RUTHFULLY YOURS

Tony Blair delivered a major speech on April 23 entitled, “Why the Middle East Matters”. In summary, he argued that the Middle East, far from being a “vast unfathomable mess” is deep in the throes of a multi-faceted struggle between a specific religious ideology on the one hand, and those who want to embrace the modern world on the other. Furthermore, the West, blinded up until now as to the religious nature of the conflict, must take sides: it should support those who stand on the side of open-minded pluralistic societies, and combat those who wish to create intolerant theocracies.In his speech Blair makes a whole series of substantial points:

He states that a ‘defining challenge of our time’ is a religious ideology which he calls ‘Islamist’, although he is not comfortable with this label because he prefers to distance himself from any implication that this ideology can be equated with Islam itself. He worries that “you can appear to elide those who support the Islamist ideology with all Muslims.”
He considers Islamism to be a global movement, whose diverse manifestations are produced by common ideological roots.
He rejects Western non-religious explanations for the problems caused by Islamist ideology, including the preference of “Western commentators” to attribute the manifestations of Islamism to “disparate” causes which have nothing to do with religion. Likewise he implies that the protracted conflict over Israel-Palestine is not the cause of this ideology, but rather the converse is the case: dealing with the wider impact of Islamist ideology could help solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
According to Blair, what distinguishes violent terrorists from seemingly non-violent Islamists – such as the Muslim Brotherhood – is simply “a difference of view as to how to achieve the goals of Islamism”, so attempts to draw a distinction between political Islamist movements and radical terrorist groups are mistaken. Blair considers that the religious ideology of certain groups like the Brotherhood, which may appear to be law-abiding, “inevitably creates the soil” in which religio-political violence is nurtured.
He considers “Islamism” to be a major threat everywhere in the world, including increasingly within Western nations. The “challenge” of Islamism is “growing” and “spreading across the world” and it is “the biggest threat to global security of the early 21st Century.”

Because of the seriousness of the threat of this religio-political ideology, Blair argues that the West should vigorously support just about anybody whose interests lie in opposing Islamists, from General Sisi in Egypt to President Putin in Russia. He finds it to be an absurd irony that Western governments form intimate alliances with nations whose educational and civic institutions promote this ideology: an obvious example of this would be the US – Saudi alliance.

Colonel Richard Kemp spent most of his 30-year career in the British Army fighting terrorism and insurgency, including in Iraq, the Balkans, South Asia, and Northern Ireland. He was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003. He was also involved in the direction of national policy at the highest level, working at the Joint Intelligence Committee and as a member of COBRA, the UK national crisis committee. He writes regularly for The Times and speaks worldwide on terrorism, international security and other issues.

There is the criminal failure of the international community, as both accomplice and accessory before the fact, to make any meaningful effort to prevent endless salvoes of terrorist rocket attacks against Israeli civilians for over nine years.

As we saw with the Iranian arms shipment aboard the Klos-C last month, Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism continues unabated — even as the international community is rehabilitating its extremist regime.

Three hundred and thirty two drone attacks against Al Qaida and Taliban targets on Pakistani territory since 2005 demonstrate U.S. President Barack Obama’s strong resolve against terrorists that threaten the United States. Only last week, the latest wave of air strikes launched or enabled by his government against Al Qaida networks in Yemen killed 55 suspected extremists, possibly including master bomb-maker Ibrahim al-Asiri.

Of course no one expects the U.S. to send drones in reply to the news that the Palestinian Authority [PA], upon which he has lavished billions of dollars and thousands of hours of diplomacy, was going into business with Hamas, which the United States has branded a terrorist organization.

But one could hope for something more forceful from Washington than State Department spokesman Jen Psaki’s weak and vacillating response in which she attempted to take the heat off Hamas and the PA by taking a gratuitous dig at Israel. “There have been unhelpful steps from both sides throughout this process,” she said.

If the US response was feeble, the EU’s was treacherous.

Never again. To Jews it means a refusal to give genocidal bigots another go at them. To Obama, it means refusing to ever again have to listen to an Israeli leader explain why his country cannot commit territorial suicide in order to appease a gang of genocidal bigots.

When the Jews who fought among the crumbling walls of the Warsaw Ghetto finally made it to Israel, they came just in time to load up their guns and fight once again for their people’s survival. The survivors of one genocidal ideology bent on making someone pay for its sense of humiliation came just in time to fight off another version of the same thing.

After 2000 years of running, an indigenous minority that had been kicked around by emperors and caliphs finally made its stand around a handful of farming towns and in alleyways lined by the golden stone of Jerusalem. Men and women who only a few years earlier hid in their homes from Muslim pogroms, covering their children’s ears at the cries of “Ibtach Al Yahood”, “Kill the Jews”, took up arms. They stood alongside the settlers who had drained the swamps, the refugees fleeing Muslim terror in Egypt and Syria and the remains of the original indigenous Jewish population which had survived the conquests of seven empires. They stood and fought for their lives against an ideology that said they had no right to be free because of their religion and the blood in their veins.

Like their Nazi allies, Muslim violence was driven by a need to reverse the humiliations of World War I which dismantled the Ottoman Empire and gave regional minorities like the Jews a chance at rebuilding their own independent countries. But going back to 1914 was only the beginning. Some wanted to go back to 1492 and the fall of Granada. Others in the Saudi desert were dreaming of a return to the 6th century. But what they all had in common was a refusal to tolerate an independent non-Muslim state in their midst.

