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.

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.

"Inept, arrogant and weak"

Joe Gerth at the Courier nails Gov. Sociopathic Narcissist:

With the stunning failure Tuesday night of Gov. Matt Bevin’s special session, the Louisville Republican cemented his place in the history books as the most inept, most arrogant and one of the weakest governors in Kentucky’s history.

It was his ineptness that caused him to pick fights with the General Assembly that didn’t need to be fought.

It was his hubris that caused him to call the legislature into session without its consent.

And it was his weakness that allowed the General Assembly — of which his Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses — to walk out on him after being in session less than 24 hours.  

There hasn’t been a weaker governor since the Democratic legislature stripped powers from Republican Gov. "Flim-Flam" Flem Sampson in the 1920s and gave them to a three-member commission composed of Sampson and the Democratic lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Bevin still has considerable power that comes with being governor — especially in a power vacuum created when the legislature goes home — but compared to other governors, he's now the 97-pound weakling in an old Charles Atlas ad.

He’s weaker now than former Democratic Gov. Paul Patton was following the revelation in 2002 of an affair with a Western Kentucky nursing home operator that almost toppled him during his second term.

Weaker even than former Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones was after he appeared on KET during the 1994 legislative session to denounce Democratic leadership when his budget and health care proposal appeared dead.

SNIP

The state's festering budget crisis was built over decades by politicians of both parties, and is by no means solely Bevin's fault.

But the feckless and arrogant decision to call legislators into session without their consent — just one week before the Yuletide? That's all Bevin's.

Lege spanks Baby Bevin, sends to room without dinner

Bevin is KY repugs' dream come true.  That they have defied him this way bodes very ill for Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You's re-election campaign next year.

From the Herald:

Ignoring the pleas of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, the Kentucky General Assembly voted Tuesday night to end the surprise special legislative session Bevin called Monday afternoon to address the state’s ailing public pension systems.

In a passionate speech to the House of Representatives, Speaker Pro-Tempore David Osborne, R-Prospect, said the decision to go home without passing a bill reflected a lack of time and conflicting opinions among the Republican caucus about how exactly to change the pension systems.

“We cannot shirk this, we cannot run from this. But this was not a problem that was created overnight ...” Osborne said. “We cannot solve it within the confines of a 5-day session.”

His announcement was greeted with applause from audience members in the gallery.

Osborne then promised to preside over the “ultimate solution to this problem,” presumably during the regular 2019 General Assembly, which begins January 8.

Outside his office, Bevin told reporters the legislature’s inability to pass a bill could put retirees’ pension checks in jeopardy.

“It should be of great concern to the taxpayers,” Bevin said. “It should of great concern, certainly, to the people who worked for the state and who were promised a pension. The odds of them getting that pension just went down dramatically tonight. It has got to be a priority or those people are up the creek.”

No state has ever defaulted on its pension system. Public pension experts say the most likely course is that all other state funding would be squeezed to honor the obligations.

Bevin's a lying motherfucking piece of shit.  Public pensions are constitutional obligations in Kentucky.  They'll shut down every agency of state government before they stop pension checks.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223287120.html#storylink=cpy

Defeated Bevin Cheating Again

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You is not going to let some state Supreme Court decision stop him from fucking over teachers, state workers and everybody who is not as obscenely rich as he is.

He doesn't have the votes legally and in broad daylight, so he's scurrying around in the dark to get the vile deed done before his targets can get organized.

From the Herald:

Kentucky lawmakers rushed to Frankfort Monday evening for a special legislative session that started at 8 p.m., just four hours after Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin made a surprise announcement that he would convene them to deal with Kentucky’s struggling pension system.

“I am going to use the powers that have been granted to me to call the legislature into special session that will be effective tonight at eight o’clock,” Bevin said in a brief statement. “They will be coming in.”

Shortly after 11 p.m., two pension overhaul bills were introduced, both sponsored by Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Louisville, the chairman of the House State Government Committee. The committee will hold a hearing on the bills Tuesday at 1 p.m. Miller said there will be no vote taken Tuesday on the bills.

