Stumbo's polyester pension plan passes House

House Speaker Greg Stumbo's HB 1 mandates full funding of the Kentucky teachers retirement system by pretending that money to pay the requirement exists. It doesn't.

"Stumbo's fake teachers retirement bill fits Kentucky like a cheap suit and should fool no one who can do basic math," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Kentucky teachers who aren't blind Democrats should be the angriest people in America after Stumbo has shown he thinks of them only as brainless political pawns."

Beshear ObamaCare is DEAD

Former Governor Steve Beshear's Save Kentucky Healthcare online petition has gained fewer than 150 names from all over the world in the last two weeks. The only people who will miss ObamaCare in Kentucky when its bogus Frankfort bureaucracy is gone is Frankfort Obamacrats.

Beshear, Stumbo, Grimes and all the rest should admit now that the 2015 Kentucky Lie of the Year was a lie and that they are the only ones who stand to lose when Kynect is shut down later this year.

House Dems "Jack Conway" themselves

In the last week before the 2015 election, outgoing Gov. Steve Beshear gave voice to Frankfort Democrats' belief that 500,000 angry ObamaCare recipients would storm the polls and give Jack Conway the Governor's Mansion.

By now we all know that didn't work out for them.

Frankfort Democrats continue to delude themselves about ObamaCare's efficacy and popularity and just today probably lost their House majority in the upcoming November elections with their overzealous cheerleading.

House Democrats voted for House Bill 5 today, to require state taxpayers to continue funding Steve Beshear's expensive, failed Kynect ObamaCare exchange despite our just electing a new governor on his promise to get rid of it.

"Kentucky's House Democrats can't stop misreading the causes of the ObamaCare disaster or the political fallout from this mess," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Their Republican opponents will do well this fall to remind voters in districts across the state about Obamacrats' continued politicization of the federal takeover of Americans' healthcare."

Bevin's brilliant "empty chamber" video

If you were a new Republican governor in Kentucky surrounded by a hostile opposition party and media eager to distort your message and stifle your efforts, what would you do? If you are Matt Bevin, you might make a video shining light on your message in a way that will cause your opponents to expose themselves as really not doing their jobs.

That's what Gov. Bevin did Monday.

His Facebook video has attracted nearly a million views as well as widespread media attention, mostly because he taped his comments in Frankfort's empty House chamber on Monday morning to complain about House Democrats dragging their feet on the budget. Democrat and media criticism has focused on the fact the House of Representatives' daily session does not convene on Mondays until 4:00 pm.

All this turned a white hot spotlight on Bevin so he could again point out the dire fiscal circumstances he inherited from Gov. Steve Beshear and the need for action from hesitant Frankfort Democrats.

It was a shrewd ploy that is working to keep attention on the need to reduce Frankfort spending. House Speaker Greg Stumbo and friends are stuck harrumphing around acting like the Governor can't tell time and he is getting needed attention to the fact that real time is wasting on real issues while the other side is playing politics as usual.

Andy Barr and Thomas Massie could do this together to kill ObamaCare once and for all

When ObamaCare was being written, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley was seen frequently working with Democrats crafting the bill. What resulted was a small provision in the final product which could now be used to neuter the entire federal takeover of healthcare.

Grassley inserted into ObamaCare a religious health sharing exemption to the "Affordable Care Act's" mandates and restrictions against Americans' ability to manage the purchase of healthcare services sensibly. The best thing about the exemption is that it forced the federal government to leave alone three small groups of Christians in existing health sharing groups who collectively set aside a few dollars each month to spent only on medical needs of people in their group. It's real health insurance as it was intended to be, which avoids the term "insurance" merely because preexisting regulations prohibited it. Of course, it's significantly cheaper and more effective than ObamaCare coverage.

The worst thing about Christian health sharing is also where the greatest opportunity lies. That is, if you aren't an active Christian, you don't qualify.

Christian health sharing has seen significant growth among healthcare consumers desperate to escape skyrocketing premiums, narrow and unpredictable provider networks and imploding government-created insurers. But for the huge segment of the American population which does not attend a Christian church regularly, the exemption has no value.

If you would like to gain exemption from ObamaCare but don't regularly attend a Christian church -- or just know someone who fits this description -- please ask Congressmen Thomas Massie and Andy Barr to work together to amend ObamaCare to allow for the creation of non-religious health sharing groups without ObamaCare mandates, designed merely to cover real medical needs of members and not some politician's idea of worthy social engineering.

Obamacrats would be horrified by accurate claims that they supported special treatment for Christians but are now standing in the way of equal health freedom for non-Christians. Such a bill would surely sail through Congress with veto-proof majorities and then everyone would have the ability to avoid ObamaCare.

Call your Congressman!

Beshear still needs 3500 Obamacrats

Former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear attracted worldwide media attention one month ago saying he "cannot sit idly by" and watch his successor Governor Matt Bevin dismantle our ObamaCare exchange. He has apparently since reconsidered and is, in fact, sitting idly by.

Amid the decidedly unconvincing fanfare back in the early afternoon of February 11, Beshear claimed to have picked up a quick 2500 names on the online petition in support of his ridiculously named "Save Kentucky Healthcare" web site. The funny thing is that a month later the petition's counter says there are 11,221 names right above a convenient form for followers to add their name to the list by divulging email address, street address and selecting their country of residence from a drop-down menu which defaults to the United States but includes such Obamacrat hotspots as Azerbaijan, Djibouti and Tunisia.

The lack of energy evident in Beshear's search of Planet Earth for a few remaining ObamaCare believers would make big news in an age of less leftward media bias.

Frankfort Democrats try another tax increase today

Kentucky's House budget committee takes up HB 278 this morning, which would increase the minimum wage in Kentucky to $10.10 by July 1, 2018.

"This minimum wage tax increase hits consumers where it hurts by necessitating higher prices and is further evidence of the fact state government bureaucrats have no business trying to manage our economy," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "It's just more redistribution games from people who can't accept that the best thing for them to do is get out of the way."

Former election official casts pall over caucus

While other Republicans set about casting votes for president today, former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson took to Facebook to complain bitterly about heavy traffic at the polling location in his home Boone County.

"I am going to miss UK Senior game festivities and the opening tip because of the poor planning by the Boone County GOP in implementing this caucus," Grayson posted.

The really stupid thing about this is Grayson should have known that the caucus was squeezing 62 precincts of Boone County Republicans into one polling place today and if he had only planned ahead he would have had plenty of time to vote and get to all his "festivities."

Grayson's time working at Harvard after losing to Rand Paul in 2010 certainly didn't make him any smarter and -- if possible -- seems to have made him an even bigger crybaby than he was then. Grayson lost every single Boone County precinct in his U.S. Senate bid.

Authoritarian Trump natural heir to Obama

Whether you like Donald Trump or not, it seems clear his appeal is rooted in a belief that he will make things better in America by force. After eight years of Americans being forced to accept a radical dumbing down of public education, massive redistribution of resources through taxation and excessive accumulation of federal debt, a hostile takeover of the healthcare system and foreign policy disasters rammed down our throats in the name of keeping us "safe," can it surprise anyone that the most political energy in America now is coalescing around a figure who wants to "Make America Great Again" by running roughshod over critics, doubters and opponents?

Republican establishmentarians deserve blame for feathering their own nests at the expense of effectively combating Obama in the marketplace of ideas and allowing authoritarianism to flourish, but it's the same failed urge for a shortcut that inspired millions to welcome "Hope and Change" by any means necessary which now seems to generate no curiosity about how exactly we are going to make things "Great."

Trump's primary opponents have failed to pin Trump down with the simple question: How? Hillary Clinton made the same mistake in 2008. Don't expect her to repeat that failure.

America desperately needs a president who will voluntarily limit the power of his or her office to its constitutional boundaries and fight to end government's fantasies about managing our economy whether through currency manipulation, industry regulation or subsidization. America desperately needs a president who will champion state and local experimentation with education policy and social welfare. America desperately needs a president who understands national defense doesn't begin with groping grandmothers in airports and doesn't end with bombing people who fire back missiles purchased by proceeds from our own multi-billion dollar aid checks.

Time grows short.

Are we dropping the ball on Kentucky Caucus?

The Kentucky Republican presidential caucus will be held on Saturday, March 5 between 10 am and 4 pm. Way too many registered GOP voters don't even know that.

You can find your polling place by clicking here.

Any questions?

Kratom ban in Kentucky will worsen heroin

For all the billions of dollars government spends attempting to fight "drugs," you might think by now we would know better than allowing politicians to manage any part of the issue much less ban anything else.

"People across Kentucky are using a mild, natural product called kratom to step down from heroin addiction while Senate Bill 136 would ban kratom and throw people in jail for using it," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "If this stupid bill becomes law, heroin deaths will only increase. Politician tossing should be a sport."

Beshear: Conway was terrible, Stumbo worse

Gov. Steve Beshear's message in a Lexington press conference today was supposed to be about getting Matt Bevin to turn his back on the half million people who believed his campaign promises about undoing ObamaCare damage in Kentucky, but it didn't work out that way.

Beshear spoke to a half dozen nodding supporters at the Hyatt Regency hotel with a somber Crit Luallen and an utterly miserable-looking Audrey Tayse Haynes nearby. He told them ObamaCare is not a disaster. They looked like they really wanted to believe him.

"The picture of Beshear's Magical Misery Tour says a thousand words about what's left of Kentucky's Democratic Party in the wake of Obama and ObamaCare," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Beshear's effort here serves as an admission that the proper forum for this discussion, Jack Conway's gubernatorial campaign, was a huge failure and that Speaker Greg Stumbo's evaporating House majority is even less equipped to make a case for ObamaCare when reality is too clearly in opposition."

Anti-7th Amendment bill walks like gun control

Senate Bill 6 in Kentucky's 2016 General Assembly would force an innocent person harmed by medical error or negligence to go through a tangled mess of red tape taking a year or more before being allowed to seek reimbursement for losses, in violation of the 7th Amendment of the Kentucky Constitution and Section 7 of Kentucky's Constitution.

"There is nothing in Senate Bill 6 which protects consumers or lowers healthcare costs and the idea of asking a panel of doctors if you can hold another doctor who hurts you responsible is like asking Nancy Pelosi if you can buy a gun," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said.

Appreciating Rand Paul's efforts on race relations

Senator Rand Paul deserves to be congratulated for his efforts in the presidential race to improve race relations in America and we should carry on his fight, 30th district Kentucky House candidate Waymen Eddings said.

"The divide between people of different races comes down to lack of communication and we need to continue talking to bring people together," Eddings said. "Freedom for all still needs to be won and we can not afford to ignore Senator Paul's color blind message of putting the individual first in the 21st Century."

ObamaCare takes next step down

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield took another big step toward dumping its Kentucky ObamaCare customers today, announcing they are practically eliminating insurance agent commissions on their health plans.

"With today's action, we get one step closer to the planned total destruction of health insurance in America and the time when ObamaCare and total government control of healthcare mean the same thing," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Customer service at health insurance companies was already bad enough, but this is a huge nail in the coffin."

"Bad Doctors Gone Wild" bill SB6

Whether through negligence or sheer incompetence, a tiny fraction of Kentucky doctors account for most medical malpractice lawsuits each year. Senate Bill 6 would essentially eliminate the ability to sue for a malpractice by encouraging doctors to obligate any patients so harmed to skip court and rely on "binding arbitration."

"This is the legal equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bathwater," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "The Kentucky and U.S. Constitutions guarantee a plaintiff's ability to sue for losses caused by another person and once in a while someone may try to abuse that right, but we can't pretend that gumming up the works and delaying or preventing a legitimate day in court does anything but make that worse. Senate Bill 6 must be withdrawn or defeated."

Louisville House candidate defends gun owners

Attacking innocent Kentuckians' right to bear arms is the standard politician's answer to inner city crime and violence, but it doesn't work, 30th district House candidate Waymen Eddings said.

"My opponent, Rep. Tom Burch, has a 21% rating from the National Rifle Association, but his being an opponent of self-defense rights has not made anyone safer and only makes crime worse," Eddings said. "Working to improve public safety while also protecting individual rights will always be my top priority."

"Criminals are not known to comply with KRS statutes so then my opponent's approach simply imposes even more restrictions on my law abiding neighbors in Louisville. Gun control is a bureaucratic gesture, not a solution. So, I intend on engaging the community to find the true answers. These answers will be responsive to the unique dynamics of violent conflict in an urban environment while not penalizing the lawful citizen for the actions of the criminal element."

Will Matt Bevin abuse 7th Amendment?

Gov. Matt Bevin has said many times he supports using tort reform to lower healthcare costs, but if you want evidence that limiting medical malpractice jury awards does that, prepare to be disappointed. Such evidence just doesn't exist.

"Tort reform is politician-speak for 'I don't know what to do, let's just kill some lawyers,'" Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "It's a well-worn Republican buzzword, but tort reform not only runs afoul of the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Section 7 of the Kentucky Constitution, it simply fails to deliver what its advocates promise. In fact, as ObamaCare blew up healthcare for everyone while trying to fix it for a few, tort reform threatens to do the same thing to a citizen's right to seek redress in court."

"Gov. Bevin should speak clearly about his vision of tort reform without delay and that includes the bad idea in the legislature to force injured parties to go before a medical review panel in Senate Bill 6, which will only hurt consumers."

New York Times' Kentucky accounting failure

The editorial page of the New York Times ran an odd article trying to persuade Gov. Matt Bevin to give up his top campaign promise of reversing Kentucky's illegal adventure in ObamaCare implementation by demanding we return $290 million in federal ObamaCare grants. The Times is as ignorant of basic accounting as they are of their precious ObamaCare law and Kentucky's experience with it.

"Gov. Bevin has already documented we spent $58,341,000 in federal funds on our ObamaCare exchange last year when we weren't supposed to have any according to the law and in excess of the $19,916,000 we supposedly had left over from Obama's $253 million in establishment grants, so if they now want back all the establishment grants for the failed exchange which no one else has had to return and the law doesn't require returning plus $38,398,000 the law specifically prohibits the feds from sending to us, the response they deserve is to drop dead," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said.

KY Health Cooperative customers with unpaid claims were screwed long ago

The Associated Press ran a silly article over the weekend claiming the defunct Kentucky Health Cooperative is "selling assets" to "satisfy its debts." The AP should make clear, but doesn't, that the only debts that will be satisfied are federal loans and Kentuckians' unpaid claims don't make the cut.

The Cooperative reported $176.2 million in losses in 2014 alone, before losing even more money in 2015. It was created and maintained with $123.8 million in federal loans. That means unless they bought a bunch of office furniture which is now somehow worth more than $50 million more than they paid for it, any remaining unpaid claims cannot possibly be paid by "selling assets."

"If Kentucky officials had listened to me last summer, they could have ended the Cooperative charade before any more innocent Kentuckians were harmed by this ObamaCare nonsense," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Buying ObamaCare insurance remains a crapshoot and is not worth the risk."