Struggle Of Gays Not Same As Blacks.

Struggle of gays not same as blacks

As a country, America is greatly divided over the issue of same-sex marriage.

A recent Washington Post-ABC poll shows Americans are equally divided at 50 percent on whether Americans believe gay men and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said it will take up the issue to determine if the dozens of states in which voters overwhelmingly approved gay marriage bans are legal.

We believe voters in the states where these bans were voted in should have their voices upheld by the high court, but ultimately it is up to the justices to decide on the constitutionality.

One aspect of the same-sex marriage debate that is a concern and seems insulting to the black community is how some advocates compare the issue to the civil rights movement.

Comments such as these have rightfully brought angry responses from some leaders of the black and gay communities. They believe the struggle for civil rights and the issue of same-sex marriage couldn’t be any more different.

Last year, 110 black pastors filed an amicus brief in Michigan not only opposing same-sex marriage, but in the brief they particularly rejected comparisons between the gay movement and the civil rights movement.

Civil rights activist Rev. William Owens, who is founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, says there is no comparison between the civil rights movement and the gay community’s fight for same-sex marriage.

Even the conservative gay journalist Charles Winecoff once wrote, “Newsflash: blacks in America didn’t start out as hip-hop fashion designers; they were slaves. There’s a big difference between being able to enjoy a civil union with the same sex partner of your choice – and not being able to drink out of a water fountain, eat at a lunch counter, or use a rest room because you don’t have the right skin color.”

Another who tried to compare this to the civil rights movement is Saundra Ardrey, head of the political science department at Western Kentucky University.

Ardrey believes it’s a great issue for the courts to decide and believes it is reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s, when the Supreme Court stepped in to protect African-Americans’ right to vote.

However, voting rights protection for blacks was not given by the Supreme Court, but was rather enacted by Congress in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

To compare the very unfair treatment black Americans had to go through under Jim Crow laws and earlier discrimination in Northern cities to the fight to allow gays the right to get married is just wrong.

Blacks weren’t allowed to use the same bathroom or water fountains as whites, blacks couldn’t eat at the same restaurants as whites, blacks couldn’t attend the same schools as whites, stay at the same hotels as whites, weren’t allowed to live in the same neighborhoods as whites or go to public swimming pools and had to sit in balconies at all white theaters, etc.

Gays are allowed to do everything black people for so long weren’t able to do. How often do you hear stories of gays being denied access to theaters or restaurants, schools or swimming pools because of their sexuality?

That’s the difference. This is why people like Ardrey and others who support same-sex marriage are simply reaching to try to compare their struggle to practices that unjustly oppressed a people for 200-plus years.

These comparisons don’t come close to measuring up. Members of the black community should be offended that people would try to compare legalizing same-sex marriage to the civil rights movement.

We believe those who are doing so are simply trying to advance their agendas.

In doing so, they are wrongfully attempting to equate this effort to the oppression blacks experienced on multiple levels for far too long.

Watch President Barack Obama With Chuck Todd On CBS' "Meet The Press". Enjoy.

Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: "Eastern Kentucky can't SOAR While Public Corruption Thrives"! .... But Public Corruption Is A Part Of The Culture!!

Eastern Kentucky can't soar while public corruption thrives

At the risk of dampening SOAR's good vibe, we must point out a major obstacle to economic development in Eastern Kentucky that got little to no mention at last week's summit: corruption.

According to the United Nations, "corruption deepens poverty, debases human rights, degrades the environment and derails development (including private sector development) by creating disincentives for investment."

The U.N. observed International Anti-Corruption Day Dec. 9, while in Pikeville 1,700 people rallied under the Shaping Our Appalachian Region banner.

Meanwhile, U.S. prosecutors were unveiling the latest in a long string of criminal charges against Eastern Kentucky officials. Morgan County Judge-Executive Tim Conley pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he exchanged government contracts for kickbacks.

Regardless of how the latest prosecution ends, corruption is not a mountain stereotype or a comic form of local color. It's real, and it impedes investment.

The Herald-Leader's Bill Estep recently cited data from the U.S. Department of Justice showing that from 2002 through 2011, there were 237 public-corruption convictions in the Eastern District of Kentucky compared to 65 in the state's Western District.

Public corruption has abetted a drug abuse epidemic and denied youngsters a decent education. A Manchester pastor told Estep that honest people in Clay County saw no reason to vote until the feds broke up a vote-buying ring.

Ask yourself: What business or bright young person would stake their fortunes or futures on such a place?

Eastern Kentucky is full of honest people. The region is no more bound to be corrupt than it's bound to be poor or dependent on a single extractive industry.

Still, poverty can't be overcome without tackling corruption.

But how? The legislature should require local governments to beef up the ethics codes they were first required to enact in 1996, create some real penalties for violations and make ethics training mandatory for local officials.

Obviously, federal prosecutors and courts and Kentucky's attorney general must be vigilant.

But ethics in government — and business, for that matter — is more than just not doing wrong things.

Ethical government puts the greater good first, makes decisions in an open, accountable way, and invites everyone, including those on the margins, to the table.

Transformations that occur from within are always more successful than those imposed from without. Voters in Eastern Kentucky have the power to make change, provided they're given real choices. Those who care about the region must get busy making sure voters have real choices and honest candidates.

Healthy politics won't divide a community into feuding factions that also stifle development.

Both community and trust are critical to the spread of entrepreneurship, according to a study published this month in the American Sociological Review and summarized by Richard Florida in The Atlantic: "Entrepreneurship of all sorts — from the creative cutting edge, high-tech enterprises to building a small business — is in fact a social process, depending upon teams of people working together and broad social networks. And community itself, the place where entrepreneurial activity happens, is a crucial part of the mix."

A lot of SOAR speakers came close to gigging the elephant in the room. Instead of looking to pave a road where there are 35 votes, Senate President Robert Stivers said, the mind-set should become looking for ways to create 35 jobs.

U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers said that SOAR's real reward might not be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but the rainbow itself. That certainly would be true if a new culture of honest, accountable government spreads across the mountains.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/12/15/2989539/eastern-kentucky-cant-soar-while.html#storylink=cpy

CBS' 60 Minutes And Lara Logan Leads With A "Correction" About Dylan Davis' Scam Account Of His Heroics In Benghazi We Reported Here. CBS Was Hoodwinked! Watch "Apology"!!

Update, 11/26: sory is false; CBS suspends Lara Logan and her producer for false reporting! Read More here.

My Friend Rand Paul Continues To Give "Haters And Hacks" Ammunition To Hurt Him, This Time It's Over Plagiarism. Duel, Anyone?!

From the Courier-Journal Editorial:

Lately, its been difficult to tell if U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is a politician or a parrot.
Sometimes he is pandering and demagoguing and showing his politician side, raising fear among constituents about outlandish things he’s seen in science fiction movies a generation ago.
Other times, he’s acting like a parrot — repeating things verbatim he has read on the internet and in news stories, magazine articles and conservative think tanks.

All we know for certain is Mr. Paul’s words aren’t always his own. And he’s unrepentant.

He’s not a thief in the sense of Clyde Barrow or Willie Sutton, but recent news accounts make it clear that Mr. Paul has made a habit out of using, without attribution, other people’s words, thoughts and ideas.

In two speeches he has taken phrases and sentences directly from the website Wikipedia. In another, he took words from an Associated Press article and didn’t give credit. In a book, he lifted three pages from reports written by conservative and libertarian think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.

Most recently it was learned that Mr. Paul used another author’s thoughts and words when he wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Times. He lifted, almost verbatim, several passages Dan Stewart wrote in the magazine The Week.

The website Buzzfeed, which has uncovered most of Mr. Paul’s plagiarism, reported Tuesday that part of his book “Government Bullies” was also lifted from Forbes magazine.

As a proponent of real property rights who opposes action by the EPA to infringe on those rights even if it means polluting our environment, it’s shocking that Mr. Paul doesn’t have the same fealty toward intellectual property rights.

Mr. Paul’s reaction so far has not been to plead guilty and beg forgiveness. That’s not his style.

He has instead claimed to be victim of a “witch-hunt” by “hacks and haters.

His staff cleansed his U.S. Senate website of transcripts of his speeches that could be used against him, Buzzfeed reported. Tuesday, he acted as if it was just a minor dustup over proper footnoting techniques. An adviser announced footnotes will now be available upon request.

On ABC’s “This Week” he said he said he would challenge those who have accused him of plagiarism to duels if it didn’t violate Kentucky law.

And he said takes it as an “insult” that people would accuse him of being “dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting. I have never intentionally done so.”

The real insult here is that Mr. Paul would expect voters to believe his half-baked, nutty explanations. The real insult is that he would expect us to believe he’s not at fault and this is the result of partisan opponents.

But the biggest insult is that he would use a writer’s or researcher’s words, claim them as his own and expect everyone to look away when he gets caught.

Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: Right Stand For Sane Sentencing; Holder Reforms Moral And practical

Right stand for sane sentencing; Holder reforms moral and practical

Holder reforms moral and practical

Attorney General Eric Holder announced bold and sweeping reforms Monday that would help non-violent drug offenders bypass the strict mandatory-minimum sentencing laws that have decimated families, overstuffed prisons and squandered billions of dollars.
"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law-enforcement reason," Holder said in his speech before the American Bar Association's annual meeting.

And he's right.

Holder's reforms — similar to recent prison reform in Kentucky — will instruct federal attorneys to use prosecutorial discretion and pursue lighter sentences for nonviolent offenders who don't have significant criminal records or ties to organized crime.

The move restores sanity and much-needed nuance to a legal system that often handcuffed prosecutors and judges into dealing unfair and draconian sentences — like the 20 year sentence handed out to a Florida woman for firing a warning shot during a confrontation with her abusive husband.
Transitioning from a narrow "tough on crime" attitude of the last few decades to one that is instead "smart on crime" better targets government spending in a time of economic sluggishness.

The federal government spends more than $20,000 on an inmate each year, depending on his or her security level. Incarcerating only those who pose actual threats to society is a fiscally responsible step, already practiced successfully in traditionally conservative states like Texas and Arkansas and endorsed by prominent Republicans like Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich.

In Kentucky, just two years ago, Gov. Steve Beshear signed a similar reform bill into law that lowered sentences for low-risk offenders and shifted more resources toward drug-treatment programs.
The laws are expected to save Kentucky $422 million over a 10-year period.

Sen. Rand Paul also deserves credit for fighting mandatory minimum laws in Congress, recently introducing the Justice Safety Valve Act that would restore the discretion of federal judges to mete out punishments that fit crimes.

The new changes are also a moral solution to the failed drug war that has disproportionately targeted minority and low-income Americans. Those who consider family security as the most important headwind against criminal activity must recognize that mass incarceration, which destroys families and diminishes employment prospects, is a part of the problem — not the solution.

Millions of families are being torn apart by the failed and costly experiment of mass incarceration. Even though Americans make up just five percent of the world's population, they make up 25 percent of the world's prisoner population.

And America's juvenile detention rate is also the highest in the world — nearly five times higher than the next country on the list.

Our overzealous criminal-justice system has led to California prisons that the Supreme Court has deemed unconstitutionally overcrowded, the discriminatory stop-and-frisk program in New York City that a judge invalidated Monday, a predatory private prison industry and ballooning state deficits — not enhanced public safety.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
It's good to see that our justice system is catching up.

One Man's Very Interesting "Message To Trayvon Martin's Supporters".

A Message to Trayvon Martin Sympathizers

I haven't touched on the Trayvon Martin issue because race matters in this country are the paralysis of the American people. To constructively discuss Trayvon would require empathy, introspection and an understanding of America's social and economic history. This is why the open forums we have seen thus far seem to fuel more ignorance and bias than reasonable debate.

To be brutally honest, the only reason people are even aware of Trayvon Martin is because it became a topic within mainstream news and pop culture. Meaning: News directors saw it as a profitable, sensational story. Hundreds of blacks die annually in South Side Chicago without even a blurb.

Trayvon isn't in the mainstream news for any reason other than ratings and profit. The news coverage on the Zimmerman case almost implies that the killing of this young black man is somehow an anomaly and I resent that.

In this country, if it isn't streamlined through mainstream media and pop culture, it doesn't seem to warrant national debate. Our "government" continues to wreak havoc on our civil liberties and there is little to no protest from the black community because of media diversion tactics that keep such pertinent issues out of mainstream media. But if Jay-Z or Rihanna were to make mention of it, we'd suddenly be jolted out of our sugar comas and protesting on freeways.

My point being, people are up in arms about Trayvon based on regurgitated pundits and manipulated facts aired to elicit emotion while fueling America's anger and division. That's how you boost ratings. No different from Piers Morgan's desperate rant over gun control when he knew his ratings were in the dumps. And from where I stand, anyone who still relies on corporate-owned media pundits to support an argument isn't equipped to offer worthwhile solutions.

People are using Trayvon Martin's death as an excuse to project their own deep-seated issues with racism and will not be capable of intelligent, empathetic debate until they've cooled down and afforded themselves an education.

Addressing Trayvon without first addressing the absence of critical thinking in our schools, the lack of introspection, the reasons for our low tolerance and our country's skewed value system does nothing more than create a sounding board for the ignorant. So rather than facilitate more racism outcry, I'd like to address young black people specifically.

I believe we lost that trial for Trayvon long before he was killed. Trayvon was doomed the moment ignorance became synonymous with young black America . We lost that case by using media outlets (music, movies, social media, etc.) as vehicles to perpetuate the same negative images and social issues that destroyed the black community in the first place. When we went on record glorifying violent crime and when we voted for a president we never thought to hold accountable. When we signed on to do reality shows that fed into the media's stereotypes of black men, we ingrained an image of Trayvon Martin so overwhelming that who he actually may have been didn't matter anymore.

Don't you find it peculiar that the same media outlets who have worked so diligently to galvanize the negative stigmas of black men in America are now airing open debates on improving the image of black males in American media? Do you honestly think CNN is using their competitive time slots for philanthropy?

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel

If we really wanted to ensure Trayvon Martin's killing was not in vain, we'd stop perpetuating negative images that are now synonymous with black men in America. We'd stop rapping about selling drugs and killing niggas. The next time we saw a man beating a woman, we'd call for help or break it up, but one thing we would not do is stand by with our cellphones out -- yelling WORLDSTAR! Instead of rewarding kids for memorization, we'd reward them for independent and critical thinking.

We'd spend less time subconsciously repeating lyrics about death and murder and more time understanding why we are so willing to twerk to songs that bemean women and boast of having things we cannot afford. We'd set examples of self-love for our youth by honoring our own hair, skin and eye color. We'd stop spending money on designer gear that we should be spending on our physical and psychological health. We'd seek information outside the corporate owned-media that manipulates us. We'd stop letting television babysit our kids and we'd quit regurgitating pundits we haven't come up with on our own.

Education, introspection, self-love and excellence are the only ways to overcome the wrath of ignorance. So before going back to popping molly and getting Turnt Up, I urge you to consider the implications of your actions. Your child's life may depend on it.

Racial Parity Finds An Unexpected Ally In Newt Gingrich.

Merlene Davis: Racial parity finds an unexpected ally in Newt Gingrich

By Merlene Davis — Herald-Leader columnist

Some folks say I have mellowed with age. If that means I tend to wade through all the smoke to find the source of the fire, then they are right.
By that definition, Newt Gingrich seems to have mellowed as well, particularly when he doesn't have to pander to a political base to win a seat in government.
Tuesday evening on CNN I heard words come out of Gingrich's mouth that startled me. And evidently I was not alone in my surprise.

A panel on AC 360's "Race and Justice in America" town hall meeting was discussing the aftermath of George Zimmerman's acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin. Mark Garagos, former attorney for Michael Jackson, said racial inequities are prevalent in our judicial system.
"It starts not when you get to court, it starts when you get arrested," Garagos said. "Where are, who are the people who are being profiled by police? Who are the people being pulled over by police? Race infects everything in the criminal justice system."
That wasn't news. Black people have always known that. And those white people who bother to look closer at the evidence know it, too.

Then Cooper called on Gingrich, who wasn't sitting with the panel on stage but appeared on camera. "Do you believe, Speaker Gingrich, that what Mark Geragos is saying is true, that race infects everything in the criminal justice system?" Cooper asked.
What happened next not only shocked me, but also the audience in the studio and Cooper himself.
"I think race has an enormous impact on decision after decision," Gingrich said, with nary a gun pointed at his head. "I think you almost have to be blind to America to not realize that we still have very, very deep elements that go all the way back to slavery and segregation and then go all the way back to fundamental differences in neighborhoods and in cultures."

Cooper's face never cracked. My jaw, on the other hand, had dropped to my chest.
"And I think it would be very healthy for the country and for the Congress to re-evaluate both the criminal justice part up through the court," Gingrich said, "but also to re-evaluate the whole way we've dealt with prison and the way in which we have basically created graduate schools for criminality, and locking people up in ways that are increasing their inability to function in society."
Cooper, try as he might, couldn't hold back.
"I think a lot of people are, like, wow, who are you?" Cooper said to Gingrich. The audience applauded.

I'd like to know who he is, too.
Isn't this the same Gingrich who, while vying for the Republican presidential nomination last year, suggested poor inner-city kids serve as school janitors to build their work ethic?
Isn't he the same man who told black people we should demand a paycheck instead of food stamps from President Barack Obama, making it appear that most of us receive that government assistance? According to U.S. Census Bureau, however, blacks represent about 28 percent of the households that receive food stamps, while 59 percent are white.

Who, indeed, is he? And when did he mellow?
Gingrich went on to say something has to be done about the sharp rise in gang membership, as well, up some 40 percent since 2009. Gang members in Chicago outnumber police officers 10 to 1, he said. We as a country have to address that as well.
But wait, there's more.

One panelist had complained that stand-your-ground laws had, in a sense, taken "our humanity away, our civility away."
Gingrich agreed. "I think the word civility is a great word," he said. "And it was really important to bring into this conversation. How do we restore civility at every level, from schools to malls to walking late at night, to seeing each other as genuine neighbors?"
He wasn't talking about the Zimmerman and Martin case. He was talking about lessening the chances of there being another Zimmerman and Martin. Gingrich was saying we all need to find a way to get along.

It took my breath away.
If someone as conservative as Gingrich can recognize this country still has a lot of work to do to mend our broken race relations, then I'm not understanding why we are moving so slowly to make the repairs.

I would have expected those words from Sen. John McCain who recently gained a black daughter-in-law, and who refused to use tired old racist tactics against Obama during his fight for the presidency.

And those words would be reasonable flowing from the tongue of Speaker of the House John Boehner who recently gained a black son-in-law. Dinner table conversations have been known to change minds.

Both men now have a vested interest in changing the racial climate of not only the criminal justice system, but also how ordinary citizens who carry guns perceive black people, especially black youth, who are not criminals.
But Gingrich? Who knew?
"I do think this is a profound moment," Gingrich concluded on the show. "Whether we can grow it into one that brings us together, or it just becomes another excuse to yell at each other, I don't think we know yet."

I chastised Gingrich for his inane comments about poor black people, so I've got to give him kudos for these reasoned thoughts.
Who knows? Maybe both of us are mellowing.

Merlene Davis: (859) 231-3218. Email: mdavis1@herald-leader.com. Twitter: @reportmerle. Blog: merlenedavis.bloginky.com.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/07/20/2723998/merlene-newt-gingrich-and-i-are.html#storylink=cpy

Marlene Davis Claims "Rand Paul Wasn't Talking To Blacks At Howard University Speech, He Was Only Planning To Run For President". Do You Agree?

Merlene Davis: Rand Paul wasn't talking to blacks at Howard University speech

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By Merlene Davis

A lot of white people have said to me recently that Republican Sen. Rand Paul should get kudos for visiting Howard University and talking with a majority black audience.
The number of folks telling me that made me think something was wrong with me. I didn't see Paul's visit that way.
Why wouldn't, and shouldn't, a U.S. senator talk to a group of young, intelligent, black college students? Aren't they Americans?

Did Paul simply deserve credit for talking with a group that may not agree with him? President Barack Obama does that frequently. Obama spoke with a group of CEOs who have serious disagreements with his efforts to raise their taxes. He has addressed Congress and received a "You lie!," for his efforts.
I didn't quite understand why I should applaud Paul's visit anymore than I should gush over my husband picking up a broom now and again.

In his talk, Paul said today's Republican Party is essentially the same party Abraham Lincoln belonged to. Today's Republicans are the same as those of the 19th century who helped end slavery.
In essence, he said to those students that they should understand that when today's Republicans reach out to them, black people should joyfully clasp the hand that brought them freedom 150 years ago.
Democrats, Paul said, were the bad guys back then, and that's true. A majority of black voters once were Republicans. My father was a Republican. But black voters began leaving that party when integration fell out of favor with the party of Lincoln.
Paul knows that.

In the 1950s and 1960s, southern Democrats, who were demanding the right to remain segregationists, were rebuffed by northern Democrats for that stance. Those Democrats then fled to the Republican Party, where they found a welcoming home.
They were lured by that party's "Southern strategy," which was in direct opposition to federal policies regarding civil rights. So those segregationists became Republicans, changing how that party was perceived by black people, who voted overwhelmingly for Democrats during the past election.
Paul knows that.

So when Paul decided to give those bright students a history lesson that left decades of issues out of the discussion, I began to wonder why our senator had gone there in the first place.
He said he was there to try to get them to look at Republicans differently. Republicans really need to reach out to minorities, he said. That's true. But I don't think that's why he was there.

And then it came to me.
Yesterday, while speaking at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Paul said he is considering a presidential campaign in 2016. Such a move had been rumored, but now Paul has put it out there for all to see.
"I want to be part of the national debate," Paul said. "Whether I run or not, being considered is something that allows me to have, I think, a larger microphone. We're considering it."

That's why he went to Howard. His talk wasn't to persuade black students to give Republicans a second look. His talk at Howard was to give white students a chance to see him as magnanimous.
He had to have known that black people remember the longstanding racist and homophobic beliefs that his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, used to publish in his newsletters.
He had to have known that those black students would remember his recorded statements that businesses should be allowed to discriminate.

He wasn't there for black people. He was there to win some of the white votes that Obama had snagged from soccer moms disenchanted with the Republican desire to dictate what happens in their vaginas. He was there to convince those white people that he isn't such a bad fellow, really, and that they "should pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
He went to Howard because he is planning to run for president. How better to get the "larger microphone" than to go where other conservatives fear to tread?
That's why I can't give Paul credit for talking to black people. He wasn't really talking to them.

Richie Farmer's Shameful Ethics Saga Shows "Why Elections Matter".

  Richie Farmer shows why elections matter

The moment he stepped up to speak to the crowd on a sweltering summer day in 2003 at Fancy Farm, the annual Kentucky political season kickoff, it was pretty clear Richie Farmer wasn’t much qualified to be Kentucky agriculture commissioner.

Mr. Farmer, a former high school Mr. Basketball, spoke mostly about his glory days as a University of Kentucky sports star and the thrill of playing basketball at Rupp Arena as reasons people should vote for him.

And the voters of Kentucky promptly elected him to not one but two terms as agriculture commissioner, largely based on his huge popularity as one of the legendary UK basketball “Unforgettables.”

Once a rising star in the state Republican Party, Mr. Farmer has achieved a new level of stardom — in eight years of office, he has managed to rack up an astonishing 42 accusations of ethics violations, the most ever returned against an official since the Executive Branch Ethics Commission was created in 1992.

Mr. Farmer’s alleged misdeeds ranged from petty — ordering his staff to drive his dog around — to breathtakingly brazen.

The ethics charges allege that as agriculture commissioner, he improperly accepted a treasure trove of gifts including hunting rifles, watches and knives; and treated staff as personal servants, ordering them to cut his grass, take him shopping and hunting and build a basketball court in his back yard.

They even had to drive his dog from the state fair to Farmer’s Frankfort home, the charges allege.

Also, according to the charges, he put his girlfriend on the payroll (for no apparent work), schemed for excessive expense payments, helped himself to state equipment including laptop computers and filing cabinets and sold, at a profit, tickets he obtained for the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks.

In all, it appears to have been an orgy of wretched excess where Mr. Farmer treated a state taxpayer-financed agency he was elected to run as his personal slush fund.

Voters, do you sense a message here? Elections have consequences.

Electing Mr. Farmer was no service to him or the state he was supposed to serve.

The consequences have been disastrous and embarrassing for Kentucky and Mr. Farmer, whose tenure as agriculture commissioner will be as unforgettable as his basketball career — except for all the wrong reasons.

Mr. Farmer will have a chance to contest the ethics violations. His lawyer denies any wrongdoing by Mr. Farmer and expects to provide a “vigorous defense” of his client.
But the ethics charges follow a very damaging report by state Auditor Adam Edelen last year that cited many issues found in the ethics charges.

Voters should take note and remember that at every level, elections matter.

It’s Time For The Legalization Of Hemp In Kentucky. I Agree!

It’s time for the legalization of hemp in Ky.

Public opinion in Kentucky seems to be becoming more receptive to the legalization of hemp in our state.

Many people may not know this, but industrial hemp once flourished in Kentucky, especially during World War II, when farmers were encouraged to grow it for the war effort because other industrial fibers were in short supply.

GO HERE TO CONTINUE READING.

Mitch McConnell's Welcome Role As Statesman On Fiscal Cliff!

McConnell's welcome role as statesman

Rogers, Chandler, Yarmuth OK'd deal

It was refreshing to see Sen. Mitch McConnell put his considerable abilities into unifying, rather than dividing or distracting.

McConnell played a critical role — maybe even the critical role — in crafting the compromise that averted what many economists said would have been a disaster for the recovering economy.

Kudos to McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, for helping avoid what, as he correctly said, would have been a self-inflicted wound.

Even though Republicans could brag that the deal protects almost 99 percent of U.S. households from automatic income tax increases, Rep. Hal Rogers of Somerset was the only other Kentucky Republican who joined McConnell in voting for it.

Sen. Rand Paul was one of five Republicans and three Democrats in the Senate who voted no.

Also voting against the compromise hammered out by McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden were House Republicans Ed Whitfield of Hopkinsville, Brett Guthrie of Bowling Green and Thomas Massie of Lewisburg, elected in November to fill a vacant seat.

Democrats Ben Chandler of Versailles and John Yarmuth of Louisville voted for the compromise. (Republican Andy Barr of Lexington replaces Chandler today as the 113th Congress convenes.)

Paul and the other three Kentucky kamikazes were willing to take the cliff dive by immediately ending all the Bush tax cuts and taking a meat ax to defense-industry and other government jobs.

Sucking that much money out of a fragile economy could have plunged the nation and the world back into recession and sent unemployment spiraling upward again.

The four Kentucky Republicans issued statements decrying the lack of spending cuts in the deal; Paul also bemoaned raising taxes even on the top 1 percent.

The agreement extended Congress' self-imposed deadline for across-the-board spending cuts by two months.

It's true we have tough decisions to make about how to balance what we want from government with what we're willing to pay in taxes. We also must rein in health care costs to protect Medicare for the future.

It's also true that the public heartily endorses taxing more of the wealthiest Americans than Congress just approved. Congress should consider reforms to simplify the tax code and broaden the tax base.

As Congress approaches future fiscal cliffs — most immediately, decisions about spending cuts and the debt ceiling — let's hope McConnell's rational desire to avoid self-inflicted wounds prevails.

Remember it was a Tea Party-inspired tantrum in the summer of 2011 over whether to pay the government's bills that created this fiscal cliff, sent the stock market into a tailspin and resulted in the U.S. government's first credit downgrade.

During the first Obama administration, McConnell made a name for himself as obstructionist-in-chief.

The Senate minority leader could do the country and his self-immolating party a favor by continuing to engage in the kind of pragmatic statesmanship that he's shown in the last few days.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/03/2462864/mcconnells-welcome-role-as-statesman.html#storylink=botnext#storylink=cpy

Urgent Case For Senate Reform; McConnell Even Filibustered Himself.

Urgent case for Senate reform; McConnell even filibustered himself

McConnell even filibustered himself

Sen. Mitch McConnell has only himself to blame for the growing sentiment to tame, if not kill, the filibuster.

In his four years as minority leader, McConnell and his fellow Republicans have made a mockery of the Senate by overusing and abusing the maneuver. They attained a historic level of absurdity last week when McConnell filibustered his own proposal.

No wonder Congress's public approval rating reached an all-time low this year.

A filibuster once required a senator to hold the floor for hours on end, such as when Sen. Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Once the Senate eased the talk-a-thon rule, the filibuster became more common. Democrats used it to block judicial appointments during the George W. Bush administration.

But not until Republicans lost control of the Senate in 2006 did the filibuster become part of the Senate's daily routine.

In the 60 years from 1840 until 1900, there were 16 filibusters.

In the first two years of Barack Obama's presidency there were 130.

To end a filibuster, 60 of the 100 senators must vote to invoke cloture. (In the House a simple majority may end debate and force an up or down vote.)

Accomplishing almost anything in the Senate now requires 60 votes; just the threat of filibuster stops legislation dead in its tracks.

This is not what the founders intended. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison warned against a supermajority requirement. Hamilton said it would cause "tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromise of the public good." Madison said "the power would be transferred to the minority."

McConnell last week provided vivid evidence of Hamilton's and Madison's prescience.

Kentucky's senior senator called for a vote on giving the president unilateral authority to raise the federal debt ceiling. This was not the first time McConnell had tried to embarrass Obama by calling for a vote on something he knew Democrats had reservations about. But this time the Democrats called his bluff and agreed to the vote.

At that point, McConnell invoked the 60-vote requirement, apparently giving him the distinction of being the first in history to filibuster his own motion.

While this sounds comical, it's classic McConnell. He has been single-minded in his strategy to tie up the Senate with partisan tactics and procedural maneuvering, to the exclusion of almost any substantive debate.

As a result, the Democratic leader, Sen. Harry Reid, is proposing a rule change to restore the talk-a-thon requirement and prohibit filibusters in a few cases.

The filibuster as perfected by McConnell also is being challenged in federal court by the non-partisan political reform group Common Cause, four House Democrats and three individuals who say they have been denied a path to citizenship by filibusters of the House-passed DREAM Act.

Senate lawyers say it would be extraordinary for the courts to intervene in Senate rule-making. But the filibuster has been taken to extraordinarily undemocratic lengths.

In only eight of the past 27 congresses has a party held 60 or more seats in the Senate. If the filibuster as practiced by McConnell continues, we essentially will lose the Senate as a functioning part of our government.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/12/11/2439140/urgent-case-for-senate-reform.html#storylink=cpy

Secede? Yes! And Please Go NOW! AND I ADD: GOOD RIDDANCE.

Secede? Yes! And Please go NOW!
By Frank Cerabino

Thousands of Floridians have gotten the idea this week that seceding from the United States is the proper reaction to last week's presidential election.

This is good news for me, especially if these foes of tyranny follow through on their rugged individualism by extending their symbolic gesture into action.

It's going to make my commute much easier without having to share the federal interstate highway 95 with freeloading secessionists.

Since President Barack Obama was re-elected -- an outrageous perversion of democracy that ended with the person with the most votes being declared the winner -- online petitions of secession have popped up in more than two dozen states.

Florida's go-it-alone crowd has two petitions to choose from.

There's the "Peacefully grant the State of Florida to withdraw from the United States" petition and the "Petition calling for the Independence for the State of Florida."

The second one appears on a Web page featuring the Confederate flag with a "Never Apologize for Being Right" motto. So that one is apparently geared for people who are dismayed at the results of both the 2012 and the 1860 elections.

"Reform is not possible," that petition says. "We must now demand our independence."

Please. Do us a favor. Many of the states where these secession petitions were filed are states that receive more federal assistance than they pay in taxes. So it's a win-win proposition.

Your quest for freedom is our freedom from underachievers.

But I do feel a little sorry for you secessionists and your Founding Bubbas.

It's going to be rough at first, considering that you'll need your own currency, national defense and disaster relief funds. And it will be challenging to grow old without your federal retirement and health care plans.

To wean yourselves off Medicare and Medicaid, you might consider experimenting with leeches, mustard plasters and tincture of opium.

Also, it wouldn't be fair for you to still take advantage of all that tyrannical federal support of education.

And you're going to need some educating. One of the Florida petitions, the non-Confederate one, was apparently written by somebody sorely in need of a Pell grant.

"We therefore as free men and women of our great state do believe that it is time to take matters upon ourselves to ensure our continued freedom, and to enact our own laws and here buy govern ourselves without the federal government's involvement in our internal matters from this day forward," it says.

I hereby declare that you here should buy into the idea of a more perfect union of your secession language with the English language.

But go, please go. You can always bone up on English while you're trying to protect your sovereign citizens from the next flu pandemic.

Many of the people who signed the Florida petition for secession live in other states.

Knock it off. You're only allowed to secede from your own state. And what you're doing is unnecessary.

Because Florida has proven over the years that it doesn't need outside help in embarrassing itself.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/11/17/2411371/secede-yes-and-please-go-now.html#storylink=cpy

EDITOR'S COMMENT: I SAY LET THE NEANDERTHALS FIND A PRIMITIVE CAVE SOMEWHERE AND CRAWL INTO UNTIL DEATH BECKONS THEM ALL!

Lack Of Diversity Among Kentucky Elected; Both Parties Must Do Soul-Searching.

Lack of diversity among Ky. elected; both parties must do soul-searching

Anyone who has been awake the last few days knows that a new, more diverse day is being hailed in American politics.

This presidential election was not primarily decided by white men, as so many have in the past, but by women and people of color.

Commentators credit that shift for re-electing a black president, Barack Obama, and playing a role in sending more women to the U.S. Congress than ever in our history.

In Kentucky, though, we stuck to the original game plan. It would have been hard to do otherwise, since we didn't have a Senate race and not one woman nor one member of a minority group was on the ballot for our six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

There's, of course, a good reason for that. People who run for congressional seats have often gotten there by working up the ladder of elected offices, and in Kentucky not many women or minorities make it past the first rungs.

Although women are a majority both in population in Kentucky and among registered voters, they made up only 15.8 percent of the members of the 2012 state Senate and 20 percent of the House.

Minority officeholders in Kentucky don't do any better.

Although 8 percent of the state population is black, that group claims no U.S. senators or representatives or state constitutional officers, one state senator and five representatives.

A 2009 study by then-Secretary of State Trey Grayson, found no minorities in any county elected positions other than magistrates (three).

Remarkably, this is something of an improvement. This year, Kentucky ranked only 38th in the percentage of women in the state legislature, up from 47th in 2008.

But it's not good enough. As national results indicate, we will be left behind if we continue to rely on a white-male minority to provide the time, energy and intelligence to guide our communities and the state into a better future.

Perhaps the most crippling force holding our state back is poverty, a plague visited disproportionately on women and racial minorities.

The U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey reports that women in the Kentucky work force make on average about $10,000 a year less than men (41,691 compared to 31,362) for full-time, year-round work.

Over half of single-parent families in Kentucky headed by women with young children in the household live in poverty.

So, many, if not all of the economic issues being debated in state houses and the national Capitol can be termed women's issues. Access to education good jobs, health care and day care all go directly to the ability of these women to provide for their families.

A number of organizations work diligently to increase the representation of women and racial minorities in our public life. Clearly, they have had some positive impact, but more needs to be done.

As the national Republican Party contemplates its failures with women and minorities, both parties in Kentucky should take this opportunity for some serious soul-searching.

As individuals, we should all keep in mind the messages we're sending to children about who has the capacity to lead.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/11/09/2401060/lack-of-diversity-among-ky-elected.html#storylink=cpy

PAM PLATT: TIMES A - CHANGING!

Editorial | Election shows times a-changin'

As the poet once said, “The times they are a-changin.’” If you doubt that, consider the some of the dramatic changes around the country resulting from Tuesday’s election.

• Three states — Maine, Maryland and Washington — approved ballot initiatives authorizing same-sex marriage.

• Voters in a fourth state, Minnesota, rejected a proposal to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and woman.

• Congress is about to get its first openly gay U.S. senator, Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin.

• Voters in two states — Colorado and Washington – approved ballot measures to permit using marijuana without prescriptions or medical reasons.

These changes aren’t all taking place in ultra-liberal enclaves.

In Wisconsin, Ms. Baldwin defeated the conservative frontrunner, Republican Tommy Thompson, a former governor and cabinet member in the George W. Bush administration. Ms. Baldwin, a U.S. representative from Wisconsin, will be replaced in the House by Democrat Mark Pocan, a state legislator who also is openly gay.

People, keep in mind that Wisconsin is the home state of neo-con Paul Ryan, running mate of Mitt Romney, and Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who rammed through a series of unpopular anti-union measures.

Bob Dylan may have written his groundbreaking ballad about changing times in the 1960s, but the words continue to resonate as stunned Republicans try to understand Tuesday’s decisive victory for President Barack Obama to a second term as well as many other election-day surprises.

“Your old road is rapidly agin,’” Dylan said. “Get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand.”

Meanwhile gay rights supporters around the country are celebrating the first time voters have endorsed same-sex marriage at the ballot box. (Kentucky adopted a constitutional amendment in 2004 to ban same-sex marriages.)

And advocates of eased restrictions on marijuana represent an interesting coalition of folks who want to cut jail overcrowding by weeding out minor offenders and boost local revenues by taxing and licensing the drug. Some, convinced of the failure of the decades-long “war on drugs,” believe legalizing and regulating marijuana may be the only effective way to control it.

A mom in one state told public radio she firmly believes it would be harder for her teenage son to get marijuana if sales were regulated.

Mr. Dylan’s best advice, along with a warning, may have been to Washington politicians who face an electorate sick of partisan gridlock.

“Senators, congressmen, please heed the call, don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall,” he wrote. “For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled.”

So watch out, because “the times they are a-changin.’”

LEXINGTON HERALD LEADER: "Move Beyond The 'Birther' Jokes; Election Has Real, Serious Issues." I AGREE!

Move beyond the 'birther' jokes; election has real, serious issues

Election has real, serious issues

Speaking at an Aug. 21 Tea Party rally on the state Capitol steps, Republican state Sen. Damon Thayer told the crowd, "We need you to help send (President) Barack Obama back to Chicago or Hawaii, or wherever he wants to go."

When some members of the crowd shouted out, "Kenya," Thayer responded, "I'm not going to say that, but I appreciate your sentiments."

A couple of days later, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a rally in his home state of Michigan, "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate."

Romney later claimed it was just a joke and said, "There is no question about where (Obama) was born. He was born in the U.S."

Thayer may have considered his throwaway line just a joke as well. Or maybe not.

But intentional or unintentional, jokes about where Obama was born alienate some voters and help perpetuate among others the suspicion, long discredited but still harbored by some in this country, that he is not really an American and therefore cannot legally hold the office of president.

For some, the suspicion is so strong they act on it.

In early August, Dr. Todd House, a Louisville anesthesiologist and a write-in presidential candidate, filed suit in Franklin Circuit Court claiming Obama is not a "natural born" citizen and therefore not eligible to be on the November ballot. His is not the first such suit and might not be the last. None has been successful, however.

Obama released his birth certificate last year, and state officials in Hawaii consistently have verified the authenticity of his birth records. Still, the suspicion that he is not one of us lives on in the minds of "birthers."

No doubt their suspicions will be reinforced by the recent release of 2016: Obama's America, a supposed documentary doing well at the box office that accuses Obama of running the country based on the socialist ideas of his late father.

There are many issues voters can use to compare Obama and Romney during this fall's campaign. Real issues such as the lingering economic recession and the resulting loss of jobs, tax policy, environmental policy, the continuing war in Afghanistan and health care reform, just to name a few.

But the question of where Obama was born is not a real issue. It was asked and answered the first time around.

Let's get past it because the upcoming decision American voters must make really is no joking matter.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/08/28/2313294/move-beyond-the-birther-jokes.html#storylink=cpy

WE AGREE WITH BOWLING GREEN DAILYNEWS EDITORIAL THAT "Tax Deception In [OBAMACARE] Health [CARE] Ruling [IS] Very DISTURBING"!

Tax deception in health ruling very disturbing
By the Daily News

The Supreme Court has now rendered its long-anticipated decision and has upheld most of the health care law in a 5-4 ruling.

Many Americans who respect the court’s role as the final word on constitutional matters will still be disturbed by this ruling.

They have every right to be.

The Affordable Care Act was, after all, spawned in corruption, falsehoods and hypocrisy.

The Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback are but two reminders of the Chicago-style politics and corruption which greased the skids for this legislation.

Lies and hypocrisy abounded during health care debate as our president and members of his party assured Americans that the individual mandate was not a tax. Yet, during oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice attorneys argued that the mandate should be upheld cited congressional power to levy taxes.

It’s hard to see how you can have it both ways, but a majority of the court overlooked the deceit and held that the mandate can be construed as a tax.

Shame on those who were a party to this hypocrisy and deception. They obviously have the misguided belief that the end justifies the means, but what exactly is the end result?

For starters, we have an extremely costly entitlement that will make its name Affordable Care Act part of the George Orwell lexicon.

The history of large new government programs provides overwhelming evidence that initial cost estimates are quickly left in the dust. Already the Congressional Budget Office is backing off of its initial estimates.

“Affordable” rings hollow to companies and employees who were promised lower premiums and health care costs but aren’t seeing them.

At a time when jobs are our nation’s top priority, the new taxes, costs and uncertainty inherent in this bill promises to be a drag on job creation.

The increase in Medicaid spending at the state level resulting from this law will put even more strain on states already dealing with meeting essential services in a depressed economy.

Ultimately, we can expect to see health care rationing similar to what citizens in Britain, Canada and many European countries experience.

All Americans who cherish freedom should be thankful that the court didn’t expand congressional power under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause in upholding the mandate. Had they upheld requiring insurance purchases on this basis, many wondered if there were any limits on what products Congress could compel us to buy in the future.

They were concerned because our freedoms can be lost incrementally just as surely as they can be lost overnight by conquest.

Yes, the court has spoken, but the fact that a law is ruled constitutional hardly means it is good public policy.

This battle is lost but the war is not. The fight now moves back to the legislative arena.

This flawed law must be repealed and replaced with true reforms that won’t drive up health care and premium costs, depress the job market and contribute to an already staggering and unsustainable mountain of debt.

BOWLING GREEN DAILY NEWS: A CHANGING JUSTICE [ANTHONY KENNEDY]?

A changing justice?
Arizona case shows Kennedy leaning liberal, so far

The liberal Justice Anthony Kennedy is in the house – at least for the moment.

Anthony Kennedy’s opinion for the Supreme Court embraced most of the Obama administration’s view that Arizona’s aggressive immigration laws are pre-empted by the federal government’s power to determine who is or is not allowed in the country. For good measure, Kennedy also provided the deciding fifth vote to rule that mandatory life without parole for murderers under 18 violates the Constitution.

In doing so, he might have given us a glimpse of some political gamesmanship behind closed doors at the court in the run-up to Thursday’s expected opinion on President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform law.

The immigration decision squarely rejected three provisions of the Arizona law. One made it a state crime not to complete or carry the immigration papers already required by federal law. Another made it criminal for an illegal immigrant to apply for or hold a job — a rule that goes beyond the federal norm that criminalizes the employer of an illegal worker, not the worker himself. The third provision gave the police the authority to arrest without a warrant anyone whom they reasonably suspected of having committed some act that would allow them to be removed from the country under federal immigration law. (Ordinarily, if federal authorities stop a removable alien, they can’t detain him, but simply tell him that he must show up for a hearing.) The court concluded that all of these provisions were beyond Arizona’s authority to enact.

When it came to the most controversial part of the Arizona law – the so-called “papers, please” provision – the court did something rather clever. It said that the law might be read to mandate nothing more than a requirement for police to check immigration status during the ordinary duration of a legitimate stop based on reasonable suspicion of a crime. If that was all the law required, said the court, it would be constitutional.

On the surface, this holding upheld “papers, please.” In practice, though, the court took away some of the potentially frightening effects of the law, suggesting a roadmap for the state to follow in implementing it. The court said that detaining people only to determine their immigration status “would raise constitutional concerns,” implying that the length of the stop should not take longer than it ordinarily would to perform a criminal background check.

Whether this is a realistic directive remains to be seen. It is not clear what would constitute probable cause for an officer think that a person who has been stopped is an illegal immigrant, if not something discriminatory like racial profiling. Thus the court left open the possibility of a future challenge by civil rights advocates should the law be implemented in a discriminatory fashion.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor all joined Kennedy’s opinion. (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because she worked on the case while serving as solicitor general.) Ordinarily, this would mean they were satisfied with Kennedy’s position on “papers, please.”

Yet, this is not an ordinary Supreme Court term. The three liberals may have been willing to give Kennedy more room to maneuver than usual because they wanted to keep him close for the health-care decision.

Something of the kind may also have been in the mind of Chief Justice John Roberts, usually part of the conservative bloc. In a highly unusual move, Roberts joined Kennedy on the liberal side in the immigration case despite the dissenting votes of Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. We might read this as a sign that Roberts, too, was hoping to bring Kennedy to his side in the healthcare decision. A few years ago, when Kennedy was a necessary fifth vote for extending his corpus rights to prisoners in Guantánamo, then- Justice John Paul Stevens joined Kennedy and the conservatives in an important case about treaty interpretation. Many observers interpreted his vote as a gesture toward Justice Kennedy.

There are other possible explanations for Roberts’ vote in the immigration case. Under the Supreme Court’s rules, with only eight justices sitting, a 4 to 4 tie would have meant affirming the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which struck down all of the Arizona provisions including “papers, please.” By joining Kennedy’s opinion, Roberts at least assured that one of the law’s provisions would be formally upheld. There is a certain logic to this deduction, but it seems like a slender reed on which to hang Roberts’ uncharacteristic vote.

Roberts may also have been trying to shape his own image as a nonpartisan “umpire” — a term he famously used about his future role in his confirmation hearings — by voting in accordance with the Obama administration. If he intends to vote against the healthcare bill, his supporters might be able to point to the Arizona case as proof that he not partisan but objective.

In the end, however, this decision, like the health care decision ahead, came down to Kennedy. Liberals may be excited about what this might mean for health care. But they should not get too excited. At the same time that it decided the immigration case and struck down mandatory life without parole for juveniles, the court issued a one-page per curiam opinion invalidating a Montana law that limited political contributions by corporations. The opinion, with a 5-4 ideological split, explained briefly that the Montana law must be struck down under the logic of the Citizens United case that extended First Amendment speech protection to corporate donations to candidates.

The Montana case had offered an opportunity for the court – meaning Kennedy – to revisit a ruling that gave rise to the super-PACS now dominating the presidential election. Had the court given the Montana case full consideration, it might have found some way to distance itself from the consequences of Citizens United. That it did not do so suggests Kennedy is perfectly comfortable with his role as the decisive conservative vote in that momentous decision.

The Arizona immigration case is a modest victory for the Obama administration’s decision to assert federal authority against the state law. It also suggests that Obama’s team was right not to press an antidiscrimination claim before the law had been implemented, a strategy that was widely criticized by the law’s detractors. But whether that sense of victory will last out the week is another question altogether.

Fewer Voters Cost Too Much For All. AND WE AGREE.

Editorial | Fewer voters cost too much for all

The people have spoken. Or, given the pitifully low turnout numbers in Tuesday’s elections, maybe they whispered.

Heading in to Tuesday, prognosticators expected between 15 percent and 20 percent of eligible voters to show up to exercise their most precious right as American citizens. Those forecasters ought to bet on the Derby because they were about smack-dab on the nose: Local turnout didn’t make it to 16 percent, and state numbers didn’t even graze 15 percent. There’s no way to paint a smiley face on any of that.

Compare and contrast Tuesday’s sparse turnout in Kentucky with this ABC News observation about Wednesday’s historic elections halfway around the world: “Long lines snaked out of polling stations across Egypt ... as Egyptians went to cast their ballots in the country’s first free and fair presidential elections, the first in Egypt since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted February 2011.”

And then ponder the message found in the almost lone voice of a Louisville voter, quoted in The Courier-Journal on the same day freedom-hungry Egyptians were jamming their polling places. She was exactly right when she said: “In some ways it makes my vote count more because there are (fewer) people voting.”

Think about that. Fewer votes do count more when few people vote. And how is representative government supposed to work when the people who are supposed to be represented don’t even bother to show up to elect their representatives? If Americans think government is broken, and we keep hearing that (and hearing that), perhaps they ought to consider their own couch-potato roles in that hobbled system.

And then, just for added alarm, toss in the role money — especially outside money, unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United decision — plays in some of today’s elections, one in particular, and what that might mean to all those who just can’t be bothered.

The win of Thomas Massie, the tea party- and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul-backed Republican candidate in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District primary, was just hours old when The New York Times filed a story about how a 21-year-old Texan armed with an inherited $1 million was able to pump more than $500,000 into Mr. Massie’s race, or as the Times dubbed it, “a little-watched Republican House primary in Northern Kentucky.” His opponents didn’t stand a chance against the “saturation advertising,” especially when so many voters are so unengaged.

It is difficult not to be disturbed by how the story advances the Massie template. Beyond the Kentucky race — in the November general election, Mr. Massie will face Democrat Bill Adkins for the U.S. House seat being vacated by the GOP’s retiring Geoff Davis — the story details how the scenario is being reproduced by followers of Ron Paul (daddy of Rand), in other parts of the country.

“Karl Rove’s fear-and-smear-style Republicans are going to wake up at the end of the year and realize we are now in control of the Republican Party,” said, per The Times, the man who runs the “Super Pac” that flooded Kentucky with money in support of Mr. Massie.

It’s one thing for Republicans, who have made their own beds with extremists, to have to live with these control issues. It’s quite another thing for the rest of the country to have to live with them, too.

But that is exactly what can happen if most voters decide to sit things out and let a few others decide their futures, and the futures of their communities and country, for them. Will we wake up at the end of the year and realize Ron and Rand Paul and their followers are in control of the country, too? Take a look at the scorched-earth proposals they make, and see how they fit with the America you envision.

John Ramsey, the young man with money to bankroll the ad glut in the 4th Congressional District race, asks in The Times story, “How much money would you spend for freedom?”

It’s his right as an American to ask that question, but it’s the wrong question.

The right question to ask after an American election in which only about 15 percent of the eligible voters bothered to cast ballots, is: “Why are you letting other people and other people’s money speak for you?”

A continuing silence may provide painful truth to the old Bob Dylan line that money doesn’t talk — it swears.