James Comer's six figure gift from taxpayers to Democrat politician begs further explanation

A question from the audience at Saturday's gubernatorial debate in Nicholasville surprised some audience members when all four candidates said they had made campaign contributions to Democrats in past elections, but the rest of the story is more interesting and requires more damage control from James Comer's faltering campaign.

Comer said he had given to one Democrat -- former State Representative Richard Henderson, who lost his seat last November after getting caught up in a cockfighting scandal. But there was a Comer beneficiary who got quite a bit more than a $100 check from Commissioner Comer.

Former State Representative Fred Nesler (D) received a $100,000 taxpayer-provided boost to his state pension in June 2012 when Comer appointed him to an executive position in the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. This huge gift was made possible by Comer's vote for HB 299 from 2005, which he has had a horrible time trying to explain. (Click here for an amazing video of Comer falling all over himself and trying to blame others for his absurd vote.)

Given Comer's incoherent and painful non-explanations of his vote to pad his pocket some $500,000 at your expense, getting him to talk about why he spread your wealth on to his Democratic friend should provide him further embarrassment.

Will T. Scott urges drug policy overhaul

We can fix Kentucky's failing approach to drug addiction starting with an innovative state program to guarantee safety of potential employees with past felony drug problems, said Republican gubernatorial candidate Will T. Scott.

"Our prisons are not doing their job, protecting you," Scott said. Without a different approach, a never-ending cycle of theft, robberies and worse make victims of innocent Kentuckians. "Of the people in prison due to addiction-related criminal activity, at least sixty percent will commit new crimes within three years of their release from prison," Scott said.

Scott proposes a Kentucky Certified Worker program funded with fees charged to inmates to insure employers against losses caused by rehabilitated felons. The program will provide an opportunity for rehabilitated Kentuckians to build productive lives as opposed to a life sentence in the shadows or worse.

"That means a decent job and, as Merle Haggard sang, 'having pride in who I am.'"

Part of the solution to Kentucky's worsening drug problems is more comprehensive use of drug courts with an emphasis on rehabilitation outside of prisons and in minimum security facilities for less money than we currently spend.

"This new path will work and it will make our homes, garages, highways and businesses much safer at a much lower cost," Scott said.

Justice Scott also proposes a tougher law enforcement approach against the distribution of heroin.

"Heroin transport, sales and use will be under attack like never before," Scott said, referencing a plan to deter importation of heroin from other states.

Scott refers often to the hope of recovery and a strong desire to help rescue Kentuckians from the ravages of addiction and restoration to full productivity, including expungement of criminal records in some cases, including restoration of all rights of citizenship.

"What I'm really telling you is to the extent we can truly rebuild a justice system that really rehabilitates our addicted prisoners and helps them rebuild their lives, pride and confidence in themselves, then we can and will be safe again in our homes, businesses and garages."

Kentucky GOP delegation pounces on Comer, Heiner

A letter signed by nearly all Kentucky's entire Republican congressional delegation and delivered today took aim directly at gubernatorial candidates Hal Heiner and James Comer. The letter also invited all gubernatorial candidates to a post-election "Unity Rally" May 30 in Frankfort at GOP Headquarters.

"It is absolutely essential that we challenge a government-run healthcare system that is limiting choices and driving up costs for so many of our fellow citizens," the letter explained.

Comer and Heiner have been inconsistent at best in challenging the ObamaCare government-run healthcare system beginning last summer when they both told the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce they would take no action against the Kynect health insurance "exchange" which inspired another candidate to join the race. Both then reiterated their ambivalence in February in a national publication.

Heiner, Comer: Republicans made us do it

Gubernatorial candidates James Comer and Hal Heiner told the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce last summer they would do nothing to shut down ObamaCare's Kynect program in Kentucky. This February, they both told National Journal the same thing. They've both bristled at criticism received for going squishy on this key topic, but at least until now they haven't blamed other Republicans for their bad decisions.

Enter April and the issues of pensions and guns.

Last week, Comer shocked and awed primary election voters when he was asked by the Courier Journal's Joe Gerth why he voted himself a half million dollar pension gift from taxpayers when he was a legislator:

When asked why he voted for the bill to begin with, Comer hesitated for eight seconds. “Well, you know, there’s, it’s, the a, that was a, clearly a bad vote,” he said, before noting that Senate President Robert Stivers and current U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie voted for it.

When asked what he saw in the bill that made him like it in 2005, Comer said, “You know, ... I can’t remember that far back.”

That was last week. Then today, Heiner's campaign blamed a bad vote he made on banning guns on "ten other Republicans" who did the same.

Comer: send Heiner to jail for five years

Republican gubernatorial candidate James Comer has figured out one way to beat Hal Heiner. He wants to send him to jail.

When a 501(c)(4) group called Citizens for Sound Government started running an ad attacking Comer for padding his pension in the legislature and for collecting federal farm subsidies, Comer responded as if the attacks came directly from Heiner himself. If true, that's a big problem.

"It's very discouraging Heiner would break his pledge to run a positive campaign," Comer told CN2 Politics. "I have a theory of who that donor may be (to Citizens for Sound Government.) It may be the same donor in his campaign."

Comer's clear suggestion that the 501(c)(4) ad was made in coordination with Heiner, would be an in-kind contribution under KRS 121.015 and subject to a $1000 limit under KRS 121.150. Under KRS 121.990(3), such a violation of contribution limits by Heiner would be a Class D Felony which could, under KRS 121.990(4), result in the Republican Party of Kentucky not having a nominee on the general election ballot if Heiner were nominated and removed after a successful complaint by the Democratic nominee.

Comer and Heiner should talk about this nonsense a lot more between now and May 19.

Anthem doubles 2015 small group ObamaCare rate hike

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield small group health plans increased their customers' premiums 7.1% this past January 1, presumably for all of 2015. But it won't stay that way.

Anthem has requested an additional six percent from the Kentucky Department of Insurance, which routinely rubber-stamps such applications. The increase is set to take effect July 1.

If you are keeping score at home, that's a 13.1% increase for the largest small group health insurer in Kentucky in 2015 amid repeated claims from Obamacrats of the health law's great success.

Will T. Scott parachutes into lead

Gubernatorial candidate and former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott will perform a 3500 foot parachute jump to honor Kentucky's veterans on Monday, March 16 at 11 am ET in Elizabethtown, KY. The jump will take place at Skydive Kentucky, Elizabethtown Airport, 1824 Kitty Hawk Drive in Elizabethtown.

The jump will take place promptly at 11 am ET (weather permitting -- may have to wait briefly for 3500 foot ceiling). After the jump, Justice Scott and his running mate Sheriff Rodney Coffey will lay out their Kentucky Veterans Platform, including the following: 

The Scott-Coffey Administration's veteran-friendly focus will provide enhanced job preferences for veterans. Scott will continue his efforts and support for Kentucky Supreme Court Veterans treatment courts he helped build for veterans' "unseen" wounds. Scott and Coffey will work to enact a charitable property tax exemption for veterans' non-profit lodges like those in Ohio. Scott and Coffey will build veterans cemeteries in far western Kentucky and far south-eastern Kentucky. 

Scott and Coffey will announce and discuss their Kentucky Korean and Vietnam veterans "Coming Home March" for the afternoon of December 8, 2015 immediately following the swearing in of our next Governor and Lieutenant Governor. All Kentucky Korean and Vietnam war veterans will be encouraged to assemble at the Old Transportation Building Plaza in Frankfort and thereafter walk, march or ride (with or without assistance) up through Capitol Avenue to the Capitol steps, to there be received and welcomed home by a respected national figure and finally thanked for their service and dismissed. 

"After 61 years and 45 years, we are finally coming home," Scott said.

They will also announce and discuss Sheriff Coffey's charitable Wounded Warriors bicycle ride across Kentucky from Ashland to Paducah in April to raise money locally for Wounded Warriors projects.

Will T. Scott: reduce state healthcare regulation

In this time of great upheaval over ObamaCare, Kentucky should repeal state laws limiting the supply of medical services, specifically the "certificate of need" program, former Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott said.

Repealing certificate of need laws would allow medical providers to expand services without first seeking state government approval. 

"If more government control could make healthcare less expensive, Kentucky would have the cheapest care in the world," Scott said. "Instead, we have regulated ourselves into an expensive mess."

"The federal government gave up on certificate of need in 1987 because they found it did not protect consumers. Our people are my highest priority and I encourage my opponents to speak up on this issue."

Obama attorney: taxing power for me, but not for thee

In U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments today, ObamaCare attorney Donald Verrilli argued the IRS has the power to mandate ObamaCare taxes and subsidies even when the law does not authorize such action. This power, of course, is found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution or in federal statute.

It simply does not exist, except in the minds of Obamacrats. So, Verrilli maintains, if President Obama wants his IRS to violate the letter and the spirit of the social contract between government and the people in order to tax and subsidize where no such authority exists, that's just fine.

But apparently that's either just a one way street or a power belonging only to Obama.

When Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts asked Verrilli today if a future administration hostile to ObamaCare could decide to revoke the taxes and subsidies he wants them to impose unilaterally now, he said they could not.

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules the IRS needs congressional approval to enforce ObamaCare mandates, taxes and subsidies, the law will effectively collapse right away in most states.

Anthem joins the mid-year rate increase parade

With ObamaCare beneficiaries Kentucky Health Cooperative and Time Insurance Company gaining quiet premium increases in recent weeks, the largest health insurer in the state wants its piece of the pie too.

Anthem Health Plans has requested a "base rate change" effective July 1, but the Department of Insurance's public web site does not specify yet the amount of increase sought. The "Consumer Protection" people at DOI said they would divulge the amount of the increase on Monday.

This is a tax increase like the other ObamaCare tax increases. What's worse, consumers locked into ObamaCare plans no longer have the freedom to drop out their health plans when faced with one of these mid-year increases without becoming subject to the ever-increasing mandated coverage tax.  Frankfort Obamacrats will claim the state Insurance Code gives DOI the right to levy such a tax on Kentuckians whenever they wish, but that only makes it more infuriating.

Will Kentucky ObamaCare melt further after temperatures thaw?

A minor health insurance player in Kentucky just received quiet approval from state insurance bureaucrats to further gouge consumers just as Gov. Beshear triggered a state law designed to prohibit price gouging for other consumer goods. The timing of this price increase suggests other health insurers may soon follow suit.

Time Insurance Company health coverage premiums will increase nine percent in Kentucky on May 1. This comes after Time's fifteen percent increase took effect January 1. And this comes immediately on the heels of Kentucky's largest ObamaCare health insurer receiving multiple rate increases in quick succession.

Late last year, just as the Kentucky Health Cooperative was making headlines for sucking down tens of millions more in federal bailout funds and sacking consumer advocates, it requested a 9.9% rate increase in June and got a fifteen percent increase in September. They came back in October and increased that to twenty percent with a quick assist from the Kentucky Department of Insurance.

We'll be on the lookout for more rate increases in the weeks ahead.

Matt Bevin fell for ObamaCare's next big lie

We all know by now that President Barack Obama was lying when he said if you like your health insurance you can keep it, but Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin apparently didn't get the memo about another lie.

There is no provision in the so-called "Affordable Care Act" for states dumb enough to accept the Medicaid expansion to later rescind their acceptance despite presidential claims to the contrary designed to suck in the unsuspecting. Bevin should have known this. His claim that he would cancel out the Medicaid expansion if he is elected governor holds no water.

Former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott made headlines last month when he became the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to announce that he would take action to cancel Kynect, the state's ObamaCare health benefit "exchange." Fellow candidates James Comer and Hal Heiner subsequently flip-flopped from their prior positions that they would leave the exchange intact.

Beshear misstates Medicaid expansion statistics

Governor Steve Beshear and his Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange disagree about the total number of Kentuckians placed on Medicaid under ObamaCare -- by over half a million people.

Beshear announced today that 375,000 people were added to Medicaid from October 1, 2013 to the end of 2014. KHBE answered an open records request last November 26 stating "806,783 individuals are currently enrolled in Medicaid through Kynect."

The really odd thing about Beshear's number today is that there were already 310,000 Kentuckians on ObamaCare Medicaid at the end of open enrollment last April. At that time, enrollment for private plans was closed down and the army of ObamaCare sales people turned their focus completely toward signing new people up on Medicaid, aided by a flood of advertising dollars for the various Medicaid plans.

And Beshear now wants you to believe that in seven months they only signed up 65,000 for "free" Medicaid among people who would face fines for not signing up. It's much easier to believe hundreds of thousands were signed up, as KHBE said.

Beshear also said expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare will be responsible for adding 40,000 jobs a year in Kentucky by 2021 and add $30 billion to the state's economy. Skepticism abounds.

Will T. Scott: make the call on pensions

Will T. Scott urged his supporters statewide to call their legislators and demand a "NO" vote on Speaker Greg Stumbo's pension bailout bill, House Bill 4.

"Fixing Kentucky's public pension mess without borrowing us into a deeper hole or raising taxes is one of my highest priorities," Scott said. "We should not have to beg our representatives to lead on this. Pick up your phone and call 800-372-7181 and order them to vote against House Bill 4."

Scott is the only gubernatorial candidate with a plan to solve Kentucky's worst-in-the-nation pension underfunding problem with expanded gambling revenues constitutionally devoted to paying down pension debt.

Will T. Scott urges March caucus for state GOP

Kentucky Republicans should support a plan by Senator Rand Paul to choose a presidential candidate next year in March, before the May primary election, gubernatorial candidate Will T. Scott said.

"Rand is right when he says Kentucky's primary usually comes too late to have our voices heard in a meaningful way," Scott said. We can try a caucus in March this one time and see how it works. I'm sure most Republicans will agree with me." 

Senator Paul will ask county leaders of the Kentucky Republican Party to make this change at the next Central Committee meeting in Bowling Green on March 7.

GOP candidate breaks from pack against ObamaCare

Kentucky must shut down its ObamaCare exchange and GOP gubernatorial candidate Will T. Scott will do that on his first day in office, making him the only candidate holding this position.

"The only thing we get out of surrendering on ObamaCare is Barack Obama's appreciation," Scott said. "My primary opponents already gave up that fight last summer telling the Chamber of Commerce what they wanted to hear. I got in this race to provide leadership, not to go with the flow. The only thing we are getting out of a state-run ObamaCare exchange is the privilege of paying for it. When we shut ours down, the feds will come in and pay for the whole thing. And if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against Obama this summer, the law falls apart completely for the three dozen states without a state exchange. If I'm elected, we will be one of them." 

"I say 'no ObamaCare today, no ObamaCare tomorrow, no ObamaCare ever.'"

Reference: http://www.wdrb.com/story/26085741/little-daylight-between-heiner-comer-at-kentucky-chamber-forum

Will T. Scott: $34 billion is enough debt

Frankfort Democrats are circling their wagons around plans to plunge Kentucky $3.3 billion deeper into debt to cover years of state pension mismanagement, choosing to ignore the realities that massive taxation or more debt are not solutions to the pension system. Republican gubernatorial candidate Will T. Scott says enough is enough.

"They are just moving debt from one pile to another and, worse than that, if we do this for KTRS we will have to do it for KERS too so that means at least six billion," Scott said. "These same people are pushing casino gambling but they want to spend that revenue on more new programs and that's wrong. The only way to expand gambling in Kentucky is to mandate in the Constitution that ninety five percent of the money goes to fix our $40 billion pension problem."

"Kentucky has the worst pension problem of any state and Frankfort is still trying to poke the problem with a stick. The growing chorus of more debt, more debt, and even more debt isn’t a solution. I'm running for governor because Kentucky has a promise to keep that runs a lot deeper than allowing politicians to vote themselves wealth from taxpayers' pockets."

Misstating my case won't get rid of me

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY

FRANKLIN CIRCUIT COURT

DIVISION II

CIVIL ACTION NO. 14-CI-1337

 

 

DAVID ADAMS                                                                                           PLAINTIFF

 

V.                                                        MOTION TO RECONSIDER

 

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY,

STEVEN L. BESHEAR, GOVERNOR, et al.                                          DEFENDANTS

 

 

 

            Plaintiff moves the Court to reconsider its order filed in this case December 22, 2014 to correct multiple errors. The fundamental mistake from which others flow is found in the following sentence in the Court’s ruling: “No funds for the Exchange are appropriated from the General Fund or Road Fund as alleged by Plaintiff. Even taking all of Plaintiff’s allegations as true, Plaintiff has not stated a claim for relief.”

            Plaintiff alleged the spending in question is not legal and requests that, as such, it must not be allowed by the Court. This is both a legitimate claim for relief and an allegation that can be proven true and entering the Executive Branch Budget into evidence does nothing to change that. Again, from Plaintiff’s Response to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss,” “State Group Health Insurance Funds for state employees exist in General Funds, whose forbidden appropriations present an inescapable problem for state employees charged with implementing “the ACA.” Even if all other legal problems with the attempted implementation of the “Affordable Care Act” are ignored out of hand, such as the multiple executive orders and constitutional and statutory problems in KRS 12.028 and Kentucky Constitution Sections 47, 180 and 230 with moving, spending and/or adding to Kentucky Access funds, this one cannot be.

            Plaintiff again respectfully requests the Court to reconsider its ruling in this case.

 

                                                                                                Respectfully submitted,

 

 

                                                                                                David Adams

                                                                                                121 Nave Place                                                                                                                                   Nicholasville, KY 40356                                                                                                                    859-537-5372

                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

 

 

 

This certifies the forgoing was served this 5^th day of January, 2015 by electronic mail delivery upon Patrick R. Hughes, Dressman Benzinger LaVelle PSC, 207 Thomas More Parkway, Crestview Hills, Kentucky 41017-2596.

 

                                                                                               

                                                                                    David Adams

 

                       

Kentucky Obamacrats shoot your watchdog

The Kentucky Health Cooperative made news today by sucking up another $65 million "loan" from federal taxpayers just one year after being formed as an ObamaCare health insurer with a $58.8 million loan. But this evidence of wild mismanagement is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Kentucky Health Cooperative, by far our state's biggest ObamaCare insurer, is systematically removing health insurance agents from the Exchange who warn consumers about the co-op's questionable business practices. Several hundred health insurance agents previously appointed to represent the co-op's ObamaCare policies have seen their appointments cancelled and agents seeking to do business under the new regime are being turned away, leaving consumers without an advocate when the co-ops' nonexistent customer service and increasing deductibles become apparent.

"Gov. Beshear said at the beginning of ObamaCare that Kentuckians needed to be running ObamaCare in Kentucky, but all that has done is fill the pockets of his friends like co-op CEO Janie Miller," said Tea Party activist David Adams. "And now the very Kentuckians who were in place to blow the whistle on abusive tactics used by the co-op are being removed. It's yet another outrage from a group of bureaucrats with an enormous capacity for outrageous behavior."

Si se puede: Obamacrats deem all "limited English" speakers in Kentucky disabled

Kentucky Medicaid Obamacrats have started threatening doctors who don't offer and pay for language interpretation services for people who don't speak English.

The cost for such an interpreter is at least $80 and the amount is not reimbursable by Medicaid. Providers have been told the rationale for this is that Medicaid views everyone who doesn't speak English to be disabled.

"Under ObamaCare, we have added almost 900,000 Kentuckians to Medicaid which the state can't afford and now we're bringing our nation's failed immigration policy into the mess," said Tea Party activist David Adams. "Shutting down the Medicaid expansion in Kentucky must be one of our highest priorities."