And even though Allied troops were still within sight of the rubble, ruined tanks and barbed wire camps remaining behind from the last time that their countries had chosen to appease this sort of thing with a slice of Czechoslovakia, they still chose appeasement. Again.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/kentucky-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand

Filing Deadline (Major Parties): January 28, 2014
Primary: May 20, 2014

Voter Registration: http://elect.ky.gov/registertovote/Pages/default.aspx

Deadline for Registering to Vote: The deadline to register to vote for the General Election is October 6, 2014.

To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. Senate

Rand Paul (R) Next election 2016

Mitch McConnell (R) Incumbent

http://www.teammitch.com/ http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/mitch_mcconnell.htm **

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE

“Kentuckians, and the countless Americans suffering under Obamacare, need real solutions.
“Not gimmicks. Not base-pleasing ideology.
“Solutions.”Look: Washington Democrats forced America’s Middle Class into this impossible situation. They basically blocked every reasonable attempt to reform this law – or to change it in any meaningful way. Yet now that Obamacare’s become politically difficult for them, they’re deflecting blame. Just this morning, we saw several imperiled Obamacare Democrats pen an op-ed that underscores the point. But Americans won’t be fooled.

Mar 26 2014 – McConnell: Waivers Make Obamacare Individual Mandate ‘Legal Equivalent of Swiss Cheese’ ‘And there’s a broader point here: If Washington Democrats think Obamacare is so bad that they need to exempt that many people from its mandates, then why shouldn’t we just remove that hardship for everyone? Doesn’t the Middle Class deserve a break too?’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor calling on Washington Democrats to eliminate job-destroying Obamacare mandates and focus instead on job-creating legislation:

ENERGY Find More. Use Less. We need to find more American energy, and use less. This means developing more of America’s own energy resources, including wind, solar, clean coal, biofuels, nuclear energy, as well as oil and natural gas — which will reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and create thousands of jobs here at home. A balanced energy policy which both finds more, and uses less will strengthen our economy, protect our environment, and enhance our national security.

Coal especially is a vital part of Kentucky’s economy and history. With over half of our nation’s electricity coming from coal, this industry must remain a key component of our nation’s energy strategy. Preserving our environment is an important responsibility, and we must do so in a sensible manner that does not harm our economy or raise prices on working families.

February 03, 2014 – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called on President Obama Monday to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

“The president needs to step up and lead,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Is President Obama on the side of the middle class, or is he on the side of left-wing special interests?”

McConnell’s comments came after a State Department report was released Friday. The report said the pipeline wouldn’t do significant harm to the environment, though environmentalists disagree.

“Here’s a project that essentially wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a dime to build, that would have almost no net environmental effect, and that would put thousands of Americans to work right away,” McConnell said. “Yet, the President has delayed and delayed for more than five years now. Not because the project really needs to be studied further, but because of pressure from the most doctrinaire fringe of the doctrinaire left.”
Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) Challenger

http://alisonforkentucky.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ENERGY Developing Kentucky’s energy will provide financial security to families across the state. Kentucky is leading the way in domestic energy development and the industry holds tremendous potential to grow our economy, create middle-class jobs and lower energy costs for families across the state. But Washington’s regulatory barriers and burdensome taxes threaten this critical development in Kentucky.

I strongly oppose President Obama’s attack on Kentucky’s energy industry. This Administration has taken direct aim at Kentucky’s coal industry, crippling our state’s largest source of domestic energy and threatening thousands of jobs. Washington Democrats and Republicans need to be realistic about what powers our nation and recognize that developing Kentucky’s supplies of coal is crucial.

We must secure America’s energy independence and reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Our nation’s energy approach should rely heavily on coal, oil and natural gas, along with alternative sources of energy. Kentucky will lead this effort through continued coal production and exploration and development of natural gas. While our nation is running a $45 billion trade deficit, Kentucky’s natural resources remain underdeveloped. In 2011, Kentucky contributed 7 percent of the nation’s total coal exports, but we can do more to develop these and other resources and reduce our trade deficit.

JOBS We must cut red tape and allow businesses to grow and create new jobs. As Secretary of State, I worked with both parties to create a one-stop shop for Kentucky businesses to interact with multiple state agencies through one point of contact, reducing tape and making it easier for business to grow and create more jobs. There are currently 854 federal regulations affecting small businesses.[32] We must reduce this regulatory burden. Our federal government shouldn’t prevent small businesses from succeeding and creating jobs in Kentucky.

We must target burdensome federal regulation of Kentucky’s energy sector, allowing our state to create new middle-class jobs across the state. Kentucky is leading the way in domestic energy development and the industry holds tremendous potential to grow Kentucky’s economy, creating middle-class jobs across the state, but the federal government stands in the way. I will fight to reduce this regulatory burden on Kentucky’s energy industry.

