GOP On Halloween. LOL.

Friday Afternoon Bonus Cartoon: Jeb Bush!

Talking About Halloween, Joel Pett Doesn't Like Matt Bevin.

After The GOP Presidential Debate.

Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk And Voters.

Kentucky voters are divided on whether Kim Davis should resign

Kentucky voters are split on whether lawmakers should remove Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis from office, but a majority say the procedure for marriage licenses should be reworked to either accommodate religious clerks or take them out of the process.

The latest Bluegrass Poll, released Thursday, found that 47 percent of registered voters believe Davis should remain in office while 46 percent want her removed. Another 7 percent were not sure.

That falls within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, meaning that voters are evenly divided.

“I’m a Christian, and I believe that a marriage is between a man and a woman,” said Iona O’Banion, one respondent in the poll.. “But she’s the county clerk. It is her job to issue marriage licenses. And if it is the law of the land, then that’s what she is supposed to do.”

O’Banion, a 78-year-old retiree in Owen County, said the attention Davis has brought to Kentucky has been “awful,” and she believes the clerk is only basking in the limelight.

“Everybody looks on us like we don’t have shoes and teeth,” she said. “I just feel like she is enjoying herself to the hilt.”

But David Smith, a Southern Baptist who lives in Richmond, said Davis should be allowed to continue serving without being forced to sign a document that conflicts with her Apostolic Christian religion.

“She has stood up for her religious beliefs, and I think there ought to be accommodations made to allow her to do that,” he said. “There are other officeholders that feel the same way, and this is going to be a problem from now on.”

Smith said he favors creating an online system for marriage licenses that removes county clerks from the process. However, he doubts the legislature will take the issue up next year out of political correctness.

Thursday’s poll found that 31 percent of registered voters believe the state should create an online system for marriage licenses.

Another 29 percent say county clerks who oppose same-sex marriage should be allowed to remove their names from the forms.

Meanwhile, 34 percent of those surveyed said lawmakers should leave the system alone and require clerks to issue licenses to all couples, regardless of personal beliefs.

Conducted by SurveyUSA, the Bluegrass Poll is a joint effort by The Courier-Journal, the Lexington Herald-Leader, WHAS-11 and WKYT-TV. It gauged the opinions of 1,016 registered voters from Oct. 23-26.

Davis received some of her biggest support from conservatives, voters over the age of 65 and those who live in rural areas. Those groups also were more likely to favor accommodations for religious clerks.

Liberals, younger voters, people with a four-year degree and those living in more urban areas tended to believe that Davis should be removed from office. Political moderates also favored removal 58 percent to 30 percent.

As an elected official, Davis can only be removed from office through impeachment. The Kentucky House of Representatives would have to charge her with an impeachable offense, and the Senate would then try her. But that’s viewed as unlikely given Kentucky’s political makeup.

Regarding licenses, at least two bills have been pre-filed for the 2016 General Assembly.

One would move licensing duties from county clerks to the state registrar of vital statistics. The other would specify that forcing someone to issue or record a marriage license over their religious objections would violate the state’s religious freedom law.

Chris Hartman, director of the Fairness Campaign, said Thursday that the plurality of voters are right in opposing changes to the license process.

“There is no need to make changes, and the state legislature doesn’t need to waste taxpayer dollars and time debating a system that is not broken,” he said.

He said using an online system would create problems verifying people’s identity and that allowing clerks to remove their names would open the door to a never-ending cycle of exemptions. He, likewise, argues that the Kim Davis situation will be resolved without intervention from the legislature.

“She will either be compelled by the court to follow the law, or she is going to have to resign,” Hartman said.

Still, the Rev. Randy Smith, an evangelist in Rowan County who supports Davis, said he was encouraged that 60 percent of respondents are calling for some type of action to help county clerks.

He said that Kentucky should not even be in the position of needing legislation to prop up the First Amendment and that the Beshear administration should have anticipated issues.

“If we don’t have religious liberty, we don’t have a nation,” Smith said. “I would be willing to pay all of my tax dollars to this very subject to preserve religious liberty.”

Smith also said that responses to the question on removing Davis would have reflected more support for the clerk if poll respondents had more answers to choose from.

“If people understood more about the importance and the value of religious liberty, even into local as well as state and federal levels, I think they would be more in favor of religious liberty,” he said.

This. Here. Is. Eunny.

New SurveyUSA Poll Finds A Recurrent Statistical Dead Heat, With Jack Conwa Leading By 5%.

Bluegrass Poll: Jack Conway maintains edge over Matt Bevin with just days to go
BY SAM YOUNGMAN

With just days remaining in the race to be Kentucky's next governor, Democrat Jack Conway continues to hold a slight advantage over Republican Matt Bevin, according to the latest Bluegrass poll.

The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Herald-Leader and WKYT-TV in Lexington and the Courier-Journal and WHAS-TV in Louisville, showed Conway leading Bevin 45 percent to 40 percent with independent candidate Drew Curtis pulling 6 percent.

The poll surveyed 798 likely Kentucky voters on their home phone or electronic device from Oct. 23-26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, which means the race for governor technically remains a statistical toss-up.

Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, said that "we have seen enough polls favoring Conway, run by different groups using different methods, that it's decreasingly likely the results are a fluke."

"Bevin needs a sudden shift in voter preferences if he hopes to win this contest, and he may be dragging down some of his Republican ticket mates as well," Voss said.

Bevin has never led in his race against Conway, and the latest poll results indicate that an unrelenting barrage of ads attacking Bevin's character have had a significant impact on the campaign.

The survey shows Bevin's favorable rating underwater for the first time, with 38 percent of voters holding an unfavorable view of him compared to 32 percent who hold a favorable view. Twenty-one percent were neutral and 9 percent had no opinion.

When the same question was asked in late September, Bevin was still on the plus side, with 35 percent of respondents holding a favorable view and 33 percent holding an unfavorable view.

By contrast, Conway's numbers have stayed just above water. Thirty-six percent of respondents have a favorable view of the Democrat and 32 percent have an unfavorable view. Thirty-two percent said they were either neutral or had no opinion.

Sally Young, a poll respondent from Mayfield who agreed to a follow-up interview, said she is supporting Conway because of the job he has done as the state's attorney general.

"I thought he did good at the other job, and I think he'll make a good governor, as compared to Bevin," Young said. "I'm not voting for [Bevin]."

Curtis remains little known across the state, with 11 percent holding a favorable impression, 9 percent holding an unfavorable view and 80 percent saying they were either neutral or have no opinion.

"Any hope that Drew Curtis might have helped swing the election to Bevin by drawing off left-leaning voters appears to be dwindling," Voss said. "Because both support and opposition to Curtis appears balanced on the two sides of the ideological spectrum."

Adding weight to the notion that Conway has effectively raised questions about Bevin's character, 37 percent of respondents said Conway was the more honest candidate. Only 26 percent said Bevin was more honest, and 10 percent chose Curtis.

Again, that is a change from the Bluegrass Poll conducted in late September, which showed voters almost evenly divided on which candidate was more honest: 30 percent chose Conway, 27 percent picked Bevin and 13 percent said Curtis.

Doyle Berry, a poll respondent from Campbellsville, said he is leaning toward supporting Bevin because he thinks "the parties need to change around every so often."

"I just think we need a change in the politics of Kentucky," Berry said.

Bevin's opposition to the state's Medicaid expansion also appears to be hurting him with registered voters, a majority of which favor maintaining the eligibility expansion that Gov. Steve Beshear implemented two years ago.

Fifty-four percent of voters said they want the state's next governor to maintain the expansion. Only 24 percent said they would like to see the expansion repealed, which Bevin has promised to do if elected. Twenty-two percent were not sure.

Support for maintaining the expanded health insurance program, which serves mostly low-income residents, reaches across the state's different regions and extends to about a third — 34 percent — of Republicans.

Forty-two percent of Republicans said they would like to see the expansion reversed, compared to only 13 percent of Democrats. More than two-thirds of Democrats — 69 percent — said the Medicaid expansion should be maintained.

Both major-party candidates continue to have trouble within their own parties, which has generally been an issue for Democratic candidates but not Republicans in recent elections.

Seventy-one percent of Democrats surveyed said they are supporting Conway, compared to 17 percent who said they will vote for Bevin. Among Republicans, 72 percent backed Bevin and 12 percent picked Conway.

Those numbers get worse for Bevin, who famously ran against U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last year, upon close inspection.

The poll found that Conway snagged 8 percent of likely voters who identify as "strong Republicans," 10 percent of likely voters who identify as "Republicans" and 15 percent of likely voters who identify as "independents who lean Republican."

Voss noted that "Kentucky still contains more Democratic voters than Republican voters, so the Republican path to victory requires overwhelming support among voters affiliated with the GOP and healthy support among Democrats."

"Instead, Conway seems to enjoy more loyalty from the state's ideologically divided Democratic voters than Bevin has mustered among Republicans," Voss said.

Conway's lead extends to both men and women, with men giving Conway 45 percent support to Bevin's 41 percent and women saying they will back Conway 45 percent to 39 percent.

"Bevin does not have the lead among male voters that a Republican candidate typically needs," Voss said. "And he continues to trail badly among the independents and moderate Democrats who typically determine Kentucky's election outcomes."

Ultimately, less than half of Kentucky's voters are satisfied with their choices for governor this year, but that number is slightly worse for Bevin than it is for Conway.

Forty-four percent of respondents said they are satisfied with their options, while 38 percent said they were unsatisfied and 18 percent said they were unsure.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/10/28/4109888_bluegrass-poll-jack-conway-maintains.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Editor's note: see poll results in pdf.

for down ticket poll results, click here.

Carve Your Halloween Pumpkin For This Week.

BIG Pharma And BIG Hospitals -- capitalistPIGS!

In Case You Missed Matt Bevin Vs. Jack Conway "Debate". Watch It Here.

Republican Canibals!

While my GOP gently weeps

By John David Dyche
WDRB Contributor

The Republican Party’s long and colorful history of internal division is well-known.

Radical Republicans in Congress complicated Abraham Lincoln’s life. By bolting from the William Howard Taft-led GOP, Theodore Roosevelt helped elect progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

"Mr. Conservative," Robert Taft, fenced with moderates Thomas Dewey and Dwight Eisenhower. Liberal Nelson Rockefeller sparred with centrist Richard Nixon.

Conservative Ronald Reagan challenged moderate incumbent Gerald Ford. Moderate George H.W. Bush opposed Reagan before they united for a 12-year Pax Republicana.

Congress has also had Republican splits.  Conservative firebrand Newt Gingrich succeeded moderate Bob Michel as Speaker of the House in 1994.

Kentucky has been a battleground of Republican civil war, too. In the 1967 gubernatorial primary, Louie Nunn ran aggressively to the right of Marlow Cook, for example.

For years the commonwealth’s congressional delegation was home to conservative Representative Gene Snyder and moderate to liberal colleagues like Representatives Tim Lee Carter and Senators John Sherman Cooper and Cook.

More recently, libertarian Rand Paul defeated center-right Trey Grayson for Senate. Mitch McConnell, personification of the Republican establishment, walloped Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin last year.

The GOP has somehow survived and occasionally prospered despite its fratricidal tendencies. Whether it can continue to do so seems dubious.

Positions and politicians once considered and respected as solidly conservative are under attack by right wing ideologues. These true believing zealots demand doctrinal purity regardless of the political price.

At the presidential level, outrageous, unqualified outsiders like Donald Trump and Ben Carson lead despite their often extreme positions and irresponsible rhetoric. Highly qualified others, like Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich, struggle for traction because they are, heaven forbid, accomplished politicians.

In Congress, demagogic Texas Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz castigates Majority Leader McConnell for failing to do the impossible.  Cruz puts self-promotion first and the national interest a distant second.

The House Freedom Caucus and others like Kentucky’s Fourth District congressman Thomas Massie helped force Speaker John Boehner into retirement.  Now some of those über-conservatives take the astonishing position that Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is not sufficiently conservative to be Speaker.

Ryan was the first Republican with the brains and guts to offer a real Medicare reform plan.  He not only survived politically, but prospered, and is one of the party’s leading lights.

Now Ryan’s conservative bona fides are attacked by colleagues who are neither intellectually nor politically worthy of unfastening his hunting boots.  Reagan himself would not be pure enough for them.

Ryan has issued conditions upon which he will run for Speaker.  Otherwise the small band of Republican renegades would make his life miserable and governing impossible.

In Kentucky, Bevin won the GOP gubernatorial nomination by 83 votes over three opponents in a primary in which only 17 percent of registered Republicans voted.  McConnell promptly endorsed him even though Bevin did not endorse McConnell after their bitter Senate primary last year.

Bevin’s running mate, Jenean Hampton, is even further to the right than he is. As McConnell was apparently encouraging the Republican Governors Association to resume ads for the Bevin-Hampton ticket, which the RGA did, Hampton was declining to comment on whether McConnell should follow Boehner’s example and resign as Majority Leader.

Hampton’s aggressive ingratitude toward McConnell followed a comparable blunder by Bevin. He said he would vote for Ben Carson for President over Paul, who had then just committed to campaign for Bevin.

It is unfortunate that Republicans have picked this moment for public self-immolation. The party’s political prospects should be extremely strong.

Barack Obama’s presidency is petering out in economic malaise, foreign policy weakness, and executive overreach. The likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, is deservedly distrusted.

The only alternative to Clinton is a 74 year-old socialist. Republicans should win, but won’t if they nominate Trump or Carson.

In Congress, the Democrats are far more liberal than America is. They pursue extreme leftist positions on everything from abortion to illegal immigration and are saddled with unpopular Obama items like Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal.

Kentucky Democrats nominated the enervating and extremely beatable Attorney General Jack Conway for Governor.  He inspires nobody, has no new ideas, and offers only more of the stagnant Democratic status quo.

Yet Republican Jacobins everywhere are making success for the party much more difficult than it should be. Yeats words describe today’s Republican Party: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Here is hoping the Republican best have the courage of their convictions because the Republican worst is full of passionate intensity. Meanwhile, my GOP gently weeps.

(John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney and a political commentator for WDRB.com. His e-mail is jddyche@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @jddyche)


Editor's comment: as "mr. burns" will say on "the simpsons": EGG-CELLENT, david dyche!

Last Names!

Benghazi CONgressional Hearings!

University Of Louisville, Kentucky, Sex Scandal.

In Case You Missed The Democratic Party Presidential Debate!

Ben Carson!

No Comment!

Ben Carson And His Followers!

#GOP House Speaker Needed!

Playboy Will No Longer Have Photo Spreads Of Nude Women!

Tuesday Afternoon Delight: Kentucky's Kim Davis.

A #CONfederacyofDUNCES!

Monday Afternoon Delight: TEA Party 2!

Kentucky's Kim Davis And Nobel Prize!

The REAL Death Panel: BIG Pharma!

The Press And Jeb Bush!

From Texas: For Your Friday Afternoon Delight!

It Must Already Be Halloween In Washington, D. C.

University Of Louisville, Kentucky, Basketball Team's Prostitution Scandal!

TEA Party!

In Afghanistan: It's Just "Collateral Damage"!

America, Dictators, And Democracy!

Pope Francis Addressed Congress!

#America Murders INNOCENT Babies, Terming The Killings "Legal Abortions". But God Is Watching From A Distance. His Wrath Will Be Severe, Indeed!

in #america, pro abortion folks murder babies and call it legal #abortion -- and #plannedparenthood sells their body parts for money!

the Bible says: thou shall not shed innocent blood.

the Bible also says: the love of money is the root of all evils.

abortionists and their evil allies do the former GLEEFULY; AND, they also ignore the latter.

ashamed of their evil deeds, they dislike the mere mention of the words: God. Jesus. Bible.

but the day of reckoning shall come, and there will be no hiding from the power (or wrath) of the creator. 

Amen.

Comrade Vladimir Putin And Comrade Barack Obama On Syria. LOL.

Apple Car. LOL.