Ageism is ugly

Martin Luther King Jr. must be rolling over in his grave to see the media this morning yammering about Senator Barack Obama's "historic" effort based not on the content of his character, but the color of his skin.

I'm still waiting for the fawning reports of Sen. John McCain for being the oldest nominee of a major party ever. Or the first Vietnam POW nominee of a major party. Or the first sitting U.S. Senator who supports tax cuts to be the nominee of a major party in half a century (not counting Bob Dole, but he was just an old white guy).

More legal troubles for Lexington jail

The union representing employees of the Fayette County Detention Center has filed a grievance against jail administration, CWA local 3372 President Mike Garkovich confirmed today. Multiple jail employees who did not wish to be quoted for fear of retribution said the source of the grievance was a sexual harassment complaint filed by Corporal D. Zirbes against Deputy Director Don Leach.

If you are keeping score at home, mismanagement of the jail has resulted, so far, in a two year-long federal investigation, a class action lawsuit, and multiple civil suits. Keep up the great work, guys.

BlogHillary screams "it's not over"

If you really want to see how angry the Hillary Mafia is, you need to read her blog. They are accusing the Associated Press of trying to sway the superdelegates in favor of Barack Obama. Given that AP continues to report she is dropping out tonight hours after she said it's not true, though, it kind of looks like she has a point.

Trey Grayson speaks

Secretary of State Trey Grayson will make a major policy announcement to the monthly meeting of the Center-Right Coalition on Monday, June 9 at 10 AM in Frankfort. As a result, this meeting will be open to the media and the public is invited.

If you want to come, call me on my cell phone (the number is at the top of this page.)

Is Kentucky about to import economic disaster?

Stateline.org points out Kentucky may face a struggle with yet another entitlement burden if unemployment increases much.

Pamela Prah reports Kentucky is among a group of states with underfunded unemployment insurance trust funds.

"States that are also well below the recommended level with only about six months of money in their reserves are: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin."

Given Kentucky's troublesome tendency to import poverty-stricken residents from other states, what might be even more disconcerting is that neighbors to the north Michigan and Ohio (and to the west, Missouri) are even closer to insolvency in their unemployment trust funds than we are. Should they decide to scale back on this or other entitlements to weather the storm, Kentucky may be forced to act.

Of course we did have a couple of bills in the last General Assembly (HB 190 and HB 221) that could have started us in that direction.

When you think pension scandal, think JR Gray

While Frankfort officials talk about how to tweak the public employee fringe benefit program to delay Kentucky's inevitable fiscal calamity, don't expect many legislators to say anything about former legislator and newly-minted Labor Secretary JR Gray.

Thanks to a provision in HB 299 from 2005, Gray will get a ridiculous pension boost as his time in the legislature is converted to benefit him as if he were Labor Secretary for the last quarter century.

Nice scam if you can slip it past taxpayers.

Over her dead body, perhaps?

Many people are counting out Hillary Clinton in her bid for the presidency and it is being widely reported that she is ready to quit.

She just sent out the following campaign email this afternoon. Looks like she is not quite ready to bow out gracefully.

Or could it be she is just trying to squeeze a few dollars out of her most rabid supporters to pay her back some of the millions she loaned her campaign?

Government transparency steps up big in Kentucky

Secretary of State Trey Grayson will speak next Monday morning to the Center-Right Coalition in Frankfort. Grayson recently announced publicly his efforts to make spending in his office transparent to taxpayers and has agreed to encourage other officials to do the same (facebook account required to read this link).

A lifetime of preparation

Very funny video of a young Hillary Clinton:

Shortening the "oil shortage"

Newt Gingrich has nearly 300,000 signatures on a petition to require Congress to let us go get our own oil.

Much barking, no biting on fringe benefit reform

If you were just reading editorial headlines Sunday, you might think Kentucky was ready to demand action from Frankfort on the $26 billion public pension disaster. The Louisville Courier Journal bellowed "Pension reform, now" and the Paducah Sun screamed, simply, "NOW." The Lexington Herald Leader said "Light a fire under legislature," but they were talking about raising taxes.

We are never going to get anywhere on fixing the mess caused by decades of overpaying our government employees at the rate we are going.

The Sun said "Beshear is less likely than his ineffective predecessor to let the legislature dictate the terms of a special session. Something tells us he’s going to finally bring about long-overdue pension reform."

Their optimism is misplaced. We need to join 12-step recovering addicts by first admitting that we have been overpaying public employees for a long time. Otherwise, cutting benefits slightly today probably just means they will go back up later. That's just kicking the can down the road.

Now that more people are starting to pay attention to this, we need to shift the discussion to consideration of phasing out pensions for legislators. Eliminating this conflict of interest might help lawmakers keep clear heads about driving us out of the benefits ditch and inspire them to stay out.

Allowing legislators to take executive branch jobs and pick up a huge pension boost should be an easy mistake to reverse. Repealing the expensive part of HB 299 from 2005 would show significant good will.

Color me skeptical.

That didn't take very long

Speaking to Bill Bryant on WKYT's Newsmakers program, U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford wasted no time in playing the class warfare game and redistributing wealth with the best of them:

What he meant to say was "yes"

In an interview on WKYT's Newsmakers program in Lexington, Bill Bryant got an earful when he asked U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford if he supports a universal health insurance scheme:

Bluegrass Institute hacked, sites down for days

If you can't beat them, hack them.

That's seems to be the philosophy of whoever hacked the Bluegrass Institute's websites Saturday and stifled much of the organization's public communications until at least Monday.

The Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky's free market think tank, has raised the ire of Frankfort politicians and bureaucrats with its non-partisan advocacy of open and honest government spending practices and public education statistics reporting.

An early Institute victory forced the legislature to post floor votes onto the internet each day the General Assembly is in session. The website that came about as a result, Kentucky Votes, managed to escape the hack which brought down The Bluegrass Institute's main site (www.bipps.org) and the group's blog, Bluegrass Policy Blog (www.bluegrassblog.org).

Current initiatives, which have rankled many, include an effort to place government expenditures on a searchable website, pushing for a serious discussion of public employee fringe benefit reform to avert bankruptcy of state and local governments, creating more meaningful oversight of the Kentucky Department of Education, and reducing corporate taxes across-the-board to bring more jobs to Kentucky.

"Clearly, more than a few people have us in their cross-hairs," said Institute founder and President Chris Derry. "But this temporary setback doesn't slow the need to operate government under correct principles. We shall return and double our efforts."

Is Don Leach the lone gunman or just a patsy?

Fayette County Detention Center Deputy Director Don Leach is currently trying to dig himself out of trouble for a contraband violation in the intake area of the Lexington jail. An internal incident report has been filed and it has been a hot topic of discussion among rank-and-file employees who are watching the jail administration implode under federal investigations and lawsuits.

Does John McCain think you are a conservative?

We've all heard a lot of debate about Sen. John McCain's conservative credentials. And while the certain prospect of a fall campaign against either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton burnishes McCain's reputation as a bona fide heir of Reagan, I couldn't help noticing McCain has taken to classifying political blogs on his campaign's website. At least one of his classifications was somewhat noteworthy.

Daily Kos is actually featured as a liberal blog and a longer list of conservative blogs hits on several of the biggies like Michelle Malkin, Power Line Blog, and Club for Growth.

But under a list of "Other" Suggested blogs, there is the following (click the image to expand it):

You can go here and check it out for yourself.

Both House and Senate full of it on pension mess

Please, someone try to convince me this latest pension dog-and-pony show is not the biggest pile of manure in a state containing many big piles of manure.

What say you, Bruce Lunsford?

The Intrade prediction market has Kentucky's U.S. Senate race tightening. Last trades at midday have Sen. Mitch McConnell at $65 and challenger Bruce Lunsford at $35.

Sen. McConnell would do well to challenge Lunsford to state his position on the mult-billion dollar Mortgage Bailout Bill.

Got a minute for a little internet activism?

I'm on my way to Frankfort to see the shiny new Senate offices we are buying.

If you have a minute, please join the Facebook group "Where in the world is Kentucky's checkbook?" (It seems you have to join Facebook first, but that's not a bad idea. Great way to keep in touch with people.)

Skippy is hiring

Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan Miller is looking for a Chief Information Officer. Lots of huge benefits for the right girl.