Law Enforcement

Another Day, Another Bevin Lawsuit

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Matt Bevin’s administration violated the law by withholding funds from Kentucky’s Area Development Districts that lawmakers had earmarked for the agencies, claims a lawsuit filed in Franklin Circuit Court [H-L]

A former aide to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt recently told congressional investigators that she was asked to help her boss’s wife find a job with a six-figure salary, according to multiple media reports on Monday. [HuffPo]

She may want to travel outside the Watterson Expressway more than a couple times before making such wild claims. Democratic state Rep. Attica Scott said Thursday she is leaning toward what would be a historic run for Kentucky governor in 2019 after months of encouragement from supporters. [C-J/AKN]

Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned. [AP]

According to a recent report, Kentucky ranks 37th in the nation in overall child well-being. [Richmond Register]

PEE ALERT! A giant balloon dubbed “Trump baby” has been given the green light to fly near parliament during the president’s UK visit. [Sky]

Jailer Joe Burchett was granted a change of venue and will stand trial on a charge of malfeasance in Rowan County. [Ashland Independent]

The Trump administration on Saturday halted billions of dollars in payments to health insurers under the Obamacare healthcare law, saying that a recent federal court ruling prevents the money from being disbursed. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers programs under the Affordable Care Act, said the action affects $10.4 billion in risk adjustment payments. [Reuters]

Some political pundits see our country as riven by tribal and ethnic divisions and partitioned by gender as we self-segregate into communities of the like-minded. Such divisions sometimes affect families and lead to alienation of longtime friends. [Ronnie Ellis]

The Trump administration said Saturday that it was suspending a program that pays billions of dollars to insurers to stabilize health insurance markets under the Affordable Care Act, a freeze that could increase uncertainty in the markets and drive up premiums this fall. [NY Times]

Over the past winter, when Mandy Goessling started a Facebook group for Shelter Barren County, someone sent her an idea for a thing called a blessing box. [Glasgow Daily Times]

Those factors have contributed to the United States having a higher level of income inequality and a larger share of low-income residents than almost any other advanced nation. Only Spain and Greece, whose economies have been ravaged by the euro-zone crisis, have more households earning less than half the nation’s median income — an indicator that unusually large numbers of people either are poor or close to being poor. [WaPo]

HEAD-DESK. State Rep. C. Wesley Morgan of Richmond is suing the woman who defeated him in May’s Republican primary election, claiming her campaign falsely accused him of backing legislation to enrich himself. [H-L]

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are telling detained migrant parents that to be reunited with their children they must sign a voluntary deportation form. [HuffPo]

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Kentuckians Hate The Repub Tax Hike

Matt Bevin’s administration violated the law by limiting access to the Kentucky Capitol for members of the Poor People’s Campaign advocacy group, Attorney General Andy Beshear said Monday in a legal opinion. [H-L]

Families Belong Together rallies drew crowds dressed in white to cities big and small across the United States on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy. [HuffPo]

Rand Paul is not happy with the jail sentence of his neighbor, Rene Boucher, who attacked the senator last year over yard debris between their homes in Bowling Green. [C-J/AKN]

This investigation is not, primarily, an investigation into Donald Trump. It’s an investigation into people who attacked the United States. It’s time Republicans started acting like that matters. [Empty Wheel]

A quickly developed and implemented policy restricting access to the state Capitol by the Poor People’s Campaign was improperly formulated and illegal, according to an Attorney General’s opinion. [Ronnie Ellis]

Gross alert. Although he lacked federal appellate-court experience, usually a prerequisite for a Supreme Court justice, Thapar was one of four candidates, along with Thomas Hardiman, William Pryor and the eventual nominee, Neil Gorsuch, to be interviewed personally by the president. [SCOTUS Blog]

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) has completed its review of the effect of federal corporate income tax reductions on the rates of Kentucky Power Co. and ordered further reductions of those rates. [Ashland Independent]

It’s impossible to see from the street, so you would never know it’s there. To get to St. George Cemetery, especially its oldest section, you have to make your way past branches and thorns, across the weathered hills and over downed trees. [ProPublica]

Within six months of receiving its latest Kentucky Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit from the state Division of Water, the Glasgow Water Co. is required to re-evaluate the levels of 13 elements that can be discharged to its wastewater treatment plant. [Glasgow Daily Times]

Javier Solana, a former secretary general of NATO who played a central role in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program when he was the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has been denied electronic authorization to enter the United States because of a visit to Iran in 2013. [NY Times]

Business owners affected by the tax hike say they’ve been unfairly targeted. [WFPL]

A federal investigation into Facebook’s sharing of data with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica has broadened to focus on the actions and statements of the tech giant and now involves multiple agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the official inquiries. Representatives for the FBI, the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission have joined the Department of Justice in its inquiries about the two companies and the sharing of personal information of 71 million Americans, suggesting the wide-ranging nature of the investigation, said five people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a probe that remains incomplete. [WaPo]

Mitch McConnell, who spent over a quarter century promoting human rights and democracy in Myanmar, is now the principal senator holding up fresh legislation pressuring the country to improve its treatment of the the country’s Rohingya population. [H-L]

The White House late Saturday issued a statement backing down from Donald Trump’s earlier tweet that said he had persuaded Saudi Arabia’s king to produce as much as 2 million additional barrels of oil a day to bring prices down. [HuffPo]

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Fuck Matt Bevin And His Enablers

The Kentucky Court of Appeals has thrown out a unanimous jury verdict awarding Republican state Sen. Ralph Alvarado of Winchester $200,000 in damages in a defamation suit. [H-L]

Jodi Goodwin has spent the past month helping grief-stricken parents with their asylum cases. [HuffPo]

Matt Bevin will go down in history as one of the most wretched assholes to walk the earth. Matt Bevin’s administration has abruptly cut Medicaid dental and vision benefits to nearly half a million Kentuckians, prompting an outcry from Democrats who called the Republican governor’s decision “rash.” [C-J/AKN]

In his first in-depth interview since the FBI raided his office and homes in April, Cohen strongly signaled his willingness to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York — even if that puts Dingus Trump in jeopardy. When I asked Cohen if President Trump knew about that meeting before it happened, he declined to answer. [ABC News]

The state of Kentucky and its taxpayers shelled out more than $200,000 over four years to a contractor to formulate a 911 statewide plan. [Ronnie Ellis]

Legal experts say it’s likely special counsel Robert Mueller secretly gained access to the National Rifle Association’s tax returns as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to a McClatchy report. [The Hill]

A quickly developed and implemented policy restricting access to the state Capitol by the Poor People’s Campaign was improperly formulated and illegal, according to an Attorney General’s opinion. [Ronnie Ellis]

The U.S. government said in a court filing on Friday that it has the right to detain children and parents caught crossing the U.S. border illegally for the duration of their immigration proceedings. [Reuters]

The state of Kentucky gave preliminary approval for a $1.5 million tax incentive package for a potential purchaser of the Kentucky Electric Steel plant in Boyd County Thursday. [Ashland Independent]

There is an unusual space in the basement of the University of Louisville library, in the large anteroom to the official archives for Sen. Mitch McConnell. [ProPublica]

Fuck Matt Bevin. Democrats on Monday called Republican Matt Bevin’s decision to cut dental and vision benefits for Medicaid recipients “rash,” “callous” and “not legal.” [More Ronnie Ellis]

One staffer publicly mocked senators who criticized Donald Trump as “clueless” and “crazy.” Another accused Hillary Clinton of having a campaign aide killed and employing pedophiles. A third wrote the “shameful” press was trying to deny Trump his victories. These are not faceless trolls but midlevel political appointees at the Health and Human Services Department. [Politico]

A former employee of Eric C. Conn was sentenced Friday to seven months in prison, with credit for time served, for helping the disability attorney escape the country to avoid sentencing in a federal fraud case. [H-L]

The U.S. ambassador to Estonia has announced his resignation, saying he is taking the “honorable course” in the wake of Donald Trump’s “inaccurate” slams against the European Union, Foreign Policy reported Friday. [HuffPo]

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Bevin’s Pension Shenanigans Fell Apart

Kentucky ranks 37th among the states in children’s well-being, according to the 2018 Kids County Data Book, released Tuesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which conducted the research. [H-L]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Racist Donald Trump’s travel ban. [HuffPo]

After this and the hiring of Jimmy Adams (see twitter or search this site’s archives), the state definitely needs to take over. Rhonda Martin says she just wanted Jefferson County Public Schools to protect her son, a severely autistic teenager with the mental capacity of a 3-year-old and the speech of a toddler half that age. [C-J/AKN]

Women activists are planning a “mass civil disobedience” act in the U.S. capital on Thursday ahead of weekend protests across the country against the Trump administration’s immigration policy. [Reuters]

Ten months into the county health department’s needle exchange program, 65 people have used it. [Richmond Register]

Way before Jared Kushner became internationally famous by moving into the White House to work for his father-in-law Donald Trump, those of us who live in New Jersey knew the family was an amazing story of immigrant success. [ProPublica]

East Ashland resident Mollie Hood was taking her trash out one recent morning when she came face to face with a man high on drugs. [Ashland Independent]

The Trump administration has attempted to quell national outrage about the thousands of parents and children who have recently been forcibly separated at the southern border, but protesters across the country aren’t letting up the pressure anytime soon. [ThinkProgress]

Attorneys for Matt Bevin Wednesday backed off their argument that a judge’s ruling that a pension reform bill is unconstitutional also put at risk other key legislation, including a bill allowing local governments and school districts to phase in higher pension contributions. [Ronnie Ellis]

A former aide to Roger J. Stone Jr., the longtime Trump adviser and self-described “dirty trickster,” was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury hearing evidence in the Russia investigation and to hand over documents. [ NY Times]

Rowan County Fiscal Court has officially amended its subdivision regulations ordinance to hopefully cease the repurposing of a pipeline transporting potentially hazardous materials through Rowan County. [The Morehead News]

Arnovis Guidos Portillo remembers the authorities in green uniforms telling him that this would only be temporary. [WaPo]

In December 2004 Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk and Charles “Chas” Allen executed a plan to rob several books worth millions of dollars from the Transylvania University special collection library. [H-L]

Donald Trump rolled out his alternative to systematic family separations at the border last week with a new plan: a massive increase of family detention. But the vision taking shape is sure to cost billions of dollars that Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn’t have. [HuffPo]

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Want Kentucky To Survive? Vote Against Republicans No Matter What. There’s No Other Option In 2018.

Preservationists are alarmed that the owner of one of Bourbon County’s oldest houses — built by a Revolutionary War officer in the late 1700s — has said he will demolish it soon if he cannot find a buyer. [Tom Eblen]

Why the American Dream no longer includes home ownership. Before Karyn Chylewski and her husband got married, they spent several adventurous years together traveling and sharing new experiences. Once the Gen-Xers tied the knot, buying a house seemed like the obvious next step. [HuffPo]

In the early 2000s, Iroquois Middle School had a reputation for being tough. The conditions also led to high rates of teacher turnover, and the instability caused by staff churn ultimately harmed students, Vowels said. [C-J/AKN]

The secrets are hidden behind fortified walls in cities across the United States, inside towering, windowless skyscrapers and fortress-like concrete structures that were built to withstand earthquakes and even nuclear attack. [The Intercept]

Whether the Supreme Court affirms a lower court ruling that a pension reform bill violates the state constitution or not, one key lawmaker says the court’s ruling won’t alter the financial stress of the state’s public pension problems or the need to do something about it. [Ronnie Ellis]

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis denied on Tuesday former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s request to dismiss the case the special counsel Robert Mueller brought against him in Virginia. [TPM]

Welp, this is probably going to end badly for journalism in Kentucky. CNHI, LLC, one of the country’s leading providers of local news and owner of The Daily Independent, said Monday it is exploring the sale of its newspaper properties in 22 states. [Ashland Independent]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday imposed limits on the ability of police to obtain cellphone data pinpointing the past location of criminal suspects in a major victory for digital privacy advocates and a setback for law enforcement authorities. [Reuters]

The Horse Cave City Council approved on second reading an ordinance on June 11 adopting the city’s budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year. [Glasgow Daily Times]

The chaotic process of reuniting thousands of migrant children and parents separated by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy poses great psychological risks, both short- and long-term, mental health experts said on Friday. So does holding those families indefinitely while they await legal proceedings, which could happen under the president’s new executive order. [NY Times]

The Bevin Administration knew this was occurring long before the bribery trial but chose to do nothing. The Bevin folks won’t do anything positive for Kentucky unless they’re forced to by the feds. [WFPL]

Donald Trump is so stupid he doesn’t realize that tariffs are taxes. And Harley should sue his orange ass. [WaPo]

Friday’s partial collapse of a Bardstown rickhouse containing 20,000 barrels of Barton 1792 bourbon will lead to a fine to the distillery’s owner, a state official said Monday. [H-L]

When the news broke last week that migrant children from Central America are being housed in an old Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, it was just the latest indication that the U.S. is fast turning into some kind of dystopian hellscape. [HuffPo]

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Kentucky Bourbon’s Getting Shafted By The EU, Thanks To Republican Stupidity, Beginning Today

Thousands of years ago, humans set up camp in the Daniel Boone National Forest. They made fires, cooked meals and made tools — then they left. Now, EKU students, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, are retracing their steps. [H-L]

Rudy Giuliani says FBI agents interviewed him in his room at the Trump International Hotel earlier this year regarding his 2016 remarks predicting a “surprise” in the closing days of the presidential race that would benefit then-Republican nominee Donald Trump. [HuffPo]

Former Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino “forced open doors into his long-standing pattern and practice of inappropriate behavior” with his lawsuit against the university, attorneys for the University of Louisville Athletic Association said Monday. [C-J/AKN]

This is still hilarious – I don’t care how badly the guy got his ass beat. A federal judge on Friday sentenced a Kentucky man to 30 days in prison for assaulting U.S. Senator Rand Paul in an attack last November that left the politician with several broken ribs, prosecutors said. [Reuters]

Salisa Luster Harrison told police that she lay in her apartment for two days, beaten, bruised and unconscious, after being raped in 2008. In the days and weeks that followed, Harrison expected her rapist to be brought to justice. Ten years later, she’s still waiting. [WFPL]

ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children can be heard wailing as an agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.” [ProPublica]

Throwback to Matt Bevin and the Republicans trying to kill this important institution. The Morehead News has determined that a proposed $25,000 grant from the Morehead Tourism Commission apparently is the final piece of a local funding package to keep Morehead State University’s Kentucky Folk Art Center operating for at least another year. [The Morehead News]

One day in late May 2016, Roger Stone — the political dark sorcerer and longtime confidant of Donald Trump — slipped into his Jaguar and headed out to meet a man with a Make America Great Again hat and a viscous Russian accent. Stone and Caputo’s interactions with Greenberg mean that at least 11 Trump associates or campaign officials have acknowledged interactions with a Russian during the election season or presidential transition. Those interactions have become public in the year and a half since a Trump spokeswoman said that no one associated with the campaign had communications with Russians or other foreign entities. [WaPo]

A budget that includes $75,000 to help the county operate the animal shelter had first reading heard by the Richmond City Commission last week. [Richmond Register]

A few years ago, the US announcing it would abandon the UN Human Rights Council would have been unthinkable. But today, as most of the world — including the UN human rights chief — recoils in horror at the US government’s treatment of migrant children, “inevitable” feels more accurate. The truth is, this is the right time for the US to step away from its seat at the Human Rights Council, as UN Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley announced Tuesday. Under the Trump administration, the United States cannot perform the role that the world needs it to, marshaling allies — especially the members of the G7 that Trump has alienated — to push forward a clear view of universal values in the council’s resolutions. Right now, we’ve made it difficult to get even Canada on our side. [BuzzFeed]

A $50 per year fee appended to property tax bills will replace phone surcharges to fund the Boyd County 911 system. [Ashland Independent]

The European Union will begin charging import duties of 25 percent on a range of U.S. products on Friday, in response to U.S tariffs imposed on EU steel and aluminum early this month, the European Commission said on Wednesday. [Reuters]

The Lexington parking authority could lose more than $200,000 a year when the University of Kentucky takes control of all or parts of more than a dozen streets in coming years as part of a swap that would give the city more than 250 acres of land for economic development. [H-L]

Actor George Takei, who was sent to a Japanese prison camp with his family during World War II, said immigrant detention centers that separate migrant children from their parents are worse than what he experienced. [HuffPo]

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Surprise! Mitch McConnell Wants To Kill The Mueller Investigation

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd struck down Kentucky’s controversial new public pension law Wednesday. [H-L]

Julian Carroll is a confirmed monster and the fact that neither the Kentucky Democratic Party nor the Republican Party of Kentucky care to oust him is damning. [More H-L]

Conservative groups that promote themselves as “pro-life” and “pro-family” are quietly supporting the Trump administration policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, or refusing to weigh in at all. [HuffPo]

Opposition to Donald Trump’s controversial policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border crossed partisan lines Tuesday as Sen. Mitch McConnell and U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth said they would support plans to fix the problem. [C-J/AKN]

The Trump administration has likely lost track of nearly 6,000 unaccompanied migrant children, thousands more than lawmakers were alerted to last month, according to a McClatchy review of federal data. [McClatchy]

As Paul Trickel approached the front entrance of the Kentucky state Capitol Monday, he observed three people enter without incident. [Ronnie Ellis]

Just a reminder that Mitch McConnell is trying to kill the Mueller investigation. [The Hill]

Ashland City Commisioner Matt Perkins believes thousands of dollars the city pays annually to elected leaders for vehicle allowances should be re-allocated to help fund the cost of Boyd County’s new animal shelter. [Ashland Independent]

It’s a fundamental part of representative government: Politicians are elected to advocate for their constituents, and not their own interests. But in many states, laws and ethics rules allow representatives to advance bills that would benefit their own financial interests, as well. [ProPublica]

For decades, Kentucky’s own coal stoked the fires that generated most of its electricity. And while some of those power plants have shut down or switched to natural gas, their legacy remains today in the leftover coal ash that’s stored all over the commonwealth. [WFPL]

Donald Trump on Saturday repeated his false assertion that Democrats were responsible for his administration’s policy of separating migrant families apprehended at the border, sticking to a weekslong refusal to publicly accept responsibility for a widely condemned practice that has become a symbol of his crackdown on illegal immigration. [NY Times]

Barren County Fiscal Court approved the second reading of its budget ordinance Tuesday with only two sources of discussion – a summary by the judge-executive of some of the notable changes and expenses and one commentary during the public hearing portion of the court’s regular meeting. [Glasgow Daily Times]

The economy is not robust or wonderful. The average hourly wage paid to a key group of American workers has fallen from last year when accounting for inflation, as an economy that appears strong by several measures continues to fail to create bigger paychecks, the federal government said Tuesday. [WaPo]

A Pike County man who previously pleaded guilty to shooting his brother last June is back in police custody after, Kentucky State Police say, he shot his brother again Thursday. [H-L]

New Republicanism is a disease. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will announce on Tuesday that the United States is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council, a Trump administration source told Reuters. [HuffPo]

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