SPENDING AND THE BUDGET I believe that there is a responsible path to balancing the budget. We need to start by going line-by-line through the budget to cut waste, fraud and abuse and we must ensure that tax dollars are being used smartly and efficiently. Nearly 680 renewable energy initiatives across 23 federal agencies and their 130 sub-agencies costing taxpayers $15 billion is certainly not an efficient use of taxpayer dollars. [34] I also believe that we can make our Medicare and Medicaid programs more efficient without slashing coverage. Medicare spending is unsustainable. But rather than pushing for privatization, or vouchers, or shifting costs to seniors – supported by Mitch McConnell – we should be looking for ways to spend smarter on our entire health care system. And to ensure our country never goes into debt again, I will fight in the U.S. Senate to pass a balanced budget amendment.

District 1
Ed Whitfield (R) Incumbent

http://www.whitfieldforcongress.com/ http://whitfield.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/ed_whitfield.htm **

Rated -2 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ENERGY One of the best ways to spur economic growth and create new jobs is by investing in new energy technologies. Kentucky has long been an energy leader and I have worked to enact policies which utilize resources we have right in our own backyard, including coal, while lowering costs for consumers.

Coal continues to be one of the Commonwealth’s most abundant natural resources. Kentucky generates 92% of its electricity from coal and the industry directly employs more than 17,000 people across the state. Eliminating coal from our nation’s energy portfolio is simply not an option and I will continue to do all that I can to ensure our ability to use this valuable Kentucky resource.

In addition to coal, western Kentucky also harnesses nuclear technologies. The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant is the government’s only uranium enrichment plant and has helped provide for our nation’s energy and defense needs for the past fifty years. The enriched uranium fuel from the Paducah Plant helps power our nation’s commercial nuclear power plants. I have introduced legislation that could help keep the plant in Paducah open and running past its expected closure date. This could help keep Kentuckians working, and also provide for the sale of waste materials that could yield the government billions of dollars in revenue.

Supports construction of the Keystone Pipeline without limiting amendments.

HEALTHCARE Last year, Congress passed President Obama’s controversial healthcare reform legislation. I opposed this new law for a number of reasons and support repealing many of its provisions. My main concerns about this legislation were over the impact the bill will have on the quality and cost of care Kentuckians receive; how it will affect small businesses owners already hard-hit in the midst of the economic recession; the impact this package will have on the national debt; the cuts to Medicare services; and the negative impact it will have on consumer choice. As a Member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, I worked hard to make improvements to the bill as it made its way through Congress and introduced “10 Steps to a Healthier America,” a package of proposals which would have increased access to quality healthcare and services while lowering costs for all Americans. Moving forward, I have co-sponsored legislation to repeal the healthcare law and am working to find ways to improve the new policy.

IMMIGRATION Illegal immigration has become one of the greatest challenges facing our nation. With an estimated 11 million undocumented individuals currently living in the United States, and thousands more crossing the border unlawfully every week, there is little doubt that current efforts to curb illegal immigration are simply not working.

I am committed to cracking down on illegal immigration and securing our borders. This is a national problem that must be addressed on a federal level. The U.S. needs to not only better enforce its current immigration laws, but update them to address the ever-changing threats to the nation’s borders, security and economy. I have long been a supporter of immigration reform and am a cosponsor of the SAVE Act, which is a common sense plan to drastically curb illegal immigration in America by emphasizing border security, employer verification and interior enforcement
Charles Hatchett (D) Challenger

http://www.hatchettforcongress.net/

District 2

Brett Guthrie (R)Incumbent

http://www.brettguthrie.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Brett_Guthrie.htm**

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ECONOMY AND JOBS Voted for real cuts in federal spending. In fact, Brett voted to cut $95 billion in one year. Brett strongly believes we must restrain spending, improve government efficiency, and reduce burdensome regulations to jump-start the American economy. Strongly supports balancing the federal budget. Brett voted for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (H J Res 2, 11/18/11, Roll Call 858), and he voted for the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan (HR 2560, 7/19/11, Roll Call 606). –

HEALTHCARE Voted to repeal Obamacare (HR 2, 1/19/11, Roll Call 14) and participated in important hearings that exposed the problems with the Obama administration’s interpretation and execution of the law. Strongly supports legislation to repeal a specific provision of Obamacare that could lead to limitations of care based on a patient’s age or expected outcome, a veiled attempt at interfering with doctor/patient decisions on coverage that is highly objectionable.

ENERGY AND REGULATIONS Strongly supports development of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which could lead to the creation of 20,000 American jobs and a new supply of energy from a friendly country. President Obama killed the pipeline’s permit over the objections of Cong. Guthrie and his colleagues in the House Republican Conference.

Voted to reign in out-of-control federal regulations that stop small business owners from creating jobs. The REINS Act (H.R. 10, 12/7/11, Roll Call 901) is a strong signal that House Republicans want to get the government off the backs of America’s job creators. Getting the government out of the way and creating certainty in the regulatory environment would help small businesses create jobs.

Opposes the Obama Administration’s “War on Coal.” Brett voted to address excessive regulations at Pres. Obama’s EPA (HR 910, 4/7/11, Roll Call 249; HR 2401, 9/23/11, Roll Call 741; HR 2681, 10/6/11, Roll Call 764; HR 2273, 10/14/11, Roll Call 800; HR 2250, 10/23/11, Roll Call 791; HR 1633, 12/8/11, Roll Call 912). Brett strongly opposes the Obama EPA’s “War on Coal,” which is stifling job creation in Kentucky and will drive up energy prices for small businesses and working families.

