Beshear: The Constitution Trumps Your Freakazoid Delusions

No, he didn't use those exact words. But that's the meaning, anyway.

From WKYT:

The day after a federal judge heard arguments over a Rowan County clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses, Governor Steve Beshear is standing behind his view on the issue.

Beshear, during a news conference Tuesday for the state budget, was asked about the clerks who claim their religious freedoms are violated by the new laws.

The governor stood by his previous statements, saying the clerks must comply with the Supreme Court's ruling that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states.

"When you voluntarily decide to run for office, and you win, and you raise your hand and you take the oath to uphold the Constitutions of the United States... that oath doesn't say 'I will uphold the parts of the Constitution that I agree with and won't with the parts I don't agree with,'" Beshear said.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit against Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who stopped issuing marriage licenses because same-sex marriage violates her religious beliefs.

AynRandy, Tax Deadbeat

Yep, the Tribble-Toupeed One has good reasons to eliminate the tax code.

Sam Youngman at the Herald:

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul paid a delinquent property tax bill in Florida on Tuesday, only hours after the Republican presidential candidate said he wants to use fire, a wood chipper or a chain saw to "kill" the U.S. tax code.

SNIP

In the video, titled "How would you kill the tax code?," Paul says he is "trying to kill the tax code, all 70,000 pages of it."

Meanwhile, records show that Paul, through a company he created, owns a half-interest in a condominium in Destin, Fla., that had $2,489 in delinquent property taxes as of Tuesday morning. The original $2,159.14 tax bill on the condo, which has an assessed value of $161,000, was due March 31.

A few hours after the Herald-Leader asked Paul's presidential campaign about the tax bill, a representative of the Okaloosa County tax collector's office confirmed that the past-due bill had been paid Tuesday afternoon.

But you didn't burn a sacrifice to my invisible talking unicorn, so you lose.

How much more proof do we need that not only can freakazoids not be trusted to do the jobs they have taken an oath and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars to do, but that they are so divorced from reality that we should not let them drive, much less vote?

Linda B. Blackford at the Herald:

A sometimes-tearful Kim Davis took the stand Monday to say her decision as Rowan County clerk to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples was a heartfelt one based on her religious convictions.

"It was something I had prayed and fasted over. ... It wasn't a spur of the moment decision," Davis told U.S. District Judge David Bunning, her voice breaking.

To authorize licenses means "I'm saying I agree with it, and I can't."

Her choice to also deny licenses to straight couples was because "I didn't want to discriminate against anyone."

Two of those straight couples and two gay couples from Rowan County sued Davis shortly after her office stopped issuing marriage licenses to anyone in the wake of the June 26 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage and declared the practice legal across the country.

Bunning said he probably would issue a decision the week of Aug. 10.

Bunning, by the way, is the son of repug and famously dense former Senator Jim Bunning, who got that judgeship for his son as part of the price he extracted for resigning from the U.S. Senate.*

Don't expect him to rule against a fellow conservatard.

*Mitch McConnell finally got rid of Bunning Sr. in 2010 to clear the way for his pet candidate Trey Grayson, only to watch Grayson humiliated by self-certifier and current presidential candidate Rand Paul.

How Little Has Changed in 167 Years

If you could go back in time and tell Sojourner Truth that in 2015 a black man has been president for six and a half years and that a woman is the odds-on favorite to become the next president, but that men still prevent women from making decisions about their own bodies, something tells me that wise lady would not be surprised.

Crooks and Liars:

Credit: Twitter

Republish Reprint

The Seneca Falls Convention included speeches by Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. 

Nor would she be surprised by this:

Kaili Joy Gray at Wonkette:

Look what we have here. It’s some actual science about abortions! We know how actual science can be hard for boy brains to comprehend, so we’ll try to speak slowly, with itty bitty Jeb Bush-sized words, so you fellas can keep up.

So. Abortion is the worst thing ever, in the whole universe, right? (Wrong, but play along, won’t you?) It causes mental illness and boobies cancer and, even worse — yes, worse than cancer — SO MUCH REGRET. And that is why it should be banned entirely, or at least heavily restricted (and then banned entirely), to protect women from the irreversible tragedy of later realizing they wish they hadn’t terminated that pregnancy after all. Except not exactly. In fact, not at all:

According to a new study that tracked hundreds of women who had abortions, more than 95 percent of participants reported that ending a pregnancy was the right decision for them. Feelings of relief outweighed any negative emotions, even three years after the procedure.

