Some Thoughts On Kentucky Politics

This blog was stimulated by a recent story in USA Today, under the headline “Ultra-wealthy dominate funding for Super PACS”(political action commitees) And while the #1 donor ($19.5M is a Republican, the #2 is a Dem at $15.7M.) Together the top 10 donors to both parties gave them 20% of their budgets. So heavy cash to influence elections is a bi-partisan affair.

 

And don’t think this cash doesn’t count. One wealthy GOP donor’s money may well have swung the US from a long held policy and changed our view towards the capital of Israel; (the long held view is that this should be decided by the 2 parties involved, a bargaining chip if you will, now given away by the Master of the Deal, and contrary to almost every view of Middle East experts here and abroad.)

 

But don’t also think this is limited to national issues and only federal elections. Tain’t so.

 

This cash is now going more and more to influence the election of state office holders---which gives Kentucky a chance to get involved. Why shouldn’t we have a law that whoever gives a political contribution over a certain amount MUST also provide info on who it was, where the $$ comes from, and if an organization, info on the group. Voters need this “transparency” to judge the candidates and their stands on issues.

 

The importance of money on the local level was best illustrated by a famous quote, from the Master of the California legislature for many years, Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

 

While on the state level, I am appalled by the recent political change of heart by the current governor of my home state, West Virginia. Jim Justice was elected as a Democrat, but shortly after taking office switched to the GOP. I think when this happens, that office should be vacated, and a special election held, with the previous winner allowed to run again, but under his new party designation. We should not allow voters to be hornswoggled by such deceptions. This won’t solve the problem, but it will make the election process fairer.

 

And speaking of fair elections - our legislature needs to set up NOW a non-partisan commission to prepare for redrawing all election district lines following the 2020 census. It is not too soon. 16 other states have such a group. In almost every case on this topic taken to the courts, very, very partisan lines drawn (usually by new GOP majorities in state legislatures---are you listening Ky GOP?) have been tossed out.

 

Do it right. Get geographers, population experts, college professors and others involved. (The Herald-Leader has demonstrated many times this can be done, coming up with districts far more even and equal than any proposed by politically inclined legislators, which once had a Louisville candidate representing a district many miles away in rural Southern Kentucky - or have we forgotten?)

 

And always remember the Golden Rule of Politics: “He who has the Gold makes the Rules.”

 

I'm just sayin'...

It Must Be Great Comfort

To the grieving families of Parkland, Florida to know the murderer who killed their kids had bought his assault weapon LEGALLY!

 

Or that the FBI twice failed to follow up on tips as to who he was some months before this tragedy,

 

Or the state agency responsible for children checked the confessed killer several times and decided he was not a “risk.”

 

Or that the county sheriff’s office had checked his new home 20 times without informing any other agency of his possible risk.

 

Or that once again, a “mental health case” (as in Virginia, Sandy Hook, Aurora,Col., Benton, Ky., Riverside, Cal—and most likely several other cases) was involved—with their records never reaching the correct agency that might have stopped him.

 

Gun Rights advocates will tell us; "See, if the laws on the books were properly enforced we would have nailed this guy sooner.”

 

I beg to differ.

 

The government agencies involved—whether federal or state—have had these laws on the books for years, and still this happens, and happens etc.  Some plead “it slipped thru the cracks”—as in the Air Force’s failure to list that Texas church shooter was ineligible to buy such weapons;  many states plead insufficient funds to staff their agencies responsible (also heard on the federal level)—and we in Kentucky know about that retort; some just don’t agree, especially in the mental health field where privacy and the right treatment might be set back by registering these unfortunate people.

 

Enough already!!!

 

The last I heard even the NRA agreed that some “mental health cases” should not be allowed to buy guns.  But, have you seen the NRA lobbying on the state or federal level for more funds, more staff for these agencies?

 

Look, I support the 2nd Amendment, although my reading of it is not the same as the Supreme Court. I believe in rifle clubs, (I joined one in college—at a Quaker school!), shooting competitions, hunting, home protection, etc...but when did sportsmen need an AK47 to take down squirrels, deer, even bears???

 

There are things that can, and should be done, which will NOT risk bringing up arguments over the 2nd Amendment and polls show a majority (even within the NRA membership) support these general approaches:

 

Universal background checks for buying certain guns, and that includes ending the gun show loophole (totally illogical and I believe favors large chain sales firms over local gun stores.)

 

A uniform federal reporting form to report mental health cases and others unsuited to buy weapons, and stiffer requirements for states to make these reports, with fines for inaction.

 

Those on the “No fly” list should not be allowed to buy weapons, BUT an appeals process MUST be instituted here. (Remember Sen. Ted Kennedy was once on such a list!)

 

More and better classes on gun safety in schools or thru other local agencies. Here the NRA can contribute much.

 

I would like to add ending the sales of “bump stops,” a device that makes a machine gun out of merely a fast firing rifle; lower magazine capacities (30 rounds to get a deer?) and other restrictions of assault rifle sales  (these actually were in place once, after White house press secretary Jim Brady got shot but were allowed to expire, ) but these raise 2nd Amendment rights arguments in some minds; not mine.

 

So let us concentrate on things I suspect most of us agree on, and which the NRA might be forced to grudgingly support. (as it continues to give out MILLION$ to some senators: $6 and $7 millions to two senators who lead the list. Think they will be concerned about the needless deaths in Parkland??)

 

Til that day when the “better angels” of our nature are truly ready to grapple with this issue, let these common sense approaches prevail; knowing that even with these small steps another Las Vegas or Columbine WILL happen and there will be more grieving families as there are today in Parkland.

 

I'm just sayin'...

Those We Disagree With Have Rights: Ours!

More examples of political correctness run amok; and fundamental American liberties being lost in the process:

 

1---KEN HAM  is the driving force behind the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter in Northern Kentucky. Among other things he believes dinosaurs and man lived at the same time. I do not. His evidence included a fossil section showing dino tracks and human footprints together. He believes these were done at the same time; I think they were eons apart, and there could be more than one explanation.  Since neither of us were there, we continue to have our separate beliefs.

 

But Ken Ham was denied a chance to speak about his beliefs at The University of Central Oklahoma, after an LGBT (and sometimes Q) group objected because Ham also believes marriage is between a man and a woman only. This is madness. LGBT (and sometimes Q) has used, correctly, the free speach rights of the First Amendment to advance its cause for years, and we journalists have covered their protests, public events, legislative approaches for years. Without using their First Amendment rights it is dubious the “gay marriage” program would have succeeded. For them to turn around and seek to deny those rights to others is absurd, and UN-American.

 

2---Donald Trump, and more specifically his former top aide, Rob Porter, are being criticized because it is alleged Porter abused his 2 ex-wives. Apparently their divorces were “sealed” (kept secret from the rest of us who paid for the court system, by the court—something the elite get away with, but that’s a topic for another time.) Porter has resigned, amid considerable praise from the President, and that unleashed a fire storm of criticism, especially after he asked “What ever happened to Due Process?” What indeed? Those inclined to always take one side in the matter cited a picture of a black eye one of the women released to the media. Obviously, the ONLY cause of the black eye was Porter’s abusive behavior.  (see dino tracks comments above)  Divorce is a touchy subject, cops get killed trying to handle domestic cases and “the truth” is seldom just on one side. There could be many causes for the black eye.

 

IF  he was an abuser, let charges be made, take the case to court where it belongs—not to be tried and adjudicated in and by the media---NOT our function.

 

(What bothers me even more is that Porter was handling highly secret information for the President, WITHOUT security clearance after a year on the job!  And that there are 20-30 similar White House staffers. including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, doing the same thing, also without such clearance—which is against the law.)

 

The President is dead right (no pun intended) to ask why we seem to have given up our traditional reliance on Due Process, and the courts as the proper arbiter of such issues, but all that pales in comparison to our failure to grant to others the rights we claim for ourselves.

 

I'm just sayin'...

Making the US a Banana Republic!

Once again BOTH parties have made the US look stupid in the eyes of the world. There is NO excuse for ever shutting down the government. Not only do too many of us, and our “lives” depend on its services; which we have paid for, but it is the total abdication of what our elected representatives have pledged to do.