Ron Leach (D) Challenger

http://www.ronleach4ky.com/ http://www.ronleach4ky.com/the-issues/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

Build an Economy that works for ALL of US
Honor our Commitments to our Veterans
Real and Sustainable National Security
Protect and Strengthen Social Security and Medicare
Advocate for Family Farms and our Rural Kentucky communities
Defend AMERICAN WORKERS and Revitalize our Middle Class

District 3
John Yarmuth (D) Incumbent

http://www.yarmuthforcongress.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/House/john_yarmuth.htm **

http://yarmuth.house.gov/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE Congressman Yarmuth believes that, as a nation, we have a moral obligation to ensure every citizen has access to quality, affordable health care. That is why he helped craft and enact the Affordable Care Act, which lowers costs, strengthens care, and guarantees at least 30 million more Americans access to quality, affordable coverage while creating nearly 6 million new jobs in the health care sector.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, thousands of young adults in Louisville are now have health insurance through their parents’ plans, and tens of thousands of Louisville children can no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Seniors are paying hundreds of dollars less for prescription drugs, and are receiving new preventive services through Medicare at no additional cost to them. Louisville adults are now offered free health screenings through their insurance, and families will no longer face the threat of coverage limits, or losing their insurance when someone gets sick.

ENERGY Supports construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline with no limiting amendments.

Congressman Yarmuth has called for a more balanced energy policy that maximizes our domestic energy resources – especially clean and renewable energy sources – and promotes conservation. For the sake of our national security, he believes we cannot afford to rely on foreign sources of energy, and for the sake of our environment, we cannot afford to rely solely on resources that contribute to global warming.

He has supported legislation that is making historic investments in new energy-efficient technologies, reducing emissions, and moving our nation toward a greater state of energy independence. This legislation provided Ford with a $5.9 billion loan to retool its Louisville plants, hire hundreds of workers, and build fuel-efficient cars and trucks.
He also helped enact legislation that provides manufacturers with tax credits for energy-efficient appliances, leading GE to bring product lines back to Appliance Park from Mexico and China and resulting in more than 1,000 new Louisville jobs.
Michael Macfarlane M.D. (R) Challenger

http://www.macfarlane2014.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE Every American wants access to affordable high-quality healthcare. Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is the wrong solution. It is anything but affordable and will diminish quality and personal control over healthcare decisions.

Americans recognize that Obamacare is the wrong prescription for America, as they have shown in poll after poll. But the federal government has gone ahead with it anyway. I stand with the American people. More freedom, more personal choice, and more free-market principles are what American healthcare needs, not more government control and bureaucracy. Make health insurance policies private, personal, portable and fully tax deductible. All of the dire predictions about Obamacare are now coming true as the implementation of the law proceeds.

As your congressman, I will fight to repeal Obamacare and to minimize the federal government’s role in healthcare.

IMMIGRATION Americans welcome people who wish to become Americans and obey our laws. After all, we are a nation of immigrants.

But immigration must be rational and lawful; just as we are a nation of immigrants, so are we a nation of laws. Therefore, we must secure our borders and enforce the laws already on the books. After-and only after-we have accomplished that, we must find a humane and fair way to address those who are already here illegally. If elected, this is the approach I will take as your congressman.

ENERGY AND REGULATIONS Everyone consumes energy every day; it is an input to all of our homes and businesses. So when energy costs rise, the cost of virtually everything we do and buy goes up, too.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has run wild under the Obama administration, imposing enormously costly restrictions on energy production of all kinds and artificially driving up the cost of energy. The Obama administrations senseless opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline will not stop the pipeline but only hurt the U.S.

Coal is a major employer in Kentucky and supplies 90% of our electric energy. High electricity costs will be detrimental to businesses like Ford, UPS and GE that employ thousands of Louisvillians. Higher electric bills will effect every Kentuckian, particularly the poor and middle class. John Yarmuth supports the administrations war on coal. He has voted against limiting the EPA from its regulatory cap and trade agenda.

With new technology we can responsibly utilize our resources without harming the air we breathe and the water we drink. However, we must raise the environmental standards in a responsible and realistic fashion that will not destroy an industry so important for our entire state. We all want a clean environment.

TAXES The best kind of tax is low, flat, and fair. That’s not what we have today at the federal level; rather, we have an enormously complex, nearly incomprehensible tax system that penalizes hard work that results in success. I will work as your congressman to build a federal tax system that encourages hard work and lets Americans enjoy the fruits of their labor.

TERM LIMITS I support term limits on members of Congress and Senators, just as we have for the President. Washington has become a city of special interests and lobbyists working to influence a wealthy professional political class.

John Yarmuth has been in Congress for 8 years, equivalent to the limits on the presidency. It is time to bring Mr. Yarmuth home, to stay.

District 4

Thomas Massie (R) Incumbent

http://www.thomasmassie.com/ http://massie.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Thomas_Massie.htm**

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE There exists no constitutional authority for the federal government to impose a mandatory health care plan. I will therefore fight to repeal Obamacare. Healthcare is a personal issue and belongs in the private sector. The most efficient path to lower-cost, high quality healthcare is to open the healthcare industry to free-market forces. Insurance should be available across state lines. Healthcare providers should be able to expand service offerings without gaining permission from government regulators. Healthcare consumers should have a full range of options including Health Savings Accounts and the ability to buy unbundled insurance services.

