Richie Farmer: how low can we set the bar?

Former Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer made international news last week when it was revealed that he applied for unemployment benefits after his two terms in office ended in December.

Well, you won't believe this.

Apparently Richie got the rejection letter all the rest of us knew would be coming. And then he filed an appeal.

Kentucky has a long tradition of colorful characters running for -- and serving in -- political office. As long as name recognition is a key determinant of electoral success, we may have a tough time upgrading the quality of our candidates and officeholders. But if this sad tale doesn't motivate us to give less money and less power to our government, I don't know what will.

Still not kicking the right butts

On Wednesday morning, the Kentucky Senate Health and Welfare Committee will spend a significant amount of time on "Medicaid managed care provider problems." There are a lot of them.

The state Medicaid program is a serious mess. This comes after Gov. Steve Beshear spent the first three years of his first term "studying" managed care in Medicaid and just the last few months hurriedly putting it into place.

And now he and his friends are frantically trying to pretend ObamaCare won't make it much worse.

Let's define marriage as between free people

A federal appeals court in San Francisco today said states can't define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Two things should happen as this issue makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. First, the "Johnson Amendment" which allows the Internal Revenue Service to limit the freedom of speech of churches should be repealed. Then we should repeal all taxes on income in order to end government involvement in both the exercise of religion and the definition of marriage.

The left will not allow those two things to happen, of course. They would rather keep the same-sex marriage activists busy supporting Democratic candidates than risk being consistent on the protection of individual freedom in America.

Meanwhile, churches and socially conservative people will continue to resist efforts of the left to take for themselves another weapon against those who don't accept their agendas.

Rep. Damron, call the Governor

Speaking on the Jack Pattie show this morning, House Majority Caucus Leader Bob Damron said the state of Kentucky is waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on ObamaCare before setting up the federal law's health insurance exchange bureaucracy.

This is false.

Governor Beshear, while denying to state reporters that he is working to create the ObamaCare infrastructure in Kentucky, has accepted millions of federal dollars for that purpose and has informed the National Conference of State Legislatures that he is using the state's Division of Certificate Need to implement by executive order what the legislature is too chicken to pass or kill in public.

Steve Beshear's lips still moving

Governor Steve Beshear is still denying to Frankfort reporters that he is working to sneak an ObamaCare health insurance exchange past the legislature.

Stopping ObamaCare in Kentucky should not be very difficult at all.

Is this the Seinfeld legislature?

The 2012 Kentucky General Assembly has been pretty underwhelming so far. One sign this might be the "session about nothing" is that four bills to remove an unpopular, expensive and, frankly embarrasssing legislative pension provision haven't even gotten as much as a committee hearing.

And it's not like they have been busy taking on other issues of substance.

Please call your lawmakers and ask them to pass HB 117, SB 26, HB 65 or SB 28.

What, no more politician cake?

Caleb Brown at the Bluegrass Institute points out former Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer's application for unemployment insurance at the end of his term lays bare an ugly fact -- we train our political class to not think past the next election.

Of course, these are the same people who piled a record amount of debt on us in 2011.

Glauber: stop Beshear on ObamaCare

The failure of Kentucky's legislature to protect against exploding costs of ObamaCare could be the most expensive story of the 2012 General Assembly, 26th district House of Representatives candidate David Glauber said.

"Governor Steve Beshear is working to advance the federal healthcare law by executive order and without the approval of the legislature," Glauber said. "If he did ask, even the House Democrats would surely refuse him in an election year. If we don't stop the federal law, in 2016 our already unaffordable state Medicaid expenses will skyrocket."

"We need a bill to prohibit Governor Beshear from creating a state health insurance exchange under the ObamaCare law without input from the legislature," Glauber said.

David Glauber signs Kentucky tax pledge

Kentucky's fiscal woes were created by overspending and not a lack of revenue, said 26th state House district candidate David Glauber, who is encouraging all legislative candidates to join in him swearing off tax increases.

"State government revenue is at an all-time high, but spending is even higher," Glauber said. "Now that Governor Beshear is talking about tax reform, we need to tie our politicians' hands against the possibility of raising taxes on hard working Kentuckians. We are taxed enough already."

Earlier today, Glauber signed the Americans for Tax Reform Taxpayer Protection Pledge, promising not to vote for tax increases. He encouraged other candidates to follow suit.

"Kentucky can't thrive with a government that keeps getting in our way. We need lower taxes and fewer regulations so the private sector can be profitable. Profitable companies hire more people," Glauber said.

David Glauber seeks to represent the new 26th House district comprising part of Bullitt County and part of Hardin County.

Kentucky should do this

Missouri's state Senate is considering a bill to prevent their governor from doing what Kentucky's Governor Steve Beshear is doing to us with regard to ObamaCare.

Beshear is quietly attempting to implement ObamaCare by creating, via executive order, the bureaucracy to enforce a federal takeover of the health care industry.

ObamaCare mandates a health insurance "exchange," which Kentucky has already taken millions of federal dollars to start implementing. We really need the legislature to take action on this right away.

Media freedom (could be) people freedom

A news item getting worldwide coverage this week was a ranking of press freedoms in 179 countries placing the United States 47th, tied with Romania.

Everyone across the political spectrum in America should be able to agree that our freedom of speech is a cherished right and that we don't want to be outdone by a nation separated from communist domination by less than a quarter of a century.

In fact, it's not good enough that the USA merely crack the top 25 in next year's ranking. We should have the freest media in the world.

I have an idea.

Our constitutional freedom of speech guarantees on both the federal and state levels include a term that has created some confusion we need to clear up in order to better protect our freedoms. The term is freedom of the press.

The Kentucky and United States Constitutions were written at a time in which the cutting edge communications technology of the day was a printing press. Employees of media corporations sometimes claim their profession is the only one protected by the Constitution. This is clearly not accurate. If the internet, television, radio or even telephones existed in the late 18th century, it is certain the word "press" wouldn't be found in either document or the other technologies would be included as well.

To update and clarify free speech rights in the United States we need to change our definitions of "media" and "press" to include all individuals, since we all have broadcast capabilities our founding fathers could not even imagine.

Click here to read proposed legislation for Kentucky.  Our state law does not include a "press exemption" or "media exemption" such as that used on the federal level to create special rights for media corporations, so a federal solution would be a little more involved. But it is worth the effort to protect our sacred freedoms. If you agree, please forward this post widely.

Kentucky industrial hemp rolling

The industrial hemp bill in Kentucky's House of Representatives has 15 co-sponsors, seven of which are Democrats.

Kentucky agriculture needs the freedom to grow industrial hemp and it can't happen until our politicians lose their ridiculous fear that someone might mistake this incredibly useful crop with a hallucinogenic drug.

Coming on the heels of advancement of Kentucky's milk freedom bill, this progress is a welcome sight. If you haven't already, please ask your representative to sign on to the hemp bill.

Kentucky milk freedom advances

The Kentucky Senate Agriculture Committee advanced a bill on Thursday to clarify the freedom of Kentuckians to produce, sell, buy and drink raw milk.

Senate Bill 47 came about as the result of an ugly incident in Louisville last May in which local "health" authorities raided a food club and took their fresh milk.

The bill has only four sponsors in the Senate. Please contact your Senator and ask him or her to support food freedom in Kentucky. Especially with the federal government getting more aggressive toward food freedom, getting this right on the state level is worth the effort.

It's not too soon to start talking this up with your House representative as well.

Going cold turkey off Kentucky crazy checks

Kentucky is about to make national news big time with a bill that would require a drug test for welfare recipients suspected of abusing illegal drugs.

Lonnie Napier's HB 26 now has 55 co-sponsors in the 100 member state House.

Florida passed a similar law that was blocked by a federal judge last October because it didn't limit testing to cases in which there is probable cause. A 1999 Michigan law was also thrown out for the same reason.

A similar measure is under consideration in Tennessee, but Kentucky is the one state in which someone is doing this correctly.

We can agree to cut this, right?

Kentucky legislators appear to be dragging their feet on clearing up the David Williams pension scandal in Frankfort, perhaps because too many of them are afraid of the Senate President.

But what about Steve Nunn? The Kentucky Knows Best PAC stirred up interest in bloated legislative pensions last summer with the news that convicted murderer and former state Rep. Steve Nunn would draw his state pension in prison for the rest of his life simply because he didn't murder his girlfriend while he was a legislator.

Cleaning this mess up will be very easy. See details by clicking here.

You can get the ball rolling by calling or forwarding this post your representatives or to Rep. Mike Cherry and Sen. Damon Thayer. While the legislature is patiently waiting for the candidate filing deadline to pass, dealing with this should be an easy and painless way to pass the time.

Small victory for free speech

State Rep. Jim Wayne (D-Louisville) withdrew a public financing of judicial campaigns bill today that would have given participating candidates funds to match independent expenditures made on behalf of an opponent.

Particularly during a presidential election year in which hundreds of millions of independent expenditure dollars are sure to be spent, it's interesting to see attempts like this to counter private funds devoted to a political campaign with funds forcibly taken by the government.

Glad to see such a ridiculous bill fail to get any support in the House. We should use the demise of this misguided attempt as a reason to reinforce individual free speech rights in Kentucky.

Kentucky Medicaid enrollment shocker

Kentucky's Medicaid/KCHIP enrollment under ObamaCare will increase by 42%, a new Urban Institute study projected.

This is significant mostly because Kentucky already can't afford what we spend on Medicaid (14.8% of general fund appropriations in the current budget proposal.) But also, there is this: the Urban Institute, a left-wing think tank supports ObamaCare. The Heritage Foundation, which opposes ObamaCare, projects an increase of only 31%.

The Urban Institute suggests Kentucky will be able to make up for much of the additional costs by almost entirely eliminating uncompensated care costs. Yet again, if Massachusetts serves as a guide, that's another bad bet for Governor Beshear, who continues to force ObamaCare on us through the back door.

How will you protect free speech in Kentucky?

Theresa Camoriano, a Louisville attorney, understands better than most that we don't appreciate our free speech rights until we notice them being taken away. Mrs. Camoriano has written a legislative bill to ensure that individuals can maintain those rights in the face of a state government growing increasingly hostile toward its citizens who dare to speak out.

Her bill would amend KRS 121.015 by adding the following to it:

(18)     "Press" means any resident of the state of Kentucky who engages in any form of communication. 

(19)     "Media" means any resident of the state of Kentucky who engages in any form of communication.

(20)     "Newspaper" means any form of printed material that includes any advertisement or other information for the purpose of public distribution, including information printed on paper, billboards, signs, fliers, web pages and other electronic print material.

The purpose of this portion of Kentucky statute is to clarify that the speech and press rights of the flesh and blood residents of Kentucky are no less than the speech and press rights of legal persons taking the form of newspaper and broadcast businesses operating in Kentucky.

Given Kentucky's clear constitutional prohibition on government infringement of free speech rights, this change in state law shouldn't be necessary. But as long as we have Democratic elected officials promoting nonsense like this and Republicans willing to go along when they don't want to be criticized either, we need to be proactive.

This language would prevent the Commonwealth of Kentucky from punishing any citizen for simply exercising his or her right to speak freely. Anyone opposed to that?

Everyone wants to co-opt the tea party

Possibly the greatest political quote in history, from Mahatma Gandhi, applies to the tea party in a big way: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

In the battle between the tea party and the establishment, we are in the thick of phase three.

Newt Gingrich just won South Carolina and many of his voters claim to also support tea party principles. That might make your skin crawl if you oppose some of the big government positions Speaker Gingrich supports, but defeating the establishment was never going to be easy and we should expect a few more big twists and turns before we win. Newt is just another brick in the wall.

Where others view with disgust a dalliance between Newt and the tea party, I see a movement securing its footing for a major advance. Hold on tight for a very bumpy ride.

But at some point soon (very soon, I hope) the tea party will be bigger than both the Republican and Democratic parties. Then the only way someone can get elected to office is to swear a blood oath that he or she will make government smaller and less powerful.

The establishment, I think, will keep doubling down on their big government garbage past the point at which it stops working for them. In 2010, we got a very small taste of what that looks like. This year may not be the tipping point, but there is no question we are close.

Another positive sign is that Washington D.C. Democrats are saying out loud that the GOP has gone too far with the tea party and that they think they will get back all their power in 2012. They might win some races, but that would only pour gasoline on the tea party fire. If we do take a step back this year, the next move forward will be unstoppable. That could get really ugly because the power players are so entrenched, but the big government folks really are out of other people's money. They are running out of time faster than we are.

To end this post on a related but somewhat lighter note, I noticed today some on the far left using a familiar tea party symbol to support one of their own, Senator Kathy Stein. Did you see this?

If the Dems wave Gadsden Flags like this at their Sunday afternoon rally, I suspect the media will try to blame the tea party for any police cars they set on fire.

Unbridled "Medicaid Eligibility" foolishness

Governor Steve Beshear's 2012-2014 budget proposal includes a bonding request of $50 million for a Medicaid Eligibility program to "provide for real-time time determination of applicant eligibility."

Aside from the obvious stupidity of spending $50 million for a program to tell if someone is eligible for Medicaid or not, the laundry list of federal agencies involved in the project suggests strongly this has something to do with the ObamaCare program the legislature is quietly allowing Beshear to implement without our approval.

If there is any resistance left in Frankfort, now would be a great time to start resisting.