Wednesday, November 26, 2008

"Valeria from Lexington, Ky."

Shortly before the 5 p.m. EST hour on Tuesday, Sean Hannity took a call on his radio show from a woman who identified herself as "Valeria from Lexington, Ky." She was very hostile and argumentative toward Hannity, and basically was angry at him for doing something on one-tenth the scale of what liberals have been doing to President Bush and conservatives for the past eight years.

Valeria from Lexington sounded suspiciously like Valeria Cummings, former WKYT-TV reporter and anchor and now one of the liars and spinners employed by the public relations department of the Beshear administration, specifically Finance Secretary Jonathan Miller.

If so, let's hope that Valeria Cummings doesn't talk to Kentucky reporters the same way that Valeria from Lexington talked to Hannity.

It's funny to watch the leftists squirm when Hannity and other conservative commentators point out truisms about B. Hussein Obama, yet they continue to exhibit symptoms of Bush Derangement Syndrome right up until Bush's term comes to an end in a couple of months. Haranguing Hannity for telling the truth about Obama and his relationship with terrorists and radicals and anti-American racists, while at the same time being part of the "Bush lied and people died" crowd, just won't cut it.

If anyone can confirm that Hannity's caller was indeed Valeria Cummings, please let us know. We'll immediately call on Miller to fire her for being ignorant and a liar.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Riding the Santa Train: Something our lead blogger wants to do before he dies

Although we are anonymous bloggers, we've never made a secret of that fact that we are, indeed, a "we." Yes, we use the "editorial we" here but this blog is a collaborative effort and represents private sector employees, state employees, teachers, news reporters, stay-at-home housewives, religious folks, retirees, veterans, and others who fit into too many categories to catalog.

However, we do have one chief writer who gathers the consensus of the collaborators and does most of the posting here. He's a male and there are a few things he wants to do before he dies.

High on his list is to ride the Santa Train, which makes its annual run tomorrow from Pikeville to Kingsport, Tenn.

Started years ago by the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce to promote the city as a Christmas shopping destination, the Santa Train makes several stops in Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee along its route. Presents will be handed out to hundreds of children, many of whom may not get much more for the holiday given the area's economic situation.

With the advent of modern highway systems, Kingsport is only about a 90-minute drive from Pikeville (much closer than Lexington, Ashland-Huntington and Charleston). Our chief writer has made the drive along US Route 23 in southwestern Virginia dozens of times during all four seasons and he never ceases to be amazed at how scenic the area is. He can only imagine what the ride would be like along the rail line, especially with all the stops in the small towns along the route.

This year, country singer Kathy Mattea is riding the train. She's a native of West Virginia, not too far from Pikeville as the crow flies. One of us is quite envious of what she'll be doing tomorrow and wishes he could join her. Perhaps someday he'll attempt to get a press pass as a freelance writer (he is otherwise employed) and ride along.

Those who want to be critical of the business community need to step back and take a look. Yes, the Santa Train promotes Kingsport retailers, but it also spreads Christmas cheer and holiday goodwill to many. Kudos to them for making so many people happy for so many years.

(And if anyone associated with the Santa Train happens to read this and wants to offer a press pass for future years, our e-mail address is ky_pac2@yahoo.com and we will gladly accept an invitation to ride along next or any other year).

Rumored KDP changes: Good for Dems or blessing in disguise for RPK?

We admit to not being fans of Jacob Payne at Page One Kentucky. We don't like the way he deletes comments, bans commenters and tries to out anonymous posters when they challenge his opinions or assertions or voice disagreement with him. And we also don't agree with his sexual politics, which way too often rise to front and center on his blog.

But we will begrudgingly give him credit for breaking some stories that the old-fashioned media didn't get around to until later. (Hey, we've done the same thing yet no one seems to care. Perhaps that's because the stories we present as exclusives tend to be those embarrassing tales about Democrats that their protectors in the old-fashioned press don't want to cover. Where else, for instance, have you read the names of any of the members of the special grand jury in the personnel investigation besides here? But that's a lament for another day).

