Not so much, eh?

But seriously, who could have predicted such a failure? (Besides us and Rob Morris.)

Speaking of Rob Morris, today he marked the anniversary with much deserved derision and “I told you so’s” in this tour de force that you should go read in its entirety.

I think I’ll call this my favorite excerpt, which pretty much sums it up:

The developers lied.

They lied repeatedly. And with no trace of shame. It isn’t a pleasant or polite thing to say, but Lexington needs to stop being polite to hucksters and charlatans.

They lied about their secret mystery financier. They lied about his death. They lied about his heirs and ‘numbered Swiss bank accounts’. They lied about backup financing. They lied about backup financing for the backup financing. They lied about the urgency of demolishing historic buildings. They lied about their schedule. They lied about tenant commitments. They lied about 61 (or 64! or 65!) ‘handshake’ deals for their condominiums. They lied with pretty pictures of ugly buildings. They lied with pretty pictures of pretty buildings. And they lied with overly optimistic financial projections.

They lied to the press. They lied to the public. They lied to the Urban County Council. They might have even lied to themselves.

And when their thick layers of lies wore thin, they resorted to insulting and bullying their critics instead of offering substantive rebuttals.

Strong words, but I hear Dudley is breaking ground in 60-90 days, so we’ll be eating crow soon.

Until then, continue enjoying your invisible unicorn park, Lexington.

(For additional fun times, this classic 2,300-word screed (once described by a dirty foul-mouthed blogger as “Dudley Webb’s ego masturbating in public“) by The Dud just keeps getting funnier with age, so you should go soak in that for a bit, too, because how often do we get to celebrate an anniversary so festive?)

The other day, Progress Kentucky put out a racist tweet attacking Mitch McConnell’s wife. This caused some serious backlash (as it should) and a slew of national attention on McConnell’s reelection campaign.

Joe already buried the group over at the LEO:

In reality, those within the state familiar with Progress Kentucky knew they were never going to be a major player in this race, and now the national media is onto that fact. While Progress Kentucky says they will continue, you’ll have a hard time finding anyone who will now defend, support, and give them money. And it’s not like anyone was giving them money to begin with. They had only raised $4,000 online, and while they haven’t filed yet with the FEC, we have to doubt that they’ve managed to raise a great deal more than that.

And there’s not much more to say on the matter — but this: If the state Democratic Party was doing its job, there never would have been a space for Progress Kentucky to “fill.” National media time and again over the past three months have quoted PK as if they are (or, more correctly, were) a valid force.

As Joe detailed in his obit, this occurred in part because of the “hottness” of the race and the seeming seriousness of a group that called itself a “Super PAC.” That makes it sound legitimate in this day and age, so the Big Foots in DC and elsewhere ran with it.

But the other factor here is that PK was, over the past three months, the loudest voice “hammering” McConnell. Because of that, to an outside observer, they may have seemed like the front running anti-McConnell group.

In a sense, they were.

The Kentucky Democratic Party is a bit dysfunctional — to the point that many of their so-called experts have actually gone to the effort of arguing that the Party would be better off not fielding a candidate to run against McConnell rather than have a well-known candidate who polls hot on Mitch’s heels on the ballot against him.

But if Progress Kentucky’s messaging was amateur hour (and it undoubtedly, inexcusably was), the Kentucky Democratic Party’s messaging has been mostly nonexistent. As Joe’s pointed out time and again (here’s just one example), the KDP has failed to capitalize on opportunities Mitch has presented to them.

Because they have spent much of the past two, four, six years not seeking to chip away at the powerful (and politically adept) McConnell, they face an uphill battle getting going now. That’s not to say they can’t turn on their afterburners (does the KDP have those?), but it’s all the more difficult.

Their habitual reticence to take on the Senate Minority Leader — and the least popular Senator in the nation, with just 17% of the Commonwealth solidly behind him — is the greatest reason he would cruise to re-election. Blaming their woes on a potential Ashley Judd candidacy is simple transference.

This is not an ideological assessment. It’s just simple politics. You can’t beat a guy if you won’t attack him. If you go long stretches not trying to weaken an opponent when all opportunity is on the table, you have reason to be defeatist about the race.

Which is what the KDP has for so long been.

So now when you see KDP leaders whining a month ago that Ashley Judd hadn’t yet called them personally, and when KDP leaders argue that no candidate would be better than actually trying to win a race, you see a Party that’s got its priorities backward.

Progress Kentucky was a disorganized, undisciplined group before their racist tweet — the racist tweet just made it more obviously evident for anyone who hadn’t already realized it.

Because the KDP refused to take control of the messaging, it was left open to others to do so — and unfortunately that ended in a racist tweet.

The Kentucky Democratic Party may have squandered opportunity after opportunity over the past several years, that’s water under the bridge unless they, too, are disorganized and undisciplined as a group.

The real question of this wake is whether that Party can now do what any opposition Party would’ve already been doing. They’ll have to create and mobilize the groundwork in a hurry, but perhaps this has motivated them to finally do so.

Or they could just stick with their existing plan and run no one.

1.  This picture is calling for us to trust a United States Congress that has a 14% approval rating.  Now this means that 86% of Americans just flat don’t like our Congress.  Why is that?  well mainly its because they’re bitterly partisan, so inefficient it borders on being just completely inept, and well to be honest, incapable of accomplishing anything.  Keep this in mind…I believe this applies to the whole of our Congress but primarily leadership in both the Republican and Democratic Caucuses.

