Something's Happening

It just keeps getting better. Even the long-shots came in, and the winners won by double their predicted margins.

Via Wonkette:

 

 Charlie Pierce:

Elsewhere, Jackson Miller, the GOP legislative whip, lost to a Marine veteran named Lee Carter, who ran as a Democratic Socialist. Late in the campaign, Miller’s people sent around a flyer linking Carter to Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. That didn’t work, either. In the western part of the state, a Democrat named Chris Hurst flipped a Republican-held seat; Hurst’s girlfriend, Alison Parker, was a TV reporter who was shot to death live and on camera. Unsurprisingly, Hurst ran, and won, on a gun-control platform. The Democrats also elected the first Latina ever to serve in the House.

SNIP

A Sikh was elected mayor of Hoboken, and a Liberian immigrant named Wilmot Collins ran as a progressive for mayor of Helena, Montana, and beat a four-term Republican incumbent. African-American mayors were elected for the first time in Statesboro, Milledgeville, and Cairo in Georgia, and in St. Paul, Minnesota. Charlotte elected its first African-American woman to be its mayor. All of these people were Democrats.

Political Animal:

Of the 16 seats picked up by Democrats, 12 of the winners were women. Not only did trans woman Danica Roem defeat “bathroom bill” sponsor Bob Marshall, Joan Walsh described some of the other winners:

Progressive Jennifer Carroll Foy, one of the first black female graduates of the Virginia Military Institute, became the only public defender in the House of Delegates. Hala Ayala, a single mother who became a Department of Homeland Security cyber-security specialist, and Elizabeth Guzman, an AFSCME member, social worker and Latino immigrant, became the first two Latinas in the House of Delegates. Kathy Tran, who came here at seven months old, became the first Vietnamese refugee. Cheryl Turpin, who ran in a special election earlier this year and lost, defeated her GOP opponent in Virginia Beach.

Tom Periello, who lost the Democratic primary to Ralph Northam but proceeded to work his heart out to help his party win in Virginia said, “Turnout was way up where we ran candidates. And particularly where we ran a diverse slate.”

TPM:

Now, we’re a year from election day 2018. A lot can happen. But if numbers and enthusiasm look like this on election day, Democrats are in a strong position to reclaim the House and possibly the Senate. A certainty? Of course not. And it is critical to recognize that this didn’t just happen. It happened both because of the country’s basic rejection of Trump and the Trump Republican party but also because of countless hours of work organizing, knocking on doors, planning, and money to fund it all. It took lots of people simply deciding to take the effort to vote.

If there is not a Democratic candidate in Every. Single. Goddamn. Race. In. Kentucky. Next. Year. we richly deserve the down-to-bedrock stripping we are going to get from Governor I Got Mine Fuck You.

The Real Democratic Base

Here's how much real Democratic candidates don't need Trump voters.

Zandar:

Why did Ralph Northam win Virginia's gubernatorial last night by nearly ten points?  Black, Asian, and Latinx voters, and especially black women.

SNIP

It wasn't women who gave Ralph Northam the win, it was women of color who gave him the win. Among white voters, who still made up two-thirds of voters last night, Gillespie had a cake walk and won going away.

Enough black voters turned out to not only stop Gillespie cold, but to pick up the seats they needed in order to, along with Northam's win and Democrat Justin Fairfax's win as the state's new black Lt. Governor, take control of the state's House of Delegates in a 50-50 split by picking up a whopping 16 seats.

Northam has about an 8.5% win.  That's pretty much the exact margin black women gave him overall.  Without black women, this is a tie race.  With them, Northam won easily.

Oh, and with Dems winning the Washington State Senate special election and New Jersey's gubernatorial race, that's three states last night that went from split to Democratic control.

Maine too voted to expand Medicaid.  Overwhelmingly.

Thanks, Donny!

The lesson is when black voters show up, Democrats win and win BIG. We know this. What I don't know why we're trying to worry about winning back white men who voted for Republicans by a 27 point margin.  Get more black votes out.  Fight voter suppression.  Jesus, it's not multi-variable calculus, guys.

Republicans know this lesson well and have been trying to disenfranchise black voters for decades exactly because they know black voters win election for Dems because we vote for Dems. Duh.

Why some Democrats still yet don't understand this, I'll never know.

Keep This Wave Going

Northam in Virginia.  Medicaid expansion in Maine.  Murphy in New Jersey. Trans women in Virginia and Minnesota. This is the greatest Democratic and liberal night since 2008.

Get out there and register voters.  Find the Democratic voters who sat out 2016 and light this fire under their asses.  Get candidates for every single office in 2018.  In Kentucky, that's every state House member, half the state Senate andevery U.S. House member.

If we don't take advantage of this, we deserve every catastrophe Bevin and the Orange Menace can throw at us.

The repugs are down and hurting.  Let's go kick them.  With VOTES.

AG: Crafting KY Pension Deform In Secret Was Illegal

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

John Cheves at the Herald:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No, Governor Craven Heartless Worm, Hoover Resigning Will Not Save Your Pension Deform

UPDATE:  Jeffy's out, and the repugs are scrambling.

Funny how Governor Carpetbagger never mentioned the sexual harassment rampant throughout the legislature and the executive branch until it started to endanger his plans to strip Kentucky's economy down to bedrock.

Also, he better be sure he never so much as let his eyes drop below a woman's neck in his entire life, because otherwise this hypocritical bullshit is going to have his victims lining up to sue his ass.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin, making his first public comments on a sexual harassment scandal that has rocked the state House of Representatives, called Saturday for “the immediate resignation of every individual who has settled a sexual harassment case, who is a party to trying to hide this type of behavior.”

Bevin, in a hastily called news conference in the Capitol Rotunda, mentioned no one by name. The Republican governor called the allegations serious and reprehensible.

“These alleged actions, which haven’t been denied, are reprehensible, indefensible and unacceptable. Any elected official or state employee who has settled a sexual harassment claim should resign immediately,” Bevin said. “The people of Kentucky deserve better. We appropriately demand a high level of integrity from our leaders, and will tolerate nothing less in our state.”

He added: “You either publicly condemn or you publicly condone this type of behavior.”

 Bevin made the public statement after Republican Rep. C. Wesley Morgan of Richmond had called Saturday for the resignation of Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover, accusing him and party leaders of concealing sexual harassment allegations against Hoover and three other Republican legislators.
 
SNIP

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

In a statement Saturday night, Hoover accused Bevin of “grandstanding” and said he is “more resolved than ever to continue my work as Speaker.” He said he supported the request by other GOP House leaders for an independent review.

SNIP

Bevin took no questions and did not say how the scandal might affect his desire to call a special legislative session this year to make changes in Kentucky’s public retirement systems.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Buy popcorn futures.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

The Muslim Immigrant Who Saved Hundreds of American Lives

But this isn't unique or even unusual. Until a year ago, America has always been exactly what Lady Liberty says: a beacon to the oppressed of the world. Immigrants to America have always been profoundly grateful for the freedom, the opportunity, the safety America provides.

And they won't let the terrorists hurt her.

Christopher Dickey at the Daily Beast:

An Egyptian Muslim just-arrived in the United States on a Diversity Visa—precisely the type that Donald Trump is trying to blame for the bike-path murders on Halloween in Lower Manhattan—in fact stopped a terrorist atrocity that would have been much, much worse in 1997 on the New York City subway.

SNIP

(T)he young Egyptian, Abdel Rahman Mosabbah, from a small town on the Upper Nile near Luxor and the only member of his family with a university education, wanted to build a future in the United States. His was the classic immigrant dream: to put down roots and eventually to bring his wife and raise his family in a land of freedom and opportunity. He saw the terrorists as anything but heroes or martyrs. He saw them as a threat to him and to his new country that must be stopped. And had he not acted, the slaughter on the B Train would have been horrific.

The NYPD and FBI and probably the LIRR cops are much more aware than they once were. From 2002 onward, the NYPD searched and found already in its ranks among more than 30,000 sworn officers hundreds of people who spoke languages from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Asia because many of them had been born abroad. The job of a policeman, since the days of Irish, German, and Italian immigration in the 19th century, has always been a coveted position for newly arrived residents and citizens of the United States.

But here’s the question we ought to be asking ourselves today as we look back on that morning when jihadis were stopped in Brooklyn: Would an Abdel Rahman Mosabbah dare go to the police today? Would he go out in the heat of a dark summer night to try desperately to warn the cops of an impending attack when all Muslims, all immigrants, are being treated as suspect? Would he do that when diversity visas—like his visa—are being attacked by the president of the United States as if they they were a terrorist laissez-passer, a virtual license to kill?

In fact, this Muslim Diversity Visa recipient saved the lives of scores of Americans he had never met. And if Americans want to remain safe, they would do well to embrace such people, not shun them, shame them, and put them under threat.

Sexual Harassment and the Pension Bill Repugs

Maybe if they concentrated on what their constituents want instead of on which ass they're going to grab next, they could get some work done.

From the Herald:

Kentucky lawmakers still have “a lot of work to do” on Gov. Matt Bevin’s proposal to overhaul the state’s ailing public pension systems, House Speaker Jeff Hoover said Tuesday after meeting for nearly two hours behind closed doors with his Republican colleagues in the state House.

“It’s clear we got a lot of work to do to move forward on this issue,” said Hoover, R-Jamestown.

He said no vote was taken on the bill during the GOP caucus meeting and that he does not know if a special legislative session to approve pension legislation is likely to be held in the next two weeks.

That would be this Jeff Hoover:

Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover has reached a confidential settlement over sexual harassment allegations by a woman who works on his legislative staff, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke with Courier Journal.

Hoover, the leader of the powerful Republican majority in the House of Representatives, reached the agreement last week after receiving a demand letter from the woman’s lawyer over allegations that date to 2016, the sources said, speaking under the condition they remain unnamed because they fear reprisal if identified.

Y'all think it's tough keeping up with the non-stop shenanigans by the Orange Menace, you should try keeping pace with Kentucky's repug majority and Governor Why Won't These Guys Do What I Want.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181945376.html#storylink=cpy

Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover has reached a confidential settlement over sexual harassment allegations by a woman who works on his legislative staff, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke with Courier Journal.

Hoover, the leader of the powerful Republican majority in the House of Representatives, reached the agreement last week after receiving a demand letter from the woman’s lawyer over allegations that date to 2016, the sources said, speaking under the condition they remain unnamed because they fear reprisal if identified.

The Carpetbagger Can't Stop Criming

You almost get the impression he has no more respect for Kentucky laws and Kentucky courts than he does for Kentucky voters.

From the AP:

Gov. Matt Bevin's office was ordered Monday to pay Planned Parenthood for its expenses after the Republican's representatives were a no-show for a deposition in an abortion case.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Dave Whalin told Bevin's office to reimburse Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky for travel and legal expenses incurred for the deposition that had been scheduled Aug. 18.

Planned Parenthood's legal team wanted to question someone from Bevin's office about his administration's denial of a license to the organization to provide abortions in Louisville.

The deposition was rescheduled ahead of a trial held in September in the abortion case. Another federal judge has not yet ruled on the abortion licensing dispute.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article181768156.html#storylink=cp Gov. Matt Bevin’s office violated Kentucky’s Open Records Act when it refused to provide an Arizona attorney with some of the emails it exchanged with the White House, according to a new ruling by Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office.
Spencer Scharff, a civil rights attorney in Phoenix who previously served as voter protection director of the Arizona Democratic Party, said in a telephone interview Monday that he has been seeking similar information from other governors and state officeholders across the country “in the name of transparency and to help journalism.”
Amanda Stamper, a spokeswoman for Bevin, accused Beshear of abusing his power for political gain.
“Just last year, a long-time employee in his office accused Attorney General Beshear of politicizing open records decisions,” Stamper said Monday. “Simply put, we will not be a part of Attorney General Beshear’s abuse of the Open Records Act.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181721956.html#storylink=cpy

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin’s office violated Kentucky’s Open Records Act when it refused to provide an Arizona attorney with some of the emails it exchanged with the White House, according to a new ruling by Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office.

Spencer Scharff, a civil rights attorney in Phoenix who previously served as voter protection director of the Arizona Democratic Party, said in a telephone interview Monday that he has been seeking similar information from other governors and state officeholders across the country “in the name of transparency and to help journalism.” 

Amanda Stamper, a spokeswoman for Bevin, accused Beshear of abusing his power for political gain.

“Just last year, a long-time employee in his office accused Attorney General Beshear of politicizing open records decisions,” Stamper said Monday. “Simply put, we will not be a part of Attorney General Beshear’s abuse of the Open Records Act.”

Another non-denial denial from Governor Smirky.  They don't deny they violated the law; they just attack the elected official for doing his job.

But who cares about Kentucky? To Governor I Got Mine Fuck You, Kentucky's just a bunch of unsophisticated rubes and rednecks barely sufficient to serve as a political stepping stone to the White House. 

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181721956.html#storylink=cpy

Governor Condescending Elitist Lectures the Rubes

Last week it was scolding a teacher leader for daring to exercise his rights of free assembly to hold a rally at the Capitol.

Now he's sneering at his opponents for being too "unsophisticated" to understand his genius plan for stripping Kentucky's economy down to bedrock before he launches his presidential campaign.

Keep it up, Gov. Craven Heartless Worm.  Just like your idol in the White House, every word out of your lying mouth opens more voting eyes to what you really are.

From the Herald:

Opponents of a plan to reform Kentucky’s ailing pension systems lack “the sophistication to understand what’s at stake,” Gov. Matt Bevin said Monday as he urged Lexington’s business leaders to publicly support his proposal.

“The fact of the matter is, this is not good for Kentucky,” Bevin said of the state’s pension crisis. “The people who do not have the sophistication to understand what’s at stake, but will bear the brunt of it, are the ones that are going to suffer if people like us who get it, who are willing to fight for it, don’t step up.”

Bevin’s public push to win over business support for his plan comes as public employees express fierce opposition.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181743536.html#storylink=cpy

SNIP

Last week, the Kentucky Education Association held several forums where teachers confronted state lawmakers about the plan, which would require school teachers and state and local government employees to pay an additional 3 percent of their salaries into their retiree health insurance funds, shift most future workers into 401(k)-style investment plans and freeze cost-of-living increases for retired teachers for five years.

After promising teachers in Madison County that he wouldn’t vote for a bill that adversely affected them, state Rep. Wesley Morgan of Richmond became the first Republican to publicly announce he would not support the bill.

“I will not go along to get along,” Morgan posted on Twitter. “I will do what is right for my constituents. This is just one example of me keeping that promise.”

This isn't Connecticut, Gov. Carpetbagger.  The majority of voters you need are working people who don't have a family trust fund to support us in our old age.

You are not only going to lose this pension fight, you're going to lose reelection in two years, too.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181743536.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181743536.html#storylink=cpy

Not Old, Not New, Just Good

Atheism is what you do with it.  If you use your atheism to work against racism and misogyny and homophobia and all the other evils of religion, you're an activist atheist and good on ya.  If you use your atheism to justify your racism and misogyny and homophobia, or even just to pretend you don't have to make the world a better place, then you're a pig and shame on you.

PZ Myers:

I have a problem with this description.

 Follow

Existential Comics @existentialcoms

Old Atheism: "there is no God."
New Atheism: "we need to bomb more Muslims. European culture is superior. Also modern feminism is a cancer."

2:41 PM - Oct 18, 2017

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Twitter

They forgot the usual immediate followup:

New Atheism: “But all atheism means is that there is no god, and so we’re going to exclude any attempt to insert your values into it.”

But then, somehow, their heads fail to explode at the contradictions and hypocrisy. I don’t get it.

The NRA's Finest

Yeah, let's spend time and money trying to get votes from these folks.

Digby:

This story about the followers of Donald Trump's favorite conspiracy theorist Alex Jones attacking the victims of the Las Vegas massacre makes me believe this country is doomed. It is so, so awful that it's hard to believe we'll come through this without something catastrophic happening:

Via The Guardian:

Braden Matejka survived a bullet to the head in the Las Vegas massacre. Then, the death threats started coming.

“You are a lying piece of shit and I hope someone truly shoots you in the head,” a commenter wrote to Matejka on Facebook, one week after a gunman killed 58 people and injured hundreds more. “Your soul is disgusting and dark! You will pay for the consequences!” said another. A Facebook meme quickly spread with a photo of him after the shooting, captioned: “I’m a lying cunt!”

The 30-year-old victim – who narrowly escaped death in the worst mass shooting in modern US history – has faced a torrent of online abuse and harassment, forcing him to shut down his social media accounts and disappear from the internet. The bullying, taunting and graphic threats have also spread to his family and friends.

“There are all these families dealing with likely the most horrific thing they’ll ever experience, and they are also met with hate and anger and are being attacked online about being a part of some conspiracy,” said Taylor Matejka, Braden’s brother, who shared with the Guardian dozens of screenshots of the abuse. “It’s madness. I can’t imagine the thought process of these people. Do they know that we are actual people?”

Conspiracy theorists – some of whom claim that the government staged the shooting on 1 October or that the tragedy was a hoax – have targeted survivors and victims’ loved ones, spamming every social media platform with misinformation and abuse. On Facebook and YouTube in particular, users have published viral posts and videos calling people like Braden “crisis actors”, alleging they were hired to pose as victims.

Homophobic Judge Forced Off Bench

Good on the state judicial commission for holding the freakazoid to account.

From the Courier:

A Kentucky Family Court judge who refuses to hear adoption cases involving gays and lesbians will resign amid an ethics and misconduct inquiry. 

Judge W. Mitchell Nance submitted a letter of resignation to Gov. Matt Bevin on Wednesday, saying he will retire on Dec. 16, according to documents made public Thursday by the state's Judicial Conduct Commission. 

In April, Nance drew national attention when he said he would no longer hear adoption cases involving "homosexual parties" because he believes allowing a gay person to adopt could never be in the child's best interest.

The Barren and Metcalf county judge further said he would recuse himself from such cases because ethics rules require judges to do so when they have a personal bias or prejudice.

Last month the commission, which investigates complaints of judicial misconduct and wrongdoing, notified Nance that it was charging him with multiple violations of judicial ethics rules, including those banning bias or prejudice based on sexual orientation.

Bevin Lying About Retiree Health Insurance, Too.

Somebody ask him about his morning bowel movements.  I bet he can't tell the truth about that, either.

From Kentucky Center for Economic Policy:

Additional Contribution for Retiree Health Benefits Is an Unnecessary Wage Cut

By Jason Bailey
October 24, 2017

 

The state’s proposed framework for pension legislation would require public employees to pay three percent more of their salaries toward retiree health benefits, the effect of which is the same as a three percent cut in wages. However, Kentucky’s retiree health plans are much better funded than most similar plans around the country, and the resources available for the plans are growing rapidly without the need for extra contributions from public employees who are already undercompensated.

If the new contribution applies to all current employees, it would cut wages by approximately $158 million annually for state workers (including teachers) and another $85 million for local workers — and many of these employees have not received raises for much of the last decade. For a teacher who spends 27 years in the classroom at present-day salaries, the 3 percent contribution would mean the loss of about $40,000 in lifetime income.

Kentucky’s retiree health plans are already far better funded than most around the nation

Kentucky’s retiree health plans are in much better condition than most similar plans across the country. Combined, the Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS) and Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) retiree health plans have 47.9 percent of the assets they need to pay future benefits. Several of Kentucky’s plans are actually overfunded, with the Kentucky Employees Retirement System (KERS) hazardous retiree health plan holding 125 percent of the assets it needs, the legislators’ plan holding 127 percent and the judicial plan holding 105 percent.

In contrast, the Center for Retirement Research reports state and local retiree health plans across the U.S. are only 7 percent funded in the aggregate. And as the state’s consultant PFM noted, Standard and Poor’s recently reported that the median funded ratio for state retiree health plans in 2015 is actually zero percent, because most states have not been pre-funding this obligation. Kentucky has been far more aggressive than most other states in putting monies into its retiree health plans.

Gov. Craven Heartless Worm Throws Trumpie Trantrum Over Pension Truths

Just like his Dear Leader the Orange Loser, Bevin can't deal with anyone criticizing him, especially when the critics are right in pointing out the lies and corruption.

