Pardon Me, But...

While I wait for a lot more of the Mueller report to be released (and by the way I do realize that  grand jury testimony cannot be released by law,) let me jump ahead, and back a bit.

 

A big part of our government is based on 3 equal branches of it: executive, legislative, and judicial. Each has its role to play; has checks (in most cases) on the other-and these checks and balances have made our Democracy what it is.

 

The President’s “pardon power” in a dictatorial aberration and should be eliminated or greatly modified.

 

Example A:  as of now the judicial system can spend years and millions investigating a suspected criminal, getting an indictment, preparing for trial, and then in the blink of an eye, the president issues a pardon and all is forgiven, legally and for the record. That not only is not fair, it is an outright and total break of our system of 3 equal branches and checks and balances.

 

This can (and I suspect—has) happened.

 

Many presidents have been criticized for the way they used the pardon process. Clinton’s pardons, in some cases, didn’t pass the smell test. Prominent people (and party donors) got off.  Bush & Obama were also criticized for some of their pardons.  Many presidents have.

 

It’s long past time for a change, and all those lawyers in Congress know it. The president probably ought to have some power to pardon, but NOT until AFTER the judicial system has done its job; not til after someone has been convicted (and probably not til after the appeals process has concluded.) To let a president pardon sooner makes a mockery of our system of justice.

 

It isn’t what Trump might do, or what Clinton did. It’s the practice of democracy at stake, and to coin a phrase:

 

It’s time for a change.

 

I'm just sayin'...

Abolish The FAA

This is not a new thought; I have stated my belief that this is the worst of all federal agencies (and that’s saying a lot) but the preliminary indications are that, once again, the FAA has failed in its mission to protect the flying public.

 

400 graves in Ethophia and Indonesia attest to that.

 

If those 2 Max 8 planes had been US carriers, and the deaths were that of Americans what do you think the public reaction would have been?

 

The FAA has consistently sided with plane makers over the public; often even siding with the Boeings and Uniteds against the National Transportation Safety Board, even when the agency had shown a clear failure of plane or pilot—and people died. NTSB findings go to the FAA, which—under the law—does not have to follow them or even study them. (That should have changed a long, long time ago; but hasn’t - a signal of the political and administrative power of carriers and manufacturers within the agency, instead of its mission to protect the public.)

 

It’s not news that the FAA turned over to Boeing the decision that its new automated safety system was, in fact, safe. It is the prime suspect in the 2 crashes. The FAA, as usual, pleads lack of staff or labs to investigate all these things  (true, and Congress shares much blame here,) but if they don’t, why approve such crucial items as new planes come on line?

 

As they say, the “culture” of this agency is bad, wrong, and I suspect beyond redemption. It should go; let some new agency take over, and give more power to the NTSB in this field.

 

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A political thought, or two.

 

Ever heard of “FDR’s Court packing plan?” Google it.  Isn’t Trump's “packing” the court with litmus test conservatives about the same? Yet FDR’s plan failed; looks like the President’s may succeed, and all without comment (or even stories of explanation) from the “liberal” media.

 

There are too many Democratic candidates running for president (many of whom are, IMHO, unqualified.) There are too few Republican candidates running for President.  A spirited party primary is good for Democracy.

 

I'm just sayin'...

Thoughts On Recent News Items

Another Kentucky soldier, killed in war has come home to be honored—and placed at rest. This time, he died at Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7th, 1941.

Modern science finally identified him---68 years later. Wars have a way of doing that. Bet I could ask a lot of people on the streets of Lexington when the bombing of Pearl Harbor took place and few would know. We hurry into war, often on bad or even spurious reasons. Seldom do we later repent, except briefly when a good Kentucky boy finally comes home.

(Will we lose more in Niger, Yemen, Syria, Somalia—and places Congress still has not declared us at war—and have their bodies finally come back years from now? Only time will tell.)

And speaking of time. It’s now Daylight Saving TIme. It comes too soon and lasts too long. The European Union just decided to end moving clocks forward and back each year. They haven’t decided which time will be “it” year ‘round, but a timely change is on the way. Maybe we should reconsider it also.

We lost two outstanding Kentuckians recently.       

   

I knew them both, slightly and more professionally than personally.  Ewell Balltrip was what every small town editor should be—devoted to his community, both small (Harlan) and large (the mountains.) He stuck up for both, but when he felt coal miners were wrong, he said so, and  made it stick. The New York Times recognized his talent and put him to work in their organization for many years, but he came home to the hills, ending his life with even more service to Eastern Kentucky. Later this month he will be inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. Too bad it took so long for him to be so honored.

James Archambeault has left his mark in many a Commonwealth home and school and office. His pictures, colorful and outstanding of many places in our state grace them, as he graced us with his talent. A fixture at the annual Kentucky Book Fair, I always went to his table to see what new book or calendar he had out. His work has brightened our lives and we will miss him. (Is there a professional Photographers’ Hall of Fame?)