2. The picture poses what OUR US President Barrack Obama did yesterday was completely unheard of, well thats not true.  Both Bush the first and Clinton issued executive orders placing restrictions on the importation of certain guns.  They used “unilateral executive action” to accomplish a needed task that Congress was unable to do.

3. So one might ask…what dictatorial moves did Obama make yesterday that harm the very fabric of our Constitution?  He instructed certain federal agencies to remind gun dealers and healthcare workers how to respond to currently written laws, instructed the Department of Justice to use a program currently in place that would make resources available to local school districts and law enforcement agencies to have a greater police presence in our school zones, and called for Congress to consider certain proposals going forward.

What!?!  Wait a minute…are you completely f–ing kidding me?  The President said we’re going to tell a bunch of people to do the job they’re already supposed to be doing….he said we’re going to send some letters, put cops in schools and Congress is going to consider legislation…thats it???  and that has all of these right wing gun nuts in an uproar?

Wow!  I mean seriously NRA…wow.

So I’ll ask anyone out there to kindly update me on how this was the move of a dictator? How was this so harmful?  Hell, to be honest with you, it didn’t do anything…nothing…not one damn thing to solve gun related violence.  If anything, liberals should be mad that he didn’t reach far enough.  We should be mad that he’s sending letters and then asking Congress (remember that group with the 14% approval rating thats incapable of doing anything right) to consider some of the most important gun control legislation of our generation.

So honestly…go suck a d–k NRA, you got what you wanted, the President is basically bowing out of the gun control debate and leaving it up to the Turtle.

…

…

…

I’m kidding, kind of.  Unless you are Sarah Palin or think putting tea bags on your ears is a political statement, you probably didn’t read this out loud, so it was already a moment of silence.

I want to say something about how we now grieve.  President Obama called for a moment of “silence and reflection.”  That feels right.  It’s beyond politics.  No matter how degraded we’ve become in our public discourse, you couldn’t imagine Rush Limbaugh countering by calling for a moment of “noise and shallowness”, at least not in so many words.  (A little off topic, but how can Rush Limbaugh love twinkies and oxycontin and be against other people’s health care? The whole reason that walking side of bacon exists is because Pfizer has a tube shoved up his ass, probably taking up half of their resources.  If you want to cut the cost of healthcare, you should let Rush Limbaugh die.  And Rush, as ever, if you are reading this, bone a lawnmower, you gravy-soaked mouth-breather.  It’s a good thing your mother didn’t love you or else your first affection would be from a whore.)

Anyway, I was talking about civility in our public discourse.  I’m all for it.  And there’s something very human and touching about a moment of silence.  But tea party to key party, we are all shocked by what happened to our neighbors to the west.

…

Wait a second, did I just say “to the west”?  I did because I wrote the above five months ago after the Batman shootings in Aurora, Colorado.  I meant to write a meditation on grief, on why so many people I love felt a special kinship with the victims at the theater that they wouldn’t have felt if the shootings had happened at, say, a football game.  Above all, I wanted to say that the only patriotic move President Obama could do was to exploit the tragedy to win the 2012 election.  It was, I assume, going to be brilliant.  (As an aside, I like summarizing articles I didn’t write.  It’s easier than writing them.)

So why didn’t I finish it? Because life goes on.  I moved across state lines and started a new job.  Then the election was in full swing.  Look, it’s impossible to continuously feel grief for strangers.  After a while, it moved to the back of my mind, the way these things do.  I still feel bad for Chandra Levy, but my family didn’t mention her in our Thanksgiving prayers.

Why say this? I seriously doubt that my editorializing could have stopped more than half of the shootings.  But what I’m interested in is the nature of how we express our grief.  This goes back to our moment of silence.

TS Eliot ends “The Waste Land” with a chant he translates to “the peace that transcends understanding. “   The moment of silence approaches that.  We bury our dead in awe of the happening.  Reasons, explanations, and actions follow, but for now we accept the world rather than try to explain it.

But it’s just a fucking moment.

This is the reality we’re missing in our national discourse.  The moment of silence has taken over our conversation.  “Surely, we can’t talk about this when people are still in the hospital,” say the people with no connection to the victims who are trying to buy time.  And to be clear, when President Obama says “We must never let this happen again”, he is continuing the moment of silence.  Don’t say what we already know—repeating yourself accomplishes nothing but self indulgence (says the man who started this essay by repeating something he wrote half a year ago).

Five moths ago, we had a moment of silence.  Then we extended it for fear of offending the dead.  And now—as a tertiary result of our silence—children have been murdered.  Because what has changed from Aurora to now that could have conceivably stopped this shooting?  What has changed from the Gabby Giffords shooting?  What has changed from Columbine?

Perhaps this is a better question: What practical good have assault rifles done?  We know the evil they can do, but tell us the good they have done?

The silence you hear to that question is not an accident.  The NRA eludes responsibility because we let them run out the clock.  “To speak now is disrespectful,” they say.  And soon you’re talking about the fiscal cliff, about Romney’s tax returns, about Christmas, about the UK/UL Game.  Then we say “Wasn’t there a shooting in Oregon, or Hendersonville, or I think it was Vermont?”

Now is the time to talk about gun control.  Not because of Sandy Hook, but because of the next one.  The time is before, not after, a shooting.  Don’t worry about the Newtown shooting, worry about the Lexington shooting that will happen next March—what did you do to prevent it?  If you’re still saying it’s a matter of personal freedom as you’re picturing your kids hiding in their lockers to dodge gunfire, then I don’t know what to say except, “Senator Paul, I didn’t vote for you, but I respect your office”.  But know there will be more.  The shooters are getting smarter and more strategic.  Let’s call this by its proper name: terrorism.  And let’s deal with terrorism in the exact opposite way that Ronald Reagan did—let’s stop arming them.

