Last Call For Dispatches From Bevinstan

It's been a busy week for Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin, a week after signing his austerity budget into law that cuts nearly five percent from state spending across the board.  First, he's decided to use his power as governor to go after his political enemies by demanding a corruption investigation into previous Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, and Beshear's son and current KY Attorney General Andy Beshear.

Kentucky’s Republican governor on Tuesday ordered an investigation into what he described as wrongdoing under his Democratic predecessor, charging that state employees were coerced into contributing to political campaigns and that a contract was improperly steered to a politically connected company. 

Gov. Matt Bevin’s allegation of “greed and oftentimes corruption” escalates the feud between the new governor, who took office in December, and the Beshear family: former Gov. Steven L. Beshear and his son Andy, the state attorney general. On April 11, Andy Beshear sued Mr. Bevin, saying the governor acted illegally in cutting higher education spending without approval by the Legislature. Steven Beshear is leading a public-relations campaign against his successor’s moves to roll back the state’s expansion of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. 

A former state official close to the Beshears, Timothy M. Longmeyer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a federal bribery charge, a case Mr. Bevin referred to in calling for a new investigation. As a member of Steve Beshear’s cabinet, Mr. Longmeyer steered contracts related to the health plan for state employees to a company that paid him kickbacks. Mr. Longmeyer briefly served this year as a deputy attorney general, under Andy Beshear, before resigning. 

In a brief statement, Mr. Bevin said that in his months in office, his administration had found evidence that state workers were forced to contribute last year to the campaigns of Andy Beshear and Jack Conway, the previous attorney general, who was Mr. Bevin’s Democratic opponent in the race for governor. And he charged that the state had awarded a $3 million no-bid contract to a company with ties to Steve Beshear’s administration.

Some pretty hefty allegations there.  Bevin of course refuses to go to the existing state Ethics Commission, but is instead hiring his own "independent investigative team" to go after the Beshears.

Meanwhile, Bevin's "pension reforms" start with the firing of the state's top pension board official and replacing him with a Bevin donor who wants to dismantle the entire state pension fund.

Thomas K. Elliott, a senior vice president at Old National Bank in Louisville, was reappointed last year by Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear to a four-year term. However, Bevin, a Republican, issued an executive order citing a state law that suggests that a governor can revoke any gubernatorial appointment for any reason at any time, exempting university boards, the Council on Postsecondary Education and the state Board of Education.

Meet Elliott's replacement, William F. Smith, who wrote this gem of an article last year, calling the pension system a "Ponzi scheme" and ranting that promised pension payments to state employees cannot be legally enforced:

Beshear must recognize that a task force, audit or blue ribbon panel will not produce the solution to this pension crisis. This pension crisis will not be resolved by actuaries, attorneys or pension consultants, who will take our money and provide little or nothing in return. 

This crisis is above the legislature, the attorney general, and the state auditor. It is beyond the control of the Chamber of Commerce, the KLC, KACO, and even KFC, with all due respect to Colonel Sanders. This $48 billion pension crisis is prima facie evidence of a crime that will require immediate executive action by a governor willing to cross party lines and oppose political allies to save the state from a financial disaster created entirely by our own public officials. 

It should be clear to the governor that the KRS benefit formula is actuarially unsound and does not match the funding mechanism. It should be clear to the governor that beneficiaries are allowed to manipulate pension benefits beyond the parameters established by KRS actuaries. 

It should be clear to everyone that the system is underfunded because pension benefits were allowed to exceed the capacity of the system to generate revenue, and not because funding from taxpayers has been inadequate. The KRS policies that created these deficits are actuarially unsound by design, invalidating the entire KRS system and potentially making KRS executives and trustees, and state executives and legislators liable for the damages to the state created by the $48 billion deficit.

And this guy is now in charge of the same pension system he wants to obliterate, with payments to tens of thousands of state employees in the balance.

Welcome to Bevinstan.

Compassionate Conservatism In Action

Few states have been hammered by the opioid epidemic like Maine, and it should come as no surprise that a unanimously passed bipartisan bill that aims to save lives by increasing access to anti-overdose medication was vetoed by GOP Gov. Paul LePage, who figures the state is just better off if smack addicts die.

Maine already allows family members of addicts to receive prescriptions for naloxone hydrochloride – also commonly known by the brand name Narcan – which quickly counteracts the potentially deadly effects of an opiate overdose. The bill, L.D. 1547, aims to make the antidote even more readily available by allowing a pharmacist to dispense naloxone without a prescription to individuals “at risk of experiencing an opioid-related drug overdose” or to a friend or family member of someone at risk. 

The legislation would also allow police and fire departments to obtain a supply of naloxone and provides immunity to pharmacists or health care professionals who dispense the antidote when “acting in good faith and with reasonable care.” 

But in his veto letter sent to lawmakers on Wednesday, LePage said the bill would allow pharmacists “to dispense naloxone to practically anyone who asks for it.” 

“Naloxone does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose,” LePage wrote, repeating a contention that has caused controversy before. “Creating a situation where an addict has a heroin needle in one hand and a shot of naloxone in the other produces a sense of normalcy and security around heroin use that serves only to perpetuate the cycle of addiction.” 

Pharmacy chains such as Rite Aid and CVS already dispense naloxone without a prescription in other states. About 30 states allow sales of the drug without a prescription. 

CVS requested the bill in Maine after receiving a letter from U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine asking the chain to expand the availability of the antidote. The bill got support from both law enforcement and health organizations during the legislative hearing.

We already know LePage is an unapologetic racist asshole who blames African-Americans for Maine's drug problem anyway even though the state's population is 95% white and less than 1.5% black, so it should come as no surprise that LePage seems to think the state's addicts are all black thugs or something.

Of course he was going to veto the bill.

However I'm betting that because the bill passed the state House and Senate easily, LePage's veto is going to bite the dust.

We'll find out.starting in May.

Electable, Deflectable, Respectable

Matt Yglesias looks at the "who is more electable" argument among the Democrats and comes up with much the same analysis as myself and several commenters: Bernie is more likable as a person, but his refusal to moderate his positions for the general more than eliminates that advantage over Clinton, the example Yglesias uses is carbon taxes.

According to Harvard political scientist Stephen Ansolabehere's meta-analysis of 25 separate surveys: 

• 75 to 80 percent of Americans favor EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions
• 45 to 55 percent favor cap and trade
• 25 to 45 percent favor a carbon tax 

That's why Clinton won't embrace a carbon tax. She wants to win in November. 

EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is almost certainly not the optimal policy for combatting climate change. But it is popular and political defensible, as well as being something a Democratic president can do without majority support in congress. But despite its popularity, EPA regulatory authority has been under relentless attack from congressional Republicans and conservative judges and all the GOP candidates for president have promised to roll it back. 

Politics is full of tradeoffs, but to Clinton (like Barack Obama before her) there actually is no tradeoff here. The right thing to do if you care about reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to maximize the Democratic Party's odds of controlling the White House in order to deploy EPA regulatory levers. Taking an unpopular climate-related stance in pursuit of a policy goal that wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell in congress is pointless and counterproductive.

Which is an excellent point, and that brings us to why Clinton is more electable in the general than Sanders:

If it were just carbon taxes, Sander's issue positions probably wouldn't be enough to outweigh his poll numbers in the eyes of most political insiders. 

But Sanders — quite proudly and openly — takes these kind of stances on a wide range of issues. He markets himself in the primary, accurately, as the bolder, more politically courageous candidate. 

• While Clinton has clearly tried to signal sympathy with death penalty opponents and their concern about racial bias, Sanders outright calls for an end to executions.
• While Clinton tries to reassure fracking opponents that she understands the need for tight regulations, but she also wants communities that like fracking to know she won't stand in the way of their economic development — while Sanders promises a blanket ban.
• Hillary Clinton proposes only relatively modest, overwhelmingly popular tweaks to the tax code while Sanders proposes to soak the rich to a much greater extent while also asking more of the middle class.
• Hillary Clinton hews to the stale, politically safe orthodoxy on Israel policy while Sanders offers a breathe of fresh air.
• Sanders is even willing to promise to let people who've already been deported from the United States back into the country if they have family living here.

On all of these topics you don't need to question Sanders on the substance to see that it's not a mystery why national Democrats rarely take these stances. They are not popular. Sometimes in life you have to do the right thing, whether it's popular or not. But if you want to understand why the Democratic Party establishment is so skeptical of Sanders' electability despite his strong current poll numbers this is why — Bernie Sanders says he is the candidate who is willing to take tough stands for progressive causes, and the establishment fears he is telling the truth.

And I respect Sanders for taking these positions.  But they are useless if he loses, best case is that Clinton adopts some of the more feasible positions, worst case Sanders hurts Clinton so badly that Trump or Cruz wins and sets all of these positions back a couple decades.

Politics aren't pretty.

The counter-argument is that Trump/Cruz are themselves so unelectable that Sanders can win and win easily.  The polls are starting to show that he would win, but that would arguably leave a Republican Congress in charge of at least the House and that Clinton's skill and negotiations would get through the things that could get passed, like Obama has done.

Granted, that hasn't been as much as I'd like, but that's not Obama's fault, nor would it be Clinton's fault or Sanders's fault in 2017 with a GOP House. (It would be ours for the GOP House thing.)

It's a pretty solid argument for pragmatism for either side, and of course I would vote for either over any Republican.

StupidiNews

• Republican National Committee members are meeting in Florida this week amid accusations by Donald Trump that the RNC's rules are "rigged" against him.
• A NYC elections board official has been suspended pending an investigation into the removal of more than 100,000 Democrats from Brooklyn voting rolls.
• Mitsubishi is the latest automaker to run afoul of US regulators, this time over possible misleading and overstated data submitted for the company's fuel efficiency numbers.
• President Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Japan's Hiroshima memorial to pay tribute to the victims of US nuclear bombs in WWII.
• Ridesharing giant Uber will settle two class-action lawsuits with driver contractors in California and Massachusetts over benefits for up to $100 million.

Last Call For The Prince Of The Universe

The soundtrack to your life just lost another artist.

Legendary Minnesota pop musician Prince, hailed worldwide as a versatile musical genius, was found dead Thursday morning at his Paisley Park recording studio complex in Chanhassen. He was 57. 

The Carver County sheriff’s office reported that responders found the artist, unresponsive, in an elevator and were unable to revive him with CPR. He was pronounced deceased at 10:07 a.m. 

The news stunned fans from Chanhassen to the White House, spreading around the globe within minutes as mourners, many awash in purple, paid respects and shared their sentiments. 

President Obama’s facebook page called Prince “one of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time ... a virtuoso instrumentalist, a brilliant bandleader, and an electrifying performer.” 

Gov. Mark Dayton said Prince’s “tremendous talent was matched only by his generosity and commitment to improving his community ... (his) contributions to the betterment of our state will be remembered for years to come.” 

Upon hearing the news, mourners began lining up with flowers and stuffed animals outside the studio on Audubon Road, some sobbing and embracing. Shocked condolences flooded social media. Lawmakers paused for a moment of silence at a state legislative hearing. Sports teams and corporations turned their social media pages purple. Target announced plans to bathe its Minneapolis headquarter building in purple light. Maplewood-based 3M turned its logo purple and added a tear.

Prince got me through the tough times and the good.  Being a young black nerd in the 80's and 90's was not a whole hell of a lot of fun, guys.  Prince however, he was a genius. He could play basically any instrument and played it like a legend, he created the technology he needed to play his sound, and he did it all his way, and to hell with everyone else. He made it okay to be black and different and believe me, I needed that message more than any of you could possibly imagine growing up.

We all just lived in the world he inhabited and now it's more than a bit darker.

Four months in and we've lost Prince, Rickman, Bowie, Shandling, Phife Dawg and Maurice White. 2016 is summarily fired.

Pape-al Bull

Kentucky's 1st District, where long-time Republican Mike Whitfield has run Western Kentucky politics for more than 20 years, is up for grabs in May's primary as Republicans slug it out.  The big name is James Comer, the state's former Agriculture Commissioner and one-time gubernatorial hopeful who lost to current Gov. Matt Bevin last year.  Comer dropped everything here in NKY when Whitfield announced his retirement and headed to Paducah to try to win his seat.

The problem is Comer has run into the Trump Tea Party wing of the KY GOP, and they definitely have their man for the job already.  Meet Mike Pape, everyone!




And yes, this is how Mike Pape plans to win, by fully getting behind Trump's wall and Cruz's Obamacare repeal at the same time.

Comer has the fundraising advantage, and the only Democrat in the race, Army veteran Sam Gaskins, is of course a pro-coal "moderate" who wants the EPA gone because that's what you do here in Kentucky.

We'll see how Gaskins makes out, but the real race in KY-1 is between Pape and Comer.

The Lunch Bullies

Republicans really do want to get rid of free school lunches for millions of poor kids, because those people are all lazy and don't deserve it.  One problem though: the latest GOP proposal to do just that would affect an increasing number of red state school districts where austerity is already king.

The changes would take away schoolwide free meals programs from more than 7,000 schools that educate almost 3.4 million students in low-income areas, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports. Another 11,600 schools that have not yet taken advantage of the free meals option for all students would lose access to it under the proposal. Instead of using what’s called Community Eligibility, these schools would have to reinstate individual applications and verification procedures for huge numbers of students.

The draft bill circulating in the House Education and Workforce Committee lists no author. But sources told ThinkProgress that the push to make free meals harder is coming from a specific handful of Republican congressmen on the subcommittee in charge of pre-school, primary, and secondary education issues.

The list includes Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), who has a track record of wild-eyed claims about anti-poverty programs, and Subcommittee Chair Todd Rokita (R-IN), who famously cross-examined a woman who raises her children on a $10.88 hourly wage at a 2014 hearing. Neither congressman's office immediately returned requests for comment on the school food restrictions.

Meanwhile, the list of schools that would be affected is making some Republicans realize that the idea would have an impact in their own districts. The draft legislation has yet to be formally introduced, making it relatively easy for lawmakers to walk away from the proposed restrictions on school meals without anyone having to cast a committee vote against a colleague's pet project.

The community eligibility system should be a winner even for fiscal conservatives. Determining free meals eligibility on a schoolwide basis rather than kid by kid lets under-funded districts "shift resources from paperwork to higher-quality meals or other educational priorities," the CBPP report notes.

The proposal would change the definition of how poor a school district has to be before it can skip the paperwork and feed all of its students. Currently a school qualifies for community eligibility if 40 percent of its students are automatically qualified for free school meals based on their participation in another anti-poverty program. The GOP draft measure would raise that threshold to 60 percent.

Republicans really do want to pull the trigger on this, but they're afraid they'll get savaged in elections.  I don't know why they;re worried, red state Republicans would rather die than admit their kids are on assisted lunch programs at school.

Then they figure Republicans will put that funding back for the right kind of people who deserve it.

And so that story goes.

StupidiNews!

• Three people are reported dead and more than 130 injured after a chemical plant explosion in southern Mexico caused plumes of toxic smoke and safety evacuations.
• White House officials will meet with marijuana legalization activists next week to discuss concerns as states continue to make pot smoking legal.
• Volkswagen will reportedly offer to buy back up to half a million US diesel cars involved in the automaker's emissions cheating scandal as part of a deal with federal auto regulators.
• Ridesharing services like Uber have now surpassed rental cars when it comes to business travelers getting around, up to nearly 45% of car trips from just 5% two years ago.
• After more than ten years of sales Microsoft has ended production of its Xbox 360 console, the console will finish out its current production run and be retired.

Last Call For A Fat Stack Of Tubmans

Sorry, Old Hickory.  You've been benched off the front of the $20.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Wednesday will announce plans to both keep Alexander Hamilton on the front of the $10 bill and to knock Andrew Jackson off the front of the $20 in favor of Harriet Tubman, sources tell POLITICO. 

Lew is expected to roll out a set of changes that also include putting leaders of the women’s suffrage movement on the back of the $10 bill, and incorporating civil rights era leaders and other important moments in American history into the $5 bill. Also, Jackson isn’t getting completely booted off the $20 bill. He’s likely to remain on the back.

Lew's reversal comes after he announced last summer that he was considering replacing Hamilton on the $10 bill with a woman. The plan drew swift rebukes from fans of Hamilton, who helped create the Treasury Department and the modern American financial system. Critics immediately suggested Lew take Jackson off the $20 bill given the former president's role in moving Native Americans off their land. 

Lew told POLITICO last July that Treasury was exploring ways to respond to critics. “There are a number of options of how we can resolve this,” Lew said. “We’re not taking Alexander Hamilton off our currency.” 

Supporters of putting a woman on the $10 bill have complained that it will take too long for the $20 bill to come up for a redesign. But people familiar with the matter said new designs for the bills should be ready by 2020. Treasury is likely to ask the Federal Reserve, which makes the final decision, to speed up the process and get the bills into circulation as quickly as possible.

But please, Andy, do make the most of taking a back seat to one of the most incredible black women in American history.

Rather than remaining in the safety of the North, Tubman made it her mission to rescue her family and others living in slavery. In December 1850, Tubman received a warning that her niece Kessiah was going to be sold, along with her two young children. Kessiah’s husband, a free black man named John Bowley, made the winning bid for his wife at an auction in Baltimore. Harriet then helped the entire family make the journey to Philadelphia. This was the first of many trips by Tubman, who earned the nickname “Moses” for her leadership. Over time, she was able to guide her parents, several siblings and about 60 others to freedom. One family member who declined to make the journey was Harriet’s husband, John, who preferred to stay in Maryland with his new wife. 

The dynamics of escaping slavery changed in 1850, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. This law stated that escaped slaves could be captured in the North and returned to slavery, leading to the abduction of former slaves and free blacks living in Free States. Law enforcement officials in the North were compelled to aid in the capture of slaves, regardless of their personal principles. In response to the law, Tubman re-routed the Underground Railroad to Canada, which prohibited slavery categorically.
In December 1851, Tubman guided a group of 11 fugitives northward. There is evidence to suggest that the party stopped at the home of abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. 

In April 1858, Tubman was introduced to the abolitionist John Brown, who advocated the use of violence to disrupt and destroy the institution of slavery. Tubman shared Brown’s goals and at least tolerated his methods. Tubman claimed to have had a prophetic vision of Brown before they met. When Brown began recruiting supporters for an attack on slaveholders at Harper’s Ferry, he turned to “General Tubman” for help. After Brown’s subsequent execution, Tubman praised him as a martyr. 

Harriet Tubman remained active during the Civil War. Working for the Union Army as a cook and nurse, Tubman quickly became an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 slaves in South Carolina.

So yeah, let's hurry these new bills along, shall we?

Water Main Leak

Looks like Michigan GOP Gov. Rick Snyder has found his scapegoats for the Flint water disaster.

A city worker and two state officials were charged Wednesday in connection with the Flint water crisis — the first criminal charges filed over the water contamination emergency in the Michigan city. 

Felony and misdemeanor charges were filed against Flint worker Michael Glasgow and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) employees Steven Busch and Michael Prysby, according to local media.

The charges were approved during a hearing by Judge Tracy L. Collier-Nix in the 5th division of Genesee County Court on Wednesday morning. 

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, whose office has led the investigation, is expected to officially announce the charges later today. 

Glasgow, the city’s water supervisor, is charged with willful neglect of evidence and tampering with evidence for allegedly changing test results to show less lead had leaked into the city’s water supply from its aging pipes.

The two MDEQ workers are also facing evidence tampering charges and misconduct in office.

Well then, after 200 plus days, problem solved and everything's okay, right?

Earlier this month, I suggested that the Snyder administration has no intention of replacing a single water line in Flint where the drinking water was contaminated with the powerful neurotoxin lead through the actions of Snyder’s appointed Emergency Managers and the ineptitude of his appointee at the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Dan Wyant, a man with zero experience in managing water systems:

Amid all this non-action, the Snyder administration has started to warn municipalities that they should avoid “partial lead service line replacements”. […] 

Add to this the fact that Flint water lead levels are beginning to drop as the phosphate added to the water for corrosion protection is building up a protective layer on the inside of water lines and it is starting to look as if the Snyder administration is simply waiting until lead levels have dropped enough for Flint residents to begin using their water again. Once that has happened, they could simply point to the data and say, “See? Everything is fine. Nothing to worry about.” 

There’s now more evidence that this is exactly what their plan is:

“If we make a policy decision that we should replace the lead lines, then we have to be thinking about that across the state,” said John Walsh, strategy director for Gov. Rick Snyder, at a Grand Rapids chamber meeting in March. “If you do it for one community, another is going to wonder why you didn’t do it for them.” 

Mark my words, the Snyder administration is not going to be involved in replacing ANY lead water service lines in Flint. They are going to wait until lead levels drop and then suggest it’s unfair to give them any sort of “special treatment”. The fact is, after the catastrophe that they themselves caused, the Snyder administration owes it to Flint residents and the 9,000 children that have potentially been poisoned with lead to make it right. But that’s not going to happen.

As always, Chris Savage at Eclectablog has everything you need to know about Flint and Rick Snyder.  Yet another state where Republican austerity is costing lives and hurting kids....

There's quite a few of those these days.

A Castro Of Millions

Cuban dictator emeritus (you don't see a whole lot of those actually) Fidel Castro figures with the whole normalizing relations with America thing and befriending the Pope that he's going to go out on the best note a dictator like himself can, I guess.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro delivered a valedictory speech Tuesday to the Communist Party that he put in power a half-century ago, telling party members he will soon die and exhorting them to help his ideas survive.

"I'll be 90 years old soon," Castro said in his most extensive public appearance in years. "Soon I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without a truce to obtain them."

Castro spoke as the government announced that his brother Raul will retain the Cuban Communist Party's highest post alongside his hardline second-in-command. That announcement and FidelCastro's speech together delivered a resounding message that the island's revolutionary generation will remain in control even as its members age and die, relations with the U.S. are normalized, and popular dissatisfaction grows over the country's economic performance.

Is it too much to hope for that his passing will clear the way for actual democracy and progress in Cuba?  Well, that is unless we get Trump, in case Cuba might actually end up ahead of us on the whole progress thing...

StupidiNews!

• Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump scored decisive wins in Tuesday's New York primary contests, with the campaigns now moving to Pennsylvania and mid-Atlantic states.
• Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is expected to announce indictments related to Flint's ongoing water crisis as early as this afternoon.
• A magnitude 6.2 earthquake has struck off the coast of Ecuador, already reeling from a much larger quake over the weekend, with the death toll from that tremor reaching more than 500.
• With Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff facing impeachment charges, Vice-President Michel Temer is apparently putting together a new administration in anticipation of taking over.
• Tech giant Intel says it will lay off as many as 12,000 worldwide as the chipmaker says it will need an "evolution" away from the struggling PC business.

Last Call For Like A Kansas Tornado, Con't

Things are so bad now with the Great Brownbackian Austerity Experiment in Kansas that the state's Republican lawmakers are no longer willing to sacrifice their careers on the Laffer curve hill along with the Governor. 

Brownback took office on a pledge to make Kansas friendlier to business and successfully sought to cut the top personal income tax rate by 29 percent and exempt more than 330,000 farmers and business owners from income taxes. The moves were popular in a Legislature where the GOP holds three-quarters of the seats. 

The governor argued that Kansas had to attract more businesses after a "lost decade" in the early 2000s, when private sector employment declined more than 4 percent. 

The predicted job growth from business expansions hasn't happened, leaving the state persistently short of money. Since November, tax collections have fallen about $81 million, or 1.9 percent below the current forecast's predictions. 

"We're growing weary," said Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Republican from Wichita. While GOP legislators still support low income taxes, "we'd prefer to see some real solutions coming from the governor's office," she said. 

Last month, Brownback ordered $17 million in immediate reductions to universities and earlier this month delayed $93 million in contributions to pensions for school teachers and community college employees. The state has also siphoned off more than $750 million from highway projects to other parts of the budget over the past two years. 

Lawmakers are worried about approving any further reductions in an election year. All 40 Senate seats and 125 House seats are on the ballot in November.

Brownback isn't on the ballot.  All state legislators are.  They're the ones who are going to take the fall for the austerity choking Kansas's economy and they know it.  The plan is to leave Brownback holding the bag.

Democrats have long described Brownback's tax cuts as reckless. Republican critics want to repeal the personal income tax break for farmers and business owners to raise an additional $200 million to $250 million a year. 

Debate over the next budget will intensify after lawmakers return from a recess later this month. They could follow through on their threat by adjourning without making specific reductions and leaving the governor with the authority to do so. He faces fewer repercussions because he will not appear on the ballot again before leaving office in January 2019. 

But with so many Republicans in office in Kansas, Democrats can afford to say "I told you so."

Meanwhile, Kansas reported gaining only 800 private-sector jobs between March 2015 and March 2016, a mere 0.1 percent increase.

800 jobs for the entire state in a year, because tax cuts going to "the job creators" don't create jobs when people can't afford to buy goods and services in order to create the demand for growth.  That's basic macroeconomics folks, and Kansas and Sam Brownback have utterly failed.

You elected Republicans, Kansas.  Time to vote them out.

Hot Sauce Time Machine

If Hillary Clinton's admission to a New York radio show yesterday morning that she carries hot sauce in her bag is "suddenly pandering to NY black voters" then she's been doing it since she was in the White House as First Lady.

So there are a couple of possibilities. One is that Hillary Clinton really does like hot sauce and carries it around with her so she can season her food. The other is that she’s been building an elaborate long con over hot sauce – because she’s been talking about it at least since 2008. A New York Times piece got at Clinton’s love of hot peppers, based on a “60 Minutes” interview:

“I eat a lot of hot peppers,” she told CBS News anchor Katie Couric, who had asked her how she maintains her stamina on the campaign trail. “I for some reason started doing that in 1992, and I swear by it. I think it keeps my metabolism revved up and keeps me healthy.”

Apparently she kept 100 bottles of hot sauce when she was in the White House. In 2012, she told Conde Nast Traveler about bringing red pepper and Tabasco on her trips as Secretary of State. And late last year, she and her staff talked about peppers and farm stands.

To Clinton doubters, perhaps this is all just something she’s been planning since Bill’s election. Could it be that Hillary has built an elaborate myth around herself as someone who is not as bland as she seems but is actually edgy, gutsy, and working so hard she needs to eat food that a lot of white Middle Americans consider too spicy so she can keep moving at high speed?

Gosh, it's probably a massive conspiracy.  But I like Scott Timberg's response in the article:

But here’s another way of looking at it: If Hillary Clinton predicted the impact of Beyoncé in 1992, saw her own likelihood of running for president decades later, and began eating raw peppers and carrying little bottles around in her purse back then, she’s not really a panderer. She’s the candidate we want debating Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. She’s the president who can deal with a Republican Congress. She’s the leader who can go head to head with Vladimir Putin. If you’re on the fence about Hillary Clinton, her calculating quality is what will make her an effective president. Given that politics is at least half theater, maybe the Democrats should nominate someone who’s comfortable playing a role?

 Yeah, I can see that.

Besides, I like hot sauce.

Berned Up And No Place To Go

Expectations for the Sanders campaign today in New York are already down to the "if he doesn't lose by double digits it's a moral victory" stage, which is never a good sign when you need to win by 20 points in order to close the delegate race with Hillary Clinton.

Bernie Sanders will score a moral victory in New York’s Democratic primary if he can limit Hillary Clinton’s winning margin to single digits, party insiders say.

But they also caution that such a result would not be enough to change the overall shape of the race, in which Clinton holds a solid lead.

To have any real shot at wresting the nomination away, the experts say, Sanders would need to produce a seismic shock on Tuesday, defeating Clinton in the state she represented in the Senate for eight years. 

The odds of such an outcome look slight, given that most polls show the former secretary of State leading by more than 10 points. The RealClearPolitics polling average has Clinton ahead by 13.8 points in the Empire State. 

“If he loses but comes close in New York, he can claim a moral victory,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “The bad news is moral victories don’t do him any good. Winning delegates is what he needs.”

And he's not going to get them. 247 delegates are up for grabs today and Sanders is down by almost that many pledged delegates.  Clinton getting a double digit win would increase her delegate lead by 25 or so, all but erasing the gains Sanders has made in smaller states over the last several weeks.

Having said that, Sanders will probably pick up enough delegates today and next week's contests in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic states to make sure that Clinton's not going to be able to put Sanders away until California and New Jersey in June, so expect another seven weeks of Sanders complaining about superdelegates.

Fun for all the kids.