Last Call For Beshear Audacity Of It All, Con't

Democratic KY Gov. Andy Beshear comfortably won reelection over Republican AG Daniel Cameron tonight.

Gov. Andy Beshear has won the Kentucky governor’s race, beating his Trump-endorsed challenger, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, to secure a second term. 

Major news outlets, including CNN, declared Beshear the winner just before 9 p.m. 

The 45-year-old Beshear, the son of former Kentucky governor Steve Beshear, is the first Democratic governor to win reelection in the commonwealth since 2011, when his father accomplished the same feat.

 

In one of the nation’s most expensive political campaigns, where nearly $74 million was raised and spent, Beshear maintained a high level of popularity in his first term as governor despite being a Democrat in Kentucky’s increasingly Republican-leaning political climate. 

In his re-election pitch to voters, Beshear touted his moderate views, an “economy on fire,” support for public education and leadership during times of crisis, including the COVID-19 global pandemic, devastating tornadoes and horrific floods that ravaged parts of Eastern Kentucky. 

In its final weeks, the campaign turned ugly. Cameron, 37, criticized Kentucky’s development trends under Beshear’s watch, saying that the Democrat was exaggerating the vitality of the state’s economy. He also repeatedly linked Beshear to President Joe Biden, who is deeply unpopular in the commonwealth.

Kentucky overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential race, beating Biden by nearly a 26-point margin. Beshear blunted Cameron’s strategy and painted himself as being above the partisan fray. He touted his bipartisan manner and his commitment to “Team Kentucky” instead of specific political parties. 

‘“My opponent is trying to nationalize the race because he knows if it’s me against him, he will not win,” Beshear said a little more than a week before Election Day. “So, he’s trying to confuse people, to make them think this is the race for president. It’s not. This is about us. It’s about Kentucky.”

In a final blast on social media Monday night, Beshear told supporters: “It’s time to send a message to the entire country that anger politics won’t win elections.”

Cameron's pitch didn't work. Too many people like Andy Beshear and they came out to vote for him.

The answer to the question of how Democrats can win in red states and win rural voters in 2024 is "Do what Andy Beshear did in 2023."

Beshear Audacity Of It All, Con't

The same Emerson College poll from last month that showed Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear with a commanding double-digit lead now shows Beshear tied with GOP AG Daniel Cameron 47-47% heading into Election Day on Tuesday.

The final Emerson College Polling survey of Kentucky voters before the 2023 gubernatorial general election finds incumbent Governor Andy Beshear and Attorney General Daniel Cameron in a dead heat: 47% support Beshear and 47% support Cameron. Two percent support someone else and 4% are undecided. Undecided voters were asked which candidate they lean toward at this time; with their support accounted for, Cameron holds a slight advantage with 49% support to Beshear’s 48%.

Since last month’s poll of registered Kentucky voters, Beshear’s initial support has decreased by two points, 49% to 47%, while support for Cameron increased 14 points from 33% to 47%. Undecided voters have reduced by nine points, from 13% undecided to 4% ahead of the Tuesday election.

Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said, “Cameron appears to have gained ground by consolidating Republican voters who supported former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. In October, 54% of Trump supporters supported Cameron; now, as election day approaches, that number has jumped to 79% – a 25-point increase. Notably, October’s poll was of registered voters in Kentucky, while this final election poll includes only those who are very likely or have already voted in Kentucky.”

Support for Cameron has increased among older voters in Kentucky since the October poll. A majority of voters (58%) ages 50-69 now support Cameron for governor, a 22-point increase from October, where Cameron held 36% support among the same age group. Beshear’s support among 50-69-year-olds has dropped 9 points since October, from 49% to 40%.

Independent voters remain split between the two candidates; 48% support Cameron, while 46% support Beshear. Six percent would vote for someone else.

A majority of voters (57%) expect Governor Beshear to be re-elected, while 41% think the Attorney General will win.

Kentucky voters oppose the current state laws that ban abortion in nearly all cases, with no exception for rape or incest, 55% to 28% who support it; 17% are unsure.

“Majorities of both men and women voters oppose the abortion law,” Kimball said. “Fifty-two percent of men and 58% of women voters oppose the laws, while support is relatively similar: 30% of male voters and 28% of women voters support the abortion laws.”

Three-quarters (75%) of Democrats in Kentucky oppose the current abortion laws, while a plurality of independents (47%) say the same. Republicans are more divided on the issue; a plurality (42%) support the no-exception abortion laws, while 37% oppose, and 21% are unsure.

“The strongest opposition to the abortion law is among voters under 30 at 68%, opposition decreases with age culminating with voters 70 years of age and older at 52% in opposition to the law,” Kimball noted. “Support for state abortion laws is highest among voters ages 50 to 59 at 37%.”

A significant majority (83%) of voters who support Andy Beshear for governor oppose the state’s no-exception abortion laws. In comparison, a slight majority (51%) of voters who support Cameron support the state’s abortion laws.

 

Beshear has been hitting Cameron hard on the the unpopular abortion ban here. But Cameron has been hitting Beshear back with the even more unpopular Joe Biden. The President is...not...popular here in the Commonwealth, and that's just fact.  The most recent Morning Consult poll finds Biden's popularity here at 23%.

Cameron hasn't missed a chance to compare Beshear to "Washington liberals like Biden and Pelosi" in the last six weeks and it's working. The ads have been running non-stop. You'd think Kentucky was Times Square in 1978 or something with all the crime and drugs in Cameron's ads, but they are certainly rallying the GOP base here.

But the fact that Beshear has an even chance of winning Tuesday shows you just how well he's liked in a state that hates Biden. Even 41% of Republicans think he's doing a good job, as opposed to the 4% of Republicans who think Biden is doing a good job here in Kentucky.

I still think Beshear will win, but it's going to be close. Early voting is underway here in KY through today. Get that ballot in today or Tuesday.

We need you. Vote like your country depends on it, because it does.

Beshear Audacity Of It All, Con't

 As we close in on the final month before Kentucky goes to the polls to determine whether or not Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear gets to keep his job, a new Emerson College poll finds the incumbent with a huge lead going into the 30-day mark.

 

A new poll from Emerson College and Fox 56 shows Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear with a commanding 16-point lead over Republican nominee attorney general Daniel Cameron.

Out of 450 registered Kentucky voters polled Oct. 1-3, 49% told the independent, nonpartisan pollster they would vote for Beshear if an election between him and Cameron were held today. 33% said they would vote for Cameron. 13% of the respondents were undecided, and 5% said they’d vote for “someone else” despite there being no one else on the ballot.

With 450 registered voters surveyed, the margin of error on the results is +/-4.6%.

The 16-point lead is the largest in any publicly released poll, by a wide margin. Polls conducted from June to late September showed Beshear with anywhere from a 10-point lead to mid-single digits. A poll recently released by the conservative group Club For Growth showed Cameron down six percentage points to Beshear but gaining on the governor in the month of September.

Elections analysis website fivethirtyeight.com gives Emerson College an “A-” rating as a pollster.

Beshear’s campaign has outspent Cameron’s significantly throughout the general election season. Even with multiple political action committees (PACs) supporting Cameron, the amount of pro-Beshear advertisements on television thus far this month has outnumbered Cameron and groups supporting him. During the first full week of October, $1.8 million was spent on ads supporting Beshear compared to roughly $600,000 on ads for Cameron.

Unlike in 2019 — when Beshear defeated controversial former GOP governor Matt Bevin by a razor-thin 0.4 percentage point, 5,000-vote margin — there is no third-party candidate on the ballot this year. In 2019, Libertarian candidate John Hicks received 2% of the vote.

The responses to the poll roughly match up with Kentucky voters’ political behavior in a couple key ways: a majority voted for former Republican president Donald Trump in 2020, and most of them do not like current Democratic President Joe Biden. 55% said they voted for Trump in 2020 while 32% said they voted for Biden — Trump won that election 62-36.

In Kentucky, roughly 46% of registered voters are Republican, 44% are registered Democrat and a little more than 10% are registered as something else, according to State Board of Elections data from September.

However, the responses indicate the population surveyed was registered Democrat at a much lower rate than Kentucky voters on the whole and registered as independent at a much higher rate than the commonwealth’s voters. 31% said they were Democrats, 47% said they were Republicans and 22% said they were Independent or “other” when asked about their party registration.

 

Oversampling of independents isn't a huge deal in a state where basically one in five Democrats are Joe Manchin. If anything, it favors the huge lead.for Beshear.

 

People like the guy. He's been a good governor, he's personable and charismatic, his dad Steve was governor for eight years and like his father, Andy won because the Republican running for reelection was an asshole (back then it was Ernie Fletcher and his state hiring scandal).

Then again, Matt Bevin surprised everyone in 2015 when what the pollsters said was a big Jack Conway win turned into a nine-point loss, so badly called that it spelled the end of the state's biggest polling firm at the time.

So yeah, I'm taking an entire salt mine with these results. Beshear needs to run like he's nine points down, because for all we know, he is.

The Turtle's Long Road

Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell has been having a rough time of it as of late.

 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tripped and fell disembarking from a plane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this month, two sources familiar with the incident said.

McConnell, 81, was not seriously hurt, and he was seen later that day at the Capitol, where he interacted with at least one reporter.

The fall, which has not been previously reported, occurred July 14 after the flight out of Washington was canceled while everyone was on board. McConnell, R-Ky., who was a passenger, had a “face plant,” someone who was on the plane at the time but did not witness the fall told NBC News. That passenger also said they spoke to another passenger who helped tend to McConnell.

McConnell has also recently been using a wheelchair as a precaution when he navigates crowded airports, said a source familiar with his practices.

McConnell, a polio survivor who has long struggled to navigate stairs and other obstacles, has had a difficult recent history with falls. He sustained a concussion and a cracked rib in a fall in Washington this year, and he spent six weeks away from the Senate. He fractured a shoulder in a fall in Kentucky in 2019, requiring surgery.

McConnell’s nearly 20-second freeze during a news conference Wednesday renewed concerns about his overall health after the concussion.

“He’s definitely slower with his gait,” said a Republican senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. In closed-door GOP meetings, “he doesn’t address it,” the senator said, referring to health issues.

McConnell’s office declined to comment for this article Wednesday night.

McConnell, who told reporters he was “fine” after his freeze-up Wednesday, spoke with President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after the incident.

“The president called to check on me. I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell joked to reporters, an apparent reference to Biden’s fall last month.

 

I remind folks that the KY GOP changed the rules for appointing a US Senator should the need arise, while Gov. Beshear would get to make the ultimate choice, tit's the GOP-dominated General Assembly that chooses the list of candidates. 

 

I can't help but think if anything happened to Mitch now, that the GOP may decide Daniel Cameron would make a good Senator even though he's running for Beshear's job this year, as it's ultimately where he's headed. I don't know if Cameron can be replaced on the gubernatorial ticket this late in the game, but the KY GOP will just change the rules anyway and force Beshear to accept it.

Besides, if Mitch wasn't Senate minority leader, Tom Cotton or Rick Scott would be.

Beshear Audacity Of It All

Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear continues to be broadly popular in 2023 heading into his reelection race against GOP Attorney General Daniel Cameron later this year. 

 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — a Democrat running for re-election this year in a deep-red state — remains among America’s most popular governors ahead of the November contest. His approval rating among GOP voters is stronger than any other Democratic governor, resisting drag from President Joe Biden’s poor standing in the Bluegrass State and setting up a formidable challenge for Republicans hoping to unseat him.

The other incumbent governor up for re-election this fall, Republican Tate Reeves of Mississippi, is among the country’s least popular, according to our latest quarterly data. His state’s partisan bent and the power of incumbency are likely to be enough to push him across the finish line in November, though strengthened antipathy from the state’s large share of Black voters could make him sweat.

A strong 64% majority of Kentucky voters approve of Beshear’s job performance, while 32% disapprove, according to our second quarter surveys conducted April 1-June 30. This marks Beshear’s highest approval rating since Biden took office in January 2021.

Along with receiving solid marks from Kentucky Democrats and independents, Beshear wins approval from roughly half of the state’s Republicans, making him the country’s most popular Democratic governor with GOP voters.

Even with his father’s esteemed name in state politics, Beshear’s current standing is remarkable given Kentucky’s partisan bent. While he defeated Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in 2019 by a razor-thin margin due largely to the incumbent’s deep unpopularity, Trump would go on to win the state by 26 percentage points in 2020.

Despite that wide presidential margin, Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball have rated the race as leaning Democratic, with Cook citing Beshear’s approval rating in Morning Consult surveys, buoyed by his handling of natural disasters and Kentucky’s economic performance. (Another race-rater, Inside Elections, currently sees the contest as a toss-up.)

Beshear is entering the heat of the campaign with strong popularity despite voters’ deep dislike of Biden in his state. Kentucky voters are 37 points more likely to disapprove than approve of Biden’s job performance (30% to 67%). But to Beshear’s credit, even those who dislike the president more often than not give the governor positive marks.

 

Cameron keeps attacking Beshear as a liberal, but even half of Republicans here say he's doing a good job. We'll see what polling looks like after Labor Day, but Beshear has a really good shot.

Last Call For Tales Of The Shattered Rainbow, Local Edition

A federal judge has blocked Kentucky's vile anti-trans law from taking effect today, saying that the law violates the Constitution and finding that gender-affirming care is medically necessary.

Seven transgender youth and their families sued the state in May, challenging the medical portion of Senate Bill 150 and asking for temporary injunctive relief. The families, who use pseudonyms in the lawsuit, argued the new law violates both plaintiffs’ and their parents’ individual protected rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

On Wednesday, hours before the full law was slated to take effect Thursday, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Kentucky David Hale found merit in that claim and temporarily blocked that portion of the law from being enforced.

“Based on the evidence submitted, the court finds that the treatments barred by SB 150 are medically appropriate and necessary for some transgender children under the evidence-based standard of care accepted by all major medical organizations in the United States,” Hale wrote in his order. The families who’ve sued have “shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their constitutional challenges to SB 150.”

The bill, passed this session, was the subject of massive protests in Frankfort this year, with many in the LGBTQ community saying that the omnibus bill unfairly targeted them and that it was “anti-trans.”

Senate Bill 150 passed with the support of the vast majority of GOP legislators, who have supermajorities in both chambers of the Kentucky General Assembly. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode his veto. Numerous major medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Medical Association, have filed amicus briefs in support of the plaintiffs who assert the law is unconstitutional.

In addition to banning banning puberty-blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgeries for kids under 18, Senate Bill 150 also bans discussion and lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation, prevents trans students from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, and stops school districts from requiring teachers use a student’s preferred pronouns. Those portions of the law remain intact.

In his Wednesday order, Hale debunked many of the assertions Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron cited in his defense of the law, and chided him for relying on “unnecessarily inflammatory language.”

“The Commonwealth offers no evidence that Kentucky healthcare providers prescribe puberty-blockers or hormones primarily for financial gain as opposed to patients’ well-being,” Hale said, referencing a claim made by Cameron. “Nor do the quoted studies from ‘some European countries’ questioning the efficacy of the drugs, or anecdotes from a handful of ‘detransitioners’ banning the treatments entirely, as SB 150 would do.”

Hale continued, “doctors currently decide, based on the widely accepted standard of care, whether puberty blockers or hormones are appropriate for a particular patient. Far from ‘protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession.’” Rather, “SB 150 would prevent doctors from acting in accordance with the applicable standard of care,” the judge wrote.

Cameron claimed in a filing that the law doesn’t violate parents’ due process to seek medical care for their children, because they do not have “fundamental right to obtain whatever drugs they want for their children, without restriction.”

But plaintiffs’ parents don’t allege this in their lawsuit, Hale said. Rather, they insist on “the right to obtain established medical treatments to protect their children’s health and well-being,” he wrote.

If the law were to take full effect, it would “eliminate treatments that have already significantly benefited six of the seven minor plaintiffs and prevent other transgender children from accessing these beneficial treatments in the future,” Hale wrote.

Blocking the law from taking effect “will not result in any child being forced to take puberty blockers or hormones,” he continued. “Rather, the treatments will continue to be limited to those patients whose parents and health care providers decide, in accordance with the applicable standard of care, that such treatment is appropriate.”

AG Daniel Cameron is appealing the injunction based on the grounds that trans kids need to be made to suffer or some shit to keep the normies happy, but frankly, fuck him.

The bigger issue is every time that anti-trans bills like this have been challenged in federal court as the KY ACLU did here, the feds have enjoined and blocked the laws from taking effect because they are patently unconstitutional.

This was always headed for SCOTUS.

Last Call For Crafting A Disaster In Kentucky

The GOP primary for governor is next Tuesday here in Kentucky, and while I definitely have my problems with Turtle High Priest Daniel Cameron, the even worse alternative is definitely form Trump regime UN Ambassador Kelly Craft, trying to buy the seat with her millions so she can purge state schools of trans folk.

 

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Craft made sweeping, explicit anti-transgender remarks at a virtual town hall on Monday, escalating her transphobic rhetoric in the lead-up to the primary election.

Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, said Kentucky would “not have transgenders in our school system” if she were elected governor, according to a transcript of the town hall reported by the Lexington Herald Leader.

Weston Loyd, communications director for Craft’s campaign, said Craft was referring to “ideologies.”

“Of course Kelly [Craft] was referring to the woke ideologies being pushed in our schools,” Loyd said. “She has been advocating for the best for all children this entire campaign.”

But Craft’s statement that transgender students should not exist in Kentucky schools goes beyond even her previous anti-trans stances throughout her campaign, such as her opposition to trans athletes competing in women’s sports and support of a sweeping new law, sponsored by her running mate, that bans gender affirming medical care for minors.

Chris Hartman, executive director of the Kentucky Fairness Campaign, said he wasn’t surprised by Craft’s comments in light of her previous anti-trans remarks and legislative agendas.

“You cannot force or legislate trans kids out of existence. You can’t push them back into the closet,” Hartman said. “Trans kids exist. They will always exist, and they will always be in Kentucky schools, no matter what Kelly Craft and Max Wise have to say about it.”

GOP state Sen. Max Wise, Craft's running mate, sponsored Senate Bill 150, one of the strictest anti-trans laws in the country, which passed in the Kentucky Legislature this year. It bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids and imposes rules on public schools that negatively affect trans students.

The ACLU of Kentucky filed a lawsuit last week challenging parts of SB 150 that ban trans kids from receiving gender affirming care like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the bill, though the GOP-led legislature easily overrode him. In his veto message, Beshear wrote that SB 150 “allows too much government interference in personal healthcare issues and rips away the freedom of parents to make medical decisions for their children.”

Hartman said anti-trans rhetoric is taking a toll on trans kids’ mental health – and it’s coming from politicians and legislatures across the country, not just from Craft. The ACLU identified nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills in the United States in just the 2023 legislative session.

“I don’t believe that kids are hearing Kelly Craft’s words any louder than they are hearing the state legislatures all across the United States, and the coordinated national efforts to eradicate transgender kids for the cheapest political points,” Hartman said.

 

Understand that Republicans like Craft will not stop at getting rid of trans kids -- trying to make their existence illegal felonies -- and as horrific as that is,  they will do the same to all trans folk in Kentucky and in multiple other states.

I'd say this is the 1939 playbook from Germany only with trans folks, but Republicans hate Jews too, so there you are.

 

Needless to say, a second term for Andy Beshear may be the only force that halts a slide towards actual genocide here.

Last Call For Beshear's Bluegrass Blitz

Over at Sabato's Crystal Ball, J. Miles Coleman handicaps the 2023 Kentucky Gubernatorial race.

 

Of the 3 states seeing governors races this year, Kentucky will likely see the most vigorous 2-party competition. Four years ago, Kentucky voters ousted an unpopular governor from a popular party. This year, the Bluegrass State will weigh whether to keep a popular governor from an unpopular party.

In 2019, then-state Attorney General Andy Beshear (D) narrowly beat then-incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin (R). Bevin was originally elected in 2015 to replace Beshear’s father, who was term-limited as governor. Bevin, an anti-establishment conservative, burnt a few too many bridges during his term and, despite the state’s friendly lean, was weighed down by poor approval ratings.

Now, facing reelection himself, Beshear is in essentially the opposite situation as Bevin was 4 years ago. According to Morning Consult’s April 2022 polling, Beshear was the most popular Democratic governor in the country. In Morning Consult’s more recent October 2022 poll, he retained that title. But Kentucky is also the reddest state (by 2020 presidential results) that currently has a Democratic governor — so, as impressive as Beshear’s approvals are, they are not necessarily enough to guarantee reelection.

On Friday, filing for the gubernatorial contest closed. On the Republican side, about a dozen candidates, including 3 current statewide officials, filed to run in the May 16 primary. Though Kentucky has the earliest primary of the 3 states that will elect governors this year — in other words, Republicans won’t be beating up on each other into the fall, as has been the case in recent Louisiana races (more on that later) — state GOP consultant Scott Jennings quipped that “crazy things” could happen.

Still, the nominal frontrunner in the Republican contest is Daniel Cameron, who currently holds Beshear’s old job as state Attorney General. Cameron, a Black Republican who is 37 and has connections to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), first ran for office in 2019 — he easily defeated then-state Rep. Greg Stumbo, an Appalachian Democrat who had a lengthy resume in state politics. As Beshear did with Bevin, Cameron has battled the governor while in office, most notably on COVID measures. Shortly after Cameron entered the race, last May, he received Donald Trump’s endorsement.

The other statewide Republicans who are running for a promotion are Auditor Mike Harmon and Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles. Harmon first got to office in something of an upset, defeating then-Auditor Adam Edelen, who was thought to be a rising star in state Democratic politics (Edelen later lost to Beshear in the 2019 gubernatorial primary). Quarles has fundraised competitively with Cameron, while Harmon’s totals have been less impressive. Kelly Knight Craft, who served in the Trump Administration as ambassador to Canada and then to the United Nations, is another serious Republican. Craft is both a billionaire and an ample fundraiser, so money should not be an issue for her campaign.

Beshear, although he is expected to win his primary easily, will have 2 opponents, the more notable of whom is Geoff Young. A perennial candidate, Young has been denounced by fellow Democrats for, among other things, his pro-Vladimir Putin stances. In any case, the non-Beshear vote in the primary will likely be a protest vote more than anything else.

Aside from the potential for a chaotic Republican primary, there are more local factors working in Beshear’s favor. In 2017, the Crystal Ball looked at the types of political implications that natural disasters can have. Governors who are perceived to handle disasters well often get an electoral boost. Last year, though he was already favored, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) response to Hurricane Ian likely padded his margin. Since 2019, Kentucky has been hit by tornadoes in the west, while the Appalachian east has seen historic flooding. Beshear’s responses to the state’s crises have enabled him to cultivate something of a postpartisan image.

The 2022 election cycle, at least in terms of its partisan results, was not especially kind to Kentucky Democrats: though they retained representation in the federal delegation by holding the open and very Democratic Louisville-based KY-3, Republicans expanded their already-robust majority in the state House — the GOP captured 80 of the chamber’s 100 seats. But the result of one of last year’s state referendums may give Democrats more encouragement. Amendment 2 was supported by many prominent Republicans — if passed, it would have confirmed that the state constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion. Amendment 2 failed by close to 5 points.

Though the status of abortion in Kentucky is being settled in the courts, from a purely electoral perspective, the anti-Amendment 2 vote may provide something of a template for a Beshear win this year. The state’s 2 largest counties, Louisville’s Jefferson and Lexington’s Fayette, both voted over 70% against the amendment — in 2019, Beshear himself received about two-thirds of the vote in each of those large counties. (Those are the pockets of dark blue on the map.) The 3 northernmost counties, which are in Cincinnati’s orbit, also voted, in aggregate, against Amendment 2. Beshear’s overperformance in northern Kentucky was key to his 2 previous statewide wins. It is hard to transfer every element of a referendum to an actual partisan contest, but a similar vote in Kansas last summer presaged Gov. Laura Kelly’s (D-KS) victory in another red state.

Considering the governor’s personal popularity and the potential for uncertainty in the Republican primary, we are starting Beshear off as a slight favorite and calling the Kentucky contest Leans Democratic.

 

People like Andy Beshear, but he's going to get drilled in campaign ads over the next 11 months and the GOP is not going to let up. Cameron is Mitch McConnell's personal pick to succeed him, and winning the governor's mansion in 2023 and then running for Mitch's seat in 2026 is the plan.

We'll see. I think Beshear can win, but he absolutely is going to be the number one national target this year for the GOP. Mitch will see to that.

The Road To Gilead Goes Through Kentucky, Con't

After weeks of legal wrangling over the state's existing trigger law banning abortion in nearly all cases once Roe was overturned, a state appeals court judge has reinstated the ban, overruling a lower court injunction that temporarily blocked it until the case could be taken before the Kentucky Supreme Court. The order means GOP Attorney General Daniel Cameron can immediately begin enforcing the ban.

 

A Kentucky judge reinstituted the state’s near-total abortion ban Monday, reversing a lower court’s order from less than two weeks ago that temporarily allowed the procedures to continue in the state.

The decision by Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Larry E. Thompson means that abortions are again illegal in the state, unless the mother is at risk of death or serious permanent injury, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Health-care workers who provide abortion services can face up to five years in prison, though mothers are not subject to criminal liability.

The order came in response to a request by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) that the appellate court overturn a July 22 decision by Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry, who had sided with abortion providers.

Last month, Perry had granted an injunction preventing Kentucky’s abortion ban from taking effect after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June. Perry sided with two abortion clinics that said the bans were unconstitutional because they went against the rights to privacy and self-determination enshrined in the state constitution

In his ruling, Perry reasoned there was a “substantial likelihood” that the bans were unconstitutional in Kentucky and blocked the abortion restrictions from taking effect until a final decision on their constitutionality could be made by state courts.

But Thompson overruled Perry, on grounds that allowing abortions to proceed — even temporarily — is unfair because the procedures would be irreversible, should state courts later rule the abortion restrictions to be constitutional. “The Court emphasizes, however, that it expresses no opinion whatsoever as to the merits of the underlying dispute,” he added.

Cameron welcomed Thompson’s ruling. “I appreciate the court’s decision to allow Kentucky’s pro-life laws to take effect while we continue to vigorously defend the constitutionality of these important protections for women and unborn children,” Kentucky’s attorney general said.

 

So yes, in Kentucky you will bear your rapist's child, because anyone in the state that helps you to end that pregnancy faces five years in prison. Ohio's ban is in place, Indiana's ban is expected to be passed soon, so if you live in the Cincinnati area, you have no right to bodily autonomy unless you drive to Illinois or Pennsylvania.

Republicans like Cameron are careful to say that women will not face prosecution for abortions or suspected abortions through miscarriages. Kentucky doesn't have Texas-style civil bounty bills for ratting out women who do end an unwanted pregnancy.

The "yet" is something that has a palpable presence, and that will be coming soon.

The borders of the states where women are second-class citizens are firming up.

Last Call For The Vax Of Life

The ban on Biden's federal OSHA vaccine mandate rules will remain here in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee after the 6th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling blocking employer vaccine mandate rules.

A federal appeals court has declined to lift a ban in three states on President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for workers who contract with the federal government.

The ruling comes after a nationwide ban on the mandate for federal contractors was imposed by a federal judge in Georgia last month.

A judge in Louisville, Kentucky, blocked the Biden rule in November for that state and two others: Tennessee and Ohio.

A panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the injunction for the three states in a 2-1 ruling Wednesday.

“This ensures, while the case continues to proceed, that federal contractors in Kentucky aren’t subject to the Biden Administration’s unlawful mandate,” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican who filed the suit challenging the mandate, said in an emailed statement Thursday. Cameron said in a release last year that federal contractors accounted for about one-fifth of the country’s labor force and $9 billion in contracts in 2021.

 

This was largely expected, as two Trump-appointed judges agreed with KY GOP AG Cameron that the mandates were unconstitutional. 

The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments tomorrow on the OSHA vaccine mandate rules.

In the midst of the latest surge in omicron COVID-19 cases, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Friday on whether the Biden administration can force private-sector firms to vaccinate or test tens of millions of employees.

The court is expected to make a decision swiftly that could freeze the vax-or-test mandates on businesses with more than 100 workers — and the threat of fines — or let the Biden plan be implemented, legal experts say. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, which regulates workplace safety, has said it could begin fining businesses that fail to comply with the mandates on Jan. 10.

Employers “are waiting to see the outcome in the courts,” Wendell Young IV, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, which represents 35,000 Pennsylvania union members, said last week.

John S. Ho, co-chair of OSHA-Workplace Safety Practice at Cozen O’Connor, said that companies should be developing a “roster of vaccination status” of employees to show OSHA “good faith” in complying with the mandates.

“You should have that roster in place by Jan. 10,” he said. But Ho also is advising companies to take a “wait-and-see approach” on implementing the vaccination mandates that could lead some employees to quit.

A firm can be fined $13,600 per violation. OSHA is expected to mostly enforce the mandate through employee complaints. “It’s a politically charged issue. There is no way to avoid that,” Ho said.

The Biden administration says the emergency rules could save the lives of 6,500 workers and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations in the next six months as COVID-19 presents a “grave danger” to employees where they work. The Inquirer estimates that 1.8 million Philly-area workers fall under the mandates. Nationally, two out of three employers fall under it, representing about 80 million workers.

Firms, business trade associations, and 27 states say that the Biden administration has exceeded its authority at the workplace safety agency with the mandates that appear designed to boost vaccination rates and that many workers remain unpersuaded in vaccine benefits.

The case has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in lightning speed. OSHA announced the mandates in early November and they were immediately challenged in court. On Nov. 12, the appeals court in New Orleans stayed, or froze, the mandates, saying that they were “staggeringly overbroad.” The ruling added that they raised issues of the government’s “virtually unlimited power to control individual conduct under the guise of a workplace regulation.”

Meanwhile, mandate cases filed nationwide were consolidated in the appeals court in Cincinnati. A panel of judges there lifted the stay on Dec. 17. “COVID has continued to spread, mutate, kill and block the safe return of American workers to jobs. To protect workers, OSHA can and must be able to respond to dangers as they evolve,” the court said in its decision. 

So while the nationwide ban has been stayed, the 6th Circuit ban remains in place for Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. We'll see what the Roberts Court has to say, but my guess is that the vaccine mandate will not survive, and that a real danger remains that a broad ruling against executive branch regulatory agencies like OSHA could suddenly cripple the American workplace nationwide.

More tomorrow.

The Return Of Kynect...For Now

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has kept a major campaign promise: the return of the state's wildly successful Obamacare health exchange Kynect, eliminated by previous Gov. Matt Bevin because it was so successful and Bevin needed to prove that Kynect was a failure. When Bevin couldn't, he just killed it. Now Beshear has brought it back.

 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, with help from U.S. Health and Human Services Secrertary Xavier Becerra, rolled out the reopening Friday of Kynect, the state-based health insurance exchange.

Friday was the start of open enrollment for existing recipients of Medicaid, the government health plan for low-income people and those with disabilities. Open enrollment for private health plans on Kentucky’s exchange is from Nov. 1 to Jan. 15.

The exchange was started by Beshear’s father, former Gov. Steve Beshear, under the federal Affordable Care but was shuttered in favor of the federal health exchange by his successor, former Gov. Matt Bevin.

“I’m really excited about today. Kynect was the gold standard,” Andy Beshear said in a Zoom news conference with Becerra. “Health care coverage is neither red nor blue, Democrat or Republican. It is necessary for survival in a pandemic and it is necessary for Kentucky to thrive.”

Becerra praised Kynect, calling it a “Kentucky-made, Kentucky-driven and Kentucky-based product” and that no one knows better the health care needs of Kentuckians than Beshear. He labeled Beshear a “true champion of health care.”

Beshear said the goal is to get health insurance to 280,000 uninsured Kentuckians.

Beshear announced last year that he was bringing back Kynect, the online health exchange where people can shop for and buy health insurance, as well as sign up for Medicaid.

Kentucky received national praise for the program that brought about one of the lowest rates of uninsured in the country. Bevin, though, said it was too costly and redundant of the federal website to buy health insurance. He stopped it in 2017.

Beshear said Friday that Kentuckians now can browse plans and explore benefits at kynect.ky.gov that take effect Jan. 1, 2022.

Compared with current federal exchange offerings, Kentuckians will benefit in 2022 from more health care insurance providers and the opportunity to tailor coverage to address their unique needs, said Beshear.

He said the change is expected to save Kentuckians at least $15 million a year.

 

I'd take advantage of it while you can,  I fully expect the KY GOP supermajority to move Kynect under the aegis of Attorney General Daniel Cameron's office in January and then dismantle it in the spring, but it will be nice for a couple of months to live in a state when not everyone in political power wants poor people to die in order to stop burdening the commonwealth.

 

Don't expect Kynect to last more than a few months. Use it if you need to.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Kentucky Edition

Abortion went before the Supreme Court again today, this time with Kentucky GOP AG Daniel Cameron saying he has the exclusive right to defend the state's abortion ban in court if Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear will not do so, and as far as the Supremes go, they seemed to heavily side with Cameron.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in an abortion case on Tuesday, but the issue for the justices was a procedural one: Could Kentucky’s attorney general, a Republican, defend a state abortion law when the governor, a Democrat, refused to pursue further appeals after a federal appeals court struck down the law?

As the argument progressed through a thicket of technical issues, a majority of the justices seemed inclined to say yes.

“Kentucky maybe ought to be there in some form, and the attorney general is the one that wants to intervene,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said.

More important abortion cases are on the horizon. In December, the court will hear arguments on whether to overrule Roe v. Wade in a case concerning a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. And the justices have been asked to take another look at a Texas law that prohibits most abortions after six weeks, which the court allowed to go into effect last month by a 5-to-4 vote.

Tuesday’s case, Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, No. 20-601, concerned a Kentucky law that challengers said effectively banned the most common method of abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy, dilation and evacuation. The justices barely discussed the law during Tuesday’s argument.

Rather, they focused on the tangled history of the case and the complicated jurisdictional and procedural questions that arose from it.

The case started in 2018, when the state’s only abortion clinic and two doctors sued various state officials to challenge the law. The state’s attorney general at the time, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said his office was not responsible for enforcing the law and entered into a stipulation dismissing the case against him, agreeing to abide by the final judgment and reserving the right to appeal.

The state’s health secretary, who had been appointed by a Republican governor, defended the law in court. A federal trial court struck the law down, saying it was at odds with Supreme Court precedent. The health secretary appealed, but the attorney general did not.

While the case was moving forward, Kentucky’s political landscape shifted. Mr. Beshear, who had been attorney general, was elected governor. Daniel Cameron, a Republican, was elected attorney general.

Mr. Beshear appointed a new health secretary, Eric Friedlander, who continued to defend the law on appeal. But after a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, affirmed the trial judge’s ruling, Mr. Friedlander declined to seek review from the full appeals court or the Supreme Court.

Mr. Cameron, the new attorney general, sought to intervene in the appeals court, saying he was entitled to defend the law. The appeals court denied his request, ruling that it had come too late.

On Tuesday, the justices probed the significance of the stipulation and the standards for when appeals courts should allow parties to intervene in the late stages of a case.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who has taken to asking the first questions during arguments, said “there isn’t much law” on the appropriate standards.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Sixth Circuit was entitled to take account of the fact that the attorney general had failed to file an appeal after losing in the trial court, notwithstanding the later election of a new attorney general.

“Why would we call it an abuse of discretion for a court of appeals, after it’s rendered its judgment, to say we don’t really care what has happened in the political arena?” she asked.

Matthew F. Kuhn, a lawyer for Mr. Cameron, said his client was acting in a different capacity when he sought to intervene. He was now, Mr. Kuhn said, representing the interests of the state.

About 45 minutes into the argument, Justice Stephen G. Breyer described what he said was really going on the case. “First the Republicans are in, then the Democrats are in,” he said, “and they have different views on an abortion statute.”

He described the history of the case, ending with the ruling from the three-judge panel of the appeals court.

“At that point, for the first time, we have an attorney general who thinks it’s a pretty good statute,” Justice Breyer said. “He wants to defend it.”

“Why can’t he just come in and defend the law?” Justice Breyer asked.

 

At this point it's looking like a 7-2 or even 8-1 decision in favor of Cameron. I know, predicting Supreme Court decisions is a mug's game, but I don't see how he loses if Breyer is asking questions like this.

 

Besides, it's not going to be Kentucky that gets in the history books for ending abortion next summer, it's Mississippi. Cameron wants it so, so badly though. It would be a guaranteed trip to the Governor's mansion and possibly higher office. 

 

Either way, it's another mile closer to Gilead.

 

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

As with Minneapolis and George Floyd, AG Merrick Garland is opening a federal practices and procedures investigation into Louisville Metro PD over Breonna Taylor.

 

The Justice Department is opening a sweeping probe into policing in Louisville, Kentucky after the March 2020 death of Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death by police during a raid at her home. It’s the second such sweeping probe into a law enforcement agency announced by the Biden administration in a week.

The 26-year-old Taylor, an emergency medical technician who had been studying to become a nurse, was roused from sleep by police who came through the door using a battering ram. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired once. A no-knock warrant was approved as part of a narcotics investigation. No drugs were found at her home.

The new investigation is known as a “pattern or practice” — examining whether there is a pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing — and will be a more sweeping review of the entire police department.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who made Monday’s announcement, last week announced a probe into the tactics of the police in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd.

 

Good to see AG Merrick Garland is going to do what KY AG Daniel Cameron refuses to. 

I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised to see Merrick Garland aggressively pursue police pattern/practice investigations after the Trump regime ended them completely. They didn't have to do that, and lord knows Republicans tried to block Garland and both his main subordinates, Anita Gupta and Lisa Monaco. They very nearly did, but in the end even some Republicans caved.

Now we're seeing the direct result of the new administration making things right.

That's the good news. The bad news is yet another unarmed Black man was summarily executed by police last week, Andrew Brown.

Attorneys for Andrew Brown Jr.'s family said Monday they were frustrated only to be shown 20 seconds of body camera footage of sheriff's deputies shooting and killing Brown last week.

But what they did see amounted to an "execution," family attorney Chantel Cherry-Lassiter told reporters.

Sheriff's deputies shot and killed Brown, a 42-year-old Black man, while carrying out search and arrest warrants at his home Wednesday in Elizabeth City, N.C.

Family attorneys said the footage began with deputies firing at Brown, who had his hands on the steering wheel of his vehicle while being shot at in his driveway. Cherry-Lassiter said Brown then drove his vehicle away from the deputies while they continued to shoot. She said Brown did not present a threat to the deputies. Deputies continued to shoot after Brown's car crashed, she added, saying his vehicle was "riddled" with bullets.

"It's just messed up how this happened," Brown's son Khalil Ferebee said. "He got executed. It ain't right."

Cherry-Lassiter said about seven or eight law enforcement officers were present in the video.

"We do not feel that we got transparency," family attorney Ben Crump told reporters. "We only saw a snippet of the video."

Attorneys said they wanted to see footage from before the shooting began, but that Pasquotank County Attorney R. Michael Cox only allowed the "pertinent" portion to be shown. Brown family lawyers said they expected there to be additional law enforcement bodycam video from all the deputies involved as well as a light pole camera.

Pasquotank County officials said they're still working to release the video to the public — a process that is required to go through the courts.

 

You can forget any additional bodycam footage, it'll never be released. Brown had his hands on the steering wheel, and deputies made no effort to subdue or to arrest him. No "hands up" or no effort to disable the vehicle. They simply killed him. 

Black Lives Still Matter though.

Last Call For Back To Bevinstan

With Republicans in Kentucky now holding a three-fourths majority in both the state House and state Senate, it will be trivial for them to pass anything they want and override any possible veto that Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear may engage in. Beshear's state of the commonwealth address on Thursday was all but him resorting to begging Republicans not to cripple his office as Kentucky's Covid-19 pandemic rages, but Republicans of course will keep schools and businesses open fully, even if it kills us.

Gov. Andy Beshear defended how he has battled the coronavirus pandemic in Thursday night's State of the Commonwealth speech and urged the Republican-run Kentucky legislature to support his plan to help the commonwealth finish and recover from that fight.

"Over the past 10 months, we have been at war," he said. "This evil virus has taken more than 2,700 of our fellow Kentuckians. That toll is heartbreaking; it is greater than the number of Kentuckians lost in Vietnam, Korea, even World War I. And these aren't numbers ... We have lost doctors, teachers, bus drivers, a police chief, pastors and a 15-year-old student."

"Now we are called to look ahead, not with fear, but with courage. To do so, we must move past any remaining denial or rationalizations," he said in his address, which was done through a video because of the pandemic.

"Failure to take this virus seriously at this late date disrespects the memory of those we have lost, disrespects the pain of those who are grieving and disrespects the deep sacrifices so many have made in this war. It also threatens to create much more pain, more death and more disruption, all of which can be avoided."

The state legislature kicked off its annual lawmaking session this week, and leading GOP lawmakers quickly signaled their intention to pass legislation that limits the emergency powers Beshear has used to institute a wide range of restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus.

For months, key Republican lawmakers have criticized the governor for, among other things, how the capacity limits and temporary closures he required for restaurants and many other businesses have affected the state's economy and workforce.

In Thursday's speech, Beshear said his approach has been based on public health experts' advice and has been effective, with the help of countless Kentuckians who complied with his administration's orders and recommendations.

"My actions have been targeted to have the greatest impact, and they have been limited in both time and scope to avoid undue and unnecessary damage," he said. "You can look at the devastating experiences in states that failed to take the same aggressive actions we did to stop the coronavirus. Adjusted for population, we have suffered less than half the number of deaths as the people of Tennessee and less than one-fourth the number of deaths as the citizens of North and South Dakota."

Beshear stressed that he and state lawmakers should "put aside squabbling and petty partisanship."

"So, let me be clear: Every moment in this short session we spend fighting is a loss for our Kentucky families," he said. "Such fighting will leave us empty-handed and further behind those states that recognize this moment and this opportunity. Our goal should be to act swiftly and with wisdom on behalf of the people of the commonwealth.

 

Republicans don't care and will have bills on Beshear's desk by this weekend, with promises to overrule all vetoes.

With a new 3-to-1 supermajority over Democrats in each chamber of the Kentucky General Assembly, Republicans are wasting no time sprinting eight of their priority bills through the legislature in the first days of the 2021 session.

These bills — several of which target abortion and scale back Gov. Andy Beshear's emergency powers to enact COVID-19 rules — could pass through both chambers and be sent to the governor's desk as early as Saturday, assuming they face no hiccups and legislative leaders add that day to the session's calendar.

The House easily passed all five of its priority bills by a mostly party-line vote in just over two hours Thursday afternoon, while the Senate passed four priority bills later that evening.

The first bill to pass Thursday was House Bill 1, sponsored by Rep. Bart Rowland, R-Tompkinsville, one of the bills reacting to criticism of Beshear's many executive orders restricting businesses and public gatherings to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Rowland's bill seeks to allow a businesses, schools, nonprofits, churches and local governments to remain open as long as long as their policies meet or exceed U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, in order to protect them in case the governor orders a "third shutdown."

Background:Kentucky General Assembly kicks off 2021 session

Rep. Angie Hatton, D-Whitesburg, countered that doing away with specific COVID-19 regulations of the administration for ambiguous and conflicting CDC guidelines could backfire and worsen the pandemic, as "the way to reopen our economy is to defeat COVID-19."

Rep. Steven Rudy, R-Paducah, said businesses have suffered enough through Beshear's orders, saying he has refused to share data to justify his restrictions.

House Bill 2, giving Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron new power to regulate Kentucky abortion clinics, also passed easily, just as it did in last year's session before being vetoed by Beshear.

House Bill 3 — seeking to move legal cases involving the constitution and state government out of Franklin Circuit Court by creating new randomly selected panels of three judges from across the state — passed over the objections of Democrats that it violated the Kentucky Constitution and would be quickly blocked and defeated in the court system.

Also passing easily was House Bill 4, a proposed constitutional amendment to allow the General Assembly to extend the end of legislation session beyond the set days in the spring.

Osborne said the need for HB 4 was shown by Beshear's refusal to consult with the legislature and call it back into session so it could address what Republicans felt were his overreaching and burdensome COVID-19 policies, as they had to wait until the new session in January.

If passed, voters would not be able to vote on the amendment until November 2022.

The chamber also overwhelmingly passed House Bill 5, which would take away a governor's ability to temporarily reorganize state boards and replace its members, as former Gov. Matt Bevin did with the University of Louisville board of trustees and Beshear did with the Kentucky Board of Education just after taking office.

Later Thursday evening, Senate Bill 1, which would limit Beshear's executive orders under a state of emergency to 30 days unless the legislature extended that order, passed through the other chamber after a heated debate.

Republican members continued slamming Beshear's COVID-19 orders as arbitrary and not based on data, while Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, said the governor must be able to act decisively during an emergency.

The Senate also passed Senate Bill 9, which would require doctors to "preserve the life and health of a born-alive infant" during a "failed abortion," Senate Bill 2, which would additional requirements for a governor to enact administrative regulations, and Senate Bill 3, which moves the Kentucky Agriculture Development Fund from the governor’s office to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

 

In other words, Kentucky state Republicans are setting up a permanent regime where the governor is rendered powerless well before he reaches the opportunity to run for a second term.

And that's the point.

 

Turkey Week: School Daze In Kentucky

Several Christian K-12 schools are suing Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, saying his ordering of schools to go to remote teaching (as the state reaches record COVID case levels and hospitalizations mind you) violates the Frist Amendment's right to freedom of religion, somehow, as GOP AG Daniel Cameron tries once again to strip all power from the executive.

 

Beshear on Wednesday announced a set of new executive orders meant to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Kentucky, which last week saw another stretch of record-setting days for new positive cases.

One order requires the state's private and public K-12 schools to hold only virtual classes until Jan. 4.

Elementary schools not in "red" counties, which average 25 or more new daily cases per 100,000 residents, can resume in-person classes Dec. 7 as long as they follow the state's "Healthy At School" guidance, according to Beshear's order.

Beshear also unveiled new restrictions on bars, restaurants, gyms, indoor gatherings, weddings, funerals and other activities. Those orders and capacity limits took effect at 5 p.m. Friday and run through Dec. 13.

Specifically, Wiest said he is representing various parents and their children who seek to overturn the indoor gathering limit on no more than eight people from two households.

Danville Christian Academy and Cameron, a Republican who is the state's chief law enforcement officer, argue in their suit that Beshear's order violates the constitutional rights of religious schools and Kentucky's Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

In response to the lawsuit, Beshear spokesperson Crystal Staley noted the Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously upheld earlier this month the governor's authority to issue executive orders in a public health emergency.

The Supreme Court ruling was a defeat for Cameron, who had joined challengers in arguing Beshear overstepped his authority and bypassed the state General Assembly when issuing orders this year in response to the pandemic.

 

Both Beshear's office and Cameron's office expect to prevail, but this is a pretty solid test of Kentucky's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Again, if Cameron wins here, expect a lot more churches and religious groups to simply they are immune from state laws and regulations.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

The end of the availability of abortion health care services in Kentucky is almost here, as a 2-1 decision by a three-judge Sixth Circuit panel finds the state's hospital services requirement TRAP law for clinics is Constitutional. 

A federal appeals panel has upheld a controversial Kentucky abortion law that opponents argued officials had used to try to close down the commonwealth's only abortion clinic and prevent another from opening.

In a 2-1 vote, the panel for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that Kentucky may require abortion clinics to obtain signed agreements with hospitals and ambulance services to transport and admit patients in an emergency.

In doing so, the panel struck down the 2018 decision by U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers that such rules were unnecessary and posed an undue burden on women seeking abortions. Stivers' ruling followed a legal challenge by EWM Women's Surgical Center and Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.

The decision comes more than a year after the case was argued before the 6th Circuit panel in Cincinnati.

The two-member majority, judges Joan Larsen and Chad Readler, both appointed by President Donald Trump, declined to find the Kentucky law an undue burden or unreasonable, saying that argument "cannot be sustained."

They said clinics have options, such as seeking time extensions, should they be unable to obtain agreements with hospitals and ambulance services.

But in a forceful dissent, Judge Eric Clay, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, found otherwise, saying Friday's ruling was "deeply flawed."

"At the end of the day, no matter what standard this court is bound to apply, the majority’s decision today is terribly and tragically wrong," Clay's dissent said.

The ruling represents a victory for Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who took over the case from the administration of former Gov. Matt Bevin, an anti-abortion Republican. Cameron praised the decision in a statement Friday.

“The Sixth Circuit’s ruling keeps in place an important Kentucky law for protecting the health and safety of patients" Cameron said. "Our office was proud to intervene in this case and ensure that the law was fully defended."

 

So even with Matt Bevin gone, it's looking like the future of abortion services in Kentucky and several other states will soon come to a Supreme Court decision next summer, in what will almost certainly be a 6-3 conservative court that will have the votes needed to overturn Roe and deny abortion healthcare to half the country, if not more.

It's already an undue burden for a third of women.

We're maybe a couple years out at most from a forced birth regime.

Gilead is right around the corner.

Breonna Taylor's Life Mattered, Con't

In a highly unusual move, one of the grand jurors in the Breonna Taylor case has filed a lawsuit to release the grand jury transcript and recordings of proceedings. Daniel Cameron's office says it will comply.

 

A juror in the Breonna Taylor case contends that the Kentucky attorney general misrepresented the grand jury’s deliberations and failed to offer the panel the option of indicting the two officers who fatally shot the young woman, according to the juror’s lawyer.

The unnamed juror filed a court motion on Monday seeking the release of last week’s transcripts and permission from a judge to speak publicly to set the record straight. Hours later, the office of Attorney General Daniel Cameron granted both requests, saying that the juror is free to speak and that recordings of the session will be made public.

The grand jury did not indict the two white officers who killed Ms. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, after one officer was shot by her boyfriend. It charged a third officer whose bullets entered a neighbor’s apartment after missing Ms. Taylor with the lesser felony of wanton endangerment.

“This is something where the juror is not seeking any fame, any acclaim, any money,” said Kevin M. Glogower, the juror’s lawyer.

The lawyer said the juror came to him last week feeling anxious after Mr. Cameron repeatedly said at a news conference that the law did not permit him to charge Sgt. Jon Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor on March 13 — and that the jury had agreed with him.

“While there are six possible homicide charges under Kentucky law, these charges are not applicable to the facts before us because our investigation showed — and the grand jury agreed — that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in the return of deadly fire after having been fired upon,” Mr. Cameron said, one of several moments in the news conference where he emphasized such a consensus.

 

As I said yesterday, the evidence appears to support the theory that Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron lied when he told reporters that the 9mm bullet that hit Mattingly in the leg could not have been fired by any other gun than the one Taylor's boyfriend was using, as he had the only 9mm weapon present at the scene.

 

But the ballistics report says that Hankinson had been issued a 9mm Glock by the LMPD. It was the bullet that hit Mattingly that led to the officers returning fire, fearing for their lives.

If the bullet could have come from Hankinson's Glock 9mm however, and the grand jury was never told about it, well..Cameron is in a lot of trouble.

Gov. Beshear has called for the transcripts and recording of the grand jury proceedings, but if one of the grand jurors themselves is suing to make that happen, then Cameron is possibly in unbelievable amounts of trouble here. Prosecutorial misconduct is a thing, folks. The kind of thing that gets you disbarred.

Let's not forget that Beshear was Kentucky's previous Attorney General too. He knows what this means.

This case is far from over.

Breonna Taylor's life mattered.

Breonna Taylor's Life Mattered, Con't

I warned you that Kentucky GOP AG Daniel Cameron would sandbag the Breonna Taylor grand jury investigation and he did exactly that as none of the officers were indicted for her murder, and one of them was indicted on causing damage to her neighbors' apartments with his gun. Now as Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is calling for the public release of the grand jury information, the Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting that Cameron lied about the ballistics report in the shooting.

A Kentucky State Police ballistics report does not support state Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s assertion that Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot a Louisville police officer the night she was killed.

Cameron told reporters Wednesday the investigation into Taylor’s March 13 death had ruled out “friendly fire” from ex-Louisville Metro Police officer Brett Hankison as the source of the shot that went through LMPD Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly’s thigh, prompting him and officer Myles Cosgrove to return fire, killing Taylor.

The KSP report says “due to limited markings of comparative value,” the 9-mm bullet that hit and exited Mattingly was neither “identified nor eliminated as having been fired” from Walker’s gun.  

Cameron said Hankison had been eliminated as the shooter because the three officers were all carrying .40 caliber handguns, while Walker had a 9.

But appearing later that night on CNN, Steve Romines, one of Walker’s attorneys, said he had obtained a LMPD record showing Hankison had been issued a 9-mm weapon as well.

Romines declined to share the record from Hankison’s personnel file with The Courier-Journal, and LMPD spokeswoman Jessie Halladay said she could only release it in response to an open-records request.

The Courier Journal filed one, but the department hasn’t responded.

Another attorney for Walker, Rob Eggert, provided the ballistic report, which was first reported by Vice.

Walker has admitted he fired what he has described as a single warning shot from his Glock handgun at Taylor’s apartment because he thought intruders were breaking in. Police were attempting to serve a "no-knock" search warrant shortly before 1 a.m. March 13 at Taylor's home as part of a larger narcotics investigation. 

 

Officer Mattingly being shot by a 9mm caliber firearm and friendly fire being impossible because only Walker had a 9mm firearm is the main evidence for dismissing any charges against the officers, and the main justification for the immediate use of lethal force that took Breonna Taylor's life.

Except, surprise, that's a lie.

The fact that one of the other officers on the scene had been issued a (mm firearm might have been interest to a grand jury. It would have been exceedingly simple for Cameron to say "One of the officers was issued a 9mm sidearm but he did not have it on him during this incident."

But Cameron didn't say that.  He said that the ballistics report was not 100% positive on Walker's gun, but that the unconfirmed ballistics report was irrelevant because it was the only 9mm at the scene, and since it was irrelevant, the shooting was justified, and no indictments were issued for Breonna Taylor's death.

 

This is a cover-up, guys.

 

And Cameron just got caught.

Last Call For Breonna Taylor's Life Mattered, Con't

As widely expected, the grand jury in the murder of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police returned no indictments for her slaughter, only that one of the officers may have damaged other apartments with gunfire. Her execution was fully justified, according to AG Daniel Cameron. The reaction by Louisville's Black community was swift and also justified.

Protesters vowed Wednesday to continue their fight for racial justice after learning that just one of three Louisville Metro Police officers who fired shots at Breonna Taylor's apartment will be criminally charged.

In an afternoon announcement, Jefferson County Judge Annie O'Connell said a Jefferson County grand jury has indicted former detective Brett Hankison on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment.

The grand jury declined to bring charges against Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and detective Myles Cosgrove, who were also involved in fatally shooting Taylor on March 13 at her south Louisville apartment.

"It's a tragedy. This is an embarrassment, and it's exactly why there have been protests for the last (119) days," said pastor Tim Findley, a regular at the protests. "This is a disappointing, hurtful, painful day in our city. What I just heard amounts to a slap on the wrist for him murdering, for them murdering Breonna Taylor.

 

A National Guard curfew was set up for 9 PM, and two LMPD officers were injured by gunfire. 

 

At least two Louisville Metro Police officers were shot in downtown Louisville Wednesday night, just eight hours after an indictment was returned in the Breonna Taylor case.

Interim LMPD chief Robert Schroeder confirmed two officers were shot and sustained non life-threatening injuries. One officer is in surgery, and the other is alert and in stable condition.

A suspect has been arrested, Schroeder said.

One officer was shot in the abdomen below their bulletproof vest and is in surgery, and a second was shot in the thigh, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

The shooting occurred at South Brook Street and Broadway Avenue, according to MetroSafe.

MetroSafe confirmed a second shooting occurred on West Broadway at 9:30 p.m. and said an officer was involved but did not say if the officer was a shooter or victim.

Max Gersh, a photographer working for The Courier Journal, said he saw "a line of officers move toward a gas station with rifles up. Shortly after, they had somebody pinned to the ground and cuffed." He said he wasn't there when the officers got shot.

 

Doesn't matter if he was the shooter, LMPD have their suspect.  The family is furious because they know justice will never happen under the Trump regime.

 

For nearly 200 agonizing days, Breonna Taylor's family has waited to know if three Louisville police officers would face charges in her death.

On Wednesday, they got their answer.

And it wasn't what they had hoped for.

At the youth homeless shelter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she works as a residential adviser, Taylor's cousin Tawanna Gordon watched with tears in her eyes as Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced that only one of the officers was indicted by a grand jury — but not for killing Taylor.

"I'm not surprised," Gordon, 45, told The Courier Journal on Wednesday, minutes after Cameron's press conference ended. "But I'm mad as hell because nothing's changing. … Today's decision was an additional injustice on our family and this country. Until Americans start getting mad enough and speaking out and forcing legislators to change the laws for all races, nothing is going to change.

"And it needs to happen now. Not tomorrow, but today."

In his press conference, Cameron said he met with Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, and other family members before addressing the media.

"Every day this family wakes up to the realization someone they loved is no longer with them," he said. "There's nothing I can offer today to take away the grief and heartache this family is experiencing."

Palmer left without talking to media. And her attorneys said she would have no comment Wednesday.

 

We continue to be nothing more than animals to them, dumb beasts of burden who have to be put down at the slightest whiff of disagreement. The basis of policing in America today is "We require the right to kill Black people without consequence in order to protect white America."

Black Lives Still Matter.

Sunday Long Read: Breonna Taylor's Life Mattered

New York Times investigative reporter Rukmini Callimachi takes a critical look at the Louisville Metro Police Department's numerous failures, the failures of Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and City Council, the failures of state Attorney General David Cameron, that still have failed to give anyone justice for the murder of Breonna Taylor here in Kentucky in March.

Breonna Taylor had just done four overnight shifts at the hospital where she worked as an emergency room technician. To let off some steam, she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, planned a date night: dinner at a steakhouse, followed by a movie in bed.

Usually, they headed to his apartment, where he lived alone and she had left a toothbrush and a flat iron. But that night, they went to the small unit she shared with her younger sister, who was away on a trip. It was dark when the couple pulled into the parking lot, then closed the door to Apartment 4 behind them.

This was the year of big plans for the 26-year-old: Her home was brimming with the Post-it notes and envelopes on which she wrote her goals. She had just bought a new car. Next on the list: buying her own home. And trying to have a baby with Mr. Walker. They had already chosen a name.

She fell asleep next to him just after midnight on March 13, the movie still playing. “The last thing she said was, ‘Turn off the TV,’” he said in an interview.

From the parking lot, undercover officers surveilling Ms. Taylor’s apartment before a drug raid saw only the blue glow of the television.

When they punched in the door with a battering ram, Mr. Walker, fearing an intruder, reached for his gun and let off one shot, wounding an officer. He and another officer returned fire, while a third began blindly shooting through Ms. Taylor’s window and patio door. Bullets ripped through nearly every room in her apartment, then into two adjoining ones. They sliced through a soap dish, a chair and a table and shattered a sliding-glass door.

Ms. Taylor, struck five times, bled out on the floor.

Breonna Taylor has since become an icon, her silhouette a symbol of police violence and racial injustice. Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris spoke her name during their speeches at the Democratic convention. Oprah Winfrey ceded the cover of her magazine for the first time to feature the young Black woman, and paid for billboards with her image across Louisville. Beyoncé called for the three white officers who opened fire to be criminally charged. N.B.A. stars including LeBron James devoted postgame interviews to keeping her name in the news.

In Louisville, demonstrators have led nightly protests downtown, where most government buildings and many businesses are now boarded up. As outrage mounted, the city fired one of the officers, pushed out the police chief and passed “Breonna’s Law,” banning “no-knock” warrants, which allow the police to burst into people’s homes without warning. Protesters say that is not enough.

Nearly six months after Ms. Taylor’s killing, the story of what happened that night — and what came before and after — remains largely untold. Unlike the death of George Floyd, which was captured on video as a white police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck, Ms. Taylor’s final moments remain in shadow because no such footage exists.

But a clearer picture of Ms. Taylor’s death and life, of the person behind the cause, emerged from dozens of interviews with public officials and people who knew her, as well as a review of over 1,500 pages of police records, including evidence logs, transcripts of jailhouse recordings and surveillance photos. The Louisville Metro Police Department, citing a pending investigation, declined to answer simple questions about the case or make anyone available for interviews.

The daughter of a teenage mother and a man who has been incarcerated since she was a child, Ms. Taylor attended college, trained as an E.M.T. and hoped to become a nurse. But along the way, she developed a yearslong relationship with a twice-convicted drug dealer whose trail led the police to her door that fateful night.

Sloppy surveillance outside her apartment in the hours before the raid failed to detect that Mr. Walker was there, so the officers expected to find an unarmed woman alone. A failure to follow their own rules of engagement and a lack of routine safeguards, like stationing an ambulance outside, compounded the risks that night.

While the department had gotten court approval for a “no-knock” entry to search for evidence of drugs or cash from drug trafficking, the orders were changed before the raid to “knock and announce,” meaning that the police had to identify themselves.

The officers have said that they did; Mr. Walker says he did not hear anything. In interviews with nearly a dozen neighbors, only one person said he heard the officers shout “Police!” a single time.

Sam Aguiar, a lawyer representing Ms. Taylor’s family, blames “catastrophic failures” by the police department for the young woman’s death. “Breonna Taylor,” he said, “gets shot in her own home, with her boyfriend doing what’s as American as apple pie, in defending himself and his woman.”

The biggest clue here is that the investigation has already taken six months and no arrests or charges have been filed. It's pretty clear that Louisville Metro PD and Mayor Fischer want this to go away, and that State AG Daniel Cameron will do nothing.

I guarantee that the grand jurt won't return an indictment, and after that is anyone's guess.