One of the things Payne's been reporting for several weeks now is that during tomorrow's state Democrat committee meeting, Jennifer Moore will be ousted as state party chair and other leaders will be shown the door as well. (However, statements by Beshear administration insiders and party officials in the last few days contradict that prediction).

Payne has also reported that the KDP will hire a professional executive director and the successful candidate will be found in a nationwide search and probably not be a Kentuckian.

Democrats are upset that B. Hussein Obama did not carry Kentucky, they failed to oust Sen. Mitch McConnell, and they made no headway in picking up congressional and state legislature seats. They blame the party leadership and think a change at the top is necessary.

While Payne and others of like mind may think an outsider as executive director might be just what the KDP needs, the reality is that such a move is likely to backfire and play into the hands of Kentucky Republicans, who are pleased to have held their own in this fall's elections and are looking forward to 2010 and beyond.

The last thing Kentucky's Democrat apparatus needs to do is shift further to the left. Should this happen, Kentucky Republicans stand to make great gains.

The reason John McCain beat Obama in Kentucky is not because Kentuckians are racists, as Payne proclaims at every opportunity while banning posters to his blog who claim otherwise. The reason is that Kentucky Democrats are much more conservative than Democrats in places such as New York, California and Massachusetts, both socially and fiscally, and Obama was too liberal for them.

People like Payne, Joe Sonka at Barefoot and Progressive, and BluegrassRoots posters like "Yellow Dog" and "RDemocrat" and "SarahG" are not representative of Kentuckians at large. (Not to mention the whole bunch at Ditch Mitch.) If an outside administrator is imported to run the KDP, no doubt people like those just mentioned will press him or her to move the party leftward.

That would be a disaster for the KDP and a blessing for the RPK, who would most certainly make welcome those offended and disgusted by the liberal shift. Hopefully, in the coming year when there are no elections on the calendar, the RPK will be making a major push to convince conservative Democrats to leave the party that doesn't espouse their beliefs and join the Republicans.

A campaign to move the KDP in that direction would be a blessing for Republican recruitment effort.

Maybe Jennifer Moore is incompetent. We don't know. We tend to think that being a Democrat is both a sign of ignorance or stupidity (or both) and a character flaw on top of that. But if Democrats want to alienate their own, they're better off angering people like Payne and Sonka and the pseudonymic out-of-touch libs at BGR than the vast majority of registered Democrats. Kentucky isn't California, and Louisville isn't San Francisco. That should be Lesson One for the KDP hierarchy going forward.

A KDP leader brought in from out of state? Please, don't throw us Republicans in that briar patch!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Dear Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy

Dear DPA,

Marco Chapman has decided he wants to die for his crimes. He has rejected your help and your legal assistance. He doesn't want it; he wants you to stop interfering with his decision. He has been judged to be competent to make his own decisions.

So please quit wasting state taxpayer dollars filling appeals on his behalf that he doesn't want. Respect his wishes in this time of state budget shortfalls and just let him die.

Sincerely,

Kentucky Taxpayers

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

House Dems may get visit from the ghost of Dana Stephenson

If you follow either the old-fashioned media or blogs from both sides, you are probably familiar with the situation concerning a Kentucky House of Representatives race in Hardin County. The controversy stems from a voting machine malfunction and how it was dealt with by precinct officials (two from each party) and by the Democratic county clerk.

In the 26th District, incumbent Republican Tim Moore defeated challenger Mike Weaver, who was trying to win back a seat in the House after unsuccessfully running for Congress two years ago. The election was close, but Moore prevailed. However, due to the voting machine problem, there's a very real threat that an attempt will be made to throw out all of the votes cast in the precinct in question. That would tip the election in Weaver's favor.

Contested elections for General Assembly seats are decided by the chamber involved. It's being anticipated that if the results of the 26th District race are certified as they stand, the election of the Republican Moore will be challenged in the House, where the Democrat majority would most likely rule in Weaver's favor. In other words, the fix is in and the Democrats prove once again that they find irresistible the temptation to steal an election.

But not so fast. Remember the last time the possibility of a contested election being decided in a chamber of the legislature was being discussed?

In a state Senate race a few years ago, Republican Dana Stephenson (daughter of Republican State Sen. Dan Seum) had her eligibility challenged due to residency issues. Senate President David Williams stated at the time that the Senate could make whatever decision it wished in the matter, regardless of what a court said about her eligibility.

That didn't last long. A court ruled Stephenson did not meet residency requirements and rather than challenge that decision all the way to the state Supreme Court, contest it in the Senate, or give a full vetting to the concept of "dual residency," she dropped her challenged, bowed out gracefully, and a special election was held.

(It should be noted that the lawyer for challenger Virginia Woodward, a young woman named Jennifer Moore, parlayed that court victory into winning the chairmanship of the Kentucky Democratic Party).

So in the end it was a court, not the Senate, that ended up deciding how that election turned out.

Could the same scenario play out in the 26th District House race? Don't be surprised if it does. And also don't be surprised if the Democrats' attempt to steal a win after the final horn has sounded gets shut down by the courts, no matter what House Speaker Jody Richards and the House Democrats attempt.

The court's decision held sway in the Stephenson Senate matter, no reason to think it wouldn't do the same in the Moore/Weaver matchup.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Democrats: The party of censors, nationally and in Kentucky

Republicans and conservatives get a bad rap for being censors.

It's true that many conservatives would like to limit the availability of pornography that degrades women and animalizes sex, but doing something to benefit society at large by crusading against something that has no valid artistic or editorial content and is designed to appeal only to prurient interests, and does nothing to advance the discussion of ideas, is not necessarily a bad thing.

During the presidential campaign, Democrats tried to make an issue of censorship by falsely accusing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of trying to ban books in her local library when she was mayor of Wasilla. When the news came out that some of the books she was accused of allegedly trying to ban hadn't even been published when she was mayor, that tactic died.

But for all their allegations against conservatives and Republicans, the truth is that Democrats and liberals are the true censors when it comes to political speech and the free and open exchange of ideas.

On the national level, Democrats are talking about trying to censor some of their harshest critics by re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine, which governs broadcast content. Most of the print media in this country are in the tank for liberals and have little bad to say against the current congressional leadership or the incoming president, but radio leans much more to the right. The Democrats would love to effectively censor folks like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity by requiring stations to air an equal amount of liberal programming. Trouble is, liberal radio draws few listeners and even fewer sponsors. It's a money-losing proposition. Rather than run unprofitable programming under a government mandate, radio stations would instead opt to drop the highly profitable conservative talk shows in favor of another profitable format.

We're seeing this same kind of censorship, if you want to call it that, in Kentucky. A couple of this state's high-profile liberal blogs are restricting posts.

We first noticed it on "Barefoot and Progressive," run by "Media Czech" (who in reality is Joe Sonka, someone we consider to be an absolute idiot and foul-mouthed buffoon). A number of comments have been deleted in the past few days for no ascertainable reason.

And then, a reader and frequent source e-mailed us to tell us that he'd been put on "moderated" status and his posts were being rejected by Jacob Payne of Page One Kentucky, simply because the reader dared to disagree with Payne's notion that the only reason Kentucky went for John McCain over B. Hussein Obama was because Kentuckians are racists. The reader, who posts anonymously as "Republican gadfly" on Page One but whose identity is known to us, was threatened with outing for challenging Payne.

