#Beshear

[rapeculturerealities]

Kentucky governor vetoes sweeping GOP transgender measure

Kentucky’s Democratic governor issued an election-year veto Friday of a sweeping Republican bill aimed at regulating the lives of transgender youths that includes banning access to gender-affirming health care and restricting the bathrooms they can use.

The bill also bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools and allows teachers to refuse to refer to transgender students by the pronouns they use. It easily passed the GOP-dominated legislature with veto-proof margins, and lawmakers will reconvene next week for the final two days of this year’s session, when they could vote to override the veto.

Gov. Andy Beshear said in a written veto message that the bill allows “too much government interference in personal healthcare issues and rips away the freedom of parents to make medical decisions for their children.”

In his one-page message, he warned that the bill’s repercussions would include an increase in youth suicides. The governor said, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God and Senate Bill 150 will endanger the children of Kentucky.”

[rickmaynard]

11-10-23: Georgetown News-Graphic cartoon.

[captainarchmage]

Why CaptainArchmage thinks you should back Democrats in Today's Special Election

Again, I didn't want to make this blog about politics but given the situation, I again have to make an exception, and those exceptions, much like your average Republican candidate for speaker now needing some kind of spyware app to cut down on his pr0n use, is rapidly becoming the norm. Read that until it sinks in, please. Due to other commitments, I haven't been posting any of the content I intended to post on here, but anyways.

So today there's a sort of off-year election day in America, and apparently that involves a bunch of state-governors in certain parts of America and a few state legislature elections. Now once upon a time, I said if I became an American citizen, because political parties go wrong, I'd probably be an Independent. That said, I didn't see ANY election in recent history I wouldn't have voted for the Democrat.

Today, there are some people who think that they can sit this one out, or vote for a third party, and that will work out and stick it to people. My reaction to that is below.

GIF by astrisjanus

Really, commander? Well, if your "options" are "Democrat, Democrat, Socialist" or "Socialist, Democrat" I can see it's fair game to vote for the Socialist. If there is a seat which is "Republican" and no other candidates, you can - or rather, I should say, SHOULD, if you fulfilled the criteria, have considered running for that seat. But of course, that time is past. Also those aren't the majority of races. In general, you'll have "Democrat, Republican, Third Party" and too much of that time that Third Party is going to drain votes (or be set up TO drain votes) from Democrats. Voting third party isn't going to help, unless there's a "collective epiphany" of a very large number of people and those don't work that way and the risks are way too high.

I repeat, that's not going to work. Too many "third parties" have turned out to be Republicans with the serial numbers filed off and there's plenty more where that came from. Meanwhile, the people having a "collective epiphany" thus far seem to have decided to turn into raging racists, anti-semites, islamophobes, homophobes, transphobes, and borderline genocidal fascists. So I say, to hell with collective epiphanies and to hell with collective spiritual awakenings in the present and now. It ain't working, and the evidence is it ain't working, and the evidence is also it's making things worse. Maybe we need to stop with that, because that strategy seems to be working best for people with the worse instincts, and not bringing out anyone with better instincts. My reaction below as to, literally, seeing this and see people continue to promote this as a viable option.

GIF by undeadwatcher

A reminder that the Republican party is the party trying to ban reproductive care, prosecute people for miscarriages, ban transgender people, expel all people of a certain religion (and remember that will possibly extend to anyone who has ever been involved with that religion OR looks like the "stereotypical" [in the eyes of the people enforcing that rule, a view that doesn't have to have any rooting in reality, c'mon, you guys have already been protesting this] member of that religion, accept into their ranks take funding from open holocaust deniers, is OK with someone who blames wildfires on "Jewish Space Lasers", and generally destroy democracy in America.

BuT BoTh sIdEs, SO I GUESS TODAY'S FINALLY THE DAY YOU'RE GOING TO FUCK EVERYTHING UP to own the libs or something. Really?

GIF by grimdarkauxiliatrix

A reminder that the current credentials of the average Republican politician seem to be corruption, fraud, damn fraud, and requiring your son to be your accountability buddy so you don't watch pr0n. I don't really see a progressive movement succeeding if it ends up putting these people in charge. You've got to hold onto what you already have, too. Gif related, my feelings.

GIF by muvana

I'm also starting to highly doubt the leadership capability of many so-called "alternatives". You know, if you want to be a challenge to the Dems, you can't just be someone who is "I'm an Independent". The expectatin is you're going to get better policy than Democrats, but instead both the candidates and the people asking for alternatives keeping making some critical mistakes. For example, like pandering to the "upper left quadrant" of "people who would like to have social safety nets, but only if they were granted exclusively to a small clade". Or to sum up a certain trumpeted "independent" candidate, it's a case of "I Gotta Solution. A Final Solution" populism. The Young Turks "third party" option seems to have an issue with trans people which the old guy in the Presidency doesn't. Cornell West noted getting nominations as an agreed-upon party member would be difficult in terms of ballot access, and instead of rectifying those he made the logical step to run as an independent. RFK, meanwhile, is a vax denier. There's something really unstable, I note, among these people and a drain from movements such as "Occupy Wall Street" to literal neo-nazism, and that has me questioning how viable these really are.

Meanwhile Democrats *HAVE* delivered, such that they can. Biden tried to cancel student debt with considerable success, though SCOTUS is in the way (and that's a Republican problem), reduced inflation, and lead to low unemployment, and an increase in unionization. And no, despite the accusations surrounding Biden and the rail strike in 2022, workers actually did win paid sick leave. Meanwhile, Michigan Democrats with a 1-seat majority on their legislature(s) struck down the "right to work" laws in that state.

So in total, that's it. With Democrats, you get progress in the end, and you maintain protections. With Republicans... you don't, and you might not have anything left at the end of it. There's no third party viability, and believe it or not there's no requirement that there be any viable third party candidates. That's it, and in my view you should give Democrats a chance in this year's elections.

[blaqsbi]

Post: Breonna Taylors Mother Comes for the Man Who Called Her Killing Justified https://www.blaqsbi.com/53I3

[liberalsarecool]

Public education dollars were never meant for privatized corporate charter schools or Christian Academies. Period.

[qqueenofhades]

Going to cautiously posit that if they're moving toward calling Kentucky for Beshear (incumbent Democratic governor) in a blindingly red state Trump won by 30 points, in an off-year election, about 30 minutes after polls close statewide, that is a Good Sign.

[destiel-news-network]

[deadpresidents]

Democrats should be paying very close attention to the campaign that Governor Beshear ran; he hasn't won two gubernatorial races in deep-red Kentucky by accident. There's a roadmap for success in how he's campaigned in a state that Donald Trump won by 30% in 2016 and 25% in 2020. It also wouldn't be crazy to think about Governor Beshear when (if?) Democrats finally start looking for fresh candidates for the national stage. Not only did Beshear just win re-election to statewide office in a solidly Republican state, but he did so in an off-year election -- without the help of a national Presidential ticket or even a slate of midterm Congressional candidates to help bolster his chances. Beshear ran as a pro-choice Democrat talking about protecting abortion rights in the state that has been sending Mitch McConnell to the Senate for nearly 40 years. And he won.

[rapeculturerealities]

Republican lawmakers override veto of transgender bill in Kentucky - POLITICO

Republican lawmakers in Kentucky on Wednesday swept aside the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill regulating some of the most personal aspects of life for transgender young people — from banning access to gender-affirming health care to restricting the bathrooms they can use.

The votes to override Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto were lopsided in both legislative chambers — where the GOP wields supermajorities — and came on the next-to-last day of this year’s legislative session. The Senate voted 29-8 to override Beshear’s veto. A short time later, the House completed the override on a vote of 76-23.

[socialist-microwave-laser]

"voting does practically nothing on its own and telling people simply to go vote only validates the very system that is killing so many of us" and "voting to prevent fascists from having actual, literal, official, institutional power is important" are two ideas that can and should coexist, actually

[bfpnola]

kentucky representative pamela stevenson speaks in opposition of overriding gov. andy beshear’s veto of senate bill 150, which bans gender-affirming care for trans youth

[tomorrowusa]

« Think of that: a red-state Democrat running on abortion rights and winning. Only in a post-Roe world.

[ … ]

Beshear has now won two races in a state that favored Trump by 26 points in 2020. The first could have been dismissed as a fluke, given that in 2019 he faced an unpopular Republican incumbent in a tough environment for the GOP. But he significantly expanded his margin of victory this time. He’s also just 45 years old.

He’s not the only governor to win multiple times in an unfavorable state for his party. Such governors tend to have little hope nationally because of how much they have to moderate and even criticize their party. But in Beshear, Democrats could actually have someone potentially acceptable to their base. He’s largely in line with his national party on key social issues. »

— Aaron Blake at the Washington Post writing about Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

Gov. Beshear won by a bigger margin in 2023 than he did in 2019 when he ran against a deeply unpopular and corrupt GOP incumbent governor. And his opponent this year was endorsed by both Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell who had racked up big margins in Kentucky.

[politicaldilfs]

Kentucky Governor DILFs

Wendell Ford, Paul E. Patton, Steve Beshear, Julian Carroll, Brereton C. Jones, Matt Bevin, Earle Clements, Edwin P. Morrow, Ernie Fletcher, Flem D. Sampson, John Y. Brown, Happy Chandler, Keen Johnson, Lawrence Wetherby, Louie Nunn, Andy Beshear, Ruby Laffoon, Simeon Willis, Wallace Wilkinson, Ned Breathitt, William J. Fields, Bert Combs

[a-wraith-in-the-mountains]

Kentucky is very happy tonight.

“Daddy Andy” won re-election and you will not convince me that Kentucky isn’t walking around gushing to every single state about that fact right now…

[qqueenofhades]

Anyway, now that Beshear is back in, I once more wish Mitch McConnell a very drop dead in office.

[saywhat-politics]

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has pushed his opposition to Kentucky’s abortion ban to the forefront of his reelection campaign by linking his Republican challenger to an extreme scenario of the strict law — requiring young victims of rape or incest to carry their pregnancies to term.

Beshear’s campaign released a TV ad featuring a prosecutor denouncing the law’s lack of exceptions for rape or incest. It attacks GOP nominee Daniel Cameron for supporting the measure, which bans all abortions except when carried out to save a pregnant patient’s life or to prevent a disabling injury.

The ad represents a reversal of roles in this socially conservative state — where Republicans have traditionally gone on offense in statewide races touting their opposition to abortion. Now, Beshear has become the aggressor against his anti-abortion GOP challenger — signaling a willingness among Democrats to press the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a nationwide right to abortion last year. The ad is airing in conservative, rural regions as well as in more progressive, urban and suburban areas.