We know what you’re thinking. It is UNPOSSIBLE that almost every single Lady-American who’s had an abortion is like, “Whew, glad I did that,” instead of sobbing into her pillow and begging Jesus to forgive her. Why else would states like Arizona and Arkansas pass laws requiring doctors to advise patients that it “may be possible” to reverse an abortion (even though it’s not)? All those women who regret their abortions five minutes after leaving the clinic need to know they might be able to hop in the Pro-Life Hot Tub Time Machine and put that baby back up in there.

Let us not forget all those states, like North Carolina, just looking out for the silly dumb broads who don’t understand that having an abortion means they will not be pregnant anymore, so they need to wait for 24 hours or 72 hours or nine months, because if they just go home and think about it for a while, they will undoubtedly realize that abortion isn’t right for them after all.

And let us never, EVER forget that time the Supreme Court upheld the “Partial Birth Abortion” Ban because, according to Justice Anthony Kennedy:

While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.

Hmmm. Looks like we finally have some reliable data, and that data says the Supreme Court was wrong as fuck, just like all the other “pro-life” legislators who insist women should not be allowed to have abortions because of how they will all have the sads about it eventually. (Plus maybe the boobies cancer.) Wrong, false, incorrect, bullshit, and WRONG.

Of course, those legislators and judges and preachy wingnuts would know that chicks are just fine and dandy with their abortions if they’d bother to talk to chicks who’ve had abortions, but why do that when it’s so much easier to conclude, without any reliable data, that abortion hurts men’s feelings right in their penises, so it must MUST!!! do the same to ladies, in their lady penises. Who understands women better than men, right? That, plus the entire 5 percent of women who do have regrets all attend these guys’ churches and say, “Yessir, now that you mention it, I do regret my abortion just like you said,” so what more proof do they need?

We are not A Idiot enough to believe this data will cause anyone who wants to protect the ladies from their own decisions to reconsider the necessity of doing that, on account of how the ladies who make those decisions are perfectly OK with it, thanks. After all, even if women who choose to terminate pregnancies are relieved to have done so, what about all the men who regret their abortions? No reliable data on that yet, so we might as well keep abortion out of reach for men, at least for now. Wouldn’t want them to get the sads or cancer in their boobies, or hurt our lady feelings in our lady penises.

The Racism of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a scam, but not an impartial one. Only black people are required to forgive their white murderers.

 

Steve M:

But let's not pretend, as Americans, that we think forgiveness is the proper, Christian response to murder. We only seemed to think that in one case.

Digby:

If we were to compare our most recent mass murders (we have so many) and the reactions to them, ask yourself whether or not anyone was clamoring to punish Dylan Roof's family. Or round up all the white supremacists and put them in jail. No, there was a clamoring among some Americans to pull down the confederate flag from official buildings. And it's astonishing, when you think about it, that such a flag was even flying or that people were defending it --- the same people, no doubt, who are clamoring for this family to be deported (or worse.)

I noticed that while we don't know at this point the motives of the Chattanooga shooter, it's crystal clear what Dylan Roof's were --- to start a race war. And yet the media is having no trouble calling Chatanooga suspected terrorism. The head of the FBI says he's just not sure about Dylan Roof. It seems tobvious now, if it didn't before, that the term is only applied to Muslims.

Charlie Pierce has it right --- this is about America and our love affair with violence.   I had been under the impression that the right had made its peace with that as the price we pay for the freedom to be armed to the teeth at all times.  But that's not true.  They are very philosophical about the consequence of violence when it's perpetrated by white people, to be sure. It's just a fact of life like summer storms and earthquakes.  But they get very, very angry when a racial or ethnic minority does it. There's some sick white privilege for you.

And again, because it can't be said enough:

If a white American does this it's just a sad fact of life, they have problems and there's nothing we can do except maybe give everybody more guns. If a black person did this it would have been because he was a thug and belonged in jail long ago. If a Latino did it we need to build a wall and deport as many of them as possible. If a Muslim did it, it's an act of war. There's nothing confusing about it.

 

Magic

Divine Irony:



(Source: atheismwethinkmore)

AynRandy Doesn't Want Any Kentucky Votes

He's skipping Fancy Farm!

If you're not a politically aware Kentuckian, you may not have grasped the import of that sentence.  Let me try again:

Rand Paul is skipping Fancy Farm!

While running for re-election statewide.

My dears, it is Just. Not. Done.

Sam Youngman at the Herald:

Paul told reporters last week that he is skipping the annual event in far Western Kentucky in favor of campaigning in New Hampshire, a state he has deemed a must-win for his presidential bid.

It's the kind of decision that is causing serious hand-wringing among Republicans as they privately fret that Paul is focusing too much effort and resources on a stalled presidential bid at the expense of his U.S. Senate re-election campaign.

While Paul's aides have long defended the senator's decision to run for both offices in 2016 by boasting of his abilities as a multitasker, there is growing concern that Paul could be caught off-guard in his Senate race, much the way former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was last year.

Paul's recent moves leave little doubt that his re-election is a distant second on his list of priorities.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/07/17/3949159/analysis-rand-pauls-priorities.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy

"This deal will make America and the world safer and more secure."

You know, Mr.President, what the repugs, for all their worship of Churchill will never understand, that Jaw-Jaw is always better than War-War.



Full transcript here.

Flakka Latest War on Drugs Bullshit

"Brain-melting?"  Seriously, Gracie?  Let's see some actual melted brain cells right now, 'cause I'm calling bullshit.

And "excited delirium?"  Where have I heard that before?  Oh, yeah, the same excuse white cops have been using to murder unarmed black and brown people since the first honky asshole realized 40 years ago that the effects of PCP could be easily turned into an excuse for just mowing the ni**ers down.

This isn't about addiction, it isn't about the phony drug war and it sure as fuck ain't about what poor people in Eastern Kentucky really need to get out of endemic poverty.

This is about filling jail cells to terrify the squares into cutting social spending to build more jail cells to hold more people who need social spending.

Katrina Goetz at the Courier:

Alpha-PVP, nicknamed "flakka" — an illegal synthetic drug that has made headlines across southern Florida — has burrowed deep into Lewis County in the past six months. And some experts say it's likely to spread.

It has sheriff's deputies on high alert because it's unlike any drug they've ever seen. Users are trading heroin to get it — a substance that looks like rock salt, reeks of ammonia and sells for $100 to $500 a gram.

On the street, users call it gravel, sometimes magic, because the high lasts so long. But it also makes them paranoid, violent and can give users superhuman strength, a troublesome combination for law enforcement.

"It's kickin' our ass," Lewis County Sheriff Johnny Bivens said.

And making obscene fortunes for Corrections Corporation of America.

Take the trillions of dollars we're wasting on what Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money calls the "War on (some classes of people who use some classes of) Drugs" and spend it on creating real world-class schools and good government jobs and a strong safety net and real substance abuse programs and decent housing and superb health care and everything else actual modern civilized nations have.

Flakka and all the other trumped-up excuses for worthless politicians and the pathetic excuses for "reporters" who believe them will disappear.

You First, Motherfucker

Nice to see Matt Bevin proving his "libertarian" bonafides with a lame repug chestnut like drug-testing welfare moms.

Anybody ask him why test people getting a few hundred bucks a month when you can test the people getting millions of taxpayer dollars a month?  Start with Codell Construction and Peabody Coal.  The rest of the list of big corporations and billionaires getting subsidies and government contracts ought to keep the testing labs busy for years.

Joe Gerth at the Courier:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin called for drug testing of those receiving public assistance at a forum Tuesday organized by the Council of Agency Executives.

SNIP

During the hour-long debate, Bevin gave few specifics on his programs if elected governor, but said that he would push for drug testing of welfare recipients.

"We need random drug testing for the people who are receiving benefits from the state," he said. "I'll tell you, as an employer, one of the first things these people are needing in order to assimilate back into society is to pass a drug test, and they can't."

A: Name three people who were on welfare when you offered them a job, and who subsequently flunked a drug test. Name one. Yeah, thought so.

B. Do you have the slightest idea how much in tax dollars the Commonwealth of Kentucky pays in "benefits from the state," and how much the Commonwealth of Kentucky pays in tax subsidies and sweetheart contracts to corporations, campaign contributors and other repugs sucking off the government teat?  Didn't think so.

C. Who is going to pay for all the negative tests, given that in multiple states, negative tests were 98 percent of the total and ended up costing the states tens of thousands of dollars?

Real libertarians want all drugs legalized, you lying motherfucking moron.

But repug assholes are all about demanding policies that are proven not to work. Especially when all said policies do is shame and demean people who have been impoverished by the austerity policies of the very same said repugs.

Congratulations on the demotion, Matty Boy.

Somebody Ask Matt Bevin If He Thinks This Is Funny

If he says no, he's lying.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

This is the text of a Facebook post from the Oklahoma Republican Party:

The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 46 million people.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us “Please Do Not Feed the Animals.” Their stated reason for the policy is because “The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.”

Thus ends today’s lesson in irony ‪#‎OKGOP‬

www.OKGOP.com

Conservatives: Denying the humanity of non-white, non-straight, non-male, non-christian human beings for two thousand years.

Germany: Still Nazis After All These Years

The only way to save Europe is to forgive every penny of Greece's debt and throw Germany out of the European Union before it accomplishes by lethal austerity what Hitler couldn't do with armies.

Being part German I can say this:  Germans have always been Nazis, are Nazis today, always will be Nazis.

Also: deadbeats who still owe WWI and WWII reparations to Greece, and motherfucking liars about it. 

Digby: 

Krugman:

Suppose you consider Tsipras an incompetent twerp. Suppose you dearly want to see Syriza out of power. Suppose, even, that you welcome the prospect of pushing those annoying Greeks out of the euro. 

Even if all of that is true, this Eurogroup list of demands is madness. The trending hashtag ThisIsACoup is exactly right. This goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief. It is, presumably, meant to be an offer Greece can’t accept; but even so, it’s a grotesque betrayal of everything the European project was supposed to stand for. 

Can anything pull Europe back from the brink? Word is that Mario Draghi is trying to reintroduce some sanity, that Hollande is finally showing a bit of the pushback against German morality-play economics that he so signally failed to supply in the past. But much of the damage has already been done. Who will ever trust Germany’s good intentions after this? 

In a way, the economics have almost become secondary. But still, let’s be clear: what we’ve learned these past couple of weeks is that being a member of the eurozone means that the creditors can destroy your economy if you step out of line. This has no bearing at all on the underlying economics of austerity. It’s as true as ever that imposing harsh austerity without debt relief is a doomed policy no matter how willing the country is to accept suffering. And this in turn means that even a complete Greek capitulation would be a dead end. 

Can Greece pull off a successful exit? Will Germany try to block a recovery? (Sorry, but that’s the kind of thing we must now ask.) 

The European project — a project I have always praised and supported — has just been dealt a terrible, perhaps fatal blow. And whatever you think of Syriza, or Greece, it wasn’t the Greeks who did it.

It appears that Europe (especially the Germans and the Dutch) will accept nothing but Greeks immolating themselves and them jumping off a cliff en masse to atone for the temerity of failing to be proper working drones. Hopefully this will also prepare all unions and left leaning political parties to follow suit.  They have been very bad, especially the public employees who will be required to flagellate themselves prior to the immolation as lesson to anyone who thinks government employees deserve to live like other human beings. (If you want to live like a human being get rich or STFU.)

Margaret Thatcher is laughing in hell. Along with some other memorable historical figures.

Steve M. points out that it's not just the Germans, but (rich, white, conservative) elites of Northern Europe: 

Yes, conservatives in Europe and America favor economic policies that comfort the comfortable. But, in both cases, the specific means of doing that is afflicting the afflicted -- and the way you get popular buy-in on that is to define the afflicted as people who deserve all the affliction they're already suffering, and more, because they're so shiftless and lazy.

The underdogs are supposed to do all the sacrificing, because the world is divided into the deserving and the undeserving, and the deserving shouldn't really sacrifice at all. The deserving are morally superior. (Middle-class and even lower-class supporters of conservatives, at least here in America, identify with society's winners, even if they don't share in the spoils.)

We're expected to think that the overdogs want to find solutions to economic crises, but, in fact, they don't want to do what's necessary if what's necessary involves serious sacrifice on their part. They think of themselves as the ones who have a genuine work ethic and who are willing to delay gratification, but in reality they insist that their gratification must proceed uninterrupted, because they deserve that. The underdogs don't deserve any gratification, ever, because they don't -- and that's true even if lifting up the underdogs would help bring the economy back to general health. That doesn't matter. What matters is that the underdogs must be punished.

The Socialistic Policies Huge Majorities of Americans Want

It's almost as if a major political party in cahoots with the billionaire class and the Military-Industrial Complex spent last 70 years lying to Americans about what Socialism really is.

Digby:

This is a great piece by Paul Rosenberg at Salon about what really constitutes "mainstream." (Also too about how Sanders agenda exemplifies it.)

Here's just a taste:

You can get a strong sense of this from the results of the “Big Ideas” poll commissioned by the Progressive Change Institute in January, which has thus far gotten far less attention than it deserves. (Full disclosure: I’m a former blogmate with Adam Green, co-founder of PCI’s affiliate, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.) PCI first solicited ideas online through an open submission process (more than 2,600 specific proposals were submitted) and then let people vote on them (more than a million votes were cast). This bottom-up process was then tested out in a national poll. The following all received 70% support or more:

Allow Government to Negotiate Drug Prices (79%)
Give Students the Same Low Interest Rates as Big Banks (78%)
Universal Pre-Kindergarten (77%)
Fair Trade that Protect Workers, the Environment, and Jobs (75%)
End Tax Loopholes for Corporations that Ship Jobs Overseas (74%)
End Gerrymandering (73%)
Let Homeowners Pay Down Mortgage With 401k (72%)
Debt-Free College at All Public Universities (Message A) (71%)
Infrastructure Jobs Program — $400 Billion / Year (71%)
Require NSA to Get Warrants (71%)
Disclose Corporate Spending on Politics/Lobbying (71%)
Medicare Buy-In for All (71%)
Close Offshore Corporate Tax Loopholes (70%)
Green New Deal — Millions Of Clean-Energy Jobs (70%)
Full Employment Act (70%)
Expand Social Security Benefits (70%)

All of the above are in line with Bernie Sanders’ politics and all are extremely popular, with support across the political spectrum. For example, the infrastructure jobs program (a key element of Sanders’ platform) had 91% support from Democrats, 61% from independents and even 55% support from Republicans—compared to only 28% who were opposed. Donald Trump can only dream of being that popular among Republicans.

If people voted strictly on issues, Sanders would be a bipartisan dream. Unfortunately, the calculation that goes into voting is much more complex. But it's always good to know how people look at this stuff in the abstract. All Democrats should pay heed. So should Republicans but they are hamstrung by a base that's driven by the propaganda they've been feeding them for the past 40 years and they no longer have any actual idea of what government policies are or what the government does. But Democrats do ...

Stand on Our Own Two Feet

Divine Irony:

We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world— its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is, and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

Bertrand Russell. 1927

(Title: Why I am not a Christian)

• ↵ Reblogged from empiricaldaily

When You Don't Know

Divine Irony:

"They will help make our communities stronger and more vibrant."

A noble goal, Mr.President.  But you're putting the burden and onus of doing research and presenting proof on the impoverished communities who need government lawyers to enforce government laws.  You want to help communities develop fair housing?  Sue the asses off of their rich, white, motherfucking officials to force them to follow the goddamn law they've been ignoring for 50 years.



Full transcript here.

Bevin: If I Can't Hate on Gays, Then I Hate on Everybody

So Mattyboy gets all the legal and tax benefits of his long-ago state-licensed marriage, but nobody else does.

Exactly the greed, selfishness and arrogance that he would display as governor.

Adam Beam at the Herald:

Kentucky's Republican nominee for governor says the state should stop issuing marriage licenses following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.

Matt Bevin said in a news release the government should be out of the marriage business altogether, arguing that the religious covenant of marriage should be separated from the "contractual relationship" recognized by the state.

And yet more national humiliation for Kentucky, thanks to freakazoids elected to public office.  Easy solution here, people:  stop electing freakazoids.  They make us look bad.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/07/10/3939104/bevin-kentucky-should-stop-issuing.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy

What Would $700 Billion a Year Buy?

That's how much you and I - and all American taxpayers - are giving away to fossil-fuel companies making obscene profits even before those subsidies.

How many jobs for teachers and firefighters and public maintenance workers and home care aides for your elderly parents?

How many new - safe! - bridges and highways and railways?

How much higher education for young people and health care for poor people?

How much of everything that the filthy rich don't need but you and I do?

The Nation:

The resulting compliance on the part of Congress and the White House has led the federal government to increase its subsidies for fossil-fuel production—paid for with our tax dollars—to $18.5 billion a year in 2012, according to the NGO Oil Change International, while restricting solar, wind, energy efficiency, and other climate-friendly alternatives to a relative pittance. No less important, Washington has declined to put a price on the fossil-fuel industry’s carbon pollution. Instead, it’s the public that pays the full cost of coal production in the form of at least 13,000 excess deaths and tens of thousands of heart attacks and asthma attacks every year. This additional favor to fossil-fuel production boosts the value of the total public subsidy to a staggering $700 billion a year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Profile in Courage - No Snark

Or maybe not so much courage as the exasperation of a parent who has explained for the umpteenth time to his recalcitrant teenager why said teenager cannot drop out of high school to hitchhike through Afghanistan.

Gov. Beshear Statement on Today’s Meeting with Casey County Clerk

FRANKFORT, Ky. (July 9, 2015) – “This morning, I advised Mr. Davis that I respect his right to his own personal beliefs regarding same-sex marriages. However, when he was elected, he took a constitutional oath to uphold the United States Constitution. According to the United States Supreme Court, the Constitution now requires that governmental officials in Kentucky and elsewhere must recognize same-sex marriages as valid and allow them to take place. One of Mr. Davis’ duties as county court clerk is to issue marriage licenses, and the Supreme Court now says that the United States Constitution requires those marriage licenses to be issued regardless of gender. Mr. Davis’ own county attorney has advised him that his oath requires him to do so.

While there are two or three county court clerks still refusing to perform their duties, the rest of the county court clerks are complying with the law regardless of their personal beliefs. The courts and the voters will deal appropriately with the rest.

I will not be calling any special session on this topic and costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so. Any proposal about the process of issuing marriage licenses that meets the standards of the Supreme Court ruling should be carefully thought out and could be considered in the regular session in 2016.” – Gov. Steve Beshear.

 Speaking of recalcitrant adolescents, Governor, don't give the legislature any ideas.

I'd like to say "We're done here," but I know it's not true.

Kentucky Flunks Democracy

If democracy is government of, by and for the people.

Via Kevin Drum, the Center for American Progress ranked the 50 states and the District of Columbia on the state of democracy in each, based on how easy it is for citizens to participate in their own government.

Kentucky ranks 48th, just ahead of Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama. Worse than Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and Texas.  Worse even than voter suppression / election fraud centers Florida and Arizona.

Kentucky gets an F on ballot access, F on political representation in state government and D+ on influence on the political system.  

Hard to argue with that grade once you know the metrics that compose each category.

Accessibility of the ballot:

 

•Availability of preregistration

•Availability of online voter registration

•Availability of portable voter registration

•Availability of in-person early voting

•Availability of no-fault absentee voting

•Voter ID laws

•Voting wait time, 2008 and 2012

•Provisional balloting rate, 2008 and 2012

•Participation in the Interstate Crosscheck system

•Motor Voter implementation performance

Big fat zippo for Kentucky on everyone one of those.

Representation in state government

 

•Felony disenfranchisement laws

•Ballot initiative laws

•District distortion

•Female elected representation

•Communities of color elected representation

Another obese zero.

Influence in the political system

 

•Campaign contribution limits for individual donors

•Availability of public campaign financing

•Campaign disclosure laws

•Revolving door bans

•Open legislative data

•Judicial recusal laws

D+ on this only because Kentucky limits individual donations and bans corporation donations.

Wondering how to judge state senate and house candidates next year?  Ask them what they are going to do specifically to increase actual democracy in Kentucky, based on these metrics.