Did you catch WKYT’s recent hour program on the Wildcats? Excellent; congrats to all involved, and please don’t think this is just carping, but why is it we often get such good programs on sports events and people, but not on the issues facing our state? Yes, they are costly and undoubtedly easier for stations to sell to sponsors, but there are public spirited sponsors out there (Toyota, Alltech to mention a few.) So why haven’t we had similar documentaries on: our pension debacle (PBS Frontline thought enough of this to spent most of an hour here, and the Herald Leader’s John Cheeves was one of their “experts.” Can’t he also be the same thing for 27 or 18 or 36 or KET?) Or on serious problems facing rural hospitals (Ditto: Frontline and PBS have explored this issue in Kentucky, but no doc from local stations. Or what REALLY happened at the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire? A provocative book has been out for a half dozen years but no TV expose---yet.  Or: what really happened to kill Kentucky Central?   

Meanwhile our legislature rolls on; probably racking up one of the most dismal session records in modern times. More on that soon.

Voting Legislation Needed NOW!

If you are tired of seeing the bigger states rule our national elections (and I am); if you are even more tired of the Electoral  College, which allows the winner of the popular vote to lose  (and I definetly am—and you should be too, regardless of your party) then please join me in urging our legislature to adopt NOW the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

 

Right now your vote, as a Kentuckian, isn’t the same as votes in surrounding states. Rather than being their equal, your vote could be more (but much likely less) than each voter there; and that’s not fair, not just, and not our democracy. It should be one person = one vote; no more, no less.

 

The proposed Compact allows for that, and gets around the “College.” The Constitution allows states to control how they divide their electoral votes. Most are winner take all. Some divide proportionately to how their citizens vote. The compact says each state's vote would go to whoever wins the national popular vote---if states with 270 electoral votes (a majority join). Right now 13 states with 181 electoral votes have joined. Kentucky should too, and reaffirm our belief in one person = one vote. Please urge your state representatives and senators to adopt the compact.

 

And while we’re on voting, which many complain is too cumbersome a process, registration, voting, etc., Kentucky should consider adopting AVR or Automatic Voter Registration. Simply put, if a citizen goes to any state office/agency for any matter, and isnt registered, there are forms and a person in that office who can register them there and then. Can’t force them to vote, but at least they are now ready to exercise the most important rite, or right - both most certainly apply, of American citizenship.

 

And, once again, Kentucky should be working NOW on redrawing voting lines after the 2020 census. Over a dozen states use a non-partisan commission of experts to draw these lines, and either that’s it, or the legislature can overrule them by an extraordinary vote, for example two-thirds.  No more gerrymandering, no more long drawn out, expensive, time consuming cases in the courts; do it right, do it scientifically with population and geographic experts and be done with it.

 

The problems in our Secretary of State’s office are minor compared to what important changes adopting these 3 approaches would make.

 

I'm just sayin'...

News Thoughts

1. Happy to see “Green Book” defy the odds and win the Oscar as Best Picture, despite carping from some that it is a “black picture for white folks.”  Any film that reminds us about how racist we were, even into the 1960s—and even in towns such as Lexington, where the locals thought otherwise, is worth an award.

 

BTW, when the buzz started about this flick I remembered seeing a copy of the Green book (a friend described it as “the AAA tour guide for black people”, telling them where they could sleep and eat in otherwise segregated areas) at the Lexington main public library. So I called the reference room to see if my memory was right. Maybe yes, maybe no, but they had no copy then, nor did the UK library. I find this extraordinary. Maybe now that the film has won, both libraries will see the necessity to obtain a copy.

 

2. Our legislature has gone from conservative to reactionary; and not just the least in arguments over abortion. It seems it can’t wait for Roe v Wade to be overturned, wanting our state to be first in line with new birth restrictions. (I do not like abortion. I like even less letting any administration have a say in whether a woman should give birth or not. It should be up to her and her religious beliefs. Remember: a government that can tell you you must have this baby is also a government that can tell you you must not have this baby, or have we forgotten, so soon, that China tried just that, and recently.)

 

Or the kowtowing to the utility industry which, as the CJ pointed out, spent several hundreds of thousands to get the rules changed (in the middle of the game) so they could pay homeowners less than what they promised to pay them originally.

 

Or keeping on spending millions on Kentucky Wired, long after the project has gone way over budget and way behind schedule, without finding out who screwed up the deal so badly that it may end up costing you and me millions.

 

Meanwhile it hasn’t done anything to insure our ballots can’t be hacked, or improving our elections (ex: the governor of WV changed from Dem to GOP a year after he was elected; a fraud upon Mountain State voters.) This has happened here, just not at such a high level. Why aren’t we prepared for that happening with a law that says what to do if it does? (not an easy question to answer, but one that needs to be raised.)

 

Meanwhile, still no constitutional amendment to let the legislature call itself into session, making it the UNequal of our 3 branches of government.

 

3. WKYT is the local top tv station, especially in news. A good part of the reason may be it has the only investigative reporter, Miranda Combs, and has won top regional awards for its work. That hasn’t always been the case, but LEX 18 bowed out sometime back.  Perhaps the new owners will see the light and give KYT some competition here; we would all benefit from that. Til then, channel 27 keeps on doing good work in several areas Miranda has probed.