So much for the idea that liberals and Democrats are champions of free speech and the open and unfettered discussion of principles and ideas, and that conservatives are censors. (Yes, we know that the term "censorship" refers to government suppression of speech, and that moderation on a blog and censorship are not the same things, but in this case the intent is the same in both instances). Most of the conservative blogs in Kentucky do allow a free and open discussion (the only thing we delete is profanity or patently untrue statements) and we find it funny that the liberals, who falsely accused the GOP vice presidential candidate of trying to ban books in her local library, are actively silencing opposing voices.

So, Joe Sonka and Jacob Payne, we're calling you out. Are you going to allow a discussion of the issues of the day on your blogs, or are they only going to be one-sided propaganda pages? If the latter, then we never want to hear another peep out of either of you next time conservatives complain about too much sex and violence on TV.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Another positive thing from the '08 election

As much as we're down on Mitch McConnell, his re-election yesterday should shut up the foul-mouthed idiots at Ditch Mitch.

And that would be a very good thing, indeed.

REPRISE: EXCLUSIVE: Obama can thank a Kentuckian for his viability as a presidential candidate

If Barack Obama is elected president, Kentucky will have played a direct role in that historic election.

Even if Hillary Clinton wins this month's Democrat primary; even if John McCain wins Kentucky this fall and gets our state's electoral votes, Kentucky will have had a direct role in Obama's rise to the presidency.

For if not for the allegations made by a Kentuckian in an Illinois divorce case, Obama might never have been elected to the U.S. Senate and thus be in a position to run for the presidency.

Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004 and is just past the midway point of his first term. Prior to that he had been a state legislator in Illinois.

During the 2004 election, Obama was originally pitted against Republican opponent Jack Ryan. However, Ryan dropped out of the race after allegations made against him by his ex-wife, actress Jeri Ryan, in their divorce case were made public against the wishes of both parties and despite a previous court order sealing them.

Jeri Ryan was an Army brat, born in Germany, whose family eventually settled in McCracken County. She graduated from Lone Oak High School near Paducah and went to Northwestern University in Illinois. Her marriage to Jack Ryan lasted only a few years, and when they divorced she made some salacious allegations against him. Those divorce records were sealed at the request of both Ryans and at the order of a judge.

Those divorce records became a point of contention in the Ryan-Obama Senate race, and a judge eventually ordered them released over the objections of Jeri and Jack Ryan and contrary to the initial judge's order sealing them. The divorce records proved embarrassing to Jack Ryan, who dropped out of the Senate race amidst pressure from the Illinois GOP apparatus. The Illinois party eventually recruited Alan Keyes to move there and take Ryan's place on the ballot, and Keyes was later trounced by Obama in the general election.

If not for Jeri Ryan's explosive (and some say possibly untrue) allegations against her ex-husband in their divorce case, and if those records had remain sealed as the Ryans had wished, then Barack Obama may never have been elected to the United States Senate. He would have remained, in the words of talk show host and Landmark Legal Foundation guru Mark Levin, "a back-bencher in the Illinois state legislature" and would not have the stature of a U.S. senator to be a viable presidential candidate.

So, no matter how Kentucky votes in the primary or general elections, if Obama is elected president, then the state -- or at least someone from here -- will have played a major role in that landmark event.

If Obama wins, he owes Lone Oak High graduate Jeri Ryan big-time.

Election 2008 post-mortem

Some thoughts, in no random order, about yesterday's election.

1.) There isn't enough space here to detail all the ways the Jefferson County Republicans screwed up the 3rd District congressional race. If the GOP wanted to oust John Yarmuth after one term, that effort should have began the day after the 2006 election. Instead, the Republicans ended up with a tainted candidate who wasted valuable time and money in her unsuccessful primary challenge against her party's incumbent governor last year, which alienated a number of Republicans. If Anne Northup wanted to run for her old seat this year, she should have put all her efforts into it from the start, instead of running for governor last year. Now Yarmuth is back for a second term and will become even more entrenched in the seat. Republican in Louisville need to start NOW on a strategy to oust him. Yarmuth can be beaten in 2010, especially since we predict a Republican backlash to the Obama presidency, but if he gets a third term, the seat will likely be his as long as he wants it. That's not a good thing for Louisville or Kentucky.

