Back from a hiatus

This blog has been inactive for awhile. There's been no real reason for the silence; it just happened. But there's been no shortage of news to discuss. On the local, state, and national level, things have been going on that warrant discussion. So, I'm reviving this blog.

One thing you'll notice that was absent from the previous incarnation of this endeavor is the presence of ads. I'm trying Google AdSense to try to earn some money from my punditry. And, as always, if any of my newspaper industry friends or acquaintances want to republish my commentary, please contact me to discuss terms. In the past, I provided this column to papers in my area free of charge, but I'm going to try the paid syndication route now to see if I have any success.

In the past, there was usually only one blog entry a week, after the column that I had submitted to the newspapers had been published. You'll probably see posts much more frequently now, as events warrant.

I tried to stick to state issues in previous posts, but you will probably see more local and national discussion as things move forward.

Please feel free to share posts on your personal social media accounts as you see fit.  Commercial news outlets are expressly prohibited from sharing the content here unless they've set up a syndication agreement with me. Comments are encouraged; I may not respond to them all, but I'll read them. All I ask is that you keep your comments civil. Don't use foul language; don't engage in personal attacks on other commenters, subjects of the commentary here, or the author: and don't say anything that might be libelous. Run afoul of these guidelines, and your comment will be deleted.

Even if you don't agree with the viewpoints offered here, my hope is that they will enlighten you and encourage you to think. As you read these thoughts, keep in mind that they are offered by a person of faith, a person who believes in the power of the citizenry, and one who realizes that the government truly is of and by, and should be for, the people; one who thinks less government is better and people should be free to pursue their goals and dreams while guided by a generally accepted set of societal standards. I'm a conservative, not a libertarian, and certainly not a fiscal or social liberal. And while I may disagree with some conservative ideas or Republican officeholders on occasion, my political and social beliefs are staunchly conservative.

Bevin’s opponents miss the bigger picture as he trolls them on social media

(Note -- this was written more than two weeks ago and submitted for publication to the newspapers in my area that have been carrying this column, but I'm just now getting around to posting it on the blog site.)

One of the best things about Gov. Matt Bevin being a political outsider is that he can afford to be unorthodox in his approach. He doesn’t feel bound by convention the way previous governors have. He’s used to a businesslike environment where things get done without being bogged down by process and red tape.

So, with the clock ticking on this year’s General Assembly session, Bevin took note of the House of Representatives’ slow pace in adopting a biennial budget. Last Monday morning, he fired a shot across the bow of the Democratic majority and posted a video on social media, urging the legislature to get to work and pass the budget.

His move obviously got under the Democrats’ skin, because a few hours later, they posted photos of what they said was a committee meeting in the Capitol Annex. The Stumbocrats also claimed that Bevin didn’t know how the process works because the House typically does not convene in full session until 4 p.m. on Mondays, and much of the work on the budget is done in committee meetings in the Annex instead of the House chambers in the Capitol.

That sounds plausible enough on its face, but the Democrats’ defense doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny.

For starters, the Monday committee meetings don’t typically start until after lunch, so even if Bevin had gone to the Annex at 11 a.m. to try to find legislators hard at work, his search would have come up empty.

But there was something more sinister at work here. Even as House Speaker Greg Stumbo and his House Stumbocrats claimed that Bevin was trying to mislead the public, they were engaged in an even greater and darker deception.

The committee purported to have been meeting in the photos the House Democratic leadership posted was the Transportation Budget Review Subcommittee. A clock shown in the background of one of the photos indicated the picture was taken around 1 p.m. There are two major problems here. First is that the committee wasn’t scheduled to meet until 2 p.m. Second is that the official House calendar for Monday, March 7, shows that the Transportation Budget Review Subcommittee meeting was cancelled.

An explanation was offered by someone with deep knowledge of Frankfort – a former legislator and a former high-level gubernatorial staff member. He stated that many of the legislators pictured aren’t even members of the Transportation Budget Review Subcommittee.

The Stumbocrats lying to the people of Kentucky in an attempt to discredit only the second Republican governor in 45 years? Surely not. But it appears as if that’s exactly what happened. It looks as if the Stumbocrats, stung by Bevin’s unexpected attack, fought back by finding a bunch of their legislators and sticking them in a room with a bunch of papers stacked on a table and staging a photo opportunity.

But the Stumbocrats missed the bigger message. The House – and, to be fair, the Republican-controlled Senate – typically don’t convene in full session until 4 p.m. on Monday, but committee meetings usually don’t start until after lunch on Mondays. The General Assembly usually adjourns around noon or so on Fridays. This basically means that the legislators use only about four out of every five working days each week to conduct business.

Those who go into public service should know that sacrifice is expected. Legislators are paid well for 90 days of work in a two-year period, with an occasional interim committee meeting or special session thrown in. Yet they use Monday mornings to travel from their homes to Frankfort, and Friday afternoons to travel back home. No one else who works away from home during the week gets that luxury. They have to travel on Sunday and Friday evenings to be at the job on time on Monday and to put in a full day on Friday. Legislative business should begin on Monday mornings, not Monday afternoons. Yes, it’s a long way from Paducah or Mayfield or Cadiz to Frankfort, but those who ran for office knew that when they got into politics. They should be willing to sacrifice Sunday evenings at home to do their duty.