Also from the Herald:

School teachers, public employees and their supporters quickly mobilized Monday after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin called a special session of the Kentucky legislature to make changes to the state’s pension systems, giving them only four hours notice.

“I think we’ll see at least as good a crowd as we did the night they passed the sewage bill in the first place,” said Jessica Hiler, president of the Fayette County Education Association.

Advocacy groups said they were scrambling to get their members to the Capitol in time to protest the special session, which was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Anyone who couldn’t make it to Frankfort was urged to call their lawmakers and demand that they adjourn immediately, the groups said.

It would have been better had lawmakers waited until the 2019 General Assembly convened in three weeks so an open, deliberative process involving all interested parties could be used to craft a better pension bill, the groups said.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin and Republican legislative leaders evidently hope to rush a recycled pension bill through the legislative process the week before Christmas before most Kentuckians can understand its contents, said Nema Brewer, co-founder of KY 120 United.

“This is how cowards run a government,” Brewer said. “They’re just raw because they got their hands slapped by the Kentucky Supreme Court for passing a pension bill the last time that was unconstitutional. But we’re headed to Frankfort. We’ll have a presence there. And we’re not happy.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

Rising seas are 500 miles east and 700 feet down, but Global Warming will destroy Kentucky, too

Everywhere on the planet, humanity's days are numbered and the number is few.  Kentucky's distance and elevation from the ocean is not going to save us.

It's all here in Chapter 19 of the official U.S. Government report the Pumpkin Traitor tried to hide on Friday. 


Regarding the Southeast, including Kentucky, the report reads:

While all regional residents and communities are potentially at risk for some impacts, some communities or populations are at greater risk due to their locations, services available, and economic situations. In fact, a recent economic study using a higher scenario (RCP8.5)¹¹ suggests that the southern and midwestern populations are likely to suffer the largest losses from projected climate changes in the United States.

Yep, Governor I Got Mine Fuck You, by stripping Kentucky's treasury, education system and support programs thus keeping us poor, sick and stupid, is making our suffering from global warming even worse than the coasts.

Blood On Their Hands: Bevin and Trump Order 95,000 Kentuckians to Death By Neglect

Even their lies are pathetically obvious. They're not even trying to hide that their goal is to eliminate everyone who is not white, male, straight, rich and republican.


From the Herald:

The Trump administration has again approved new rules for some of Kentucky’s Medicaid population, requiring them to either get a job, volunteer in the community or go to school to keep their government-funded health coverage.

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced the approval on Tuesday, nearly five months after a federal judge blocked the state’s first attempt. State officials say the new rules can begin as soon as April 1 and will be phased in regionally over several months. They will require adults ages 19 to 64, with some exceptions, to complete at least 80 hours per month of “community engagement” to keep their health benefits. That includes getting a job, looking for a job, going to school, volunteering for community service or taking a job training course.

What's the catch?  Working people on Medicaid will have to verify their working hours every month. So, you're struggling with three jobs and taking care of your kids but you have to drop everything and drive to the nearest Medicaid office - oh, you don't have a car?  Well you can call the Medicaid office - oh, you aren't allowed to make personal calls at work so you can't call during business hours? Well, you can go online ... oh, you live in the 95 percent of Kentucky that has no reliable wi-fi?  Well, guess you're shit out of luck.  And the Bevin-Trump plan is working like a charm.

Kentucky is one of 37 states that has expanded its government-funded health insurance program to include low-income adults with no children and no disabilities. More than 400,000 people signed up for the program, dramatically dropping the state’s uninsured rate and propping up some rural hospitals who depend on the revenue.

But Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has criticized the program, saying it is too expensive and does not make Kentucky’s citizens healthier as the state is still behind most of the country in some key health indicators.

Because the best way to make people healthier is to .... wait for it .... take away their health insurance.

Kentucky Voices for Health, an advocacy group, said they were “deeply disappointed” with the decision. Executive Director Emily Beauregard said during the public comment process, thousands of Kentuckians said access to health care was vital to their ability to be productive and successful.

“Reapproving a waiver that makes hardworking Kentuckians jump through hoops to keep their coverage will no doubt have the opposite effect,” she said.