As an inventor and associate of inventors of medical devices, I understand that the FDA is a bottleneck to innovation. American ingenuity in healthcare has improved and extended lives over the past 50 years, but the onerous FDA approval process threatens to extinguish the innovation and investment in one of our most prolific industries. Our business unfriendly tax code is also pushing healthcare innovation overseas.

TAX REFORM Taxes are too high and too complicated. My wife and I have three engineering degrees from MIT and we can’t do our own taxes! As the founder of a company, I understand how the tax code throttles the development of new businesses. Our tax system needs to promote economic growth, not punish it. I will support legislation to achieve a simpler, flatter, fairer tax code that is helpful, not harmful, to domestic job creation and economic recovery.

ENERGY With dual engineering degrees from MIT in the fields of Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, I am keenly aware of the practical issues involved in energy production. In fact, I designed and built my own house which generates all of its own power using a combination of solar, geothermal, propane, and wood.

Energy independence should be a top priority for America. Achieving domestic energy independence will strengthen our national security by reducing our dependence on hostile nations. Artificially limiting our energy exploration and production through law and regulation threatens our quality of life and could mortally wound our economy. America, and Kentucky in particular, has abundant natural recourses including coal, oil, natural gas, shale, nuclear, solar, wind, and geothermal. I will support all domestic sources of energy as long as they can compete in the free market without subsidies.

Supports construction of Keystone XL Pipeline with no limiting amendments.
Peter Newberry (D) Challenger

No website; Press release: Democrat Peter Newberry Challenges Massie…From The Right – The headline says that Thomas Massie’s democratic challenger thinks Massie isn’t conservative enough. Peter Newberry, small business owner, lawyer and farmer, admits that Massie will raise more money than he will, but he also points out that Massie isn’t keeping true to his pseudo-conservative image.

“A lot of the things the tea party stands for, I believe in also,” Newberry said. “Some of the tea party people that get elected to office become like the people they vow to replace and change. Once in power, they stay in power.”

When asked why he’s running, Newberry said he didn’t feel the tea party candidates have gone far enough to eliminate government waste.

Newberry said he doesn’t plan on raising much money for his campaign and expects Massie to out-raise him “100 to one.” As of Dec. 31, Massie has raised $353,000 for his re-election, according to the filings with Federal Election Commission.

“What’s corrupting government are re-election campaigns,” Newberry said. “It costs millions and millions of dollars. Where do the candidates get that money? It’s special interest money.”

Peter Newberry is running as a Democrat for Congress in Northern Kentucky, but his platform doesn’t sound like the average Democrat’s.

The Newport coffee shop owner, lawyer, and farmer says he’s a fiscal conservative who hates government regulations and thinks there are too many laws.[Kentucky Enquirer]

A recent survey of Congress by the National Journal ranked Massie as at position 233 out of 435 on the conservative scale.

District 5

Harold “Hal” Rogers (R) Incumbent

Rated -2 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

http://halrogers.house.gov/ http://www.ontheissues.org/house/hal_rogers.htm **

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ENERGY Supports construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments.

Energy costs represent the top line on almost every family budget, and I have long supported “all of the above” energy policies to ensure that electricity costs remain as low as possible for hard-working families and seniors. Making our country energy independent will require policies that increase the supply of American-made energy today while investing in technologies to provide a stable, long-term source of affordable and environmentally-friendly energy.

Unfortunately, policies adopted by the current Administration threaten this vital economic engine that has provided inexpensive domestic energy and good, secure employment to generations of Americans. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has become the poster child for this Administration’s widespread regulatory overreach and is as a result putting mining, manufacturing, and farming families out of work at a time when some Kentucky counties have 18% unemployment. With the continued economic slowdown, these regulations that threaten investment and jobs while increasing electricity and gas prices cannot be justified. When the economy is facing greater uncertainty than any time since the Great Depression, enacted and proposed government rules on everything from boilers to farm dust to light bulbs only exacerbate matters for businesses and consumers.

For these reasons, I am proud to be a strong voice in Congress in opposition to the EPA’s anti-coal power grab and job-killing regulations. Most notably, the work of the House Appropriations Committee, which I chair, sends a strong message that the EPA’s “legislation by regulation” faces strong bi-partisan opposition. In addition, the House of Representatives has considered a whole host of bills to rein in the EPA and create a climate where businesses can put the American people back to work. I will continue to fight alongside Kentucky coal miners, farmers, and manufacturers for their jobs and livelihoods, and for our nation’s energy security. It is a fight we cannot afford to lose.

HELTHCARE I have also worked to provide seniors with a voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit. In 2003, I supported the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act, which provides much needed prescription assistance to seniors across the country. Key improvements of the reform include a universally available prescription drug benefit and low-income assistance to help our neediest senior citizens.

