Can we still ignore Kentucky drug cartels?

Federal authorities have identified competing Mexican drug cartels in Lexington and Louisville. And it may be time to care about it.

The National Drug Intelligence Center, a unit of the U.S. Department of Justice reports "Federation" cartel presence in Lexington and "Gulf Coast" cartel presence in Louisville.

This is a new development, but a recent federal crackdown on illegal immigrant drug cartels combined with lackluster local enforcement in Kentucky could create a combustible situation here soon.

Republicans still haven't gotten the message

President George W. Bush is on his way out of Washington D.C. in two months, but this afternoon he shows clearly that he doesn't grasp the damage he has done to his party and his country. He has urged Congress to bail out the auto industry.

While Bush deserves some credit for refusing to support the Democrats' plan to add bank bailout money to the money pit that domestic automakers have become, he still wants to throw $25 billion:

Giving nearly bankrupt companies with unsustainable business models $25 billion loans for "more urgent purposes" -- can you imagine a private bank in the pre-bailout era doing that? -- is just like throwing the money away. What do we expect the Big 3 to do next year when all that money is gone but their structural problems persist?

How Big Auto is like Big Media

Very interesting blog post here with a comparison between the arrogance that destroyed Detroit and the arrogance that plagues American newspapers:

"For the most part, the auto industry’s woes were self-inflicted by decades of insular and unimaginative senior management. The problems are not the fault of the workers, the customers, the suppliers, OPEC or the competition. They result from management’s lack of vision, objectivity, originality and courage."

Then there is this, from the comments section:

"The news industry didn't help anyone, least of all Detroit, by selling out and becoming shills for the industry. They've done the same thing by selling out and shilling for Obama and the Dimwits in Congress. People don't buy your product because they've found you to be untrustworthy and they do have an alternative. That the anti-newspaper is free to them is icing on the cake. Choice, for free ? From home, dry and warm ? Newspapers can't compete with that. Sell the presses for scrap. It's over. The patient died. He refused to take his medicine when it might have done some good."

Sure, some jobs are going to dry up and blow away as the domestic auto industry right-sizes. Same goes for Big Media. But when government jumps into the mix to take from those who are succeeding in the marketplace to give to those who recklessly squandered their own success and learned humility only when the music stopped, government by definition makes things worse.

Are Fayette jail birds singing?

The Feb 2, 2009 trial of the five former Fayette jail officers charged with beating prisoners and orchestrating a cover-up has been cancelled and moved to June 8.

This could mean that the defendents are talking to investigators about others who have not yet been indicted. The trial was originally scheduled for August 18, 2008.

Also haven't seen any action on the whistleblower lawsuit against the city of Lexington. That case can't lie dormant forever.

Yeah, we know...

President George W. Bush, discussing today his role in the government bailouts:

"I'm a market-oriented guy, but not when I'm faced with the prospect of a global meltdown," Bush said.

Actually, Mr. President, a time of crisis is precisely the time in which we need our market-oriented guys.

Otherwise, we're just giving lip service to capitalism and the free market. And that is precisely why we are in the mess we are in and not likely to get out any time soon.

Obamamessiah to disappoint Ky. House Dems

Regular readers of the Bluegrass Policy Blog learned back in June that Barack Obama had no plans to help Frankfort by nationalizing the massive state employee health insurance liabilities.

"Some Democratic legislators have stated quietly their belief that a federal universal health insurance plan will save them the trouble of catching up with the rising costs of state and local employees' and retirees' healthcare costs. The funny thing is, none of them have bothered to ask Sen. Barack Obama about that."

"What's even funnier is that Sen. (Tom) Buford did ask." (click here for more)

Don't tell any of the Obama fans in the General Assembly about this, though. Let them learn it the hard way.

That's another half-million, Governor

Every day that Gov. Steve Beshear stonewalls on his $180 million efficiency study, Kentucky taxpayers lose another $493,150.69.

Better talk to the people, sir.

Which gang is Mayor Jim Newberry's favorite?

If you go down to Garden Springs Park next to Garden Springs Elementary School in Lexington, you will see evidence that Lexington does indeed have Hispanic gangs. In this case, it's the Latin Kings.

Continuing failure to enforce existing immigration laws in Lexington appears to be emboldening those who would spread gang activity into our neighborhoods.

Don't bail out Big Momma

Kentucky legislators are responding to a March of Dimes study about pregnant women who smoke. Before we start blindly writing more checks, we might want to think about how we hope to alleviate the social costs of bad behavior.

More people are catching on to Beshear

WHAS reporter Mark Hebert is asking Gov. Steve Beshear where our $180 million from the last year went.

This time next year, will we be asking about another $180 million or will we be too busy paying his new taxes and paying off his new debt?

Can't blame Ernie Fletcher for this one, Governor.

Let's be clear: auto bailout is a union bailout

One of the talking points du jour is that gas-guzzling SUVs caused the domestic auto companies' current woes when people stopped buying them.

The truth is just a little bit more complicated than that.

The Big Three automakers struggled to transition out of SUVs when gas prices killed demand for them because union-negotiated retirement benefits had already wiped out any financial flexibility the companies once had. Decades ago.

This latest speed bump wouldn't have wrecked the companies if union contracts hadn't already caused the companies to rust through from the inside out.

People still need cars and they will continue to buy cars from someone. But taxpayers don't need to throw good money after bad to prop up a labor system that went bankrupt a long time ago.

Let the companies re-organize and toss the United Auto Workers overboard.

Make no mistake: if we bail out Detroit's car manufacturers, we are paying for fat lifestyles of union thugs. No thanks.

Think tank tells states to raise taxes

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has built a reputation as a reliable, if not always coherent, provider of talking points for big-government politicians.

Their current advice, in favor of tax hikes rather than spending cuts, fills the bill nicely:

In particular, the government spending that would be reduced if direct spending programs are cut is often concentrated among local businesses…. By contrast, the spending by individuals and businesses that would be affected by tax increases often is less concentrated among local producers — since part of the decline in purchases that would occur if taxes were raised would be a decline in the purchase of goods produced out of state. Thus, more of the reduction in purchases that results from tax increases than from government budget cuts falls on out-of-state goods (relative to in-state goods), lessening the adverse impact of a tax increase on the state economy. Reductions in direct government spending consequently could have a larger adverse impact on a state's economy than tax increases, which have a stronger adverse impact on out-of-state goods and services.

This is complete nonsense, but expect to hear something much like it very soon from the tax-and-spend crowd in Frankfort.

The truth is that taxation can't benefit an economy as much as leaving money in the economy where it was produced because the bureaucracy that has nothing to do with the production of wealth has to take its cut before any of the money gets re-distributed and re-circulated.

Common sense.

President Obama loves his people

Just discovered the election of Barack Obama has so terrified the gouging gougers in the produce industry that they have dropped the price of large grapefruit forty cents at Walmart.

Thank you, Benevolent Leader.


Actually, there are very serious consequences for a nation who holds its politicians is such a state of worship. It opens the door to great loss of personal freedoms.

Gotta stop welfare abuse somehow

Michigan is trying again to limit how much of their welfare budget goes to buying illicit drugs. A new bill would require drug testing of welfare recipients every six months and require the recipient to pay for the test.

Michigan passed a similar bill back in 1999 but it was found to be unconstitutional because it mandated random drug tests. Kentucky failed to pass a similar bill last session with the same unconstitutional provision. A Kentucky bill for 2009 repairs that problem by making the drug tests subject to a finding of probable cause.

Tax increases won't get it done in Kentucky

President-elect Barack Obama and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear have all kinds of tax increase plans for you.

You won't read about it in Tuesday's newspapers, but we got more evidence Monday to suggest tax increases will not solve what in Kentucky is simply an overspending problem.

And Kentucky's spending cuts in the area of lottery advertising seem to have not resulted in lower revenues there either. We should make deeper cuts in the Kentucky Lottery's advertising budget as soon as possible.

Who needs pickpockets? We have Jack Conway

Attorney General Jack Conway is supposed to be the top law enforcement officer in the state. That's not working out so well for taxpayers who don't like to get ripped off by legislators who abuse contracts with other government entities.

Back before the election, Conway was dragging his feet on investigating a money-for-nothing scandal involving Sen. Joey Pendleton.

Conway can not deny that he has known about this issue at least since April. Further, he can not deny participating in Sen. Pendleton's re-election campaign. Only now is he claiming to be investigating the matter.

This looks strangely like that good old boy system we used to hear so much about.

Republican Party of Kentucky Chairman Steve Robertson weighed in with this: "The most troubling aspect of this situation is that Jack Conway had one story before the election and another story after the election. It is a shame that this state’s chief law enforcement officer engaged in a political cover-up and hid the truth from the voters of Kentucky."

A moment in the reinvention of the GOP

Just saw native Kentuckian Diane Sawyer go blank when Bill O'Reilly asked her on Good Morning America who the head of the Republican National Committee is. The point he was making in asking her the question was that "no one knows" who heads the Republican Party, the party has no message, and that "there is no leadership."

"Catastrophic circumstance," Senator Williams?

Just as national Republicans have had their heads handed to them two elections in a row for playing footsie with big spenders, Senate President David Williams told the Louisville Courier Journal that he might be open to a tax increase:

"Asked if he has ruled out supporting a cigarette tax increase, Williams said, "I'm not going to get involved in a discussion about ruling out anything. I've never signed a no-tax pledge in my life because you could have some catastrophic circumstance that would require additional revenue.""

What does that even mean? I thought we all agreed that catastrophic circumstances were exactly the wrong time to raise taxes.

The only way Kentucky is going to get out of any fiscal holes with tax increases is if Frankfort continues its smoke-and-mirrors routine. And we have to know by now we can't keep doing that.

Williams has been one of the few voices of reason on Kentucky's public employee benefits disaster. Let's hope he doesn't mar that record with any more talk about raising taxes.

HELL NO!

Apparently Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to expand the banking bailout to the car industry:

"It is our hope that the actions that Congress has taken, and that the Administration may take, will restore the preeminence of our domestic manufacturing industry so that it can emerge as a global, competitive leader in fuel efficiency and in new and path-breaking energy-efficient technologies that protect our environment."

It's time for Sen. Jim "Beanball" Bunning to start his 2010 re-election campaign with a little Capitol Hill headhunting.

Obama's specifics: I liked the fluff better

Now that he has been elected president, Barack Obama can't get away with just promising to make the sky blue and to make his wife proud to be an American: he's shifting to making detailed policy prescriptions. Hold on tight:

Of course, the one missing piece from this mounting disaster is a big tax increase. Nevertheless, these are precisely the wrong things to be doing. Deep tax cuts are the way to stimulate us out of this. The same old borrow-and-spend tricks will only prolong the agony.

Obama's political future depends on his ability to either stimulate the economy or deflect blame while doing nothing that would really help. At least at first, he appears to be opting for the latter.