 

Not so the way 27 handled its “news coverage” of the recent sport & boat show at Heritage Hall. Newscast after newscast just before and during the show carried thinly disguised promotions for it, passed off as legit news stories. They weren’t, and 27 never acknowledged its sponsorship of that show in those “reports.” This gets worse each year. Last year when I objected to this as both bad journalism and unethical. (Viewers had a right to know of the station’s sponsorship of the event,) the then manager agreed with me, and station sponsorship was acknowledged on following reports. Not so this year; wonder how bad it will be in 2020?

 

I'm just sayin'...

If Timing Is Everything Our Legislature's Grade Is A D-Minus

Over 40 years in broadcasting has taught me that “Timing is everything” is a good maxim, one that works there, and seems also to work in other aspects of life, including civic activities.

 

So the Kentucky state senate’s passage of an NRA-sponsored bill to allow guns to be carried concealed, without a permit and without training (as now)—on the very anniversary of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting  that killed so many—seems more than just callous, it seems ignorant and unnecessary.

 

Kentucky parents from our own Marshall HS shooting, more on that later, had testified earlier of the anguish they felt over the loss of their children –yet the Senate seemed to ignore those same feelings by parents in another state.  More than just bad “timing.”

 

And it got worse. One senator, an NRA supporter and former cop, argued that to end permits and especially to end training programs for those carrying concealed weapons was bad practice and flew in the face of experience.

 

Before the week was out came the shooting at a factory in Aurora, Illinois. It turned out the fired worker not only had his deadly weapon illegally (another example of failed state background checks), but  this was only found out when he applied for a permit for concealed carry. Will this now happen here, if the senate/NRA bill becomes law?

 

All of which would seem to indicate our state senate doesn’t give a hoot about our own tragic shooting at Marshall High. Yes, a study group afterwards had come up with an omnibus school safety bill, but it had 2 major faults. One, it was brought up during the 30 day session when no funding can ordinarily be passed to implement the bill, and two, it contained nothing about guns and their crucial impact on school safety.  Bad “timing.” (and head in sand.)

 

Our general assembly needs to consider a constitutional amendment to allow it to call itself into session; not, as now, where only the governor can do that. (He just did, with disastrous results; nothing accomplished on pension reform, and a lot of money spent for naught.)

 

Some other legislative issues bear serious study. Ex-speaker Hoover’s bill to require candidates for statewide office to make public their income taxes is a good idea and should pass. Yes, it may cause some good candidates not to run, but the overall idea is excellent.

 

Two, the GOP’s bill to slap Democrat Grimes handling of voter data in her Sec. of State office ought to pass also. A study by the Herald-Leader shows she probably had access to data she didn’t need, and for political purposes—though she denies it. This example, coming on the heels of the Republican candidate for governor in Georgia (also their Secretary of State) being charged with using his office to purge voting roles of people most likely to vote for his opponent---and winning a very narrow race—shows safeguards are needed in these officies that control voting rules and data.

 

That “timing” is right, so to are (finally,) bills to protect small water districts from collapse; though woefully late. How many years has it been since news media stories have shown the dismal, unsafe state of drinking water in many areas of Kentucky. But, better late than never.

 

Kentucky needs either to have annual 60 day sessions –or give lawmakers the power to call special sessions—or both. An amendment can’t get on the ballot too soon.  Til then, their “timing” score is D-minus. 

 

I'm just sayin'...

Once More A Rush To Judgment

In many ways, Virginia is Kentucky’s Mother Country. So many of our early settlers (and elected officials such as Henry Clay) came from there; so many of our counties were carved from Virginia land, we inherited much from that Commonwealth.

 

Let’s hope that does not include its rush to judgment.

 

Once again, accusations are being taken by the populace (and alas, by the professional media which should know better) as final judgments. They are not. (And this after the recent CovCath example.)

 

Let me take their Lt. Governor first. He has been charged with rape by at least one accuser. Rape is a crime, but we all know it often takes years for this crime to become public; in some cases, past the time such charges may count as a crime. Whatever the case here, judicial authorities should investigate and if the accusations prove credible, file a case against this man. If not, drop them. In the meantime, he should not resign; for in this case of “she said, he said” the way to try to discover the truth is in the courts, not the media. That’s not our job. Yes it will take time; justice usually does, but a rush to judgment, running the risk of getting it wrong, is worse.

 

Now to Virginia’s governor.  I don’t know what possessed him to say, first, he was one of those men either in blackface or Klan robes in his yearbook picture, but he soon took it back and said he was not either one. Who knows for sure? Not me. Maybe you can look beneath the robe or makeup and know, with 100% certainty, but I can not. In the meantime here is a man who has been a doctor, led the fight for civil rights and better health care in his state (and who is a member of a largely African-American church BTW!) and I will give him the “presumption of innocence” until I know more.

 

This UNAmerican rush to judgment must end. It demeans all of us, and our democratic institutions.

 

Would that John Dingle’s final words to his countrymen (which you need to read) might have touched on this, too.

 

I'm just sayin'...