It's perfectly clear.  If you are not white, male, straight, rich, xian and republican, the people who are those things want you dead.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article222012570.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article222012570.html#storylink=cpy

Repugs/ Freakazoids Employ Lies, Mythology in Latest Abortion Case

There has never, in the millenia-long history of abortion, been a baby killed. Not a child, not an infant, not an "innocent life."  All of those things - babies, children, infants, "innocent life" have the same characteristic in common: they breathe air.  Tissue that is removed from a woman's body does not breathe air.  It is not "alive." It is not a human being.  It is tissue rejected by its biological host, also known as a "woman," an adult human being who does breathe air.

But those scientific facts get in the way of freakazoids and conservatards exercising control over women's bodies, denying them bodily autonomy and the humanity of sexual freedom.

So they lie, and make up stories, and cite fiction composed by bronze-age desert goatfuckers, and appeal to the myth of an invisible wizard in the sky.

From the Herald:

Attorneys for Kentucky's socially conservative governor and the state's only abortion clinic opened their latest legal fight Tuesday, this time over a lawsuit challenging a new state law aimed at a common second-trimester procedure to end pregnancies.

Anti-abortion activists gathered outside the federal courthouse and inside the courtroom as the trial began over the law that its critics, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, say would amount to an impediment for women seeking abortions in their second trimester.

During opening statements, an attorney for the clinic told the judge that the law is unconstitutional because it would "all but eliminate" abortions for women past the 14th week of pregnancy. ACLU attorney Alexa Kolbi-Molinas said the procedure targeted by the state law is "safe and medically proven," and she accused the state's lawyers of "demonizing" the method with inflammatory rhetoric.

Steve Pitt, lead attorney for Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's legal team, described the procedure as "brutal, gruesome and inhumane" that results in a fetus being torn apart "limb by limb." He stressed the need to protect the weak, adding: "There are none so weak as an unborn child."

Nope.  There is no such thing as an "unborn child."  If it is a child, it is already born and breathing oxygen.  If it is not born, it is not breathing oxygen and is therefore not a child.

Late-term abortions are not brutal, not gruesome and not inhumane.  They do not tear a fetus limb from limb.  They extract dying, non-viable tissue that will never, under any circumstances, live to breathe oxygen, much less become a human being. 


Second-trimester abortions alleviate the tragedy of a desired pregnancy turned toxic because of birth defects. Forcing a woman to carry a dead or dying fetus for months simply to please the fetus-fetishists is what is cruel, brutal, gruesome and inhumane.

These vicious motherfuckers must be defeated, sent back to their medieval madrassas with their tails between their legs.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article221578385.html#storylink=cpy

 

Simple Answers to Simple Questions: Because Bevin Is A Stone-Cold Racist

And don't be stupid by pointing to his adopted non-white kids.  That is a classic racist move: adopt black kids to prove both that White Supremacy is best for everyone, and that you can't possibly be a racist - you have black kids!

Joe Gerth in the Courier asks "Why didn't Bevin order state flags lowered for the two black victims of the Kroger shooting."

On Thursday, Gov. Matt Bevin ordered the state’s flags to half-staff to honor the 12 people who were killed in last week’s shooting at a California bar.

He did the same thing in the days after a gunman walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and opened fire, killing 11 worshipers.

SNIP

But the question is, why didn’t Bevin order the state’s flags to half-staff to honor the two people who were shot and killed at the Jeffersontown Kroger grocery store just a couple of days before the synagogue shooting?

SNIP

This was more troubling than even the shooting two years ago on Thanksgiving weekend at the Juice Bowl at Shawnee Park. That's because the Kroger shooter appeared to have chosen his victims purely because they were African-American.

“Whites don’t shoot whites,” the shooter allegedly told one white man he encountered during his spree.

And before he went and killed black people at the Kroger, Gregory Bush apparently tried to get into a predominately African-American church — where he would have found more potential victims — but couldn't get beyond the locked doors.

You want a racist governor? Go on, keep voting for the motherfucker.  But don't pretend that you can vote repug and claim to not be a racist.  You are.

