US: Kentucky (News/Activism)
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“Nobody” should go to jail for “smoking weed,” Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday, despite having prosecuted nearly 2,000 cases of marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale as California’s attorney general. Harris’s public flip-flop is likely due to the politics of a difficult reelection campaign in which the Biden-Harris ticket is losing to former President Donald Trump in 75 percent of 2024 swing states, polling shows. Harris condemned prosecuting those who smoke flowers while speaking at a roundtable event about cannabis reform with musician Fat Joe and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D).
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@elonmusk I would support Rand Paul and suspect that other candidates will not actually run polls out of concern for the results, but let’s see if they will
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Republicans in the Kentucky House are proposing a resolution that would create “a sanctuary state” for fossil fuel-powered generators. The resolution, which was assigned to a committee Wednesday, appears to be modeled after the concept of “sanctuary cities,” which are local jurisdictions that have agreed not to comply with federal immigration regulations. The resolution aims to exempt Kentucky from EPA regulations regarding coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. Permitting for such facilities would be done by the state, and Kentucky agencies would be prohibited from collecting fines or penalties for violations of federal regulations related to fossil fuel-fired power plants.
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Over the past decade, scientists working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have earned an estimated $400 million in royalties from third-party companies for medical treatments and innovations they've helped produce. The NIH often provides grants to these same companies and produces research on their products. Despite that, the agency has resisted disclosing how much its scientists are getting paid and by whom. A bill moving its way through Congress would change that. On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed the Royalty Transparency Act of 2024 by a 12–0 vote. The legislation would require that...
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More than a dozen senators — both Republican and Democratic — voted against a bill that would create partisan Kentucky Board of Education elections, but the measure ultimately passed the Senate Tuesday. In a vote of 24-14, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a bill that would transform the appointed board into an elected one. The legislation now goes to the House for consideration. The Senate’s seven Democrats were joined by Republican Sens. Jared Carpenter, David Givens, Jason Howell, Brandon Smith, Johnnie Turner, Whitney Westerfield and Phillip Wheeler in opposing Senate Bill 8. The bill’s sponsor, Senate Republican Whip Mike Wilson, of...
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Is it a coincidence that McConnell is stepping down as Senate minority leader? On Feb. 12, 50-year-old Angela Chao was found dead in her Tesla that was submerged in a pond on private property in Blanco County, Texas, according to the incident report from fire department EMS personnel. Ms. Chao was the sixth and youngest daughter of Chinese-American shipping magnate James Si-Cheng Chao, who founded the New York-headquartered Foremost Group in 1964. She had been CEO of the company since 2018 and was a founding member of The Asian American Foundation. On Feb. 28, 82-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell...
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The death of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s billionaire sister-in-law is being investigated as a crime weeks after her body was pulled from her submerged car in Texas. Angela Chao, 50, was found dead in her sinking vehicle in a pond on a ranch in Johnson City, near Austin, on Feb. 11. “Although the preliminary investigation indicated this was an unfortunate accident, the Sheriff’s Office is still investigating this accident as a criminal matter until they have sufficient evidence to rule out criminal activity,” the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Thursday letter to state Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to...
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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his support for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as the next Senate Republican leader. “Mitch McConnell, who has served in the Senate for almost 40 years, announced he’ll step down this November. Part of public service is about knowing when to usher in a new generation,” Kennedy said Wednesday in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, highlighted by Mediaite. “It’s time to promote leaders in Washington, DC who won’t kowtow to the military contractors or push us deeper into foreign conflicts,” Kennedy continued. “We need representation who will prioritize...
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<p>The veteran Republican Senate leader has become the last serious bulwark within the party against Trump populists’ animosity toward US international commitments, even as the increasingly frail McConnell’s influence has waned sharply in the last year.</p><p>McConnell has steered clear of Trump for years and on Sunday wouldn’t address the Republican presidential front-runner’s comments at a Saturday campaign rally that he’d encourage Russia to invade NATO members who hadn’t met defense-spending commitments.</p>
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Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday that he will step down as Republican leader in the Senate in November. McConnell, 82, revealed his plans in an address to the Senate, where he currently serves as minority leader. McConnell, who is the longest-serving Senate caucus leader in history, plans to keep his seat in the chamber, which he took in 1985. His current term ends in January 2027.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November.McConnell, who turned 82 last week, was set to announce his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, a place where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders.“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on...
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More than 30 workers with the Kentucky Department of Corrections were caught having sex with inmates behind bars during a 16-month period, while others were found smuggling drugs and guns. A shocking investigation by Herald-Leader revealed 59 cases of employee-on-inmate sexual offenses in the past five years, with 35 cases involving possible criminal charges. Most recently, 42-year-old Amanda Kulka was charged with third-degree sodomy earlier this month for allegedly having a sexual relationship with an inmate half her age. The inmate, who has not been identified, was serving a lengthy sentence for burglary, assault and theft, according to the outlet....
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Former Republican strategist Tara Setmayer was stunned by new reporting that former President Donald Trump's allies are pushing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for an endorsement of the former president, and that Trump expects McConnell will cave soon. This is in spite of the fact that the two of them have had an icy relationship since the Jan. 6 attack, with McConnell publicly condemning Trump's actions, and the former president repeatedly attacking McConnell and suggesting he would be forced out under Trump's second presidency. "I have to go back to the Mitch McConnell thing for a second," Setmayer told...
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Kentucky’s attorney general is investigating a health care company that wired $200,000 to James Biden the same day he wrote a check for that amount to his brother and future president Joe Biden. James Biden worked as a consultant for Americore Holdings LLC, a Florida-based hospital chain that later collapsed. Americore declared bankruptcy in Kentucky in 2022 under federal law amid reports of massive staff departures, poor patient care, and poor equipment at one of the hospitals in the state. It’s not clear whether the probe by the office of Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, extends to members...
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In early 2020, Mandi Fugate Sheffel, 42, opened a tiny bookstore in her hometown of Hazard, in eastern Kentucky. Everyone thought she was crazy. Downtown Hazard was a forbidding place to start any business, much less a bookstore. The coal mines that once supported the area had closed over the past few decades. Many brick buildings from Hazard’s heyday were gone, bequeathing a gap-toothed look to Main Street. The rest were empty or occupied by attorneys and bail bondsmen. What’s more, Fugate Sheffel couldn’t afford a website or employees. She had never run a business before. And she had a...
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Senate Republicans eager to ram Ukraine funding through the upper chamber are just as eager to dismiss their voters as dimwitted and “shortsighted.” “Our base cannot possibly know what’s at stake at the level that any well-briefed U.S. senator should know about what’s at stake if Putin wins,” said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, according to Punchbowl News Monday. Senate lawmakers spent the weekend advancing another $61 billion to Kyiv following last week’s embarrassing rejection of a bipartisan compromise bill that threatened to codify the invasion on the southern border. The more than $95 billion foreign spending package headed for...
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GOP Senators blocked a hidden migration bailout for the Democrats’ sanctuary cities and states when they voted against the border bill pushed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The GOP revolt leaves Democrat mayors and city politicians scrambling for funds they need to support and hide President Joe Biden’s growing population of poor migrants during the 2024 election year. “It’s a huge problem for the Democrats because the Biden administration was counting on being able to shovel all this money onto the state and local allies,” said Jessica Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, adding:
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Florida earned its reputation as the retirement capital of the US.. A fixed income in retirement can go a lot further in some states than others .. ... To make the most of your retirement savings, you should retire in a state where the cost of living and tax rates are friendly to retirees, if you have the resources to. You should also consider factors like the quality of the state's healthcare system and the abundance of activities that you enjoy.' Colorado, which ranked second for the best state to retire in 2024, offers similarly taxpayer-friendly conditions, with no estate...
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Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is quietly pressuring GOP Senators to promise their support for his border bill before it is released to the public for debate. Multiple media reports say the still-secret bill is largely complete. But its release has been delayed until McConnell can lock in at least 20 of the 49 GOP Senators, perhaps by making minor changes. The draft bill is also being reviewed by the Senate’s Committee on Appropriations because the Biden administration wants roughly $15 billion to operate its migration program in 2024. The money is needed by Democrats to process, transport, feed,...
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Sen. Rand Paul sits down with Tucker Carlson on X/Twitter about why he came out as "Never Nikki" in the 2024 election and his book advocating the protection of Dr. Anthony Fauci. SEN. RAND PAUL: It gets to me when I see people who I think care more about the borders of Ukraine than our own Southern border. And I see these people every day because they are the entire Democrat caucus up here, but they are half of my caucus. Half of my Republican caucus is, as we speak, ready to sell out, and they're ready to sell out...
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