2.) Will Mitch McConnell be more humble now that he eked out his re-election victory over Bruce Lunsford? McConnell's race was closer than it should have been in large part because of his abandonment of Gov. Ernie Fletcher and the subsequent alienation of Fletcher's loyalists. Jim Bunning, who actually endorsed one of Fletcher's opponents in the 2007 primary, will have the same problem if he decides to run for re-election, and so far he gives all indications that he will.

3.) Hopefully Kentucky will have seen the last of that Purchase area nutcase, Heather Ryan. She needs to crawl back into whatever hole she came out of and just shut up.

4.) Is Bruce Lunsford's political career over? Is Anne Northup's?

5.) The strength of John McCain's victory over B. Hussein Obama in Kentucky proves that this state still values patriotism, service and experience, and isn't susceptible to a smooth-talking liberal snake oil salesman. But we shouldn't forget about a Kentuckian's role in putting Obama in the position to run for president in the first place. (We'll reprise that in a separate post). Kentuckians resisted the fad to vote for Obama and instead voted with their minds instead of with their emotions.

6.) Kathy Stein is going to be in for a rude awakening when she gets to the state Senate. It'll be joyous to watch David Williams put her in her place.

7.) Have we finally, and mercifully, put an end to the "Mitch is Gay" campaign tactic of the left? The Democrats finally went public with what had been a whisper campaign since 1984, and the tactic didn't work.

8.) On a national scale, have the Republicans found their new champion in Sarah Palin? The Alaska governor is a reformer, she's charismatic, and she appeals to the party base because she's one of us. The conservative elite intelligentsia doesn't quite know what to do with her, but the rank and file love her. We'll eagerly support a Palin candidacy in 2012 and we would be absolutely giddy over a Sarah Palin/Bobby Jindal ticket in four years. We think that team could make Obama a one-termer.

What are your random thoughts on the election?

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Anti-McConnell Democrats finally cross the line

PageOne Kentucky is reporting that an anonymous person or group has prepared flyers making an allegation that U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell was discharged from the Army for being gay.

Ever since 1984, when McConnell first won his Senate seat by ousting incumbent Democrat Dee Huddleston, his opposition has spread the rumor that McConnell is a homosexual. The whisper campaign has taken flight every time McConnell has been up for re-election, no doubt because no one would ever mistake Kentucky's senior senator for John Wayne or Clint Eastwood or whatever other symbol of masculinity you want to offer up.

This is the first time, however, that the rumor has been put in print and plans made to publicly distribute it.

It's probably a good thing that the producer(s) of this flyer is/are anonymous, because the allegations here open him/her/them up to a libel suit. Should the identity of the flyer's publisher(s) become known, McConnell would have no trouble meeting the standard for a public figure to bring a libel suit. There's definitely malice here, and information made public to date indicates McConnell was honorably discharged for an eyesight problem, making the accusation in the flyer false.

We don't pretend to be fans of McConnell anymore. We think policy-wise he's been a good senator for Kentucky, and his leadership status is good for Kentucky, but he's forevermore on our "crap list" because of his shameful abandonment of Ernie Fletcher when the Democrats were in full attack mode during Fletcher's term as governor. However, we are fans of the truth and we don't think it's right for hurtful personal lies to be so blatantly injected into the campaign.

Not that we believe McConnell is gay, but we find the tactic of involuntarily "outing" folks who want to keep their sexual preference a secret to be very distasteful. And we especially don't like blatant lies to be anonymously passed along to social conservatives who make up much of McConnell's base.

We hope McConnell discovers the identity of the lowlife(s) responsible for this, and he/she/they lose everything they own in a libel judgment. It would serve them right for this particular excursion into gutter politics.