A strange way to observe Memorial Day

Last November, Fayette County Detention Center Officer Luke Valdez, a fifteen-month veteran of the jail, wrote two internal emails with specific criticisms of jail policies and suggestions for improvement.

Yesterday, fresh off six months of National Guard training, Valdez, 23, was suspended from the jail without pay for three weeks as retaliation for sending the emails.

Disciplinary forms given to Valdez cited him for insubordination, misconduct, inefficiency, and malicious behavior. The only action described on the forms was sending the emails.

Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry should explain why he keeps FCDC Director Ron Bishop around despite his repeated personnel screw-ups.

This isn't the first time the city of Lexington has failed to show even minimal respect for someone who served our country.

Don't show this to Obama

Turns out the surest way to cut electricity usage is to shrink the economy.

Almost time for a real fiscal discussion

The House Budget Committee will hold a hearing on Rep. Bill Farmer's tax reform bill on June 4 at 1:00 pm in room 129 of the Capitol Annex.

The bill would repeal state income taxes, expand the sales tax to include services, and lower the sales tax rate to 5.5%.

Expect House Dems to try to expand the sales tax but back up on the idea of repealing the income tax.

When Massachusetts says it's too much money...

Kentucky's corporate welfare cabal entered the state in a contest with several states and dozens of private entities for a piece of a $2.4 billion federal lithium battery research "investment."

As usual, we are giving away the farm.

Just ask big-spending (and, by most measures, wealthy) Massachusetts:

"Kentucky is promising $110 million in aid and a 1,550-acre site, in Glendale, that it assembled in an unsuccessful effort to land a Hyundai plant several years ago."

""We're not in that financial league," said Ian Bowles, the Massachusetts secretary of energy and environmental affairs. But Mr. Bowles said Massachusetts has a chance of landing federal funding because it has several in-state battery makers such as Boston Power Co."

This passage came from The Wall Street Journal.

Waking up sleepy Frankfort

The most important state government meeting in months has been scheduled for two weeks from today.

On June 9, the Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee will meet at 1:00 pm in room 129 of the Capitol Annex in Frankfort.

Kentucky's mainstream media has a poor record of showing up for these meetings. But since the purpose of this meeting is to discuss implementation of the best education reform in this state in a long time, they will be there for this one.

Twittering Lexington's corruption

Word about Teresa Isaac and Jim Newberry's bad behavior has made it all the way to Louisville.

Can we do this and draw welfare, too?

Has there ever been a U.S. President whose name has been invoked more often than the current one in internet scams and get-rich-quick schemes?



Surely President Obama is trying now to figure out how to count people who respond to this work at home opportunity in the Lexington Herald Leader as part of his "3.5 million jobs saved or created."

Memorial Day out with the family

Working on some big changes for Kentucky Progress, but not today. I'm going to do some serious playing with my sons.

Anything in particular on your mind? Feel free...

The real Voodoo economics

This passage appeared on Sunday's New York Times editorial page:

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, raising taxes may be better than spending cuts because tax increases, especially if they are focused on wealthy taxpayers, have less of a negative impact on consumption. Spending cuts hit consumption hard, depriving the economy of money that would otherwise be spent quickly. They also have the disadvantage — so evident in the cuts proposed by Mr. Schwarzenegger — of falling heavily on the needy."

This still doesn't get us past the fact that if greater government spending stopped or averted economic downturns, then we wouldn't be very likely at all to find ourselves in one now.

Public spending cuts may "hit consumption hard," but when we are talking about borrowed money, it's better to hit it now rather than wait for it to come back and hit us later. Just ask the people who count the beans for Medicare and Social Security.

Putting the money back into private hands, even if they are "wealthy," has a long tradition of working more effectively at promoting general welfare than running it through layer after layer of bureaucratic middlemen. Continuing to pretend otherwise is an increasingly unaffordable luxury.

From the same people who like Obamanomics

It's quite a leap from an old monkey fossil to "proof" of a 47 million year old evolutionary link to humans. Very similar to the logic that has us taking more and more money from the productive economy and giving to the Washington D.C. "fixers" to make everything all better.



In other words, it's a bunch of hooey.

Beshear cares more about unions than poor kids

Kentucky could save hundreds of millions of dollars repealing prevailing wage and we are monkeying around with $4.5 million cuts on programs for underprivileged children?



This is disgraceful.

See you at the Frankfort Freedom Rally

Concerned citizens will gather Saturday, May 23, at Juniper Hill Park (800 Louisville Road) in Frankfort 1pm to 3pm to support public policies to return America to a path toward greater prosperity.

In his book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, Dr. Thomas Sowell said the following:

"A student asked his history professor: "Where did slavery come from?"
"You're asking the wrong question," the professor replied. "The real question is: Where did freedom come from?"

Restoring our freedoms won't just happen by itself. It will take massive, coordinated action. And we need more people. Those who criticized the Tea Party movement said that it would never amount to anything. If we quit now, they will be right.

I'm not quitting. Are you?

Ready for your Dan Rather tax?

Don't look now, but some people think it might be terrific to charge you hundreds of dollars a year in "news tax" to subsidize our money-losing mainstream media.



Read the rest here.

Perhaps they think that if Americans are ready to adopt the worst elements of the British healthcare system we surely will fall for this sort of thing, too.

Bunning smacks Obama over Gitmo

Sen. Jim Bunning said the following after the U.S. Senate voted 87-3 to spend another $73 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

"I am very pleased that we are no longer wasting time to convince our colleagues to fund these wars. We can win these conflicts, and we are winning them, and our fighting men and women deserve to have the resources they need to do so. This bill will help provide them with those resources."

"The Senate stripped funds from the bill that were originally requested by President Obama to close down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and relocate the terrorist prisoners who are being held there -- sending a clear message to the President that these dangerous killers are not to be sent to the United States. It was reckless of President Obama to set an arbitrary timetable for closing the prison camp without first having a plan in place for where these terrorists will be detained next and I believe that removing this funding was in the best interest of the security and safety of the American people."

Calling big government's bluff

There is a widespread belief in Frankfort that Gov. Steve Beshear will call a June 15 special session to raise revenue in the face of Kentucky's growing overspending problem.

The Senate would do very well, in such a case, to pass a resolution allowing the governor to cut spending and to quickly adjourn the session.

Frankfort still treating us like mushrooms

Alabama has become the latest state whose legislature wants its citizens to be able to see how their tax money is being spent.

Kentucky still wants to keep you in the dark.

Wonder what our guys are afraid of?

Beshear governing by silly emotional appeal

Here is Gov. Steve Beshear's latest plea for turning the state over to casino gambling interests:

"I don't want Kentucky to be known as the former horse capital of the world. Too much is at stake - 100,000 jobs, comprised mostly of working families, and $4 billion in economic impact. We must act quickly to ensure that we maintain that investment in our state."

First, it's silly to say Kentucky's horse industry can only survive by being allowed to diversify into a business that is currently illegal in order to subsidize their less profitable main operations. Why can it only be casinos or slot machines? If they just need money, why not license tracks to set up check cashing services? Dry cleaning services are often very profitable. Maybe Churchill Downs could launder a couple of your shirts and clean one of your suits while you watch a few races. Or they could send insurance agents into the grandstand to write a few policies for a new, ongoing revenue stream to beef up purses and improve profitability. Or sell used cars or new electronic equipment.

And who is Gov. Steve Beshear to say the 100,000 jobs and $4 billion economic impact of the horse industry wouldn't be replaced by something even more lucrative if horse racing faded out? Four months into the Obama Administration, I get pretty nervous when I hear a politician say "we must act quickly to maintain..."

I'm as sympathetic as anyone for those who just want to compete on an even playing field with horse tracks in casino states. But trusting Gov. Steve Beshear and House Speaker Greg Stumbo to put together a regulatory structure that won't wind up hurting the state more than it helps is just not something I'm comfortable doing.

I'm open to considering a well-conceived proposal, but I get more skeptical when the sales pitch is as emotional as this one has been.

Still looking for our efficiency study

Attorney General Jack Conway is upset about shysters who organize as "charities" to steal money from unsuspecting Kentuckians, and he should be.

But when he says "charities and solicitors that mislead Kentuckians about how their donations will be used or who they will benefit will not be tolerated," it's hard not to wonder if Conway isn't just protecting his and Gov. Steve Beshear's turf.

Beshear and Chandler feed us to the unions

Just as Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson did the math on prevailing wage costs in his city and decided to opt out, Congressman Ben Chandler (D-Versailles) is running hard in the other direction.

Chandler's "Green Schools" bill HR 2187 would waste many billions of dollars in environmental upgrades to school facilities across the country. A key feature of the bill would make recipients of the money observe Davis-Bacon union wage requirements even if their home state has been smart enough to toss aside the wasteful mandates.

Kentucky, of course, isn't one of those "smart enough" states, despite our obvious need to cut out spending fat. Thanks, union-supported politicians!

Chandler's bill has passed the House and looks to be championed in the Senate by Iowa big-spender Sen. Tom Harkin.

Welcome back, David Williams

The Louisville Courier Journal has gone back to calling Senate President David Williams silly names on its editorial page:

"Those numbers will require action, unless Mr. Williams and other no-new-revenue drones are content to see services and programs suffer even more than they already have."

I've been as tough on Williams as anyone for his tax-raising activities, but he says he's ready to fight now.