Polls have Beshear leading Republican David Williams, his closest competitor, by 25 to 30 percentage points. Hoping to capitalize on that popularity, fellow Democrats running for agriculture commissioner, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer seized at the chance to join Beshear on the bus tour.
Beshear, who has already raised far more money that Williams, had already begun making more joint appearances with fellow Democratic candidates, including headlining fundraisers for them.
Other big-name Democrats have been offering their support, too, including U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler who said he believes the polls have drained the GOP’s enthusiasm.
“We’ve got our foot on their necks, and we’ve got to keep it there,” Chandler said.
So much to say about that sentiment, who knows where to start?
There was a good story out over the weekend that serves as a friendly reminder to any Kentucky Dems still stubbornly denying their own party is controlled by global-warming deniers and environmental enemies. (No, really, some of them are still out there, insisting that Ben and Steve deserve our support and usually they get very defensive when you mention this topic. It’s sad.)
The Environmental Protection Agency has shouldered much of the blame from Kentucky politicians for the struggling economy during the 2011 campaigns.
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the EPA for what they see as job-inhibiting regulations.
The refusal of 19 mine permits in eastern Kentucky prompted Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear to plead with President Obama – both in person and through a letter -to relax EPA policies to relax EPA policies to allow the mines to open.
Let’s pause here for a moment.
For as great as this article is, it’s taken Governor Beshear’s word for the fact that he “pleaded” (like, down on his knees with tears streaking his face and his hands clutched together in subservience?) with President Obama “in person.”
As we have already pointed out here, only the most gullible person could actually believe Governor Beshear’s wildly unlikely story about giving Barry O the what-for — in just about 90 seconds, Beshear claims (lies, really) he insulted the President’s intelligence, told the President a bunch of stuff about infrastructure the President already knows, accused him of being an ineffective leader (pot, kettle, if ever there was…) and then started yelling at the President about the EPA. [Read all about it.]
If that story actually happened the way Beshear claims it did, he wouldn’t deserve your vote because everything expressed is offensive to your personal beliefs but instead because to cover all that in 90 seconds with the President of the United States, Steve would have to be out of his gourd crazy, a screeching, fast-talking wild-eyed beast not fit for office.
But. Enough about all that. Let’s get back to the article about the Dems colluding with the GOP to poison you by rolling back EPA regulations and environmental protections because the EPA and the Muslim President are killing all our jobs:
But reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other organizations show government regulations account for a small portion of job losses.
Ohhhh. Oh. Wait. So both the Republican Party and the Kentucky Democratic Party are lying or stupid. That’s reassuring.
Let’s hear from each of you!
The furor over the EPA and other federal regulations will only get louder, said U.S. Rep Geoff Davis, R-Hebron.
“I think the battle of regulations is a turning point over what America will become,” Davis said. “American people have lost transparency in the reach of the regulatory state.”
Davis, of course, is the draintrust behind the REINS Act, the GOP’s #1 “Jobs” Bill that does nothing to create jobs but does a lot to poison our air, poison our water and increase corporate profits.
Both candidates for attorney general, Republican Todd P’Pool and Democratic incumbent Jack Conway, have said they believe the EPA has overstepped its bounds in Kentucky…..
“The EPA says your runoff has to be the equivalent of distilled bottled water,” P’Pool said. “That’s like suggesting the speed limit should be 5 miles per hour.”
Conway said he’s already challenged the EPA on several issues, including filing suit in 2009 against the EPA’s attempt to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
The article grazes over Rand Paul next, but everyone knows where Rand stands on this issue, so let’s skip ahead…
[Bruce Scott, commissioner for the Department of Environmental Protection] and Kentucky Coal Association president Bill Bissett testified this week before state legislators on the detrimental impact the delay of these permits has on Kentucky.
….The EPA found few allies among the state legislators at the hearing this week. “It is clear what their agenda is,” said Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence. “Their agenda is to stop coal mining.”
That’s good. Governor Beshear’s appointed Environmental “Protection” czar is hanging with King Coal. Way to go, KDP! Let’s all pat ourselves on the backs.
Hmm. Backs. Oh, right. It’s that time again:
You may want to read the rest of the article, especially if you’re a damned fool who’s been elected to public office and keeps on insisting that getting rid of the protections that keep people safe and alive will some how create jobs. It’s farcical, but that’s what our Democratic and Republican leaders are claiming.
Andy Barr, a Republican challenging Chandler in next year’s election, on Wednesday said “the Obama-Chandler strategy” is simply more government interference in the marketplace. Barr, a Lexington lawyer, lost to Chandler last year by 648 votes.