So yes, let’s start with an assault rifle ban.  You could go farther than this, but that is the minimum.  Let me state my biases on this: I’ve never fired a gun.  Guns never appealed to me, but then again NBA basketball and college football appeal to me, and a lot of my friends think those are ridiculous indulgences, so I get it.

So let’s talk about it.  (Let me say that I have great friends and family who call themselves Libertarian and I genuinely love them, while thinking their opinion is fucking idiotic, so I want to represent their POV as honestly as I can.)   The libertarian argument, as I understand it, breaks up into the following five points.

1. Do we trust the government to take our guns from us?

Take our guns?  Who? Seriously who said that?  No one is going into your house and taking what you’ve already bought.  When McDonalds discontinues the McRib or the Shamrock Shake, you don’t think they are going after your weirdly-named Irish Heart Attack Foods, do you? What’s yours is yours.  No one is taking your guns.  What I’m talking about is discontinuing a certain type of weapon that serves no purpose except to kill multiple people in very little time.  That’s different than entering your house and seizing all of your guns.

2. It’s a matter of mental health, not gun control

This is kind of true and very beside the point.  Sure, we want to take care of the mentally ill. (Even if Republicans don’t want to take care of the physically ill).  What does that have to do with guns?  It also doesn’t help that the NRA will still block mental testing for people buying assault weapons.  So it’s not about guns, it’s about mental illness, and it’s our job to arm the sane and insane alike.  Also, have you noticed how no one says, “It would be wrong to exploit this tragedy to talk about mental illness.”  It’s only guns we can’t talk about.  Because of respect for families. Obviously.

3. It’s not a matter of need; it’s a matter of want.

This one is true.  If people want them, and the market can maintain them, then we have the right to have them.  Gun owners don’t have to justify themselves to the government for what they want.  Fair enough.  But again, when there is tangible harm done by assault weapons and—as far as I can tell—absolutely zero positive benefit, then why should they be legal?  When you say words like “rights” or “liberty” you have to understand those are abstract.  Dead children in Connecticut are concrete.  Does it infringe on your rights that you’re not able to own a SCUD missile or a grenade launcher?  Some things are made illegal for the greater community’s safety.  Aren’t assault weapons demonstrably dangerous enough to be labeled as such?

4. If everyone had assault rifles then it wouldn’t have happened.

Seriously? Fuck you.

4. If everyone had assault rifles then it wouldn’t have happened

Oh, you are being serious?  Who is that supposed to dissuade from shooting up a school?  The shooters who always kill themselves?  Your idea is to introduce assault weapons to schools, where people can’t hold their liquor, are constantly bullying each other, and think suicide is a cool phase you go through?  You don’t see any problems with that?  Is my increasingly condescending string of questions making my answer obvious enough?  It’s not?  My answer is “Seriously? Fuck you.”

5. It’s crass to use this tragedy for your political advantage

Okay, so we’re back to the moment of silence.  Just know that the people who say “we can’t talk politics during this time” fear the politics of this time. This is a winning issue for liberals.  Assault rifles have never been less popular.  If a school shooter attacked an elementary school, and a crack-shot teacher shot the gun from his hand and apprehended him, and suddenly assault weapons were insanely popular, would the NRA say “Now’s not the time for politics.”  The NRA isn’t stupid: they know what side public opinion is on, and they’re the ones clamoring to change the subject. Do it for politics or do it to save children: it’s still the right thing to do.

The moment of silence is over, and with ever day that passes we become less likely to do anything of substance.  Except, of course, waiting for the next one.  We’re a pretty practiced nation of weepers.  We’ve been told it’s the only valid response.  But we all know that’s a lie—let’s be both brave and impolite enough to remind people of that.

I’ll end with two quick observations. One: You know those commercials that they run during basketball games where there’s this yuppie couple who surprise each other with cars for Christmas.  And the narrator is like “You dumbass, why didn’t you just buy her a car? That will make her happy.” And we’re supposed to be like “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? I forgot that people like new cars.  Why didn’t I just buy everyone a car?”  Those used to drive me up a fucking wall.  In fact, I thought they were the worst part of the Christmas season.  Then the school shooting happened.  I offer that as a reminder to keep perspective this year.

Secondly: On Saturday, the day after the shooting, my cousin collapsed of a heart attack while jogging.  The first responder who saved my cousin’s life was Adam Lanza’s uncle (His mother’s brother).  It’s a strange and almost comforting feeling to know that someone associated with the most hated man in America can save your family member’s life.  I offer that as a reminder that life is strange, and that’s as it should be.

(Oh, and feel free to vote here on the B&P Facebook page poll for your favorite candidate(s), as well.)

Would be awesome, but not going to happen

Crit Luallen- She’s going to be governor, and doesn’t want to live in the swampland. If she’s not going to run against Mitch, she certainly isn’t going to run for this busch league office.

Would beat Barr, but probably won’t happen

Alison Lundergan Grimes- Grimes is currently choosing between KY-6, 2014 Senate, secretary of state re-election, governor, attorney general, and 2016 Senate. Best bets are her taking on Mitch or AG, though you can feel free to hold out your hopes.

Jim Gray- Mr. Mayor likes his job, and Lexington likes him (we hear his numbers are staggering). We can’t rule out KY-6 totally, but it’s a very safe bet that he’ll be running for his job again in two years.

Adam Edelen- Adam also thinks he’s going to be governor. Get in line.