The same Frankfort observer who caught the chicanery with the legislators in the photograph made another observation. He said that the General Assembly can afford to have some flexibility in scheduling early in the session, when little business of consequence is being conducted. But when time is running out and the budget is still under consideration, the senators and representatives need to be on the job as much as possible to get the work done.

Passing the biennial budget this session won’t be easy. Ignoring fiscal realities, House Stumbocrats don’t seem willing to go along with the necessary cuts Bevin has proposed. The Senate is expected to concur with most of Bevin’s recommendations. That means there will be an impasse between the two chambers which will have to be hammered out in a conference committee, then approved by both chambers. It’s entirely conceivable that as time runs out on the session, the old tradition of stopping the clock will be followed so legislators can pretend they got their business finished on time.

Or, it’s possible that no budget will be passed at all, and the Stumbocrats would be only more than happy to operate the state on a continuation budget from former Gov. Steve Beshear’s last two years.

At any rate, the Stumbocrats in the House got so upset over being trolled on social media by Gov. Bevin that they missed the bigger picture. They aren’t working as hard as they should, or as much as they should, to get a budget passed. And they resorted to dishonest measures in an attempt to retaliate. That’s something the state’s voters should remember when all 100 House seats are up for election in November.

“Tax reform:” Liberal code for raising taxes

Each year when the Kentucky General Assembly goes into session, someone will float the idea that Kentucky’s taxation system needs to be reformed. They will point to amount of tax revenue that the state is not capturing and pulling into its coffers, which would be spent on who knows what kind of new government programs.

Another term frequently used in place of “reform” is “modernization.” The expressed logic behind that term is that the state’s economy has evolved from one based on manufacturing and purchasing to one of providing services, and thus the tax system needs to evolve as well.

While “modernization” of something that’s been around awhile sounds like a good thing, and “reform” when it comes to government is the goal of most conservatives, the reality is that those terms, when applied to taxation, are really code for “tax increases.”

With the new administration of Gov. Matt Bevin facing budget issues, the calls for tax reform are possibly louder now than they’ve been at any time during the last few legislative sessions. Bevin is looking to cut state government spending, which isn’t going over well with those who prefer a more expanded role for the bureaucracy.

Some tax reform proposals issued in the past have been “revenue neutral” – that is to say, the changes would shift tax burdens from one group to another without an overall increase in money to the General Fund. That would basically end up being a tax break for some groups and a tax increase for others. Such an effort would accomplish nothing, other than to mollify some of those who want to soak the rich.

The most frequently mentioned reform proposal being floated this year, however, would result in both an increase in taxes on certain individuals and an increase in revenue for the government. While some tax rates might be lowered in the process, the overall effect would be people paying more taxes and on things that are currently not taxed.

Presently, Kentucky doesn’t tax services. You don’t pay sales taxes on haircuts, auto repairs, pet grooming, dry cleaning or a number of other acts. You pay taxes on the parts used to fix your car, but you don’t pay a tax on the labor to install those parts. Most every proposal for reform or modernization recommends extending Kentucky’s 6 percent sales tax to certain services.

There’s a danger in such a proposal. Proprietors and employees of barber shops, beauty shops, auto repair garages and other such service-oriented businesses already pay taxes, whether it’s as an employee or as a business owner/proprietor. Could taxing those services send many of those businesses underground into a cash-only status? What if the owner of a licensed beauty parlor closes up shop, starts doing hair in her home, and taking untaxed cash as payment? There’s always an unintended consequence anytime the government makes a money grab.

Another frequently-mentioned reform is rescinding a number of tax breaks given to certain industries or individual businesses. Liberals seem to believe that a tax break involves a payment from the treasury to the recipient of the break, rather than them getting to keep more of their own money instead of having to fork it over to the government. It seems to be part of a pattern among those who believe that your earnings belong to the government first, and you get to keep whatever the government lets you keep after it takes what it want.

No one ever seems to promote what would be true tax reform. What’s needed are policy changes that would promote economic activity and generate additional commerce that would produce an increased flow of tax revenue; maybe even to the point where overall tax rates can be reduced because the economy is booming and revenues will still go up. We need policies that will increase the number of available jobs and remove restrictions that hamper the ability of businesses to offer products and services.

How we get there may be a topic for debate, but the reality is that such changes would do far more good than the tax increases disguised as reforms proposed by liberal Frankfort interests and promoted by the Lexington Herald-Leader – which, to borrow a quote from the late Citizen Voice & Times and Clay City Times publisher Guy Hatfield about a certain former school superintendent, never met a tax increase it didn’t like.

Time to rein in power of appointed boards, give control to elected officials

One of the most memorable stories I covered during my time as editor of the Citizen Voice & Times in Irvine was a controversy over sewer service rates.

In the early 1990s, a sewer system was built to serve portions of Estill County on the south side of the Kentucky River, primarily the West Irvine area. State law required customers to abandon their septic tanks and hook on to the municipal sewage system when it came online, so dozens of Estill County residents and businesses began using the new system.

Customers were shocked when they started receiving bills for the service. Their utility bills went up an average of 150 percent. What had been $40 water bills suddenly became $100 bills for combined water and sewage service. The increases posed real financial problems to many, including those on fixed incomes.

Residents complained to the Estill County Fiscal Court and the county judge-executive, but those elected officials were powerless to do anything about the bills. The water and sewer systems were operated by an entity called the Estill County Water District No. 1; a name I always found amusing, because in all my years of working in Irvine I never heard of there being another water district. Although the water commissioners were appointed by elected officials, the fiscal court had no authority over their actions.

Because there was so much community outrage, the water commissioners were invited – strongly encouraged might be a better term – by the county judge-executive to attend a fiscal court meeting and explain the rates to angered customers. None of the water board members came to the meeting to face the music.

One reason the incident sticks out in my mind is because it’s one of the few times during my newspaper career I quoted someone using profanity in a news story. One of the chief complainants addressed the fiscal court after the board members turned out to be no-shows, saying something along the lines of “I can’t believe we have three water commissioners who don’t give enough of a damn to be here tonight to face the public.”

But another reason is that there’s renewed public anguish over appointed boards and commissions being able to act without any oversight from elected officials.

This has been controversial in a number of counties, where agencies such as extension service boards or library boards have approved tax increases or expenditures for large, and often unneeded, construction projects. Taxpayers are upset because their elected officials have no say about the tax increases. At a time when people’s budgets are already stretched thin and government resources need to be spent wisely, many of these agencies act as if they are flush with cash. These times call for fiscal frugality by public agencies in economically troubled communities, not wasteful spending on unnecessary projects such as new buildings when the existing facilities are just fine.

Fiscal courts have to approve the tax rates set by these special districts, but that’s only so those property taxes can be included on the tax bills. The elected officials cannot veto the tax rates.

There have been a few efforts to change that, and to put the final say over tax rates into the hands of elected officials who are accountable to the voters, but those efforts have been met with resistance. The last time such a law was proposed in the Kentucky General Assembly, the claim was made that giving fiscal courts approval or veto power would, in effect, turn those special district taxes into county taxes, and would hurt counties’ bonding ability. There’s a simple workaround for that. Merely specify in the law that the special district taxes are not to be considered county taxes, and bonding companies or lenders cannot take those rates into consideration when evaluating funding for county projects. Problem solved.

Critics of the proposal to give fiscal courts more oversight of special districts’ actions also say that there is already accountability because the board members are chosen by elected officials. While that’s true, most of those appointments are made in obscurity. Very few people can probably name the members of their local library board. And the average citizen probably doesn’t know when their extension service board meets so they can lobby against tax increases.

A quarter-century ago, that Estill County water board purposefully ignored the concerns of its customers and constituents. The members were eventually replaced, and the way they brushed off citizens’ very real monetary concerns was a key reason. Still, the fiscal court at the time had no ability to step in and address the problems. Similarly, they have no way to act in the voters’ interests when appointed bodies try to increase taxes.

That needs to change. There are ways to bring the actions of rogue or tone-deaf appointed boards under the control of the people’s elected representatives. It’s time that local elected officials were given that power.

GOP caucus: The guest of honor will miss the party

After the Republican Party of Kentucky announced its plan to hold a presidential nominating caucus, rather than a primary, to enable U.S. Sen. Rand Paul to run for re-election and for the presidency at the same time, there was always an undercurrent of thought that Paul wouldn’t even be in the running by the time his made-to-order caucus took place.

I hope those who predicted that outcome placed winning bets on the Super Bowl, because they were right on the money. Two days after the Iowa caucuses, Paul dropped out of the presidential race.

That leaves Kentucky Republicans with a Saturday, March 5 presidential caucus that was designed to benefit only one person who now won’t benefit from it at all. Paul’s name will still be on the caucus ballot, but a vote for him will be wasted.

The odds were good that Paul wouldn’t have won the Kentucky caucus. Although he touts his attendance record as proof that he’s working for Kentucky in the Senate, there are a lot of people in both parties who think Paul has furthered his own personal political ambitions during his Senate term and hasn’t acted in Kentucky’s best interests. At the time of this writing, no polling has been released about Republican voters’ preferences, but it’s safe to say that Paul wouldn’t be leading if polls had been taken. Excitement for Donald Trump in Kentucky seems to be on par with the rest of the country, and both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio seem to have generated enthusiastic followers in the Bluegrass State as well.

So, Paul’s departure from the race leaves Kentucky Republicans with a caucus that the party leadership never really supported, but approved as a favor to him. How do they feel now? Will they be inclined to grant him any more favors?

Some Republicans are still promoting the caucus as a good thing, saying it will make Kentucky relevant in the nominating process since the nominee has traditionally been all but chosen by the time of the normal May primary. But turnout for the Saturday caucus will likely be abysmal. In fact, not all counties are hosting a caucus. Republicans in nine of Kentucky’s counties will have to travel to another county to cast a vote, and there’s a rather egregious example of that in this region.

Owsley County chose not to have a caucus. Republicans there who wish to participate will have to travel to Lee County to vote. It’s only 11 miles from Booneville to Beattyville, but it will still be an inconvenience for Owsley residents who live in the far reaches of the county to drive to Beattyville. But the worst example is Estill County. Estill residents will have to travel the 27 long, torturous miles to McKee across a narrow, winding and hilly road to vote. Instead of combining with Madison or Powell counties, which are much closer and easier to access, Estill County instead will be caucusing with Jackson County. That makes little sense.

