Ohio River Bridge Repair: Don't Hold Your Breath

This statement from Gov. Let Them Eat Coal Dust pretty much guarantees that the Sherman Minton bridge repair is going to come in at least 100 percent over budget, more than a year overdue and so sloppy that the bridge has to be completely replaced anyway.

Gov. Beshear’s Statement regarding Sherman Minton Bridge Repair:

FRANKFORT, Ky. (Oct. 18, 2011) – “Kentucky is delighted that a Kentucky firm was selected, and that the cost to taxpayers is significantly less than our original estimate. The fact that Hall Contracting expects to complete the task in about four and a half months – six weeks faster than expected – is great news for our entire region, and the project will undoubtedly provide an influx of jobs for the area. We knew our bidding contractors would find innovative ways to speed up the repair and reopening of this bridge, and their aggressive pursuit of that goal will benefit both our states. We are eager to see repair work begin and even more anxious to see the Sherman Minton Bridge reopened to the businesses and commuters who rely on it daily.”

Kentucky Highway Fatalities Lowest Since 1999 - Or Not

Fewer deaths is good. But a governor in a tough re-election campaign taking credit for an improvement that may have more to do with a shitty economy is bad.

Kentucky highway fatalities dropped to an 11-year low in 2010.

The Kentucky Office of Highway Safety (KOHS) today released final statistics for 2010. There were 760 fatalities last year, 31 fewer than in 2009 and the lowest total since 1999, when the death toll was 729. Fatalities declined for the fifth consecutive year.

“The good news is that 31 fewer lives were lost,” Gov. Steve Beshear said. “The bad news is that people are still needlessly dying on Kentucky highways. We will not rest until the number is zero, because one fatality is one too many.”

Gov. Beshear’s Executive Committee on Highway Safety is working to update and implement the state’s strategic highway safety plan, which focuses on four critical elements: engineering, education, enforcement and emergency response.

Transportation Secretary Mike Hancock, the governor’s designated highway safety representative and chair of the committee, said the data-driven, 2010-2014 comprehensive plan includes collaboration from stakeholders at every level — federal, state, local and private — to identify safety needs and guide investment decisions.

“If our effort results in just one life being saved, it will have been worth it”, Hancock said.

Of the 760 fatalities last year, 598 were in motor vehicles. Of those killed, 62.5 percent were not buckled up and 20 percent of fatalities involved alcohol. Motorcyclists accounted for 78 fatalities, with 57.7 not wearing helmets and 15.4 percent of fatal motorcycle crashes involved alcohol.

Here’s the problem: the number of deaths means little in the absence of data on traffic totals. Was the total number of miles driven on Kentucky highways also at an 11-year low? Then the number of deaths is probably not an improvement. Look at this list of number of traffic deaths for the last 12 years:

1999 729
2000 823
2001 843
2002 915
2003 931
2004 964
2005 985
2006 913
2007 864
2008 826
2009 791
2010 760

Notice anything? From 1999 to 2005, deaths steadily increased. Then they suddenly started dropping - by as much as five percent per year ever since.

Remember 1999? It was the last year of the Clinton Prosperity, right before the bottom dropped out of the economy when the Internet Bubble burst.

Even with the increase in population in Kentucky since 1999, I'd be willing to bet that between higher gas prices and much higher unemployment substantially fewer miles were driven on Kentucky highways in 2010 than in 1999. That would mean that highway deaths per miles driven are higher - maybe substantially higher - than in 1999.

I could be wrong. But based on the sparse data given in the press release, there's no way to know. I'd like to think that if the miles driven comparison also shows a significant drop in deaths, that would have been mentioned in the press release. That it wasn't makes me suspicious.

Twain warned us there are lies, damn lies and Statistics. He forgot to mention election-year press releases.

Before You Vote GOP for Governor, Look Around

We Kentucky dems bitch non-stop about our Governor Steve "Cowardly Waste of Oxygen" Beshear. We hate him so much we are very likely to either sit out the election this November or cast a vote for Insane All-Abortion-Is-Murder Freakazoid Gatewood Galbraith, thus allowing repub Senate President David Williams to win.

Beshear is certainly a painful disappointment who richly deserves to lose, but Kentucky does not deserve the corporatist takeover that GOP governors elected last year have launched all over the country.

Beshear probably won't deny voting rights to everyone who is not a white Xian repug male, or cancel employee rights for 35,000 state employees, or authorize a takeover of an elected municipal government, or pay for huge corporate tax breaks by firing thousands of teachers, or eliminate nursing home inspections or perform any of the other unconsitutional, anti-American stunts that have made GOP governors despised across the nation.

Alternet has the details on the 8 worst governors in America:

When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker rammed his union-busting bill through the legislature -- and then published it despite a judge's stay -- he seemed a lock for the honor of the Worst Governor in the United States. But then again, there are a lot of truly terrible executives in various state-houses these days.

So let's look at some of the others who might also vie for the title of America's Worst Governor -- to nobody's surprise, they're all Republicans!

The Governor: Rick Scott (Florida)

Rick Scott was once the CEO of Columbia/HCA, a massive hospital chain. The federal government fined Columbia/HCA for Medicaid and Medicare fraud. That fine, a jaw-dropping 1.7 billion dollars, is the largest in American history.

