Minimum wage increase

Kentucky's minimum wage just went up.

That means the people at the fast-food joint are getting paid more to screw your order up.

Ain't it a wonderful world?

Mainstream press' leftward bias plays out in Lexington comics debate

Anyone who reads the Lexington Herald-Leader knows that the paper recently dropped two of its comics page stalwarts, "B.C." and "The Wizard of Id." The reason given by the paper was because the creators, Brant Parker and Johnny Hart, recently died.

Never mind that the two strips are continuing to be published with no disruption in service and no loss of quality. The Herald-Leader has decided to move on. They have been auditioning a number of decidedly non-funny comics recently, having decided on one replacement ("Get Fuzzy") and still looking for the second one.

The H-L received several requests to keep the two comics, and complaints about them were very rare, but apparently that doesn't matter. They have an agenda to promote, who cares what the populace thinks?

Why would the paper drop the two strips, even though they are still very popular and are being produced at the same level of quality by surviving family members who obviously inherited their fathers' talents?

Could it perhaps be the messages the strips contain?

Both comics, but especially "B.C.," frequently contain positive, Christian messages. In fact, you can always count on "B.C." to publish some uplifting piece around Easter or Christmas. There's no hatemongering or homophobia or any of the rest of the negatives frequently attributed to people of religion; just a happy, positive message of faith and salvation.

Meanwhile, the Herald-Leader continues to publish "Doonesbury," with its anti-conservative, anti-Republican, anti-American message, each day on the same pages that used to be graced with "B.C." and "Wizard." Many papers have moved "Doonesbury" to the editorial pages, but not the H-L.

Only one of us here at K-Pac 2 is a Herald-Leader subscriber, and he's been thinking seriously about dropping his subscription since the news items can be read online, and most of the comics can too. (One of us lives outside the circulation area, and yet another lives in the region but she says she reads the paper at work or borrows a copy from a friend or she reads online, saying "I won't give those socialist liberals one hard-earned dime of my money; I work too hard to subsidize their leftist agenda.")

The paper's keeping the never-ceasingly-negative "Doonesbury" while dropping "B.C." and "The Wizard of Id" just gives him another reason to save 20 bucks a month.

Never has the Herald-Leader's leftist liberal anti-Christian anti-conservative slant been so apparent as in this decision.

At least they're reading this...

What a surprise it was to see our humble little blog quoted in Joseph Gerth's "Political Notebook" column in today's Courier-Journal.

We weren't mentioned by name, but that's OK. Mr. Gerth lifted our quote from the Idiots 4 Beshear post from last week about the possibility of an e-mail address for a supposed "Republicans For Beshear" group being a way for a Fletcher supporter to find out who's going to be a turncoat from the GOP ranks this fall.

At least now we know that some of the more influential mainstream reporters are being exposed to the truth here.

And as such, we have a little friendly advice for you: DO YOUR JOBS!!!!!!!

Why don't you stop getting stuff spoonfed from Steve Beshear and Greg Stumbo, and instead do a little work and report the truth behind the investigation?

Why not pursue the story that Doug Doerting misled Transportation officials into thinking their personnel actions were proper, and then turning whistleblower out of spite that the governor didn't recall them going to high school together?

Why not probe the obvious conflict of interest that arose from grand jury members sitting in judgment of administration officials who had harmed them financially by not including 5 percent annual raises in each of the last two biennial budgets?

Why not try to locate some of the "John Y. Retirees" who were illegally fired during the Brown administration while then-AG Beshear sat on his hands and did nothing?

These are real stories, blockbuster stories, but the only place they've been reported is here -- at least the first two stories; The Conservative Edge has been all over the "John Y. Retiree" deal and other blogs have picked it up.

You guys are reading. We now have proof of that. You have been presented with starting points for a couple of huge stories that would shake up the conventional wisdom in this state.

Put aside your anti-Fletcher and anti-conservative biases just long enough to report the truth. Make an attempt to present balanced journalism. You'll find this state will be grateful for that effort.

For as long as you continue to pump out the anti-Fletcher copy and don't balance it with truthful accounts that give another side of the story, your credibility on all subjects is suspect, much as the integrity of the special grand jury can be questioned because of the financial conflicts of several of its members. And we think you might find a little balance in your news gathering and reporting might help the bottom lines at your corporations, too.

Waste, fraud and abuse

Check out this e-mail we got from a reader. We checked the author's credibility and found it to be rock-solid. This is a good look into the attitudes that permeate state government.

"I work in a state office outside Frankfort. In the past week or so I've noticed a lot of delivery trucks at our office and they have been unloaded boxes by the dozens. Not a day goes by that we don't have a couple of deliveries.

"The other day I noticed a lady who works there taking a few empty boxes with her. This lady is a longtime employee who definitely predates the Fletcher administration and was hired by the Democrats. I asked her if she was moving and she said no, that they were just boxing a few things up. I made the comment that I had seen a lot of deliveries lately and there should be a lot of empty boxes available, and she said yes, that they were trying to spend all the money in the budget before the end of the fiscal year. She said that any unspent money gets turned back in and the budget for next year would get cut.

"This strikes me as an excellent example of waste and abuse. Maybe not fraud, but definitely the other two. Spending more money that you need to just to keep the budget from being reduced next year? Come to find out this is a longstanding practice in state government and the Democrats who are embedded in the bureaucracy are continuing that practice despite the efforts of the administration to cut back on wasteful spending.

"We have enough pens and paper clips to last us for three years, and the sad part is, next June they'll do it all over again.

"This goes hand-in-hand with something that happened to me last summer when I had to go to Frankfort for something. One of the merit employees, who predated the Fletcher administration, was griping about spending and budget restrictions. His words were, 'Our boss is a Republican and he wants us to account for where every penny goes.'

"Funny, but I thought that was a sound management practice, not something to complain about. But I think it points out pretty well the differences between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to government spending, and even more so, how many roadblocks the Democrats in the merit system have put in front of the Fletcher administration's policies and procedures."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. We're frustrated that the Fletcher administration has not been able to get these rogue Democrats in the merit system under control. If they were going to be indicted for personnel violations, they should have really done something noteworthy and fired half the state workforce and replaced them with conservatives who value and treasure taxpayer dollars, instead of squandering them just because they're in the budget. Now THAT would have eliminated a lot of waste, fraud and abuse.

Idiots 4 Beshear

Last week, someone spammed several political blogs with an announcement that a group of "Republicans For Beshear" was being formed, and an e-mail address was provided. (We aren't going to repeat it here.)

At this point no one knows if this is a legitimate effort, or an ingenious move by an intrepid Fletcher supporter trying to get the names of would-be traitors in the GOP ranks.

If the latter, that's a pretty clever ploy.

But if it's the former, then they ought to change their name to "Idiots For Beshear."

No right-thinking Republican should even give a passing thought to voting for or supporting Beshear. Beshear is a classic liberal and at the same time he manages to be a retread and a throwback to the bad old days of the Democrats' stranglehold on Kentucky government.

The primary is over, and just a little reminder, Ernie Fletcher didn't pick that primary fight. Others did and he was forced to defend his position. Any grudge you may have against him is of your own making, not his.

Fletcher's been under attack from the Democrats for long enough. It was bad enough that fellow Republicans joined the attack during the primary. But Fletcher was re-nominated and now it's time for his opponents to get back on board.

You are either with Ernie Fletcher or you are with the Kentucky Democratic Party and its candidates and party philosophy.

And they wonder why we're losing jobs to Mexico

One of the few good things that has been accomplished for Kentucky during our decades of suffering under Democrat rule has been the recruitment of the Toyota factory to Georgetown. We'll give Martha Layne Collins credit for that, but it's one of the few accomplishments any Democrat Kentucky governor can point to with pride.

Toyota has provided a large number of good jobs and has been an excellent corporate citizen for the Commonwealth. People will carpool from as far away as Magoffin and Floyd counties every day because the pay is so good. It's worth the time on the road and the gas expense for these people to drive down the Mountain Parkway every day.

That's why the latest attempt to demonize Toyota by something called Kentucky Jobs With Justice is a bit puzzling.

This group wants Toyota to quit using temporary workers, at half the pay of the permanent employees. What they don't want you to know is that at $13 an hour or so, those temps are doing a whole lot better than a lot of full-time folks at a lot of other places.

This hostility toward a corporation that makes a positive economic and cultural contribution to Kentucky is beyond all logic. People wonder why the United States is losing jobs to Mexico? This is a prime example. If a company is going to pay above-average wages and yet people aren't satisfied and want more more more, it's not hard to get the impression that Kentucky isn't business-friendly.

We certainly don't want to see Toyota close the Georgetown plant and move its operations south of the border. Yet we certainly wouldn't blame them as long as efforts continue to cast Toyota as a malevolent entity in the Bluegrass.

Cry us a Rio Grande

Today's Lexington Herald-Leader spends more than 100 column inches crying about how those poor little illegal alien high school students can't go any further with their education because they can't get financial aid because they don't have Social Security numbers.

Cry us a river.

They are ILLEGALLY HERE, for Christ's sake. Each minute they are in this country, they are in continued violation of federal law. Each time they take to the highways of this state without a driver's licence because they don't have a SSN, they break the law.

Waaahhhhh!!!!!

No sympathy here. If these illegal immigrants (or "undocumented aliens," as the mainstream press wants to call them in a sanitized version of the truth) want benefits, then let them go back to Mexico and apply for citizenship and come here legally.

And while we're on the subject of illegal immigrants, Mitch McConnell ought to be thanking his lucky stars that the absolutely horrible immigration bill died in the Senate yesterday. If it had been approved with McConnell's support, he might have been staring a primary election opponent in the face next year. Conservative Republicans absolutely oppose amnesty and McConnell (who's already on thin ice with many of them regarding the Ernie Fletcher situation) woud not have endeared himself to his party's base in Kentucky had the bill passed.

How long before faith becomes a bar to public service?

Dr. James Holsinger has acquitted himself well at the University of Kentucky Medical Center and also within the administration of Gov. Fletcher. So much so that he is now the nominee for surgeon general of the United States.

Upon the announcment of his nomination, even Kentucky's liberal daily newspapers sang his praises and editorialized on what a great choice he was.

But when the news broke that (gasp) Dr. Holsinger holds strong Christian views, the world stopped turning. Our least favorite no-longer-in-Kentucky blogger and his merry band of sycophants proclaimed him a national embarassment and another stain on Kentucky's reputation.

All because Dr. Holsinger subscribes to the Biblical view that homosexual activity is a sin, and he has commented on the unsafe health risks associated with male homosexual contact.

Suddenly, his medical credentials are crap. He's a raving ideologue who will let his faith override his scientific judgment. Presidential wannabe Barack Obama is going to use Holsinger's nomination as a platform on which to grandstand when confirmation hearings get underway.

This treatment of Holsinger and other prominent people who are strong believers in the Christian faith (including Gov. Fletcher) makes us wonder just how long it will be before being a person of faith, and particularly of the Christian fath, automatically becomes an exclusionary factor for public service?

Will it be improper to have decided views on right and wrong? Will having an absolute view on morality as something that is not an individual choice be an automatic disqualifier if you want to run for office or be appointed to a policy-making position?

Let's watch what happens to Dr. Holsinger. Oftentimes the character of an individual can be determined by the identity of his or her enemies. If this is the case, Dr. Holsinger (and, too, Dr./Gov. Fletcher) have been identified as above reproach, considering who they're going against.

Ernie Fletcher proved right again

Gov. Fletcher's enemies, both within the Republican Party and the Democrats, have been critical of his decision not to release the names of donors to his legal defense fund until he is legally required to do so. One of the reasons he cites is that he does not want to subject those donors to politically-motivated retribution from outgoing Attorney General Greg Stumbo, whose term will be over before disclosure is required.

Those who laughed off Fletcher's worries should take note that Stumbo is now investigating the posting of Patton administration phone messages for Crit Luallen by Brett Hall at kypolitics.org.

Through an anonymous source, Hall obtained messages taken for Luallen when she was Paul Patton's executive cabinet secretary. He caused a flap when he posted a message from former Patton staffer and current Democrat AG nominee Jack Conway that referred to former Congresswoman Anne Northup as "a bitch."

Upset that their dirty laundry was exposed in public, Conway and Luallen have been screaming bloody murder, and now they are getting their crony Stumbo to investigate what is really much ado about nothing.

Instead of getting upset over Hall publishing the phone messages. Luallen probably should take steps to ensure that her ex-employees remain loyal to her.

However this whole thing turns out, we think it proves Fletcher's point that Stumbo is motivated by politics for most everything he does, and that there is a real fear of retribution from the AG's office against those who want to help Fletcher (who is not a rich man) pay the legal bills he amassed from two years of defending himself against Stumbo's power play attempt to wrest control of the state back from Republicans and put it back into Democrat hands, where he and other like-minded folks believe it belongs by birthright.