Can beat Barr, and should run, dammit

Kathy Stein- We’ve often wonder and daydream how a real liberal Democrat would campaign and perform in this district, and what it would be like to have someone fighting for us Yarmuth-style in Washington. And then there’s Kathy Stein, who is just… well, she’s the best. A Stein campaign would show us, at long last, just how “conservative” this district really was, with a take-no-shit tornado of sass whipping up the Democratic base in Lexington and beyond. If she lost? Well, at least we’d know what was possible, right? We still think the potential reward is worth the risk. Would she actually run? It’s currently unclear, but if you want to see this happen, be sure to let her know. Run Kathy, run.

Might run, and might win

David O’Neill- The Fayette County PVA is used to crushing hapless suckers here in Lexington, but might want to take his show on the road. He’s one of those rare folks that appears to be equally tight with the Lundergan and Beshear clans. He’d be like a really, really grumpy version of Jared Polis.

Colmon Elridge- A young talented guy that has honed his craft fighting conservative idiots on Fox News, so he’d be ready for Barr. He’d also have the full backing of Gov. Beshear, who he’s worked for since he was 5-years old or something. He lives in Lexington and would do great here, but he’s also a native of Harrison County. He’s black and he’s proud, so he’d test our non-Obama racial harmony outside Fayette and Franklin. He’s also fairly liberal, despite all the Jesus talk.

Won’t run, but would be fun

Ashley Judd- If you really believe that she’s serious about running for office in Kentucky, it would be against Mitch, not small-time Andy. That’s despite the fact that she’d have a much easier time in this race, and less Louisville Cardinal fans to deal with.

Matt Jones- Seriously, he’d be legit, with his huge fan base and world-class Transylvania political education. But why in the hell would you want to spend basketball season in DC when you already have the best job in the world? Not going to happen.

Might run, but can’t win

Teresa Isaac- The twice handily defeated former Lexington mayor told the Herald Leader that she’s “looking” at the race. Lord knows why.

Legislators that should take a look, and would be great

Kelly Flood- We kind of doubt that Flood is interested in taking this leap, but the 6th could do a hell of a lot worse than her. Should consider running if the field looks open, or is full of coal.

Sannie Overly- Another new talent that is making her way up the ranks in Frankfort. She’s more liberal than her district outside of Lexington, and she’s damned smart. No idea if she’s interested, though.

More legislators that might be interested

RJ Palmer- The state senator from Winchester is fairly conservative, but would be able to raise money and give Barr a decent race. I assume he’s getting bored doing nothing in the minority of the state Senate.

Ricky Henderson- He would have no chance, but we hear that he’s fond of snake-handling, so perhaps he’s crazy enough to run.

Shouldn’t run, though it would be fun to watch them lose

Jim Newberry- The last time ole Newb ran for KY-6 in 1998, he gay-baited Ernesto and bragged that gays should be put in prison for sodomy. For some reason, Lexington allowed him to be mayor, though they redeemed themselves by voting him out in a landslide two years ago. We assume Newberry — a man consumed by bitterness and hatred of Jim Gray — will try for a rematch, though the thought of his ego pushing him into a futile run for KY-6 as a conservative Democrat brings a smile to our face.

Doug Martin- The angry clown and Southside Screamer likes to think of himself as a very important person, so it’s not inconceivable that his ego could convince him to jump in. Unfortunately, it’s more likely that he’ll run and lose against fellow clown Stan Lee that year.

Dan Mongiardo- He lives in the district now, doesn’t he? We miss Lt. Dan.

Ben Chandler- Actually, Ben doesn’t belong in this category. There’s nothing even remotely entertaining about this man. Time to let somebody else take a chance.

My first point is my favorite: we kicked the shit out of the Republicans.  Actually, that felt so good that I’m going to make that point again using the exact same language. We kicked the shit out the Republicans.  Still feels good, so I’ll try it a little differently now.  See that big pile of shit on the floor?  That used to be in a Republican, but my liberal friends and I ganged up and kicked him repeatedly until the pain became overwhelming, and in a moment so humiliating and emotionally crippling that it will undoubtedly haunt him for the remainder of his life, he voided his bowels.  Take that, Injustice! (Okay, that one was too far.  If it helps, don’t imagine the Republican as weak or George Will-like, but stout and strong like Karl Rove or Abraham Lincoln).

I’m digressing.  A lot of people have said that this victory feels more hollow than the last one, now that we know that the nation can’t truly unite around President Obama.  To that I say bunk.  And to the question of why I’m using words like bunk, I say fuck you, I want to say bunk.

Most thinking people knew there’d be no consensus, nor should there be.  Remember when Democrats decided to give Bush a consensus to show national unity in the wake of 9/11?  It only turned out to be the worst idea of this century anywhere in the world.  Parties are supposed to check one another, to fight, and to stop each other from getting too big.  This time around, the GOP fought dirty and they fought for keeps.  They rattled their sabers until their poor sabers got concussions, said Obama was the worst president in American history, in any history, said he was out for the blood of our founders, that the survival of all American dreams are at stake in this election.  Then we kicked them until they shit themselves.  I’m not worried about building consensus.  We fought, we won—fuck you and your consensus.

So maybe we can start out by asking what does this election mean for Republicans?  Not as much as you may think, I’m afraid.  For as much dick-swinging as the left is doing, let’s remember that we ran one of the most charismatic and gifted politicians in our lifetime, had the advantage of incumbency, were going against a dog-torturing downsize-artist, and we won by two points.  Maybe all they have is rage and a fat stack of money, but that almost gets you one vote out of two.