“This is Congressman Chandler continuing to support the president’s failed economic agenda,” Barr said. “But none of it addresses the cause of our economic malaise, and that is, the government is in the way. It’s creating uncertainty in the market about taxes, regulations and debt. We need to get the government out of the way.”
Yur-huh, Garlandy, dem govment folks sure is in the way!
Barr’s a sweet little dude. If you’ve ever talked to him, you’ve probably enjoyed his cute puppy dog eyes. But he’s not stupid. Which makes so terribly sad that he thinks his path to elected office is paved with feigned idiocy.
Like, for instance, this past summer during the July 4th festivities when Candidate Andy insisted to me that the guys two tents down at the Tea Party booth knew just as much about the Constitution of the United States as he did.
“Really, Andy, you believe that?” I asked him.
“Yes I do!”
Barr teaches Constitutional Law at Morehead State University. The Tea Party booth made national headlines the last two years for their “YUP, I’M A RACIST” t-shirts and their “INFIDEL” bumper stickers.
So Andy Barr’s pretending to be an idiot. Sad to watch. Hopefully he doesn’t do such a good job he actually turns into one (though, I fear that may already be happening, based on that conversation).
Also from the HL article, Cheves keeps things in perspective:
Chandler’s support for Obama on Wednesday continues his strategy of tacking across the political spectrum from issue to issue.
Chandler voted for the $787 billion federal stimulus package that Obama wanted in 2009. But he voted against Obama’s health care and banking reform laws; he said he didn’t think they would accomplish what Obama intended.
A month after President Obama’s Jobs speech and his somewhat tepid expression of support, Democratic Congressman Ben Chandler today released this press release — a refreshing (and Awesome!) development:
Congressman Ben Chandler
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES – KENTUCKY’S 6TH DISTRICT
_____________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 5, 2011
Rep. Chandler: Congress Must Act Now to Create Jobs
WASHINGTON (October 5, 2011)—Congressman Chandler today called on Congress to take up and debate legislation that will put Americans back to work and help small businesses in Kentucky succeed. President Obama sent the American Jobs Act to Congress last month.
“The American people’s top priority is job creation, and strengthening small businesses, rebuilding America and putting people back to work is a crucial part of growing our economy,” Congressman Chandler said. “This legislation is paid for in full and includes elements – the payroll tax credit, rebuilding our schools, a focus on improving infrastructure, and long-term deficit reduction – which I think both sides of the aisle can agree will get our country on the path to economic recovery. There is no time to waste: Congress must act now to create jobs, strengthen our middle class, and expand our economy.”
In Kentucky alone, the American Jobs Act will deliver tax cuts to 70,000 businesses, put 5,900 people to work rebuilding local infrastructure, support 6,100 teacher and first responder jobs, and offer $1,330 in tax relief to a typical household. The legislation is fully paid for and is based on bipartisan initiatives.
The American Jobs Act will result in hundreds of thousands of construction workers going back on the job to rebuild America’s roads, bridges, rail lines, schools, and airports. American infrastructure now receives a grade of “D” from the American Society of Civil Engineers, with 119 bridges in Central Kentucky carrying nearly half a million people every day in need of repair. The legislation also includes an initiative to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses, which will strengthen our neighborhoods.
###
Our 6th District Congressman today did something wonderful and we send him love and support!
The chair of our House environmental committee, Jim Gooch (a “Democrat”), is a global warming-denying EPA-fighter who blocks any type of progressive legislation in Frankfort that restricts the coal industry in any way from even getting a hearing, let alone a vote. Yes, the Democratic leadership fights to make sure that he maintains his chairmanship.
And we have Democratic Congressman Ben Chandler, who not only votes against regulation of Wall Street (a year after they caused the biggest economic meltdown in 80 years, no less), but recently voted to block EPA regulations on mercury emissions from power plants (not to mention a series of votes in the past year to cut back funding and power of the EPA).
Ouch. That’s the headline on TIME mag’s story about the Evangelical Environmental Network and their ad-campaign targeting Ed Whitfield and other deregulation Republicans. (We mentioned this a couple weeks ago, with audio of the Whitfield ad.)
Ed Whitfield added into the TRAIN Act a hold on EPA regulations of mercury emissions. The Christian Evangelicals didn’t like this because mercury’s not good for unborn entities (nevermind living breathing ones).
