Taliban Matt Hits the Burka Trail

Skirts below the knee?  Are you fucking kidding me?

Let's see if we can figure out the real goal here.

Shame female employees?  Check.

Shame low-paid employees who can't afford the new fascist "professional" look?  Check.

Vague guidelines that make it easy for Bevin appointees to fire non-repug, non-freakazoid, non-white, non-straight and non-male employees without just cause?  Check.

From the Courier:

No flip-flops. No bare midriffs. No camouflage. And watch the hemline on that skirt.

Gov. Matt Bevin's administration is rolling out a new dress code for state workers, but some departments' individual tweaks to the rules – including a ban on  "extremely low necklines" – are raising eyebrows at the state workers' association.

Employees recognize that employers have the right to set standards, said David Smith, executive director of the Kentucky Association of State Employees, but who's to say what the proper length for a dress is? "You're dealing with a fashion issue, and fashion changes," he said.

Personnel Cabinet Secretary Thomas Stephens said in a recent memo announcing the new guidelines that the executive branch's roughly 31,000 employees should maintain "a neat, professional appearance" because they represent the commonwealth.

SNIP

However, agencies are free to tweak their dress codes since different departments do different kinds of work, and people can request accommodations if they have a medical, religious or disability-related need. Violations could result in employees being asked to leave the premises or being subjected to disciplinary action, including possible dismissal.

Stephens also is instituting several additional rules that only apply to the Personnel Cabinet's 206 employees.

Personnel Cabinet employees can wear casual dresses and skirts only if they are knee-length or longer and cannot wear spaghetti-strap dresses unless they're covered by a sweater, according to an early-October memo from Stephens. Tops with "extremely low necklines" are prohibited, as are pajama pants, exercise pants, camouflage-patterned clothes and shorts. Men must keep their dress shirts tucked in, although polo shirts don't have to be.

Smith said the association has members who work in every state cabinet and every state agency, and some employees – the majority of whom have been women so far – have reached out with concerns about the new dress codes.

SNIP

And the Personnel Cabinet cannot oversee how each agency and manager enforces these rules, Smith said. Supervisors potentially could use a dress code violation as an excuse to discipline or fire someone they dislike.

"Is it too interpretive, and do we believe it could cross a line? Absolutely," Smith said.

If someone has religious or personal views about what is modest or appropriate and what isn't, those ideas shouldn't be forced on employees, he said.

He also said state workers may have to buy new clothes to meet their agency's dress code if, for example, their skirts fall above the knee. Employees will make an effort to meet whatever requirements their agencies institute, Smith said, but professional clothes can be expensive.

Especially for employees hired since Governor Fascist Dictator cut the state employee minimum wage from $10.10 to $7.25 about 10 seconds after he was inaugurated.

The Right Is A Hoax

It always has been.  Trump has just carried it past its logical extreme.

D.R. Tucker at Political Animal:

It is not “liberal elitism” to declare that those who think chasing Mexicans and Muslims out of the country, repealing Obamacare, rolling back civil rights protections and cutting taxes for billionaires will lead to widespread prosperity are factually off-base. It’s basic common sense.

Trump made it this far because he understood that mainstream-media entities would not call stupidity by its name. He made it this far because he understood that there are millions of Americans who still, after all these decades, don’t understand that the Right–all of it–is a hoax, a scam to separate suckers from their money and their dignity. He made it this far because he understood that there are plenty of citizens who will fall for the simplest of cons–and that the Fourth Estate won’t even attempt to tell those citizens that they are just marks for the con.

The marks will continue to be played for suckers even if Trump loses by a significant margin. They will continue to demonstrate their limitless intolerance. They will continue to attack elected Republicans they regard as not being hateful enough. They will continue to denigrate our democracy…and they will continue to slow down our march towards progress.

So beating Trump is not enough.  Exposing and defeating the right-wing hoax is the goal.  And that will take a lot more work than just winning elections.

Defending Your For-Clinton Vote

There are literally no persuadable voters in this election, so trying to pull repug voters over to the dem side is a waste of time and energy.

Preventing Trump from getting within a light-year of the presidency is more than sufficient justification for a vote for Hillary Clinton, but if you need to defend your vote from a positive perspective, Political Animal has what you need:

Clinton has a whole array of proposals that would actually benefit white middle and working class Americans.

If you are unemployed, she has a plan to create thousands of new jobs via an investment in infrastructure.

If you aren’t earning enough money to make ends meet, she wants to raise the minimum wage.

If you want to go to college or are weighed down with college debt, she has a plan to make college debt-free and to allow former students to refinance their debt.

If you are elderly and trying to make it on Social Security alone, she has a plan to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund and increase benefits to the elderly poor.

If you are raising a family or taking care of elderly relatives, she has a plan for paid family and medial leave.

If you need affordable child care, she has a plan to make pre-k universal and ensure that no one pays more than 10% of their income on high-quality childcare.

If you are living in poverty, she has a plan to change the refundability threshold of the child tax credit.

If you live in coal country, she has a plan to revitalize your community.

Beyond that, a President Clinton would continue the executive orders issued by President Obama on things like overtime pay and the fiduciary responsibilities of investment advisors.

How to Rig An Election

Sure, it'll be easy!

Shakezula at LGM:

As CrunchyFrog demonstrated last night, it wouldn’t.

I know they’re all grifters, but man are they stupid, too. He actually thinks that Democrats are bussing (sic) in black people to vote multiple times in different precincts. This reminds me of an article once by a journalist who went undercover for a few months as a car salesman. He had the usual exposes about the car dealership industry, but one side comment was about how every sales dude (almost always dudes) was also involved in some multi-level-marketing scam or another and how their best customers were the other sales dudes. Gullible is as gullible does.