Today, one of the greatest challenges we face in health care policy comes from the so called “health care reform” contained in the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. This law was passed in 2010 under the guise of lowering health care costs, but it has only proven to create more regulations, taxes, and fees, which in turn have driven up premiums and made health care cost even more. This has placed a terrible strain on working families seeking care, on doctors treating patients, and on states which are forced to foot the bill for much of the cost. Additionally, this law could cost federal taxpayers a trillion dollars in the next decade. Just about everyone agrees that health care costs have risen faster than expected in recent years, and this has made it harder for people, especially in southern and eastern Kentucky, to pay for quality care. That is why I am committed to repealing the ObamaCare law and replacing it with commonsense reforms that address the high costs of care, including tort reform and greater competition in the insurance marketplace. Most of all, I am committed to ensuring that people in our region have access to quality affordable health care.
Ken Stepp (D) Challenger

http://www.steppforcongress.blogspot.com/

District 6

Andy Barr (R) Incumbent

http://andybarrforcongress.com/ http://barr.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Andy_Barr.htm**

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

REINING IN REGULATIONS As I talk to folks across central and eastern Kentucky, I am constantly reminded of the negative impact government overreach has on economic innovation. That’s why since arriving in Congress, I have fought to create a more business friendly environment that encourages job creation and economic recovery.

However, President Obama and Washington liberals have inundated Kentucky’s job creators with unnecessary, burdensome regulations.

One of the first bills I cosponsored is the REINS Act. This piece of legislation requires congressional approval of any proposed regulation with an economic impact of $100 million or more. In addition, it requires a cost-benefit analysis, describing how a proposed regulation would affect jobs.

Washington liberals oppose the REINS Act because it would take away their ability to legislate through regulation by taking the power away from unaccountable, unelected Washington bureaucrats. I will continue fighting for this legislation because it will provide much needed accountability to Washington and it will protect many jobs in the process.

Protecting Kentuckians from Government Overreach

The Valley View Ferry has served the citizens of central Kentucky since 1785. But in recent years federal overreach has caused this ferry service to reduce its hours of operation and face the possibility of closing for good, all because the federal government decided to meddle in local affairs about which they have no understanding.

I introduced legislation, H.R. 2570, The Valley View Ferry Preservation Act of 2013 to save the Valley View Ferry by removing unnecessary regulations from unaccountable federal regulators and returning this power to the state. Not only is this essential to preserve the existence of this ferry, but also important to many small businesses and to the more than 200 cars that are transported by the Valley View Ferry every day.

Perhaps no federal government overreach has been more egregious than the Consumer Protection Bureau’s decision that Bath County, Kentucky is not a rural county. The result of this blatant disregard of reality has resulted in burdensome regulations being placed on community banks, making it more difficult for individuals and businesses to access capital. This has an extreme trickle-down effect, costing jobs and tax revenue.

ENERGY AND THE EPA Supports construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments. We have a responsibility to take full advantage of the resources at our disposal to provide cost-efficient energy rates while also working to make the United States energy independent.

However, President Obama has waged a War on Coal since his first day in office. His Environmental Protection Agency has focused on destroying the coal industry, causing thousands of Kentuckians to lose their jobs.

I will continue to fight the EPA’s efforts to ban coal mining in Eastern Kentucky and throughout Appalachia, as well as the regulatory assault that threatens the use of coal-fired electricity throughout this country, which are killing jobs and driving up electric rates.

President Obama and the EPA’s ruinous policies are bad for the coalfields, bad for hardworking families, and bad for our economy.

When the EPA attempted to label coal ash as hazardous waste, I cosponsored H.R. 2218, The Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act of 2013, a measure that blocks the EPA from slamming the coal industry when this unfounded regulation which would put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk and drive up electricity and construction costs.

And when the EPA proposed coal industry crippling New Source Performance Standards as part of President Obama’s supposed “Climate Action Plan,” I immediately took action and co-sponsored H.R. 3140, the Ensure Reliable and Affordable American Energy Act, legislation to block the implementation of these job-killing and costly rules.

Furthermore, I am fighting the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers efforts to deadlock the coal permitting process by cosponsoring H.R. 1828, the Coal Jobs Protection Act. This legislation would put a time limit on consideration of these permits.

Additionally, to defend our coal miners’ right to work to support their families, I cosponsored H.R. 2918, the Coal Healthcare and Pensions Protection Act, to ensure that promises of healthcare and retirement benefits made to our nation’s coal miners are kept.

I have repeatedly called on President Obama to stop his assault on the coal industry. And as long as I am in Congress, I will use my voice to protect this industry that is so critical to maintaining Kentucky jobs and preserving some of the lowest utility rates in the nation.

HEALTHCARE Obamacare is the most blatant example of federal overreach in modern history. The federal government is intervening in the most personal areas of life, healthcare. It is simply unacceptable to allow unelected bureaucrats to come between you and your doctor. And it is equally unacceptable for the federal government to require you to choose between purchasing health insurance or paying a fine for failing to do so. I have voted for the full repeal of this law and will continue doing everything within my power to push-back against this massive federal overreach and seek common sense healthcare reforms that allow you to remain in charge of your healthcare.

President Obama believes the government should be in charge of your healthcare, and we are now bearing witness to the results of his flawed ideology. Obamacare has caused 280,000 Kentuckians to lose the healthcare coverage they had and liked, despite the President’s repeated promise that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”

I am disappointed that Obamacare has made policies more expensive and drastically increased deductibles – exactly the opposite result of what President Obama promised.

Small businesses throughout the Sixth District have been forced to lay off employees in order to remain open. Employees who once had full-time jobs with complete benefits are being cut to part-time positions with no benefits, simply because of the skyrocketing costs brought on by Obamacare.

COMMON SENSE REFORMS I have been fighting for common sense health care reforms that will increase coverage and affordability. The only way to effectively represent the people of the Sixth District is to listen to their points of view, which is why I brought Congress to the Bluegrass and held a congressional field hearing focused on healthcare challenges in Kentucky. This allowed several Kentucky employers and employees the opportunity to inform Members of Congress about how Obamacare is negatively impacting them and share their thoughts on common sense reforms that can be implemented to reform America’s healthcare system.

While the disastrous rollout and implementation of Obamacare continues, so do my efforts to repeal and replace it with policies centered around affordability and accessibility. I have voted for full repeal of Obamacare and I will not stop my fight until Kentuckians are granted relief from Obamacare’s job killing, price increasing policies.

SOME OF THE REFORMS I SUPPORT We must allow interstate competition among health insurers in all fifty states. This will increase choice and drive down cost. We must enact medical liability reform in order to prevent defensive medicine, lower health care costs, and save as much as $54 billion over the next decade. We must expand Association Health Plans to allow small businesses and the self-insured to band together to purchase coverage on a more affordable basis. And we must promote consumerism through tax free Health Savings Accounts that will reconnect the health care consumer to the cost of health care services.
Elisabeth Jensen (D) Challenger

http://www.elisabethforkentucky.com/

The most egregious case of fecklessness has been on Syria. Doubts about American dependability were raised far and wide.

American foreign policy is in troubling disarray. The result is unwelcome news for the world, which largely depends upon the United States to promote order in the absence of any other country able and willing to do so. And it is bad for the U.S., which cannot insulate itself from the world.

The concept that should inform American foreign policy is one that the Obama administration proposed in its first term: the pivot or rebalancing toward Asia, with decreasing emphasis on the Middle East. What has been missing is the commitment and discipline to implement this change in policy. President Obama’s four-country Asian tour in recent days was a start, but it hardly made up for years of paying little heed to his own professed foreign-policy goals.

This judgment may appear odd—at first glance the Obama administration does seem to have been moving away from the Middle East. U.S. combat forces are no longer in Iraq, and the number of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan (now below 40,000) will soon be 10,000 or fewer. Yet the administration continues to articulate ambitious political goals in the region. The default U.S. policy option in the Middle East seems to be regime change, consisting of repeated calls for authoritarian leaders to leave power. First it was Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, then Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, followed by Bashar Assad in Syria.

Yet history shows that ousting leaders can be difficult, and even when it is not, it can be extremely hard to bring about a stable, alternative authority that is better for American preferences. The result is that the U.S. often finds itself with an uncomfortable choice: Either it must back off its declared goals, which makes America look weak and encourages widespread defiance, or it has to make good on its aims, which requires enormous investments in blood, treasure and time.

The Obama administration has largely opted for the former, i.e., feckless approach. The most egregious case is Syria, where the president and others declared that “Assad must go” only to do little to bring about his departure. Military support of opposition elements judged to be acceptable has been minimal. Worse, President Obama avoided using force in the wake of clear chemical-weapons use by the Syrian government, a decision that raised doubts far and wide about American dependability and damaged what little confidence and potential the non-jihadist opposition possessed. It is only a matter of time before the U.S. will likely have to swallow the bitter pill of tolerating Assad while supporting acceptable opposition elements against the jihadists.

Everyone who has followed this story has always suspected that blaming the YouTube video was a political ploy. It was obvious, actually, just as it remains obvious why Hillary Clinton did everything she possibly could to keep any notion of accountability for her own decisions at arm’s length. That’s political, too. She has a crown to run for in 2016. It won’t do to have her negligence that resulted in four dead Americans become a speedbump on her path to power. Why let a little thing like incompetence stand in the way of ambition?

Emails sent by senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes to other top administration officials reveal an effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans.

Rhodes sent this email to top White House officials such as David Plouffe and Jay Carney just a day before National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her infamous Sunday news show appearances to discuss the attack.

The “goal,” according to these emails, was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”

The “goal,” therefore, was to lie convincingly enough to get the president re-elected. It takes a special coldness to tell that lie with the bodies of the dead in coffins behind you. Hillary Clinton managed that without a trace of a conscience to slow her down.

Rice came under fierce criticism following her appearances on television after she adhered to these talking points and blamed the attack on a little-watched Internet video.

The newly released internal White House e-mails show that Rice’s orders came from top Obama administration communications officials.

I didn’t know how right I was when I wrote on September 29, 2012 “Benghazi Worse then Watergate [1].”

With the release of new emails it is spectacularly worse — so bad in fact that it has made a full investigation with an impeachment trial necessary for the protection of our republic.

From the Washington Free Beacon [2]:

Previously unreleased internal Obama administration emails show that a coordinated effort was made in the days following the Benghazi terror attacks to portray the incident as “rooted in [an] Internet video, and not [in] a broader failure or policy.”

Emails [3] sent by senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes to other top administration officials reveal an effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans.

Rhodes sent this email to top White House officials such as David Plouffe and Jay Carney just a day before National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her infamous Sunday news show appearances to discuss the attack.

The “goal,” according to these emails, was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”

The levels of criminality involved in this are mind-boggling. Everyone from Ben Rhodes to Hillary Clinton to Jay Carney to Susan Rice to Mike Morell to Barack Obama and on and on must explain themselves minute-by-minute. American “liberals” and their media consorts should search their souls. People died here.

No amount of evidence will convince liberals that they were wrong. Evidence abounds, to be sure: Appeasement invites aggression. Handouts increase dependency. Coddling terror-states like Iran elicits megalomania. Big government stifles the economy. They don’t care. Really.

John Kerry romanced Basher Assad and Vanity Fair published a fawning profile of the Assad family, while the Obama administration secretly courted Iran. As a result we have in Syria the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the Arab world in modern times. Algeria racked up more casualties during the independence war of 1954-1962 and the civil war of 1991-2002, to be sure, but the casualties are coming faster in Syria and the displacement of immiserated civilians is greater. Do you hear liberals wringing their hands and asking, “Where did we go wrong?” They don’t, and they won’t. Ditto the disaster in Libya, which is turning into a Petri dish for terrorists post-Qaddafi. It doesn’t matter. Being in love with yourself means never having to say you’re sorry.

In the one part of the Middle East where nothing bad is happening or likely to happen–namely Israel–liberals are in full-tilt panic, with John Kerry warning that Israel will turn into an apartheid state. It’s not just Kerry, who is a national embarrassment, but the whole liberal world that thinks this way. In reality, Israel’s booming economy is enriching Israeli as well as Palestinian Arabs, to the extent that the kleptocratic Palestinian Authority lets them do business. There is no urgency at all to Israel’s situation–not, at least, where the Palestinians are concerned. Iran is another story.

Why don’t liberals seem to notice the catastrophic consequences of their policies, and why to they imagine imminent horrors where none exist? If you corner a liberal and point to a disaster that followed upon his policy, at very most he will say–with a tear in the eye and a quivering upper lip–”We did the right thing.”

The pristine natural world has been gone for a long time; get used to it.

Nearly all of the earthworms in New England and the upper Midwest were inadvertently imported from Europe. The American earthworms were wiped out by the last Ice Age. That’s why when European colonists first got here, many forest floors were covered in deep drifts of wet leaves. The wild horses of the American West may be no less invasive than the Asian carp advancing on the Great Lakes. Most species of the tumbleweed, icon of the Old West, are actually from Russia or Asia.

The notion that America was “wild” when Europeans found it is more than a little racist; it assumes that Indians didn’t act like humans everywhere else did by changing their environment. Native Americans weren’t Ur-hippies taking only photos — or I guess drawings — and leaving only footprints. They cultivated plants, cleared forests with extensive burning to boost the population of desired animals, and otherwise altered the landscape in ways that may have seemed natural to newcomers but were nonetheless profound. As biologist Charles Kay observes, “Native Americans were the ultimate keystone species, and their removal has completely altered ecosystems . . . throughout North America.”

Kay goes on to note that when we set aside a “wilderness” and then let “nature take its course,” we aren’t preserving “some remnant of the past.” We are instead creating “conditions that have not existed for the last 10,000 years.”

And even then, these supposedly wild places aren’t truly wild. That’s because to the extent they are preserved in their seemingly natural state, it is by humanity’s will. Also, the remaining wild animals in those places are often the ones we decided should live or didn’t accidentally kill. And the plants and animals that ate — or were eaten by — those creatures have never been the same. Without humans, the evolution of dogs, cows, pigs, and chickens wouldn’t have proceeded the way it has.

The wild environment isn’t just about trees and bears and other forms of charismatic mega flora and fauna. I heard Bill Gates on NPR the other day talking about the great strides his foundation has made against malaria and how we may be on the brink of actually eradicating polio forever. Diseases play a huge part of any natural ecosystem, and we’ve been trying to drive them to extinction for centuries.

In other words, we pick and choose all the time what should be “wild” and what shouldn’t.

With Europeans intrigued by America’s unexpected success, Alexis de Tocqueville carried out an in-depth study of the new nation in the 1830s. He was quite impressed with our divided government, which featured the separation of powers.

This structure made it difficult for any one branch — executive, judicial, or legislative — to acquire too much power and run roughshod over the other branches and the will of the American people. Unfortunately, today we are witnessing a largely unchecked executive branch issuing decrees that circumvent Congress while facing only tepid resistance.

In civilian life, when a contract is entered into by two parties, and it is subsequently discovered that one side knowingly presented false promises in order to consummate the deal, a legitimate lawsuit can be initiated on the basis of fraud. The Affordable Care Act is a prime example of such a contract, in the form of a bill that never would have been passed if it had been revealed that millions of people would lose the health insurance with which they were satisfied and that they might not be able to keep their doctors (after being promised they would be able to do so).

Nevertheless, this massive case of fraud has not been legally challenged by the legislative branch, leaving one to wonder why.

We hear a great deal about “Chicago-style politics.” It is nothing more than a euphemism for political corruption, including bullying, blackmail, and bribery. These pressures can be just as easily applied to national political figures as to local politicians.

Courage can be quite difficult to find when the threat of exposure hangs over one’s head. In an age when Big Brother is capable of watching everything we do, it is not hard to imagine a scenario in which large numbers of public servants are silenced or subdued by secretive threats.

I have had an opportunity to witness firsthand how the blackmail threat operates. Several years ago, while I was in the operating room, I received a call from one of the legal offices at Johns Hopkins University informing me that the state of Florida was trying to attach my wages for child support.