A new website (firethelobbyists.com) has been created by the pro-campaign finance reform organization Campaign Money Watch, to convince Senator McCain to fire three lobbyists in the top levels of his organization that have lobbied for ruthless dictators. You may recall that over the past two days, two McCain aides have resigned because of their willingness to do public relations work for the Burmese Junta.

Ahh, working for the public good. It must feel so refreshing.

Of course, turn over any stone in The McCain Campaign, and one can only guess what might come crawling out. It turns out that they have even more friends in low places. I contacted David Donnelly, Director of Campaign Money Watch, for a comment. He explained what his group is trying to accomplish:

John McCain ought to immediately fire three lobbyists — Charlie Black, Tom Loeffler, and Peter Madigan — whose lobbying for brutal dictators and foreign governments is every bit as bad as the two lobbyists who left his campaign over the weekend. Frankly, McCain’s campaign is turning out to be an effort of, by, and for these types of Washington influence peddlers. His credentials as a reformer are gone.

Pretty strong words. Yet, if you read what this triad of McCain lobbyists have been up to, perhaps not strong enough. It ain’t pretty:

Charlie Black, McCain’s senior counsel and spokesman, began his lobbying career by representing numerous dictators and repressive regimes

Black’s firm represented the governor

Read the rest of this entry »

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Who would of thought, right here in Red State Kentucky people would line up for blocks to to see Barack Obama?
I can tell you it occurred and and I have photos and video to prove it.
Click here to view photos of regular folks going to the Obama event.
The event attracted so many Kentucky folks that a 1000 seat overflow was set up with closed circuit TV, but that was not enough. Some folks still had to be turned away.
I’m a 68 year old man and I’m here to tell you that what occurred here in Kentucky was a “Happening“, or as a person my age might call a “Hootenanny” bigger and better than anything I’ve ever seen here in Kentucky!!!!
I have put together videos of the event, Congressman Ben Chandler speaking at the event and a short edited version of Barack Obama speaking at the event. Click here to view the entire speech.
A special thanks to all the folks that helped this lowly Kentucky blogger get a press pass to the event.
Today, I’m one very proud Kentuckian!!!!!!!
Enjoy

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Hillary Clinton squeaks by in Indiana with a 51 to 49 win and loses by 14 points  in North Carolina.
Last night  Tim Russert  said “We now know who the Democratic nominee will be.” He added: “The Clintons have a big decision to make in the morning.”
I believe Tim Russert has it right. This race is over!!!!

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Elderly nuns in South Bend, IN were turned away from their polling place today, thanks to Indiana’s GOP-backed voter ID law. (h/t: Crooks & Liars)

Anti-choice activists contend that 20% of American women are “murderers.” (h/t: Feministing)

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Roger Hickey has a great post at ourfuture.org on the “dangerous fraud” that is John McCain’s healthcare plan. As I point out ad nauseam in The Real McCain, McCain’s positions are not simply fraudulent. The “straight-talker” rarely limits himself to simple dishonesty.

First, read the email The McCain Campaign sent out today on this issue:

My Friends,

Today, there are 47 million uninsured individuals in the U.S., and nearly a quarter of them are children. High costs and limited access are the underlying, fundamental problems in our healthcare system.

As you know, both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are touting outrageously expensive and unrealistic universal health care plans - a government monopoly over health care.

Unlike my opponents, I do not believe that all of our nation’s problems can be solved by turning control over to our government, with all the tax increases, new mandates and government regulation that come with that idea.

Today, our campaign began running a television ad focused on health care - that you can view by following this link - to ensure all Americans hear the truth about how I plan to tackle the challenges facing our nation’s health care system. To ensure this important ad is aired in as many markets as possible, I’m asking for your immediate financial assistance.

I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health care system to the patients themselves. Americans need new choices beyond those offered in employment-based coverage.

That’s why, as president, I will seek to encourage and expand the benefits of Health Savings Accounts, tax-preferred accounts that are used to pay insurance premiums and other health costs. These accounts put the family in charge of what they pay for.

In addition, I will reform the tax code to provide every family the option of receiving a direct, refundable tax deposit - effectively $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 cash for families to offset the cost of insurance.

The reality is that both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, in their haste to garner support for their so-called “solutions,” are promising more than they can deliver. And, once again, they are simply out-of-touch with the real problems facing our health care system and how to solve them.

Here are the facts: Under the Democrats’ plan, we will have all the problems, and more, of the current health care system - rigid rules, long waits and lack of choices - and we risk degrading the system’s great strengths and advantages, including the innovation and life-saving technology that make American medicine the most advanced in the world.

My friends, this is not my definition of real reform. I hope you will join me in my fight to tackle the real problems facing our nation’s health care system by making a contribution of $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000, or $2,300 to help fund this important ad.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

John McCain

A good rule of thumb: When John McCain says “my friends,” start looking for a bomb shelter. Another good rule of thumb when McCain utters this trite phrase: Dishonesty is about to morph into full scale hypocrisy.

Here is a man who has been on government healthcare his entire life (daddy was an Admiral)–all seven decades–who dares deride it by saying, “Unlike my opponents, I do not believe that all of our nation’s problems can be solved by turning control over to our government… .”

No, only his own healthcare is worthy of that.

In case you missed McCain’s position: Government healthcare is good enough to pay his hospital bills–with your “taxes” to quote him–but it is not good enough for the rest of us–oh and by the way, can you spare $1000 “my friends?” That means a lot coming from a guy who enjoys lounging at 8 different houses on his wife’s inherited dime, and laughably calls other candidates “elitist.”

With straight talk like that, who needs mendacity?

Cliff Schecter is the author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn’t. Every time you buy a copy (for only $10!), an angel gets their wings.

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Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, Sr. did the right thing in 1947 and , in my opinion, his grandson Ben Chandler did the right thing today.
I was proud of Happy Chandler in 1947 and I was proud of Ben today. For me, it was a good day to be a Kentuckian!!!!

Congressman John Yarmuth introducing Ben Chandler.

Congressman Ben Chandler endorsing Barack Obama.

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(Cross posted at Hillbilly Report)
Fired up and ready to go at a Barack Obama Campaign Organizational Meeting right smack dab in the middle of Red State Kentucky in the city of Radcliff.

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I don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows “Bob Dylan” and I don’t need political pundits to know that 16 years of Bush and Clinton are enough!
The winds blowing across Washington DC and into the heartland are putrid and I don’t need an environmentalist or an economist to know they are toxic and killing the American way of life.
The media and the DC politicians have a real problem and the problem is Barack Obama! Barack Obama is fresh, new, full of hope and they just can’t stand it and I don’t need the media to tell me the real issues will not be addressed on their outlets.
I don’ need a Lobbyist to tell me torture is ok, the Iraq war is a good thing, kicking folks out of their homes is a market thing, Brownie did a good job, devaluing the dollar will be good for us, 47 million Americans without healthcare insurance is OK, there is no global food crisis, and the National Debt is just a way of doing business.
All I need a new President of the United States of America that will represent me and that’s Barack Obama!!!!!!

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(Cross posted at Hillbilly Report)
I needed a break from the all the bullshit politics and decided to have a little fun so I put together the video below using clips from a movie I remember seeing as a child, “Annie Get Your Gun” and used a few of my Obama and Hillary clips and put together something lighthearted.
Jim

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Who woulda thought here in “Red State” Kentucky whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, straights, gays, males, females and folks of every religion would have gathered in the hundreds to celebrate the opening of a campaign headquarters of a black man running for president of the United States of America, In Lexington, Kentucky. Well I’m here to tell you it occurred and I have photos and video to prove it.
Click here to view the photos I took and view the video below.

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Interesting. Gov. Mike Hukabee (R) is doing very well against Sen. John McCain (R), the presumptive GOP nominee, in Kansas, Louisiana, and Washington state.

As I’m writing at 2am ET, the only contest that McCain has a chance of winning is Washington, and if he wins it, it won’t be with much more than 26 percent of the vote. That’s not a resounding victory for a man whose coronation too place this week among the GOP elite.

I find it fascinating — and perhaps very telling — that the week that deeply embedded establishment GOP figures like our very own Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) “rallied” (however sheepishly) around McCain as the Republican standard bearer for November, the rank and file of the Republican party has undoubtedly decided it’s not going to follow the top’s lead.

And, you know, the Republican party enjoys and indeed revels in its reputation for having a legion of party members who do what they’re told, when they’re told.

Now, what’s likely happening here is that many GOPers around the nation are simply disgusted with their choices in the primary and especially with certain prospect of McCain as the nominee. Thus, with these “mainstream” Republican voters being so mentally anguished and not turning out to the polls as a result, the determining factor in these Republican elections is coming down to dedication. And Huckabee is picking up — and will continue to pick up — a sizable portion of those the dedicated Republicans.

The GOP, in other words, is going to have big problems with the democratic process over the spring, I suspect. It’s not that the process is going to defeat McCain. That’s very unlikely to happen. It’s just that the whole process is going to humiliate McCain. That’s the problem. It’s going to make him appear weak to the world. He’s already won the nomination, and he can’t finish off this foe. It’s really embarrassing.

There is great dissatisfaction right now among rank-and-file Republicans for sure, and I’m quite gleeful about that.

There’s a similar dissatisfaction plaguing Kentucky Democrats, or a significant element thereof, and that is a circumstance that does not make be gleeful. It concern me, in fact.

Larry Dale Keeling of the Herald-Leader picked up on it in his February 4 column (be sure to read the whole thing, if you haven’t already; it’s excellent):

[…]

That “non-endorsement” endorsement Beshear gave Bruce Lunsford in the Senate primary was also a mistake. Lunsford’s wealth makes him the instant favorite in the race. All Beshear’s statement did was needlessly alienate supporters of other D candidates.

###

There have been so many mistakes by the Kentucky Democrats since Beshear was inaugurated in December.

Mistakes are forgivable, of course, especially in these early stages (when they are to be expected), but what’s really disheartening is that these mistakes are revealing two unfortunate qualities about the present Democratic leadership.

First, it’s not learning from its mistakes. Second, it has no interest in leadership, only holding onto power.

The Democratic Leadership simply doesn’t understand the dynamic of how the political landscape in the state is evolving, internally or relative to the nation.

Essentially, a lot of these state Democrats assumed that they could play nice with the burgeoning progressive wing of the party in 2007, then immediately move hard to the right once back in power and governing.

By moving to the right so aggressively, these Democrats assuage the state’s conservative cultural warriors that the Kentucky Democratic party is on their side.

In short, the KDP pays lips service to progressive causes, and give full service to conservative causes.

And, this strategy of pandering to Kentucky’s basest cultural elements — like the anti-choice legislation that passed with massive Democratic support in the state senate, or the ban on same-sex partner benefits at state universities that similarly enjoyed the eager support of Democrats — will almost certainly work in the short term.

But it’s not a strategy that works in the long term. In the long term Kentucky as a state loses on economic, educational, and cultural terms. Why? Because when you treat people who are bigots, hate-mongers, sexists, anti-intellectual, and anti-science as if their creeds are legitimate pathways to a prosperous future, you lose.

That’s a fact. Kentucky has played nice with churlishness for more than a century now, and Kentucky has lost in the process. We are poorer, dumber, and all around less dynamic as a people and state because we’ve empowered and placed a strange prestige and honor on redneck culture.

And, as some of our more prosperous neighboring states have shown, having state government dominated by political conservatism doesn’t necessitate that it embrace backwards-looking redneck culture. The difference is in which faction of conservatives dominates the government: pragmatic fiscal conservatives or crazy, foaming-at-the-mouth social conservatives who think the whole world should revolve around premillennialism.

And, in the long term the Democratic party of Kentucky will be deeply divided. Progressives won’t be so easily wooed next time. The enthusiasm likely won’t be there. And that leaves the door wide open for Republicans to reorganize and take advantage.

Progressives are being betrayed by their party. We’re not talking about isolated incidents of rightward movement here. We all understand that concessions must be made; there is such a thing as Realpolitik. Yet Kentucky Democratic leaders aren’t conceding to the right-wing on a need-to basis. They are leading the charge to the right.

Their movement is systematic, and it is a movement of their own initiative and design.

Who is the leader of Kentucky Democrats? I see leadership in people like Sen. Kathy Stein, Sen. Ernesto Scorsone, Rep. John Yarmuth. They are demonstrating consistency and gumption in their politics, and I’m sure they’ve made their fair share of concessions in their political careers.

But when push come to shove, these sorts of leaders are at least looking to the future and are governed by principle.

Too many of their fellow elected Democrats are governed by fear of losing the power they’ve only recently regained, and in being so governed they are only setting their party up to lose it exactly so.

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(h/t: Think Progress)

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Sounding off Shawn’s comments about his frequency of posting (by the way, Shawn, best of luck in Iowa tomorrow, and happy birthday — Shawn had his birthday breakfast this morning with John Edwards), I have been a bit quiet on these pages the last few weeks.

Namely it’s because I have had lots of other deadlines to meet as of late for my employer and most recently it’s because I’m in rural Kentucky for the holidays where dial-up Internet connections make blogging pretty near impossible (well, painstaking at least). So, once again, I find myself thirty miles from home at a good old Panera Bread with a bottomless cup of coffee and free wireless.

And, while I’ve been home, I’ve been listening a lot to what local folks are talking about politically.

Interest seems to be really picking up in the Presidential race. Last week, the county weekly newspaper featured an op-ed from the minister of the local Christian Church. What was his concern? Mitt Romney (R), how he’s not a real conservative (or Christian), and how dangerous the “cult” of Mormonism is. This denomination, you’ll recall, is the same one that failed Kentucky Attorney General candidate and über-bigot Rep. Stan Lee (R) belongs to.

What’s humorous is that this Christian Church preacher is so, so oblivious to the history of his own religious tradition — Stone-Campbell Restorationism — that he’s unaware that a century ago it wasn’t uncommon to hear more “mainstream” churches call “Campbellites” like him cult members.

The other smear I’m hearing a lot of — and I mean a lot of — is the Barack Obama (D) is a covert Muslim and/or the anti-Christ. I’m hearing this from all corners of the fundamentalist religious community here.

My role as listener ends when I hear this one. There’s no sense in trying to reason with any person who would utter that silliness aloud. So, whenever I’ve had the chance, I’ve just told the person saying it that they’re an idiot.

Really. I just ask, “Do you believe that?” And if the answer is yes, then I just tell them they’re an idiot. I don’t see any point in trying to convince them otherwise; I just let them know that I think they’re an idiot.

We’ve talked here before (and the post was heavy on comments of affirmation, too) about the problems Kentucky has with the more churlish elements of its culture.

And these problems have only been made worse by the political machine and methods of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) and his minions. McConnell’s program to politically empower rednecks has been so successful that as of late it’s even threatened to get out of control of McConnell himself. You need only witness the rise and spectacular fall of the Ernie Fletcher faction of the KY GOP to see that.

McConnell’s brand of the GOP will implode (and is in the process of imploding). The GOP of the future will not look back on McConnell’s tenure as a party leader as some sort of golden era. McConnell and McConnellites will be the Dixiecrats of the 21st century.

But that doesn’t mean that McConnell’s politics and tactics can’t poison and cripple the culture of Kentucky for decades to come. And in a continent-sized nation with a population of 300 million, cultural strength factors significantly into economic prosperity. Over the course of a generation, dynamic minds and creative personalities will tend to be drawn to locales with more progressive outlooks. Birds of a feather flock together. If the future culture of Kentucky is dominated by a creed that thinks Kentucky’s internationally disgraced Creation Museum is science, then that future culture will not be one that supports a vibrant economy.

And, while it’s true that you’ll find backwards-looking people everywhere, Kentucky is one of the few states where they’re a serious political force, and we have McConnell to thank for that. For his short-term political gain, Mitch McConnell has turned the keys to the Porsche over to folks who literally don’t believe in the laws of physics.

One hopes that Kentucky’s political leaders — Democrats and Republicans alike — will find the courage and voice to one day call out these fundamentalist redneck types for what they really are: idiots.

One hopes.

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It was nice of Fred to check in and spew the usual propaganda.

It was equally nice of the fine folks at The Ohio News Network to seek out a fair and balanced comment from little old me…

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You’ll find indisputable proof that an investigation is needed in this video. Watch it! And then please go sign the petition to get the NYC City Council to take action.

There is already interest in this investigation in the city council. There just needs to be a bit of a push.

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We put this new short film together at Brave New Films, to show all the important things Rudy Giuliani was doing when skipping the Tavis Smiley debate on minority issues. Hope you enjoy it!

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In today’s New York Times, Pal Krugman sheds some light on the true impact of the Bush economy:

It’s true, as the Bushies never tire of reminding us, that the U.S. economy has added eight million jobs since that 2003 tax cut. That sounds impressive, unless you happen to know that a good part of that gain was simply a recovery from large job losses earlier in the administration’s tenure — and that the United States added no fewer than 21 million jobs after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich, a move that had conservative pundits predicting economic disaster.

What’s really remarkable, however, is that four years of economic growth have produced essentially no gains for ordinary American workers.

Wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated: the real hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers, the most widely used measure of how typical workers are faring, were no higher in July 2007 than they were in July 2003.

Meanwhile, benefits have deteriorated: the percentage of Americans receiving health insurance through employers, which plunged along with employment during the early years of the Bush administration, continued to decline even as the economy finally began creating some jobs.

And one of the few seeming bright spots of the Bush-era economy, rising homeownership, is now revealed as the result of a bubble inflated in part by financial flim-flam, which deceived both borrowers and investors.

Now you know why 66 percent of Americans rate economic conditions in this country as only fair or poor, and why Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy almost as strongly as they disapprove of the job he is doing in general.

Yet the overall economy has grown at a reasonable pace over the past four years. Where did the economic growth go? The answer is that it went to the same economic elite that received the lion’s share of those tax cuts.

Is anyone surprised at all by this? Here at DM-KY, we’ve highlighted several items which illustrate the hostility with which regular working Americans are treated by the GOP. McConnell and Co: we’re on to you and you should be very afraid.

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Special thanks to Joe Sonka over at Bluegrass Roots for getting us press passes. Thanks Joe!!!!!!