But instead of going to jail, Rick Scott became the governor of Florida.

A guy scams the government and now is an elected official of the government. And in the three months since he's been in office he's doing his best to destroy the fourth largest state.

1. He rejected $2.4 billion in stimulus money to build a high-speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando.

2. He wants to slash $4 billion in spending while cutting taxes for millionaires.

3. He tried to use state funds to build golf courses in state parks while cutting education by 10 percent and corporate taxes by 5 percent.

4. He's requiring 600,000 government workers (including police officers, teachers, firefighters, judges, and retirees) to contribute 5 percent to their retirement.

5. He just lopped off $2,300 a year in teacher salary to give massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy.

He's also not a fan of black people. He proposed eliminating state support for two HBCUs (Historically black colleges and universities). He's shutting down a state agency that assists minority businesses, and he refuses to appoint an African American to any significant position in his administration.

Read the whole thing. They cover Walker (WI), Paul LePage (ME), Rick Perry (TX), Jan Brewer (AZ)), Rick Snyder (MI), Tom Corbett (PA) and John Kasich (OH), but miss what Down with Tyranny calls New Jersey's loudmouthed Limbaughesque slob, Chris Christie.

So, Kentucky. Gubernatorial election in November. I pleaded for a Real Democratic to step up and challenge Beshear in the May primary, but Beshear cowardice is apparently contagious. And they all think Williams is going to win no matter who is on the Democratic ticket.

I think Williams is going to win, too, but I'm no longer shrugging it off. Repug governors are destroying the structures of democracy. They are tearing the viscera out of the body politic and feeding it to the corporate vultures.

Kentucky has fallen so far thanks to Beshear's neglect that I have a hard time imagining what Williams could do to make it any worse. But that's exactly what terrifies me. Democratic voters in Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio and Florida and Pennsylvania and Texas and Arizona and Maine and New Jersey never imagined that punishing Democrats at the ballot box would result in widespread catastrophe.

You really think David Williams is not going to try to beat them at the Game of Anarchy?

Vote for Steve Beshear. Crawl into your hazmat suit, turn on the pure oxygen and vote for the worthless fucker. Do it with the vision of Rick Scott, burning Florida to the ground, in front of you.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Trippin' at dem hq

Forget the psychotropics and sex hormones in the Louisville water system - down at State Democratic Party Headquarters in Frankfort, they're scarfin' down some high-quality hallucinogens.

The Big Sign outside, the one everyone driving east on the interstate can't miss, today reads:

Thank you, Governor Beshear, for strong, ethical leadership.

And Thank YOU, President Bush, for seven years of Peace and Prosperity.

Steve Beshear? Are they seriously talking about this guy?

So strong he can't get the state house run by his own party to approve a casino referendum desired by 80 percent of Kentuckians?

So ethical he named as Finance Secretary a man who gave illegal and outrageous raises to an employee whose main qualifications appears to be her attractiveness as a companion on trips to Las Vegas?

So much of a leader he managed to antagonize every Democrat east of Lexington when he interferred in the local choice of a candidate for a state senate special election. Beshear's choice lost huge to the republican?

Any more strong, ethical leadership like this, and Kentucky Democrats might as well give up and hand the state back to Mitch McConnell.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

My Blue Kentucky Home

Twenty years ago, Kentucky rejected modest, diligent, faithful Steve Beshear in favor of flashy businessman Wallace Wilkinson, who promised lottery winnings that would fund education without raising taxes.

Today, a state ravaged and exhausted by four years of depredations by republican Ernie Fletcher watched Steve Beshear sworn in as its 61st governor.

In his first speech as governor, Democrat Steve Beshear pleaded for unity, promised ethics and pledged economic progress.

He described a stagnant state that has "fallen short," "fallen behind" and "stood still while others have moved forward."

"It doesn't have to stay that way," Beshear said in his inaugural speech from the Capitol steps. "If we address the challenges that face us, and take bold steps to meet them, I believe that we can make Kentucky 'America's Next Frontier.'"

The overflow crowd of more than 1,000 gave its loudest applause to Beshear's pledge to make ethics reform his top priority.

Beshear said one of his first official actions as governor will be to require his top appointees to complete "extensive training" in state ethics laws and hiring procedures.

He'll also propose to the legislature a package of new ethics laws that increase penalties for ethics code violations, strengthen protections for whistle blowers and change the way member of the Executive Branch Ethics Commission are chosen.

"We need to get our own house in order before we can be trusted to do the people's business," he said in an apparent reference to a hiring scandal that torpedoed former Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher's chances of re-election.

The weather was close to perfect - 65 and mostly sunny all morning, clouding up only toward the very end of the ceremony. Fletcher's 2003 inauguration was icy - as unusually cold for December as today was unusually warm. In hindsight, that deep chill was a harbinger of the last four years.

With any luck, today's mild weather will be an equally accurate harbinger of the next four years.

And not just in Kentucky, but nationally. Ernie's victory foreshadowed Smirky's re-election, and Smirky's fortunes have fallen eerily in tandem with Ernie's.

As I wrote back on election night:

Kentucky has gone with the winner of the Presidential Election every time since 1964. With a Democrat back in the Governor's mansion, the Bluegrass State is Blue once again, and 2008 will be the republicans' Waterloo. In Kentucky, and throughout the nation.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.