 

Much of this can be attributed to the arcane rules of Congress, and how it works. A “CR”-- continuing resolution—is never the way to adopt a budget (some of which traditionally—if not legally--- have not been adopted for years.)

 

The rest can be attributed to, surprise(!) politics.

 

Each party hopes to sell the people that it was NOT responsible for the shutdown. But BOTH are, and I suggest “the people” are saying “A pox on both of you.”  I am. And to “sell” the people the other party was responsible means many, many dollars in PR funds, tv ads, debates, etc—all UNnecessary.

 

I told various representatives of the party I am registered with (and must be under state law to have a vote in the more important of the elections, the primary) to knock it off. Yes, I support its general approach on the particular legislative item causing the bottleneck, but NOT at the expense of a shutdown.

 

In a shutdown, many people get hurt, needlessly. Yes, Congress wised up after the first shutdown and exempted certain “essential” services, but would we all agree what are ALL of those “essential services?”  (aid to a struggling rural hospital in East Jesus, Ky. for example, or having a National Park open for a foreign family which has spent a lot of money on its annual vacation, or, well you know.)

 

This has got to stop, or we will, once again, be the laughing stock of the world.

 

Tom Jefferson, George and Abe, must be spinning in their graves.

 

I'm just sayin'...

Musings On Our Legislature

Things are not going well in Frankfort.

Despite promises to get to a pension bill in the “early weeks” of the session, zip has happened.

The dominant party is bogged down in charges and countercharges over possible sexual shenanigans in the ex-Speaker’s office and similar places; and whether taxpayers (that’s us) money was spent to bail out whatever happened. Shades of Washington (and past Democratic indiscretions.)

What have we got so far?  One proposed amendment to the Constitution, which would add more rights for crime victims—a worthy issue, but many advocates for them say it isn’t needed, that all those protections are currently granted them by state law.  It’s a matter of seeing that our state justice systems follows thru. (Which has a better chance to do so because Governor Bevin, to his credit, has upped dollars for judges, Kentucky State Police, and public defenders, etc.)

And we may get a proposed amendment to change our election cycle (again and just a few years after voters changed the election cycle) which could be just a party football and not an honest attempt to get more people to the polls.

What we don’t have here is an amendment to strike the crusty “anti-dueling oath” which each guv must take ever four years and which makes Kentucky the laughing stock of the world. Dueling? In the 21st century? Shirley you jest!

Or proposals to allow an independent commission to draw up state political districts as 16 or more other states do; or going back to the important and necessary reforms from the days of the BOPTROT scandals, which succeeding legislatures have all but overturned (do we ever learn?)  (This in the face of a report from the Illinois Institution on Public Corruption listing Kentucky as “the most corrupt state” in the US. ("Hey. we’re Number One!")

Or having the legislature admit that the true pension crisis was in a major way brought about by its refusal to put enough money into each budget until we are dangerously out of balance. (probably the worst in the US—"hey, we’re number one!")

Or doing an honest job on tax reform, which 20 state special commissions have urged. As the Herald-Leader points out, Kentucky exempts more in tax loopholes than it collects in tax revenues. That way lies madness.

Or answering the tragedy in Marshall County by offering bills to put more guns into our schools.

But wait...the session still has a few weeks to go. With luck we may get even more!

I'm just sayin'...

NOT A Good Idea

The state corrections head recently decided to RE-open a closed prison in Eastern Kentucky.

 

His reasons: the state’s prison population continues to grow and the state was running out of places to jail them, plus putting them in local county jails was becoming harder to do and was costing more money, and the state had no $$$ to build a new prison.

 

So he plans to re-open a prison closed in 2015, and hire the same private firm which didn’t run it right then, to run it again.

 

Without going into an argument over whether Kentucky jails too many people for too many offenses (including various minor ones - and we do, ) this is a baddd idea. For many reasons:   

 

First, hiring the same firm which the state fired in 2015 for not doing its job is just stupid. OK, the old firm, Corrections Corp. of America, has changed its name. It is now CoreCivic, but the same problems and controversies it had before still exist,

 

Its record in Kentucky includes two major riots at its facilities, charges that it skimped on food for inmates (which may have led to one of the riots,) lawsuits over sexual harassment and worse, including by a prison “chaplain," at one facility, various other charges, including violation of lobbying laws to keep its contract, etc.etc.etc.

 

In other states, similar and more such charges were made against this firm. Why give them a chance to repeat or enlarge their bad operations again?

 

Security of our citizens is a major state commitment. Why turn this over to private firms? In making billions in profits annually, which the state doesn’t need to make, surely  government can operate prisons more effectively than for-profit firms. If not, governments can be held accountable more than private firms, and changes made.  Try that with Wells Fargo or Tanaka.

 

There are, in my mind, also serious legal questions. I have been told, several times, by journalists and CCA reps, that its employees are private citizens, NOT state employees, not “sworn peace officers” or lawmen.

 

How then, can such people hold inmates jailed without running afoul of the “involuntary servitude” clause of the US Constitution? I would love to see an ACLU challenge to this use of privately operated prisons.

 

Til then, and til Kentucky revisits all the minor reasons it jails so many people (America jails more people per capital than almost any nation) this decision to reopen an old prison and hire a discredited firm to run it, makes very little sense.

 

I'm just sayin'...

Some News Notes And A Correction

Correction first:

 

In my last blog, objecting to Ashley Judd’s barring broadcasters from her latest talk at UK (and the school’s going along) I said the silence from local broadcasters objecting was “deafening.” I also said the local chapter of the SPJ (Society of Professional Journalists) had not objected.  The president of the local group, Tom Eblen of the Herald-Leader corrects me, saying he had sent an objection to UK officials not allowing all members of the media to cover on behalf of the SPJ.  Good, but so far no changes that I know of in a bad UK policy.

 

News notes:

 

1--- When I was growing up the “Solid South” meant all those states voted Democratic. But ever since Southerner LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act of ‘64, the South has been growing more and more Republican (which says an awful lot!) Today the South is pretty much solidly GOP. So the recent victory in the Alabama US Senate race of Doug Jones over arch-conservative Roy Moore was global news. (Moore, BTW, is much worse than the recent sexual accusations would indicate. Google him for his actions as Chief Justice of Alabama for one example.)  But while the media put the major reason for his loss on those allegations, let me add another factor which may also have been a major contributor to his defeat...the charge by Pres. Trump in his next door speech in Florida that Jones “was soft on crime,”a major charge by the GOP on Democrats. Most people alive in Alabama knew that Jones, then a federal prosecutor, had been the driving force behind successful attempts to bring old Klansmen to justice in their horrendous bombing of a black Birmingham church that killed 4 young Sunday School girls years ago. State officials had done little to solve the case, and when Jones took it on in the '90s such actions could end your political career—or worse, get you killed.

 

Mr. Trump is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts, which many members of the media have spent the last year pointing out.

 

Which is the media’s job; speaking Truth to Power, trying to be the public’s advocate.

 

2---That has gotten a lot of reporters, editors, and photographers killed in 2017:  a  minimum of 81 in fact, according to the annual report of the International Federation of Journalists. (250 more were still in prison at year’s end.) The largest number were killed covering the drug wars in Mexico, while many more died covering wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan—and our disgraceful US policies in those 3 nations.

 

3---As the Kentucky legislature meets, issue Number Uno is: $$$.

 

Whether it be more $$$ for pension reform (which both legislatures and governors over the last decade or so are responsible for,) the need for tax reform (which exempts more $$$ than it brings in) or more $$$ for police agency needs, or more $$$ for adequate staffing of child protection agencies—or roads—or higher ed...or you name it, it’s still $$$.

 

Let us pray this year’s lawmakers will have the guts to tackle the $$$ issue head on, even in an election year, and raise taxes if need be to meet this state’s honest needs---but to do so without making marijuana legal, as more and more states are doing to raise more money. I support medical marijuana, and the industrial hemp industry, but recreational use, No Way. Even California won’t permit smoking weed in cars, even by passengers. We are setting ourselves up for another version of the lies and subterfuge and political corruption of Big Tobacco all over again; even if, as I suspect, smoking the darn stuff will have serious health effects too.

 

That’s not the way to raise $$$, as we have learned through the health and other costs of smoking.  One evil does not justify another.

 

I'm just sayin'...