Absentee ballots are also an option, but the realistic view is that unless Republicans, especially those in counties not holding caucuses, are very fired up about a certain candidate, they’ll choose not to participate. The low turnout will be reminiscent of Kentucky’s 1988 participation in the “Super Tuesday” presidential primary, and the 2016 caucus will go down in history as a failed experiment that was of no help to the one person it was designed to benefit.

Paul’s campaign agreed to pay most of the costs of the caucuses, with candidate filing fees expected to take up the slack. Will he hold up his end of the bargain, or will the RPK be stuck with the bills? As this is written, no prominent Kentucky Republicans or party leaders have commented on the status of the caucus or on Paul’s withdrawal from the presidential race.

Some Republicans were concerned that Paul’s faltering presidential bid would negatively affect his Senate re-election campaign. Paul got a high-profile Democratic opponent last week in Lexington Mayor Jim Gray. Paul’s exit from the presidential race before the Kentucky caucus makes one wonder if perhaps his camp doesn’t regard Gray as more of a threat than they let on.

To date, Paul has not endorsed a candidate. Rick Santorum, who finished second to Mitt Romney in 2012 but failed to gain traction this time around, also withdrew from the race last week and endorsed Rubio. If Paul does endorse an ex-rival, we’ll have to see if that provides a bump for that candidate in Kentucky.

After the caucus was created at the insistence of Kentucky’s junior senator, I dubbed it the “GOPaulcus.” Now, the guest of honor at that party won’t even be in attendance. Bluegrass Republicans have to be a little embarrassed about that. And if some of them are angry, that’s justifiable, too.

Will the willfully ignorant doom our country?

Not a day goes by that I don’t worry about the future of our country. Too many people either refuse to face facts or remain willfully ignorant of what’s going on in the world. They remain so blinded by their own preconceived notions and ideologies that they turn their backs on the truth.

We’re nearly two decades beyond the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, yet it’s not hard to find someone who still claims that he was impeached over a (insert crude name for a sex act here.) That’s simply not true. Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice because he lied under oath in a court case. He also lost his law license because of those actions, and I have yet to hear of anyone ever being disbarred because they engaged in oral sex.

That’s just one of many examples of people not comprehending the truth and therefore not being willing to face facts. Because they either like Clinton or they dislike Republicans, they continue to put forth a false narrative that too many gullible people believe.

Need another example? Look back to last week, when news broke that a federal court ruled that Kentucky cannot deny tax breaks to the Ark Encounter project being built in Grant County, and Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration announced it agreed with the ruling and would not appeal it. Answers in Genesis filed the suit after the administration of former Gov. Steve Beshear reneged on its commitment to offer the tax incentives.

The court decision did not set well within the militant atheist community. They immediately took to their blogs and claimed that the state would be spending tax money to promote Christianity; specifically the account of the Great Flood and the building of Noah’s Ark, and that this was a violation of the First Amendment’s “mandate” of separation of church and state.

Except this isn’t what’s happening at all. The state is spending no money on the “Ark Park.” Instead, it is granting tax incentives to the project to recoup some of the construction costs. The facility will merely not have to pay the full amount of taxes it otherwise would if not granted the incentives. Instead of the state getting X number of dollars in new taxes generated from the “Ark Park,” it will get X minus the money the park gets to keep for itself. The state will still see an increase in tax revenue from the project, just not 100 percent of the proceeds. Letting an entity keep more of its revenue for itself is not the same thing as spending tax dollars on it. No one else’s tax dollars will be spent on the project, not even any of those paid by the protesting atheists.

The First Amendment prohibits governments from establishing an official religion or from preventing anyone from practicing the religion of their choice. It does not require that government and religion be kept separate. The origin of the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association is well-documented, but the flawed use of the phrase in interpreting the First Amendment has resulted in needless troubles for decades. The idea that the use of Bible verses in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as performed in a Johnson County public school, the presence of a cross on a water tower in Wilmore or the presence of a picture of Jesus Christ in Breathitt County equals the government adopting Christianity as its official religion is a stretch of the largest possible magnitude.

Claiming that allowing Answers in Genesis and the Ark Encounter to keep some of the new tax revenue it generates that would otherwise go to the state is a First Amendment violation is a similar stretch. It might be different if tax money was being appropriated out of the General Fund to give to Answers in Genesis, but that’s not the case here. No money paid by anyone else is going to the “Ark Park.”

It’s fine if you have a philosophical disagreement with a politician. Heck, I have as many or more complaints about establishment Republicans and Congressional leaders as I do with President Barack Obama and others of the liberal mindset. You and I may have different opinions on abortion, Obamacare, national defense or any other issue. But if you’re going to criticize a specific action, you should do so on a factual basis. There’s an old saying that you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

I heard that some people took exception to my recent column in which I described the criticisms of some of Gov. Bevin’s actions as being rooted in cluelessness. I stand by that statement. Just about every complaint I saw about Bevin’s executive orders cited a falsehood and relied on a complete misunderstanding of what actually happened, especially those comments made by non-Kentuckians who got incorrect information from national blogs and websites.

Feel free to disagree with Bevin’s rescission of the minimum wage increase for state employees, but don’t claim that his order took money out of the pockets of those who had already gotten the raise. Don’t like the decision to take county clerks’ names off of marriage licenses? Go ahead and complain, but don’t say that it discriminates against anyone or makes it more difficult for anyone to get a license.

