ThinkProgress Home
ThinkProgress
ThinkProgress Logo

Stories tagged with “Kentucky”

NEWS FLASH

Kentucky Congressman Calls Out McConnell For Lying About Health Reform | Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) is pushing back against the GOP’s efforts to distort the Affordable Care Act and has written a four-page letter calling out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for including “inaccuracies” in a recent editorial condemning the law. “As members of Congress, I believe we have an obligation to give our constituents the full facts about the law,” Yarmuth wrote, before fact-checking McConnell for falsely claiming that the the law would increase the deficit, prevent small businesses from hiring, and increase health care spending. The Congressman also challenged McConnell to debate the measure earlier this month. Read the full letter HERE.

LGBT

Kentucky T-Shirt Controversy Reveals Conservative Intent To Discriminate And Stigmatize

By Zack Ford on Mar 30, 2012 at 11:20 am

The Pride logo Hands On refused to print.

A Kentucky t-shirt company called Hands On recently refused to print apparel for Lexington’s upcoming LGBT pride festival, claiming to be a Christian company. The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization of Lexington filed a complaint with the city’s Human Rights Commission, which protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. National conservative groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council have picked up on the controversy and are defending Hands On, but in doing so reveal a clear intent to demonize and ostracize the LGBT community. Here are recent remarks by FRC’s Tony Perkins and the Family Foundation of Kentucky’s Kent Ostrander, as reported by FOTF’s CitizenLink:

PERKINS: Whether it’s a t-shirt company, wedding photographer, or the church, homosexuals will not be satisfied until they compel us to either spread their perversion or promote it. Unfortunately for these activists, the Constitution doesn’t award its rights on the basis of political correctness.

OSTRANDER: The sad part is that this family, because of this intimidation, bullying factor, might lose their business, or a substantial portion of it, because the University of Kentucky and the public schools side with the gay component (and may pull their business).  It’s just wrong for government to be involved in this.

Unfortunately for Perkins and Ostrander, the United States has a free market. That market is only free if all citizens have access to it, which is why non-discrimination laws exist. And if individuals wish to avoid a certain business because of its practices, that’s not “intimidation” — that’s life.

These conservatives’ complaints are ironic when juxtaposed with the National Organization for Marriage’s boycott of Starbucks over its support for marriage equality. The campaign continues to be a dismal failure, outpaced nearly 20 to 1 by the Thank You, Starbucks response and rebuffed by a a sharp increase in Starbucks’ stock value. Apparently, though, it is acceptable to challenge a business for supporting gay rights, but not for openly discriminating against gay people.

NEWS FLASH

Kentucky House Committee Rejects Anti-Bullying Bill | An anti-bullying bill that would have enumerated gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes was rejected by Kentucky’s House Education Committee today despite pleas to pass the bill from parents and friends of two teenagers who committed suicide due to bullying, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. State Rep. Ben Waide (R), in announcing his opposition to the bill, said the bill aimed “to achieve equality by making some people more equal than others” and said it was “about gay rights in our schools,” not bullying. Two Kentucky students — an eighth grader and a high school freshman — committed suicide in the last five months to escape bullying.

NEWS FLASH

Kentucky House Approves Bill To Restore Voting Rights For Released Felons | Yesterday, the Kentucky House of Representatives approved a measure for a statewide referendum on the state’s permanent disenfranchisement of people convicted of a felony. Currently, Kentucky is one of just four states — joined by Iowa, Virginia, and Florida — that strip voting rights from anyone convicted of a felony, even after they have repaid their debt to society. If the bill is approved by the Republican-held Senate, voters will decide in the fall whether to restore voting rights for released felons, except those convicted of the most serious crimes.

Climate Progress

Months After Mining Deaths, Kentucky Gov. Cuts Funding For Mine Safety

By Travis Waldron on Jan 23, 2012 at 1:00 pm

After two miners were killed at the Equality Boot Mine near Centertown, Kentucky in October, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) issued a statement calling for a thorough investigation into the cause of the tragedy. “Mine safety is of paramount importance,” Beshear said. “Investigative teams will begin work immediately to determine the cause of this accident and whether there are any steps that can be taken to ensure such an accident does not occur again.”

Less than three months later, the “paramount importance” of mine safety seems to have disappeared. When Beshear unveiled his two-year budget proposal last week, the agency that oversees mine safety was slapped with a 4.2 percent budget cut, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Though the cut is smaller than those faced by other state agencies, the budget for the mine permitting agency, tasked with approving new mining sites (including those used for mountaintop removal), went untouched.

Mine safety, and the enforcement of mine safety regulations, has repeatedly taken a backseat to expanded mining under Beshear, despite repeated accidents in Kentucky mines that had been cited for safety violations. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) cited Armstrong Coal, the operator of the Equality Boot Mine, with 15 safety violations between its 2010 opening and the October deaths. In 16 months preceding a deadly accident at the Dotiki Mine in Providence, Kentucky, MSHA issued 840 safety violations to its operator, Alliance Resource Partners.

Days after the Dotiki Mine disaster, Beshear appeared at the opening of another Alliance-owned mine and made no mention of mine safety. In 2011, Beshear appointed one of Alliance’s top safety officials to the Kentucky Mining Board, even though at least nine miners have died at Alliance-owned mines since 2005.

During his 2011 re-election campaign, Beshear took more than half a million dollars in campaign contributions from the coal industry, begging the question ThinkProgress has asked of his state’s elected officials before: Is Beshear putting the interests of his Big Coal campaign contributors ahead of actual human lives?

Economy

Kentucky Gov. Cuts Education Funding While Preserving Tax Breaks For Biblically-Themed Amusement Park

By Travis Waldron on Jan 20, 2012 at 11:45 am

When Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) proposed his 2012-2013 budget this week, he admitted that it was “inadequate for the needs” of the state’s people. “We should be making substantial investments in our physical and intellectual infrastructure to bring transformational change to our state,” Beshear said. “This budget does not allow us to do enough of that.”

Beshear’s assessment of his own budget is, unfortunately, correct. The budget makes $286 million in cuts, including a 6.4 percent cut to a higher education system that has been plagued by funding cuts and rising tuition for years. And though it attempts to preserve K-12 education funding, it will result in less spending on Kentucky’s students and schools, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports:

Although the main funding formula for K-12 schools wouldn’t be cut, population growth means spending per student would decline. Also, education officials say the current year’s population estimate was low, resulting in a cut of more than $50 million to that funding formula.

At the same time, the $43 million tax break Kentucky approved for a Bible-themed amusement park — which will include a 500-foot by 75-foot reproduction of Noah’s Ark — could go into effect for the first time under Beshear’s budget. In addition, the budget includes $11 million to improve a highway interchange near the park. Proponents of the park, Beshear included, have claimed it will boost tourism and create jobs, but those assumptions are based on a report done by the park’s developers.

While Beshear’s budget isn’t guaranteed to pass as proposed, it will likely go through mostly unchanged. Unfortunately, that means lawmakers could jeopardize Kentucky’s substantial gains in K-12 education and ensure ballooning tuition rates at its colleges and universities, all while they preserve tax breaks for what critics have dubbed the “Ark Park.”

Climate Progress

Activists Celebrate The Holidays By Giving Kentucky Governor Lumps Of Coal

By Travis Waldron on Dec 20, 2011 at 12:12 pm

Coal activists around the country have stepped up their efforts in recent years to fight the destructive mining process known as mountaintop removal, targeting politicians, coal companies, and banks that support and finance such projects. Activists in Charlotte were arrested earlier this year protesting Bank of America’s ties to mountaintop removal, while others staged a tree sit-in near Coal River Mountain in West Virginia to prevent a mountaintop removal project there.

In Kentucky, a state where mountaintop removal has destroyed more mountains than in any other state, protesters have staged sit-ins at the governor’s office and the statehouse throughout the year. Those activists visited the office of Gov. Steve Beshear (D) again yesterday, this time hoping to deliver a little holiday cheer and a few gifts for the governor who trumpeted his support for mountaintop removal and opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency during his re-election campaign in 2011, public radio station WFPL reports:

Governor Steve Beshear got an early Christmas gift from anti-mountaintop removal activists today. Protesters spent several hours in the governor’s office waiting for a chance to present him with lumps of coal.

The protest was an extension of a weekly event that’s been going on since February, but this time it had a holiday twist. Lexington teacher Martin Mudd dressed up as Santa Claus, and says he brought gifts for the governor.

“Santa brought the governor some lumps of coal and switches because he’s been a naughty boy in not doing everything that he can to protect the people of eastern Kentucky and our mountains and water,” he said.

Beshear’s support for the coal industry, and mountaintop removal in particular, has often placed him at odds with coal activists. In 2009, he angered activists by firing Ron Mills, the head of Kentucky’s mining permit division, after Mills refused multiple permits for Alliance Resource Partners, a Tulsa-based company with multiple mining sites in Kentucky. Beshear signed the permits over Mills’ objections, and Mills told the Lexington Herald-Leader that Alliance executives had lobbied for his firing.

But his support for mountaintop removal has drawn the most ire, and while yesterday’s protesters weren’t able to reach Beshear — both he and Lieutenant Gov. Jerry Abramson (D) were out of the office — they left a list of demands with their gifts. Among them: end mountaintop removal, employ workers left jobless by the coal industry through environmental reclamation projects, and help Eastern Kentucky build a sustainable economy that isn’t built on a destructive mining process clearly linked to cancer, birth defects, and numerous other chronic illnesses.

NEWS FLASH

Kentucky Church’s Ban On Interracial Couples Overturned | A Kentucky church’s decision to ban interracial couples from becoming members or participating in certain worship activities has been voided by a local church conference. The Sandy Valley Conference of Baptist churches declared Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church’s proclamation null and void because it conflicted with the laws of the nation and state and the organization’s by-laws, one member told WMYT. “We believe that everyone is welcome in the house of God, and we are not a racist group of people,” another member of the conference said. Gulnare’s pastor, Stacy Stepp, opposed the resolution proposed by his predecessor and had worked to get it overturned.

LGBT

Pastor At Kentucky Church That Banned Interracial Couples Calls For Vote To Reverse Decision

By Travis Waldron on Dec 2, 2011 at 10:03 am

Stella Harville and fiance Ticha Chikuni

The lead pastor at the Kentucky church that banned interracial couples from becoming members or participating in certain worship activities now expects that ban to be overturned. Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church, a small congregation in Pike County, Kentucky, voted to ban such couples Sunday, months after a former pastor originally drafted a resolution decreeing the policy.

But after outrage from local residents, local religious leaders, and the National Association of Free Will Baptists, current pastor Stacy Stepp told the Appalachian News-Express that he expected state and national Free Will Baptist officials to overturn the ban. He has also called for a new vote on the matter, perhaps as early as this Sunday, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. The ban was instituted in a 9-6 vote of church members Sunday, though much of the 40-member crowd abstained. “We’re going to get it resolved,” Stepp said.

The National Association of Free Will Baptists released a statement Thursday backing that action and clarifying that it did not hold a formal position on interracial marriages because “it has not been an issue in the denomination.” It encouraged local and state church officials, as well as Gulnare’s membership, to “reverse the decision“:

Many interracial couples are members of Free Will Baptist churches. They are loved, accepted, and respected by their congregations. It is unfair and inaccurate to characterize the denomination as racist.

It is our understanding that steps are being taken by the church in question to reverse its decision. We encourage the church to follow through with this action. Leaders from the local conference and state association in Kentucky are working with the church to resolve this matter.

The ban on interracial couples was originally introduced through a resolution by former pastor Melvin Thompson after Stella Harville, a long-time attendee, performed at the church in August alongside her fiance, a native of Zimbabwe.

Climate Progress

Latest Disaster In A Dangerous Mine Kills Two Kentucky Miners After 15 Safety Violations Since 2010

By Travis Waldron on Oct 31, 2011 at 1:30 pm

What a highwall collapse can look like (Courtesy of MineSurveyor.net)

A western Kentucky mine where two miners were trapped and killed by the collapse of a highwall Friday has been repeatedly cited for safety violations in the two years it has been operated by Armstrong Coal. The miners died at Equality Boot Mine in Centertown, Kentucky Friday after an unexcavated face of an exposed strip-mining site — known as a highwall — collapsed on their truck as they were driving.

In April, the Mine Safety and Health Administration cited Armstrong Coal for an incident involving the stability of a highwall at the same mine, the Associated Press reported Saturday. Though a company spokesman said that citation was unrelated to last week’s collapse, Armstrong Coal has a history of safety violations at the site. MSHA has cited Armstrong for at least 15 safety violations in the two years it has operated the mine, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports:

Armstrong has operated the Equality mine since December 2008 and has been producing coal there since 2010.

As of the end of September, the mine employed 129 people and had produced 1.5 million tons of coal for the year to date, MSHA records show.

The mine was cited for nine safety violations with $1,531 in penalties in 2010 and 6 violations carrying $1,394 in penalties this year, according to MSHA’s citation database.

Some of the citations were for violations of regulations governing the placement of materials on the tops of pits or highwalls and the operation of mining equipment, the records show.

Armstrong isn’t the only coal company to experience a fatal accident at a mine where it had been repeatedly cited for safety violations. Massey Energy amassed thousands of safety violations at its Upper Big Branch mine near Beckley, West Virginia, before an explosion there killed 29 miners in 2010. Days later, two miners died in a roof collapse at the Dotiki Mine in Providence, Kentucky. Federal inspectors had cited owner and operator Alliance Resource Partners with 840 safety violations in the 16 months preceding the accident.

Still, many of Kentucky’s politicians continue to look the other way when it comes to enforcing and strengthening mine safety laws. After the 2010 accidents, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) and other Kentucky politicians largely avoided questions about the efficacy of the nation’s mine safety laws. Just days after the Dotiki explosion, Gov. Steve Beshear (D) appeared at the opening of another Kentucky mine owned by Alliance but made no mention of mine safety or of Alliance’s shoddy safety history. Before that, Beshear fired Ron Mills, head of Kentucky’s mining permit agency, for refusing dozens of Alliance’s permits, and Beshear also appointed one of Alliance’s top safety officials to the Kentucky Mining Board, despite the fact that at least nine miners have died at Alliance-owned mines since 2005.

Most infamously, Sen. Rand Paul (R) — who issued a statement on the accident Friday — suggested during his 2010 campaign that the coal industry should be able to regulate itself, as ThinkProgress noted at the time:

“The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia…“You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

Federal investigators determined that both the Upper Big Branch and Dotiki disasters could have been prevented, and given the recent safety violations, a similar verdict at Equality would not be a surprise. Still, little has emerged from those tragedies to improve mine safety laws, with political leaders instead using industry-wide talking points to decry others of waging a “War on Coal.” It’s enough to beg the question: Are Kentucky’s political leaders putting their Big Coal campaign donors ahead of actual human lives?

Older

Switch to Mobile