Between CPAC and scouring minute-upon-minutes of rousing Ben Chandler floor speeches, we’re wiped. Long week. So here’s some local music for your Friday afternoon…
That’s Matt Duncan. He makes great music… and you can hear more of it (and even buy his album… for $4.00… $4.00!!!) via Bandcamp.
Howdy, folks. As David mentioned, I’ve been hobnobbing with V.C.’s and Howard Kurtz over the past 3 days, so my apologies for abandoning you. (also, give Schankula lots of thanks for picking up the slack in marvelous fashion. Now. You can do it in 6 minutes, like Mr. Chandler.)
Oh, and I was at CPAC today. A big thank you to these fine upstanding conservatives for giving me such a nice press pass. The set up in their blogger room and press balcony was so decadent, I almost forgot to wretch during Rick Santorum’s passionate defense of Hosni Mubarak and explanation of how Obama loves the Muslim Brotherhood more than America. He also talked a lot about Reagan’s stool, which… oh, I’ll let you make the Santorum joke.
I’ll have much, much more on the festivities later, but I thought I’d at least share the only redeemable moment of this sad affair. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, the architects of the least intelligent foreign policy decision in the entire history of America, were today’s big closers. Donald Rumsfeld was given (I kid you not) the “Defender of the Constitution Award”. At the first mention of Rumsfeld’s name, the Paulbots filled the large ballroom with boos. They booed and heckled Rummy throughout his speech (outnumbered by U-S-A chant eventually), and then had a similar greeting for their surprise guest:
So Paulbots may be paranoid, sexist, selfish, robotic and hopelessly naive, but they do occasionally have their moments. Of course, these were Ron Paulbots, not Rand Paulbots, and you know what a big difference that is.
Much more coming later on the festivities, including Bachmann, Mitch, Rand, Trump, King, Moffett, Adams, hunting and killing RINO’s, and the rest of Real America Takin Their Country Back.
In other news, Kentucky Sports Radio has started a petition addressed to Mayor Jim Gray asking him to name March 1st “Jorts Day” in honor of Josh Harrelson. If you don’t know who that is or why he’s called Jorts or if this string of words is as incomprehensible to you as the twitting gibberish above, then there’s no need for you to SIGN THE PETITION. Otherwise, have fun.
We all know numbers are important in the Bible — there’s one G-d, the world was created in 7 Days (or 6 and some vacay), there’s the Holy Trinity, three wise men… and there are a bunch of other examples a Pastor once told me about and most of them I’ve forgotten. Here today, we have an immaculate news convergence. Witness!:
And you’ll want to check out the Purity Pledge you’ll have to take with any application.
#2 The Kentucky State Senate voted 34 to 1 (you get one guess) to let Kentucky schools teach the Bible… even though Bible study’s already something they could teach. (Now if we could only get them to restrict sex ed to late nights at Church summer camp.)
Hopefully the classes will look a little something like this:
Or chickenosaurus… not sure, but sounds awesome. Jack Horner, a renowned “paleontologist” will be speaking at UK tonight. He once dug up a T-Rex bone in Montana which he claims is 68 Million years old (and I’ve got a Shroud to sell you).
Horner also has written a book, How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn’t Have To Be Forever (Penguin, $16) so that even a sixth-grader can understand it.
So maybe that Ark Park really can have dinosaurs, not just robots. Unless this is an abomination. Which would be funny.
Where: Singletary Center for the Arts, 405 Rose St.
Admission: Free
Okay. That’s all. Sorry to keep making you read stuff. Joe’s off meeting with some V.C. guys (capitalists, not Cong)… and there’s a buyout offer from CompuServe. But he’ll probably make it back soon.
Thanks to CSPAN, we present to you Congressman Chandler’s entire Congressional floor record for your viewing (and reviewing) pleasure.
March 4, 2010: At just over one minute, this is the Congressman’s shortest — and most recent — floor speech. It concerns a bill to help small businesses and help unemployed Kentuckians find good local jobs. A good argument from our Congressman, who gets on a role and even goes so far as to ask for an extra 15 seconds.
May 13, 2009: Congressman Chandler gives a solid argument in favor of a good piece of legislation, funding the improvement of the Commonwealth’s school infrastructure, including making schools more environmentally friendly. January 13, 2009: Far and away, the Congressman’s longest floor speech at just over three minutes, here he tackles one of the most important issues of our day, and surely one of the utmost importance to his constituents and dedicated campaign staff and volunteers here in the 6th District: The Great Legacy of Senator Mitch McConnell!
State Senator Jared Carpenter (R-Berea) has more than just an awesome chin mullet… he’s got a Big Idea.
Last month, Carpenter introduced a bill (SB4) to move Kentucky’s primary elections to the first week in August.
For 2012, this would put the KY Presidential Primary about three weeks in front of the Republican Convention.
