Progress Kentucky's Racism vs. Elaine Chao

Progress Kentucky, the Super PAC that is targeting Mitch McConnell, is simply disgusting. Its supporters are tweeting comments about Elaine Chao's ethnicity in a way that impugns her and McConnell's patriotism.  Elaine emigrated to America from  Taiwan when she was in third grade.

She and her family are living testaments to the American Dream.  She was the first Asian American to serve in a president's cabinet, where she served our country for eight years.

Progress Kentucky mocks her family for donating to McConnell's past campaigns, as if there is something evil about family members contributing to a brother in law or son in law.   Oh, I forget, the problem is They're Asian.  (Quick, hide, the Chinese are coming to get your job!).  It is filth that is beneath the dignity of any Kentuckian, and I will not link to it.

She and several of her sisters graduated from Harvard Business School  -- to which they have donated millions of dollars to honor their mother with a new building and endowment.

Anyone who has ever met Elaine can attest to her kindness, intellect, humility and deep faith. She is an extraordinary woman. I am proud she chooses to call Kentucky home.

As for Progress Kentucky and those of its followers responsible for the tweets at issue, I have to ask: are your mothers proud?

You Reap What you Sow.....

Attended a panel discussion on gun violence at St. Matthews Episcopal Church.  Panelists were Tom Wine, Commonwealth's Attorney, John Yarmuth, Congressman, and Donna Hargens, Superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools.

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that most of the attendees were not NRA members.

Donna Hargens provided the most constructive input, talking about the importance of education in producing productive members of society that are less likely to be involved in gun related crimes.  Wine and Yarmuth mostly rehashed gun control advocate talking points, i.e., banning assault weapons, limiting magazine capacities and requiring background checks for private gun sales.

The thing about forums such as these that is frustrating is the extent to which so many people who oppose gun violence are the same people that advocate social policies that foster it.  Abortion on demand, welfare programs that encourage fathers to leave, prayer and religious influences prohibited in public spaces, social policy that demeans traditional marriage, the list goes on and on.  In the face of such public policy is it any wonder that we have more criminals and mentally unstable people using guns?   We have a government that has created social policy over the last 50 years that has resulted in a more violent, courser and less compassionate citizenry.

Most gun control advocates need to look at their politics if they want to see why gun violence is rampant.  Want less gun violence?  Work to return our society to normalcy.

Sen. John Hoeven Delivers Weekly GOP Address

Mitch as Movie Star?....

If Mitch McConnell has to have a challenger in the next election, let us hope and pray that it is Ashley Judd.

Ashley Judd has as much chance of becoming a senator from Kentucky as Mitch McConnell has of becoming a movie star.

John David Dyche. C-J Story Goes National

Breitbart is reporting on the Courier-Journal's shabby treatment of John David Dyche, the lone conservative columnist for that paper who recently quit in protest of its censorship.

For those who continue to subscribe to the C-J just for the sports coverage, here's what you've been missing on the other pages:

Since the election in November, the newspaper’s editorial board has called for Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to resign as Senate Minority Leader and accused McConnell of being the target of “national ridicule,” and run comics depicting McConnell consigned to the flames of hell; it has suggested that Senate Republicans “smacked down the disabled of this country and the world.”

It's true that traditional media are struggling to compete with the convenience of digital media.  Still, the C-J's dwindling circulation -- and attendant mass lay-offs -- are exacerbated by its lurch to left.  It's always been a liberal paper, but depicting our senior Senator, of whom many Kentuckians are very proud, in the flames of hell crosses the line.

Paying that subscription fee to the C-J feels like writing a check to the Democratic Party. 

This paper that demands campaign finance laws to inhibit corporations from making political donations is itself a corporation that makes political donations every day -- in the form of favorable coverage for its chosen "progressives" and smear jobs on conservatives.  Likewise, this paper that demands transparency for everyone else refuses to make the modest changes John David Dyche called for to increase transparency.  The C-J's hypocrisy is boundless.

Conservatives should stop subsidizing it.  

C-J Loses John David Dyche

Those philosopher kings at the C-J must have a deep longing for early retirement, or irrelevancy.  They have refused to publish John David Dyche's weekly column -- his best ever -- because it called the paper out for its liberal bias.  Apparently, this column struck too close to home.

For example, JDD suggested that if the paper really supports transparency, how about it live stream its editorial meetings, and release the party registration of its editors and writers.  Scrutiny and transparency for thee, but not me, pronounces the Courier-Journal.

Rather than take to heart some suggestions for improving the paper, or at least letting the column run, it was much easier to tell JDD that this week's column was off-topic, and will not appear. (And in a voice mail:  classy!)

That gave the one token conservative no choice but to resign. John David could not be expected to write with the boldness that has characterized his column, while knowing that Pam Platt stood ready to censor him when he offended the powers that be at the C-J. That would have been an intolerable situation, and he was right to quit.

So much for speaking truth to power.

Mandy Connell has the column in question, JDD's response and the transcript of the voice mail from Pam Platt, informing JDD that she had decided not to run the column.  Mandy will interview John David Monday morning.

John David was too good for that rag. We hear that Insider Louisville would love to publish him (so would we!) and wish him all the best.

Sen. Rand Paul Gives Major Foreign Policy Address

Sen. Rand Paul spoke today at the Heritage Foundation for 25 minutes on "Restoring the Founders' Vision of Foreign Policy."  His staff had promoted this speech for several days, and Paul did not disappoint.  The title, however, was somewhat misplaced.  There were passing references to Washington and Madison, but the real intellectual force behind the speech was George Kennan.

Kennan was the "father of containment"  -- the doctrine that guided U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. Paul's premise is that Radical Islam is analogous to Soviet Communism and should similarly be treated with a policy of containment.

Radical Islam, like Communism during the Cold War, requires a "far-reaching and patient response,"  according to Paul. The U.S. needs a "middle path" that is not appeasement but does not bomb countries based on "what they might do."

Containment offers this middle path, Paul explained, because it is neither solely diplomacy nor solely the use of military force, and because containment distinguishes between America's "vital and peripheral interests."

Paul described Radical Islam's only strength as -- like the Soviet Union -- it's endless patience. Some libertarians argue that western occupying forces fan the flames of Radical Islam.  Paul said he agrees with that, but that it does not follow that Radical Islam will go away when the occupying forces leave. This is true, Paul said, because Radical Islam is a "relentless force," not a "fleeting fad."

Perhaps the most important moment of the speech, at leas for a possible Paul presidential candidacy, was when Paul stated that when it comes to foreign policy, "I am a realist, not a neo-conservative nor an isolationist."  As a result of his "realist" framework, Paul says he sees the world as it is, not as we wish it might be.

Paul pointed to Reagan as the best example of a foreign policy that is "robust, but also restrained."  Reagan recognized the advantage of "strategic ambiguity."  Paul argued that it is in America's interest that our enemies be "uncertain."  Reagan resorted to force less often than the presidents who came before him or after him.  Reagan was able to minimize the use of force by keeping our enemies guessing.  Thus, military force should be on the table (as with Iran's nuclear plans) but diplomacy should also be used.

Paul argued for a foreign policy that respects the Constitution and also respects fiscal discipline.  The Framers recognized that the Executive Branch is most prone to go to war; that's why the Constitution vests the power to declare war in the Legislative Branch.  But the Congress has failed to police that power.  Consequently, when it comes to the use of American's military might "Congress has become not even a rubber stamp, but an irrelevancy." Paul said that some Senators have told him that Congress can restrain the Executive Branch's use of force by exercising the "power of the purse."  That doesn't work, Paul responded, because funds will never be cut when U.S. boots are already on the ground. Congress therefore needs to debate, and if appropriate, declare war, beforehand.

It was a thoughtful, well-delivered speech.  Coupled with Paul's recent trip to Israel and his new committee assignment on Senate Foreign Relations, Paul is establishing that he can influence more than domestic fiscal issues. In short, this was the address of someone who plans to run for president as a serious candidate, not a gadfly.  The speech reassured that the foreign policy of a Paul presidency would be neither neo-con nor isolationist, but rather a foreign policy that respects our Constitution and still provides for the common defense.