Olbermann's Ubermeltdown

I try to avoid angry blowhard talking-heads from both sides of the political aisle - just as I can't abide right-wing crank Bill O' Reilly, neither can I tolerate left-wing crank Keith Olbermann. Neither Republicans nor Democrats even come close to dealing with the issues that I consider important, and neither side has offered many workable solutions to world problems in my lifespan. And when it comes to civility, I have always found Olbermann to be every bit as childish, condescending, and abrasive as the jerks on the opposite side he claims to stand against, such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and the aforementioned O' Reilly. I wish they'd all get off the air, so-called liberals and so-called conversatives alike.

I have to say all this to preface my comments, because most people live in such a knee-jerk either-or bicameral box of their own imprisonment that if I dare to knock the big-headed K.O., people will automatically assume I must be a Republican.

Though I gave up watching his show long ago, I'd have to be living under a rock in Utah to not know that Keith has been the subject of much speculation ever since he found himself in serious hot water with MSNBC execs for his political contributions. This past November, MSNBC suspended him indefinitely and without pay for violating their policy requiring employees to ask for management's approval before making any political contributions. A weird policy, and possibly a stupid one. But it is the network's policy, and Olbermann did break it. He was soon reinstated, but apparently was so angered over the incident that he immediately began discussing his exit from the network the moment they took him back.

Now he's resigned and has made the bizarre move of announcing his new venture: a Twitter account mocking FOX News, presumably from which he will continue his tired shtick of name-calling, insulting, and calling just about everyone "the worst person in the world".

But what interests me most about all this is that Olbermann's downfall began in part because of Kentucky senate candidate Jack Conway, who was one of the three politicians Olbermann made a $2400 donation to. The other two were Paul Grijalva (who had just been a guest on Olbermann's show prior to the donation) and even more interestingly, Gabrielle Giffords, who was subsequently the victim of an assassination attempt by some Salvia-smoking conspiracy buff named Jared Lee Loughner whose mind reportedly slipped off the rails after being fired from his job at Quizno's.

So was it really that important to Olbermann that he donate to Conway's campaign in Kentucky? Important enough to risk the wrath of his bosses by flouting the company policy? And he can't say he didn't know about the policy, because he and Rachel Maddow (who I still adore, although even she sometimes gets a little too snarky and "I'm so clever" for my taste) have previously taken FOX News to task over their lack of a similar policy.

As Rachel Maddow and Firedoglake have pointed out, FOX News commentator Sarah Palin donated twice to the campaign of Kentucky's Rand Paul - once by herself and once through SarahPAC. Whether or not there's anything wrong with that is not that important an issue to me; if FOX News wants to be so visibly financially connected to the politicians they supposedly report impartially on, well, let them. It certainly hasn't hurt their standing amongst the masses: FOX News was deemed "most trusted news channel " by a recent poll conducted by Public Policy Polling.

Campaign Ad Depicts Rock Stars as Criminals

A political advertisement for one James A. Daley, Campbell County Attorney, has backfired in the worst way.

The ad accuses his opponent Steve Franzen of "making a living defending criminals". Hey, no shit, Sherlock! - he used to be a public defender. In America everyone has a right to legal representation, even though I know you prosecutors wish we could dispense with that quaint formality. The ad further illustrates its confused point by showing a bunch of black-leather-clad tattooed tough guy "criminal types".

Problem is, those men are all members of current rock bands - Disturbed, Stone Sour, and Avenged Sevenfold, all of whom are popular Warner Bros. recording artists. And they're not pleased with being portrayed as criminals, especially not for some two-bit politician's personal gain.

According to Cincinnati.com:

Franzen, a private practice attorney who works in criminal defense, said beyond being disgusted at the message on the flier, depicting these band members, who are in no way connected to him, as criminals is a violation of several laws including copyright, slander and placing someone in false light.

"We're talking about the county attorney here," Franzen said. "At the very least he ought to be able and willing to run a campaign within the bounds of the law."

Justin Verst, the chair of "Keep James A. Daley County Attorney," who paid for the flier, said it was produced by the group's paid consultants, November Strategies. Verst said the fliers did go out with his group's permission.

The Fraternity Cult of Aqua Buddha

Larry David had a good rant on Curb Your Enthusiasm about people who say "Having Said That" in a context which allows them to state one thing and then use "Having Said That" to proceed to make a sharp turn and contradict themselves. "I hate all dogs. Having said that, I really love Rin Tin Tin."

Bear with me, here, then:

As I've often stated on these blogs, I have zero interest in terrestrial politics. I long ago gave up the rigged shell-game of believing that terms like "left", "right" "liberal", "conservative", "republican" and "democrat" have held any real meaning in my lifetime. Both political parties are controlled by the same hive-mind packs of superstitious and short-sighted men, and neither party even comes close to addressing the issues that I consider the most important ones facing humanity today. In the immortal words of William S. Burroughs, "Fuck 'em all, squares on both sides."

Also, whenever I post here about some "weird politics" story, it invariably touches off knee-jerk reactions from people who assume that if I make fun of something really stupid that Gov. Beshear does, then it logically must follow that I am a Republican. I most assuredly am not - I don't use Brand X or Brand Y.

So that's why I tend to avoid political posts altogether, especially during election years.

But having said that........

The recent revelations about Rand Paul's college days, printed in GQ Magazine, are just too wacky not to examine. The article claims that Paul belonged to a fraternity well known for its anti-Christian and anti-religious sentiment. As part of this frat's rituals, the article alleges, Paul took part in tying up a woman and forcing her to kneel in obeisance to a comical mock-god of theirs they called the Aqua Buddha.

That's pretty crazy stuff, if true. And when Jack Conway used this information for an attack ad of his own, Paul decried it as despicable, and reportedly called Conway a "liar." But since the source of the Aqua Buddha cult story comes from GQ, not Conway himself, I think Mr. Paul is a tad confused there. Nonetheless, Paul has since several all ties of civility with Conway after the ad aired, refusing to even shake hands with him in debates. Says Paul: "I will not shake hands with someone who attacks my religion and attacks my Christian beliefs."

Again, while I understand Paul's outrage, this response doesn't make logical sense. In no way has Conway attacked Christianity itself by calling attention to the GQ story. And that's my real beef with Paul in the end: he may have some good think-outside-the-box ideas, but he's a very poor communicator. And I distrust people who cannot communicate. In fact, I turn and run from them whenever possible.

(I suppose I should say something critical about Jack Conway here just to keep it from looking like this is strictly an attack on Rand Paul, but honestly, I don't know anything about the guy. He bores me. Like I said, I don't follow politics and couldn't care less. I will say that, in order to campaign against someone, if you have to reach all the way back to your opponent's school years to dig up dirt on them, then your campaign is obviously in deep, deep trouble.)

According to FOX News:

Conway's team made it crystal clear Thursday that their candidate would be at the forum, regardless. In an e-mailed statement to reporters, campaign spokesman John Collins said, "Attorney General Jack Conway will be at the debate - regardless of whether Rand Paul has the guts to answer basic questions about his own actions. Jack understands and will always stand up for the people of Kentucky. Rand should stop his huffing and puffing and start answering people's questions."

Yeah, yeah, whatever - I don't care about any of that. I just wanna know more about this Aqua Buddha cult! How did it work? Does it still exist? Do they have an official religious text? Membership dues? Why is it "Aqua"?

The fraternity in question, known as The NoZe Brotherhood was not a legitimate one. It was banned by Baylor University for its sacreligious and racist views espoused in their newsletter The Rope, but continued to operate anyway as a sort of pathetic poor man's secret society. According to a female student quoted in the GQ piece:

"He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They'd been smoking pot." After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek. "They told me their god was 'Aqua Buddha' and that I needed to bow down and worship him," the woman recalls. "They blindfolded me and made me bow down to 'Aqua Buddha' in the creek."

Is any of this relevant to the current campaign, though? Absolutely not. Rolling Stone magazine disagrees (but of course, they would):

The sneering, intellectually superior tone of Paul's society-brother newsletter is the one thing that to me seems still relevant to Paul's campaign. If you follow Paul enough and go to enough of his events, you won't be able to miss how much smarter he thinks he is than everyone else; he puts even Al Gore to shame in this department. If you ask him to explain some of his old comments, or something from his father's old libertarian newsletters, as I did, he's liable to roll his eyes at you. He apparently finds the whole answering questions and explaining himself thing very tiresome, and seems put out that he even has to bother with it en route to the Senate. If you read these NoZe articles, you might get an idea of where some of this comes from.

Maybe so, but that still doesn't make it relevant. If doing stupid things in college is enough to dash a professional/political future, then heck, we're all doomed. The NoZe frat may have been idiotic, but they're not half as cause for alarm to me as, say, the Skull and Bones Society, of which both President Bushes and John Kerry were members, and which has been accused of grave-robbing and borderline necrophilia.

If a man can be elected President of the United States after being a member of a group whose initiation ritual requires laying naked in a coffin and reciting one's deepest and darkest sexual fantasies to his fellow frat boys in a room filled with illegally-acquired human bones, I think we have more important things to worry about than Randy's goofy college past.

Mayor Punches Newspaper Editor

From the Associated Press:

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky newspaper editor who says he was punched in the face by a small-town mayor has agreed to drop an assault complaint after the mayor issued a public apology.

Jerry Boggs is editor of the Appalachian News-Express in Pikeville. He said in a complaint that Pikeville Mayor Frank Justice II was angry about an article in the newspaper and confronted him at a sports bar Tuesday night. The article reported on a political donation by Justice's business that helped fund an attack ad in a local campaign.

The criminal complaint reported that others at Champs Bar and Grill pulled Justice away from Boggs. Justice released a statement apologizing for "the aggravation and duress" that he caused Boggs. Boggs said Thursday he wants to put the matter behind him.

Rand Paul Cease-and-Desisted by Rush

Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for the Kentucky Senate seat, has been illegally using the Rush song "Spirit of Radio" in his commercials and at campaign rallies. The band's attorney, Robert Farmer, has warned Paul to cease and desist forthwith.

"This is not a political issue - this is a copyright issue," Farmer told the Courier-Journal. "We would do this no matter who it is." The Courier-Journal has also reported that Paul has quoted two different Rush songs in his materials, which is permissible under Fair Use, but the band clearly would rather not be co-opted by Paul's campaign.

This isn't the first time a band has objected to political use of their music. Barack Obama used Sam & Dave's classic R&B hit "Hold On! I’m Coming" in commercials without Sam Moore's permission. Moore, offended that the campaign simply took the song without asking, ordered the campaign to stop using his voice.

Sarah Palin used Heart's "Barracuda" as an entrance theme, which spurred Nancy Wilson to sic her attorneys on the National Republican Party, and to announce in a statement, "Sarah Palin's views and values in no way represent us as American women."

When Bill Clinton appropriated Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" as his campaign theme, the band members initially balked, but subsequently changed their mind and ended up becoming Clinton supporters and performing at the White House.

Ronald Reagan famously used Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" at rallies and even commented in speeches about what a proud statement of patriotism the song was, totally missing the point that the song was a litany of modern American failures and disappointments from Vietnam to the 1970s recession. Springsteen later joked onstage, "I wonder which one of my albums is his favorite. I don't think it was the Nebraska album." (Nebraska was a stark and depressing collection of songs about people who failed to attain the American Dream.)

Kentucky May Drop Reference to Dueling in Oath

From the Washington Post:

When you take the oath of office in Kentucky, you have to swear that you haven't taken part in a duel with deadly weapons. The promise usually elicits laughter, and state Rep. Darryl Owens has proposed amending the Kentucky Constitution to do away with the archaic language. The Democrat's proposal cleared a House committee Tuesday.

According to Carl Chelf (chuh-elf), a retired political science professor at Western Kentucky University, the language comes from Kentucky's frontier days, when the state was a hotbed for dueling. Chelf says the framers of the state constitution wanted to clean up Kentucky's reputation as a haven where people came to fight duels.

If the proposal passes the House and Senate, voters would be asked in November whether they want to take the language out.

Rand Paul Art Car

This text-laden art car (from someone with the Rand Paul campaign) is about as easy to read as a bottle of Dr. Bronner's. Spotted at Fancy Farm's 2009 Picnic.

Steve Nunn Arrested in Graveyard

Back in March, a judge ordered Kentucky Republican politician Steve Nunn to have no contact for a year with his ex-fiance Amanda Ross, (division director for the Kentucky Department of Insurance). The restraining order was placed because of a domestic-violence charge against Nunn in February, in which it was alleged Nunn punched Ross in the face and held her arms while slamming her against a wall. Nunn also smashed a lamp and threw a cup of bourbon at her.

In August, Nunn was in trouble again. Ross asked a family court judge to hold Nunn in contempt of court over embarrassing photos of her. The judge required Nunn to "return to Ross all photographs of her and to take steps to destroy photos outside of his possession but provided by him to a third party".

On Friday, September 11, approximately 6:30am, Amanda Ross was found shot to death in the parking lot of her condo at 541 W. Short Street, Lexington.

Nunn, being the logical first suspect, became the subject of a manhunt. He turned up three hours later, when Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton found him disoriented in Horse Cave's Cosby Church Cemetery, where his parents are buried. He had slashed his own wrists and was bleeding profusely. He also had a handgun and stated to Eaton that he'd tried but failed to shoot himself. (Some news reports are contradicting this and saying he did indeed have a gunshot wound.) At this writing, it has not yet been determined if the gun is the same one that was used to shoot Amanda Ross, and currently no murder charge has been filed against Nunn.


The son of former Governor Louie B. Nunn, Steve Nunn ran unsuccessfully for Governor in 2003. Oddly, he was chosen by the allegedly Democratic Governor Steve Beshear for the post of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services' Deputy Secretary. Nunn was forced to resign after the domestic violence/stalking charges.

Saggy Pants Resolution

And then there's the very funny joke about Louisville's so-called "saggy pants resolution", in which the city Government attempts to dictate fashion by coming out against the popular hip-hop style of having saggy pants. Except it isn't a joke.

Since it's acceptable to go out wearing nothing but shorts, how can it be unacceptable to go out in saggy jeans that reveal part of those shorts peeking from underneath? If you think that sounds insane, welcome to the world of Louisville Councilwoman Judith Green.

According to LEO Weekly:

Despite having sponsored two controversial resolutions, Councilwoman Judy Green, D-1, was missing in action for both of her committee meetings last week. She was still on vacation when Councilwoman Cheri Bryant-Hamilton, D-5, made an amendment to broaden Green’s resolution to rename all of 34th Street in honor of the Rev. Louis Coleman.

And no one knew where Green was at the start of last week’s community affairs meeting, which was scheduled to debate her saggy pants resolution (for which no other council members even bothered to show up). Councilman Bob Henderson, D-14, who chairs the committee, decided to forward the measure to the next full council meeting.

Even more bizarrely, this resolution - which should have been laughed out of the room the second Green had the nerve to even bring it up - has passed the Metro Council Committee. Reportedly, several city lawmakers have privately stated that they consider Green's resolution a total waste of time, yet none of them have had the integrity to come out and publicly say so on the record.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like the U.S. Constitution the way it is, and I believe Americans have the right to dress as ridiculously as they like, and to look just as slovenly and stupid as they care to. What's next - resolutions against Goth fashion? Punk rock fashion? Rasta fashion? Crossdressing? Ugly sweatpants? How about tacky scarves?

From LEO again:

“I think we have got way more important stuff to be dealing with than whether or not a kid has got his pants down on his butt,” says Eddie Woods, executive director of the L.I.F.E. Institute, which works with at-risk youth in west Louisville and also closely with Green’s office. “I’m dealing with murder and mayhem everyday. Sagging is the last thing I’m thinking about.”

Green's scheme is not an ordinance or a ban, of course. It's merely a toothless and legally nonbinding resolution - in other words, it amounts to little more than an unenforceable stern suggestion. That Green would choose to waste the time and resources of the city on something so purposeless is appalling, although it's a given that politicians (especially small-time ones) love to stir up issues like this just to "look busy".

In other cities, these sort of resolutions have been used as trial balloons for cooking up outright laws against saggy pants. This has been a national trend for awhile now (Green is behind the curve in her meddling) but time and time again, these things get struck down as being - duh - unconstitutional.

If you'd like to call Green and tell her what you think of politicians telling American citizens how to dress, her phone number is 502.574.1101 and her e-mail contact form is here.

Jim Bunning

I'm going to miss Jim Bunning. After a long and distinguished career in Kentucky politics, he recently announced that he will not seek Congressional re-election in 2010, thus ending one of the weirdest political careers in memory.

Bunning, who was born and raised in Southgate, KY, had a quite respectable career in pro Baseball, pitching for the Tigers, Phillies, Pirates and Dodgers between 1955 and 1971. He ended up in the Baseball Hall of Fame with a Win-Loss Record of 224-184, an Earned Run Average of 3.27, and 2,855 strikeouts. Might have been for the best if he'd retired on his sports glories.


National Journal voted him the second most conversative Congressman, second only to Jim DeMint, the guy who stated that single mothers who live with their boyfriends shouldn't be allowed to work in the education system.

Bunning was always more than a little peculiar, but in recent years he's grown more and more loopy, to the point that his own party is increasingly wary of him. As Mary Jacoby wrote in Salon just before the 2004 election:

It's no secret in Kentucky that Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican who was expected to coast to reelection on Nov. 2, has been acting strange. Over the past few months, Bunning has angrily pushed away reporters, exchanged testy words with a questioner at a Rotary Club and stuck to brief, heavily scripted remarks at campaign events, delivered in a halting monotone. The former major league baseball star now travels the Bluegrass State with a special police escort, at taxpayer expense. His explanation? Al-Qaida may be out to get him.

During that same campaign, Bunning described his Democratic opponent Daniel Mongiardo as looking "like one of Saddam Hussein's sons." At first Bunning denied having made the statement and admitted it only after it was made clear to him that he had said it on tape. Even then, he only made an apology for his remarks after considerable public pressure.


In February 2009, at a dinner for the Hardin County Republican Party, Bunning predicted that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably die within nine months. Bunning later sent out a press release apology. (The press release misspelled the Justice's last name not once, but twice.)

In an April 2009 poll, Bunning’s approval rating was at an all-time low of 28 percent, but he vowed to run for another term. Amid rumors that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was not pleased at that prospect, Bunning lashed out in a series of irrational rants to reporters.

Despite previous assurances that he was in the race, Bunning has finally bowed out and will retire in 2010. However, even in his announcement of such, he couldn't help but let his conspiratorially cranky side out again:

"Over the past year, some of the leaders of the Republican Party in the Senate have done everything in their power to dry up my fundraising," Bunning said in a statement. "The simple fact is that I have not raised the funds necessary to run an effective campaign for the U.S. Senate. For this reason, I will not be a candidate for re-election in 2010."

On the other hand, the 2010 election is still a long ways away. Something tells me we haven't heard the last of Mr. Bunning....

Gatewood Galbraith to run again

This just in, from Independent Political Report:

On July 4, Gatewood Galbraith filed paperwork to begin raising money in his fifth run for governor of Kentucky. Galbraith, a lawyer who has focused primarily on marijuana legalization, ran as a Democrat in 1991, 1995, and 2007, and as the Reform Party nominee in 1999, when he won 15 percent of the vote in a four-way race. He has also run for Congress and other state offices. In his 2011 gubernatorial bid, Galbraith will run as an independent, with political consultant Dea Riley as his running mate.

Actually, it's not true at all that he's "focused primarily on marijuana legalization" - that was only a key point in his early campaigns. Gatewood's taken a much broader approach in years since, championing greater freedom and civil liberties in all ways. I recommend his book The Last Free Man in America, which also just happens to be the title of Gatewood's portrait I painted for him, and which we unveiled at his book-signing event at Summit Plaza in December 2004.


From Wikipedia:

In his book and speeches Galbraith goes into detail on what he calls “Synthetic Subversion”. This theory seeks to explain when, how and why America, specifically Kentucky, moved from an agricultural agrarian society into an industrial synthetic society, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration and the “New Deal” era. Up until then America and Kentucky relied on agriculture for everything to fuel the economy. But during the Great Depression Roosevelt moved America towards a more industrial (synthetic) society out of necessity or according to Galbraith his alliance with “Corporations seeking to gain more money.”