“I expect members of Congress who claim that they are pro life to use their power to protect the life, especially the unborn,” says a local pastor and mother in one of the ads. “I can’t understand why Congressman Ed Whitfield is fighting to stop the EPA from enforcing its plan specifically meant to protect the unborn by cleaning up dangerous mercury pollution.” The ads have run on 120 Christian and country radio station in Whitfield, Barton and Upton’s districts for the week prior to the Train Act vote. More than 100 evangelical pastors and leaders have also signed the “Evangelical Call to Stop The Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn,” including representatives from over 10 Christian colleges, National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson and Christianity Today’s Editor-in-Chief David Neff. The United States Council of Catholic Bishops submitted similar concerns.
Well that’s a lot of evangelicals!
What says you, Ed Whitfield or office thereof?
“This is an activist environmental group parading under the banner of evangelical Christianity and the right to life,” Whitfield’s chief of staff John Sparkman told TIME. “I don’t think it will have resonance in our district.”
Yeah. Neither will the unborn when they die of mercury poisoning, Sparkman.
For the record, the TRAIN Act passed, along with its mercury poisoning, thanks to Whitfield, Ben Chandler and our other non-Awesome Congresspeople.
Ezra Klein previews the coming government shutdown threat — two months away when Congress has to authorize the 2012 Budget in full. The previous budget fights may pale in comparison, Klein argues, for several reasons with one hitting particularly close to home:
#4: There could be big fights over policy riders: This is what tripped up the budget negotiations the last time around. Back in April, Republicans pushed to restrict funding for Planned Parenthood and abortion in the District of Columbia through “riders” that placed conditions on the money. Congress could deadlock over riders again, but it’s not just abortion that could be at issue.
In July, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed an appropriations bill that would cut EPA funding by 20 percent and impose a slew of policy riders rolling back regulations on coal ash, carbon pollution and toxic emissions from power plants, among others. The House GOP has since doubled down on the issue: On Friday, it passed a bill to place unprecedented restrictions on the EPA’s air-pollution rules. A Republican aide confirmed on Monday that House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers “will fight hard for the bills that have passed the House” in the next round of 2012 budget negotiations. And that’s just one of the hot-button regulatory issues that could draw battle lines in November.
This one is like a gift from the state of Kentucky back to the other 49 States that keep us funded. Not only is Hal Rogers holding the reins, but the riders he’s demanding are proposed by and/or supported by Ed Whitfield, Ben Chandler, Brett Guthrie, Geofferson Davis and our two nutty Senators.
So America, this November, remember to thank Kentucky.
“These were the largest tax cuts that we’ve had, maybe ever, but certainly in a very long time,” he said. “And they are a tremendous cause of the deficits that we’re looking at right now. And most of those tax cuts went to the very wealthiest people in this country.”
Chandler says wealthy people today have more money as a percentage of the economy than they’ve ever had in the history of the U.S.
“It’s kept us from having the ability to properly fund things like Medicare and Social Security,” he said. “So now people want to come along and say, ‘surprisingly, we don’t have the money to fund Medicare and Social Security.’ Well, of course we don’t. We’ve given all these big tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country.“
Ben is, of course, absolutely correct in everything he says.
Which makes it all the more ridiculous that Ben Chandler is a vocal and powerful supporter of the Bush Tax Cuts.
Let’s run through this again for Ben’s benefit, since he’s trying to play pretend.
Chandler has supported the Bush Tax Cuts over and over and over again. Now he attempts to play the other side.
Perhaps disgruntled Kentucky Democrats of the 6th District will be heartened by Ben Chandler’s words — perhaps they are so desperate for Ben to do something right that they will accept this.
But Ben Chandler acknowledging that he has directly helped cripple America’s “ability to properly fund things like Medicare and Social Security” should be of little solace to anyone who values either of those two programs, or who values the ideals of the Democratic Party.
So keep on swinging, Ben Chandler.
How many Dems out there are fooled by this pantomime?
Oh Ben Chandler supporters… sing us another song about how important it is to hand this blue dog our votes. Tell us again why supporting Ben is so important. Tell us again.
Once the darling of Central Kentucky environmentalists (you know, the folks he owes his 600-vote victory last year to), Rep. Ben Chandler has made a string of anti-environmental regulation votes since the beginning of the year. And today was the cherry on top, as he voted (one of 13 Democrats) to approve the Whitfield amendment to the TRAIN Act, which blocks the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations on power plant emissions of mercury.
Read on, folks, because Ben Chandler has something to say and he wants you to know which side he is on.
The question is… are you and Ben really on the same side?
In his speech last Thursday, Barack Obama said this:
Building a world-class transportation system is part of what made us a economic superpower. And now we’re going to sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads? At a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in America?
