s government transparency laws retired Wednesday from Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office after she was reprimanded for speaking with a journalist.

“I came to this decision under considerable duress,” Assistant Attorney General Amye L. Bensenhaver, 58, wrote last month to Beshear. “It is clear to me I cannot survive, much less thrive, in the current office climate, and I have similar concerns about the open records/meetings laws.”

Bensenhaver was rebuked in a formal letter July 11 for giving an interview to retired editor John Nelson for a story he wrote in June on the 40th anniversary of the state’s Open Records Act and Open Meetings Act. Nelson’s story, commissioned by the Kentucky Press Association, ran in the Herald-Leader and other newspapers around the state. Bensenhaver had spent 25 years writing open records and open meetings decisions on behalf of the attorney general, whose word carries the weight of law on those subjects.

“You were quoted and cited as a representative of the Office of the Attorney General to the media, activity that falls outside the scope of your job duties, and without permission to do so,” La Tasha Buckner, executive director of the attorney general’s Office of Civil and Environmental Law, wrote to Bensenhaver. “Your actions in regards to Mr. Nelson’s article on the Open Records/Open Meetings Act have severely damaged your credibility and the trust that this office must have in you as an attorney.”

In an interview Thursday, Bensenhaver said she had hoped to stay at the attorney general’s office for another five years. But she felt pressured to leave because her superiors under Beshear kept interfering in the open government decisions for which she was responsible, ordering changes that did not strengthen the transparency laws. The reprimand was the last straw, she said

“I really did enjoy this work and I felt fortunate to do it for 25 years — or at least, for most of the last 25 years,” she said. “But I didn’t want to be put in a position where I was forced to make compromises in this important law that I helped to build.”

SNIP

Under Kentucky’s open government laws, most activities involving taxpayer funds must be conducted in public. Reporters and other curious citizens who are stonewalled by government officials routinely file appeals with the attorney general asking for a legal opinion. More often than not, a favorable ruling from the attorney general will pry loose the information in question.

David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Press Association, said Nelson called Bensenhaver for his story on the 40th anniversary of the laws because she is considered one of the state’s leading experts. Thompson said he occasionally had his own conversations with Bensenhaver when he wanted clarification about what records or meetings should be available to the public.

“Here she is, someone who devotes herself day in and day out to open government, and she literally gets in trouble for talking to a reporter about open government,” Thompson said. “I hate to see her go.”

Matt Bevin Throws Temper Tantrum, Shows Ass

Is he taking diplomacy and tact lessons from Paul LePage in Maine?  Who in his office thinks this is the proper way to respond publicly to the Kentucky Attorney General, regardless of what you really think?

From the press release:

“As best we can make sense of his rambling press conference, we strongly disagree with the Attorney General and will respond as necessary in court. Given the amount of alleged corruption and personnel problems in the Office of Attorney General and his father’s administration it is clear that he is attempting to deflect attention away from his own challenges.”

That's the whole thing, except for an introductory line claiming it is a "statement from Communications Director Jessica Ditto."  So Bevin's hiding behind his staff now?  It's on Governor's Office letterhead and the Lying Coward owns it.

I am no fan of Andy Beshear, but if he doesn't take full advantage of this stupidity, he really will be useless.

And the Slime-Off Begins

Looks like the son of Gov. Steve "Savior of Obamacare" Beshear came up with a twist on the usual owned-by-Big-Coal corruption of his father's generation.

John Cheves at the Herald:

Beshear, the son of Gov. Steve Beshear, practices "attorney general defense" at Stites & Harbison in Louisville, helping companies that have run afoul of the state's top law-enforcement officer. He's also the only declared candidate for attorney general in 2015.

Although Andrew Beshear wants voters to make him responsible for protecting Kentuckians from civil and criminal offenses, the Democratic candidate won't discuss his legal work or identify any of the clients he has represented before the attorney general.

"Under the Rules of Professional Conduct published by the Kentucky Supreme Court, identifying clients in this situation could constitute a legal ethics violation that could result in sanctions," Andrew Beshear's campaign manager, Jared Smith, wrote in an email to the Herald-Leader last week. Andrew Beshear himself did not return calls seeking comment.

 C'mon, repugs:  I know you've got candidates slimier than this.  Surely you are not going to leave this big juicy target out there untouched.

Somebody Ask Andy Beshear Who's Bought Him Today

Because somebody who thinks Andy's going to win the election for Attorney General next year probably has.

Charlie Pierce:

This is smooth and edgeless corporate fascism in its classic sense -- a marriage of government and industry that is so tightly consummated that the former is entirely indistinguishable from the latter. The interests of corporate influence and of government power are brought into such close cooperation with each other that their interests correspond to each other personally. Ever since the birth of this bright baby Blog, we've pointed out that the real action -- the real work of converting a self-governing republic into a seamless corporate oligarchy -- is being done in the states, where politicians can be purchased more cheaply, and where the infrastructure of the corruption on the national level is developed. This is where rookie politicians learn how to peddle their influence legally, and where the real power lies, and to whom they owe their allegiance and, therefore, their careers.