Of course, the current KY Presidential Primary date (at the end of May) has consistently put the state out of any consideration as to the ultimate nominee anyway, so this would put an exclamation point on our say (Hillary’s admirable 2008 arguments that the state, and her chances, were still in play notwithstanding).
But Carpenter’s bill — which passed the Senate — seems less interested in Presidential politics, on the surface, and more interested in legislative elections, as Frontloading HQ explains:
The stated intent of the bill is to free up the legislature to focus on their work — at least the controversial work — without fear of being challenged in a primary by an opponent who entered the race because of a vote on a contentious piece of legislation. The filing deadline is in January for the May primary and many Kentucky legislators apparently wait until after the filing deadline and know who, if anyone, they will be facing off against in May before addressing potentially divisive legislation. And with the legislative session ending in March, the overall efficiency of activity in the legislature can be negatively affected.
Frontloading continues on to look at the wider implications of such a move, how it fits into national patterns, and what it would mean to one candidate in particular (whose name begins with Ron and ends in Paul) and the unliklihood that the bill, even if it could get out of the State House, would get through the Guvner. Also: It’s possible the bill is about handing State Parties more control over picking the Presidential candidate… and obviously the same intent of the bill could just as easily be achieved by moving the filing deadline rather than the Primary date.
Fox41 asked Mitch McConnell about Rand Paul’s budget plan (that not a single Republican colleague has endorsed, nor will there be one), and that’s when Robot Mitch kicked in:
BH: “Does his spending bill have a shot?
McConnell: “We’re going to come together and try to reduce spending by as much as we can get a majority of votes for… that will have to be from Democrats as well.
BH: “So no answer on that?”
McConnell: “We are going to come together and try to reduce spending as much as we can get a majority vote for.”
That’s Mitch-speak for “hell no”.
In other Rand/Mitch KY Battle Royal news, how’s that debt ceiling capitulation and co-opting going, Rand?
Rand Paul made news in saying that he would be willing to raise the country’s debt ceiling – a change in his previous position.
But he said he would only vote for it if a balanced budget amendment to the constitution were passed.
McConnell appeared more poised to make a move.
“This has got to be done and got to be done now,” said McConnell.
But he was mum when we asked him a simple question.
BH: “How much do you think (the debt ceiling) needs to be raised?
McConnell: “I am not going to sit here and negotiate that with you but we know it’s a big problem.”
BH: But if it affects the American people you don’t have a ballpark you can give?
McConnell: “I’m not going to negotiate that with you.”
Which means that Fox41 must feel just like Barack Obama, I guess.
Also, Rand Paul continues to float the false notion that he’s running for president. After all, he’s got to sell that book of his coming out soon:
We concluded our interview by asking Paul if he’s had encouragement to run for President in 2012. He said first he needs to be Senator.
BH: “But that’s not a ‘no.’
Paul: “No, never completely a ‘no’ you are right.”
And now we get to witness Rand and Mitch fight over who is the current Alpha Dog of the Republican Party today at CPAC.
The Hill has crunched the numbers and looks like Ben Chandler made the fewest floor speeches of any Democrat over the past two years.
3 of them, to be exact.
Our voice in Washington is… quiet.
For someone who opts not to broadcast his political opinions very often, Chandler co-chairs an unlikely panel: the Congressional Public Broadcasting Caucus.
Unsurprisingly, the Republicans got the best of him as Timothy Johnson (R-IL) edged him out for the overall crown (2) — though apparently Johnson’s famous for calling his constituents personally and constantly.
The new mayors of Kentucky’s two largest cities – Greg Fischer of Louisville and Jim Gray of Lexington — told state lawmakers Wednesday that they want to work with the legislature to create jobs.
It’s good to see these two Mayors working together.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor put DC on notice yesterday that next week’s Bill to fund the US Government for the rest of the year will include an amendment to defund Obamacare.
This has pissed Tea Partiers off because they just want the defunding language in the original bill… not added as an amendment to it. The Republicans are trying to pacify the Tea Party but it is proving difficult as the movement is a leaderless blob of individual initiatives.
More to the point, the Spending Bill will offer the GOP their latest high-profile vote on Health Care Reform, once again removing the House of Representatives from the job of fixing the economy and putting people back to work and steering them off a cliff into re-debating old legislation… and also leads to the probability that they’ll send a Spending Bill to the Senate that the Senate won’t accept and that the President would never sign.
All of which is awesome.
And all of which begs the now age-old question: What Will Ben Chandler Do?
Kentucky’s 6th District Republican Congressman who voted repeatedly against Health Care Reform in the last Congress has already voted this year to kill health care reform by committee and has also previously sided with the majority party on returning the government to 2008 spending levels… so… how will he vote on the defunding of Health Care Reform?
SHE WON'T GO!
State Senator Jared Carpenter (R-Berea) has more than just an awesome chin mullet… he’s got a Big Idea.
KentuckyElection.org
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY
