Is Snooki coming to Kentucky?

There's a hilarious story out of New Jersey today about bipartisan disgust for "reality tv" stars The Situation and Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and their television show "Jersey Shore" getting $420,000 in film tax credits from the state of New Jersey.

"The governor needs to step up for decency and veto this. If the show wants to go somewhere else, let 'em," said state Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), who said it includes negative stereotypes of young Italian-Americans.

"Let us just hope against hope that New Jersey taxpayers don’t end up paying for 'Snooki's' bail the next time she is arrested. What a terrible, terrible and misguided waste." said State Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen).

Meanwhile, Kentucky politicians are scrambling to throw taxpayer dollars at just such a project.

From the August Kentucky Film Office newsletter:

"In addition, requests for location, crew and operational needs from the industry have jumped 71 percent in the past year. This increase is due, in large part, to the explosion in outdoor reality and “survivor” type programming in television, which has allowed us to positively showcase our terrain, natural resources and cave areas."

Now would be a great time to start talking about shutting down this ridiculous form of "economic development."

Repeal of "politicians' best friend" bill filed

Rep. Joe Fischer pre-filed a bill Wednesday to prevent local government entities from abusing taxpayers with massive annual tax increases exploiting a loophole written into the "compensating rate" property tax increase law.

This is another perfect Tea Party issue. Please encourage your legislator to support what will be House Bill 48 in the 2012 General Assembly.

Boone County PVA Cindy Arlinghaus deserves a tremendous amount of credit for discovering how this loophole works and blowing the whistle on it.

Comer crushing opponent on YouTube

Kentucky's Republican Agriculture Commissioner candidate James Comer is winning on YouTube, big time. His experience in agriculture gives him a good chance in this race against an unqualified opponent.

Republican party cutting itself in half

The proposed Republican Party of Kentucky rule change to exclude people who didn't support the party's nominees doesn't go back four years as reported last week; it only applies to the current and previous year.

Since the GOP re-organization elections are in early 2012, those who will be excluded from party leadership are people who didn't support GOP nominees in 2011.

This is about purging the party of anyone who opposed Republican nominees in 2011. Latest polling suggests barely half of Republicans support gubernatorial nominee David Williams.

The Republican State Central Committee will meet this Saturday, September 17, 2011 and vote to confirm this proposed rule change, effectively cutting itself in half. If you oppose that idea, please plan on coming to Frankfort at 10:30 am on Saturday to the Best Western Parkside Inn, 80 Chenault Rd, Frankfort, KY. The meeting starts at 11:00 am.

Another retirement plan for state legislators?

Rep. Jim Wayne pre-filed a bill Friday afternoon to create taxpayer financing of judicial races in Kentucky. The bill leaves it up to the Registry of Election Finance to determine which candidates are worthy of access to your money to seek office as a judge.

Under Kentucky law, legislators get a huge boost to their state pensions when they gain a higher paying full time job in state government. Kentucky's candidates for Attorney General should be asked what they think about this idea.

RPK cuts off its nose to spite its face

Kentucky Knows Best PAC has been battling some members of Kentucky's GOP establishment in recent months to stop them from excluding tea party members from Republican party leadership. Finding out about their shenanigans and shutting them down one at a time has been an interesting experience.

Today, RPK has jumped the shark.

According to a media report, the Republican Party of Kentucky has changed their rules to exclude from leadership anyone who has endorsed or financially supported in the prior four years a candidate who is not a Republican.

Two words: Bob Leeper.

Republican leadership voted just last year to endorse and support the Independent from Paducah who currently serves as budget chairman in the state Senate.

RPK leadership just excluded from positions in party leadership themselves and their gubernatorial nominee, Senate President David Williams.

Sheriff Mack coming to Georgetown Kentucky

Champion of the U.S. Constitution Sheriff Richard Mack will speak in Georgetown Kentucky at 7pm ET on September 21.

He will appear at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at 201 Wellington Way in Georgetown.

John Kemper: stop money-losing debt restructuring

Frankfort debt restructuring over the last four years has encouraged overspending and will cost Kentucky taxpayers hundreds of millons of dollars for what amounts to an accounting stunt, Republican candidate for state Auditor John Kemper said.


"Looking at the numbers, they are claiming $427 million in cash flow savings from debt restructuring over fiscal years 2009 to 2012 and then there is a real loss of $600 million over the next seventeen years just to make the budget look balanced while Steve Beshear has been governor," Kemper said. "Problems like this inspire me to run for auditor. If I am elected I will work to stop any debt restructuring that loses Kentuckians' money like this."

Kentucky casino bills filed today

Kentucky Republican state Rep. Michael Nemes has filed a casino bill and a constitutional amendment allowing counties to decide if they get either a full casino or slots at racetracks.

The measures pre-filed today (here and here) would create a Kentucky Gaming Commission and taxing schemes of 21% of gambling revenues to the state and a $3 per person admission fee for casinos, of which 2/3 would go to the state and 1/3 to the county or counties in which the casino is situated.

The bill contains no provisions to prevent the state from overcommitting projected casino revenues, which will ultimately be what makes this whole idea a loser for Kentucky if it passes.

How is this NOT news?

It has been a week since the Beshear administration responded to complaints about a state debt web site not being updated in three years by pulling down the link to the site.

Beshear's Republican opponent Senate President David Williams, who voted for every dime of our quickly accumulating debt, has failed to mention Beshear's aggressive lack of transparency on this issue.

State bonded debt has increased by three billion dollars under Beshear. Federal stimulus funds to Kentucky totalled $3.4 billion. We owe almost a billion more in unemployment funds. Revenues went down, but not this much. And Beshear is running for re-election as a good steward of state finances.

Kentucky's state debt is a huge news story and Kentucky's media is missing it. Worse, they are missing it because neither candidate for governor is talking about it.

What am I missing here?

Rep. Jim Wayne wants to eat your "puny" county

Be on the lookout for a new line of attack against the Tea Party: liberals who praise and agree with us.

At the end of a recent CN2 interview, Rep. Wayne was asked about the Tea Party.

"I think the Tea Party -- we need to listen to them. And the reason we need to listen to them is because we not only have a tax problem in this state, we have a spending problem in this state and that's where the Tea Party can help us."

Sounds good, right? Two problems though. Wayne represents the far left wing of the legislature and when he talks about a tax problem, he means they aren't high enough. But when he starts talking about a spending problem is when it really gets dicey.

Wayne then made a case for cutting government spending by consolidating counties because of all the money spent on courthouses and "multiple sheriffs and county judges and magistrates and everything that are all going to get pensions and all going to get salaries and all going to get health insurance and so on and so forth."

While there is no excuse for all the money spent on palatial courthouses in recent years, which Wayne voted for building, by the way, and the idea of shrinking government by consolidating some bureaucracies makes sense, eliminating elective offices makes government bigger and further removed from the people being represented.

Imagine your county being merged with another, larger county and all your local representatives being eliminated. In subsequent elections, with most if not all successful candidates for local office coming from the more populous area of the new, larger county, where do you think their attention will tend to be directed?

The far left is trying to seduce the Tea Party with their talk of smaller government, but what they are offering is fewer, larger governments with less representation and more distance between elected officials and their employers. Don't buy their snake oil.

Kemper catches Steve Beshear erasing web page

Governor Steve Beshear has made state finances less transparent to Kentuckians by hiding the one statistic telling the whole story about our fiscal situation, state Auditor candidate John Kemper said.

"Kentucky is billions of dollars deeper in debt than we were when Beshear came into office, but you have to be an archaeologist to find exactly how much," Kemper said. "We complained that his administration hadn't updated the page showing state bonded debt and the response today apparently was to pull down the link altogether. An independent auditor would shed light on this and since my opponent owes his political career to Beshear, I'm doing it. Governor Beshear should post our debt figures where they are easy to find or explain why he doesn't want to."

Thank you Oregon and North Carolina!

Kentucky had the third highest state gasoline tax increase in the country in 2011.

Only seven states increased gas taxes on their citizens this year.

Todd P'Pool case shines light on bad law

A Kentucky Knows Best email yesterday about the poorly written state law being used against Attorney General candidate Todd P'Pool stirred up some interesting information.

Republican Todd P'Pool is being hounded by Jack Conway using a law Governor Steve Beshear wrote thirty seven years ago and that the Kentucky Supreme Court found unconstitutional ten years ago.

Now is a great time to go through Kentucky's campaign finance laws to justify what we can (which won't be much) and throw out the rest.

Thanks to Marcus Carey for the heads up on the Supreme Court case.

Repeal KRS 121.310 for P'Pool and Conway

Both the Lexington Herald Leader and Louisville Courier Journal reported this week on supporters of Kentucky Attorney General candidate Todd P'Pool facing felony convictions for talking about their candidate and his opponent Attorney General Jack Conway.

The news stories are here and here.

At issue is KRS 121.310, which appears as follows in Kentucky law:


The law is so sloppy and imprecise it should be repealed. To do otherwise is to allow an unconstitutional prosecution of speech while empowering government to make up the rules as it goes along.

First, the law doesn't necessarily restrict only employers. By stating "no person shall" without defining person, much less specifying employers as a target, the law could mean to inhibit anyone from talking to someone who has a job. Then, we could interpret "coerce or direct any employee" to mean "tell any employee." Worst of all, the rest of paragraph (1) could easily apply to wearing a t-shirt or possessing a political bumper sticker or flyer.

And paragraph (2) is worse.

Todd P'Pool's supporters shouldn't face felony convictions under this ridiculous statute and Jack Conway's shouldn't either, which they clearly and easily could if Republicans sought to make the point. Repealing this nonsense makes sense for all Kentuckians.

Lexington taxpayers to get blindsided in September

A jury trial scheduled for September 26 in Jessamine Circuit Court will rock Fayette County taxpayers and shake up Lexington's political scene.

John Vest vs. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, originally filed in 2007, resulted from official mishandling and cover-up associated with multiple cases of civil rights violations at the Fayette County Detention Center.

Former mayors Teresa Isaac and Jim Newberry were directly involved in the mishandling and cover-up.

Vest was the FBI's informant whose testimony sparked an October 2006 raid by dozens of federal agents to the Lexington jail. Vest's only request was to be transferred to another city job with immediate supervisors who might be less likely to try to kill him.

Had Vest simply been transferred, much of this would have just gone away. In fact, rumors are circulating of both Isaac and Newberry eyeing a rematch with Mayor Jim Gray. But they may have to reconsider after Lexington taxpayers finish writing a multi-million dollar check to Vest due to official misconduct by these incompetent politicians.

Frankfort finds its hurricane

Earlier this year, Frankfort politicians agreed to "balance" Kentucky's Medicaid budget by borrowing $166 million in 2012 funds to spend in 2011.

They also set out to save money in 2012 and beyond by switching to a managed care system. Of course, they are attempting to do this without reducing the state government Medicaid workforce.

Perhaps an early indication of how things are going so far comes today with news that Kentucky's Medicaid Managed Care Hotline is backed up and excess calls are being routed to Pennsylvania, where they can't be answered due to complications related to Hurricane Irene.

Just pointing this out

The top issue in America right now is jobs and the role government has played in messing up the economy by taxing too much, spending too much and building up its own power at the expense of the people.

The failure of Gov. Steve Beshear's opponent to credibly differentiate himself on these issues surely has a lot to do with the fact that Intrade.com gives him just about a zero percent chance of winning in November.

If you really disagree, of course, you should probably call Intrade.

Is it the Kentucky typo tax?

Kentucky Auditor candidate John Kemper pointed out something odd about the record-high deposit to the state's rainy day fund a month ago: it's illegal.

"Kentucky state law prohibits putting more than half of an annual surplus into the budget reserve trust fund, also known as the rainy day fund," Kemper said. "A change in the law in 2010 allows the governor to spend all the rainy day money without the General Assembly's permission for the rest of this fiscal year. Our legislators are going to have to be more careful controlling spending in the next budget."

Budget officials in Frankfort said this morning that the legislature changed the law in the 2010 special session to allow Beshear to put more than half of the $156.8 million "surplus" into the rainy day fund. But HB 1 didn't notwithstand KRS 48.705. Instead, it temporarily rescinded KRS 48.700.

Big difference.

We will never know for sure who mixed up the numbers of the two statutes, but by notwithstanding KRS 48.700, the legislature allows Beshear to spend all of the $121 million in the rainy day fund without the permission of the General Assembly.

Giving Beshear control over that much money is not a great idea and something at least some members of the legislature claim to oppose doing. If Beshear misappropriates any part of that money, we should call it the Kentucky typo tax.

Tea Party stops local tax increase; more coming

Kentucky Auditor candidate John Kemper congratulated the McCracken County Board of Education on Friday for rejecting a property tax increase and he encouraged other boards and local governments across the state to follow suit.

"Frankfort hides a lot of taxing and spending by passing it off to the local level," Kemper said. "Tea party groups across the state are engaging local officials and impressing on them the importance of tightening their belts just like the rest of us. As our message grows stronger, we need to see more officials all over Kentucky work harder to get spending under control rather than raising taxes."