Well then…that’s not a good look.
Man, the writing of this story is exactly the kind of “lead the reader to draw inferences of wrongdoing but leave enough room to deny having said the inferred thing happened” weasel words writing that John Solomon and Glenn Greenwald have built their careers on. And yeah, I know Pro Publica is an untouchable holy institution. Still saying the writing, at best, reeks of a story not ready for publication.
Kris Kobach just had a spontaneous orgasm…
These searches will reflect that my staff have always acted appropriately pursuant to my role as Kentucky’s secretary of state and chief elections official,” she said in a statement released by her office.
Sometimes, acting “appropriately” is not a substitute for acting ethically…KY has problems with representation that goes well beyond state politics."
This is why we have secret ballots. Oh wait a minute.
Not pointing fingers, but if you live in the state and listen to the backchat even marginally about the political machinations of the Ludergan family in general, then this is a surprise to no one.
It should be noted that legislature’s attempt to remove her positional powers failed this week when two republicans jumped the aisle to vote with Democrats on the committee. OMG- the republican leadership was apoplectic.
Cue up the “both sides” tape, has anyone seen Chuck Todd around?
Just spit balling here:
Gov. Bevin is up for reelection and I don’t think he’s too popular. He’s a mini trump who has been trying and doing many things to be just as authoritarian as trump, whom he seriously brownnoses. He even has Rick Santorum doing some kind of consulting on either health care or destroying abortion rights, or both. ALEC is big backer of Bevin and I’m sure the Koch’s are too.
Similarly, Ruschell provided documentation to justify Helm’s July 30 search of Crit Luallen, the former Democratic lieutenant governor.
Crit is beloved in the state, at least by Dems but probably some Rs too. Her endorsement of a candidate would carry weight.
The investigator, appointed by the state’s attorney general, is also looking into complaints of inappropriate contracts and compliance with a federal consent decree governing Kentucky’s efforts to keep accurate records of registered voters.
The AG is Andy Beshear, Bevin’s nemesis from day one of Bevin taking office, and son of former Gov., who has had a plate full trying to hold down the fort and keep Bevin from naming himself Emperor of KY. He’s running against Bevin for Gov. this year and currently ahead in early polling on the Dem side.
That said, I find it a little hard to believe Allison would do such a thing as she may have had aspirations to take on Mitch again, so why risk it? Her father, Jerry Lundergan, was accused of some campaign donation issues last year to her last campaign, which seemed a bit suspicious like someone was certainly digging around deep to make mischief, but I’m not up to date as to how that shook out or if it has yet. Allison had her first child a few months back and she did say she was not running for office in 2019 in order to focus on the new baby.
Bevin has caused a lot of trouble all over the place. From schools, to health care, power grabbing, privatizing everything, etc. He tried to take some power away from the mayor’s office in Louisville and really fucked around with U of L’s board of directors booting some most if not all out and plugging in his lackeys. His timing was good there because the president of the university at the time was a corrupt POS, though a republican. I wouldn’t doubt Bevin’s meddling with that board stuff had something to do with losing Pitino as the basketball coach, who had some issues of his own, but it was a big ball of cluster fuck chaos going on there at the time and Pitino is one of the NY Dem types. (Might just be my fury of losing Rick on that one- but something still smells there and he was an easy target.) Only good thing out of that mess was Papa John Schnatter getting tossed from that board and his name taken off the football stadium and a woman becoming the new president of the university.
There’s something evil in the wind going on here to be sure, so stay tuned. Between Mitch’s poll numbers dropping, ALEC, Koch’s…we’ve got a challenge on our hands right now as currently there are R super majorities in the General Assembly.
@established_1781 - The good ol’ boy system runs deep in KY and that goes across the board. I’d say the right wing machine is far more well oiled at this time.
As a government employee, this is a good reminder that every keystroke is a public record.
I’m still not sure what she is being accused of other than accessing data that is largely public anyway. It’s not like the records show who these people voted for they only show that they voted or not. She may have been building a Christmas card list for the board of supervisors but their addresses are largely public information. Until someone shows be the potential nefarious act this another Benghazi story.
It’s a little weird to me that Pro Publica went after a Democrat first in a state run by republicans. And saying that doesn’t excuse or release Lundergan from responsibility.
Is it possible to have a circular firing squad that aims only at feet?
Remember the last line of that great Jack Nicholson film directed by Roman Polanski and written by Robert Towne? It explains it all: “C’mon Jake, it’s KentuckyTown.”
You forget I was born and raised in and, deep in my heart still associate the word “home” with, the Commonwealth and still keep an eye on its politics.
Three points I’d add to your summary are 1) Bevins is perfectly capable of using ProPublica as a stalking horse, a liberal investigative journalism outfit that would leave no fingerprints on the smear; 2) as in all states “Attorney General” means “person running to be next governor;” 3) deserved or not, whenever then name “Lundergun” is spoken, people will always think they just got a whiff of that ol’ Kentucky brimstone such that people will believe the worst however unjustified.
If Grimes is bowing out, I don’t know why Beshear would feel the need throw a bit of mud at her to take out a potential rival. I mean, that would be the Kentucky thing to do if he really was worried about her running despite her protestations, but if she’s out, why would you want to get the Lundergun clan mad at you for no good reason going into a nasty election? Which raises the possibility his office is looking into allegations because that’s what the AG’s office does.
Why would Lundergan claim the coverage of this was sexist? And did anybody notice almost everyone mentioned in the article was a woman? I swear to gawd whenever I hear someone say we should only elect women and women will make all these problems go away…I say BS. Once in office, once in power, once in ‘the money’ NOBODY behaves any differently than all who came before. Some are good, some are bad…and that is about all you can say definitively.