Bruce Schreiner at the AP: 

Gov. Matt Bevin fired back Tuesday at critics of a GOP plan to revamp Kentucky’s chronically underfunded public pension systems, saying they have no alternatives and warning that doing nothing is a “path to insolvency.”

Speaking to a business group, Bevin said structural changes are needed to sustain the pension systems.

“Everybody would love to ignore it - all the fear mongers and the ‘chicken littles’ - the ‘sky-is-falling’ crowd that are just so upset about the fact that anything is changing,” the Republican governor said. “And yet the path we’re on is literally a direct path to insolvency financially.”

His comments came a day after Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler warned the pension plan would “devastate” public education.

Don't lie to teachers, gubner: they will always catch you out and make you pay for it.

OK, But Not Nearly Good Enough

Unless they replace the plaque with one identifying Davis as a Traitor in Defense of Slavery, an Embarrassment to the Commonwealth and a Permanent Symbol of Racism, Slavery and Treason, the next step must be removing the motherfucker and installing Mohammad Ali in that place.

From the Herald:

A plaque proclaiming Jefferson Davis as a hero and a patriot will be removed from Kentucky's Capitol, the latest effort to alter Confederate monuments across the country following outbreaks of racially motivated violence.

The Historic Properties Advisory Commission voted to remove the plaque, which is attached to a 15-foot-tall (5-meter-tall) marble statue of Davis in the rotunda of the state Capitol. The plaque declares Davis is a "patriot, hero, statesman" and lists his accomplishments in both the United States and Confederate governments. Last month, a committee recommended the state remove the plaque because of its "subjective" language.

"There are people who don't think he was heroic. And so we just decided to remove it to eliminate that subjective word," commission chairman Steve Collins said.

Leslie Nigels, director of the Division of Historic Properties, said the plaque would be removed in a few days.

 The decision angered both supporters of the statue and those who want it removed because it honors someone who led the fight to preserve slavery. The statue was erected in 1936 with the help of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and $5,000 in taxpayer money approved by the state Legislature. Tuesday, a past president of the Kentucky division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy vowed to file a lawsuit to keep the plaque in place.

First: There's a fucking Kentucky division of the shameful females defending treason in defense of slavery? They're not just treasonous, they're stupid.  Kentucky never joined the confederacy.

Second: When you donate something, it belongs to the organization to which you donated it.  If you don't like what they do with your gift, tough shit.

Third:  Let's think of a way to not just remove Davis, but to destroy that statue in a publicly humiliating way that will put the traitors in defense of slavery in their place forever.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article180619981.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article180619981.html#storylink=cpyThe decision angered both supporters of the statue and those who want it removed because it honors someone who led the fight to preserve slavery. The statue was erected in 1936 with the help of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and $5,000 in taxpayer money approved by the state Legislature. Tuesday, a past president of the Kentucky division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy vowed to file a lawsuit to keep the plaque in place.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article180619981.html#storylink=cpyThe decision angered both supporters of the statue and those who want it removed because it honors someone who led the fight to preserve slavery. The statue was erected in 1936 with the help of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and $5,000 in taxpayer money approved by the state Legislature. Tuesday, a past president of the Kentucky division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy vowed to file a lawsuit to keep the plaque in place.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article180619981.html#storylink=cpy

It Matters Who's Kneeling

From Noah at Down With Tyranny:

Genuflect, Citizens, or Suffer the Consequences

The people who destroyed this family vote.  Do you?

Zandar:

When the man in the Oval Office demands retribution against those who question authority, his cultists respond with brutal efficiency, even in blue strongholds like Massachusetts.

Last week, Kato Mele’s 23-year-old daughter said some things on Facebook that many people found appalling. She wrote that the White Rose Coffeehouse in Lynn, which her mother owns and where she worked, would never host a “coffee with a cop” event, klatches designed to build goodwill between police and the community.

“I will not be part of the false rhetoric that cops are just misunderstood good guys,” Mele’s daughter wrote, among other things. “They uphold an unjust system and murder without consequence.”

For this opinion, the family business was targeted and destroyed.

The chief of police in Lynn responded beautifully.

“This is a non-story,” Michael Mageary told Lynn’s Daily Item on Sunday. “This young lady has the right to say whatever she wants and we respect that. We will continue to do our job every day. My sense is that most officers will avoid the establishment, but that is their choice.”

But by then, it was already too late. A mob had descended within hours of the Facebook post, whipped up by a website that specializes in (and makes money from) marshaling drooling goons for mass attacks, mostly on victims who express left-of-center views.

SNIP

The opinion that police shouldn't murder people is so unacceptable in America in 2017 that this is the result: internet Brownshirts burn a business to the ground and harass a family out of their livelihood in the space of a week.

Whenever you hear somebody complaining about "Social Justice Warriors" and "liberal intolerance", remember the story of the Mele family.  I've been personally targeted before for my opinions on this blog, and I've paid a price for those opinions in the past, but never like this.  The threat to do to me what was done to the Mele family has been made on several occasions, and so far I'm still here.

And yet these are the same assholes who will tell you every day, at length, on multiple media platforms, that they are being silenced every day of their lives.

Religious Liberty is Neither

When it is the kind defined by conservatives and freakazoids.

Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal:

What struck me are the assumptions that everyone made about this memo. That is because the words, “religious liberty” have come to mean something very specific in our current political climate. The truth is that, when people use that term, they most often don’t mean religious liberty, but the liberty of white evangelical Christians to both practice their religion and impose it on others. For example, Sessions should consider distinctions such as this:

Poor Suffering Corporations

And this doesn't even count the billions in direct subsidies.  Down with Tyranny:

 

 

And no, corporations do not create jobs.  Minimum-wage workers who have to spend every dime they make create jobs.

Believe What They Want

Here's a new game:  name something - anything - that the Orange Loser could do that would turn freakazoids against him.

No, not public admission of sexual assault.  Not the utter dearth of anything resembling religious belief or devotion. Not telling stories about sexual orgies to 10,000 Boy Scouts.

And of course not embracing, protecting and promoting white supremacy and violent racism.

Digby:

They believe what they want to believe. As long as he isn't gay, I guess they're fine with anything he does. And even then, at this point I think they'd probably all roll with that too. Many of them read Breitbart obviously and have no problem with Milo. Michael Flynn feted him like a rock star.

It's all just depressing as hell because we all know that there are many Democrats looking for ways to appease these people by selling out people of color and women (or at least telling them to go sit in the back of the bus and be quiet) so they can appeal to these people. It won't work. It never works. They are right wing extremists in every way, not just religious conservatives. You can't break them off with appeals to their "traditional morality" because they don't believe in it themselves. It's obviously a pose. But you knew that. Look at Ted Haggart, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker --- pretty much all of them.

Capitalism and Patriarchy Created Harvey Weinstein and the Orange Loser

As if sexual harassment, abuse and rape weren't invented until the '60s. As if women have not been screaming about this for decades. As if the solution weren't obvious.

David Atkins nails it:

There is a a particularly repulsive footnote to the explosion of public consciousness around sexual abuse and exploitation caused by the Weinstein revelations. Religious social conservatives have been hard at work arguing that Hollywood libertinism, liberal sexual mores and the sexual revolution itself are to blame for the behavior of the Weinsteins of the world. Bret Stephens’ much-lampooned New York Times op-ed hit the “Hollywood values” angle, while David French took on the full-throated promotion of Handmaid’s Tale theocracy this weekend in The National Review.

Let’s be very clear about something: conservative social mores aren’t about protecting women and never were. They’re about controlling women.

The sexual revolution gave women options: the birth control pill allowed women to control their reproductive destinies and have children at a time of their choosing, which in turn gave them economic independence and the ability not to become indentured servants to whatever man happened to have sex with them and father children with them. The revolution empowered women to make choices of sex partners based not on the approval of their parents or the economic necessities of marriage, but based on their own personality preferences and physical desires. The revolution also allowed women to compete in previously gender-exclusive industries and become primary economic providers for households. In later decades it also allowed gay and gender-non-conforming people to pick identities and partners entirely of their own choosing.

All of this terrifies conservative men. Conservative white men have long lived in a bubble where they were able to objectify women and use both physical and economic coercion to force more talented, more capable and more physically attractive partners to stay with them despite their own gross deficiencies.

