The Louisville, Kentucky, Jefferson County Democratic Party

The votes are in and it wasn’t even close. Steve Beshear handily defeated Ernie Fletcher to become the new governor of Kentucky.

Kentucky’s working families were the real winners—and the victory was no accident.

They were tired of watching wages fall and costs rise. They were fed up with fewer and fewer people having access to quality health care. And They were sick of good jobs leaving Kentucky.

They weren’t going to take a “wait and see” approach to this election. Instead, an army of volunteers made worksite contacts, phone calls and front door visits to help turn out hundreds of thousands of working family voters.

Union members, retirees, householders and Working America members make up approximately 350,000 voters in Kentucky. One in every four votes cast on Election Day came from a union household.

“I’ve never in my career seen a political ground game like the one the labor movement did for me this year,” Beshear said. “I’ll never forget the walking, talking, mail and leafleting you did for me.”

They knew how important this election was, and they showed their power to bring positive change for working families.

Boswell will challenge Lewis in congressional race, By Ryan Alessi

Fresh off Tuesday's election wins, Democrats turned their focus to 2008 campaigns, with the new governor pledging to take a hands-on role, an expected change in the Democratic Party chairmanship, and a congressional candidate stepping forward.

Democratic State Sen. David Boswell of Owensboro said he is planning a press conference "in the very, very near future" to officially announce his candidacy to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis of Cecilia.

"I do plan to run for the U.S. Congress in the 2nd District," Boswell said yesterday. "I think people, overall, are ready for change. They're ready for a new guard." REST OF STORY

Only in George Bush's America can an person cost a company billion's in losses and get fired then get millions in salaries and bonuses as the leave. The rules are set up to take care of the ultra rich to make sure they save face. Read More

The Graying Elephant

Following Governor Fletcher's (R) historic 2003 victory, the general narrative was that Republicans represented young, energetic leadership while Democrats were the old, entrenched dinosaurs who hadn't spent time cultivating its young stars and developing a deep bench ready to run for office.

Following the November 2003 election, that narrative was very true. Back then, Democrats occupied just one congressional seat which was held by then 70-year-old Ken Lucas (D). Meanwhile, then 31-year-old Trey Grayson (R) and 34-year-old Richie Farmer (R) had been elected to statewide office, while 50-year-old Ernie Fletcher (R) was about to sworn-in as governor. The state political parties also mimicked this same age disparity.

Things couldn't be more different with the outcome of this year's election. MORE

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is pushing $1 million in federal funds to help e-Cavern

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is pushing $1 million in federal funds to help e-Cavern, a Louisville company whose lobbyist, Gordon Hunter Bates, is McConnell’s former chief of staff and 2002 campaign manager.

McConnell, the Senate minority leader, put his earmark in the spending bill that pays for the U.S. Treasury Department, which awaits a conference committee to iron out differences between the Senate and House versions.

Since 2004, McConnell has earmarked $2.5 million for e-Cavern, which leases out space in a 3-million-square-foot, man-made cave near the Louisville airport. Under a deal proposed by e-Cavern and funded by the Treasury Department, the University of Kentucky uses the cave to study the effectiveness of underground storage of computer data from the financial sector in the event of disasters or terrorist attacks.

E-Cavern started to win earmarks after it hired Bates in 2003 to replace a previous lobbyist.

Bates, a 2003 candidate for Kentucky lieutenant governor until he was disqualified for living in the Washington suburbs, spent years on McConnell’s staff and continues to raise campaign funds for him. Bates and his wife have made at least $146,000 in donations to Republican politicians, including $17,200 to McConnell. E-Cavern is one of at least eight of Bates’ lobbying clients to directly receive assistance from McConnell, either through earmarks or friendly legislation.

Executives of e-Cavern have made at least $11,500 in donations to Republican politicians, starting in 2004, including $2,000 to McConnell and $2,500 early this year to former U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky., in her GOP primary challenge to Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Northup put a $1 million earmark for e-Cavern into the federal budget last year, but because the government operated in fiscal year 2007 under a continuing resolution, not an actual budget, that earmark was lost.

McConnell and Bates did not respond to requests for comment this week. SOURCE

Quotes of the Day

“The writers are going on strike on Monday. ... They are calling this the toughest time for comedy writing since those three weeks back in the '90s when Bill Clinton stopped dating." --Jay Leno

"Hey, don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour this weekend. You get an extra hour of sleep. It's kind of like watching a Fred Thompson speech." --Jay Leno

"Anybody notice that for daylight saving, the change is later this year? It was supposed to be last week. According to the New York Times, Congress made this decision in part from pressure from the candy lobby, who wanted an extra hour for trick or treating. Isn't that unbelievable? I mean, the research lobby can't get stem cell research through. The consumer lobby, we can't get lead out of toys. But by God, when it comes to an extra hour of eating sugar, the candy lobby has the power." --Jay Leno

"Another prominent Republican has been caught in a gay sex scandal. This time it's a state representative from the state of Washington, a man named Richard Curtis. He admitted to dressing up in women's clothing, having sex with a guy twice in one night, but he says he's not gay. ... Fortunately, the other guy was. ... Anyway, Representative Curtis resigned from office yesterday. Out of force of habit, Larry Craig's wife is standing by him." --Jay Leno

"All the other Democratic candidates are continuing to attack Hillary Clinton. In fact, in the debate the other night, they accused Hillary Clinton of having things both ways. Which is ironic, 'cause Bill's been trying to talk her into that for years." --Jay Leno

"Karen Hughes, a former adviser to President Bush, is leaving the State Department after working the last two years trying to improve the rest of the world's opinion of America. Congratulations on a job well done. Time to bring out that 'Mission Accomplished' sign again." --Jay Leno

"Today, President Bush said, 'The Iraqis are taking back Iraq.' Then Dick Cheney said, 'But not the oil, right?'" --Jay Leno

"People who are absolutely upset are the folks in the State Department. They want to send them to Iraq. There's a lot of empty positions that need to be filled over there. But the people at the State Department are revolting about this because they say it's dangerous over there. I haven't heard that. ... President Bush is furious. He said, 'If you didn't want to go to a war zone, you shouldn't have joined the State Department. You should have joined the Texas Air National Guard.'" --Bill Maher

"Did you see this Democratic debate this week? Wow! The six men all piled onto Hillary Clinton. It was like a porn movie. They were claiming she's not a real Democrat because she might actually win something." --Bill Maher

"There was yet another closeted gay Republican in the news. A state representative from the state of Washington got caught paying for sex at an adult book store while he was on a legislative retreat. Is that what they're calling it now? ... He was dressed as a woman in red stockings and a black sequin lingerie top. Or, as Rudy Giuliani calls it, Casual Friday." --Bill Maher

"A sixth grade woman teacher from Nebraska ... is on the run with her 13-year-old boyfriend. I know that sounds bad, but consider this, he is a child and she didn't leave him behind." --Bill Maher

"Here's the kind of thing that makes this country great. A guy in Tennessee was in a food eating competition. ... He wins the competition. He ate 103 hamburgers in eight minutes. ... But you think about it, this has been a hell of a year for Al Gore. One thing after another." --David Letterman

"Did you hear about this? There was a guy arrested in a hotel. ... He's in a hotel and he's trying to have sex with a ... bicycle. Please get some help, Senator Craig. I am begging you!" --David Letterman

"During the Democratic debate Tuesday night, Senator Joe Biden criticized Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani, saying, 'There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11.' Giuliani later responded, saying, 'Joe Biden sucks 9/11.'" --Seth Meyers

"Hillary Clinton on Thursday visited Wellesley College and told students, 'This all-women's college prepared me to compete in the all-boys club of presidential politics.' Although she said afterwards, it was hard to speak at a school that was so pro-Bush." --Seth Meyers

"Pat Philbin, the man who staged a fake FEMA news conference on the California wildfires last week, has lost his promotion because of the event. Which begs the question, 'What does it take to actually get fired from FEMA?'" --Amy Poehler

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH CALLS 'WAR ON TERROR' CRITICS 'DISINGENUOUS OR NAIVE': In his speech at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, President Bush attacked critics of the term "war on terror," saying that "people who deny we are at war are either being disingenuous or naive." He added, "We are at war -- and we cannot win this war by wishing it away or pretending it does not exist." Numerous people in the Bush administration, however, have admitted that using the term "war on terror" was a mistake. In September, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen banned the phrase "Global War on Terror" from "any future correspondence." Both former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers have stated that the "global war on terror" is misnamed. In 2004, Bush himself admitted the term was a mistake, stating, "We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world."

Democrat Activist Mike Bailey is now providing “Professional Computer Support.” He can be contacted at 502-558-4026, or mikebailey2000@usa.net.

Consumer Product Safety Commission chief Nancy Nord and her predecessor "have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate," according to internal records. Earlier this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called on Nord to resign.

"Despite their rhetoric about not wanting to hand President Bush another 'blank check' for the Iraq War, Democrats appear poised to give him exactly that -- enough cash to keep the war going full steam for as long as six months, no strings attached," by funding the war "in short bursts."

Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, is expected to announce that it is extending Glenn Beck's contract, "valued at $50 million over five years." The new contract would make Beck "the third highest-paid talk radio host" after Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

President Gerald Ford questioned President Bush's warrantless surveillance program, according to journalist Thomas DeFrank. "I would never do it," Ford said. "It surprises me they worry that they think they have to do it. I was dumbfounded when I heard they were. I didn't think it was necessary. Where does he get his advice?"

"A medical transport service overcharged the federal government nearly $2 million to evacuate sick or injured people during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a government audit found."

Nearly every day, we read about yet another recall of toys that contain excessive levels of lead. In the past two months alone, more than 13 million toys have been recalled after tests indicated lead levels that sometimes reached nearly 200 times the federal safety limit.

One reason so many U.S. imports are unsafe: Failed U.S. trade and regulatory policies.

Tim Newman of the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) offers another: Greed.

At Labor Is Not a Commodity, Newman writes the sourcing policies of companies like Wal-Mart bear a lot of the responsibility for the problems in China’s toy factories.

Retailers such as Wal-Mart put so much pressure on suppliers to produce cheap goods that health, environmental and labor protections get brushed aside. Wal-Mart is the nation’s top importer of Chinese-made products. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reports the giant retailer’s reliance on cheap goods made in China has cost this country nearly 200,000 jobs since 2001.

The U.S. trade deficit with China reached a whopping $233 billion last year, and imports for Wal-Mart alone accounted for $27 billion—11 percent of the growth in the U.S. trade deficit with China since 2001.

Newman cites a new report from ILRF, which analyzes Wal-Mart’s ethical standards and its effect on working conditions globally. Ethical Standards and Working Conditions in Wal-Mart’s Supply Chain concludes that Wal-Mart has not invested the necessary resources or taken the necessary actions to ensure that its ethical standards program is actually enforced.

Wal-Mart has a clear idea on who should be held responsible if factories fail to provide workers with proper working conditions; anyone but Wal-Mart. The company believes that “ultimately our suppliers and their factories must realize the benefits of improving worker conditions and incorporate improved standards and processes into their businesses.” However, Wal-Mart fails to recognize that its purchasing policies make this difficult and in fact encourage very different practices.

Wal-Mart has designed its system of production to contain as many degrees of separation between the corporate head and factory workers as possible, leaving the middleman as the scapegoat.

Click here to read a copy of the report and here to read ILRF Executive Director Bama Athreya’s testimony before a Senate committee on sweatshop conditions in China’s toy factories.

Many U.S. senators and representatives are taking the lead in the fight to toughen up the nation’s mine safety laws. There is a desperate need for stronger mine safety rules, as tragically demonstrated by this summer’s Crandall Canyon Mine collapse and last year’s Sago, Darby and Aracoma mine disasters.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D) and Rep. Nick Rahall (D), West Virginia lawmakers who represent thousands of Mountain State coal miners, are pushing hard for improved safety legislation, as are longtime champions of job safety like Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who would be hard pressed to find a coal mine in their states.

But Louisville Courier-Journal columnist David Hawpe writes there is one senator whom you might expect to be concerned about mine safety who is glaringly absent from the debate—

Sunday night there was another death at a coal mine where the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration [MSHA], overseen by Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, is behind schedule in conducting required annual safety checks.

MSHA has been cramped by Bush administration cuts in budget and staffing, but you haven’t heard the senior senator from the state with the most coal mines, Mitch McConnell, Chao’s husband, raising the Capitol roof about that.

“Ineffective enforcement, outdated technology and inadequate safety standards are the heart of the problem,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., told a mine safety hearing earlier this month. He was able to figure that out, despite representing a state that’s short on coal mines.

Unlike McConnell, he also has noted the miserable record of workplace safety enforcement posted by the Bush administration in other industries.

Hawpe goes on to note that Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO health and safety director, told a Senate committee that under the Bush administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration “has abandoned it’s leadership role in health and safety” and snuggled up to employers. Yet:

Take a look at this October 2006 article by Lexington Herald-Leader staff writer John Cheves, in which he explores how McConnell and Chao have operated as a “tag team” when it comes to sacrificing worker safety in favor of employers’ interests.

When it comes to workplace-related issues such as mine safety, the McConnell-Chao marriage presents an intriguing target for industry donors. At the Labor Department, Chao has taken what some reports say is a relaxed attitude toward the regulation of coal mines and an approach that labor unions perceive as hostile.

Sometimes Chao achieves what her husband cannot in the Senate, such as a wage freeze her department instituted on certain farm workers.

Chao attends her husband’s fund-raisers, chats with his donors and seeds her agency with his former aides. Chief among them is Deputy Labor Secretary Steven Law, whose last job was helping McConnell tap donors—Bob Murray included—at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. They collected an impressive $187 million in four years there.

For more on McConnell, his close relationship with Big Business, his fund-raising and other issues, click here to check out Cheves’ series of articles. For a more grassroots look at McConnell, visit Ditch Mitch KY, BlueGrassRoots and the Hillbilly Report.

Bush's Kid Brother Neil Under Investigation for Misusing Federal Funds, Posted by Howie Klein

Not Our Grandfather's War

President Bush did make a bad mistake in the war on terrorism. But the mistake was his decision to go to war in Iraq.

Bush's mistake came in his belief that this country is the same one his father fought for in WWII. It is not.

Back then, they had just come out of a vicious depression. The country was steeled by the hardship of that depression, but they still believed fervently in this country. They knew that the people had elected their leaders, so it was the people's duty to back those leaders.

Therefore, when the war broke out the people came together, rallied behind, and stuck with their leaders, whether they had voted for them or not or whether the war was going badly or not.

And war was just as distasteful and the anguish just as great then as it is today. Often there were more casualties in one day in WWII than we have had in the entire Iraq war. But that did not matter. The people stuck with the President because it was their patriotic duty. Americans put aside their differences in WWII and worked together to win that war.

Everyone from every strata of society, from young to old pitched in. Small children pulled little wagons around to gather scrap metal for the war effort. Grade school students saved their pennies to buy stamps for war bonds to help the effort.

Men who were to old or medically 4F lied about their age or condition trying their best to join the military. Women doubled their work to keep things going at home. Harsh rationing of everything from gasoline to soap to butter was imposed, yet there was very little complaining.

You never heard prominent people on the radio belittling the President. Interestingly enough in those days there were no fat cat actors and entertainers who ran off to visit and fawn over dictators of hostile countries and complain to them about our President. Instead, they made upbeat films and entertained our troops to help the troops' morale. And a bunch even enlisted.

And imagine this: Teachers in schools actually started the day off with a Pledge of Allegiance and with prayers for our country and our troops!

Back then, no newspaper would have dared point out certain weak spots in our cities where bombs could be set off to cause the maximum damage. No newspaper would have dared complain about what we were doing to catch spies.

A newspaper would have been laughed out of existence if it had complained that German or Japanese soldiers were being tortured by being forced to wear women's underwear, or subjected to interrogation by a woman, or being scared by a dog or did not have air conditioning.

There were a lot of things different back then. We were not subjected to a constant bombardment of pornography, perversion and promiscuity in movies or on radio. We did not have legions of crackheads, dope pushers and armed gangs roaming our streets.

No, President Bush did make a mistake in his handling of terrorism. He made the mistake of believing that we still had the
courage and fortitude of our fathers. He believed that this was still the country that our fathers fought so dearly to preserve.

It is not the same country. It is now a cross between Sodom and Gomorra and the Land of Oz. We did unite for a short while after 9/11, but our attitude changed when we found out that defending our country would require some sacrifices.

We are in great danger. The terrorists are fanatic Muslims. They believe that it is okay, even their duty, to kill anyone who will not convert to Islam. It has been estimated that about one third or over three hundred million Muslims are sympathetic to the terrorists cause. Hitler and Tojo combined did not have nearly that many potential recruits.

So...we either win it - or lose it - and you ain't gonna like losing.

America is not at war. The military is at war.

America is at the mall.

Bush 41 Gets His News From Fox News; Warns More Bushes May Run For Public Office

Your contributions of news, comments and/or events are invited. Please e-mail such items to

Ray Crider at rcrider@louisvilledem.com . If you know someone who would like to be on the newsletter e-mail list, please have him or her supply the following information to the same

e-mail address: Name, address, phone numbers ( home , work, fax, cell), and e-mail address.

TOP

Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Contributions or gifts to the Louisville/Jefferson County Democratic Party

LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTY

DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER

Week of November 11, 2007

Boswell will challenge Lewis in congressional race, By Ryan Alessi

The Graying Elephant

Quotes of the Day

Bush 41 Gets His News From Fox News; Warns More Bushes May Run For Public Office

TOP