Regarding the black voter busing scheme. Let’s think about this logically (not possible for the GOP, I know, but bear with me). If I were running such a scheme what would I have to do to make an effective dent in the results? As a starting point, a lot of Colorado wingnuts think that Obama won there in 2012 by cheating. He won by 138k votes, so let’s use 140k votes as a starting point. So let’s say I have a bus full of black voters – say 66 people (common capacity limit on school buses). So if every bus is filled to near capacity that’s about 2200 bus-visits to the polling stations. How many polling stations can a given bus hit in a day? Well, your typical precinct has 2-3 people checking voters in and each one processes about 2 per minute, so that’s over 30 minutes just to check in (of course there will be other voters, too), plus time to drive between precincts. Seriously, if you are counting on more than 10 precincts per bus per day you’re going to be disappointed. So that’s 220 buses chartered for the day, and a total of about 14k fraudulent voters.

Holy freaking crap. The logistical problems of arranging that many fraudulent voters, ALL of whom are risking felony sentences and NONE of whom have ever talked about it to anyone. Now plan to arrange for 140k fake registrations using the matching photos for each person and arrange it so that the manager of each bus makes sure that every voter gets the exact fake ID for each precinct. And NO MISTAKES – remember no one has ever been caught doing this because Democrats, who are inept in government, are utter geniuses when it comes to vote fraud. So that means there NEVER can be a situation where a fake voter encounters a registrar who says “Hey, I live on that street, I’ve never seen you” or similar.

By the way, the absolutely easiest logistical part of this scheme is arranging for photo ID. Assuming you have that many people willing to commit felonies for whatever you are paying them and have arranged everything else in detail, getting fake photo IDs for them is simple and routine. So photo ID laws do absolutely jack shit to stop massive vote fraud – but of course that wasn’t their real intention, was it?

And when the O’Keefe’s find nothing we need not worry – all wingnuts everywhere will remain convinced that it is happening everywhere.

 No, wait - that's not the plan.  The plan is to scare so many white people about non-existent voter fraud that they install voting restrictions specifically designed to prevent all Democratic-leaning groups from voting at all.

Yeah, that's how it works. 

"Do You Think She's Going to Win?"

Yeah, yeah: one person, one anecdote, I know.  Bite me.

She glanced at my shirt as she was taking my order.  Middle-aged white woman working food service in Kentucky.

"Do you think she's going to win?" Her voice was wistful, almost pleading.

It took me a second to realize she was referring to the Hillary 2016 image on my T-shirt.

"Oh, yes she is," I said in my most encouraging voice.

"I really hope so."  She took my money and gave me my food.

"Be sure to vote!" I sang as I turned away.

It didn't hit me until later.  As bad as a Trump presidency would be for people like me, it would be infinitely worse for minimum-wage workers like the woman who had just sold me some food.

Maybe I imagined the longing and hope I heard in her voice.

But when I vote on November 8 - no early voting in Kentucky without proof you will be out of the state on Election Day - I will be voting for more than just a* historic victory for progressives, Democrats and women.

I will be voting for - and with - the ignored, unsung working poor women of Kentucky for whom Hillary is more than a symbol.


* Yes, "a historic."  "Historic" has an aspirate "h," meaning it is pronounced, not silent, and therefore takes the article "a," not "an."  "An historic" is illiterate.

Ghost Hunting

Divine Irony:

This Is What Fearless Patriotism Looks Like

Without Patriots like this, we'd still be a British colony.

Turnout. Turnout, Turnout, TURNOUT. Nothing Else Matters

So Kentucky, like a lot of other states, now boast record-high voter registration.

It doesn't matter unless all those registered voters actually get to the polls.

That's the goal now.  Forget everything else.

From the Herald:

A record number of Kentuckians will be eligible to vote on Election Day, according to Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

More than 3.3 million people are registered to vote in the November election, an increase of more than 50,000 from the primary election.

Grimes said 106,000 voters have registered since March, when the state unveiled its online voter registration system.

About 30 percent of all new voters registered online, with younger voters using the online system the most.

“I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done to launch online voter registration,” Grimes said. “It’s an enormous success in Kentucky.”

You Don't Have A Good Job Because Employers Like Jim Beam Won't Hire the People They Need

So 250 well-paid workers at Jim Beam Distilleries in Kentucky are on strike.

Not for higher pay; they're some of the highest-paid manufacturing workers in the country.

Not for better conditions; Jim Beam treats them OK.

No, they're on strike for fewer hours.

This is the dirty little secret of the recovering economy; instead of hiring all the people they really need - and paying them a living wage - employers are keeping skeleton crews and working them to death.

From the Courier:

On Saturday, employees of the Jim Beam facilities in Clermont and Boston, Kentucky, entered a strike following failed contract negotiations that they say didn't place enough emphasis on hiring more full-time employees to reduce current workers' hours.


SNIP

But Mudd said that while the employees realize they are paid well, they also feel that the company has neglected to hire the number of full-time workers needed to keep up with production demands.

"The reason they didn't do it was because the workload fluctuated so much," Mudd said, acknowledging that bourbon production is traditionally seasonal. "They always said they didn't want to hire (full-time employees) because when the workload drops off, then they would have to lay them off. But for the past two to three years, the workload has been consistently on the high side."

Remember: corporations have loyalty to no one and nothing but profits. They will sell out their employees, sell out their communities, sell out their country. Always.

And Fuck Pink, Too

The very LAST thing the fight against cancer needs is more "awareness."  Especially when that "awareness" is not only raising money not for cancer research or treatment but for anti-woman, anti-choice lobbying groups; not only pink-washing corporations seeking cover for their crimes, but also allowing the companies who actually manufacture the poisons that cause breast cancer to skate off the hook entirely.

PZ Myers:

(I)t’s as if daubing pink paint on something suddenly makes it an accomplishment in cancer research.

So we had pink drill bits. Fracking for the cure!

Pink fighter jets! Strafing and bombing for the cure!

 

They cut support for Planned Parenthood! Who needs mammograms and education when you’ve got drill bits and bullets?

Susan G. Komen has long held deep ties with right wing groups. Now we learn that another aspect of those ties is that they have scheduled major fund raising events at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

Komen has held their annual “Perfect Pink Party” at Mar-a-Lago since 2011, and Trump has attended throughout the years. The AP reported today that the party is still planned for January 2017, and that the organization won’t make a final decision about whether to go ahead — or cancel and lose the deposit — until after October. Komen spokesperson Andrea Rader declined to comment beyond the AP story.

The AP also reported that two alleged instances of Trump touching women inappropriately occurred at Mar-a-Lago.

There’s also this little gem.

Nancy Brinker, who is the founder and chair of Global Strategy for the Komen Foundation [but who is currently on leave] endorsed Trump earlier this year.

Trump’s support among women is dismally low — this is a thug who thinks women need to be punished for getting an abortion — and yet Komen doesn’t think this is enough of a problem that they should distance themselves from him.

I’ll never donate to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and I don’t see how they can stop their slide into irrelevance at this rate. I’m just waiting for the Republicans to slap a coat of pink paint on their logo to show that they are pro-woman. It’s the least they could do.

No Quarter

I want to know if the bleeding hearts dems who handed $13,000 of their own hard-earned money to the racist motherfuckers of the North Carolina GOP have ever actually met a trump voter.  Or an actual repug.  Because those of us who have know better.

Rude Pundit:

So we're facing a party that is trying to prevent people from voting, with a nominee that is actively inciting people to possible violence in order to undermine the very democracy that got him this goddamn far, and has elected officials who have made it their jobs to simply undo the will of the majority of Americans. I ain't playing nice with shitheels and ratfuckers, and I won't abide pompous blowhards and the fools who follow them.

State Employee of the Year: Trans Pride FTW

Not for his courage in making his transition public, although here in the bibble belt that deserves its own prize, but for how and where and in whose face he did it.

Deborah Yetter at the Courier:

Meanwhile, he said he has filed more grievances with the cabinet over retaliation he alleges occurred after he filed his first complaint. Guy alleges he was given extra work assignments after he filed the complaint and criticized for wearing a T-shirt to work that read "This is what Trans looks like."

Guy said he believes his T-shirt upset supervisors because he wore it work on 

Wait for it.

the day Gov. Matt Bevin visited the office.

No, they won't dare fire him for filing grievance now.  They'll fire him for violating the dress code.

Ehtical Morality

Divine Irony:

(Source: forthelove-ofscience)

KY Supreme Court Reviews Criminalizing Poverty

The technical issue is whether Lexington's disgusting law banning panhandling violates the First Amendmebant protection of free speech. But the real issue is why we are turning poor people into criminals instead of, you know, lifting people out of poverty.

From the Herald:

Lexington’s controversial ordinance to ban panhandling should be declared unconstitutional because it singles out only one type of speech — begging on streets and intersections —and not others, such as selling Girl Scout cookies or performances by street musicians, a state public advocate told the Kentucky Supreme Court. But assistant Fayette County Attorney John Jason Rothrock told the state’s highest court that the ordinance is needed to protect the safety of pedestrians and and those in vehicles.

How do we lift people out of poverty? By giving them the money we now give to already filthy rich people.

Done.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/#storylink=cpy

The Pure Distillation of Republicanism

Do not let the repugs in your life get away with repudiating the Orange Menace. He is their creation. They are to blame. The repug party is now and forever more the Trump Party.

 

Steve M:

Donald Trump is the real Republican Party stripped of phony civility and fake high-mindedness. He represents his party better than John McCain and Mitt Romney ever did. He's the genuine article. If you're shocked by his campaign, you've had your head in the sand for a long time.

And that's because, as Tristero writes:

Paul Krugman, in the wrap up to today's column:

Assuming that Mr. Trump loses, many Republicans will try to pretend that he was a complete outlier, unrepresentative of the party. But he isn’t. He won the nomination fair and square, chosen by voters who had a pretty good idea of who he was. He had solid establishment support until very late in the game. And his vices are, dare we say, very much in line with his party’s recent tradition. 

Mr. Trump, in other words, isn’t so much an anomaly as he is a pure distillation of his party’s modern essence. 

[Emphasis added.]

Absolutely true. He is the ultimate standard bearer for modern Republican ideas. He is also the ultimate standard bearer for modern Republican behavior, behavior which is racist, sexist, paranoid, vindictive, greedy, and takes pride in its ignorance.

Yes, he is sickening to watch, but he is not the real problem. The modern Republican party is the problem. The short term solution is to deliver a resounding national defeat to the party - and not just at the presidential level. The party has begun to realize just how disastrous this election could be:

...senior party leaders privately acknowledged that they now feared losing control of both houses of Congress.

The long-term solution will require fundamental changes to the GOP. I'm not holding my breath.

Kentucky Man Arrested for Brandishing Gun - in Florida?