Since those widely-misunderstood executive orders were issued last month, Bevin’s done even more to draw misguided ire from his opponents. Following through on a campaign promise, he started the process to do away with Kynect, Kentucky’s health care exchange which was established under the Affordable Care Act. That really prompted the cacophony of the clueless to go into full song, as they claimed that Kentuckians would lose their health insurance and thousands would die.

Kynect is just one source of health insurance. The federal exchange and website remain, as do private insurance agents. Saying that people will no longer have access to health insurance once Kynect is gone is like saying people will starve if one grocery store closes. There are other grocery stores, and there are other marketplaces for health insurance.

Again, it’s all right if you have an ideological difference with the new governor. I don’t agree with all of his plans and policies and philosophies. But please, if you’re going to criticize a specific action, do it from a factual base. Don’t make up stuff or claim things that aren’t true. Educate yourself on the issues. Seek alternative news sources besides those that reinforce your views. Look beyond your preconceived notions or ideological persuasions. Don’t be willfully ignorant or intentionally clueless. Healthy debate is good for society, but only if all the debaters are knowledgeable.

Can the Trump train be derailed?

(Note -- this was written and submitted to newspapers in my area in mid-January, well before the Iowa caucuses.)

Several months ago, I made a couple of political predictions.

First was that the novelty of Donald Trump as a Republican presidential candidate would fade, and he would fall from contention for the nomination as other candidates ramped up their campaigns.

Second was that as usual, the Republican establishment’s favored candidate – in this case, then-perceived frontrunner Jeb Bush – would end up with the nomination instead of a conservative or outsider candidate.

It looks as if I could be wrong on both counts. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Bush’s candidacy is washed up and going nowhere. And it’s looking entirely possible that Trump could end up winning the nomination.

That latter fact has the GOP establishment frightened to death. They keep saying Trump is unelectable in a general election matchup against Hillary Clinton, but that’s just a front. Their real fear is that they are losing influence over the party, its members and the selection process for candidates.

That’s why the establishment has also turned its guns on Ted Cruz, who has emerged as Trump’s stiffest competition. Seeing that Bush’s fortunes are ebbing, the party’s elites are starting to throw their support to Marco Rubio. At one time a conservative favorite alongside Cruz, Rubio’s stands have alienated many in the party’s base as he’s seemingly started to move to the left on some issues, particularly immigration. Rubio has disappointed many who had high hopes for him when he, Cruz, Utah’s Mike Lee and Kentucky’s Rand Paul went to the Senate as conservative voices to stand against the liberals in both parties.

No matter what outrageous comment Trump may make, and no matter what barbs his rivals throw his way, he seems to be unscathed. In recent weeks Trump has taken flak over his comments on Muslims, but his message continues to resonate with an American public that sees the rise of ISIS and an increase in Islamic terrorism on foreign soil and in the United States and increasingly feels the federal government is not doing enough to stop it. They also see the evidence that the economy isn’t as rosy as President Barack Obama makes it out to be, and they worry about their jobs. They see ineffective politicians in both parties and want someone new to deal with the myriad of problems this country faces.

After last week’s Republican debate in South Carolina, many political observers noted that they think the race is down to three candidates – Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Of course, this is before the first vote is cast in an election or a caucus. Rubio will have the establishment’s support, while Trump and Cruz will split the vote among those who don’t fall in line with what the party’s elders dictate. Cruz will dominate among constitutional conservatives, while Trump will continue to appeal to those who want a complete outsider. If Trump finally does flame out or commit political suicide – and so far, he seems invulnerable to any damage, even the self-inflicted kind – what will become of his supporters? Will they migrate to Cruz, or will they flock to another outsider such as Carly Fiorina or Dr. Ben Carson, assuming they’ll still be in the race?

And what of the Democrats? Bernie Sanders is proving to be a pest that Hillary Clinton can’t get rid of, like a fly that keeps buzzing around her head. Hillary will never be confused with a conservative, but she’s been campaigning to the right of Sanders lately on a number of issues. She’s having to walk a fine line between keeping her liberal constituency happy while at the same time distancing herself from the impossible pie-in-the-sky proposals Sanders makes.

There’s also rich irony in last week’s announcement that Moveon.org has endorsed Sanders over Hillary. Remember that this is the same group that was formed to support her husband during his impeachment proceedings. That comes as Hillary is starting to get more criticism from those who claim she’s hypocritical by campaigning on so-called women’s issues while at the same time criticizing those who accused her husband of untoward sexual advances and acts.

Also, who knows what will come of the ongoing investigation into her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state? A growing number of legal scholars think she will be prosecuted – and some predict a showdown between the FBI, which will push for criminal charges to be filed, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who will push back against that effort. An unflattering movie about her involvement in the Benghazi fiasco won’t help matters for her.

What can the Democrats do if her candidacy collapses? What if she does come under indictment for the email scandal? Sanders generates the same feelings among the Democratic establishment as Trump does for the GOP. The best alternate candidate, Vice President Joe Biden, opted out of a run for the presidency, but he continues to publicly second-guess that decision. Might he suddenly emerge as his party’s savior?

