Fletcher for Governor

Expect plenty of disagreement. Just keep it civil.
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Rspaight
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Postby Rspaight » Wed Nov 05, 2003 9:10 am

Yeah. All hail Big Ern. (Or, in the local lingo, "Mini-Mitch," as he's pretty clearly the tool of McConnell.)

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Patrick M
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Postby Patrick M » Wed Nov 05, 2003 2:13 pm

Image

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Postby TSmithPage » Wed Nov 05, 2003 11:41 pm

Kinda hard to avoid. It was the leading story on the Today show this morning. No surprise, really, as our President is probably more beloved in this state than in any other besides maybe Texas. Go figure.

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Patrick M
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Postby Patrick M » Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:07 am

Let's review this again, kids.

From the primary:

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From the general election:

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I hope Ryan has something really sarcastic to say to make me feel better.

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Patrick M
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Postby Patrick M » Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:14 am

More from the general election propaganda machine:

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How much money did this guy spend? We got phone calls from Bush and McConnell, plus W visited the state twice.

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Patrick M
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Postby Patrick M » Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:28 am

This may be the best of the lot:

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That's a local doctor, who is just dying to tell you why he wants to vote for Fletcher. (And, no, it's not because Fletcher is a tool of the health insurance industry, silly.)

Note the placement of religious symbols: the tie with the crucifix, the bible in the window, the ten commandments in the window.

Why is this important? Because my sources tell me that Big Ern's opponent actually worshipped Satan.

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Postby Rspaight » Thu Nov 06, 2003 10:06 am

I think being given a prostate exam by a guy wearing that tie would have to be a supremely disorienting experience. Maybe disorienting enough to make you vote for Fletcher.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Rspaight » Thu Nov 06, 2003 10:14 am

Before the Web site disappears forever, let's enjoy one last time the cute little kids used as propaganda fodder for the Fletcher Machine:

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Funny -- the blonde looks about like I did when I heard Fletcher had won.

Thanks for the warm and fuzzy campaign, Ern.

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Hope whatever you're suffering from in that picture clears up soon.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Rspaight » Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:20 pm

Let's see how Big Ern is doing after less than a month in office:

Priority #3: Quality Public Education

Cuts announced by Gov. Fletcher include some education programs
Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky. - Budget cuts by Gov. Ernie Fletcher have reduced some education program funding by $6.9 million.

The cuts amount to a 2.5 percent reduction for preschool and after-school programs, Family Resource Centers, education technology and other programs, the state Education Department said. The budget cuts were ordered on Monday.

Blake Haselton, superintendent of Oldham County schools, said such cuts were inconsistent with Fletcher's message that elementary and secondary education would be spared cuts.

A news release issued by Fletcher's office on Monday said the cuts do "not result in reductions of funds to Kentucky school districts."

But Wes Irvin, Fletcher's communications director, said Wednesday that the language in the statement "might not have been right." Irvin said the governor's intention was to protect the $2.2 billion in basic school funding known as Support Education Excellence in Kentucky, or SEEK.

Irvin said Fletcher has lived up to that promise. "What we've said is we're going to protect the SEEK formula, and that's what we've done," Irvin said.

The 2.5 percent cuts in education grant programs were prepared by the state Education Department "to be those that would impose the least pain on individual districts," said Brad Cowgill, Fletcher's budget director.

There are 774 Family and Youth Resource Centers are located in Kentucky schools. They provide the extra services low-income and at-risk students might need to improve their chances to succeed in school.

Jaye Sparber Bittner, coordinator of the Family Resource Center at Breckinridge-Franklin Elementary School in Jefferson County, said any cut in her $68,500 annual budget "is going to hurt."

"The reason we've been so successful for 13 years is we're in the schools," Bittner said. "Students can refer themselves to us.

The Education Department gave The Courier-Journal a document that details the cuts. They include $2.5 million in preschool, kindergarten and after-school programs; $1.6 million in the Family Resource Center programs; and $585,000 in education technology, according to the department.

Smaller cuts are coming in such programs as teacher training, minority teacher recruitment and school nutrition.

Gov. Fletcher's spending cuts - designed to partly cover an estimated $302 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year that ends June 30 - total $147 million.

Information from: The Courier-Journal


------------------------------------------------
Priority #4: Restore Integrity To Frankfort

Fletcher's brother's wife hired at cabinet
MOVE REQUIRES WAIVER TO HIRING FREEZE
By John Cheves
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

FRANKFORT - Gov. Ernie Fletcher's sister-in-law reports to work Wednesday as a political appointee at the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet. The move smacks of nepotism and hypocrisy, a representative of state employees said.

The appointment of Rachel Fletcher, 60, to be one of three executive secretaries to LaJuana Wilcher, the cabinet's secretary, will require a waiver in the state-wide hiring freeze Fletcher ordered shortly after he took office.

The $25,000-a-year job is "considered critical" though, so it should be filled, said cabinet spokesman Mark York.

Fletcher campaigned last fall on a pledge to "change the culture" in Frankfort. The administration of his predecessor, Gov. Paul Patton, was marked by repeated allegations of nepotism and cronyism.

Yesterday, however, Fletcher said he should be allowed to appoint his relatives to the state payroll if they are qualified.

"I don't think it's appropriate to have reverse discrimination," Fletcher said, "saying you can't hire somebody because they happen to have married my brother."

The chief of the Kentucky Association of State Employees laughed when told of the hiring, and he suggested that Fletcher's career as a government reformer was brief.

"Sounds like it's politics as usual in Frankfort," said Charles Wells, executive director of the employees' association.

"You hire your family and friends; you look out for your own, first and foremost," Wells said. "Everyone else gets hiring freezes and tiny pay raises."

Rachel Fletcher declined to comment. She is married to Harold Fletcher Jr., the governor's older brother, who separately disclosed yesterday that he plans to run for the state Senate. They live in Frankfort.

When Rachel Fletcher gave $1,000 to Fletcher's gubernatorial campaign last year, she listed her job as office manager at an architectural firm. Recently, she worked on Fletcher's transition team with Wilcher's chief of staff, Jean Dorton, and her office skills came to people's attention, said Fletcher spokeswoman Jeannie Lausche.

Wilcher needs to hire a third executive secretary because her cabinet -- born from Fletcher's merger of three existing cabinets -- now employs a sprawling 3,400 employees, said York, the cabinet spokes-man.

That need for more staff at the top was questioned by Wells.

Fletcher said he reorganized state government and merged cabinets at least in part to save money. With the cabinet secretaries getting pay raises though, up to $125,000 from $107,000, and hiring additional staff, it is unlikely the state will save much, Wells maintained.

Not true, countered Lausche. Overall, the Fletcher administration still expects to save a half-million dollars from the reorganization and hiring Rachel Fletcher barely will dent that, she added.

"She's not making a huge salary," Lausche said. "It's only $25,000."

(Note from Ryan: I have a friend in the Frankfort budget office who says it's a *lot* more than $25,000.)

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Xenu » Wed Aug 31, 2005 2:56 pm

http://news.kypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar ... 10354/1014

Unbridled Arrogance should be the new slogan of the Fletcher administration.

The manner in which the governor absolved his whole administration Monday night for any and all crimes - known and unknown - related to hiring practices was a kick in the teeth to all the state.

It's not just the pardons themselves - there is precedent for such, and we aren't particularly eager for the Dick Murgatroyds of state government to go to jail. But Fletcher's shameful rhetoric, ridiculous jokes and deceptive conclusions demonstrate again that he doesn't understand the harm his followers (nine of whom have been indicted) have done to the state.

Fletcher dismissed the investigation as a political hurricane over mere "management mistakes'' and "mistakes in judgment,'' as if his administration was guilty of crimes no more serious than choosing the wrong shade of paint or stepping on the gas and going through the yellow light instead of stopping.

These weren't momentary lapses of judgment. E-mails and other records (including the written assessment of his own deputies) show this to be a systematic and concerted attempt to replace the state work force with GOP supporters, donors, friends and family members in violation of state law.

Fletcher - who praised the Merit System when he was begging for the votes of state workers on the campaign trail, now says it's a horribly outdated and vague system whose complexity made it impossible for his overwhelmed aides to comply with. We don't buy it. If it's not clear that monitoring state workers' political designations, targeting Democrats and critics with "hit lists'' and creating Merit jobs to reward GOP loyalists was wrong, then you don't belong in public service.

Furthermore, his cavalier jokes that crimes against state employees are no more serious than catching fish with your bare hands out of season (a type of fishing known as "noodling'') are outrageous.

We may never know how the quality of state services suffered when the Fletcher administration decided to hire and fire, demote and transfer based on politics instead of skills and experience, but it's obvious the harm done to the families of those fired after years of service. Seeing how fast they could "level the playing field'' may have been a political game to the governor and his "disciples,'' as they called themselves, but it wasn't fun for the families whose livelihoods were torn apart.

Yes, the governor is right - this was a political investigation, made possible simply because for the first time in memory an attorney general and a governor were of different parties. For that kind of election outcome, we say "glory hallelujah.'' If, as Fletcher claims, the Merit System has been treated with disdain and disregard over the years, then it's about time that situation came to light.

But that doesn't justify reckless disregard of the law, especially when Fletcher promised his administration would be different. Remember the "waste, fraud and abuse'' mantra? The promise to "clean up the mess''? The vow to change the political culture?

Fletcher said Monday he hoped his far-reaching pardon would end the so-called Jobtrot investigation.

We hope not.

Attorney General Greg Stumbo has a tool box full of ways to keep this investigation alive, and we hope he employs them.

Stumbo can challenge the pardon as too broad and can go after the governor himself, because Fletcher specifically didn't pardon himself. He also could try to get federal prosecutors involved. He also might be able to haul the nine indicted men back before a special grand jury, since they no longer can take the Fifth Amendment against any state charges. He also could push the issue before the Personnel Board and the ethics commission.

And finally, he could encourage the special grand jury hearing the case to write a report summarizing the evidence they heard.

We hope that happens. Gov. Fletcher may not be interested in the truth, but Kentucky is.
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Postby dcooper » Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:00 pm

The Lexington Herald Leader has it right...

Fletcher can't lead, might as well resign

Governor's contempt for law nullifies his moral authority


A politician becomes an officeholder by winning an election, but only becomes a leader through moral authority -- the vision and integrity to persuade people to follow.

In a partisan, made-for-TV address before a hand-picked crowd Monday night, Gov. Ernie Fletcher talked away his ability to lead by force of character. While he's not likely to do so, Fletcher should resign rather than leave the state with two more years of a damaged chief executive.

In a speech that reeked of disregard for Kentucky voters and a profound contempt for the rule of law, Fletcher compounded his missteps in handling the scandal over his administrations' attempts to dismantle, or at least damage, the merit hiring system.

Fletcher waded into the vocabulary of excuse and denial like a guilty 5-year-old: indictable offenses are "mistakes;" misdemeanors aren't really crimes; the kids just got out of hand; he didn't "knowingly" break any laws; and it's better to put this behind us.

As a crowd of supporters clapped at the applause lines, Fletcher accepted responsiblity for the assault on the merit system only to blame the law and the prosecutor and to invoke the age-old excuse of "everybody does it."

He never said he was sorry or that he would stop it.

Instead, he dissed the work of a grand jury of Kentucky voters, saying it was politically motivated. He pardoned all the members of his administration it has indicted or could indict and said he would respond to its subpoena but wouldn't testify.

Kentuckians worried about a hurricane tearing up nearby states had to watch instead the sorry spectacle of a governor picking and choosing which laws he thinks are worth obeying and which juries he will respect while declining to testify under oath about his actions in office.

Fletcher didn't hesitate to cast himself as a righteous man suffering persecution, saying he came to his law-snubbing decisions after "many long nights of prayer."

Coincidentally those nights concluded the day before his testimony and just after one of the most eager of the former lieutenants, Dan Druen signaled a willingness to make a deal with the prosecutor.

God may work in mysterious ways, but politicians rarely do.

Whatever Fletcher promised voters, his is now all about protecting himself and those who can take care of him. The man who lectured on "how to create an ethical government" at his inauguration presided over a staff that ignored the merit law and took away the livelihoods of hard-working people because they didn't support him. Now, he's trying to guarantee that no one pays the legal consequences for those actions.

Fletcher's still governor, but he's dealt a death blow to the moral authority that would allow him to lead.
Dan

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Postby Rspaight » Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:24 pm

...the sorry spectacle of a governor picking and choosing which laws he thinks are worth obeying and which juries he will respect while declining to testify under oath about his actions in office.


It takes a special kind of governor to pardon nine indicted cronies (at a staged political rally) and then take the Fifth in front of a grand jury the next day, all the while saying no one did anything wrong and it's all a political stunt.

That special kind of governor is called a Kentucky governor.

I'm so proud.

Let's not forget this clown got elected on the promise to "clean up the mess in Frankfort."

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Bennett Cerf » Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:30 pm

Pat Boone says if Ernie Fletcher isn't reelected, the men of Kentucky will be forced to marry dudes.

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Postby lukpac » Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:43 pm

"Now do you want a governor who'd like Kentucky to be another San Francisco?"

Ryan?
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Postby Rspaight » Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:02 pm

I actually got a gay-bashing robocall from the Fletcher campaign last night -- not from Pat Boone, unfortunately. I think it's still on my answering machine, so I'll see if I can upload it.

It was really sleazy and illegal. Here's an approximate transcript from memory.

"The homosexual lobby has endorsed Steve Beshear. Steve Beshear advocates special rights for homosexuals and wants to put more homosexuals in state government, including teachers. He believes in recognizing same-sex relationships. If you feel the same way about homosexuals, be sure to vote for Steve Beshear. For more information, visit fairness.org."

(It's sad that someone believes that such a thing could persuade someone to vote for Fletcher, and even sadder that they may be right.)

Of course, if you do go to fairness.org, you get a message urging you to report the illegal robocall to the election board.

Personally, I think it would be great if Kentucky were more like San Francisco. Except for Barry Bonds -- we have enough overhyped sports divas around here already.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney