Really. What a hot day. Nobody can breathe and all the overweight people in Frankfort are dripping with sweat and face grease. What a mess.

The State Senate Appropriations & Revenue Committee heard the gambling bill (House Bill 2) today and sent it to its death.

The shindig started out with Nick Nicholson preaching the merits of the gambling bill while members of the committee tried hard to care what he had to say. Some turtlehead’s BlackBerry or whatever kept jacking with the audio system the whole time so it was tough to pay attention to him. Our eyes glazed over about 20 minutes into it. Suffice it to say he discussed every single detail, ever about the bill. Some dudes, a lady and at least one homosexual (not us) sat behind him watching intently. How they remained awake? We will never know.

David Boswell was concerned about the tax benefit the bill would give Kentuckians.

Vernie McGaha lost his shiz and was all, “GIVE ME YES OR NO ANSWERS!” And then, as it turns out, he didn’t want yes or no answers. He was upset about calculated returns and whether or not those amounts and percentages would change. But that’s not enough– he had to be a major dick about every word said. Talk about being pent-up and bitter.

Known homophobes who doth protest too much, David Edmunds and Martin Cockring spoke vehemently against gambling. The whole time you know they were thinking about you-know-what with you-know-who and how much they could make when they drive to the gambling boat this weekend. Jesus hates gambling and gay perverts. The end. You know the drill.

Edmunds went on for years about how unconstitutional the gambling bill is. Of course, that’s not set in stone and is very definitely up for debate. He detailed the alleged illegality of being selective about which crumbling schools get selected for repair. He spoke a lot about loving visuals, but we’ll leave you to make your own jokes and keep them to yourselves. Offered some really strange historical analysis, as well. Tim Shaughnessy chapped his rear-end for being a hypocrite – i.e., trashing slot machines for being a blood-sucking vampire while at the same time advocating the lottery.

Cothran rambled on for an equal amount of time. Chad Aull sat behind him with a strange grin on his face. He must have been repeating our nickname for Marty over and over in his head. Marty attacked Nick Nicholson for being persuasive (like he isn’t), says the horse industry is okay because Churchill Downs has night races, said marketers need to get more creative. Said profitable tracks don’t need to receive money.

Citizens Against Gambling Expansion (a whole bunch of churches and the Family Foundation) spoke for a few minutes against gambling. But whatever. You can assume everything they had to say. Patrick Neely sat in the back shaking his head in frustration. The guy with CAGE said slots were more addictive than other forms of gambling but couldn’t cite statistics.

The bill failed by eleventy billion.

• Boswell: Yes
• Buford: Yes
• Angel: Yes
• Harris: No
• Kelly: ?
• Kerr: No
• Leeper: No
• McGaha: No
• Palmer: Abstain
• Shaughnessy: Yes
• Smith: No
• Stivers: No
• Tapp: No
• Tori: No
• Westwood: ?
• Borders: No

It would have taken 20 yes votes to pass on the floor.

The Paulick Report liveblogged the whole mess. Yes, it’s boring. But read it if you want the serious skinny (not the funny, non-brain-deadening skinny like ours) on everything.

And with that, the Commonwealth of Kentucky once again suffers. What a flustercuck.

Governor Beshear: Told you that you were being set up for failure.

Oh, and dear KET: You shouldn’t kill footage MERE MINUTES before a major vote like that! You’ve gotta interrupt national programming when something important like this is going on. What a failure on your part. Total failure.

Literally one minute and four seconds after the decision, Governor Steve Beshear released the following statement:

“We began this special session with an agenda focused on resolving a $1 billion shortfall in our budget and on creating and retaining jobs during a time of extreme economic hardship for our state. The limited gaming proposal was designed to help save a signature industry in peril – an industry that means 100,000 jobs and $4 billion in investment for our state. It is unfortunate that every voice on this critically important issue was not heard and every vote not counted. It is too early to determine what steps we will take in the future to try to protect our signature business, but I will continue to work on ideas and proposals that will ensure this vital industry’s continued health. We must now move forward. We still have an opportunity during this Special Session to come together to balance our budget and adopt legislation that will create thousands of jobs and stimulate hundreds of millions of dollars in investment for our Commonwealth. I urge my colleagues in the General Assembly to continue this critical work as expeditiously as possible.”

Maybe next time he’ll actually start early and push his solution like crazy? Would be better than starting late, as Joe Gerth penned this morning.