How powerful is the industrial hemp issue?

There is no question that cultivation of industrial hemp has pockets of strong support in Kentucky, but the Republican primary for Kentucky's 17th state Senate district could show just how potent it has become.

Rick Hostetler, challenging Republican Senator Damon Thayer launched a new page on his web site chastising Thayer for a 2011 KET broadcast in which Thayer seemed to suggest that allowing farmers to grow hemp might lead to people taking hard drugs. See the page by clicking here.

Industrial hemp entered Kentucky Republican politics in the fall of 2010 when then-gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett announced his support for hemp cultivation. He came in second in a three-way race in which both his opponents made anti-hemp statements similar to Thayer's.

Agriculture Commissioner Jamie Comer followed Moffett's pro-hemp statements in his successful 2011 campaign. Before long, nearly all of his opponents followed suit, including his Democratic general election opponent who publicly flip-flopped to a pro-hemp position.

By all indications, Senator Thayer has a very significant fundraising advantage over Hostetler. Industrial hemp advocates may or may not want to latch onto this race to gauge support for this free market issue, but it would be great to see it become a part of the discussion in 2012 and this looks like our only chance.  

Kentucky budget negotiators need Jed Clampett

On the old Beverly Hillbillies television program, when Jed Clampett's nephew Jethro would say or do something particularly stupid, an exasperated Jed would say "One of these days I gotta have a long talk with that boy." Too bad Jed isn't around to talk sense into Kentucky House Budget Chairman Rick Rand.

Kentucky's original budget document written by Gov. Beshear included nearly a billion dollars in new debt spelled out in the bill. The House reduced that debt by about a half and the Senate cut the amount of new debt by half again.

As Rep. Rand was explaining that he didn't want to agree to the Senate's changes, Rep. Stan Lee (R-Lexington) rose to ask a question on the bill.

"According to the newspaper, the Senate cut spending and cut the debt in its bill," Rep. Lee said. "If it's in the paper you know you can believe it. Is what the newspaper reported today correct about the Senate cutting spending and cutting the debt?"

Rand didn't take the bait, but he didn't answer the question accurately, either.

"We cut the debt by half when that bill passed the House," Rep. Rand said.

The answer he was looking for was "No."

We need to reduce spending and reduce Kentucky's debt, but overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate still count on most people not understanding the difference between a real cut and a cut in projected or requested growth. Besides that, the Senate did nothing to address the pension mess or the Governor's wish to implement ObamaCare administratively which the budget bill would allow him to do.

Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell need to see this

Kentucky Employees Retirement Systems is currently funded at 28%, less than any state fund in the country, KRS Trustee Chris Tobe said.

"Underfunding each year is like a hurricane devastating the pension," Tobe said. He predicts that within three to five years the pension system will require $600 million a year from the legislature just to make annual payments.

The lack of understanding in the legislature on this issue is made clear by the way House Bill 300 is flying through on its way to becoming law.

The problem is that both parties in both chambers of the legislature and much of the executive branch are caught up in a desire to keep this quiet. And the media blackout is at least somewhat understandable; if this were a Republican-only scandal there would already be a thousand news stories and editorials calling for blood.

As it is, there is zero chance of an Attorney General investigation. We need federal intervention quickly. The Securities and Exchange Commission is already looking into the placement agent problem just as the legislature is covering tracks with House Bill 300.

Tobe said requiring placement agents to register as executive branch lobbyists will actually make the problems worse.

He calls placement agents "looters" and says HB 300 "encourages looting with unlimited and undisclosed looting allowed as long as you sign in as a looter."


Senators Paul and McConnell have the biggest megaphones in the state. They should do us all a favor and use them to put a stop to this. 

Showdown coming on Certificate of Need?

House Bill 458 represents an attempt by the legislature to overturn a Kentucky court ruling in favor of freedom and competition in health care.

The bill sailed through the House in a form that would have shut down the same medical practices who fought successfully in court for their continued existence and to ensure the prohibition of any future such providers of surgical services outside of (much more expensive) hospitals.

The Senate has now amended the bill to grandfather in those existing practices but to prohibit any new providers from lowering consumer prices and improving quality of service through competitive forces.

So now the question becomes: which chamber of the General Assembly believes in the ridiculous certificate of need process more, the House or the Senate?

In other words, if innovation in health care delivery is so dangerous we have to force doctors to do outpatient surgeries in hospitals rather than provide a less expensive alternative then why are exempting anyone from certificate of need? And if those exemptions don't actually put consumers at risk, then why don't we drop this overly burdensome regulation for all Kentuckians?

Keystone Kops ride in Kentucky

For the third year in a row, Kentucky is about to make a law banning synthetic marijuana.

I'll wait right here for a minute while that sinks in. Read the first sentence again if you have to.

Lead sponsor Rep. John Tilley, the House Judiciary chair, seems pretty sure that he finally has a bill that will work. But he is wrong again.

Look up synthetic marijuana on Amazon.com. It is readily available (as is allergy medicine) and inexpensive. The most Tilley's grand scheme will accomplish is to move retailers of synthetic marijuana onto the internet or out of the state. (Hint to lawmakers: that means less sales tax.)

And lest you think anyone will be made safer by this, consider that retailers usually live in or near the communities they serve and can be made to answer for bad or even dangerous products. It's much harder to hold an internet retailer accountable.

So if you want to cost Kentucky jobs and tax revenue and probably even put more people in harm's way, then go ahead. Knock yourself out and support HB 481 and tell your constituents you fought to make them safer.

It's just not true.

Cover-up is always worse (pension version)

The Senate budget committee today unanimously passed HB 300, the pension scandal cover-up bill. The bill now heads to the Senate floor.

Insufficient work by former state Auditor Crit Luallen paved the way for official Frankfort to continue hiding a kickback scheme run through investment middlemen call "placement agents," which has already cost state taxpayers potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

HB 300 would further embed placement agents in the Kentucky Retirement Systems by making them register as lobbyists with the executive branch of state government, which requirement does not involve reporting their actual dollar amounts of compensation.

This would be a big step away from what needs to happen, which is a lawsuit to recover all the placement agent fees paid out by the state. Few people in official Frankfort want such scrutiny because then the placement agents will talk about how some of that money was funneled to politicians.

This issue will become much more of a front-burner concern in three to five years when the pension plans run out of money and the taxpayers are on the hook for massive new payments we can't afford.

Your representatives need to hear from you to realize that covering this garbage up will be a much greater crime than starting now the process of coming clean. It will be much more expensive, too.

Voting no on this one is hugely important. Passage of HB 300 will come back to haunt us all.

Kentucky lawmakers suffer from 'meth math'

The Kentucky state Senate is expected to pass a version of the budget bill this week only to go behind closed doors with House negotiators to work out another debt-stuffed fiscal "compromise."

Meanwhile, out in the open, they are attacking allergy sufferers in a clumsy attempt to do something about methamphetamine abuse.

In 2008, dentists testified about similarities between conditions they call "Mountain Dew mouth" and "meth mouth." A Kentucky lawmaker joked that the popular soft drink should be made illegal. It was a stupid joke, to be sure, but at least back then Kentucky's nanny staters were adding two and two and coming up with something remotely resembling four.

Presumably if they were looking at "Mountain Dew mouth" today, our big government friends in the House and Senate would attempt to ban toothbrushes.

Please call your representatives today and tell them to kill Senate Bill 3.

Frankfort will tax your allergies and colds

Kentucky's House Judiciary Committee just voted in favor of the Snot Tax. The bill now needs the approval of the full House and Governor Steve Beshear and then some users of allergy medicines will be forced to get a doctor's prescription for a little nasal relief. For now.

Supporters of the measure claim that it will stop the manufacture of methamphetamine in Kentucky, which it absolutely will not do. Then they will come back next year and tighten the bill's restrictions.

If you didn't get hit by this year's version of the bill, breathe easy while you can. But remember that this is how big government always expands -- by lulling most of the people to sleep in the belief their restrictions only hurt someone else. They know there is plenty of time to come back and zap you next year.

These are the people we trust to write our state budget in secret. Then after they pass it, we get to find out what is in it. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Time for another Kentucky tea party rally

Some Kentuckians may think the Obama administration alone is making healthcare unreasonably expensive. They would be wrong. House Bill 458 effectively prohibits doctors from saving their patients money by performing more outpatient surgeries outside of expensive hospitals. We can stop HB 458, but we need to move fast. Please make plans to attend a tea party rally and press conference focused on keeping healthcare costs down by introducing more competition to the system. It's Wednesday March 21 at 10:00 am ET at the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort. The big government anti-capitalism types in both parties are ready for a fight on this one as their power is at stake. Your voice is desperately needed now. Please spread the word.

Is your representative talking about this?

Frankfort politicians in both political parties have turned a blind eye to rampant corruption in the Kentucky Retirement Systems for too long, costing Kentuckians many millions of dollars. Cleaning up the mess should be a key issue in the 2012 elections, state Senate candidate Don Butler said.

"House Bill 300 would further enrich the very people who are bleeding our state pension system dry by keeping 'placement agents' in every dark corner of our state capital when we don't need them and can't afford them," Butler said.

"We are giving huge sums of money to these crooks who should all be run out on a rail rather than be left alone to buy up politicians with our money." "It should be common sense for those who understand the issue that we don't need to spend millions on placement agents," Butler said. "At any rate, we shouldn't legitimize them as HB 300 does. It may be better politics to wait and see if my opponent votes for this and then blast him, but if we miss this chance to fix this problem, we may not be able to do it next year. Please call your senator and demand a 'no' vote on House Bill 300."

Butler faces incumbent Republican Senator David Givens in the May 22 GOP primary.

Independent counsel blisters Crit Luallen

A national leader in the field of forensic investigations in the money management industry is criticizing former Kentucky state Auditor Crit Luallen for botching a pre-election audit of the state pension system last summer in an ongoing scandal that appears to involve tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in losses on her watch.

Edward Siedle of Benchmark Financial Services in West Palm Beach, Florida expressed shock that Luallen could miss obvious "red flag" signs of corruption at Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS).

"The entire investment management contracting process at KRS appears suspect at this time," Siedle said.

He said her audit was "remarkable in its failure to adequately address the most obviously troubling issues surrounding use of placement agents at KRS."

Placement agents are salespeople who connect investment firms with big money clients like the KRS in return for unjustifiably large fees paid by the firms. Large institutional investors like KRS should have no problem at all in negotiating away entirely these placement agent fees which, Siedle said, are so improperly accounted for that we still don't know how much we have paid or are paying in excessive fees.

Siedle cited some of the circumstances behind the placement agent "pay-for-play" activities, which read like a modern day, high tech Bluegrass Conspiracy tale with the penny loafers and cocaine traded in for wingtips and the cold-sweat desperation of a big government apparatchik realizing the gravy train is about to hit the wall. The common denominator, of course, is the politicians too dumb and too crooked to speak up before it all comes crashing down.

The good news, as Siedle sees it, is that at least some of the improperly spent funds may be recoverable. First step, though, is to end the cover-up and to start getting everyone talking about where the money is.

In what amounts to an interesting side note but should be instructive nonetheless given any future political aspirations Luallen may have was her published assessment of who ultimately pays placement fees. Luallen said in her audit "it was also determined that the payment of placement agent fees by investment managers did not correlate to an increase in the management fees paid by KRS or reduce the funds available to pay benefits to retirees."

Simply put, if Luallen had the last word on this, the millions in squandered funds wouldn't be recoverable in court because the most powerful woman in Frankfort for the last two decades doesn't think we were overcharged at all as she apparently doesn't understand how service providers pass increased costs along to consumers.

That's the same kind of reasoning that has allowed the Obama Administration to say they are going to give away free health insurance by just making the insurance companies pay for it.

Kentucky's official GOP stumbles over Bob Leeper

Tea Party Republicans in Kentucky attempting to make their voices heard within the GOP have experienced a different kind of March Madness this year. Republican officials across the state trying to slam the door shut on tea partiers seem to expect that a movement built on ideas neglected by the party and fueled energy and creativity absent in too many of its campaigns and officials is now populated by people who can't read.