Kentucky Political News
David Williams and Richie Farmer form slate to seek state's top offices
FRANKFORT Senate President David Williams will seek the governor`s office in 2011 with Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer as his running mate, the political heavyweight and former University of Kentucky basketball star announced Wednesday morning. Kentucky is adrift," Williams said in a news release. "We need strong leadership to move this state forward. We cannot afford another four y ...
Wednesday September 1, 2010 6:48PM | kentucky.com
The Bluegrass Politics Debate: Mayoral and 6th district debate
Welcome to the Bluegrass Politics Debate. Each week through the end of September, the candidates for mayor of Lexington and the 6th Congressional District will debate a topic chosen by the Lexington Herald-Leader. The candidates for U.S. Senate declined to participate in the debate. The rules: The candidates ask and answer the questions. Questions are limited to 35 words. Answers are limited to 7 ...
Sunday August 29, 2010 11:22AM | kentucky.com
For Republicans, could it be '80 d.j. vu?
WASHINGTON The incumbent senator from Alaska is taken by surprise in a primary. A new conservative movement energizes Republicans in a furious response to a Democratic White House. Little-known insurgent candidates prepare to storm the Senate. It is starting to feel like 1980. While the 1994 Republican takeover of the House is regularly explored for insight into what might happen this polarize ...
Sunday August 29, 2010 6:09AM | kentucky.com
Kentuckian calls Washington, D.C., rally 'overwhelming'
Eric Wilson of Georgetown was among several hundred Kentuckians who attended the "Restoring Honor Rally" Saturday on the front steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., promoted by Fox commentator Glenn Beck. "It was an overwhelming feeling to participate in an event that was trying to get this country back to its foundation of liberty and freedom, back to values," said Wilson, 40, a sen ...
Saturday August 28, 2010 9:25PM | kentucky.com
Campaign '10 Watchdog: Lexington Mayor, U.S. Senate
Each week, the Herald-Leader will fact-check statements made by candidates and their surrogates in the campaigns for Lexington mayor, the 6th Congressional District and U.S. Senate. LEXINGTON MAYOR The statements: "My management produced fewer serious crimes in 2007-09 than any other three-year period in LFUCG history."
Saturday August 28, 2010 10:41AM | kentucky.com
Tea Party movement's Fla. pick tones down protest rhetoric
PENSACOLA, Fla. When the year began, the stars could not have shone brighter for Marco Rubio, the fresh voice of newly invigorated conservatives who embodied the change that frustrated grass-roots Republicans demanded from inside their own party. This week, facing a more complicated path than he had anticipated in his race for a U.S. Senate seat, he is hoping to begin a second act. The Florida ...
Monday August 23, 2010 5:40AM | kentucky.com
Conway wants to debate Paul on 'Meet the Press' and Fox News
FRANKFORT Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jack Conway said Wednesday he would be willing to participate in a Fox News debate on national TV with Republican opponent Rand Paul if Paul agreed to participate in a debate requested by NBC`s Meet the Press show. Conway also said he would like to participate in five or six televised debates throughout Kentucky with Paul. The Paul campaign had no ...
Thursday August 19, 2010 10:29AM | kentucky.com
Paul makes headlines, Conway runs a quieter race
FRANKFORT While Republican Rand Paul has dominated news coverage of Kentucky`s U.S. Senate race, his Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, has been far less visible. National media fascination with Tea Party favorite Paul is responsible for much of the difference, but Conway also seems to have deliberately pursued a more low-key approach than Paul in the months since the May primary. Both cand ...
Thursday August 19, 2010 7:54AM | kentucky.com
Senate candidates Paul, Conway spar at state Farm Bureau forum
LOUISVILLE The two candidates for U.S. Senate accused each other Thursday of misrepresenting their views on issues ranging from farms to energy. Republican Rand Paul and Democrat Jack Conway participated in a two-hour forum held by the Kentucky Farm Bureau Board of Directors at the state headquarters of the organization that represents 485,000 farm families in the state but does not endorse pol ...
Wednesday August 18, 2010 11:21PM | kentucky.com
Obama's plan for midterms: helping from afar
WASHINGTON As lunch was served in the Roosevelt Room of the White House one day last week, President Barack Obama assured the nine Democratic members of Congress sitting around the table that he would do anything he could to help them survive their fall elections. Even, he said, if it meant staying away. "You may not even want me to come to your district," Obama said, according to guests, near ...
Sunday August 1, 2010 12:10PM | kentucky.com
House approves $59 billion for wars
WASHINGTON The House of Representatives agreed Tuesday to provide $59 billion to continue financing America`s two wars, but the vote showed deepening divisions and anxiety among Democrats over the course of the nearly nine-year-old conflict in Afghanistan. The 308-114 vote, with strong Republican support, came after the leak of an archive of classified battlefield reports from Afghanistan t ...
Wednesday July 28, 2010 5:40AM | kentucky.com
McConnell: Tea Party movement not racist
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that the Tea Party movement is not a racist organization. McConnell, R-Louisville, said he agrees with Vice President Joe Biden, who has said President Barack Obama and he do not consider the Tea Party racist. McConnell, appearing on Mandy Connell`s show on Louisville`s WHAS-840 AM, elaborated on an answer he recently gave to CNN wh ...
Tuesday July 27, 2010 10:29AM | kentucky.com
Rogers wants taxpayer help for cheetahs
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, is sponsoring a bill to give $5 million a year to conservation groups that work overseas on behalf of endangered "great cats and rare canids," such as cheetahs, lions and Ethiopian wolves. One group interested in applying, should Rogers` bill become law, is the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund. Its grants administrator, Allison Rogers, is the congress ...
Monday July 26, 2010 7:59AM | kentucky.com
Democrats' plan: Force GOP to side with rich on taxes
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are setting the stage for a high-stakes battle over taxes in the final weeks before the November congressional elections, betting their plan to eliminate tax breaks for the wealthy will resonate with voters who have lost houses and jobs to what many see as an era of Wall Street greed. Raising taxes is usually a perilous move. ...
Sunday July 25, 2010 10:38AM | kentucky.com
Kentucky milks Homeland Security money
Fred Payne, a University of Kentucky food engineer, had impeccable timing six years ago when he got an idea for defending American milk from terrorism. Within months of Payne`s brainstorm, a Stanford University professor wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times theorizing that terrorists could kill hundreds of thousands of people by dropping a few grams of botulism toxin into the tank of ...
Friday July 23, 2010 10:11AM | kentucky.com
Palin wades deep into GOP primary races
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. The latest candidate to win the most coveted Republican prize of the election year stood on the steps of a gazebo here and reminded voters of a new reason to support her in the crowded race for Georgia governor. "Sarah Palin has come on board," the candidate, Karen Handel, told a group of supporters who gathered Friday on the grounds of the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse. As th ...
Sunday July 18, 2010 6:00AM | kentucky.com
Unemployed protest at McConnell's Ky. office
LOUISVILLE Gail Helinger`s job search has come up empty for more than a year, and now the unemployment benefits that have kept the one-time union laborer afloat are about to run out. Worried everything she has worked for could unravel, Helinger joined labor activists and unemployed workers in lashing out at Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell for a Republican filibuster that blocked an extension ...
Thursday July 8, 2010 10:51AM | kentucky.com
Companies find ways around earmark ban
TOLEDO, Ohio Just one day after leaders of the House of Representatives announced a ban on earmarks to profit-making companies, Victoria Kurtz, the vice president for marketing of a small Ohio defense contracting firm, hit on a creative way around it. To keep the taxpayer money flowing, Kurtz incorporated what she called the Great Lakes Research Center, a nonprofit organization that just happen ...
Monday July 5, 2010 5:42AM | kentucky.com
2 Ky. lawmakers return wages for special session
Two Kentucky lawmakers have returned more than $2,500 combined to the state treasury, refusing to be paid for a weeklong special legislative session held last month. Gov. Steve Beshear called lawmakers back to Frankfort in May to pass a state budget after they failed to do so during a regular legislative session that ran from January to April. Democratic state Reps. Jim Wayne of Louisville and M ...
Thursday June 24, 2010 1:11PM | kentucky.com
Rand Paul on Ky. gov's troubles: Pardon yourself
Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul wrote in a newspaper four years ago that he would have pardoned himself if he had been the state`s scandal-plagued governor at the time. Paul`s opinion piece in the now-defunct Kentucky Post appeared shortly before a judge dismissed accusations that then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, had violated state hiring laws. The same judge had ...
Wednesday June 23, 2010 11:06PM | kentucky.com
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