Still, the future doesn’t look bright for our GOP partners.  We traded Indiana for Florida (probably the two worst states, but ours has more people and smells a little better).  They can’t count on The Rust Belt (Ohio, Pennsylvania), The Cocaine Belt (Florida, The Bush Compound), or The I-Wanna-Fuck-This-Prostitute-So-Help-Me-Take-Off-This Belt (Nevada).  Moreover, the trends are trending and those trends tend to portend bad ends for our GOP friends.  They’re getting older, more isolated, smellier, both closer to and more deserving of death.  Bill O’Reilly yells at his audience so much, because it’s the only way these people can hear them.  Plus, given that Obama will soon force them into a gay marriage and a death panel, I don’t know if they’ll be around to vote for Rand Paul in 2016.

Liberals, on the other hand, are younger, multi-racial, and, thanks to all the organic food and condoms, reasonably healthy.  Are we going to get more conservative as we get older?  Please.  You’re just saying that because it has happened to every single generation everywhere in the history of the world.  The world belongs to us now, right?

Nope.  Lost in the liberal circle jerk is the reality that the American government is much more conservative than it was thirty years ago.   Ronald Reagan, the whore of The Heritage Foundation, would be far too liberal to represent the Republican Party today.  A lot of people bring that up as a totem to show how crazy Republicans have become, but what does it say about us?  How did this pot-legalizing, sodomy-indifferent, anti-war country become okay with an economic system that makes the 1980’s Greed-Is-Holy yuppies blush?  The truth is that we’re not okay with it.  We know it’s not right, and we’re not happier.  America isn’t more conservative—its representatives are and nobody likes it.

I see it as a problem of language.  We accept the basic definitions of the right wing, and try to moderate within those realms.  It’s a problem exacerbated by two presidents I very much admire—Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  These Democrats played within the rules the conservatives set, let them walk off the cliff and plucked the low-hanging fruit.  Except no matter how far we let them wander, it’s still 49-51.  And that’s a problem.

It’s not a political problem—we’re set up pretty well as far as politics go.  But it is a problem in that Bob Dole’s health care plan (now called Obamacare, a mandate to fund the private insurance companies at the root of the problem) is now considered Marxism, and George HW Bush’s environmental plan (Cap and Trade) is considered a war on America.  But more than that, it’s a problem because it sells half of America short.  I’m a die-hard, no apologies liberal—I hate the pussy term “progressive”—and I think most conservative ideas are stupid and dangerous.  But I don’t think most conservative people are stupid and dangerous.  And this is where it comes down to language.

If something is going to change this election, let it be the way we consider our words.  For instance, look Rush Limbaugh’s reaction to losing the election.  Mr. Limbaugh and I don’t agree on issues of politics or whether or not he fucks little children, but I still kind of like him.  After all, if every self-righteous drug addict was prevented from screeching his opinions then my Thanksgivings would become a lot less interesting.  So I tuned into his radio show on Wednesday in part to hear what conservatives thought of the previous night’s vote and in part because I wanted to bask in his gravy-like tears.  His opening salvo surprised me, and, frankly, it made me a little sad.

“It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus,” said the man who resembles Santa Claus, if St. Nick liked Viagra and Oxycontin.  “People are not going to vote against Santa Claus, especially if the alternative is being your own Santa Claus…I went to bed last night thinking, ‘we’re outnumbered,’” he said. “I went to bed last night thinking we’d lost the country. I don’t know how else you look at this. The first wave of exit polls came in at five o’clock. I looked at it, and I said … ‘this is utter BS, and if it isn’t, then we’ve lost the country.’”

Got that?  The only problem with America is Americans who are a bunch of fucking spoiled children wanting a Santa Claus.  The problem with America is you.  Not because you’re reading a liberal website.  Not because you’re reading, though that makes you suspect.  It’s because you’re an American.  You’re a beggar, and he’s lost the country.

So he’s mad, and that’s his right. And of course, he never had the country to begin with, but okay, he’s hurt and he’s lashing out.  Except that he has now forever thrown away the notion that he’s a patriot.  He actively dislikes most Americans (at least most voting Americans, and I don’t imagine he has a lot of kind words for those who stayed at home).

Of course, no one is obliged to love their country and there’s no shame in not being a patriot—especially given how the word patriot has been degraded to mean blind adherence to your country.  By this definition, do you know who absolutely wasn’t a patriot? Thomas Jefferson.  He broke away from his country, formed a new country, and fought a war against his given nation.  But Thomas Jefferson wrestled with these issues, and made a conscious choice to commit treason.  Rush Limbaugh insults Americans, then goes to sleep tonight in a haze of Pork Rinds and Yoohoo, nestled between his fourth wife and his Reagan Real Doll, secure in the knowledge that he is a patriot and you are not.

He can do this because we’ve ceded the word patriot.  We give him our language and in exchange pick up the milquetoast Senators and Representatives, thinking it does no harm.  But now that we have a clear majority, can we at least politely ask the other side to stop spitting in our face?

So, friends, I propose, now that we’ve won a reasonably decisive victory, we don’t have to settle for something as abstract as taking our country back—this was always our country, theirs too—let’s instead take our language back.

You see, when the other side says, “The founding fathers would say…” they mean “I say…” When they say “This socialist agenda…” they mean “That idea I disagree with…”  When they say “Ronald Reagan” they mean “Me” and when they say “George W Bush” they mean “Me when I’m drunk”, when they say “Jesus Christ” they mean, “Me when I can successfully suppress my gay thoughts.”  When I protested the Iraq War, they were out there with American flags, in counter-protest, chanting “USA-USA” but they really meant “Me-Me-Me, Me-Me-Me”.  When they say “Tea Parties” they mean “Tea Parties”—where little kids dress up and pretend to be someone else more sophisticated and adult than they are.  And that’s cool.  Pretending is fun.  But from now on, because there are more of us than there are of you, we are going to decode you.