Bevin Admin to Give Tax Dollars to For-Profit Charter Scam-Schools

Because  all charter "schools" are scams.  Whether White Supremacy Apartheid charters, christian Dominionism Madrassa charters, Skimming Top Students Away From Public Schools charters, Killing Public Education For Fun and Profit charters or just plain old-fashioned Sucking Tax Dollars Into Private Pockets charters, they are all scams.

And Bevin will strip the public treasury bare to make all his billionaire buddies rich.

From the Herald:

Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis said Friday that he will ask the 2019 General Assembly to create a funding mechanism or process for charter schools, but that doesn’t mean that he is asking for extra money.

Of course not.  He'll take the money away from public schools, then use the resulting failure of unfunded public schools to justify making all schools charters.

“It’s simply a mechanism that shows how dollars — already appropriated public schools dollars — would follow a kid to a public charter school if their parents decide to enroll them in a public charter school,” he said.

At a meeting in Frankfort of the newly configured Kentucky Charter Schools Advisory Council, Lewis said he would advocate for anything else the state could do to raise achievement and close achievement gaps.

“It’s my job as Commissioner of Education to do everything that I can to move achievement ... to close achievement gaps ... and high quality public charter schools are one of the tools ... particularly with low income kids, kids of color, that’s what the research shows us.”

That is a blatant lie.  Many studies have shown that the handful of exceptional charter schools - non-religious and non-profit - at best do no worse educating students than do public schools.  Far more commonly, religious charters teach nothing but religion and for-profit charters teach nothing at all because all the funding goes to make the rich owners richer.

The General Assembly passed a law in 2017 to allow public charter schools in Kentucky for the first time. But none have opened.

Those who want to open charters in Northern Kentucky, Louisville and Richmond have said they are hesitant to file applications with their local school board as the law requires because there’s no current funding process for dollars to flow into charter schools, in state law. 

Northern Kentucky, home of Catholic freakazoids and John-Bircher-style conservatives.  I wouldn't put a dog I hated into the kind of charters NKY is likely to come up with.

And it turns out that charter schools make all schools worse because they fail to address the real root of poor schools:  poverty and racism.

Erik Loomis at LGM:

You don’t say! You mean the problem with American education is poverty? Kids living through domestic violence? Kids lacking nutrition? Who fucking knew! Glad Gates spent $700 million discovering that the only way to fix education is to fix poverty and racism. It’s not like he could have discovered that before he spent the money by just asking people. Or, I don’t know, watching Season 4 of The Wire. Speaking of which, I love how David Simon went after charter schools scammers long before it was cool to do so, back when they were supported by internet liberals, not only in The Wire, but in Treme, even as it was a relatively minor theme in Season 2.

But then those solutions don’t fit the profiteers behind charter schools or the privatizers who hate public goods. No money to be made fighting poverty!

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article221407295.html#storylink=cpy

Oooh, check out the asian pron on Gov. Bevin's job site

Before it's gone.

From the Courier:

This is a developing story; please check back for updates. 

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's website that originally offered a portal to apply for jobs in his administration now hosts a Japanese anime porn site.

In a news release announcing the job portal in 2015, the Bevin campaign said it "contains a comprehensive web-based application where applications can be submitted for the hundreds of unclassified, non-merit jobs that will be available." The website URL — www.bevintransition.com — now takes users to the porn site.

The website links to a site featuring cartoon images of women engaged in pornographic acts. The website's IP address is connected to a city in Japan. 

"The domain expired after the transition period, and it was not renewed," Bevin spokeswoman Elizabeth Kuhn said.

Massa Bevin: Slaves Were Just Apprentices

When your racism and White Privilege are so ingrained that you can't even pretend any more.

Joe Gerth at the Courier:

When Master Matt Bevin thinks of the “good ol’ days,” who knew he thinks about the late 1700s?

Marse Bevin — according to WFPL — went to the Kentucky Registered Apprenticeship Summit on Monday and extolled the virtues of indentured servitude as being something akin to an early form of an apprenticeship.

According to the radio station, Marse Bevin said that a couple of his ancestors came to America as indentured servants, learned how to make bells from their master and went on to form their own company after they were freed.

He hailed the harsh practice of keeping people in bondage as a way to give workers hands-on experience.

Well shackle me up and teach me to cast bronze.

Indentured servitude, of course, was the practice of paying one’s way across the pond by selling oneself into bondage for a prescribed number of years — essentially a form of slavery.

It differed from the enslavement of Africans practiced throughout the South, though, in that with Southern slavery, there was no contract and the prescribed number of years was the rest of one’s life, and the rest of one's children’s lives and the rest of their children’s lives, and so on.

So, slavery was far worse. But indentured servitude was no picnic, either.

Sure, a few indentured servants learned trades, but the vast majority of serfs were field workers and household servants, working alongside the African slaves, or doing the same jobs in lieu of the African slaves.

For Master Bevin, this is not to be thought of as a time we should regret and think “thank heavens we’ve gotten past that and don’t allow such a barbarous practice any longer.”

No, for Master Bevin, it is the age of enlightenment. A time of great learning.

(Someone should point out right here that labor unions, which Bevin has harshly criticized and pushed to neuter or kill with right-to-work and other anti-union legislation, run amazing apprenticeship programs that don’t require bondage or a period of servitude.)

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.

What Fiendish Medicaid Fuckery is Bevin Planning Now?

First he reversed the denial of vision and dental coverage, and now he's cancelled the higher co-pays.

He didn't do it because a judge ordered him to, he didn't do it because he suddenly saw error of his libertarian ways, and he sure as fuck didn't do it out of the kindness of the sewage pump that pretends to be him heart.

He did it to throw everybody off while he perfects some massive plot to eliminate all the Kentucky poors, once and for all.

DINO Ben Betrays Kentuckians; Will Help Bevin Steal Medicaid From Tens of Thousands

When I saw the headline at the Herald-Leader - Bevin announces partnership to implement Medicaid changes - I knew who it had to be.

Shame on you, Ben Chandler.  And how fucking stupid, aligning yourself with the trumpies just as the Resistance is notching its first victories.

Do you really hate Kentuckians that much for not electing you Governor in 2003? Do you really think the repugs will reward you for this betrayal?

Are you so desperate for money that you will take 30 pieces of silver from the Yankee carpetbagger who is systematically bulldozing the state your grandfather served as governor not once but twice?

What are you getting out of this, you motherfucking piece of shit?

Kentucky's Republican governor is partnering with a former Democratic congressman to help implement the nation's first work requirements for Medicaid.

Former official yes but mostly former Democrat.

On Wednesday, Gov. Matt Bevin announced a partnership with the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, a nonpartisan health policy research group run by Ben Chandler.

Once the new work requirements take effect later this year, state officials predict Medicaid will cover 95,000 fewer people in five years, leading critics to accuse Bevin of taking away people's health insurance. Chandler said the foundation's goal will be to help Kentuckians keep their coverage.

You don't help Kentuckians keep their coverage by partnering with Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You to force 95,000 of them off health coverage.

Shame on you, Ben.  I hope every real Democratic candidate in Kentucky stands up to condemn you, your new repug buddy and every inhuman policy the two of you now stand for.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article212164799.html#storylink=cpy

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.

Bevin Determined to Lose Re-Election

You don't piss off the people who cook/serve your food or who cut your hair.  And you don't deliver public, deadly insults to the judge who handles all the lawsuits against your maladministration.

From the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin went after a Kentucky judge Tuesday, the day after that judge ruled against Bevin's procedural motion in a lawsuit over Kentucky's new pension law.

"I now have the most incompetent hack of a judge — I don't know if in Kentucky, but certainly one of the worst — who happens to be in Franklin Circuit Court," Bevin said in a radio interview on 55KRC, a talk radio station in Cincinnati.

On Monday, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled in a 30-minute hearing that Bevin's attorneys could not depose representatives of Attorney General Andy Beshear's office, the Kentucky Education Association and the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police.

The three parties filed a lawsuit April 11 against the state's new public pension law.

Because anyone and everyone who disagrees with Dear Leader is an idiot and a traitor.

Maybe it's just a giant, long-term piece of performance art.

Bevin Moves to Get Rid of Pesky Teachers by Just Eliminating Public Education

Step One:  Strip the state economy down to bedrock and turn the treasury over to corporations.

Step Two:  ???????

Step Three:  Profit!

And give the charter school contracts to the same corrupt contractors taking over the state prisons.  Make that school-to-prison pipeline an express train.

The last public servant standing between Kentucky's schools and the corporate drone factories Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You will now install has been quit-fired and replaced with a charter school fuckhead.

From the Herald:

“Despite the outcry of tens of thousands of Kentuckians, today Governor Matt Bevin continued his offensive against public education, this time through proxies and behind closed doors,” said Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler, whose group had pushed back against the expected move earlier in the day. “Dr. Stephen Pruitt has been a strong and effective champion for our students and public schools. Forcing an honorable and highly qualified man to resign from his position without any cause is contrary to the best interests of students across the Commonwealth.”

House Democratic Leader Rocky Adkins said that it was “a sad day for public education and the children of Kentucky. This is just another attempt by Governor Bevin to weaken and dismantle Kentucky’s education system and implement his agenda of charter schools.”

Pruitt was hired in 2015, when the board was controlled by appointees of former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear.

Bevin on Monday issued an executive order appointing seven new members to the board, including Hal Heiner, former Education and Workforce Development secretary, and the governor’s former communications director, Amanda Stamper. Heiner resigned his cabinet secretary job to take the new post. All seven seats were vacant as of Friday because the terms expired.

Bevin previously named four others to the board that develops policies governing Kentucky’s 173 school districts and the Kentucky Department of Education, so his appointees now have full control.

Colorado makes clear that charter school proponents have no place in the Democratic Party.  That's because charter fuckheads are repugs.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

A very short time ago, Rheeists were Democratic Party power players. Remember that charter schools and so-called “education reform” were at the very center of the Obama agenda. Not only was Secretary of Education Arne Duncan right out of that world, but he was also one of Obama’s closest advisors and oldest political friends. But given the utter bankruptcy of charter schools, a movement straight out of neoliberal privatization (which, despite the feelings of some LGM commenters, neoliberalism wasn’t a term made up by Bernie supporters to make Chait or Hillary supporters feel bad) that sought to provide “market solutions” to education problems that busted teachers’ unions and pretend like poverty wasn’t the biggest issue in education, it’s extremely refreshing to see Democrats purge charter school advocates. Take Colorado:

Delegates at the Colorado Democratic state assembly Saturday sent a clear message to the state chapter of Democrats for Education Reform: You don’t have a place in our party.

After booing down the head of the education reform organization, who described herself as a lifelong Democrat, delegates voted overwhelmingly Saturday to call for the organization to no longer use “Democrats” in its name. While it’s unclear how that would be enforced, the vote means a rejection of DFER is now part of the Colorado Democratic Party platform.

…

The platform amendment reads: “We oppose making Colorado’s public schools private or run by private corporations or becoming segregated again through lobbying and campaigning efforts of the organization called Democrats for Education Reform and demand that they immediately stop using the party’s name Democrat in their name.”

SNIP

There simply should not be any place for neoliberals in the Democratic Party. Purge them all. The Democratic Party needs to stand for strong public schools, strong teachers’ unions, and a strong tax base to fund these things. I don’t want Cory Booker welcoming Mark Zuckerberg to talk about funding schools. I want Cory Booker talking about taxing Zuckerberg at 1950s tax rates to fund education. I want Rahm Emanuel to be forced into the Republican Party. The base revolt within the Democratic Party is happening different ways in different places, as Steve’s post from earlier today about New York and California indicates. But all of these revolts are positive. And when the Democratic Party is taken over by people who reject Republican-lite policies, well this is exactly the politics we should be engaging in. This is how conservatives took over the Republican Party and eliminated Nelson Rockefeller types from relevance. We must do the same. And indeed we are.