Budget tantrum is irresponsible

A good editorial from the Enquirer:

U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie, Steve Chabot, Brad Wenstrup and other local officials have been vocal in the effort to defund Obamacare. Now they are foolishly linking it to efforts to shut down the federal government.

...Polls show that voters – even those opposed to Obamacare – do not want the federal government to shut down. They’d prefer their elected officials to be working on the priorities they were sent to Washington to fight for: job creation, national security, immigration and other issues.

...In the case of the Affordable Care Act, our democracy worked the way it’s supposed to. Now opponents must be willing to accept a law they don’t like. To throw a tantrum and threaten the national economy because they don’t agree with the results of the process is irresponsible, dangerous and unworthy of the office the voters elected them to.

A very cruel cut

From today's Courier-Journal:

As more Kentuckians slide into poverty, five of our state’s six congressmen voted Thursday to slash funding for food stamps, an action that would impoverish even more of their constituents.

In a stunningly cruel vote, Republican Reps. Andy Barr, Brett Guthrie, Thomas Massie, Hal Rogers and Ed Whitfield joined most of their GOP colleagues to pass a bill to cut $40 billion over the next 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

...The news comes as the U.S. Census reports that in much of the nation, the poverty rate remained stubbornly unchanged but worsened in Kentucky where about one-fifth of 4.3 million residents live in poverty, The Courier-Journal’s Chris Kenning reported Thursday. For a family of four, the poverty line is a whopping annual income of about $23,500 or less.

McConnell's spiel offers no hope

A good editorial from the Herald-Leader:

(Mitch) McConnell had nothing new to propose. He was rehashing the same old stuff, making yet another speech in which he blamed every single one of Kentucky's 6,000-plus unemployed coal miners on President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency.

...We'd expect McConnell and other politicians to defend coal — while working on economic alternatives. Bashing Obama and the EPA has been a winning political formula in Kentucky. But the blame game's getting old. By November 2014, voters may well want something new.

Eastern Kentucky knows it must plan beyond coal. Now would be a great time for McConnell to start offering some real ideas and support.

Ballots, not bullets

A great editorial from the Courier-Journal:

Rand Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky and speculative Republican presidential candidate, is capable of talking a good game and making sense, as he did Monday in Louisville when he discussed a variety of issues. But sooner or later, the fringe starts to show, as it must. He cannot help revealing his truest self — and that’s the one to which voters should pay attention.

It happened again with the Louisville audience, in which he talked about getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences and restoring voting rights to convicted felons who complete their sentences. Common sense consensus can and does form around these issues.

But on the very day that another mass shooting took the lives of another 12 innocent bystanders, as well as that of the gunman who mowed them down, Sen. Paul included in his magnanimous remarks his support for restoring gun ownership rights to felons who had served their sentences.

The Colbert Report takes on Rand Paul

From last night's Colbert Report: Senator Rand Paul says no to diplomacy, no to Obama's plan and no to regime change in Syria.

The missing Sen. Mitch McConnell

A good editorial from the Courier-Journal:

Mr. McConnell, leader of the Senate’s Republican minority, is the last of the four top party leaders in Congress to announce whether the United States should launch a military strike (in Syria).

...Yet Mr. McConnell used his appearance on the Senate floor Tuesday to denounce President Obama — who had called early on for military action — for “timid, reluctant leadership.”

Mr. McConnell’s own timidity on this pressing international crisis is deplorable. It’s even more deplorable that, in an election season, he tried to shift the blame elsewhere.

Empty dress? Empty rhetoric

An editorial from today's Courier-Journal:

Team Mitch’s dubious efforts to win over women took another hit this week after a top Republican re-election flack referred to the female Democrat seeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as “an empty dress.”

...Even Matt Bevin, the Republican challenging Mr. McConnell in the primary, chivalrously spoke up on her behalf, saying as a married father of six daughters, he found the comments “highly offensive.”

The Republican establishment blasted Mr. Bevin for aiding and abetting the enemy. But Mr. Bevin, to his credit, is standing his ground on his party’s blundering efforts to win back women voters, commenting: “That‘s not the way to bridge the gap.”

Wooing women

A very good editorial from today's Courier-Journal:

To burnish his image, Mr. McConnell, a Louisville Republican, staged an event to showcase his support among some women, starting with his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

...Press material noted Mr. McConnell was a co-sponsor of the original Violence Against Women Act, first proposed in 1990 by then-Sen. Joe Biden.

But when the legislation later became law, Mr. McConnell voted against it. And this year, he voted against reauthorization of the act aimed at reducing domestic violence and sexual assault, prompting an outpouring of criticism.