You can’t chant USA without us reminding you that the USA twice elected Barack Obama and rejects all you stand for.  Don’t dismiss us by saying “Class Warfare.”  You’re terrified of class warfare because so far it’s been you all winning a very effective guerilla class warfare.  On top of that, you can’t say “socialism” unless you have the remotest fucking clue what a socialist is.  Your secret is out.  You say “socialist” because after Bush, you can’t scare anybody by saying “liberal.”  Because America is liberal, and we won’t hate the phrase anymore if we know what it means.

But that’s not enough.  We need to change the language in the way the news is reported.  Why is a line in the DOW going up or down supposed to mean dick to me?  I don’t own stock.  Finding out it’s gone up or down is like finding out if the terror threat level is orange or yellow, a daily bit of outdated nonsense.  Don’t tell me about how much the stock sold for—tell me if the workers got paid, and if the jobs stayed in America.  Why does the GDP have to constantly be going up if the value of money goes down?  This is banker logic and banker language.  Wall Street is a Gallup Poll, except one we’ve been conned into believing matters.  I’d much rather hear a report about workers than a report our national shell game.

And without your linguistic advantage, GOP, what do you have? Your ideas are unpopular, your voting base is aging, and your death rattles don’t frighten us anymore.  Sure, there’s a parallel between 2012 and 2004, and we worked our way out of that mess.  If you can resist nominating Paul Ryan, you have a few decent ponies in your stable.  But here’s what you don’t understand—in 2004, we had a message problem. You have an issues problem.  We were bad salesmen trying to sell a good product.  You all are Mitt Romney trying to sell outsourcing your job and having no recreational sex.

But let’s not sell each other short.  We have equal claim to this nation.  If there’s one thing this election should have taught you about America, it’s that you didn’t build that—we all did, and we continue to do so.  So there’s no need to despair, and you don’t even have to change your views.  But this marks the end of your ability to use shorthand to frighten us with monsters that don’t exist.  You owe it to America and you owe it to the English language.

Which Democrat will step up and crush Andy Barr — who will spend the next two years voting for an unpopular and extreme Tea Party agenda, to no legislative fruition thanks to Obama and the Democratic Senate — in 2014?

There are so many options, and they all sound well worth waiting through two years of Andy Barr’s irrelevance.

Do you want…

Crit Luallen?

Jim Gray?

Kathy Stein?

Alison Lundergan Grimes?

Ashley Judd?

David O’Neill?

Colmon Elridge?

Sannie Overly?

Matt Jones?

Let us know in the comments, including your thoughts on various strengths and weaknesses. Things are looking up, I swear.

First of all, there’s not a whole lot more that needs to be added since we visited this race last May (see here and here). At that time ahead of the primary, we explored the candidates’ positions and their reasons for running. Ms. Spires, in particular, put forth what I and many others found to be an offensive underpinning to her campaign — that Ms. Lawless was unfit for office due to some undisclosed crippling health problem. A whisper campaign in place of a platform isn’t that productive, as it turns out. Ms. Spires barely got through the Primary, just edging out Rock Daniels and coming in a distant second to Ms. Lawless.

The Primary had a very low turnout, of course. The vote Tuesday, with the Presidential race at the top of the ticket, will be much higher. How will that affect the race? I have no idea. Like I said, I’ve been busy.

What I do know is that the majority of people in the 3rd District who are intimately involved in their neighborhoods who I know continue to support Diane Lawless.

The LFUCG 3rd District is the heart of Lexington’s Fighting 75th State House District and the Immovable 13th State Senate District, home to Our Lady of Perpetual Awesomenss, Kathy Stein! In other words… this is Progressive Lexington.

For her work in representing the 3rd District, the Herald-Leader last week endorsed Diane Lawless for re-election to the City Council:

Lawless has tenaciously pursued solutions to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods around UK. She’s gotten into the nitty gritty of zoning and code enforcement to limit the impact of student housing on established neighborhoods. Initiatives she championed included a temporary ban on vinyl box additions, limits on the number of unrelated people who can live in a rental property, and higher fines for violations of city codes.

She has been diligent in finding solutions for flooding, dangerous intersections and other problems arising from the district’s decaying infrastructure. She has also successfully pushed to extend bike lanes in her district.

In another term, we urge Lawless to take a more aggressive role in championing an affordable housing trust fund for Lexington and to take on the unaccountably complex issue of authorizing food trucks to operate downtown and elsewhere in the community.

The newspaper isn’t alone. Here are some other endorsers of the Lawless candidacy:

Her support isn’t unanimous. That’d be weird if it was. And any candidate can do more, any official has work to do. There are some who are mounting an attack on Ms. Lawless on behalf of Ms. Spires. Or on behalf of themselves. It’s unclear. Their complaints range from meaningful to misguided. The best one is that Ms. Lawless could communicate better — although as we’ve pointed out here before, she actually does respond to calls and emails and maybe the best we can say of this complaint is that she could use facebook better… but who couldn’t? The same critique could be levied at some of her detractors.

Then there are the misguided. Her detractors continue to erroneously claim that Ms. Lawless did not support the bike lane on Maxwell. This is untrue and it’s been pointed out to these detractors directly, yet they persist.

I’m not going to go into a point by point here because a) busy; b) it’s a city council race and the the two candidates are pretty similar and by all information we have, it’s not like Spires is some total goon of the Newberry squad or something (I mean, it’s possible… but we don’t have anything to whisper about). In fact, as we said last May and as we continue to believe, Spires is an impressive candidate and it would be good to see her continue her work in the future should she lose on Tuesday. And for the moment, she might in fact lose because the fact is Diane Lawless, to all who know her, remains a hard working councilmember, an unrelenting supporter of women and of minorities and of the LGBT community, and so forth.

Which is why, so far, the whispers haven’t broken through.

On one final note, those opposed to Ms. Lawless’ re-election are largely very good people and I like most of them a lot (most particularly Bob at BlueBluegrass). They mean well but for various reasons I think they may be misreading this particular race at this particular moment. The same goes for Spires herself. We wouldn’t necessarily be disserved by her represenation, we just don’t currently appear to need it.

Because Diane Lawless is already doing it pretty right.

As Joe already made clear on the facebook page, Barefoot & Progressive endorses Diane Lawless in the 3rd District.

Oh — and while we’re at it and because time is brief, we also endorse Shevawn Akers in the 2nd District.

Okay. Time is short. Get out your vote!

While I disagree with the tenor of Mr. Romney’s statement last week, and I certainly take issue with him referring to Jacksonville as “the biggest cold sore on the herpes infected cock that is Florida”, he does raise an interesting point.

Isn’t there something a little irritating about the undecided voter? It’s not just that they can’t decide. Although seriously, you can’t decide? Mitt Romney never stopped running since the last election and you need to hear his stump speech again over the weekend to piece it all together? Mitt Romney outsources jobs, invests his money in foreign banks, and the only thing he seems to like about America is that Jesus is from there. He got rich by firing people. Of course, Donald Trump likes him—he’s who Donald Trump aspires to be. If the last decade has taught us anything, it’s that the only thing Republicans are good for is mispronouncing words in folksy ways and sucking off guys in airport bathrooms (Although had we known then what we know now, wouldn’t it be great if Bill Clinton responded to his impeachment by saying, “At least I was getting the blowjob.”) Barack Obama, on the other hand, saved the economy, sent Bin Laden to his virgins, and gave all American children health insurance. Against that, Mitt Romney puts up his crowning achievement: the time he made the 2002 Winter Games more profitable. Winter Olympics, massive layoffs, and dressage horses? Please. Give me basketball, real jobs, and terrorist killing. I think I’m getting sidetracked.

It’s not just that they can’t decide, it’s that they get rewarded for their indecision. We pretend they are the most finicky consumers, carefully poring over article after article before making up their mind, but we all know they just don’t give a shit. And that’s why it shames me to admit that I, your self-appointed life-coach, Ronnie Cottonpants, am an undecided voter.

No, not about the Presidential election. I tried to be open minded, but Mitt Romney lost my vote when he said that “If my dog was as ugly and hairy as the average North Carolina woman, I’d have never taken that bitch off the roof.” But I am undecided about a very important election. I can not decide who to vote for in the upcoming congressional election between Ben Chandler and Andy Barr.

I’m liberal, and I want to vote for Ben Chandler. Or rather, I want to want to vote for Ben Chandler. I want a Democratic Congressman, and I want to pull the Democratic lever with pride, but I can’t. He votes for the Republicans every single time, he is selling himself by promoting his “Conservative Principles”, and he is suing the fucking EPA for trying to protect Kentucky, the rural economy, and the health and safety of miners. The only reason I’ve heard to support him is that he has a “D” beside his name.

Don’t get me wrong—that “D” matters. I feel as confident giving conservative Democrats my vote as I do lending my phone and credit card to a meth-head, but I can handle a blue-dog if I need to. You have to swallow a lot of shit when you’re a liberal. That’s the price of admission, and it usually pays off, but I don’t know that I can do it now.

Listen, I’m the sort of liberal who won’t forgive Ralph Nader. As my father said of Mr. Nader, “It’s not like I hate the guy. It’s not like if his guts were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on him to put him out. I’m saying, if his guts were on fire, I would piss on him.” The Iraq War, the devastated economy, our crippling debt—all of that can be directly lain at Ralph Nader’s feet.  But that came at the expense of Al Gore, a man who, while a little conservative for my tastes in some areas, I think is brilliant and a capable leader. This is about Ben Chandler.

I won’t vote for Andy Barr. I kind of like the fact that he looks like if the Howdy Doody puppet grew up and became an alcoholic, but I like nothing else about him. He’s a useless man who is wrong about absolutely everything. But this is about Ben Chandler.

I want to vote for Ben Chandler, but as of now, I can’t. But I’m undecided, and I’m willing to listen to reason. So I say this very seriously—Convince me to vote for Ben Chandler. I’m Liberal and I’m motivated by fear of Republicans, and I am very, very up in the air on my vote.

But don’t just say “If you don’t vote for Chandler, it’ll be Congressman Andy Barr.” That’s not enough—or rather that’s not enough if you can’t follow it up with specifics about how they’ll vote differently. Andy Barr is the one making the best argument for Ben Chandler getting my vote. In Barr’s commercials, he says Ben Chandler supports Obama’s agenda, but he never gets more detailed than that—because Ben Chandler doesn’t support the President’s agenda, or the liberal agenda. In fact, he doesn’t support the Kentucky Democratic agenda.  What agenda does he support and why is it a secret?

Is he pretending to be more conservative than he is out of political necessity? Probably. Is he a better man than a congressman? I don’t doubt it, but I’m not voting for him to be my buddy or my neighbor. I want him to represent me. So the question remains—If one candidate is for conservative principles and will stand up to Obama, and the other candidate is for conservative principles and will stand up to Obama then why should I vote for either one.

Here’s what I know:
1. My vote matters. Chandler won last time by less than one vote per precinct. Chandler can win without me, but he can’t win without the disaffected liberals he let down.
2. I’m genuinely undecided and will listen to any argument. From now until Election Day, I will engage and try to respond to any and all reasonable suggestions. Why should a liberal vote for Ben Chandler?

I hope I’ve convinced you that, despite what Mitt Romney says, not all undecided voters are “mouth-breathing fatherfuckers who deserve to go to someplace worse than hell when they die, like Virginia.”  No, some of us are just waiting to hear our questions answered.

Swing These

Hello and fuck you, California. I live in a swing state. It’s beautiful this time of every fourth year in Iowa. If you take gravel roads to your place of work (ethanol refinery, school, meth lab, etc.), you can smell the diesel and hustle in the air as farmers, who hate brown(ish) welfare drug addicts who they’ve never met in person, augur bushels of government-subsidized grain into proud silos rising from the pastoral like Steve King’s (R-Iowa) supposedly-barbed and probably-hooved boner poking out of his Dockers at a dog fight. If you sit in the back of the coffee shop I go to every morning to construct the perfect 3-D Mao suit to put on page 1of my pop-up manifesto for Totskys, and you sit far enough away from the tall Swede that the very expensive private school across the street pays to loudly pray the gay out of conflicted, Pell-granted students, you can hear the young barista, grinding imported Venezuelan coffee, speak of Barack Obama being the Antichrist because her 1/8 Native American boyfriend had a dream-vision about the number 13 and there are 13 letters in the president’s name if spelled using Old Testament philology and Native Americans run the casinos in this state and if casinos have taught my mother and aunts anything it’s that math done by Indians is on our side so just trust the fucking Indian dream-math and build your Second-Coming shelter, Kit Carson!

 
Yes, we’re a sexy little beast this time of year so fuck you, New York. I lived in the town that is Iowa’s liberal epicenter for over a decade. The town not Ames and the one in which the gays float freely above streets paved with the furrowed brows of drunken undergrads contemplating which Women’s Studies course to take after their next abortion. The town that convinced me in 2004 that John Kerry’s impending victory would be more of a runaway than Mitt every time Ann wants to do “the doggy’s style.” The town where it’s a perfectly normal spectacle to see a tenure-track professor dressed as a robot chase a leading and insane GOP candidate into the Hamburg Inn while onlookers boo not because that leading GOP candidate is an insane idiot who recently mistook John Wayne for John Wayne Gacy (two of Iowa’s most prolific people, so it’s a reasonable mistake I guess), but dressing up as a robot and ruining a short stack and sausage links is just bad manners.

 
We are moderate and our even keel is important now so fuck you, most of The South. Really, fuck you, most of The South. But I love Iowa all the time. I love Iowa when we make same-sex marriage legal and I love Iowa when we remove State Supreme Court Justices for doing so and I love Iowa for realizing that was a knee-jerk reaction and we form awareness groups to make sure to “Vote Yes for Retention” to keep the judges who interpreted the state constitution on the bench, where they belong. I love Iowa when other states talk of moving up their caucuses so they can be first and the non-cacophony created by Iowa’s poise and stability when other states discuss that possibility is harmony enough to make the rest of the country realize that Iowa is, indeed, a pretty good place to launch the campaign season. I love moderate and reasonable Iowa when we raise children who are first-time voters and they stop to talk to their non-moderate professor after a lecture he’s given about avoiding ad hominem attacks to maintain academic tone and they say, “Mr. Siela, do you think Paul Ryan’s a good VP candidate?” “Not at all, first-time voter student,” I say. “But why, Mr. Siela?” first-time voter student says. “Well, first of all first-time voter student, he’s from Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Badgers’ college football coach is an ex-Hawkeye and that ex-Hawkeye has a Tigerhawk tattooed on his ankle which means that Paul Ryan is probably a secessionist. Also, Paul Ryan’s a midget coffin full of whale jizz, first-time voter student,” I say. “But Mr. Siela, that’s not a valid reason to not vote for somebody. Are you even sure that his policies aren’t something you can’t support?” says first-time voter student. “You’re exactly right, student, and I shouldn’t stoop so low with matters so important,” I say. “Good,” says student, “and you shouldn’t offend whale jizz like that anymore.”

 
George Orwell, famous cultural critic and creator of the mildly popular CBS reality show, “Big Brother”, once wrote: “Political chaos is connected with the decay of language.” What’s that dead limey pussy know about shit? Last Wednesday, on the campus of Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, I stood in line for 6 hours waiting to hear President Obama, hopefully, speak about clean energy and job creation the morning after the second presidential debate. As the time got closer to open the doors, cops from surrounding towns dribbled in over the course of the morning to assist with traffic and security. On 1st St., the main road that bisects the campus, the cops put up road blocks and folks who were attempting to drive through town were forced to stop, do a 3-point turn, and head back the other way. The driver of an out-of-state Hummer, which, by the way, is the perfect vehicle to transport 5-gallon drums of Axe Body Spray from the Affliction T-Shirt Warehouse to a domestic assault trial, rolled down his window and asked the line of Democrats the best way to get through town. A lesbian couple (I knew this because it was overcast and cloudy and they were wearing aviator shades and talking about making their own patio furniture) strayed out of line and compassionately articulated perfect directions to their lost and ostensibly civic opposite, creating the perfect metaphor that I’ve completely fabricated for the sake of this article. But it’s balanced Iowa, and it would happen. Every year. No matter what line you step out of.