Matt Bevin to Play Gatsby!

The latest McConnell attack ad on Matt Bevin does the most damage so far with the revelation that Bevin falsely claimed on his LinkedIn profile that he had received a degree from M.I.T. -- like Jay Gatsby claimed he went to Oxford.

The Hill contacted M.I.T., which says that Bevin was never enrolled there. Bevin then changed his LinkedIn profile to read that his education includes the "School of Life." Whatever that is.

Bevin's campaign released a copy of the "Certificate of Recognition" -- not diploma -- that Bevin says he received from the "EO/Entrepreneurial Masters Program"in 2008.  The "Certificate of Recognition" includes the M.I.T. logo.

"Certificate of Recognition"?  This sounds like something my kids received for participating in U-6 soccer. The reference to the "Masters Program," on the other hand, plainly connotes an M.B.A.

 Bevin describes the programs as located on the M.I.T. "Endicott Campus."  M.I.T. does not have an "Endicott Campus," according to the  M.I.T. spokesperson interviewed by the The Hill -- just a building called Endicott. So if those individuals who put this program on had met at a Starbuck's near M.I.T., that would have been the M.I.T. "Starbuck's Campus."

Bevin's campaign contends that McConnell is "childish" to criticize Bevin for lying about where he went to school. Apparently the theory is that lots of people puff up their resumes, so who cares? This, of course, impugns the integrity of those voters Bevin is attempting to court.

There are two distinct aspects to any resume, the subjective and objective.  There may be room for puffery in the subjective -- perhaps exaggerating one's contribution to a project at work.  These are the parts of a resume, or LinkedIn profile, with which people can legitimately disagree, because it is a matter of opinion and oftentimes unquantifiable.  But that's not what happened with Bevin.

Where Bevin received his education is not subjective. It is an objectively verifiable fact -- one that M.I.T. has soundly refuted.  Bevin has crossed the line from truthiness to deceitfulness

What's truly bizarre about Bevin's assertion that he was educated at M.I.T. is that he went to a very good university, Washington and Lee.  Why make stuff up when you have a degree of which most people would be justifiably proud?

As fine a school as Washington and Lee is,  I can't think of any movies set there. In contrast, Good Will Hunting was set at M.I.T.  Maybe Matt Bevin was channelling another Matt who became a star on the set at M.I.T.:  Matt Damon.

Or perhaps the answer lies in another part of Bevin's background he doesn't discuss much.  Bevin attended a New England prep school, just like Ryan O'Neil in Love Story.  Now, the Preppy in Love Story went on to Harvard, but hey, M.I.T. is just down the road and those students are allowed to join the Harvard Coop and row crew on the Charles.  The point here is that New England prep schools like Bevin's alma mater, the Gould Academy in Maine, survive because parents see them as pathways to places like Harvard and M.I.T.  Parents aren't paying the $49,500 a year just for the competitive skiing and snow-boarding.

Students in  prep schools like Gould, particularly in New England, must feel a certain pressure to get into schools like M.I.T. In that respect, I get why M.I.T. would have held an irresistible allure for Bevin.

The Gould Academy lists Matt Bevin as a "notable" alum for being a "Businessman and candidate in Kentucky's 2014 Senate Election." After The Hill  put the lie Bevin's M.I.T. education, I bet the Bevin campaign let Gould Academy know about his candidacy -- makes it easier for us skeptics to see whether that part of his education actually occurred.  Memo to the Gould Academy:  Bevin will have to defeat Mitch McConnell in a primary before he will be a candidate in Kentucky's 2014 Senate Election. Might want to correct that notable alum link to state that he's a candidate in the Republican primary of U.S. Senate.

In the meantime, Bevin's M.I.T. charade makes me think of two Kentuckians who desperately wanted to attend M.I.T. next month and did not get in, despite perfect scores on the ACT.  I think of those two Kentuckians and any and every child who did not get into his first choice school, and who felt his heart sink at receiving a skinny envelope with a rejection letter instead of the fat envelope with the course catalogue.

As adults, we should encourage students that they can be not just successful but fabulous without admission to M.I.T. or whatever the dream school was.  The last thing we want to say, or model, is no worries; you can attend a bogus seminar there and still put it on your resume.

Sen. Tim Scott Delivers GOP Weekly Address on Energy

Congress Exempts Self From Obamacare Exchange?

This just sickens me with disappointment and disgust.  That deal Obama negotiated to exempt Members of Congress and staff from the Obamacare Exchange -- and the big price increase -- was a bipartisan deal.

How could Republicans have been so politically tone-deaf?  So elitist? So detached from the fact that their constituents will soon be suffering under Obamacare, while their elected leaders cut themselves a deal to be exempt?

Sen. David Vitter gets it, but he seems to be the only one.  Writing for the D.C. Examiner,

After intense and, sadly, bipartisan lobbying and scheming in Washington, the Obama administration announced that it is creating out of thin air a special rule to ease the pain of Obamacare -- for Washington only.

You see, a specific provision of the Obamacare law says that all Members of Congress and their staffs have to procure their health care coverage on the Obamacare Exchange, just like tens of millions of Americans. This was causing mounting fear and loathing in Washington because it threatened real disruption and significantly increased expenses. No problem, the new administration rule fixes that and ensures that a huge, special taxpayer-funded subsidy will follow the ruling class to the Obamacare Exchange to take any sting out.

Even worse, as Vitter points out, is that Congress and its staff will get a taxpayer-funded subsidy of $5,000 for individuals or $10,000 for families.  It['s not just that Congress won't be able to "feel our pain;" we are paying for them to enjoy that privilege. 

It's like we are living in the Hunger Games: life is better in the Capitol.  Or as Vitter put it, 

this is exactly what America hates most about Washington. Washington constantly treats itself better, exempts itself from the laws it imposes on middle-class Americans, and thus sets itself up as a privileged ruling class.

It is one thing for Republicans to disagree about whether the symbolism of a vote to defund Obamacare is worth the political fallout of shutting down the government.  The reality is that until Republicans control the Senate and have a veto proof majority in the House, we cannot repeal Obamacare.  There is a broad consensus among Republicans that Obamacare must go; the disagreement is about the tactics to  to accomplish that goal.

It is quite another, however, for Republicans to join Democrats in insulating themselves from the pain that this foolish law will inflict on the rest of us.  Worse yet, this deal was not subject to a vote. Not only is there the lack of accountability due to the lack of a vote, it feels undemocratic -- particularly since the Affordable Care Act specifically provided that Members of Congress would be subject to it.  The deal, in essence, repeals a little tiny portion of Obamacare, but does so without a vote.

Congress should be subject to the laws it passes. Even the really stupid laws, like Obamacare.  It's that simple.  

Matt Bevin Lacked an Invite?

Matt Bevin tells Pure Politics that the reason he didn't attend any of the Republics events leading up to Fancy Farm is that no one invited him.

Memo to Matt:  the Friday night dinner and the Saturday morning breakfast were posted on the RPK website. (Perhaps you've heard of it? The "R" stands for Republican.) Tickets were available at the door.  The dinner was so loosely structured that several speakers, stage legislators, were asked to speak only upon their arrival.

More than 400 people made it to the breakfast. Even the Lamestream Media.  The point here is not just to hear the speakers but to meet the people who actually get out the vote, all over the state.

Sen,  Rand Paul has said, many times, that he could not have won but for the rank and file Republicans who backed him in the general election. I don't see Bevin making it to the general in this race, but he is a young man; there could be other races. And to that end he ought to stop waiting for an engraved invitation to party events for which us common folk look to the party web site.

Fancy Farm Pictures

Senator McConnell and Secretary Chao

"George Washington"

A group of McConnell supporters

Team Mitch

McConnell supporters chanting for the repeal of Obamacare

Fancy Farm 2013

The Courier-Journal overstated the number of McConnell supporters who rode on buses.  In the first place, four, not five buses were planned; if there was a fifth, it was likely due to overflow -- a good problem for Team Mitch.  Secondly, roughly half of the Republicans present did not ride the bus.  A fair number who drove separately did leave after listening to Matt Bevin, but not because their ride was pulling out.  More out of disgust or indifference.

The Democrats who came were mostly dressed in chartreuse union shirts.  Not only were there way less Democrats than Republicans, the Democrats were quite a bit older.

Tackiest moment of the whole day:  when the Democrats booed former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.  Democrats wage a war on women, they just pick and choose who to go after.  Apparently an American success story, who immigrated here at age eight, speaking no English, graduated from Harvard Business school and was appointed to serve our president in the cabinet, that's the sort of women Democrats want to wage war on, because she has the gall to step off the Feminist reservation and think for herself.

The speeches generally were geared to minimize gaffes.  Every speaker was very aware that their opponent would like nothing better than to seize upon a clip for a future opposition ad.  Rule changes similarly reduced the antics of Fancy Forms of yore.  For example, the rule that prohibits props -- that stems from McConnell bringing a giant cut-out of Bill Clinton on stage and daring any Democratic candidate to come have a picture taken with Bill. (Stupidly, one did, resulting in the election of Congressman Ed Whitfield.)

McConnell's speech correctly framed his election in national terms:  it is not about who represents Kentucky in the U.S. Senate but rather who runs the Senate.  He's right about that.   If Alision Lundergan Grimes wins, Harry Reid will almost certainly be Majority Leader.  And if Matt Bevin wins the primary, AL-G will win the general, again making Harry Reid Majority Leader.  We saw what happened in the first two years of the Obama administration, when Dems controlled the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.  That's when they muscled through Obamacare (without even reading the bill prior to the Christmas Eve vote).  We cannot allow them to control the Congress. Because McConnell has been the firewall in the Senate, his defeat is the Democrats number one priority this election cycle.

Grimes's speech was much uglier than I had expected.  For all her talk about not wanting to be bullied, she is a mean girl.  Elaine Chao shook her head in disgust as Grimes misrepresented McConnell's record.  Note to Grimes:  saying no to a bad idea is called wisdom and courage.  The teenager who tells his car mates that it's not a good idea to race the train could be called an obstructionist. He could also be called a hero.  McConnell has stood up to the train wreck that is Obamacare from its inception, as he has stood up to all the other steps Obama would take to turn us into Greece.

As far as the other speeches by elected officials, Ed Whitfield's was outstanding.  He methodically attacked the Obama administration's war on coal and tied Grimes to it. He's right. Grimes's personal views about coal are beside the point, because if she is elected, Harry Reid will be able to bring regulations to the Senate floor that will cripple what is left of Kentucky's coal industry.

Jack Conway's speech, to my mind, was the worst.  Recall that the No Profanity Rule at Fancy Farm was instituted because Jack Conway at a previous Fancy Farm boasted that he was "one tough son of a bitch."  Not real genteel for a church picnic.  Conway didn't curse this time, he just boasted.  He lauded his record ad nauseum  Clearly he is running for governor.  And clearly, he is a narcissist of the highest order.  He also looked angry; still bitter not be be a U.S. Senator, maybe.

Matt Bevin's speech came second to last. Remaining Republicans from Team Mitch sat in polite but stony silence at first and then began to quietly leave.  Plainly, Bevin is a smart, articulate guy.  His few supporters (maybe two dozen)  shook cow bells that Bevin's Connecticut company made -- the one that took the bailout.  This was in violation of the Fancy Farm rule, announced at the beginning, and not particularly effective.  Bevin, like Grimes, pulled no punches in attacking McConnell.  At one point, he appealed to the Democrats to applaud his attacks on McConnell, saying "we're on the same page here."  (Note to Republicans: remember that line.)  Democrats mostly seemed unconvinced.

The net effect of the combined attacks on McConnell by Grimes and Bevin reminded me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears:  one bed was too long, one bed was too short, but the third bed was just right. Grimes complained that McConnell was too right wing and Bevin complained that McConnell was not right wing enough.

As best I could tell, the only Democrat who spoke to mention the name Obama was some crank at the end who is challenging Grimes in the primary.  For all the other Democrats, Obama was He Who Must Not Be Named.  What a pity McConnell couldn't bring a cardboard cutout of Obama on stage for the Democrats to come be photographed.

The Unintended Consequences of a Grime's Candidacy

Just when we could no longer take the suspense:  Alison Lundergan Grimes has announced that she will challenge Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. She wants to bring those speedy powers of analysis and decision-making she used to decide to run and go to Washington, where she can perform "due diligence" by wringing her hands and mulling over some really tough decisions.

Grimes will get a decent amount of the votes, certainly 45 percent. Democrats still maintain their registration advantage here.

 And her daddy's buddy, Bill Clinton, will see that she has a reasonable amount of money, but probably not the $20 plus million that McConnell will raise. But Grimes cannot self-fund. Her candidacy, therefore, will siphon off Democratic dollars that are needed in other Senate races around the country. This may have the unintended consequence of giving Republicans the seats necessary to make McConnell majority leader.

Grimes's advantage: her youth and gender. The flip side of youth, however, is inexperience -- the perfect foil to McConnell's seniority.

This is a small, poor state, and Kentuckians are justifiably proud of the fact that the most important senator in the country represents Kentucky. Indeed, many would say that the two most powerful senators in the country both represent Kentucky.

The most tedious part about the Grimes candidacy is that we will have to listen, for months, to her prattle about the so-called Republican War on Women. Time to vote with our Lady Parts and all that.

Meanwhile, Obamacare is unraveling even before its implementation. And Obama has chosen to take a weak economy and further harm it by ratcheting up his War on Coal. Grimes should ask (former Congressman) Ben Chandler how that issue worked out. By taking on the coal industry just days before she announced, Obama has increased the number of Republicans who will vote fore McConnell in the eastern and western parts of the state. He has made her election less likely. Surely Grimes knows this; perhaps she hopes to perform well enough to clear a path not to Washington, but to the Governor's Mansion.

GOP Weekly Address

Just Start Over On Immigration

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Brilliant) made a great point on Fox yesterday about the sheer size of the immigration bill: why does the Senate persist in filing these enormous bills?  Whether it's immigration or Obamacare, no bill should be 1,000 pages. The sheer size destroys transparency.

There might be a few senators who will read a bill that large, but very, very few. And they shouldn't have to.

As with Obamacare, why not start with something discrete and capable of wielding a broad consensus, even unanimity. Health care reform should have started with the issue of the need for Americans with preexisting condition to obtain health insurance.  Despite the MSM's obfuscation on the point, I am aware of no Republican who opposes providing health insurance to those who have preexisting conditions.

Likewise, with immigration, there should be unanimity on the need to secure the boarder. So start with a narrow piece of legislation that accomplishes just that.  Then move on to something else. At the very least, it would force anyone who truly does oppose securing the boarder to go on the record with a vote that so states.

If the Congress picked the low-hanging fruit of those problems for which the solution is obvious, than at least something would get done. Save the divisiveness for those issues that are more complex, more intractable.

McConnell Calls Out Obama Administration's Threats to Free Speech

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has spent his career defending the First Amendment. I had forgotten, however, that last June he warned of the Obama administration's efforts to stifle speech on the right, and particularly to misuse governmental policy to target conservative groups and individuals. In short, McConnell warned us of the thuggery we now know as the IRS scandal, an entire year before the scandal broke.

McConnell did this in his speech last June at the American Enterprise Institute.  Today, he returned to that topic with another blockbuster speech at AEI. McConnell points out that Obama did not need to call up the IRS Commissioner and order the targeting of conservative groups; Obama and his progressive allies have been very public and very clear about the need to silence "shadowy" conservative groups.

McConnell puts Citizens United into historical context.  He's correct:  the decision fits comfortably within established First Amendment case law -- such as not forcing the NAACP to disclose its membership.

Further, McConnell notes the destructive effect of government unions and calls for a national debate on the issue. Again, he's right:  government unions have been a 50 year mistake that has contributed to the unrestrained growth of government, a deficit that forces to destroy us, and a culture of arrogant corruption that the IRS scandal exemplifies.

I was going to excerpt McConnell's speech.  But it is just too good for that. Read the whole thing:

Last June, I stood here and warned of a grave and growing threat to the First Amendment. That threat has not let up. Our ability to freely engage in civic life and to organize in defense of our beliefs is still under coordinated assault from groups on the Left that don’t like the idea of anyone criticizing their aims, and from a White House that appears determined to shut up anybody who challenges it.

On the outside, there’s a well-documented effort by a number of Left-wing groups like Media Matters to harass and intimidate conservatives with the goal of scaring them off the political playing field and off the airwaves.

An internal Media Matters memo from January 2010 showed the extent to which these tactics have been turned into a science. In it, we learned of the group’s plan to conduct opposition research into the lives of on-air news personalities and other key decision makers at Fox News, and to coordinate with 100 or so partner groups to pressure the network’s advertisers and shareholders, get this, “by the threat of actual boycotts, rallies, demonstrations, shame, embarrassment and other tactics on a variety of issues important to the progressive agenda.”

Its multiple databases could also be used, the memo said, to remove what it describes as “chronically problematic media figures,” or “to preempt programming” … altogether.

Then, of course, there’s the widespread effort to stifle speech from within the government itself, something the Obama Administration has been engaged in from its earliest days.

Some have traced this back even further, to the 2008 campaign. But my central point last June, and my central point today, is this: the attacks on speech that we’ve seen over the past several years were never limited to a few Left-wing pressure groups or the DISCLOSE Act, which I’ll turn to in a minute. They extend throughout the federal government, to places like the FEC, the FCC, HHS, the SEC, and as all Americans now know — even to the IRS. These assaults have often been aided and abetted by the administration’s allies in Congress. And they’re as virulent as ever.

As for the IRS, my own concerns trace back to a phone call I got from a constituent early last year, who said he’d been subjected to excessive questioning and unreasonable deadlines from the IRS. When similar complaints followed, I sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Shulman asking for assurances that there wasn’t any political targeting going on. I said public confidence in the IRS depended on it. Six weeks later I got a lengthy response from the Deputy Commissioner, Steven Miller, in which he basically told me “move along, nothing to see here.”

Well, now we know that wasn’t the case.
Now we know that the IRS was actually engaged in the targeted slow-walking of applications by conservatives, and others who were, get this, criticizing “how the country [was] being run.” It overwhelmed them with questions and paperwork, and in some cases initiated audits on folks that had never been audited before.

In one case, an IRS agent allegedly demanded that the board members of an Iowa pro-life group sign a declaration that they wouldn’t picket Planned Parenthood. Several pro-Israel groups have said that they were singled out by the IRS for audits after clashing with the administration over its policy on settlements.
Then there’s the story of Catherine Engelbrecht.

Catherine says that after applying for tax-exempt status for a voter-integrity group called True the Vote, she and her husband were visited by the FBI, the ATF, OSHA, and an affiliate of the EPA. When all was said and done, OSHA told the Engelbrecht’s they had to cough up $25,000 in fines. The EPA affiliate demanded they spend $42,000 on new sheds. And three years after applying for tax-exempt status, True the Vote is still awaiting approval.

The list of stories like these goes on and on. And so now we have an administration that’s desperately trying to prove that nobody at the top was involved in any of this stuff, even as they hope that the media loses interest in this scandal and moves on.

But we can’t move on.

Because as serious as the IRS scandal is, what we’re dealing with here is larger than the actions of one agency or any group of employees. This administration has institutionalized the practice of pitting bureaucrats against the very people they’re supposed to be serving, and it needs to stop.
The good news is, more people are beginning to catch on.

When I warned about all this last year, I got slammed by the usual suspects on the Left. They said I was full of it. But even some of them now seem to realize that just because McConnell’s the one pulling the alarm doesn’t mean there isn’t a fire. The IRS scandal has reminded people of the temptations to abuse that big government, and its political patrons, are prone to. People are waking up to a pattern. They’re connecting the dots. And they’re rightly troubled.

Looking back, the IRS scandal helps explain a lot of the things this administration has done. You all remember the President wagging his finger at the Supreme Court during his 2010 State of the Union address. Well, I assure you this little piece of presidential theater wasn’t done for the ratings. There was a good reason the President and his allies devoted so much time and energy to denouncing the Citizens United case. But it’s not the reason they gave. I realize this may be shocking to some of the interns in the crowd. But the fact is, the Court’s decision was actually fairly unremarkable.

All it really said was that, under the First Amendment, every corporation in America should be free to participate in the political process, not just the ones that own newspapers and TV stations. In other words, there shouldn’t be a carve-out when it comes to political speech for folks who own media companies. It was a good and fair decision aimed at leveling the playing field.

The real reason the Left was so concerned about Citizens United was that they thought it meant more conservatives would start to form what are known as social welfare organizations — something they’d been doing, with groups like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club, for years. And what’s notable about social welfare groups is they don’t have to disclose their donors.

That was the main concern of the President and his allies. They weren’t interested in the integrity of the process. If they were, they’d have been just as upset at Left-wing groups for maintaining the privacy of their donors. What they really wanted was a hook that enabled them to stir up outrage about conservative groups, so they could get their hands on the names of the folks who supported them — and then go after them. Citizens United provided that hook.

As a longtime political observer and First Amendment hawk, I knew exactly what the Democrats were up to with their complaints about this decision. I’ve seen what the loudest proponents of disclosure have intended in the past, and it’s not good government. That’s why the FEC has protected the donor lists of the Socialist Worker’s Party since 1979. That’s also why the Supreme Court told the State of Alabama it couldn’t force the NAACP to disclose the names and addresses of its members back in the 1950s.

The President could claim, as he did six months after wagging his finger at the Supreme Court, that “the only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.” But the fact is, there’s a very good and legitimate reason that courts have protected folks from forced disclosure — because they know that failing to do so would subject them to harassment.

So the political response to Citizens United, the so-called DISCLOSE Act, wasn’t really about cleaning up politics: It was about finding a blunt political weapon to use against one group and one group only: conservatives. Those who doubt this haven’t been paying attention to the tactics of the Left. They must not have noticed the stories about top administration officials holding weekly phone calls with groups like Media Matters. They clearly don’t know their history. And they must not have noticed the enemies list of conservative donors on the Obama campaign’s Web site. Or the strategic name-dropping of conservative targets by the President’s campaign team.

These folks were talking about the Koch Brothers so much last year you’d think they were running for President. About six months after the President berated the Supreme Court, he even went so far as to call out Americans for Prosperity by name. It was like sending a memo to the IRS that said “audit these guys”.
All these things together point to a coordinated effort to stifle speech. And that’s why one of the most enduring lessons from the IRS scandal comes from the timeline.

Based on the IG report, we now know that a team of IRS specialists was tasked with isolating conservatives for scrutiny as early as March 2010. What matters isn’t whether they were doing it in Washington or Cincinnati — or Duluth, for that matter. What really matters is that it coincided with a very public campaign by the President, and a small army of Left-wing allies in and out of government, to vilify anyone who had recently formed a group around conservative causes.

What happened before this targeting began is just as important as what happened after.
What matters here was the atmosphere; what matters is the culture of intimidation this President and his allies created around any person or group that spoke up for conservatism — or against the direction the President and his administration wanted to take us.

The so-called “special interests,” he said, would “flood” the political process, with money that might be coming from “foreign entities.” “The problem”, he said, “is nobody knows” who’s behind these groups. They were “shadowy.” They might even be “foreign controlled”. These were the kinds of unsubstantiated claims the President and his allies trafficked in from early 2010 right up through the election, and they were just as reckless and preposterous as Harry Reid saying Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes in 10 years. They may have been wrapped in the appealing rhetoric of disclosure, but make no mistake: the goal was to win at any cost, and that meant shutting up their opponents in any way they could. So, no, I don’t believe that the President ever actually picked up a phone and told someone over at the IRS to slow-walk those applications or audit anybody. But the truth is, he didn’t have to. The message was clear enough.

But if the message was clear, the medium was also perfectly suited to the cause.
The federal bureaucracy, and in particular the growth of public sector unions, has created an inherent and undeniable tension between those who believe in limited self-government and those who stand to benefit from its growth. Let’s face it, when elected leaders and union bosses tell the folks who work at these agencies that they should view half the people they’re supposed to be serving as a threat to democracy, it shouldn’t surprise any of us that they would. Why would we even expect a public employee — whose union more or less exists to grow the government — to treat someone who opposes that goal to a fair hearing? When the head of the union that represents unionized IRS workers publicly vilifies the Tea Party, is it any wonder that members of her union would get caught targeting them?

This is something liberals used to worry about.

FDR himself was horrified at the idea of public workers conspiring with lawmakers over how to divide up the taxpayer pie. To him, it was completely incompatible with public service for the public to be cut out of a negotiation in which the two sides are bartering over their money. Even the first president of the AFL-CIO once said it was impossible to bargain collectively with the government. Yet that’s exactly what we have today. Over the past several decades, the same public employees who’ve arrogated vast powers to themselves have conspired with their patrons in Congress to expand those powers even more, and to endlessly increase the budgets that finance them. This isn’t done in the interest of serving taxpayers; it’s done in the interest of fleecing them. Because that’s what happens when politicians start competing for the support of public-sector unions – they stop serving the interests of the people who elected them and start serving the interests of a government they’re supposed to be keeping in check.

There’s no better illustration of this than the news this week that in the midst of congressional hearings into their activities, unionized employees at the IRS are about to get $70 million in bonuses. The IRS union is thumbing its nose at the American people. It’s telling them in the clearest terms possible that it doesn’t care about this scandal, or how well government works, or how well it’s serving the public. All it cares about is helping union workers get theirs. It’s pure arrogance, and it reflects a sense of entitlement better suited to an aristocracy than to a nation of constitutional self-government. So it’s increasingly appropriate to ask whose interests these public sector unions have in mind — the taxpayers’, or their own. And on this question, I’m with Jonah Goldberg: public sector unions are a 50-year mistake.

Years ago, I saw the dangerous potential for collusion between lawmakers and public employee unions when I served as County Executive of Jefferson County, Kentucky. And I fought hard against the formation of public sector unions. At the time, there was bipartisan agreement on this issue. Most people realized it wasn’t in the public interest. But unfortunately the appeal of union support proved too great for some, and shortly after I was elected to the Senate, the dam of resistance broke, ushering in the same destructive arrangement that’s been gutting the finances of other cities across the country.

The existence of public-employee unions is without question a big part of the reason people have so little trust in government these days. They are the reason so many state and local municipalities are flat broke. They’re behind the unsustainable expansion of public pensions. They’re a major problem, and today I’m calling for a serious national debate about them.

On the federal level, the first thing we should do is stop the automatic transfer of union dues from employee salaries at the taxpayer’s expense. If the unions want their dues, it should be incumbent on them, not us, to pay for it.

So the assault on free speech continues, and it’s clearly an uphill battle, but if we’re alert to the tactics of the Left, and take these assaults one by one, I’m confident we’ll beat them back.

Let me give you a couple final examples of what I’m talking about. Right now, there’s an effort over at the FCC to get groups that buy campaign ads to disclose their supporters. This is utterly irrelevant to the mission of the FCC. We need to say so. The SEC is under pressure right now to force publicly-traded companies into disclosing all their political spending, even though it has no core interest in knowing what political causes companies support. This proposal doesn’t protect shareholders, and it doesn’t lead to better corporate governance. We need to call this stuff out.

For the Left, this isn’t about good government or corporate governance, it’s about winning at all costs – even if that means shredding the First Amendment.

And that’s why we need to be vigilant about every one of these assaults. They may seem small and isolated in the particular, but together they reflect a culture of intimidation that extends throughout the government — a culture abetted by a bureaucracy that stands to benefit from it.

The moment a gang of U.S. Senators started writing letters last year demanding the IRS step in and force more disclosure upon conservative groups, we all should have cried foul.

The moment the White House proposed a draft order requiring applicants for government contracts to disclose their political affiliations, we all should have called them out.

When the HHS Secretary told insurance companies they couldn’t tell their customers how Obamacare would impact them, we all should have pulled the alarm.

And as soon as we realized that Left-wing groups were manufacturing a public outcry for corporate disclosure at the SEC, we should have exposed it for what it was.

There might be some folks out there waiting for a hand-signed memo from President Obama to Lois Lerner to turn up. What I’m saying is that a coordinated campaign to use the levers of government to target conservatives and stifle speech has been in full swing and open view for years. It’s been carried out by the same people who say there’s nothing more to the DISCLOSE Act than transparency, and no more to other disclosure regulations than good government.

But the IRS scandal puts the lie to all this posturing.

Because now we know what happens when government gets its hands on this kind of information, when it’s able to isolate its opponents. And whether you’re a pro-Israel group, or a Tea Party organization in Louisville, they can make your life miserable. Even worse for democracy, they can force you off the political playing field …which is really what they want, and precisely what we cannot allow. There are a lot of important questions that remain to be answered about the IRS scandal. But let’s not lose sight of the larger scandal that’s been right in front of us for five years: a sitting president who simply refuses to accept the fact that the public isn’t going to applaud everything he does.

So my plea to you today is that you call out these attacks on the First Amendment whenever you see them, regardless of the target. Because the right to free speech doesn’t exist to protect what’s popular. It exists to protect what’s unpopular. And the moment we forget that is the moment we’re all at risk. If liberals can’t compete on a level playing field, they should think up better arguments. But until they do, we need to be vigilant, and fight every assault on the First Amendment with everything we’ve got.

The only way to beat a bully is to fight back. So be wise to the ways of the Left, and never give an inch when it comes to free speech.

Democrats Show Little Interest In Student Loan Rates

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (TN), the former Education Secretary, delivers today's Republican Address, discussing, appropriately enough, education.  The Democrats are blocking Republican legislation for low student loan interest rates--a subject near and dear to those of us living the college dream, or still paying for it in seeming perpetuity.  Click here for the video.
Please note: The postings of "G. Morris", written by John K. Bush and which end in 2016, stated his views as of the dates of posting and should not be understood as current assertions of his views. The postings, which have not been altered since they came to an end, remain on this blog to preserve the historical record. In 2017, Mr. Bush took a position that precludes further public political comments or endorsements. He will no longer be contributing to this blog.

A Kentucky Story

Lord, Protect Us From Democrats....

The political affiliations of recent mass murderers is quite telling:

Fort Hood Killer:  Registered Democrat
Columbine Killers:  Too young to vote but families registered Democrats
Virginia Tech Killer:  Wrote hate mail to President Bush (probably just a disgruntled Republican)
Colorado Theater Killer:  Registered Democrat
Newtown Killer:  Registered Democrat
Boston Killers:  Too soon to know but bet we can guess...

Wonder how the mainstream media missed these connections?  Guess anything goes as long as you are on the team.  If these people had been Republicans do you think we would know about it?  As Sarah Palin would say: "You betcha!"

The mainstream media would have us believe that it is all those crazed Bible thumping, gun owning Republicans that are the problem.  Maybe before the Democrats work on gun control, they ought to work on controlling their own.

Grimes Met With Progress KY Founder

The prospect of Alison Lundergan Grimes running against Mitch McConnell looks less and less likely.  Buzz Feed has revealed that Grimes met with Shawn Reilly, one of the two Progress Kentucky founders being investigated by the FBI for bugging a McConnell strategy session.

Grimes met with Reilly in February 2011 while she was running for Secretary of State.

Reilly, helpful sort that he is, not only endorsed Grimes -- he tweeted a picture of the two of them.  In the unlikely event that Grimes runs, look for Team Mitch to have some fun with that photo. It will make a nice collage along with the photo of Reilly's big meeting at the White House, just months before Progress Kentucky tweeted its racist comments about Elaine Chao.

Given Reilly's propensity for having his picture taken with prominent Democrats, there must be more.  I imagine Jack Conway, Steve Beshear and all their cohorts are desperately trying to remember if they've had their picture taken with Reilly.

Congratulations Senator Paul!

KYProgress: Gift That Keeps Giving

One of the Kentucky Progress dudes alleged to have illegally bugged Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign meeting just can't stay out of the news. Not even an FBI investigation shuts him up.

Curtis Morrison is still blogging and tweeting his progressive little heart out.  According to Joe Arnold, Morrison wrote:

"Am I a threat to @Team_Mitch?" Morrison asks on Twitter, referring to McConnell's re-election campaign.  "His campaign commercials suggest some fear. Someone do some polling?"

Morrison's relentless pursuit of defeating McConnell is very good news for Team Mitch.

Indeed, so damaging has Kentucky Progress been to the Dem's effort to unseat McConnell that some progressives have suggested that Kentucky Progress must be a McConnell plant. Talk about evil genius!

 That was before the Daily Caller revealed that the other Kentucky Progress dude, Shawn Reilly, was a delegate to the Democrat National Convention and had a meeting at the White House last December.

Much as the Dems might like to disown Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, they are Democratic operatives.

And Morrison makes clear that he is not going anywhere (except maybe a federal prison).  Until then, he is going to help the cause.

Here's where Morrison is making a big impact:  candidate recruitment.

Thanks to Kentucky Progress, there is a real possibility that no top-tier candidate will file against McConnell.

Why, for example, would Alison Ludergan Grimes take on McConnell -- which is a tough race under the best of circumstances -- when crack-pots like Morrison stand ready to "help," whether she likes it or not?

Courier-Journal Replaces He Who Must Not Be Named

Beware  passive writers. Sometimes, that passiveness is a sign of laziness and weak writing skills. Sometimes it is a tool of obfuscation.

Take Pam Platt's column today, in which she unveils "3 Conservative Voices."  Note her defensiveness.  "Recently the Courier-Journal Forum section found itself without a local conservative  columnist."

Found itself?   It is as if this is Peru and the Shining Path spirited him away.

She asserts that the previous columnist "voluntarily vacated" his column, but neglects to note that he quit after she refused to run his column -- a column that criticized the C-J and pointed out its hypocrisy.

Note that she never uses John David Dyche's name.

She boasts about replacing him with three columnists: "For those of you who are keeping score, that's more." Apparently she thinks conservative readers cannot add very well.

For those who care about identity politics, she has replaced one white male with three white males. The best way to fight the opposition is to diffuse its voices and lengthen the time between each columnist's turn on the editorial pages. That's a pity, because -- no offense to the other two gentlemen -- I'd like to read Scott Jennings every week.

Bugged by Non-News....

The most outrageous thing about the McConnell bugging scandal, beyond the illegality of it, is that Progress Kentucky and Mother Jones Magazine felt that the content of the bugged conversation was newsworthy.

McConnell and his staff had no conversations that George Bush or Harry Reid or Paul Ryan or Barack Obama haven't had a hundred times before.  Politicians are always talking in back rooms about strategies and attack points about their opposition.  They discuss things all the time which are not for public consumption, as we all do in our families, businesses and other organizations.  When we have these conversations, we do not expect someone we don't know to be listening in.

If Progress Kentucky had overheard a plot by McConnell to assassinate Ashley Judd, THAT would have been news.  What they relayed to Mother Jones Magazine wasn't even remotely newsworthy.  It is shameful that Progress Kentucky reported it and shameful that Mother Jones Magazine printed it.  The people at Progress Kentucky should be prosecuted for their illegal acts, but beyond that, the content of McConnell's conversation is a non-event.

C-J Gives Thanks For McConnell's Bugging

The Courier-Journal selectively focuses on what was said in Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's private campaign strategy session. This is the C-J's way of ignoring the fact that someone illegally taped the meeting, and the implications of that ugly tactic.

 The C-J editorial plays this shell game with phrases like "the McConnell recording, regardless of its origin . . . ."  (Emphasis added.).

The editorial ends with the C-J begging someone, anyone to run against McConnell:

"Given what they know, thanks to the recording, who is going to want to play Sen. McConnell in high-stakes Whac-a-Mole?

But someone must step right up." (Emphasis added.)

That is, the C-J never condemns the illegal recording of a private citizen who happens to be the highest ranking Republican in the country.

To the contrary, the editorial board actually expresses appreciation: "thanks to the recording."  That not only endorses the illegal and slimey conduct of whoever made the tape, but implicitly eggs other "progressives"to do the same.

This is the same paper that fired conservative columnist John David Dyche when he had the temerity to suggest that the C-J livestream its editorial meetings:

The Courier-Journal not only demands, but often litigates to ensure, full and open public disclosure of meetings and records of government bodies.  It should apply the same standard to itself given the prominent role the press proclaims for itself in the political process.  So live stream the meetings of editors and reporters and post the written communications and directives between them regarding assignments, policies, and stories. 

This hypocrisy on the part of the C-J is nothing new.  Privacy rights are all at the rage with the Left when it comes to their  social agenda.  Just not for conservatives discussing how to beat them.   

Ashley Chickens Out

So how long before John Yarmith starts recruiting George Clooney?

I am not surprised that  she blinked.  When Bill Clinton started counseling Allison Lundergren Grimes, it was inevitable that Ashley would come up with some pretext about how now is not the time.

Interesting that She Who Called Breeders Unconsciounable chose "family' as her reason for not running. Maybe she is going to give her sister some emergency dance lessons.  Wynonna,, in case you missed it, is on Dancing With the Stars.  I had to google her to ascertain that she is Ashley's sister, not her mother.

I thought Ashley faced daunting odds going up against Mitch McConnell.  Turning Wynonna into a dancer, however, will be even harder.

Sen, McConnell Hosts Sen. Rubio

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell hosted  Sen. Marco Rubio this afternoon at the McConnell Center at University of Louisville.

While McConnell made his introductory remarks -- saying Rubio personifies the American Dream --Rubio took a seat next to the 40 McConnell Scholars who flanked the stage. What struck me is how boyish Rubio is:  he looked like one of the undergraduates.

Rubio gave what appeared to be an extended version of the stump speech he will use to run for president.  Indeed, McConnell joked about him looking at vacation homes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The main thrust of Rubio's speech was an argument for pro-growth, limited government policies as a way to grow the middle class and ultimately reduce the deficit. Job creation is being strangled in a mass of regulations and a tax code that is both uncertain and too confiscatory.

On immigration, as well as education. Rubio argues that federal policies do not reflect the reality of the 21st Century.

He cautioned against high levels of student loans as the next bubble, and said we must stop stygmatizing vocational educations.  When asked about a call to abolish the Department of Education, he said he thought that CPAC speech had been delivered by Kentucky's other senator, Rand Paul. Rubio would not go so far as to support abolishment of the Department of Education. He did advocate school choice and local control to develop curricula that address the needs of the local economy.

A 21st Century approach to immigration, according to Rubio, must play the cards we are dealt. That is, it must acknowledge that we are a compassionate country as well as a country that believes in rule of law.  Rubio said that the mistaken policy that lead to our current eleven million illegal aliens, that policy was crafted when Rubio was in 9th grade.  Implicitly, he seemed to be saying we have to deal with the consequences and don't blame me; it's not my fault we have millions of undocumented workers.

To the extent that he was referring to Simpson-Mazzoli, I wondered if Rubio knew that the former Congressman Ron  Mazzoli was in the audience.

A few observations about style.  Rubio is charming, humble and has an inspiring tale about his family's emigration from Cuba, so that he could have a better life. He seems to understand the fears of the middle class and the frustrations of those who aspire to be middle class.

As compared to Rand Paul, Rubio conveys more of a sense of warmth; he does not have Paul's clinical detachment when discussing issues.  His sense of humor is not quote so dry as Paul's.

I listen to Rubio -- as well as Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee -- and I am optimistic that the Republican Party will find its way out of the wilderness.  I just pray it doesn't take 40 years.

Hey, Ashley: I Breed and I Vote

Not only that, I breed Republicans, and Number 2 Son will be old enough to vote next year.

Of all the crack-pot comments of Ashley Judd, the most offensive was her assertion that it is "unconscionable to breed."  Her rationale is that Planet Earth is too crowded and there already starving kids, so it is "selfish" to make more.

It's a particularly odd remark when viewed through the prism of Kentucky voters. Many of us chose to live here because it is such a great place to raise children -- much more family friendly then Washington, D.C., for example, from where my family relocated. There are great parks, safe neighborhoods, not much traffic, a variety of good schooling options, a low cost of living. Businesses here tend to recognize the importance of family and the resulting need for flexibility and humane schedules.

In fact, many of us chose to relocate here specifically for the advantages it offers to professionals who still want to spend not just quality time with their children, but quantity time, too.

Given the centrality of family to Kentuckians, Judd's choice of verb  -- "breed" -- is just creepy.  Like she's talking about livestock, not babies.  What is it with liberals and their incessant attempts to come up with new words to describe babies?  First they tried "choice" or "fetus."  (When was the last time you went to a Fetus Shower?)

Judd's contribution to the nomenclature is to shift it from that of constitutional penumbras, or clinical science, to the barnyard. It's beyond politically tone-deaf; it's just crude.

I commend Judd for working with the poor.  But she makes a false dichotomy:  one can care about starving children and still long to feel a baby's first kick.  For some, the choice to have children fulfills the Biblical purpose of a marriage.  Most Kentucky  parents would say that our greatest blessing is to create another life with the love of our life.

I don't condemn Judd's decision not to have children. Her lack of respect for the decision of so many Kentuckians to have babies shows that she does not share our values. Having a baby is a lifestyle choice, after all.  Democrats say they are all about lifestyle choice.

Over 20,000 Pages of Obamacare Regulations

Kentucky's Senator Becomes America's Senator

Sen. Rand Paul was just magnificent.  I tuned in last night for the ninth hour of Sen.Paul's filibuster, and was shocked to see how composed he still was; he didn't even break a sweat  No reading of the telephone book. Just a cogent explanation of the issue of drone strikes on Americans. After five years of Governance By Teleprompter, how refreshing to see a politician smart enough to ad lib.

As far as the underlying issue of the filibuster, I don't particularly care if Americans who have turned enemy combatants get killed in a drone strike on a foreign battlefield. As far as I am concerned, that person is a traitor who has relinquished his citizenship. Change the location to the United States, however, and the prospect of domestic drone strikes becomes more troubling.

Last night the substantive issue was secondary to the character Sen. Paul displayed. His singleness of purpose, discipline and tenacity were something to behold.  He mesmerized millions, and yet it did not look like self-aggrandizement (because it was not).

 Simply put, Sen. Paul has a reverence for our Constitution that makes him its relentless champion. What Americans saw last night is a man who disregards personal comfort and does not care who mocks him or how long the odds are.  He was doing what he thought was right, literally standing on principle.  For those who worry that the Republican Party has gone soft, it gave hope that we have new leaders who have the courage, as WFB put it, to stand athwart history and yell "Stop!"

The tweets were flying  during Paul's filibuster; the number one trending hash tag last night was #standwithrand.  My favorite tweet:  "Don't drone me, bro!"

When Sen. Mike Lee, as well as Sen. Cruz and Sen. Rubio took to the podium to give Paul a breather, it  sent a message not just of courtesy and collegiality, but of ideological solidarity. It provided a glimpse of a future for America that will be brighter than what we've endured under the Obama regime.

Sketchy Nutricional Advice from "MyPyramid.org"

Pictured above is the MyPyramid, created by the USDA in 2005
to push for a balanced diet and increased physical activity

If you haven't heard of it, MyPyramid was the USDA's failed attempt to push for more exercise and physical activity. While I applaud the government for its efforts, obesity is still very much on the rise. In an effort to come up with a better system, MyPyramid was replaced by MyPlate. I didn't know that, and nor did my health teacher when he asked us to search for it today during class.

Look at the screenshot below:

Notice that the first result is called "My Pyramid Plan." Almost anyone searching for MyPyramid would go ahead and click it, assuming that it's what they are looking for. It's been several years since I last logged onto the MyPyramid site, but everything looked consistent with how I remembered it. The site quickly promoted me to enter generic information about my age and physical activity. 

I knew something was not right when "greater than eleven minutes" was the highest option for daily physical activity. My first thought was that we must be a very obese nation, much more than I had originally thought if getting eleven minutes of physical activity is considered good. If I remember correctly, "greater than sixty minutes" used to be the top choice, but I do know that the government has been trying to scale back some of its overly ambitious health goals as they've failed, one by one.

Next I was taken to a page with general information about each food group. Everything on this page was a direct contradiction of anything I have ever heard about nutrition. 

Here's and example from the fruit section: 

          "...Some fruits can be rather tart or tangy, so a smart way to make these more appealing to children is to           

            select products with added sweetners."

Now from the meat section:
          "Liver and other organ meats are high in cholesterol. Just so you know. But who eats those creepy parts
           anyways, right?

Liver is actually extremely good for you, although I do find it revolting.

Finally, take a look at the "about" page:

Screenshot from the "About us" page.

So at this point, I know something is up. Could this site have been hacked? It seems to be mocking the government, and it would not be the first time a government website has been hit (i.e., the CIA). No, this site has not been hacked. Through a WHOIS domain search, I found out that the domain "MyPyramid.org" is in fact legally owned by Stephen Eisenmenger out of Minneapolis. Notice that he has a .org domain, not a .gov domain. Who would have noticed that, especially with it being the first search result? I sure didn't.

While I was at it, I thought I might see what else was going on at other .org and .com websites with similar names to official government ones. If you go to WhiteHouse.com, you'll notice adds for "Beautiful Spanish Girls," or "Top 10 Dating Sites of 2013." Hmmm...

I'm glad the President is making a point about increasing our cyber defenses. I think one way to start would be buying domains similar to .gov ones so as to not deceive American citizens. Someone could easily set up a fake government website and fool you into giving up personal information. Even high level government officials were fooled into giving their GMail passwords to Chinese hackers.

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.

McConnell Seated With Carter for Inaugural Lunch

Someone on the Inaugural Committee, or perhaps in the White House, figured out a way to torture Mitch McConnell. He and Secretary Chao will be seated with former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalyn at the lunch in  the Capitol following the ceremonial swearing-in.

This has to be excruciating for McConnell. The whole day will be a constant reminder that our team lost.  Sitting with the second worst president in the nations's history just makes it worse.

McConnell  did not overlap with Carter.  So there isn't any bad blood, just acute ideological differences.

Plainly, they can't talk politics. Religion  and sex would not work;  we don't want Carter to recall when he lusted in his heart.

Here's a topic.  McConnell can ask Carter if he has been attacked by any swimming rabbits lately!

Boehner Reelected; Massie Votes Against

Rep. John Boehner has just been reelected House Majority Leader, but not unanimously.  Nine Republicans did not vote for him, including newly-sworn in Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky's 4th Congressional District.  Massie voted for Rep. Justin Amish  (R-MI).

The lack of unanimity for Boehner is fall-out for the Fiscal Cliff deal and the fact that it raised taxes on the so-called rich but failed to achieve any spending cuts at present.

McConnell on the Deal and What's Next

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has an op-ed on Yahoo! News regarding the deal he negotiated to prevent taxes going up on all Americans. Note his choice of New Media for its publication; no point in writing free copy for the opposition media.

McConnell makes clear that there will be no further discussion regarding taxes.  That issue is off the table.  He will focus, with his famed discipline and relentlessness, on spending.

The link to his op-ed is not working at the moment, so I have cut and pasted it in its entirety:

The first day of a new Congress always represents a fresh start. This year, it also presents a perfect opportunity to tackle the single-greatest challenge facing our nation: reining in the out-of-control federal spending that threatens to permanently alter our economy and dim the prospects and opportunities of future generations of Americans.

Earlier this week, I helped negotiate an imperfect solution aimed at avoiding the so-called “fiscal cliff.” If I had my way taxes would not have gone up on anyone, but the unavoidable fact was this if we had sat back and done nothing taxes would have gone up dramatically on every single American, and I simply couldn’t allow that to happen.

By acting, we’ve shielded more than 99% of taxpayers from a massive tax hike that President Obama was all-too willing to impose. American families and small businesses that would have seen painfully smaller paychecks and profits this month have been spared. Retirement accounts for seniors won’t be whittled down by a dramatic increase in taxes on investment income. And many who’ve spent a lifetime paying taxes on income and savings won’t be slammed with a dramatically higher tax on estates.

Was it a great deal? No. As I said, taxes shouldn’t be going up at all. Just as importantly, the transcendent issue of our time, the spiraling debt, remains completely unaddressed. Yet now that the President has gotten his long-sought tax hike on the “rich,” we can finally turn squarely toward the real problem, which is spending.

Predictably, the President is already claiming that his tax hike on the “rich” isn’t enough. I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over. Now the conversation turns to cutting spending on the government programs that are the real source of the nation’s fiscal imbalance. And the upcoming debate on the debt limit is the perfect time to have that discussion.

We simply cannot increase the nation’s borrowing limit without committing to long overdue reforms to spending programs that are the very cause of our debt.

The only way to achieve the balance the President claims to want is by cutting spending. As he himself has admitted, no amount of tax hikes or revenue could possibly keep up with the amount of money Washington is projected to spend in the coming years. At some point, high taxes become such a drag on the economy that the revenue stalls.

While most Washington Democrats may want to deny it, the truth is, the only thing we can do to solve the nation’s fiscal problem is to tackle government spending head on — and particularly, spending on health care programs, which appear to take off like a fighter jet on every chart available that details current trends in federal spending.

The President may not want to have a fight about government spending over the next few months, but it’s the fight he is going to have, because it’s a debate the country needs. For the sake of our future, the President must show up to this debate early and convince his party to do something that neither he nor they have been willing to do until now. Over the next two months they need to deliver the same kind of bipartisan resolution to the spending problem we have now achieved on revenue — before the 11th hour.

When it comes to spending, the time has come to rise above the special interest groups that dominate the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in Washington and act, without drama or delay. The President likes to say that most Americans support tax hikes on the rich. What he conveniently leaves out is that even more Americans support cuts. That’s the debate the American people really want. It’s a debate Republicans are ready to have. And it’s the debate that starts today, whether the President wants it or not.

McConnell Was Brilliant to Hire Jesse Benton

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's decision to hire Jesse Benton as his campaign manager already is paying off. Benton's Tea Party bona fides could not be stronger, as a former campaign manager of the Pauls.

To those Tea Party patriots who are displeased with McConnell's role in negotiating the compromise to the Fiscal Cliff, Benton reassures.  For some, the deal McConnell struck looks suspect because it does raise taxes on couples above $450k without really generating much revenue -- and without immediate cuts.

This tax increase, indeed, any tax increase, exposes McConnell on his right flank.  That's why Benton's explanation of the strategy behind the deal is so important, particularly with respect the bifurcated approach to making tax rates permanent so that this issue will be off the table when the negotiating turns to the debt limit:

I have had the honor of working for some leaders I could really be proud to stand with. And let me tell you, I have never been more proud of a boss than I am of Senator McConnell right now. Let me tell you why. When Barack Obama won re-election in November, Obama decided he was willing to force the country off the fiscal cliff to push through his agenda.  The result would be the largest tax increase in American history. Unless Congress took action, everyone’s taxes were going up January 1st, big time. Middle class families across Kentucky and our country would have seen their first paychecks on January 15th literally hundreds of dollars smaller due to new federal income tax withholding. I don’t know about you, but as a middle class working man raising a young family, I can ill afford Barack Obama reaching deeper into my pockets, and I’ll bet just about every Kentuckian feels the same way. In the end, there is only one reason why Kentucky taxpayers avoided these tax hikes: Senator Mitch McConnell. For two months, well-intentioned allies in the fight for smaller government attempted to thwart President Obama’s plan. But it wasn’t until Leader McConnell took the reins that real progress was made. He showed the strong, disciplined and savvy leadership that only he can provide. And, in the end, he ensured that over 99% percent of Kentuckians will not pay higher income taxes. What’s also important to know is that he has put us on strong footing in the fight to cut spending. You see, the fiscal cliff was a two-part problem, one of both taxes and spending. Leader McConnell wisely separated the two to put us on stronger footing in both. First he fought off President Obama’s tax hikes for as many Kentuckians as he could. Now comes part two. In order to keep spending, Congress must raise the federal debt limit in two months. Through his leadership, Senator McConnell has not only ensured that your taxes will not go up, he has taken the threat of income tax hikes totally off table for debt limit negotiations. Now, President Obama and his allies will not be able to threaten every American with higher taxes as we fight for spending restraint and entitlement reform. And let me tell you, I know Senator McConnell will be as rock solid and resolute in that fight as he was in protecting our paychecks. Senator McConnell is a special leader and we can all be proud of what he just did for us. I hope you will stand with him now and in the coming months. If you are able, please help with a contribution of $50, $100, $250 or even $500 today. If we come together and stand with Leader McConnell, we can get this country back on track. So, make sure to forward this email to your friends and neighbors to let them know that Mitch McConnell just saved their paychecks. Help us spread the word Facebook and Twitter. And please, if you can, help us with your generous contribution right away.       Help make a difference Join the fight for real conservative change in Washington!