There are private construction companies all across America just waiting to get to work. There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America.
This bridge — the Brent Spence, connecting Covington and Cincinnati – is “functionally obsolete” according to the Department of Transportation and this summer large chunks of concrete began falling from the upper deck onto the lower one.
Most people would identify this as a problem.
The I-71/I-75 bridge is a key connector between Michigan, northern Ohio, Upstate New York and the Great Lakes and the industries, consumers and shippers of the American South, in particular, Florida. According to the DOT (pdf):
“The Brent Spence Bridge, which opened to traffic in 1963, was designed to carry 80,000 vehicles per day. Currently, approximately 160,000 vehicles per day use the Brent Spence Bridge and traffic volumes are projected to increase to approximately 233,000 vehicles per day in 2035.”
Sounds serious.
Except for the fact it’s Barack Obama talking about fixing it. And it might require closing tax loopholes for billion dollar corporations. And it might mean a very, very small group of very, very rich people might pay the same taxes they paid before the war and before the Bush Tax Cuts bankrupted the country.
But with those few words, Obama made the bridge a top priority for replacement and, perhaps, a subtle jab at House Speaker John Boehner of West Chester and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
“I appreciate the president highlighting this project and I trust this means that when the planning for this project is solidified this administration will prioritize it,” McConnell said Friday.
Whether it will help win their support for his jobs plan remains to be seen.
“I’m less enthused by the president lumping a crucial artery for goods and services in America together with a call for another stimulus and massive tax increases,” McConnell added.
Translation: Mitch McConnell’s going to fight Barack Obama, he’s going to fight the jobs bill, he’s going to pretend it’s a stimulus package and he’s going to pretend the last one failed. He’s going to lie, cheat and steal because, as he has made clear, Mitch McConnell’s one-and-only mission is:
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
In Mitch McConnell’s world, America can go itself. Let the bridge crumble. Let it fail. Let us fall.
As for Kentucky… who cares about Kentucky?
Certainly not Mitch McConnell. Or Rand Paul. Or Hal Rogers… or Geoff Davis, the Congressman who supposedly serves the people of Northern Kentucky most affected by this bridge. And it’s not just Davis, of course. The entire state is affected by the flow of traffic along these interstates, with I-75 in particular driving commerce and investments right through our center, with thousands and thousands of jobs depending on that continued flow of traffic.
But the state’s Republican delegation have all stated their opposition to the plan the President laid out last Thursday.
The Republicans of the Commonwealth of Kentucky would rather see the Brent Spence Bridge fail than see Barack Obama succeed.They would rather see Kentucky fail than see an America with a modern transportation infrastructure.
The Sherman Minton Bridge was closed late Friday afternoon and will remain shut down indefinitely after officials discovered cracks in the span.
Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation, said officials “do not have an estimate” on how long it will take to repair and reopen the bridge, which carries Interstate 64 traffic across the Ohio River.
Wingfield said the cracks were found in two steel support beams below the lower deck closer to the Kentucky side.
The bridge to Mitch McConnell’s hometown is falling apart — how long can his opposition to an investment in America stand?
Unlike the Sherman Minton Bridge, the will of Mitch McConnell and the Kentucky Republican Party doesn’t seem to be crumbling.
The closure came just a day after President Obama renewed his call for Congress to invest in infrastructure improvements to stimulate the economy and address the nation’s crumbling bridges and roads, as studies have shown the nation needs $2 trillion in investment just to bring its infrastructure up to date. McConnell criticized Obama’s plan, saying it was “a re-election plan.”
But while McConnell insists that Republicans “agree that we must bring America’s infrastructure up to 21st century standards,” his recent record doesn’t show it. When progressives and Democrats argued that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act should be geared toward infrastructure, the GOP under McConnell’s leadership fought to focus it on tax cuts. The Senate GOP derailed a 2010 jobs plan focused largely on infrastructure investment, and if McConnell’s post-speech rhetoric is to be believed, he will be at the forefront of the Republican Party’s opposition to this plan too.
Mitch McConnell and Kentucky’s Republican Party are so dedicated to the cause of Obama’s failure that they will allow America’s failure and this state’s failure.
With the failure of these bridges, Kentucky can return to the 19th Century, cut off from manufacturing, produce, consumer goods and jobs.
The old story of Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” is just that… an old story. It’s time for a new one and Mitch McConnell (and Rand, Geoff, Ed, Hal and Brett) are writing it.
You don’t need a bridge to get to their Kentucky because, as everyone will soon know, Kentucky is nowhere.
SHE WON'T GO!
KentuckyElection.org
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY
