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The latest poll from CN2 gives Democratic incumbent John Yarmuth a 23-point lead over Republican challenger Todd Lally in the 3rd District Congressional race.
If the election were held today, Yarmuth would get nearly 53% of the vote, compared to 30% for Lally. About 12% said they are undecided. Independent candidate Michael Hansen received 4.5% and Libertarian candidate Ed Martin garnered slightly less than a point.
This is in line with a previous CN2 poll, but not with a Survey USA poll that gave Yarmuth a two-point lead over Lally.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway has confirmed that he and Republican candidate Rand Paul will debate on Fox News on October 3rd. Conway previously wanted to counter the Fox debate with a discussion on NBC’s Meet The Press, but the Conway campaign tells the Herald-Leader Paul hasn’t yet agreed to such a forum.
There will be three other debates in the race:
- October 11 in Covington
- October 14 in Paducah
- October 25 in Lexington (This is for KET and will be broadcast)
NPR recently examined the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky. For insight on the contest and the candidates (Republican Rand Paul and Democrat Jack Conway), NPR turned to Kentucky Public Radio’s Lisa Autry.
You can listen to her talk to David Greene on the NPR website.
Speculation abounds on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels‘s potential presidential run, but perhaps the “will he? won’t he?” discussion about Daniels has overshadowed another Hoosier with aspirations for 2012. Representative Mike Pence recently beat former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in a Values Voters straw poll. And The Fix looks at how a Pence campaign might play out.
Pence was rumored as a possible 2008 contender, and is gaining buzz for 2012, but doesn’t yet have the same national profile as Huckabee or Mitt Romney. If Sarah Palin runs, Pence, Huckabee and Romney may not stand a chance, since Palin will draw social conservatives and Tea Partiers, says Chris Cillizza of The Fix. But if Palin stays out of the race, Pence, Huckabee and Romney will have a better chance at the nomination, though they will fight for social conservatives. Pence may also appeal to fiscal conservatives and Tea Partiers more than Huckabee and Romney.
The repmikepenceforpresident.com domain has been registered, but any Presidential run is pure speculation at this point. Given the crowded field in the 2008 GOP primaries, the party may be looking for a clear frontrunner early on.
A list of absentee landlords will be published in the Courier-Journal soon. It could be published this week.
The publication is one step a group of Metro Council members is taking to crack down on abandoned properties, which do no favors to the community.
The list is available online (horizontal PDF), and only property owners who owe more than $12,000 in fines to the city will be published in the paper.
Aside from individuals, the list includes banks, LLCs and at least one nonprofit. I’ve been looking through the list hoping to talk with some of these property owners. As I worked my way down, after reaching disconnected lines and leaving messages with secretaries and answering machines, I found Go Invest Wisely. This Utah-based company has made the news in other cities (St. Louis, Cleveland) and the news isn’t very good.
From the Plain Dealer:
In many ways Go Invest Wisely LLC is emblematic of what the region faces as it contends with companies trading in distressed properties.
Since 2008, the Utah company has taken title to roughly 185 properties in Cuyahoga County — most for less than $2,000, according to county records. It has unloaded about 170 properties — including at least 60 Cleveland properties sold to out-of-state businesses after Cleveland Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka put the company on probation last year, according to records. The sales did not violate the specific terms of the probation order.
The company has paid $9,000 in Housing Court fines and still owes about $1.2 million in cases that stem from code violations and the company’s repeated failure to complete a required seller disclosure form that concerns property conditions, according to records. The company has appealed nearly every ruling.
The company is currently refunding money to its clients, though the details are murky.
I’ve contacted Go Invest Wisely, but haven’t yet heard back.
I’ll post any more interesting bits from the list as I work my way through it.
Here is an interesting map of Louisville and southern Indiana. Each dot represents 25 people. The colors represent races and ethnicities. Red is white, blue is black, orange is Hispanic and green is Asian.
This month’s Louisville Magazine has a short piece on the campaign to bring back the old city flag, seen here:
The design was introduced in 1949, but after merger, the flag was changed to this:
Which do you like better?
From the story:
The effort began in 2007. Charlie Farnsley, a financial planner and grandson of former Louisville Mayor Charles Farnsley, saw South Carolina flag stickers (crescent moon above a palmetto tree) on cars and wanted to create a similar, simple symbol of pride for Louisville. “I figured I’d do what South Carolina did, and I went and found the original Louisville flag,” he says. “We thought, if enough people started putting our stickers on their cars the city might bring back the old flag.”
Stories about meth often touch on the fact that the drug is difficult to legislate against. Laws and regulations can be circumvented and the technology for manufacturing the drug continues to advance.
This is all chronicled in a Knoxville News Sentinel report. In the excerpt below, it’s clear that Knoxville faces the same problem many as cities (Louisville included)–manufacturers/users from rural counties flock to urban areas where drug stores are more concentrated.
Authorities in Knox County said they deal more with addicts on shopping expeditions than with active labs.
“Our biggest problem right now is people from other counties beating down the pharmacy doors,” Knox County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Chris Bryant said. “We have a pharmacy on every block in Knoxville, and they’ll go to each one. They use homeless people a lot. They’ll pull up outside a rescue mission and say, ‘Who wants to make some money?’ “
Police keep getting better at finding and busting labs. Investigators track sales of pseudoephedrine, the common element in meth-making, and can make arrests simply for possession of enough material to start a lab.
The cooks get better, too. They tweak recipes, keep moving and muster small armies of shoppers to stay supplied.
“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” said Tommy Farmer, director of the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force. “They know we’re on them, so what they did is find other ways to circumvent the law. These are the results.”
The newest recipe – nicknamed “one-pot” or “shake-and-bake” – travels anywhere and fits in a 20-ounce bottle. A one-pot lab and a handful of pseudoephedrine can make enough meth for the next high in less than an hour.
