It’s just not a good week without a couple reasons for Keith Hall’s hometown newspaper to point out just how corrupt he has become.

Check this from the December 2 Appalachian News-Express:

Hall again under fire

Jason Bailey, with the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, told WYMT News the funds should be, “invested as strategically as possible as creating a new kind of economy beyond coal in our region.

After appropriation at the legislative level, Hall said, it is up to agencies such as the Governor’s Office for Local Development to oversee the expenditures of funds.

-SNIP-

Hall said the “Phelps History Center” designation may not have been the best way to name the appropriation, but that the school has never hidden, “the fact of what they were going to do with the money.”

“Even though they called it the Phelps History Center, in the scope of work, they said, ‘We’re going to do arts, humanities. We’re going to do plays and narratives for our children to be educated in the history of their communities,” he said. “They spelled that out.”

-SNIP-

Hall said he views the Herald-Leader article as an expression of an anti-coal and anti-coal severance “agenda.”

“I view this as an attack, truly, on coal severance in general,” Hall said. “They don’t like us having the ability or right to get it in the first place, and to do what we need to do with it in the second place. This is about the golden triangle thinking that we in Eastern Kentucky squander and blow our coal severance.”

-SNIP-

“It causes those Lexington, Louisville liberals to say, ‘See there, that bunch of dumb hillbillies is blowing that money. We’ve got to save them from their sins and tell them what they’ve got to do,” Hall said. “And I’m agains that. We don’t tell the tobacco people how to spend their money.”

Cute how he always deflects blame on the “anti-coal” crowd. How bout manning up and taking responsibility once in a while? Because it’s not the scary city folk telling the good old boys how to spend their cash. It’s the city folk AND the country folk telling the good old boy and legislator himself that he shouldn’t lie and deceive the taxpayers while spending money outside the intended purpose of the legislature. Playing ignorant when he is the one directly responsible is just the icing on the corruption cake.

This is major: you’ll want to read excerpts from two more stories after the jump. Absolutely epic. Mind-blowing, pee-worthy hilarity. And serious focus on the problems facing Eastern Kentucky while Keith Hall ignores reality…

On Friday, December 4, Jeff Vanderbeck had a great column in the N-E:

Who needs Santa? We have W.

Next year is an election year, and some very important positions are up for grabs. This paper doesn’t endorse candidates, but I would like to break that mold.

I’m urging you to vote W. Keith Hall as judge-executive. He doesn’t know he’s running, so let’s keep it a secret and surprise him on Election Day. He has been the Santa of Phelps by delivering much-needed gifts to the folks in his district; just think of what he can do for the rest of the county. His bravado and maverick style is one to be admired along with the likes of Sarah Palin. His ability to dodge the issue makes Clinton seem like an altar boy.

“I did not know where the money was being spent and Monica Lewinsky is just another intern.”

He is magical. He secured funds for a building that doesn’t exist. He secured money for uniforms, sneakers and ice cream all in the name of humanities and education. All while, he has maintained he just secures funds and has no input as to how the money was spent. I guess if the money was spent to restore shine stills and tips for strippers, that would also be fine with him. After all, he doesn’t have input on the way the money is spent. Maybe he can be an adviser to KACo.

-SNIP-

No need to worry about jobs, infrastructure or economic development. With all the coal severance money that will be pouring into this county, we won’t have to worry about that stuff. W. will fight for us to get all the money we deserve without having to be accountable for the way it’s spent.

“Ain’t nobody has the right to question how we spend our well-deserved money.”

Oh snap! Maybe the most glaring and hilarious indictment of Eastern Kentucky corruption in decades!

But it gets better…

This weekend the News-Express editorial team let Hall have it:

Waste not, want not

Squandering coal severance tax money puts its future in jeopardy

Each and every time Eastern Kentucky politicians squander coal several(sic) tax money, the message is sent to the rest of the state that we don’t really need that money after all.

Consider:

• Kentucky is facing history and devastating budget shortfalls.
• Crucial governmental programs are being cut.
• Federal stimulus money is being used to patch gaps in SEEK funding for schools.
• Public defenders needed an emergency order to remain on the job.
• Funding has been cut to post-secondary education, forcing widespread tuition hikes.
• State workers may be facing unpaid furloughs to cut costs.

With those factors taken into consideration, it’s easy to see why political and business leaders around Kentucky could assume that coal producing-counties don’t need $106 million of the state’s $290 million in coal severance tax funds when we’re going to spend it on basketball uniforms and jazz shoes.

This is the disservice state Rep. W. Keith Hall is doing to Pike County and to his constituents.

-SNIP-

And each time a dollar is misspent, the rest of the state scrutinizes the expense, from well-publicized swimming pool and flag pole fiascoes in Knott County to ice cream and basketball shoes in Phelps. It’s easy to understand why they would assume that Eastern Kentucky has run out of meaningful economic development projects and is now just squandering money that could be used to fund postsecondary education, road construction or programs for the elderly.

Hall is telling the state we don’t need coal severance tax money any more.

The truth is that in 17 years of coal severance tax money, precious few long-term sustainable jobs have been created outside the coal industry. The infrastructure has been improved, but the industry has not followed.

We are still as reliant on the boom-and-bust coal market as we ever were. And with world-wide scrutiny on mountaintop removal mining and carbon emissions, the same politicians who say cap-and-trade and mining restrictions would doom Eastern Kentucky did nothing to prepare us for this day.

The Appalachian News-Express, Russ Cassady and Jeff Vanderbeck deserve many, many whore diamonds and thousands of awards for printing the truth. It’s rare for a newspaper to stand up for honesty and transparency in Kentucky. Even more rare for a paper to do so in the face of industry turmoil.

Will Eastern Kentuckians stand up to Keith Hall? Will they stand against their wasted tax dollars? Or will this mess of corruption continue for all eternity?