Third Time's a Charm?

Kentucky ranks at the top of world-class lists in just three areas.

We got world-class horses.

We got world-class bourbon. (By federal law, if it ain't made in Kentucky, it ain't bourbon.)

And we got world-class poverty.

And not just any old world-class poverty. World-class presidential-candidate-attractin' poverty.

Robert Kennedy found us first, back in the '60s (although Eleanor Roosevelt knew about us in the '30s.)

Bill Clinton came a-callin' in the '90s, not being above stealing a good Kennedy idea.

And today it's John Edwards.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a strong Edwards supporter. If Elizabeth Edwards were a religion, I'd have to convert from Pastafarianism.

But Appalachia is the Iraq of the War on Poverty. Sure, the intentions are good, but the policy is weak, the strategy non-existent and the tactics akin to emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.

Not to mention the utter bloody-mindedness of the natives, who are less than appreciative of the economic, environmental and social devastation wrought by the various "foreign occupiers," including the timber industry, the coal industry, the pharmaceutical industry (Oxycontin) and bottom-feeding "employers" like telemarketers and chicken-processing plants.

Life in Eastern Kentucky, even for the poorest, is certainly far better than in was in 1962, when Harry Caudill published his passionate expose Night Comes to the Cumberlands. But it still lags far behind the rest of the nation, as the Herald-Leader explains.

The Herald's poll has 59% agreeing that Edwards' visit is a publicity ploy. I agree, but I don't think it's publicity for himself. I think it's publicity for the issue of deep-seated poverty, which hasn't registered on the national radar for more than a quarter-century, since Ronald Reagan taught us that only rich people really matter.

John Edwards isn't making speeches on this Poverty Tour - he's listening to people's stories, hoping to publicize the crisis and maybe gain some insight. So that's a step forward.

And I believe that John Edwards sincerely, genuinely, passionately wants to end poverty in this nation and will do his damndest to succeed.

If a visit to Eastern Kentucky doesn't dash his hopes on the cold, stony ground of Appalachian reality, then he's got a level of progressive determination this nation hasn't seen since FDR.

Who actually DID reduce poverty in Eastern Kentucky.

Tim Johnson, Your Country Needs You

Can someone please explain to me why Senator Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is not voting on the most important issues the U.S. Senate has considered since, oh, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution?

Yes, I know he's recovering from a nearly-fatal brain aneurism, and as someone whose family history includes stroke victims, I emphathize strongly.

But really, they were propping up Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., and faking his votes for years after he was, for all intents and purposes, you know, dead.

Johnson's not bed-ridden. There are photos on his Senate web site of him undergoing physical therapy, walking with a cane. His Newsroom page has more than a dozen press releases just this month announcing the millions of dollars in funding that he has secured for South Dakota.

So why does Harry Reid keep using the absence of Senator Johnson as an excuse for the Senate Democrats not having even a one-vote majority (Joe Lieberman notwithstanding?)

I understand and appreciate the importance of near-constant physical therapy for those who have suffered brain injuries. If it were me, I'd want to be home, as far away from the lethal miasmas of D.C. as I could get.

But these, dear Tim, are perilous times. The fate of this country and the entire planet are quite literally at stake. I don't believe that getting you onto the floor of the Senate, whether in a wheelchair or a hospital bed, to vote to preserve the Constitution of the United States, would kill you.

But even if it would kill you, I am still asking - nay, demanding - that you do it.

When the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence, they were signing their own death warrants. If they'd been caught by the British soldiers who patrolled every street, they'd have been hanged. No trial, no appeal, no delay.

Is your taking a break from physical therapy to cast a vote to preserve the nation they risked their lives to create so much to ask?

Mitch McConnell: Adding ChickenHawk Insult to Iraq Injury

To all you soldiers, Marines and National Guardsmen on your fourth and fifth deployments to Iraq, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has these words of comfort:

Suck it up, chumps, you're not coming home anytime soon.

On Sunday, the Lexington Herald-Leader had an article about McConnell's utter contempt for the hardship the Iraq quagmire is causing the soldiers and families of the Army's Fort Campbell in Western Kentucky, home of the storied 101st Airborne.

A few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bo Ward put these words on the sign at his 12-chair barbershop near the main gate at Fort Campbell: "President Bush, show no mercy. Kick their ass!"

But almost six years later, and after more than four years of war in Iraq, Ward's no longer so sure.

"Soldiers are tired; wives are tired; families are getting worn down," Ward said. "I know these boys can't just pick up and come home from Iraq, but we need some kind of exit plan."

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's recent visit to Fort Campbell highlighted the emotional strain and frustration this southwestern Kentucky military town is feeling as the 101st Airborne Division prepares for its third deployment since the Iraq war began.

"We're sorry that the effort in Iraq has been as difficult as it has been," McConnell said Friday on CNN, "but giving up and letting the terrorists come into this country isn't a good plan."

And Mitch would know, given his extensive experience supporting the troops from a bar stool in Louisville during the Vietnam War.

Read the whole thing, but don't eat for a good 90 minutes before or after reading.

DitchMitch (scroll down) also has some choice words on the subject.

Can you imagine Mitch McConnell having to debate a tough Marine veteran like this in his Senate race next year? Someone that actually has a DISTINGUISHED military record and can speak for the veterans and their families that have paid such a heavy price for their sacrifice to their country in Iraq?

Perhaps we can make that happen, eh?

They're talking about retired Marine combat veteran Lt. Col Andrew Horne, who lost the Democratic Congressional seat Primary to John Yarmuth last year, but is still the darling of progressives in Louisville and throughout the state.

Time for the Re-education Camps

I recently heard a retired high-ranking Army officer, a Vietnam combat veteran, speak to a group of veterans on the subject of giving genuine, meaningful support to our troops.

He spoke passionately about the families of dead soldiers who need more than our tears, returning injured soldiers who need more than waving flags, soldiers on fourth and fifth deployments who need more than yellow-ribbon magnets on the backs of SUVs.

I listened to this career soldier, this combat veteran, this son of poverty who graduated from West Point, pour out his heart and I bit my tongue. I respect this man and what he has accomplished, although I deplore his Republican loyalty to this maladministration.

So I did not stand up and scream at him. I did not demand he answer these questions:

- Who sent our finest young men and women into battle without proper armor, without proper weapons, without enough support troops, without a plan for occupation or exit?

- Who put those troops into harm's way by ignoring the pleas of their commanders for more troops, more equipment, more help?

- Who cut the death benefit of soldiers killed in combat in half?

- Who slashed the Veterans Administration budget to ribbons, thus denying adequate benefits and health care to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan?

- Who told the nation that the most patriotic thing we could do during a time of war was to go shopping?

Who, General? Go on, you know who it was. SAY IT!

I have bitten my tongue for more than two years now, as I watched loyal Republicans - particularly military veterans - slowly but surely come to the realization that Smirky and Darth Cheney are destroying their beloved military and even more beloved nation.

I have bitten my tongue and lowered my eyes as they raged against the horrors wrought by The Usurper without ever mentioning his name.

I have bitten my tongue and waited, hoping my refusal to sink to the tempting level of "I told you so" would inspire them to finally admit out loud who is really to blame.

It's not going to happen. They'll never admit their support of The Decider is the worst decision they ever made.

I'm done waiting.

Round them all up. All 54 million idiots and assholes who re-elected this drooling disaster. Every reporter, editor and pundit who disseminated The Usurper's lies. Every service-avoiding couch potato who cheered torture. Everybody who ever watched an episode of "24" and failed to vomit. Every Democratic elected official who ever - even just once - voted in favor of anything this American Stalin wanted.

March them all out to the secret concentration camps Halliburton is building out West and make them confess their sins and recant their anti-Democratic beliefs.

Make them walk, barefooted and without food or water, to the home of every family with a member who served or is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, to crawl on hands and knees the last mile over broken glass and beg for forgiveness.

This isn't about "honest disagreement" anymore. It isn't about "respecting the other point of view."

It's about eliminating from the body politic a cancer, a vicious Democracy-eating bacteria that is destroying this country and everything America has stood for since 1776.

No quarter. No mercy.

When Democrats Attack

Four months from the election that may put an end to Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher's political career, the Democratic House of Representatives is slapping him around.

On July 5, Fletcher called the General Assembly into Special Session. Because the Kentucky legislature meets only 90 days every two years (60 days in even-numbered years, 30 days in odd-numbered years), if the governor wants to get anything done between April and January, he has to drag the legislators away from their real jobs in their home districts screaming and kicking back to Frankfort.

But when the Democratic-majority House met on Friday, Speaker Jody Richards stepped down onto the Floor and told Fletcher to fuck off and die. The dems adjourned sine die and left town, mooning Fletcher all the way.

Kentucky State Police launched a house-to-house search for the bottle of Tobasco sauce somebody emptied into Richards' morning oatmeal.

Special Sessions are supposed to be rare, called only for emergency, but this one is less of an emergency than an oopsie.

Seemed Fletcher had second thoughts about his failure to secure legislation awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary tax breaks to Kentucky coal companies planning to build "coal-to-liquid" plants.

Set aside for the moment that the many hyped plans (clean coal, synthetic fuels, liquefaction, etc.) to use coal in ways that do not put the planet on the fast track to destruction are a galactic boondoggle.

Remember only that Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee Steve Beshear's 40 percent victory in the primary came as a nasty surprise to Fletcher. He was counting on a Democratic runoff to drain Beshear's campaign chest and leave Fletcher way ahead in the money game. Now Fletcher is looking at a united Democratic Party with a well-funded candidate. He needs money.

And where have Kentucky politicians in trouble always found money? The coal industry. Never mind that the coal industry has screwed this state over six ways from Sunday for more than 100 years - it's got the money.

So Ernie figures, hey, give Peabody Coal Company 2, 300 million bucks the state can't afford in unnecessary tax breaks and maybe they'll cough up six figures for my re-election campaign.

And what's the $60,000 per day in costs to keep the legislature in town compared to a 9-figure bribe?

Democrats and various goo-goo commentators screamed bloody murder. Both the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader, plus other newspapers across the state, accused Fletcher of playing politics (which in Kentucky is a sport, not a crime), wasting taxpayer's money and generally being a jerk.

No, no! Ernie cried. The General Assembly also hase to approve all these capitol projects the legislature failed to approve in the spring.

Those would be the capital projects Ernie vetoed. Three months ago, they were worthy but unaffordable. Now they're the dearest wish of thousands of constituents Ernie desperately needs in November.

Richards, who usually stuns the scientific community with his ability to stand upright despite the handicap of a spine made of cooked spaghetti, saw an opportunity to look like a hero and grabbed it.

So here's where it stands tonight:

- Fletcher has suspended the Special Session until July 30 in hopes the Dems will cave, as they usually do.
- In record time, the republican Senate approved everything Ernie asked for, including ponies, then set their lawyers to investigating the possibility of turning the General Assembly into a unicameral body.
- Every special interest in the state with a vetoed capitol project suddenly given a second chance at life by Dr. Ernie - in other words, every special interest in the state - is loudly demanding the dems return to Frankfort to rubber-stamp their appropriations.
- the GOP is making robo-calls to voters in house dems' districts claiming their reps are violating the state constitution and standing in the way of progress.

We haven't had this much fun in Frankfort since 1978, when Lt. Gov. Thelma Stovall waited until Gov. Julian Carroll left the state to call the General Assembly into Special Session to pass property tax reform.

Preach It, Brother Sorenson

If you do not receive the hard copy of The Washington Monthly, go to your local library or bookstore and get your hands on the July-August issue right now. Although the hard copy has already been delivered to subscribers, the Editors have not yet posted the new issue on the web site, for which they will suffer the Wrath of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Because that issue features a new speech by JFK speechwriter Ted Sorenson that just may be his best ever - and for the man who composed "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," that's saying quite a bit.

This speech says everything we lost, lonely, desperate Democrats have been dying - some of us literally - to hear for six-and-a-half unspeakable years.

The Democratic Presidential Candidate who gives this speech will, I swear, get a check from me that same day for the legal maximum contribution, and another for the legal maximum next year.

Even if it's Hillary.

The Monthly's editors asked Sorenson to write an acceptance speech for the Democratic Nominee to give at the 2008 convention. In their words:

"We requested that he proceed with no candidate in mind and that he give no consideration to expedience or tactics - in other words that he write the speech of his dreams."

And boy, did he ever.

I am seriously tempted to retype the entire thing right into this post, copyright be damned.

But as a loyal Monthly subscriber for 27 years, and knowing that they've spent their entire 38-year existence teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, I can't do it.

However, I will give you a few highlights - the ones that had me either sobbing or screaming to the Speechwriting Gods "Why Can't I Write Like That?!"

It takes my breath away.

....

"Nor will I shrink from calling myself a liberal, in the same sense that Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, John and Robert Kennedy, and Harry Truman were liberals - liberals who proved that government is not a necessary evil, but rather the best means of creating a healthier, more educated, and more prosperous America.

"They are the giants on whose shoulders I know stand, giants who made this a better, fairer, safe, stronger, more united America."

....

"My chief political consultant will be my conscience."

....

"Our nation is emerging from eight years of misrule, a dark and difficult period in which our national honor and pride have been bruised and battered. But we are neither beaten nor broken. We are not helpless or afraid - because in this country the people rule, and the people want change."

....

"We are coming back, back to the heights of greatness, back to America's proud role as a temple of justice and a champion of peace."

....

"We will be safer from terrorist attack only when we have earned the respect of all other nations instead of their fear, respect for our values and not merely our weapons."

"If I am elected president, my vow for this country can be summarized in one short, simple word: change."

....

"I shall restore the constituional right of habeas corpus, abolish the unconsitutional tapping of private phones, and once again show the world the traditional American values that distinguish us from those who attacked us on 9/11."

....

"I believe in an America in which the fruits of productivity and prosperity are shared by all, by workers as well as owners, by those at the bottom as well as those at the top; an America in which the sacrifices required by national security are shared by all, by profiteers in the back offices as well as volunteers on the front lines."

....

"The purpose of public office is to do good, not harm; to change lives, help lives, and save lives, not destroy them. I look upon the presidency not as an opportunity to rule, but as an opportunity to serve."

....

"Although we may be called fools and dreamers, although we will find the going uphill, in the words of the poet: 'Say not the struggle naught availeth.' We will change our country's direction, and hand to the generation that follows a nation that is safer, cleaner, less divided, and less fearful than the nation we will inherit next January.

"I'm told that John F. Kennedy was fond of quoting Archimedes, who explained the principle of the lever by declaring: 'Give me a place to stand, and I can move the world.' My fellow Americans - here I stand. Come join me, and together we will move the world to a new era of a just and lasting peace."

There's much more here, about withdrawing from Iraq and establishing peace in the Middle East, about universal health care, about economic and racial justice, about restoring the military, about stopping global warming and reconnecting with allies.

It's the perfect synthesis of policy prescription and soaring rhetoric.

Read it and weep.

Have a Question for Elizabeth Edwards?

Elizabeth Edwards will be in Lexington for a fundraiser Friday at 5 p.m., and I will be there with bells on. Have ordered multiple copies of her book for Christmas gifts, and will try to get her to sign as many as I can get away with before the crowd stomps me.

Don't know if she's going to take questions, but if she does, I will try to ask at least some of the ones y'all post in comments.

I'll try to get pictures, and post them, too.

Why We Do What We Do

One of the bloggers on the group blog Watching Those We Chose, to which I contribute, passed away this week. I didn't know Mandarin well, being a newcomer to this blog. But I thought of him today reading the comments on Glenn Greenwald's Salon post about MSM hysteria over bloggers.

Glenn made a remark about bloggers' growing self-sufficiency, and commenter paradox_left_coaster objected, writing:

Sorry, this self-sufficiency meme is just completely wrong--in money terms Glenn is correct that blogging is just beginning to break out of total reliance for reporting (far as I know, only 2 do it, FDL and TPM), but to state that blogs are self-sufficient as complete entities is flatly wrong.

Only a few make money. I don't know what happened, really, but when Steve Gilliard died something snapped in me, God how undignified it was. Steve deserved a hell of a lot better to have the cup passed around at his death. I hated it, just hated it that somehow even in death our best bloggers are still left begging.

Mike Stark was at Kos's place last night just on this topic, we've got to find better and new revenue streams for our writers. Does anyone think they can keep this up for another 20 years? For nothing?

My hope was that, is that, someone (anyone!) wake up in the Democratic party and get some revenue out there to their best writers. Jesus is sticks in my craw, how many tens of millions did we raise for the party? What do they do for appreciation or sustainability, heya? Not a god damn thing. Fucking Democrats, I'm surprised they put their clothes on in the morning most days.

We are still in infancy, and a long, long way from true sustained growth that rewards our people. I pray for it and work for it every day, but we are a not there yet.

SomeNYguy, a regular Glenn commenter who never disappoints, responded thus:

Not for nothing. For our country. For our Constitution. For our humanity. For our souls.

I get paid to do a job other people want me to do. I would love to get paid for doing what I believe is the right thing to do, but I'd also like to eat chocolate ice cream day and night yet remain slim and healthy. That's simply an unrealistic expectation.

If you want to support yourself and your family in comfort, you don't join the Peace Corps.

It's awfully nice when you can earn a decent living doing the right thing, but it's the rare exception to the rule.

Those of us who have jobs and blog in our spare time may envy those who get to do it all day and all night, but we forget that for many of them, their blogs are their jobs, their readership their source of income.

If you have just one blog that you really love, one that by virtue of its newsworthiness, or its trenchant analysis, or its humor, makes the world a better place, help it out. If it accepts contributions, send it some money today. If it depends on ad income, publicize it to all your friends, relatives, co-workers and strangers on the street.

As Glenn and others make clear daily, a political and cultural Dark Ages is looming, and progressive bloggers are the last line of resistance. Help arm them for the good fight.

Calvinball

Commenter melior at TPMMuckraker comes up with the perfect one-word description of this maladministration's attempt to explain why it is not subject to the Constitution.

"It's more than improvisatory, it's outright Calvinball."

Mitch, Money and Manipulating Elections

You will be stunned to learn that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing the Snoopy Happy Dance over the decision by the Bush Judicial Commission (formerly known as the Supreme Court) to overturn the futile attempt by the McCain-Feingold Act to remove the pernicious and destructive influence of corporate money from U.S. elections.

Here's what the Louisville Courier-Journal said this morning:

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Monday regarding the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission affirming the constitutionally protected right for grassroots lobbying groups to engage in electioneering communications in federal elections:

"Prior to this ruling, citizens were allowed to speak their minds except for just before an election - this ruling corrects that obstacle to free speech. This decision is a victory for free speech and confirmation that grassroots advocacy organizations have the same free speech rights as all Americans.

This is a step toward restoring the rights of citizens of every political affiliation to vigorously engage in political debate, whether the government agrees with them or not.

"Americans have a constitutionally protected right to hold their elected representatives accountable and, I hope, with this important decision, we can begin to undo the stranglehold that campaign finance legislation has placed on political debate."

Background

Wisconsin Right To Life (WRTL) challenged a provision that prevents organizations and corporations from mentioning candidates for federal office during the "blackout" period mandated by Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). WRTL and its supporters contend that the law is unconstitutional as applied to them as it outlaws advocacy on legislative issues during election season.

In an Amicus brief filed with the Court in the case in Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission, McConnell wrote:

"This case presents the exceptionally important question whether BCRA's restrictions on electioneering communications can be constitutionally applied to grassroots lobbying ads that do not serve an electioneering purpose. … The government has not identified a compelling interest sufficient to justify the imposition of BCRA's restrictions on grass-roots lobbying ads during the weeks immediately preceding an election, when constituents are most receptive to political ads."

Leader McConnell has been a defender of free speech rights, particularly as they relate to political debate. His beliefs on the First Amendment led him to challenge the constitutionality of the BCRA following its enactment.

Let's get a couple of things straight. This is NOT, repeat NOT, a free speech case. This is not a victory for the First Amendment. This is a catastrophe for ordinary Americans trying to make their voices heard in election campaigns.

And Mitch McConnell is about as far as anyone can get from being a defender of free speech rights. He is a defender of the ability of corporations to turn American workers into slaves and American voters into sheep.

I once had a conversation with a charming, intelligent, eloquent Libertarian. A real one, not a fake one like Newt Gingrich.

A self-made millionaire, he argued passionately for not just eliminating all limits on campaign contributions, but for establishing "one dollar, one vote." The more money you have, the more votes you get to cast for the candidate of your choice.

Granted, that system would probably not produce results much different from what we get now, but it's hardly what the Founders had in mind.

It is, however, precisely what Mitch McConnell has in mind.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

In case you forgot, Mitch is up for re-election next year, and he's more vulnerable than he's ever been. If you don't agree with Mitch that money equals speech, help defeat him at Ditch Mitch.

Kentucky GOP Rebelling Against Mitch?

Mark Nickolas at Bluegrass Report cites a Robert Novak column that claims Kentucky republicans may be planning to give Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a primary challenge.

But just when it looks like 2008 is going to be our best chance ever to defeat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, bad news steps up to the plate and delivers a high slow one right to the center fielder.


Democrat Greg Stumbo, our apparently insane state Attorney General, is hinting that he will run against McConnell next year. McConnell is throwing a party at the news.


Back in December, Stumbo was flying high, having slapped Governor Ernie Fletcher hard over political hiring, and looked like a strong candidate for governor.


Then he got a look at Traitor and Criminal Bruce Lunsford’s $5 million campaign chest, and announced he’d run as Lunsford’s lite guv.


Up until that moment, Stumbo was something of a hero to Democrats, and was generally acknowledged as one of the top political minds in the state.


After he joined Lunsford, Stumbo had to stay on the move to keep away from the gentlemen in white coats from Eastern State Mental Hospital.


Allying himself with a republican who betrayed the democratic party lost Stumbo the respect and support of tens of thousands of Democrats, many of whom voted for Steve Beshear in the gubernatorial primary as a protest against Lunsford and Stumbo.


After losing the primary to Beshear by 20 points in May, Stumbo then sealed his status as party pariah by declaring it unconstitutional for state universities to let employees purchase health insurance for domestic partners.


The same tens of thousands of Kentucky Democrats who would have stayed home this November rather than vote for Lunsford-Stumbo if Lunsford had won the primary are the same Democrats who will skip the Senate race on the ballot in 2008 if Stumbo is McConnell’s Democratic challenger.


However, the combination of McConnell’s vulnerability and Stumbo’s unpopularity is likely to draw several more Democrats into the primary race. The filing deadline isn’t until January 30, 2008, so there’s plenty of time for stronger candidates to come out of the woodwork, along with the usual collection of losers (I’m talkin’ to YOU, Steve Henry.)


The leading Democrat in the state is still Rep. Ben Chandler, although freshman Rep. John Yarmuth is moving up fast, despite being a proud liberal in a supposed red state. Yarmuth is probably too green to challenge McConnell next year, but if McConnell really tanks before January, Ben might jump in.


If Steve Beshear becomes Governor in December, he will be the official leader of Kentucky Democrats, but neither he nor his lite guv candidate Dan Mongiardo are likely to file for the Senate six weeks after inauguration. If they lose, they will not only have no chance in hell of beating McConnell, they'll be run out of the state on a rail.


Charlie Owen, a Louisville businessman with deep pockets, keeps hinting about running for something, but except for a losing run for lite guv as Chandler's running mate in 2003, he's a political novice.


So is Andrew Horne, who lost the democratic primary to Yarmuth last year, but Horne is also a retired Army Lt. Colonel and an Iraq War veteran. Horne is the darling of Kentucky progressives, who would dearly love to see a real soldier take on the draft-dodging, war-mongering McConnell.


Don't count gubernatorial primary losers Lunsford or Gatewood Galbraith out, either, which means we're probably looking at a four- to six-person Democratic primary for McConnell's seat next year.


Robert Novak claims that McConnell is unbeatable and that Kentucky republicans are nevertheless contemplating challenging him in the primary. Good grief. Anybody who's spent five minutes watching Kentucky politics for the last two years knows that Kentucky republicans even considering challenging McConnell is not just a death-knell for McConnell but an unmistakable Sign of the Apocolypse.

Once again, the place to join the anti-McConnell bandwagon is Ditch Mitch.

Freedom Isn't Free - Up Off Your Duffs!

If you haven't discovered Glenn Greenwald's blog on Salon, stop reading this post and go there right now this minute.

Greenwald's June 13 post is a brilliant, passionate dissection of this maladministration's destruction of the rule of law.

I won't say more except to read it and send it to everyone you know, but I will repost one wonderful comment.

For you children who don't remember the Free Speech movement at Berkely, a tiny history lesson: Mario Savio was a student at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 when, during a student protest that was being put down by police in Gestapo style, he jumped up on to the roof of a police car (after politely removing his shoes) and delivered a passionate plea for freedom and democracy. He is remembered as the founder of the Free Speech movement.

And no, he was not a communist. He was an American patriot. And he lived Edward Abbey's admonition that "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."

Here's Lish's profound comment:

The reality is that it will take the sacrifice of people who are willing to put themselves on the line to block and disrupt the lawless actions of a corrupt and criminal government. It will require many acts of defiant conscience and civil disobediance before the deadly enterprise of war profiteering can no longer proceed with business as usual. It's either that, or resigned and bitter complacency.

We've been up against this wall before, and the words that need to be spoken have been said over and over again. The ones that I recall most vividly are those of Mario Savio from 1964:

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

Amen, Hallelujah, and May the Flying Spaghetti Monster Touch You With His Noodly Appendage.

Ernie's Begging for Money; Mitch Could Be Next

Oh, I do love the spectacle of rabid wingnuts turning on each other.

Seems Kentucky republicans are deserting Governor Ernie Fletcher in droves. They're refusing to contribute to his re-election campaign, they're giving money to his Democratic opponent Steve Beshear, they're skipping Ernie's parties to schmooze with Steve. They've even formed "Republicans for Beshear."

Just a little more than a year ago, such behavior would have brought The Wrath of the Mitch down upon their heads. They would have suffered the political equivalent of hanging, drawing and quartering and beheading. They would have been stripped of all power, fired from their jobs, had their homes foreclosed, their children expelled from private school and their wives shunned by the Junior League.

They might even have lost their private boxes at the Derby.

But McConnell has lost control of the Kentucky Republican Party. First, they rejected Mitch's very own girl, Anne Northup, and re-nominated bad boy Ernie in a landslide. Then, the ones who voted for Annie refused to rejoin the pack, deciding to support the Democrat instead.

Now, I've warned before about the foolishness of underestimating Mitch McConnell. He is utterly and brilliantly unscrupulous. It's remotely possible that McConnell is so furious at Ernie that he is encouraging his loyalists to support Beshear.

But that would be cutting off his nose to spite his face, and I don't believe McConnell would do that, whatever the provocation.

No, I think Mark Nickolas at Bluegrass Report is right: Mitch has no time or money to spare on the Govenor's race right now.

The Senate Majority Leader is hemorraging power and influence as the Smirky maladministration disintegrates and Congressional republicans race for the portholes.

He's got just enough left to squeak by in his 2008 re-election campaign, and hang on until the next republican senate.

Help pull the last support out from under him. Join the Ditch Mitch campaign today!

Mitch Hates Women, Kentucky and the Medical Profession

Once again, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is standing four-square behind a presidential nomination of a Kentuckian whose professional qualifications and/or personal behavior/beliefs drag this state's reputation further into the gutter.

Believe me, Kentucky is full of highly-qualified, highly-competent, reality- and science-based physicians.

But you'd never know it from the two Kentucky chuckle-heads the Smirky maladministration has nominated to high-level medical positions.

First we had David Hager of Lexington, a supposed ob-gyn who specialized in denying birth control to competent adult women who happened to not have a husband. Smirky appointed Hager in 2002 to an FDA advisory committee on reproductive health drugs and women's health.

Which looked a little strange after Hager's ex-wife revealed that he had endangered her own health by anally raping her on a regular basis.

It's OK, though, because he told her that he accidentally hit the "wrong hole."

Sorry to ruin your breakfast, but contemplate just for a moment the qualifications of an ob-gyn who either anally rapes his wife and lies about it, or doesn't know the difference between a vagina and a rectum.

Hager's mercifully gone, but now we have James Holsinger, a physician at the University of Kentucky nominated to be surgeon general.

Holsinger's colleagues support him, and express surprise at the opposition from gay and lesbian groups to Holsinger, who considers homosexuality a curable illness - not to mention a sin. He has written an excruciatingly explicit summary of "studies" purporting to "prove" that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy.

If Holsinger publicly cited "studies" purporting to show that non-whites are intellectually and morally inferior to whites, would his colleagues continued to defend him based on his professional qualifications?

Would they express "surprise" that the NAACP opposed his nomination to be Surgeon General?

By the way, Holsinger justifies the "unnaturalness" of homosexuality on the basis of plumbing nomenclature, i.e., the "male" and "female" halves of pipe fittings.

Is he claiming that's the source of the famous hardware-based euphemism for sex?

Senators Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd have expressed concerns about Holsinger's nomination, but Mitch just sails on blithely, shitting on Kentucky's - and the nation's - tattered reputation at every opportunity.

Mitch is up for re-election in 2008, and he's by far the weakest he's been since being elected in 1984. To help Kentucky and country rid ourselves of this menace, join the Ditch Mitch campaign.

Damn You, Dennis Kucinich

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

If I put my money where my mouth is, my money where my heart is, my money on what I actually believe, I would sell my house, my car, my furniture, and my clothes, cash out my retirement and write one big check to Dennis Kucinich.

Yeah, yeah, Ralph Nader, blah, blah, blah.

Fuck it.

Dennis Kucinich is on television right now this minute reading my goddamn mind!

• Out of Iraq This Instant
• Single Payer Healthcare
• Money for the Troops, Not Stupid Weapons Systems
• Voluntary National Service
• Human Rights
• Civil Rights
• Restore American Values
• Global Peace

Shutup, Dennis!

I can't stand it. He has no chance. No chance, NO CHANCE, NO CHANCE!

And the main reason he has no chance is that people like me, who agree with everything he says, who are sitting here tonight sobbing while he speaks our hearts, refuse to support him because he has no chance.

Damn you, Dennis Kucinich.

What's That Smell, Mitch?

The bodies of the politically dead are starting to pile up here in Kentucky:

- the most powerful republican woman in the state
- the sitting lieutenant governor
- a former governor and sitting state senator
- two millionaire businessmen
- a former lieutenant governor
- a former Miss America
- the chair of the state Democratic party (no, no, children: this is a good thing)
- the sitting Attorney General

And oh, yeah:

The current Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate.

Yes, indeedy, the big loser in yesterday’s GOP gubernatorial primary was none other than Mitch McConnell.

And that’s because incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher beat Mitch’s hand-picked challenger, former Rep. Anne Northup, by more than 13 points.

SNAP!

Technically, Mitch did not publicly endorse Annie, but he didn’t have to. Mitch’s senile junior colleague, Senator Jim Bunning, endorsed her. Everybody knows Annie would never have challenged an incumbent republican – and one whom Mitch personally anointed four years ago - without Mitch’s explicit approval.

And Mitch has been signaling his extreme disapproval of Ernie for more than a year by refusing to defend Ernie against charges of corruption, refusing to smack down Ernie’s growing number of critics, refusing to punish republicans who abandoned Ernie, refusing to endorse Ernie’s candidacy, refusing to discourage challengers like Northup, refusing, refusing, refusing.

That Ernie beat Mitch – er, Annie – by a two-digit margin is irrefutable proof that Mitch’s star is on the wane.

Forty-two months ago, Mitch was the GOP god who put an end to 32 years of Democratic ownership of the governor’s mansion.

Today, he faces a 2008 re-election campaign with the Kentucky Republican Machine he built himself in smithereens at his feet.

For the Democrats, this is no time to show mercy. Kick him when he’s down, right now, and keep kicking, right through November ’08.

Show Harry Reid how real Democrats treat republicans.

Tomorrow: Big winners who didn't make the front page, dirt on some of the losers, and proof that consorting with republicans lowers your IQ.

Victory in Kentucky

Former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear will take on Gov. Ernie Fletcher in November for the Governorship of Kentucky.

With 99.9 percent of precincts reporting, Fletcher has 50.1 percent of the GOP vote and Beshear has 40.9 percent of the Democratic vote - both exceeding the minimum required to avoid a runoff.

Fletcher successfully rose from the political dead to beat Anne Northup by a convincing 13.6 points and prove, once again, that Kentucky republicans are way dumber than we think they are.

But it was Beshear who really pulled off the miracle, trouncing five opponents and beating his nearest rival by 19.5 points.

Almost 20 points over Traitor and Fake Dem Bruce Lunsford, who outspent Beshear five to one.

Let me say that again. Beshear beat by 20 points an opponent who outspent him five to one.

Come November, Ernie is toast.

Tomorrow, details on the winners, the losers, the politically dead, the embarassingly stupid, and the people who should sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up, but probably won't.

Down the Straight and Headed for the Wire

Polls close in the eastern half of Kentucky in 10 minutes, and in the western half in 70 minutes. (Yeah, it's weird and annoying, but two time zones is what we get for being a horizontal state so close to the Mississippi River.)

Yes, I voted, and one of my votes is already turning out to be a huge mistake. Of the three Democrats running for Treasurer, I voted for Todd Hollenbach IV, only to get online and find out from a Bluegrass Report commenter that Hollenbach is an anti-choice wingnut.

Serves me right for not doing my homework. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Learn from my mistake, everybody - make sure you know who you're voting for before you vote.

So far, it's looking like Dirty Ernie, our corrupt and none-too-bright incumbent Governor Fletcher, is going to take the three-way GOP primary with more than 40 percent and avoid a runoff against former Louisville Congress critter Anne Northup.

That's good news for Democrats, as virtually any of the six Democrats running could beat Fletcher with half a campaign.

Latest polls have former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear with a 32-23 lead over Traitor and Fake Democrat Bruce Lunsford, but Lunsford could still deny Beshear the 41 percent he needs to avoid a runoff on June 26.

I'll be heading to the Beshear-Mongiardo party shortly, and will blog the results as soon as possible after 7 p.m. EDT.

Meanwhile, Bluegrass Report and Polwatchers will be posting updates.

When the Sex Matters

For the record: I am perfectly fine with any sex act between consenting adults, as long as it does not violate any criminal statutes or harm other adults, children, animals or antique furniture.

However, Christopher Hitchens' defense in Slate of Paul Wolfowitz' - Hitch resents the term "girlfriend," so let's call her his paramour - is just a bit much, even for The Hitch.

Hitchens apparently knows her personally, and thinks she's just peachy, therefore the media types criticizing her boyfriend are a bunch of meanies.

"(T)his is the nastiest and dirtiest and cheapest campaign of character assassination I have ever seen."

Really?

Nastier than discussing in detail the appearance and characteristics of the president's penis?

Dirtier than speculating on the First Lady's sexual proclivities?

Cheaper than taping a distraught young woman's private confessions and broadcasting them to the world?

Worse character assassination than attacking that young woman for falling for a powerful older man and making fun of her weight?

Adultery (Wolfowitz is separated, but still married) is far more common than any of us likes to admit. I have worked in almost two dozen different places in my life, large and small, and at every single one of them there was at least one affair going on.

Some were fairly harmless co-worker gropings. Others were boss-subordinate couplings that led to scream-fests, hysterical scenes, plummeting morale, destroyed productivity, mass resignations, firings, divorce and lawsuits.

It may be true, as Hitchens claims, that Shaha Riza was supremely qualified for her position at the World Bank and the one she eventually got at the State Department, that she did an outstanding job and that she earned every penny of the enormous salary Wolfie arranged for her.

But the only "character assassination" she has suffered is the revelation of her affair. I don't believe publication of the truth constitutes "character assassination."

Wolfowitz is a public figure, and has been for many years - since long before their affair began. Riza is by all accounts an intelligent, highly competent, sophisticated woman of the world. She knew, or should have known, that she was one resentful employee away from exposure.

If she wanted to maintain her privacy, she should have either insisted that Wolfowitz decline the World Bank job so she could keep hers (the I Am Woman option), quietly resigned from the World Bank and found another job on her own without Wolfie's help (the Stand By Your Man option) or ended the affair (the Good Girl option.)

That she arrogantly insisted on being treated as a professional while accepting special favors from her lover opened the door to both exposure and ridicule.

Both richly deserved.

And Then There Were Six

Much as I would love this post to refer to the withdrawal from the presidential race of the three republican evolution-deniers – Huckabee, Brownback and Tancredo – and the spontaneous head-explosion of Rudy Guiliani due to terminal abortion confusion, I’m afraid it doesn’t.

The cleanest and most progressive candidate in the Kentucky Democratic Gubernatorial Primary has dropped out. State Treasurer Jonathan Miller announced this afternoon that he is withdrawing and endorsing former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear.

Two weeks out from the May 22 primary, Miller couldn’t seem to crack double-digits in the polls. The latest poll, from Survey USA last week, showed that not only had Miller dropped from 8 percent to 7 percent, but Party Traitor Bruce Lunsford had jumped from 20 percent to 29 percent.

Given that Lunsford is leading the Democratic candidates despite being a Republican, Miller staying in the race created the very real possibility that November’s general election would lack an actual Democratic candidate.

If you’re thinking Lunsford is the Joe Lieberman of Kentucky – stop. Compared to Lunsford, Lieberman is a paragon of Democratic loyalty. More on Lunsford's perfidy below.

Beshear is the second choice of a lot of Miller supporters and other progressives, including Change for Kentucky/Democracy for America of Kentucky.

But the anti-Lunsford vote is still split among Beshear (23 percent) and four others: former Lt. Gov. Steve Henry at 18 percent, State House Speaker Jody Richards at 9 percent, attorney and gadfly Gatewood Galbraith at 6 percent and demolition contractor Otis Hensley at 1 percent.

Don’t look for either Galbraith or Hensley to quit – they’ve both finished statewide races with less than 10 percent of the vote before, and it doesn’t seem to bother them.

Steve Henry is getting slammed in both the polls (dropping 4 points in two weeks) and the press, as we get to enjoy a new Henry-is-even-more-corrupt-than-we-thought story with our morning coffee just about every day.

That wouldn’t be such a handicap if Henry weren’t defending himself with the most obvious, lame and stupid series of lies since Alberto Gonzales last testified. At this rate, Henry may end up with fewer votes than Otis.

But he won’t drop out. He’s married to a former Miss America, dadgummit, and that means he gets to be governor!

That leaves Jody Richards. I’ve never been a Richards fan – he’s nowhere near bright and he lets the Republican Senate Majority Leader beat him up at will. Ask anybody in Kentucky what’s the best thing about Jody Richards and they’ll all say the same thing:

“He’s nice.”

Yep, just what you want in a candidate going up against the republican attack machine.

Jody: If you must be nice, then be nice to the Democratic voters of Kentucky and drop out now!

Miller’s and Richards’ supporters added to Beshear’s, plus half the undecideds, will put Beshear over the top.

I'm no fan of Beshear's (his lobbying for predatory payday loan companies makes me sick), but he's by far the best candidate left in the race. And that's despite the handicap of his running mate: State Senator Dan Mongiardo, who won the lasting enmity of most Kentucky progressives by sponsoring our lovely gay hate amendment in 2004.

Yes, it matters very much whom the Democrats nominate, even though any one of them could beat incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher in November. Well, maybe not Henry.

It's a close call as to which is more important: defeating Fletcher, or defeating Lunsford.
Lunsford’s a multi-millionaire (he sank $8 million into his 2003 primary run before quitting), supposedly willing to put his personal fortune into the general election. That’s why some seriously deluded/desperate Democrats are claiming he has the best chance to beat Fletcher.

Bruce Lunsford made his millions off the backs of two groups: the poor, sick old people he threw out of his nursing homes to make room for richer patients, and the poor, trusting Kentucky families who lost their life savings investing in Lunsford’s company before he bankrupted it.

His vicious ads attacking State Attorney General Ben Chandler in the 2003 gubernatorial primary fatally wounded Chandler in the general election, especially after Lunsford dropped out of the primary and endorsed Ernie Fletcher.

Read that again, slowly: A Democratic primary candidate endorsed the Republican primary winner. After promising to support the Democratic primary winner.

Ernie won, and gave Lunsford a nice job. Since 1995, Lunsford has given more than $40,000 to Republican candidates, and less than $12,000 to Democratic candidates.

Now he wants to be the Democratic nominee.

Ernie Fletcher has been one of the worst governors in Kentucky history. Cleaning up the mess he’s created will take years if not decades and billions of dollars Kentucky doesn’t have. We can’t afford another four months, never mind another four years of Ernie Fletcher.

But a lot of Democrats will be voting for Fletcher – if Bruce Lunsford gets the nomination.