A world where a woman had to marry the first man she had sex with, is a world where superior women could be saddled for the rest of the their lives with inferior men based on a single mistake. A world where women were trapped at home with children while men dallied outside it, was one where men could grope and fondle their secretaries in abusive relationships while women had far fewer opportunities for relief from their oppressive marriages and domestic prisons.

When all else failed, the watchful eye of a patriarchal God would keep women in line, subservient to their domineering marriage partners. This same angry divinity did not, of course, prevent men from sexually exploiting and harassing any woman unfortunate enough to be within their economic power.

The sexual and civil rights movements changed all that. Not only could women pick their partners–and as many of them as they wanted–suddenly the pool of potential partners opened to men (and, eventually, women) of all races, too. Much of conservative resentment ever since, distilled to that now-so-common “cuck” insult in Trumpian circles, has centered around abject terror that white women would find men of color or other women a more pleasant alternative to their own less attractive and less interesting selves.

Which brings us back to Harvey Weinstein. Liberal culture and Hollywood values did not create Harvey Weinstein. Patriarchy and capitalism did.

Harvey Weinsteins have existed ever since the dawn of civilization when rich and powerful men have predated on exploited women in no position to defend themselves, long before the sexual revolution and in eras governed explicitly by strict sexual moral codes. Aflred Hitchcock did it to Tippi Hedren. Thomas Jefferson did it to Sally Hemmings. Supposedly Christian men from popes to barons have done likewise. Rape and abuse of women by men is the norm in social conservative society, whether in Christian Victorian England or Islamist Afghanistan; liberal sexual mores are the cure.

Harvey Weinstein isn’t just an alleged rapist and abuser. He’s a gross, wildly unattractive man who used his financial position as a capitalist owner and his patriarchal position as a man of power to force himself on women who would never have been in his league voluntarily. Harvey couldn’t compete for the affections of the women he wanted, and he didn’t bother to try. So he used money and power to get what he couldn’t objectively earn through charm, effort, grooming and good will.

This is the conservative program in a nutshell: allowing mediocre white men to use unjustly gained money and social privilege to earn rewards they do not deserve, protected and enforced by arsenals of private firearms and an angry, judgmental God. It’s a program that the sexual revolution has done a great deal to destroy, but there remains much work left to do.

May the work continue.

The Easy Path to Gun Control

It just may come to this.

Another beauty from Noah:

President Obama Defeats ISIS; Orange Loser Takes Credit

Yes, of course we know he's lying.  The problem is that we're not his audience.  His mouth-breathing voters are.  And all they hear is what he says and how his Faux News cheerleaders repeat it.

This is how bad history gets written in stone.

Kevin Drum:

ISIS is hardly Barack Obama’s finest moment. He was late to understand what was happening and slow to do anything about it. But in the end he did do something about it, and he did the right thing: he kept the US footprint light; he avoided rules of engagement that would inflame the very people we were trying to liberate; and he understood that the only route to victory lay in a slow but steady campaign. It wasn’t sexy, but it worked.

In a few weeks or months, Donald Trump will announce that we’ve won the war against ISIS. Will he give Obama any recognition for this? Of course not. So that means the rest of us will have to do it for him.

Next Day:

Trump did nothing. The plan to take both Mosul and Raqqa was initiated under Obama, and Trump famously refused to approve a new plan for months because the military kept telling him that Obama’s approach was working. So he put them off and put them off until he finally approved a plan in August that was mostly the same as the plan we already had. And now he’s claiming that this new plan turned things around in eight weeks.

I know we don’t expect anything else from Trump. But he can always be even worse than you think, can’t he? Hell, he didn’t even give the military any credit, let alone Obama. What a jackass.

Traitor Statues Removed in Lexington

No, the confederacy is not dead, treason in defense of slavery has not yet been defeated and Jim Crow still lives, but this is a victory.

Let us celebrate, then get to work removing Jefferson Fucking Davis from the People's House in Frankfort.

John Hunt Morgan: DOWN

John Breckinridge:  DOWN

Sound Familiar?

Noah at Down with Tyranny: