You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2010.
Last year, 1,746 children were incarcerated in Kentucky for status offenses, which are nonviolent activities such as skipping school or running away.
That’s the second-highest youth incarceration rate in the country, according to Kentucky Youth Advocates.
“There are proven ways to address youth misbehavior that are more effective and less expensive than locking kids up, but we are not using them nearly enough,” said Rebecca Ballard DiLoreto, long-time advocate for children in Kentucky and current Litigation Director for Children’s Law Center. “This not only has consequences for the youth, but also negatively impacts community safety. It is imperative that we take steps to change the all too common practice of locking up these children and youth.”
Click here to read the full report (PDF).
(h/t LEO)
Senator Mitch McConnell has been re-elected Senate Minority Leader.
There were concerns that Tea Party-friendly Senators such as Marco Rubio of Florida or Rand Paul of Kentucky might favor South Carolina’s Jim DeMint for leader, but Rubio nominated McConnell for re-election, as did Arizona Senator John McCain.
The re-election comes a day after McConnell changed his position on earmarks.
After bringing $113 million to Kentucky last year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell now says he opposes earmarks.
“What I’ve concluded is that on the issue of congressional earmarks, as the leader of my party in the Senate, I have to lead first by example,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Nearly every day that the Senate’s been in session for the past two years, I have come down to this spot and said that Democrats are ignoring the wishes of the American people. When it comes to earmarks, I won’t be guilty of the same thing.”
In 2008, McConnell campaigned on his ability to bring earmark funds for his home state. Here are a few McConnell requested in 2008:
- $20 million for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant
- $3.6 million for the Kentucky National Guard Counterdrug Program
- $6 million for a Large Area Monitoring Network (LAMNET)
- $1.6 million for the Military Fuels Research Program
- $2.8 million for Online Medical Training for Military Personnel
But McConnell says he doesn’t want to be labeled a hypocrite.
“Make no mistake. I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them,” McConnell said. “But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government.”
McConnell’s colleague Tom Coburn (R-OK) says there are other ways to fund earmarked projects.
“My greatest criticism for those who want to earmark is that they are basically lazy,” Coburn said.
These senators, Coburn said, incorrectly believe earmarking “is the only way they can make sure funds go in the right direction. They really do not want to do the hard work of passing a $4 trillion budget.”
The Louisville Orchestra’s musicians have broken the silence over ongoing contract negotiations.
Sources told WFPL last week that the ensemble was nearly broke. Musicians and administrators confirmed that they were indeed in talks about renewing the musicians’ contract (which expires next year), but would not say how dire the financial situation is, citing a mutual agreement to not negotiate through the media. CEO Robert Birman said bankruptcy was an option, as in previous years, but it would not be used as a threat in contract negotiations.
The musicians have now released a statement saying they’ve been told the ensemble needs $2 million, and they have been asked to:
- Reduce the number of players from 71 to 55.
- Accept a 20 percent pay cut
- Play a 31-week season, rather than a 37-week season
The players say the cuts were presented as a necessity, and their suggestions for new fundraising efforts were rejected. They further allege that they’ve been told this week’s paycheck is their last, unless they accept the cuts. (Click here for their statement)
The administration is sticking to its original agreement. Birman sent the following statement to WFPL:
The Louisville Orchestra Board and Management are abiding by their pledge to not use the media as a tool in talks with the Orchestra’s musicians. Talks are ongoing and all parties seek the same outcome; a long-term, sustainable path to a vital future for the Louisville Orchestra in order that it may continue to serve the Metro Louisville community with engaging concerts and the area’s leading educational programming.
Jessie Halladay of the Courier-Journal has a lengthy story on the efforts to fight meth production in Kentucky. Specifically, the story focuses on the debate over whether over-the-counter drugs that contain a key meth ingredient should be made prescription, or vigorously tracked by law-enforcement agencies.
The story touches on the difficulty some Kentuckians would have obtaining cold medicine without a doctor’s note, and it points out that prescriptions don’t prevent misuses, since prescription drug abuse is a major problem. However, the piece quotes law-enforcement officials saying the ban would significantly decrease the number of meth labs in the commonwealth.
Massey Energy owns the Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 workers died in April. Transocean owns the oil rig that blew up earlier this year, killing 11 workers and causing an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
Aside from recent disasters, what do these companies have in common? Government safety awards.
From the Washington Post:
Worker safety advocates say the awards – given, in some instances, to companies involved in disasters – show the dangers posed when federal agencies become too cozy with the industries they regulate.
[edit]
“This allows companies to promote themselves a certain way. Shareholders and employees are told: ‘The government thinks we are safe,’ ” said Celeste Monforton, a former senior official at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and assistant research professor in occupational health at George Washington University. “It can potentially be used as a shield against criticism when problems arise.”
Which is what happened after the Upper Big Branch mine exploded this spring. Within days, the MSHA released an 11-page report it wrote for President Obama detailing Massey’s safety record that characterized it as “troublesome.”
Massey immediately pointed to the three Sentinels of Safety awards it won six months earlier from the MSHA and the National Mining Association. It was the most a mining company had received in a single year from the awards program, which dates to Herbert Hoover’s administration.
There are essentially two types of pollsters. One type conducts polls for campaign use. The other conducts them for public consumption (Survey USA’s Bluegrass Polls, for example). A group of 19 campaign pollsters are calling out public pollsters for not being open enough about how they conduct their polls.
The letter called on public pollsters to adhere to more professional standards by fully disclosing their methodology, including sampling, sample design and question wording, and on the media to hold public pollsters to a standard of transparency.
The public pollsters’ response? Get off your high horse.
Tom Jensen, director of the Democratic automated polling firm Public Policy Polling — which had a breakout year in enhancing its public profile — said it was presumptuous to call for openness when the campaign pollsters’ own work rarely sees the light of day. When internal campaign polls are released, he noted, it’s almost always because a campaign is trying to convince the media and the public that it’s doing better than the public polls show.
Jensen uses a local case to back up his argument:
Jensen pointed to a pair of internal campaign polls released in advance of Kentucky’s May Republican Senate primary that seemed to show Trey Grayson within striking distance of Rand Paul, at a time when public polls showed Paul with healthy leads. (Paul won the primary by 23 points.)
“That was a case where the public polling was very accurate and the campaigns were putting out very misleading information,” Jensen said. “They weren’t releasing the full surveys, just a number. I don’t know how you could have possibly found Rand Paul and Trey Grayson tied in a poll in early May unless [the horse-race question] came after extensive negative message testing on Paul.”
Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw is reportedly considering running for Governor on the Republican ticket.
If she decides to run, she will face State Senate President David Williams and businessman Phil Moffett (and anyone else who enters the race) in the primary.
From the Herald-Leader:
Holsclaw, who easily won re-election Nov. 2 to her fourth four-year term as clerk of the state’s most populous county, said she is getting encouragement from various people to enter the race for Kentucky’s highest elective office.
“I have this wonderful job, but I have to decide whether to give the people of this state another choice,” she said during a telephone interview.
[edit]
Holsclaw said she only met Moffett once but has worked with Williams’ office in her role with the state clerks’ association.
“I think I would have an advantage in the race because of my administrative experience,” she said.
On the Democratic side, Governor Steve Beshear is seeking re-election.
Last year, reporters were struggling with what to call waterboarding and similar practices. Should they be reported as torture or is that word too political?
The issue was never really settled, and this piece in Slate explores the evolving relationship between politicians and the word (and practice of) torture.
