Recently, the NY Times decided to make public a top secret CIA-Treasury program that tracked financial records of suspected terrorists. The program worked with Swift, the central hub of global banking, to track thousands of confidential financial transactions in an attempt to track terrorists.

The program is both legal, working and top secret.

This means that the NY Times knowingly decided revealed war time secrets as something the public "needs to know about". In reality it is just part of their ongoing campaign to destroy the Bush administration. The only problem is they have endangered and probably destroyed a program that has caught terrorists. A program that was strongly endorsed by the 9/11 commission.

Signs of the programs demise is surfacing and privacy groups in Europe begin to press for ending the program

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said the organization filed the complaints with the data protection authorities with the aim of halting what it called "illegal transfers" of private information to the United States by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or Swift.

The complaints were filed in the 25 EU countries, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Lichtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.

"Swift appears to have violated data protection rules in Europe," Davies said, "by making these transfers without the consent of the individuals involved and without the approval of European judicial or administrative authorities. The scale of the operation, involving millions of records, places this disclosure in the realm of a fishing exercise rather than a legally authorized investigation."

So the Times has effectively snuffed out one of our top programs. Sen Jim Bunning came out yesterday and called the actions of the New York Times treasonous. In this case, I have to agree with him. Unfortunately, the Times will hide behind their first amendment rights to a free (but not necessarily responsible) press. And continue to endanger American lives with their reckless hatred of the Bush administration. They have now made it more likely for an attack on the U.S.. God forbid that time will come but it will be organizations like the Times who have so brazenly tried to dismantle our efforts to fight global jihad-ism who will have blood on their hands.

In the meantime, we need to uncover those who leaked this information to the Times and make sure they spend the rest of their days in a nice cold damp jail cell.

Fletcher's administration has decided to block various sites from state employees. In a move to boost productivity the administration is blocking Internet categories such as entertainment, humor, online auctions and blogs.

Personally, I find it dissapointing that this step has to be taken. I feel sorry for my wife who has to have her access blocked, but the reality is that state employees do abuse Internet access. When you look at the top 20 sites hit, most of them are not even closely related to the business of the state. Gaming sites, travel sites, and shopping sites are not being used for state business. It is these people that are abusing the system that have ruined it for everyone else.

Of course some of the reaction to this policy is funny.

"The government is not a private employer, the government cannot decide what content they want to ban," said Mark Nickolas, U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler's former campaign manager and operator of a Web log. "It's not constitutional."

Yeah, right! State employees who are paid by taxpayers have a constitutional right to waste taxpayer money. This isn't about blocking content. It is about keeping state employees from wasting time on sites that have no relevance to their daily work. Surfing the Internet can be done on their time, not my time.

While having lunch today, my friends and I were discussing the topic of Democracies and war. None of us could come up with a single instance where two Democracies have fought a war. Almost every instance of war that involved Democracies the other side was a some form of dictatorship or monarchy.

The reality is Democracies don't fight wars with each other. Think about it. Every trouble spot in the world is created by some form of central authority. Which is why it is very important that we support Iraq's fledgling attempt at Democracy. If we can bring an elective government to the middle east, maybe we can spread it to other countries in that troubled area. Until these countries embrace freedom, we will continue to have trouble in that part of the world. Once they do, peace is assured.

Hopefully, America can make freedom and democracy it's number one export. If so the world will be a much better place.

The U.S. finished a disappointing run in the world cup by losing to Ghana in the third match. It was a spirited back and forth match until they were screwed by the officials on a horrible penalty kick call at the end of the half. That kick squashed the U.S.'s chances and propelled Ghana into the second round. Is it just coincidence that 3 of the worst calls of the world cup have happened against the U.S.?

I have to give the U.S. some credit for showing spirit after being humiliated by the Czechs. They played with tremendous passion gaining the tie against incredible odds in the Italian game. And then played a great 1st half against Ghana. Unfortunately, they didn't get it done. Now it is time for Arena to step down. He has built the team from ground up and has taken them as far as he can. Now it is time for someone new to take the reigns and help the team to the next level.

A couple of thoughts after watching soccer for the last two weeks. First off, the officials have to much control on the game. With scoring as low as it is, a bad call which leads to a goal makes it very difficult for a team to recover. Officiating is not nearly as game changing in most other sports. Two things need to happen to make soccer a better sport. More scoring and better officiating.

If they would add a second official on the field a different set of eyes can be used to help eliminate horrendous calls. In addition, they could use instant replay on all penalty kicks to make sure they were legitimate fouls.

They also need to find a way to increase the scoring. Currently games are averaging about 2 scores which is incredibly low. Scoring doesn't have to be outrageously high. An average of 5 or 6 goals a game would be much better. It would also help to nullify poor officiating decisions. It would give a team a chance to get back in the game after a mistake.

There are two ways they can achieve this. They can make the goals larger which would definitely create more scores. Or they could get creative and take on lacrosse style rules and force teams to keep 3 players on the other side of mid court at all times. The latter would lead to better spacing and more interesting attacks. It also keeps teams from packing it in on defense.

Just a couple of thoughts.

The United States Senate barely killed a proposed election-year increase in the minimum wage. The economically challenged Senators garnered 52 votes. Thankfully, not enough to call cloture. The bill would have raised the rate from $5.15 an hour to 7.25 an hour. An increase of 40%!

Let's go over again why this is a bad idea. The minimum wage is an arbitrary minimum value set for wages that is generally above market forces. By doing so it causes the costs of labor for a company to increase. To handle the increase in costs they employee must either lay people off or increase the costs of good. Generally, they will take a mixture of these two approaches. Both of which are not good for consumers. Let's take a look at an example of a grocery store.

Most grocery stores hire kids in high school to work the cash registers, clean the floors, and stock the goods. Let's say they are paying these kids $6.00 an hour. The fair market price. Now we come an increase the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. That immediately increases the cost of labor for the grocery store over 20%. Let's say the store needs 500 hours a week in student labor. At $6 an hour that is $156,000 a year in labor. With the new minimum wage that cost in labor becomes $188,500 a year in labor. An increase in $32,500. Let's say they fire one part time employee to cut their hours back to 480 a week. That would sill be a cost of $180,960. Still over $25,000 more in labor than previously. The grocery store has no other option than to place higher prices on goods sold. Thus increasing the cost of basic staples.

So not only would someone lose their job, but the poorest people would be the hardest hit by the increase in the cost of basic staples necessary for living. Thus we clearly show that the minimum wage really hurts those it supposedly protects.

I don't know how many times I have heard the phrase Bush lied and people died. Well, the latest facts coming from declassified documents might create a different reality than what has been fed to us from the left.

How many times have we heard that there where no weapons of mass destruction? Well, it turns out there were WMD's in Iraq. And it is beginning to look like there may have been a lot of them floating around Iraq.

I wonder if we will get an apology from those on the left? I know I won't hold my breath. No instead we will get some new chant as they try to find some new way to bash Bush. But I imagine for a group so hell bent on destroying Bush that this story has to hurt a little. Bush didn't lie after all. More importantly, these weapons are now no longer available to the terrorists to use. Thank God!

The Lieb group has released a new study that shows the new riverfront arena will create $154 million dollars of revenue annually. The article from the Courier goes on to talk about how wonderful this will be for Louisville. The problem occurs when you delve into the details of the study. The study breaks spending into two groups, direct spending and indirect spending.

The total direct spending associated with the construction and operations of the arena complex and direct support businesses, on an incremental basis (net of current Freedom Hall), are referred to as ���direct economic impacts.���

As this spending takes place in the local and regional economy it represents revenue tothe arena complex and to area hotels, restaurants, and shops. These entities, in turn,spend this revenue for various goods and services both inside and outside the local andstate economies. Further, the employees who work for these businesses spend a portionof their income in the local and state economies. As this additional spending occurs,referred to as ���second-round spending,��� it becomes income to other entities which inturn re-spend that money. In each round of spending, some money stays in the localeconomies and some ���leaks��� to outside economies. The sum of these secondary roundsof spending is collectively referred to as ���indirect economic impact��� and the process isreferred to as the ���multiplier effect���.

What this means is that 61 million is used to support the businesses and the 54 million is from money that is spent by those making the 61 million off of goods and services.

This leads to the following chart

This would mean that we are spending $350 million dollars for the new stadium to create 780 jobs. That is over $448,000 per job created. That is an expensive jobs package. Now if that money had been kept in private hands and they spent say $100,000 on hiring each new employee.

$350,000,000 / $1000,000 per new employee = 3,500 new employees

If these new jobs had an average a salary of $30,000 a year we could calculate the direct revenue generated by these employees.

$30,000 year per employee * 3,500 employees = $105,000,000 year

So our direct revenue would be 71% more than from the arena. If we used the same ration for calculating indirect revenue, we could calculate the total gain from those jobs created by the private sector.

55.4 Million / 61.3 Million = 90.3%

$105,000,000 * 90.3% = $94,815,000 Indirect Revenue

All of which leads us to the final chart of what the private sector could have done with that money.

So what the private sector with the same amount of money would have generated more than 2700 more jobs and generated over 83 million dollars more a year. And this gets to my beef about the arena. I know it will create jobs and will probably generate some revenue. It just won't do it with the same efficiency nor profit that would have been derived if this money had just been left in the private sector. It is a horrible waste of money on a "chance" it will be profitable. That is an expensive gamble that could have been put to better use elsewhere.

The latest press release from the Democrats is hilarious. First off, they name the plan a "New Direction". If you say it fast enough it sounds like nude erection. Did Bill Clinton pick the name of the plan? Sophomoric humor aside the details of the plan are just plain dumb. Here is the ground breaking plan that we have been waiting from the Dems broken into six themes.

• Make Health Care More Affordable: Fix the prescription drug program by putting people ahead of drug companies and HMO���s, eliminating wasteful subsidies, negotiating lower drug prices and ensuring the program works for all seniors; invest in stem cell and other medical research.

  I have no idea what step 1 is. They are going to put people ahead of drug companies. What by price fixing? By undercutting American companies? And then they are going to spend more money on "medical research". That is a "sound" plan if ever I heard one.

• Lower Gas Prices and Achieve Energy Independence: Crack down on price gouging; eliminate billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies and use the savings to provide consumer relief and develop American alternatives, including biofuels; promote energy efficient technology.

  Crack down on price gouging? Who is price gouging? That is the price of oil on the free market. If the Democrats hadn't stood in the way of increasing our oil production by drilling in Alaska, maybe we could have kept the prices lower. On top of that they are going to "stick it" to big oil companies. Yeah, that sounds like a good way to get them to expand R&D and increase production. And of course we are going to develop American alternatives which aren't developed on the free market and which will not work. Brilliant strategy!

• Help Working Families: Raise the minimum wage; repeal tax giveaways that encourage companies to move jobs overseas.

  Yeah, here is a good idea. Let's help working families by destroying jobs. The natural effect of raising the minimum wage. Artificial wages drives up costs which lead to two things. A loss of jobs and an increase in prices. That definitely helps the working family.

• Cut College Costs: Make college tuition deductible from taxes; expand Pell grants and slash student loan costs.

  Another brilliant idea that will cost the taxpayers needlessly. Yeah, let's give out more risky loans that will never be paid back. If a student wants to go to school, they should have to get a loan like everyone else. That way the taxpayers don't have to shoulder the burden of bad loans.

• Ensure Dignified Retirement: Prevent the privatization of Social Security; expand savings incentives; and ensure pension fairness.

  Yeah, I think they mean "Ensure Poverty in Retirement". By denying people privatized social security they are damning people to horrendous rates of return on their money. Yeah we all want to earn 2% when we could have earned 10%!

• Require Fiscal Responsibility: Restore the budget discipline of the 1990s that helped eliminate deficits and spur record economic growth.

  There was no fiscal discipline in the 90's. Spending was as outrageous then as it is now. They just had a dot.com boom that brought record amounts of new taxes into the treasury. Once the dot.com busted revenue fell of significantly.

"Our new direction will advance a common agenda, seek common ground, and apply common sense in the service of the common good," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. "We know that with a new direction, we can meet our national challenges in a way that makes our nation stronger, our economy more vibrant, and our families more secure. Instead of record deficits, we will go in this new direction in a fiscally sound way. We will make America more competitive and not heap mountains of debt on future generations."

That is precious. They are going to make our economy stronger by socializing medicine, destroying jobs by raising the minimum wage, and divert good capital to bad student loans, and then deny people the right to save for their future. That is a great plan!

But what I want to now is how they are going to make our families more secure? What is their plan to defeat terrorism? What are they going to do after they cut and run from Iraq? How are we going to stop terrorists in the U.S.? How can you be serious about running this country if you don't have a plan to fight terrorism? The number one risk to national security! The Dems have become a joke, and I think it is really funny. Demented and sad, but funny.

The glorious Courier Journal is going to take us on an in depth look at climate change. They are going to explain to us how global warming may affect our area and the world. They will also try to show us that global warming is "real" and how we contribute to it.

The only problem is global warming is not affected by us. Let's take a look at paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson take on how CO2 levels and how it affects Earth's temperatures.

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and SustainableDevelopment last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologistProfessor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningfulcorrelation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this[geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten timeshigher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet wasin the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billionyears." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of thisevidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relativelysmall increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the pastcentury's modest warming?"

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and"hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is verygood correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestialphenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.

This quote taken from an article by Canada Free Press. It asks a very good question. How can we affect the climate with marginal CO2 level increases when CO2 does not correlate with global warming or cooling? But hey we can't let facts get in the way of a good scare. Thus the "global warming" crowd continues to perpetuate the false theory that we are causing global warming. When in fact it is natural for the world to warm up and cool down on its own.

The reality is global warming scares by the CJ and Al Gore's new movie are the only way the socialists have of slowing down the capitalist movement. If they can indoctrinate people to believe we are "causing" global warming, then they can foist socialist policies willingly on the gullible public. Without these scare tactics they would have no way of implementing their discredited ideology. Of course like any other socialist policy these will hurt economic growth and lower people's standards of living, but it is for the good of the "environment". In face of this onslaught, I will continue to fight "common knowledge" with real scientific knowledge and common sense. Especially from the clowns at the CJ.

What do we hear from Iraq? Do we here about the good work our military is doing in bring terrorists to justice and restoring Iraq's infrastructure? No we are inundated with the press's (left wing's) desire to denigrate our troops by highlighting the rarer cases of a few bad people.

First it was the shooting of an unarmed combatant, the Abu Garib, then Gitmo, and now Haditha. All of which attempted to show our military as the moral equivalents of our terrorist enemies. The reality is much different from the way it is shown by the drive by media and Reagan captured it best.

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." - President Ronald Reagan

While the press continues to wonder if they are "making a difference", it is safe to assume that those overin Iraq are truly making a difference. Even if the drive be media attempts to cover it up.

Marcus Carey has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to open up what judicial candidates can reveal during a campaign.

A candidate for the Kentucky Supreme Court is challenging ethics rules regarding judicial races.

If the legal challenge is successful, it could dramatically alter Kentucky judicial elections in November and in years to come. This year, 263 judicial races are on the ballot.

Marcus Carey, 53, a Northern Kentucky lawyer, filed a lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court in Frankfort, contending that the state's judicial ethics canons violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Carey says he wants to be able to state his views on political issues, tell voters his political party affiliation, seek endorsements from other political officials and directly solicit contributions during his campaign, all of which are prohibited by Kentucky judicial canons.

Carey is also challenging a provision that would require judges to disqualify themselves in proceedings where they have "expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the proceeding."

This is the problem with judicial races. Voters have no way of determining anything useful about a judge before they are asked to cast ballots for that person. That means that the only candidates to win are the ones that are best financed. Personal wealth or financial connections should not be the main determining factors in elections. This leads to a random assortment of judges, some of which can be down right incompetent.

Of course Carey's way is not any better. I don't necessarily want judicial candidates campaigning like representatives. To me the best thing to do is to have the executive branch appoint the judges for eight year terms. These appointments must be approved by a simple majority of the representative bodies.

A system like that would at least lead to a baseline of competency from judges that is currently not found in the elective process. And it could be assumed that the appointed judges share the same judicial philosophy as the current executive administration. Thus the judges appointed would follow closer to the will of the people than random elections provide.

There is a case pending before the state supreme court today that challenges the constitutionality of lethal injection. Double murderers Ralph Blaze and Thomas Bowling Jr have filed a challenge to lethal injection saying it violated their eight amendment right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

This is ludicrous. Lethal injection is the weakest form of capital punishment. They basically slip into unconsciousness before the lethal dose is administered. Maybe they think the pin prick is cruel punishment. Of course these two thugs didn't give their victims the same consideration that they are asking us to give them now.

Personally, I believe this appeal is repulsive. These two murderers should reap what they have sowed. Hopefully, the court will uphold lethal injection as neither cruel nor unusual punishment.

We were told how prepared the U.S. squad was for this World Cup. This was their year to show they belonged on the big stage. This was the chance to turn soccer into one of the major U.S. sports. What do we get? a 3 - 0 ass whipping by the Czechs.

The U.S. team looked like a bunch of zombies as they stood around passing to each other without mounting many if any real attacks. They seemed happy to watch the action rather than be part of it. To be fair, the Czech team is one of the top 3 teams in the tournament and they came ready to play and relegated the U.S. back into a second tier team.

All is not lost for the U.S.. They are a very talented team. If they come out and play with passion, fire and some creativity they can beat the Italian team. They are going to have win if they want to advance. Their lopsided defeat has put them well behind the ball when it comes to goal differential. A tie with Italy will probably not be enough to advance to the next round.

They need the win to re-energize the American fans that support this sport and bring in the fringe fans that would like to get excited about soccer. But if the U.S. gets rolled by Italy, the American fans will stop watching and turn the channel to baseball, golf, and tennis. The rest of the world will continue to scoff American soccer as a fluke. And this will be known as the team that set soccer back 15 years.

The trial date has been set to begin on November 8th. The day after the elections. The good news is that the trial won't take place until after the election. Which will deny the press the opportunity to make the elections about the trial of Fletcher. It will also allow the candidates in the election to focus on the issues of the day which as always favor the Republicans.

The bad news is that the days leading up to the election the press will be able to change the dialog to the "upcoming trial". Hopefully, more important issues will dominate the news leading up to the election rather than this lame trial.

The next court date will be July 7th when the judge will hear arguments on the eligibility of Stumbo in the trial. Until then, the "drama" of this trial will have to wait.

The weird story surrounding the Duke's Lacrosse team got a bit stranger. The second dancer at the party according to investigator's notes said that the her partner's accusations of sexual assault were a "crock". She also went on to state that she was with the accuser for all but five minutes of the party.

In addition we find out from Pittman (the second dancer) a bit more about the night.

Pittman said in a handwritten note dated March 22 that the accuser, to whom Pittman refers as "Precious," wanted to stay at the party and earn more money, even after one of the players made a verbal threat.

"Precious became 'crazy' and eventually passed out and had to be carried to Pittman's car by some of the Duke athletes," the statement says.

Personally, you need to read the entire story to understand how badly rail roded these kids from Duke truly were.

If these reports are true, and I almost have to assume they are, District Attorney Mike Nifong has some serious explaining to do. First off, all charges against the students should be dropped. Secondly, the people in the district should remove Nifong from office in the next election cycle. Lastly, these students should sue the heck out of the DA's office for wrongful prosecution.

This case also shows how easy it is to get an indictment when you have an out of control prosecutor who is hell bent on prosecuting someone regardless of guilt. Greg Stumbo comes to mind as another example.

Special Judge Melcher has decided that Fletcher does not have to appear at his arraignment. Since this is the norm for misdemeanor indictments, I tend to believe that Judge Melcher will be even handed in his treatment of the case which is good for Fletcher.

Now, if we can get Stumbo's office removed from the case and a relocation from Franklin county, this has the chance to be a fair trial.

Governor Fletcher's attorney's asked Judge Melcher to disqualify Stumbo and his deputies from prosecuting the case against Fletcher. Fletcher's attorneys argued that the Executive Branch Code of Ethics disallows people from participating in proceedings against political rivals. Since Stumbo has previously stated an interest in running against Fletcher, he should be recused like Judge Graham from the case.

Deputy Attorney General Whites lambasted the request

Deputy Attorney General Pierce Whites called the assertions "ridiculous" and "laughable."

"If you buy their argument that Stumbo and his office can't prosecute the governor, then no one could prosecute the governor," Whites said.

Hey Whites, ever heard of a special prosecutor?

Regardless, I have one very simple question. If this case is not politically motivated and it is obvious that Fletcher is guilty why not agree to a special prosecutor? What better way to show your impartiality! Of course, I am not going to hold my breath. Why? Because this is a politically motivated attack and they know there case is too weak to hand over to anyone else.

Hopefully, Melcher will agree to Fletcher's request and remove Stumbo from the process. Then we can see about having the case moved outside Franklin County.

Yesterday, an 81 year old store owner was attacked outside his store on River Park Drive in Louisville. After being pistol whipped, the store owner pulled a gun and shot the robbers who then fled the scene. One robber was found five doors down and was taken to the hospital. His partner in crime showed up at another hospital later for treatment of his wounds.

What saved the old man's property and possibly his life? Was it the police? No all they did was arrest the robbers after the event. Then what saved the old gentleman? It was his right under the second amendment to carry a firearm for personal protection. If the anti-gun nuts had their way this poor fellow would have been beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Instead he was able to fend off his attackers.

This story is another example of a firearm being used as a tool. In the hands of a criminal a gun can be used to cause great harm. These criminals should be punished severely. On the other hand, a gun in the hand of a law abiding citizen is a tool for good. In this case, it saved the gentleman's life. In general, it affords all law abiding citizens the ability to protect one's self, family, and property in a way that the government can not. That is why it is vital that we constantly defend the second amendment and our right as law abiding citizens to self protection.

UPDATE: It appears that Wilson had a concealed carry permit. To bad for the gun banners that those pesky carry permits can be effective. On a down side, it looks like the police department hastaken Wilson's Glock .40 for evidence. What a crock! They should give the man his gun back immediately!

Robert Kahne, A 19 year old volunteer for Yarmuth's congressional campaign, was busted trying to use a fake name last week in an attempt to volunteer for Northup's campaign. Fortunately, the attempt to infiltrate the campaign was spoiled when a campaign worker for Northup remembered seeing Kahne on a web site of Yarmuth supporters.

Northup's team responded forcefully to the infiltration attempt

Patrick Neely (Northup's campaign manager) faxed a letter to Yarmuth yesterday, with copies to local media, accusing the Yarmuth campaign of "attempting to embed" Kahne with Northup's campaign, adding, "This type of Nixonian dirty trick represents the very worst kind of campaign tactic, and is not worthy of a candidate for local dog catcher."

Yarmuth's campaign issued a "sorta" apology for the event

Yarmuth's campaign later issued a statement disavowing Kahne's visit to Northup's campaign headquarters and "the words he has written."

The statement said "appropriate" action had been taken. In an interview, campaign manager Dan Borsch said Yarmuth met with Kahne yesterday. "Unfortunately, we have conveyed to Robert that we can no longer accept his volunteering on our behalf," Borsch said.

On his blog, Kahne mentions that he was an intern for the campaign. Yarmuth's campaign recognized he had been paid for some of his work in the primary but did not comment on whether or not he was a intern.

What makes this story even better is that Kahne is a kook leftist who wrote in his blog May 6th

I HATE REPUBLICANS. yes. hate. I hate them. all of them. I wish we could have a liberal inquisition and do like the Spanish, where we would go up to people and say "Are you a Republican?" and then if they said yes, we would kill them. with swords of course, guns would be illegal.

In a later blog he "sorta" apologizes to people who might have taken his statement seriously. Yeah, killing Republicans sounds like joking to me. The only funny thing about his statement is that he highlights his stupidity around the gun issue by highlighting the fact that people kill people and not guns.

But back on topic. This is a serious violation by the Yarmuth campaign. I have worked in enough campaigns to know Kahne was a regular in the campaign office. If he was a regular, there is NO WAY that someone in the Yarmuth campaign team did not know or even ask him to try to infiltrate the Northup campaign. Fortunately, Northup found out about this attempt and brought the seriousness of the matter to the public.

Hopefully, it will curtail the amateurishness of the Yarmuth campaign from any more sleazy campaign tactics.

There is an excellent piece in the Lexington Herald today by James R. Golden titled Deck stacked against Fletcher. In the article, Golden rightly lists the disadvantages Fletcher faces in his upcoming misdemeanor trial. The first of which is the fact that the case currently resides in Franklin County. A county that I have argued is an entrenched Democratic stronghold that would love to see Fletcher out the door. Golden bolsters my argument by pointing out the obvious facts about Franklin County.

• He is the only Kentucky governor in living memory to serve with an attorney general elected from the opposition party. Greg Stumbo is not only a Democrat, he also is an aggressive, partisan rival for the governorship, whose political ambitions can only be helped by Fletcher's downfall.
• Stumbo has had at his disposal a grand jury made up of state employees or their family and friends, mostly the product of decades of Democratic patronage, no doubt eager to investigate a Republican governor accused of unlawfully upsetting the established order.
• Any disputes on the reach and fairness of the investigation are determined by a circuit judge elected by and beholden to the heavily Democratic state workers of Franklin County. It is no accident that many state statutes governing litigation with state agencies mandate Franklin County as the venue. It is a friendly place, if you work for the state.

Not only is Stumbo the only attorney general elected from an opposition party, he is the first attorney general to prosecute anyone under this law. From yesterday's Courier Journal, an article describes the unusualness of this case.

Kent Westberry, a lawyer for Fletcher, said the case is apparently unique as the first criminal case to go to trial under the section of the state Merit System law that bans political hiring and firing.

"Maybe something happened early in the history of the merit system, but I personally am not aware of this type of prosecution before," Westberry said.

Deputy Attorney General Pierce Whites could not cite a prior state official charged with this particular section of the merit law but said the case is not unusual.

While it is true that Fletcher's reform agenda and goody-two-shoes image put him on a pedestal, fairly begging to be toppled over, it is equally true that an investigation like Stumbo's could have been carried out with much greater effect during any of the Democratic administrations between Louie B. Nunn's and Fletcher's.

Imagine such a probe into the inner workings of the Patton administration, in which Stumbo, then a state legislator, was neck-deep in almost daily patronage hiring. And the message was that no Republican need apply.

Not only was Stumbo neck-deep in the patronage hiring, he had problems paying child support and was in deep with most of the legislatures who were sent to jail in the BOP-TROT scandal. A scandal in which he was somehow able to avoid prosecution. All of which makes it very hard to take Stumbo serious in these attacks. Golden points this out along with stating the obvious. That this trial not only needs a new judge, but a special prosecutor and a change of venue. Anything else would be blatantly unfair for Fletcher.

Currently, Jefferson County has a desegregation policy that states that schools must keep black enrollment from falling below 15 percent or rising about 50 percent. In 1974 when the courts forced desegregation on the county it was a good thing. Whites and blacks were treated very differently when it came to education. The black students got a small fraction of the money and resources of all white schools and that was neither fair or right.

But times have changed. Funding for schools is based on school population and not location. Many of the inequities that were prevalent in the 70's are no longer possible and I don't believe would ever come back. Besides I don't believe racial quotas of any kind should be constitutional. Preferential treatment for anyone is never a good idea.On the other hand three things can be gained by eliminating the program.

1. The hundreds of thousands of dollars that are spent on forced busing can be used to provide better resources to help educate the students.
2. Students wouldn't be forced to spend over two hours each day commuting to an from school. This would make it easier for students to participate in after school activities and sports. It would also make it easier for their parents to become involved in their schooling
3. Lastly, I think it would bring a sense of community back to the schools. Today students don't go to their local school and as such parents don't have the neighborhood attachment to the locals schools. We could go back to the day when cheering for your school meant cheering for the kids in your neighborhood. I think it could do wonders to promote a positive environment for learning

Hopefully, this can become a reality as a local case is headed to the Supreme Court to test the legality of the desegregation provisions of the Jefferson County schools. Hopefully, the court will determine that quotas in this case are wrong. It will be better for the kids.

After Pence's resignation from the Gubernatorial ticket, Fletcher has stepped up and chosen Robbie Rudolph to replace Pence on the ticket. This is an excellent move by the Fletcher team as they begin to turn around the dismal week they had in the media.

Personally, I always thought Pence was half heartedly involved in the first campaign and never really seemed like a team player. Rudolph on the other hand is an energetic self made man who is not only loyal, but an excellent hard working team player.

Next the Fletcher team needs to stop whining about Stumbo. By now we all know what a political hack Stumbo is. It is time to just suck it up and realize that Stumbo is only going to attack every chance he gets. It is time to just ignore Stumbo and let the legal issues be handled by the court system. Instead of worrying about Stumbo's underhanded techniques, they need to start highlighting their many accomplishments and start working on the upcoming special legislative session to repeal the stupid S-Corp tax. They need to act like they are going to win and stop giving wind to the story. Instead they need to get back to focusing on running this state.

Hopefully, Rudolph will help them regain their focus.

In a weird turn of events, Lt Governor Steve Pence has decided he will not seek re-election as part of the Fletcher team. I am guessing he doesn't want to go through the slime that will be part of the next gubernatorial election.

Bizarrely, he resigned his post as Secretary of Justice Department, but will continue to keep his job as Lt. Governor. Which means his job for the next year will be to sit around and see if Fletcher dies. Personally, if you are going to disengage yourself from the current administration, I think you should resign from Lt. Governor so Fletcher can get in a right hand man that will work to see the administration succeed.

If it turns out he is doing this to run against Fletcher he is making a big mistake. I don't think the Republican party will nominate a turn coat. At least I would hope they wouldn't.

Of course the slime in the media along with the Democratic party are getting a kick out of this.

Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Lundergan said in statement that Fletcher should demand Pence's resignation as lieutenant governor because Pence "essentially gave up his job, but not his salary."

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Pence's decision suggests the Republican Party is "getting ready to wave bye-bye" to Fletcher.

"I can't imagine the Republicans re-nominating him if they want to win," Sabato said.

I also hope that the Republican party doesn't take Sabato's advice for two reasons. One I think he is wrong about Fletcher's chances and secondly, that would be a very "Democrat" thing to do for the party. I say that because it was the same greedy party members who rode Fletcher's coat tails into the Governor's mansion and eventually got Fletcher into this hiring "scandal". Fletcher then pardon's these scoundrels and now they might turn around and stab him in the back? We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Chief Justice Lambert has appointed Family Court Judge David E. Melcher to be the special Judge for Fletcher's criminal trial.

According to a short biography released yesterday by Lambert's office, Melcher is a 1968 graduate of the University of Dayton and a 1971 graduate of the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He served as chief staff attorney for the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals from 1971 to '75. For the following two years he was on the staff of the U.S. attorney in Cincinnati. Between 1977 and 1993 he was in private practice with the Cynthiana law firm of Swinford & Sims.

"Judge Melcher has tried civil and criminal cases in 20 Kentucky counties and has handled cases in every Kentucky court and every federal court except the U.S. Supreme Court," according to the biography.

Judge Melcher is stepping in for Judge Hart who recused himself from the case when it became known that he was good friends with Doerting, one of the whistle blowers in the case. I still don't understand how Judge Hart didn't realize that Doerting might be a witness in the case. Even though Melcher is a registered Democrat from Cynthiana, he is outside the cesspool of Frankfort politics which will help Fletcher to get a fair trial.

On a day to day basis we are bombarded from the main stream media about how bad things are in Iraq. The violence is just overwhelming. So, let's take a look at the number of violent deaths from a couple different locations around the world to compare them with Iraq. According to the Wall Street Journal the number of violent deaths in Iraq are around 31.03 per 100,000 people per year.

Let's compare that to murder rates in other countries.

That means there are four countries that are more dangerous than Iraq for the average citizen. Even the socialist paradise of Venezuela has a higher violent death rate than Iraq. Going even farther we can compare the violent death rate in Iraq with some major cities in the U.S.

We find that there are five cities within the U.S. that are more dangerous for the average citizen than the average Iraqi. Hmmm, maybe things aren't going so bad in Iraq after all.