The conventions are still months away. Lots can happen. And, as noted earlier, the first vote has not yet been cast. And with the frontrunners (Trump and Hillary) having their own unique vulnerabilities, the political landscape can change dramatically in a matter of minutes. Still, Hillary has shown herself to be coated in Teflon despite lots of faults, and so far Trump hasn’t been knocked off his game either by himself or by one of his opponents.

Buckle up, political junkies. The ride’s about to get interesting.

Bevin causes consternation among the clueless

Matt Bevin has barely been in office as Kentucky governor for a month, yet he’s already caused a sharp rise in the blood pressure of Bluegrass liberals through a handful of actions taken either to reverse the acts of his predecessor or to remedy his inaction.

Even before Bevin took office, his critics were out in full force. Reading the online comments on news stories and the anti-Bevin editorials published by the state’s two largest papers offers some keen insight into the amount of what’s often called “butt-hurt” suffered by those who opposed him. They cannot believe that Kentuckians had the audacity to elect a conservative Republican governor after years of Democrats being at the helm.

About two weeks ago, Bevin issues a series of executive orders that really ramped up the criticism, on a statewide and national scale. Unfortunately for the critics, they’re attacking with less than a full knowledge or understanding of the facts and issues.

Probably the most misunderstood order was the rescission of Steve Beshear’s unilateral order increasing the minimum wage for state employees from $7.25 per hour to $10.10. Beshear took his action without gaining approval from the General Assembly, which is required by state law to budget and appropriate funding for state salaries. Bevin’s order rescinded the minimum wage increase for future hires, but specifically stated that no employee who had already gotten a raise from $7.25 to $10.10 would have that pay increase taken away.

As happens so often when the national blogs and websites get hold of a Kentucky story, they got critical facts wrong. They also communicated a mistaken narrative that the minimum wage for all Kentuckians had been increased by Beshear, and that Bevin had stripped that raise, which is blatantly untrue. Still others, including an anonymous Kentucky blog written by a foul-mouthed individual who identifies himself only as “Yellow Dog,” claimed that raises had actually been taken away from those who had already received them.

One doesn’t go on a left-leaning site like Daily Kos or Politico or Huffington Post and expect the commenters to be well-informed conservatives. So, you can probably guess what the uninformed denizens of those sites had to say. Without knowing the facts, poster after poster berated Bevin for sticking it to the poor working people of Kentucky. Apparently, these people can find their way to their favorite propaganda sites, but don’t know how to use Google to find out the truth behind the minimum wage rescission.

Bevin’s order also eliminated the employee advisory council. This was a bone thrown to the labor unions who helped Paul Patton get elected in 1995. Ernie Fletcher abolished it when he took office in 2003, but Beshear brought it back in 2007.

Again, those unfamiliar with Kentucky went crazy, claiming that the new governor had taken away the voice of state employees. And again, their claims were untrue. Kentucky employee wages and benefits are set through state law and administrative regulation, which means they require legislative approval. Kentucky has no collective bargaining process for state employees. State workers are free to contact elected officials with their requests, but in the end, those things are set by law and not through negotiations. Bevin’s order merely did away with a toothless tiger; an agency with no authority or power.

The role of the legislature also was a key factor in Bevin’s decision to eliminate the blanket restoration of voting rights to felons granted by Beshear. While Bevin in general supports the concept of felons automatically regaining the right to vote after they serve their sentences, he thinks such a policy should be passed by the legislature, and if necessary, by Kentucky’s voters via an amendment to the state constitution.

To no one’s surprise, the usual cries of “voter suppression” and “racism” came from the usual sources; again without regard for the facts. Governors have always had the ability to grant pardons and restore civil rights, but this has typically been done on an individual basis and is often done in one fell swoop late in a governor’s term. Bevin and others had questions about Beshear’s blanket, automatic voting rights restoration process, and the new governor wants to see that any changes to the way that’s done are done in accordance with the law.

And none of that takes into account his order to have the name of the county clerk removed from marriage licenses. This one really got the left up in arms. They railed against the change as a victory for bigotry, when in reality this does not affect the ability of same-sex couples to marry whatsoever. Leaders from both parties had clamored for a change after some county clerks expressed reservations about having their names appear on marriage licenses granted to same-sex couples. They had asked Beshear to either call a special legislative session or issue an executive order pertaining to the matter, but he refused to do either. This led to the controversy that swirled around Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and turned both Morehead and Grayson into media circuses when Davis was jailed in Carter County for refusing to comply with a federal judge’s order that she issue marriage licenses to all applicants.

It’s just not Bevin’s executive orders that have caused consternation among the clueless. Last week, the state was forced to make substantial cuts to its Road Fund budget due to declining gasoline tax revenues. A large percentage of those cuts were to funds allocated to cities and counties for municipal and rural roads, and were required by law since local governments’ road funding is determined by a statutory formula.

This is a problem that can be placed at the feet of both parties. State leaders have known for at least two years that gasoline tax revenue would be declining, as the price of gas has steadily declined. Legislators failed to prop up the tax’s “floor” two years ago amid fears that it would be construed as a tax increase. The new, higher “floor” they approved last year was not nearly enough to offset the decrease in revenue.

Even though these Road Fund cuts would have taken place even if Jack Conway had won the governor’s race, or if Beshear was still in office, Bevin’s critics didn’t miss the chance to accuse him of slashing and burning in his attempt to kill the government. The typical anti-tea party rhetoric was on full display from those who didn’t bother to investigate why the cuts were necessary.

Bevin has made no secret of the fact that he’s inheriting a troubled state budget. Medicaid funding and fixing the pension shortfall will be two twin obstacles he faces as he tries to reverse the decades-long course the state’s been on under leadership of the opposite party. He doesn’t want to cut essential services, but the state’s obligations will cause him and the General Assembly to have to take a good, hard look at exactly what is essential and what isn’t.

It doesn’t help when his critics, especially those who aren’t in Kentucky and don’t really know what’s going on within the borders of the Bluegrass State, go off half-cocked with their complaints and criticisms without first educating themselves.

Bevin didn’t take money away from the lowest-paid state employees, he didn’t strip state workers of their negotiating power, and he didn’t make it harder for same-sex couples to get married. Those are facts, whether Kentucky liberals and national bloggers want to accept them or not.

Democrats’ theory on recent Kentucky election losses will be tested in 2016

After devastating statewide losses in the last two general elections in Kentucky, bluegrass Democrats are frantically trying to figure out how they can stem the rising Republican tide in what was once a stronghold for their party.

Jack Conway’s surprising loss to Matt Bevin in this year’s gubernatorial election, coupled with Alison Lundergan Grimes’ poll-busting failure to unseat incumbent U. S. Sen. Mitch McConnell last year, has the Kentucky Democratic Party scrambling to answer questions about their future.

One answer, frequently mentioned by the more liberal wing of the party, is that Conway and Grimes were too conservative. These activists believe the best way for Democrats to win elections in Kentucky is to nominate leftist candidates.

Republicans have to be salivating at those prospects. One can almost see the party leaders, in the best tradition of Brer Rabbit, yelling, “Please don’t throw us in that briar patch!”

For years I’ve maintained that Kentucky Democrats are nothing like their cousins from Massachusetts or San Francisco. Kentucky Democrats are generally much more conservative on cultural and moral issues than are Democrats on the coasts and in the northeast. Someone like the late Teddy Kennedy or Nancy Pelosi would have a great deal of trouble being elected anywhere in Kentucky besides the liberal enclaves of Louisville and a few ZIP codes in Lexington.

Conway and Grimes had to stake out positions to the right of the national party in order to have any chance at all of being elected in Kentucky. To do otherwise would have resulted in even greater losses than what they suffered. There aren’t enough true liberals in Kentucky who could have rallied to their sides to offset more conservative Democrats – what used to be called “blue dog Democrats” – who would either vote for the Republican who more closely represents their beliefs, or not vote altogether.

The Democrats’ theory got a bit of a test last year. Elisabeth Jensen, an Elizabeth Warren-wannabe, challenged first-term incumbent Andy Barr for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Barr had defeated an incumbent with a golden Kentucky political surname, Ben Chandler, two years prior despite the 6th District having been gerrymandered to be more favorable to Democrats. Not only does it contain Democrat fortress counties like Franklin and Fayette, but three other counties where Conway beat Bevin (Bath, Bourbon and Nicholas). And that fails to mention Wolfe County, which is also now in the 6th District but has absolutely no business being there from either a geographical or sociological perspective, which also went for Conway over Bevin. Despite those advantages, Jensen lost to Barr by a larger margin than Grimes lost to McConnell.

If Kentucky Democrats need more liberal candidates to win elections, then why didn’t a liberal like Jensen beat Barr in a favorable district? Possibly because hard-core liberalism doesn’t go over well in most parts of Kentucky?

Liberal pundits and some activists, however, continue to pound home the point that liberal candidates can succeed; and are, in fact, the only obstacle keeping Kentucky from future Republican dominance. They’ll get a perfect chance to prove that assertion next year, when Democrat voters go to the polls in May to choose a presidential nominee.

To hear national liberal crusaders tell it, Sen. Bernie Sanders is the perfect candidate. He wants to tax everyone into oblivion and then give free stuff to everybody. He’s represented Vermont in the Senate as an independent for years, but he’s an admitted socialist, which would seem to make him the ideal candidate for the Democratic National Committee. Sanders makes Hillary Clinton, herself a fairly radical liberal, look like a conservative.

If Kentucky Democrats are serious about their party needing more liberal candidates, then they should turn out in droves to nominate Sanders. But that’s not likely to happen. Sanders will be lucky to pull 25 percent of the vote in May, and Clinton will win the Kentucky primary in a landslide. And then she will lose in the general election despite her husband’s sustained popularity here and despite the support of the state’s leading Democrats like Grimes and Greg Stumbo.

Democrats are losing their grip on power in Kentucky for several reasons. Not being liberal enough is not one of them. Much of the electorate’s dissatisfaction with them stems from their failure to move Kentucky forward despite decades of control. A sudden lurch to the left isn’t going to fix what’s wrong with their party or their policies.

As Kentucky Democrats lose power, Stumbo loses grip on reality

After Republican Simeon Willis left office as Kentucky’s governor in December 1947, Democrats began to obtain a stranglehold on political power in the state.

Two decades later, Louie Nunn was elected as a Republican, but he governed as a Democrat, which many think contributed to the GOP’s exile to the desert of Kentucky’s politics for an even longer period of time. Nunn’s backing of an increase in the state sales tax from three to five cents spawned the derisive term “Nunn’s Nickel” and the unflattering nickname “Nickel Louie.” One might say that Nunn was Kentucky’s first RINO (Republican In Name Only).

Between 1971, when Nunn left office, and 2003, when Ernie Fletcher became the state’s first governor in 32 years, Democrats consolidated power in state government. The Frankfort bureaucracy was stocked with fellow travelers and like-minded workers. For most of those 32 years, Democrats had unchecked power. Not until 1999, when Republicans took control of the state Senate, were there any restraints on what the Democrats did.

During those three decades, absolute power corrupted absolutely. Democrats came to see control of the state as their birthright, and they didn’t take kindly to threats to their authority. The hostility they showed Fletcher was a prime example. But now, the challenges to the entrenched power structure are coming faster and more frequently than ever before. And the old-line Democrats don’t know how to respond, except to lash out as they see their power eroding.

Since Republicans took control of the Senate and Fletcher ended the 32-year drought in gubernatorial victories, the GOP has been steadily gaining traction. Voter registration figures, once solidly in the Democrats’ corner by nearly a 2:1 margin, have trended solidly for the GOP. The figure is now about 1.3:1 and is inching closer to 50-50 each year. Republicans are gaining ground in wresting control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats. And last month, the state again elected a Republican governor in Matt Bevin.

Bevin’s upset victory over Attorney General Jack Conway has really threatened the Democrats’ power. And no one is showing the stress of that threat more than House Speaker Greg Stumbo.

Stumbo first showed signs of losing it on Election Night, when he delivered a bizarre rant that mixed religion and politics in a way that I thought was anathema to Democrats. He basically said the Republicans don’t have a monopoly on morality and called on Democrats to challenge them. His comments led many to wonder if perhaps he hadn’t been at the hotel bar drowning his sorrows before he took to the stage.

The rant would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. As long as Democrats continue to support legalized abortion as a voluntary method of birth control, they have no moral authority whatsoever on any subject. And Stumbo’s own personal track record further undermines his credibility.

If Election Night was bad for Stumbo, things have only gotten worse since. State Rep. Denny Butler, a retired police officer, announced he was switching to the Republican Party, and he said it was largely because House leadership – meaning Stumbo – had not been attentive to his concerns about law enforcement issues. Stumbo didn’t say much then, but when Bevin appointed Rep. John Tilley to a cabinet position, the speaker went off. He began questioning the integrity of both Tilley and Butler, both of whom had enjoyed stellar reputations across partisan aisles. He accused them of selling out, hinted at criminal activity, and railed at Bevin and the state GOP for offering improper inducements. Although most Democrats appeared to be pleased with Tilley’s hiring, calling him a good fit for the job, Stumbo couldn’t be gracious enough to congratulate him. And although Stumbo denied any knowledge of the distasteful stunt someone pulled by placing a “For Sale” sign on Tilley’s House chambers desk, his protests rang hollow.

And all of this was before Bevin last week appointed another Democrat lawmaker, Tonya Pullin, to an administrative law judge position.

There was always the possibility that some Democrats, sensing the inevitable, would change their party registrations in advance of next year’s House elections. Besides Butler, there’s talk that possibly a half-dozen more will switch. The possibility of the Bevin administration giving more jobs to House Democrats also looms.

Kentucky Republicans have made no secret that they want to “Flip the House” in next year’s elections. That’s a goal of both Bevin and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. But even with state government trending Republican, it’s not a done deal. Two Republican representatives (Mike Harmon and Ryan Quarles) were elected to statewide office, and Democrats are expected to try very hard to win those seats when the special elections occur. There’s no guarantee that Republicans can win the special elections to replace Tilley and Pullin, since Democrats dominate voter registration figures in their districts. But Republicans sense blood in the water. They think a combination of party changes and electoral victories will give them control of the House to go along with the Senate and the Governor’s Office, giving them a chance to move Kentucky forward after decades of stagnation and regression.

State GOP leaders hope to challenge every incumbent they feel is vulnerable. In my own district, a Republican retired educator is planning to take on a first-term incumbent and is already at work on the campaign trail.

Republicans running against incumbent Democrats need to make Stumbo’s speakership an issue, especially given his classless remarks since the gubernatorial election. They need to publicly challenge sitting Democrats to denounce and condemn Stumbo, and to distance themselves from him. They need to ask those sitting legislators if they are comfortable with Stumbo being the leader of their chamber and their party.

I still can’t believe that Stumbo was ever able to become House speaker. After giving up the attorney general’s office for an ill-fated run for lieutenant governor, Stumbo strong-armed his hand-picked replacement in the General Assembly into stepping down so he could regain his seat. Then he somehow managed to wrest control of the chamber from Jody Richards. While I never thought much of Richards’ politics, I never heard a disparaging word said about him as a person. He certainly doesn’t have the well-known baggage that Stumbo does. That the Democrats would choose someone like Stumbo over a person of Richards’ character doesn’t speak well of their judgment. They should be made to pay a political price, and if Stumbo continues to come unhinged as he sees his power evaporating, they’ll have even more to try to excuse or defend.

Most of Kentucky’s leading Democrats have accepted their political losses with some dignity. Jack Conway and Adam Edelen have been classy in defeat. But Stumbo is part of the old line of Kentucky Democrats who have held power for decades and don’t want to give it up. Expect more meltdowns from him as control continues to slip from his grasp.