Wait a minute.  Florida is the most infamous stand-your-ground state in the nation.  In Florida, you can shoot a teenager down in cold blood just for kicks and then walk.

If the kid is black.

And you are white.

Wonder what the racial breakdown was this time.

A Kentucky man made an impression in a popular Florida beach vacation spot and landed in jail.

Kendall Bryce McFarland, 19, of Russell Springs, was driving over the Marler Bridge in Destin, Fla., on Sunday morning when he allegedly started tailgating a silver Chevrolet, according to the Northwest Florida Daily News and WJHG. After he pulled up beside the couple’s car, he exchanged hand gestures before displaying a 9 mm handgun and pulling back its slide.

Sheriff’s deputies later found McFarland, and his apparently loaded gun was under the front seat, the paper reported. McFarland admitted displaying the gun but said he didn’t point it at the couple. Two of his passengers corroborated the couple’s account.

McFarland told deputies that the couple made him mad for driving too slowly, according to the Daily News and WJHG. His charges included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed weapon.

 

Post by Northwest Florida Daily News.

 UPDATE:  There is a facebook page for a Kendall Bryce McFarland who appears to be white.  No word on the race of his victims.

Answer Yes or No

Just one question for every repug candidate - for dog-catcher on up - who is seeking your vote:

"Do you support Donald Trump?  Yes or No."

Don't let him or her utter any other syllable.  Just "yes" or "no."

Because thanks to Donald Trump and the repugs and conservatives who created him as their perfect candidate over the last 40 years, that's the only question that means anything this year.

So, Rand Paul and Andy Barr and Hal Rogers and James Comer and Thomas Massie and Brett Guthrie: Yes or No?

All the repugs running for Kentucky house and state senate seats:  Yes or No?

Rob Rothenberger, a bought-and-paid-for repug in Shelby County:  Yes or No?

And just for shits and giggles, Governor Matt Violence-n-Lawbreakin' Bevin:  Yes or No?

After Inciting Election Violence, Bevin Tells Churches to Break Federal Law

Sigh.  Just a year ago, we Kentuckians were basking in the national admiration for how Governor Steve Beshear had created the finest, most effective and most powerful state program for implementing Obamacare.   Kentucky had the biggest drop in percentage of uninsured, and we were even starting to see a drop in the generational poverty that has bedeviled the Comnonwealth for centuries.

Then we elected a new Governor. And it's back to putting duct tape on the "Kentucky" on our license plates and pretending we're from (gag!) Tennessee.

From the AP:

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin urged a group of preachers to embrace political speech at the pulpit by telling them not to fear a federal law that prohibits candidate endorsements by tax-exempt churches.

Bevin called the federal law a "paper tiger" during an address to preachers at the governor's mansion last month. A group called Kentuckians Against Matt Bevin posted video captured by someone at the gathering. Bevin says no church has ever been punished under the law.

The governor calls the law "an absolute paper tiger and there is no reason to fear it, there is no reason to be silent."

The 1954 law says tax-exempt organizations, including churches, may not participate or intervene in any "political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."

They can do political endorsements all fucking day long, Gov. Lying Coward; they just have to pay taxes for the privilege.  Just like the rest of us.

 

Charlie Pierce, as usual, nails it:

The presidential campaign of Donald Trump is most remarkable for the forces it has unleashed in the country, forces that we all thought long dead or, at the very least, tamed to the extent that polite political society never would indulge them again. For an example of how wrong we all were, and for an example of what 40 years of conservative politics have wrought on the country by believing that they could flirt with those forces without being consumed by them, you need only look down to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, where Governor Matt Bevin is counseling his state's clergy to violate federal law.

SNIP
 

This is exactly the same argument that drug kingpins make to their crews regarding the federal narcotics statutes. But, whatever, it also demonstrates that, having swallowed up the remnants of American apartheid in the 1960s, the Republican party, and the conservative movement that is its only life force, never has given up on nullification, interposition, and the radical Tenther interpretation of the Constitution that lost so badly at Appomattox.

Matt Bevin is a pure product of that.

Kentucky famously never seceded from the Union or joined the Confederacy, although we kept our slaves throughout the war and were PISSED when it turned our we had to give them up just like Missi-fucking-issippi.

Governor Racist Motherfucking is doing his damnedest to get us into the modern Confederacy now.

WWJD

Divine Irony:

confrontingbabble-on:

To build a better society…takes…rational reasoning…and secular humanism…not religious fantasy…

Bevin's Personal Vote Suppression

Speaking of voting, Governor Lying Coward has been caught lying about his accomplishments.  Again.

Tom Loftus at the Courier:

 During his campaign for governor and since his election, Matt Bevin has said he supports restoring civil rights to nonviolent felons who have completed their sentences.

Yet through his first 10 months in office, Bevin has not restored the civil rights, which include the right to vote, to a single person.

Bevin’s record on rights restoration contrasts with his two immediate predecessors, according to records of the Kentucky Secretary of State, where the restoration orders are filed.

Democrat Steve Beshear issued an average of 1,190 restorations of civil rights per year during his eight years in office.

And Beshear’s Republican predecessor, Ernie Fletcher, averaged 277 restorations per year during his 2003-07 term.

“My basic reaction is outrage,” said Rep. Darryl Owens of Bevin’s failure to issue any restorations. “You have a number of people who want to vote, who have requested the right to vote, who for no apparent reason are being denied that right by the governor. It’s heartbreaking. It’s frustrating.”

No, Rep.Owens, it's not frustrating.  It's the standard unconstitutional behavior of elected repugs. 

And the reason they're denied is because Gov. Racist Motherfucker thinks they're likely to vote Democratic.

Vote, you little shits. Or Else!

Via Crooks and Liars:

Hide Your Children and Your Wallets: Bevin's Privatizers Are Coming for Them

And the fight to turn Kentucky's public schools over to privatizers far worse than the motherfuckers who run private prisons like the Spanish Inquisition begins the next round.

Valarie Honeycutt Spears at the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin’s push for charter schools in Kentucky gained ground Wednesday when his appointees were among those who pressed the Kentucky Board of Education to call a work session in November to help members develop a position.

Currently, 43 states have legislation that allows charter schools, but Kentucky does not. Kentucky Board of Education members want to develop a position in advance of the 2017 General Assembly.

House Democrats in Kentucky’s legislature have previously blocked charter school legislation. Charter schools can be public or private and can take different forms. Legislation that the House blocked in 2016 called for a pilot program in Fayette and Jefferson counties. That legislation said that charter schools would be part of the state’s system of public education, but the schools would be exempt from some laws and regulations applicable to the state board of education and local school districts. Charter schools would have been tuition-free and non-profit with no religious affiliation under that proposal. 

SNIP

 Kentucky Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt said he wasn’t sure that everyone was defining charter schools the same and that the board needed to have a broader conversation. He said charter schools can be effective but he’s not ready to say they are the only answer to closing achievement gaps between minority, low-income and disabled students and other students.

That is FALSE, Mr. Pruitt, assuming you are not deliberately lying through your repug, Bevin-cock-sucking teeth.

There is only one definition of charter schools and it is this: the mechanism through which public tax dollars for public education are turned over to private corporations for private profit.  No "education" involved.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article106416957.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article106416957.html#storylink=cpy

Our previous coverage of how anti-education, anti-child and anti-American charter schools are is here.

Whipping Out That Mexican Thing

OK, I admit my initial interpretation of "whipping out that Mexican thing" was ... not political, but this one from Mexican Judge Mexican Judge is perfect:

 

KY Governor Nullification Under Investigation

Thanks to Charlie Pierce for the new moniker.

 

Stopping a road project may seem like small potatoes, but it's brought down Kentucky politicians before, and the road flap may be just the beginning.  Let's hope the House dems follow the example of congressional repugs and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate right up Bevin's ass.

Tom Loftus at the Courier:

House Speaker Greg Stumbo on Wednesday appointed a special committee to investigate whether Gov. Matt Bevin's administration stopped a road project in Jessamine County this year in retaliation against the Democratic state representative who had rejected Bevin's overtures that he switch political parties and become a Republican.

Stumbo said his office's examination of records related to the project "raises serious questions as to the retaliation that may have been used by the administration" against Rep. Russ Meyer, a Nicholasville Democrat.

The House speaker emphasized during a news conference in the House chamber that the state had to pay the road contractor on that project $625,000 in damages last spring because the contractor could not begin work on the project by a deadline set in the contract.

"For some reason, $625,000 in taxpayers' money was paid for a contract which, from our investigation and our conversations with people who are knowledgeable about these matters, could have been fulfilled and gone forward with," Stumbo said.

Meyer alleged in August that Bevin had left a message threatening him and his district after he refused to change parties.

 Hey Greg: After you finish that investigation, I've got a list of Bevin crimes for you to go after:

•  Attempting the murder of 400,000 working Kentuckians by stealing their Medicaid coverage.
•  Threatening the unconstitutional elimination of state employee pensions.
•  Attempting the murder of hundreds of thousands of other working Kentuckians by killing the wildly successful kynect health insurance program.
• Inciting post-election violence, including the deaths of children.

There is more, much more to keep a determined investigator busy for years.  Where is Ken Starr when you need him?

On the Senate Repugs Who Are Sucking Trump's Tiny Dick

Via LGM, the only politician on the planet whose big bag of fucks is emptier than Barack Obama's: Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid:

Senate Republicans have put party so far ahead of country, they’ve endorsed a racist, incompetent failure who managed to lose a billion dollars in a boom year. Now they are helping Trump hide his tax returns and preventing the American people from knowing what individuals, businesses or foreign interests could have leverage over Trump.

President Abandons Kentuckians to Bevin's No Health Care for You! Plan

I don't understand.  Kentucky is the shining star of Obamacare.  The proof that it works not just to get health care to working people, but to start actually eliminating generational poverty. Without Kynect, Obamacare is just a liberal wet dream.

There is no excuse for this. But I know what's going to happen now.  Hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians will be unable to get health insurance because the mal-administration of Gov. Lying Coward will not just not lift a finger to help, but will throw obstacles in the path of anyone who tries.

We. Are. So. Fucked.

From the AP:

Federal officials have approved Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's plan to dismantle the state health exchange.

The exchange, known as kynect, was launched in 2013 and has been a way for Kentucky residents to shop for health insurance or enroll in Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act. After Nov. 1, people in Kentucky will use the federal health exchange to find coverage.

 The Courier-Journal (http://cjky.it/2dcPq3W ) said the approval was given Tuesday, but Andrew Slavitt of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department says the agency is concerned about the transition's impact on those who gained coverage through kynect. Slavitt said in a letter to Bevin that it's important the transition be clearly explained to consumers.

Bevin, a Republican, vowed to dismantle the health initiatives of previous Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat who took full advantage of federal health care law.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article105966102.html#storylink=cpy

The Ones Who Are With Her

KY GOP Rejects Candidate for Racist Posts - wait, that can't be right.

OK, who are you and what have you done with the Kentucky Republican Party?

Adam Beam AP:

The Republican Party of Kentucky has asked a state House candidate to drop out of the race after he posted several photos on Facebook depicting President Barack Obama and the first lady as monkeys.

Republican Party of Kentucky chairman Mac Brown and House Republican Floor Leader Jeff Hoover both signed the letter. It says while Dan Johnson has a First Amendment right to free speech, elected leaders "must hold ourselves and those with whom we serve to a higher standard."

"As leaders we are expected to not only understand our rights but also exercise good judgment in how we use them to express ourselves," Brown and Hoover wrote.

Johnson did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Johnson said Friday the posts were satire and that he would not drop out of the race.

The posts on Dan Johnson's Facebook page include a picture of a chimpanzee with the caption "Obama's baby picture" and a photo that had been altered to give Obama and his wife, Michelle, ape-like features. Johnson's page also displayed a photo of a young Ronald Reagan feeding a monkey with a bottle with the caption: "Rare photos of Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama in early 1962." His page also included a post calling Islam a "criminal syndicate."

Johnson said Friday "I really don't think I've done anything as someone to be a racist."

Of course not.  Why would anyone think that?

Johnson is running against the Democratic incumbent Linda Belcher.  The GOP needs that seat if they are to have any chance of taking the state House from the Democratic party.

So who put Humanity Juice in Brown's and Hoover's bourbon?

Here's Your "Religious Freedom"

It's way worse than giving bigots the right to discriminate or even break laws with impunity.  It is literally killing people. Children.

Wonkette:

Last year, when states were rushing to pass updated and expanded Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs), we told you that, even though they were doing it to preserve their God-given right to bash gays, the statutes were written so broadly that ALL KINDSA PEOPLE could potentially break laws and harm people, and then say “Oh, my religion says I can do this! What about my RELIGIOUS FREEDOM?”

It’s happening, loves! In Indiana, which was the epicenter of the RFRA fight, a lady and her lawyer are saying it’s OK that she beat her 7-year-old son so badly with a coat hanger that he ended up with 36 bruises, and welts so large that the child flinched TWO DAYS LATER when a teacher touched his back at school. And why is it OK? Because BIBLE BIBLE BIBLE, in your face!

An Indianapolis woman who beat her 7-year-old son with a coat hanger is citing Indiana’s religious freedom law as a defense against felony child abuse charges, saying her choice of discipline comes straight from her evangelical Christian beliefs.

The woman quoted biblical Scripture in court documents. She said that a parent who “spares the rod, spoils the child,” and: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.”

We all know child abuse is OK when you are saving your child’s soul from Sheol! And the woman, a Burmese immigrant named Kin Park Thaing, specifically said that’s what she was trying to do, by beating her son:

“I was worried for my son’s salvation with God after he dies,” said Thaing, who attends a south-side church, according to court documents. “I decided to punish my son to prevent him from hurting my daughter and to help him learn how to behave as God would want him to.”

Trying to stop your child from hurting your other child is a legitimate parental concern! But beating a kid to a bloody pulp is probably not the answer, even if you believe you’re just doing little Jesus spankings.

 

She also beat the 3-year-old child with the coathanger “before telling [the children] to pray for forgiveness.” Ayup.

SNIP

On a related note, Oklahoma also has a RFRA. Maybe this other lady, Juanita Gomez, can cite it in HER defense for why she murdered her daughter with a crucifix because she believed Satan was in her daughter’s body:

Juanita Gomez, 49, was charged with first-degree murder on Monday, Reuters reports. She claimed her 33-year-old daughter, Geneva Gomez, was possessed by the devil and allegedly punched her repeatedly to “rid Satan from her body,” court records show.

“Juanita stated she punched her daughter repeatedly and forced a crucifix and religious medallion down her throat until blood came out of her daughter’s mouth,” court documents stated, according to the Oklahoman. “Juanita saw her daughter die and then placed the body in the shape of a cross.”

Sweet Jesus, literally. Now, RFRA isn’t mentioned anywhere in Gomez’s case, and probably won’t be, because FIRST-DEGREE MURDER.

But we are just saying that RFRAs are fucked up laws, because religious freedom is super and great and American, but when you use your religion to harm SOMEONE ELSE, then your “religious freedom” can go get fucked.

 Kentucky has a law just like this.  That no one has literally died because of it is nothing but luck,  which always runs out.

There is No Pray

Divine Irony:

 

Privatization Kills: Step by Step

This is how they do it, children.  They take away your Democratic rights to a publicly accountable government and turn America into Somalia one step at a time.

Erik Loomis:

Everyone should check out the report released today by In the Public Interest on how privatization increases inequality. Here are the five key findings:

Creation of new user fees: The creation of new user fees to fund public services disproportionately impacts the poor. As government budgets have declined, some jurisdictions have tried outsourcing services to private companies and allowing those companies to charge fees to the end-user to subsidize or completely fund the service. Many of the services that use this contracting and payment structure are those that poor individuals and families must use or are subject to through their interactions with the government.

Increase in existing user fees: Residents of jurisdictions that have privatized critical public services such as water or transit have experienced steep increases in their rates—such increases particularly harm low-income residents and those on fixed-incomes.

Privatization of the social safety net: Programs that provide and deliver critical support to the poor are often the subject of privatization experiments, many times with tragic results. Because these programs assist those who have little to no political power, these programs are low hanging fruit for privatization.

Decreased wages and benefits: Privatization increases income inequality through the decline of contracted workers’ wages and benefits. When governments directly provide a service, they often provide living wages and decent benefits to workers. When private companies take control, they often slash wages and benefits in an attempt to cut labor costs, replacing stable, middle class jobs with poverty-level jobs.

Increased socioeconomic and racial segregation: The introduction of private interests into public goods and services can radically impact access for certain groups. In some cases, as the public park example in Section 5 shows, privatization can create parallel systems in which one system propped up by private interests typically serves higher-income people, while another lesser quality system serves lower-income people. In other cases, the creation of a private system, such as charter schools in a school district, siphons funding away from the public system meant to serve everyone. In some situations, poor individuals and families can lose access to the public good completely.

The report as a whole is highly disturbing and alarming. Whether we are talking about charter schools or hiring private agencies to manage funds for foster children or bringing in private contractors for any number of social services, privatization of our public services is a universally awful idea that centers profit in the hands of the few who make that profit on reducing wages and benefits, avoiding unions, hiring recent college graduates to replace long-term workers, and other strategies that have contributed to the broader crises of inequality and a lack of quality jobs in the economy. Yet the mania for privatization continues. Grover Norquist wins.

A Hillary Rant for Your Weekend

Via Political Animal:

Congress is Terrible Because Repugs Mutilated It

Think it's pointless to vote for the Democratic candidates for Congress this year?  Think again. Both sides do NOT do it.

From Political Animal:

In the real world, Congress has been emasculated as a result of two strategies crafted by Republicans. The first happened back in the Gingrich era and was described by Paul Glastris and Haley Sweetland Edwards in an article titled, “The Big Lobotomy.”

A quick refresher: In 1995, after winning a majority in the House for the first time in forty years, one of the first things the new Republican House leadership did was gut Congress’s workforce. They cut the “professional staff” (the lawyers, economists, and investigators who work for committees rather than individual members) by a third. They reduced the “legislative support staff” (the auditors, analysts, and subject-matter experts at the Government Accountability Office [GAO], the Congressional Research Service [CRS], and so on) by a third, too, and killed off the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) entirely. And they fundamentally dismantled the old committee structure, centralizing power in the House speaker’s office and discouraging members and their staff from performing their own policy research…

Gingrich’s strategy, as he explained it to Mann and Ornstein, was simple: Cultivate a seething disdain for the institution of Congress itself, while simultaneously restructuring it so as to eliminate anything—powerful chairmen, contradictory facts from legislative support agencies, more moderate Republicans—that would stand in the way of his vision.

All of that was followed by the Republican strategy of total obstruction in response to the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

Wisdom from Black Mountain: "The most extraordinary candidate she has ever seen."

Read and pass on.

From the Courier Journal Guest columnist: A shout-out for Hillary from one who’s seen our history

Helen Graves of Black Mountain, age 102, enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton, remembers well the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920: “I went with my mother when she voted for the first time. She told me I would probably live to see a woman elected President of the United States.”

Helen continues, “I have been interested in women’s issues all my life. I began to admire Hillary when both she and my youngest daughter, who are contemporaries, became lawyers for children.” She feels that Hillary is the most extraordinary candidate she has ever seen.

 

Extraordinary indeed. No other American in history has matched Hillary’s qualifications for the presidency on state, national, and international levels. She has already worked in both a state House and the White House. She traveled to 102 countries as Secretary of State and now personally knows their leaders, their problems. Only six presidents have also served as Secretary of State; only three have served both as Secretary of State and in Congress.

 

Equally extraordinary is the fact that Hillary, like no other American in our time, has been subjected for 25 years to partisan vilifying, which began with a scathing 1996 essay titled “Blizzard of Lies” by William Safire. Safire’s points were eventually disproved, but Republicans had their drum to beat. Investigate Hillary mercilessly. Spend any amount of taxpayers’ money. Probe every aspect of her personal, financial and professional life.

 

Whitewater: Seven years, more than $50 million in taxpayer dollars, and six independent counsels led to a conclusion of “insufficient evidence” to bring charges against the Clintons.

 

Benghazi: The Benghazi Select Committee, given an unlimited budget, began work after seven previous congressional committees had filed reports. More than 100,000 pages of documents were provided to the committee, whose staff collected $3.59 million in salary in 2015 alone. This investigation fizzled after Hillary’s marathon 11 hours of testifying on camera proved her focus and stamina beyond any doubt.

 

Emails, Clinton Foundation: A Boston Globe editorial states, “Clinton’s email scandals are pure fiction.” So, of course is the recent brouhaha concerning the charitable work of the Clinton Foundation. FBI Director James Comey concluded that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against Secretary Clinton for using a private server. Matthew Yglesias writes in Vox, “Colin Powell’s Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s are treated very differently.”

 

If she were not a woman, not a Democrat, not a Clinton, she would not be investigated — just as, in 2007, no Republican peeped after Congress learned that the Bush administration could not produce emails concerning the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. These had been sent on a private server run by the RNC, from which potentially 22 million emails were deleted.

 

Expect more releases of cherry-picked, headline-seeking Clinton emails before the election. Drums will beat, smoke will blow, pundits will chatter. Donald Trump supporters will call for her to be shot or worse. People will say they can’t trust her.

 

Writer Michael Arnovitz explains that women pushing against a glass ceiling are often portrayed as “unfeminine, aggressive, deviant.” Data expert Nate Silver has shown that Hillary’s popularity diminishes whenever she reaches for power, but increases afterward. She was popular after Bill’s infidelity became public, popular as Senator from New York (winning by 36 points in 2006). When she left office as Secretary of State in 2013, she was one of the most popular politicians in the country. 

Hillary’s real story is this: She is a caring, talented woman who has built a long career of excellent service and who, in spite of a few flaws, a few mistakes, has worked harder and achieved more than most people. Even Jill Abramson, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote in the Guardian that “Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.”

 

Helen Graves, who has a long memory, remembers Hillary’s life. She remembers a younger Hillary working for the Children’s Defense Fund on behalf of lower-income children. At that time, Trump’s company was being sued for prohibiting minorities from renting apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. After 9/11, Hillary as Senator lobbied Congress to make money available for small businesses destroyed when the towers fell. Trump, whose properties were undamaged, made sure he received one of those small business loans intended for victims.

 

Each day Helen Graves asks her daughter, Cannan Hyde, “How’s Hillary doing?” Cannan replies, “She’s doing just fine, Mother.” Helen went with her mother to vote for the first time 96 years ago, and will go with her daughter to vote for the first time for a woman, Hillary Clinton, for president of the United States.

 

Jean Franklin is a retired English teacher living in Black Mountain.

AynRandy to Coal Miners: Fuck You and Your Union, Too

It's such a perfect lying cop-out for the Tribble-Toupeed One:  No one can have insurance and pension relief from their criminal former employers until everyone gets the exact same thing.

Thus preventing anyone from getting anything.  Except of course for corrupt Big Coal, which skates as always. So conservative and libertarian at the same time!

Meanwhile Democratic Senate candidate Jim Gray is standing up for Kentucky coal miners.

Adam Beam of the AP:

The bill, currently before the U.S. Senate, would use some of the $490 million each year that flows through the federal Abandoned Mine Land program to rescue the health benefits for union coal miners whose companies have gone out of business. It would also shore up a United Mine Workers of America pension fund that is on the brink of collapse following the 2008 recession.

The bill would preserve the health benefits of about 3,500 Kentucky coal miners, most who worked for Patriot Coal, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012. It would also protect the retirement benefits of about 9,800 retired Kentucky coal miners who were members of the United Mine Workers of America labor union.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who like many fellow Republicans has criticized Obama's energy policies as a "war on coal", does not support the bill in its current form. He says he supports the concept of the bill, but only if it provides relief for all coal miners, not just those who joined a labor union.

"If they will give the coal companies relief, and the nonunion workers relief as well as the union workers, I could be persuaded to be for it," Paul told The Associated Press in an interview. "For something to get passed, it has to please more people."

Paul is seeking re-election in November after ending his presidential campaign earlier this year. He faces Democrat Jim Gray, the mayor of Lexington, Kentucky's second-largest city.

Gray said he if he were a senator he would vote for the bill because "you don't let the perfect get in the way of the good."

"I think it represents a positive, bipartisan step. I think it shows that at least some members of the Senate can cross party lines and work together. And that's what I promised I'd do," Gray said. "It's (Paul's) usual endless rhetoric that prevents anything good from being done."

The bill passed the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday by a vote of 18-8, with six republicans joining all 12 Democrats to vote "yes."

Your Sign

Divine Irony:

Eating the Skittles

Via Wonkette:

C'mon, You Nonbelievers: VOTE!

Seriously?  Turnout 10 points lower than average?  Are you fucking kidding me? You know what that means?

It means that atheists and all the other Nones are TO BLAME for the repug/freakazoid/know-nothing takeover of this country.

Yes, all you non-believers: unless you are voting in every election including primaries and specials, and voting in every single race, this repug catastrophe we've been suffering for the past 40 years is YOUR FAULT.

Kevin Drum:

Christopher Ingraham takes a look at a recent survey of atheists and agnostics and asks, "Why don't the unaffiliated vote?"

As Pew Research Center's Greg Smith told me earlier this year, "It could be the 'nones' are not connected, almost by definition, to religious institutions, which can play an important role in spurring turnout and interest in politics." It's also the case that the unaffiliated tend to be younger than the population as a whole. And younger people in general are less likely to vote than their older peers.

If you are aware at all of what goes on at churches, those motherfuckers TURN OUT.  Voting - voting repug - is a fucking sacrament to them.  If you're not voting, you're handing the country and the future of us all over to the people who represent the absolute worst of America and humanity.

As President Obama likes to say, "Don't boo, vote." If you're unhappy with the influence that conservative Christians have on American politics, go out and vote for someone who's more likely to favor evidence-based policy than faith-based policy. If you're not willing to do that, then don't gripe the next time some yahoo manages to get evolution expunged from your local textbooks.

Political Correctness

If you're not reading the Rude Pundit every day, you're missing some of the best political truth-speaking out there.

In other words, "political correctness" is now shorthand for the rule of law, for civil rights, for the guarantees of fair treatment in the fucking Constitution. You can throw that into the catch-all bucket for the phrase, along with not being able to say "nigger" or "fag" with abandon, treating immigrants like human beings, and sexing up the lady employees being a no-no.

Fucking hell, times change. Civilizations advance. What you once thought was fine is now fucked up. That's the way it goes. The march of progress, as we once liked to call it. You don't fucking spear the bull anymore because we know that's fucked up. And if you don't think it's fucked up, you're fucked up. And we get to say that because we're the ones who want the world to move forward. You're the ones who want to hold it back or send it back to a mythical time of greatness.

You just came up with a fancy way to make being a dick sound like a you're taking a mighty stand when, really, you're just a dick. It's so convenient and so useful.

At this point, Trump could fuck the corpse of that drowned Syrian toddler at a rally, and, when people responded with revulsion and anger, his idiot hordes would say that it's just political correctness, not that baby corpse fucking is, in and of itself, wrong.