Please sign the petition below to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis currently in Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda, and replace it with a tribute to Muhammad Ali, “the Louisville Lip” and “the Greatest of All Time.”
I just heard from the Ali family: It is the Champ’s belief that Islam prohibits three-dimensional representations of living Muslims. Accordingly, I have adjusted the petition to call for a two-dimensional representation of Ali (a portrait, picture or mural) in lieu of a statue.
UPDATE (Tuesday, December 2, 2014)
In this interview with WHAS-TV’s Joe Arnold, Governor Steve Beshear endorses the idea of honoring Muhammad Ali in the State Capitol (although he disagrees with removing Davis). Arnold explores the idea further on his weekly show, “The Powers that Be.”
Click here to check out WDRB-TV’s Lawrence Smith’s coverage of the story.
And here’s my op-ed in Ali’s hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal.
UPDATE (Saturday, June 4, 2016)
In the wake of the 2015 Charlestown tragedy, in which a Confederate flag-waving murderer united the nation against racism, all of the most powerful Kentucky policymakers — U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, Governor Matt Bevin, Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Greg Stumbo — called for the removal of the Davis statue from the Rotunda. Today, as we commemorate last night’s passing of Muhammad Ali, there is no better moment to replace the symbol of Kentucky’s worst era with a tribute to The Greatest of All Time.
UPDATE (Wednesday, June 8, 2016):
Great piece by Lawrence Smith of WDRB-TV in Louisville on the petition drive to replace Jefferson Davis’ statue in the Capitol Rotunda with a tribute to Muhammad Ali.
UPDATE (Thursday, June 9, 2016):
Excellent piece on the petition drive by Jack Brammer that was featured on the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Highlight of the article:
Miller said he has received a few “angry comments” on his call to honor Ali.
“One of them encouraged me to kill myself,” he said. “You can quote me that I have decided not to take their advice.”
UPDATE (Friday, June 10, 2016)
The petition drives continues to show the Big Mo(hammed): check out these stories from WKYU-FM public radio in Bowling Green and WKYT-TV, Channel 27 in Lexington:
UPDATE (Saturday, June 11, 2016):
Still not convinced? Check out this excerpt from today’s New York Times:
By Artur Davis, on Thu Apr 11, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
It would not surprise me if there were six votes on the Supreme Court for getting and keeping the federal government out of the business of recognizing marriages. That would mean that when federal benefits and tax treatment turn on what is or isn’t a valid domestic union, that Washington has to defer to the state where a couple resides, and that state’s definition of what constitutes matrimony. It would also mean that the Court refused to put the evolving conversation over same sex marriage beyond the reach of actual voters and state legislatures.
That mixed bag, repealing the Defense of Marriage Act but declining to recognize that same sex marriages are a fundamental national right, would be roughly consistent with how the Roberts Court has navigated politically charged battles: upholding the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate under Congress’ taxing power instead of the more sweeping commerce clause; wiping out the most punitive provisions of Arizona’s immigration law but rebuking the Obama Administration for trying to thwart local law enforcement from sorting out whether criminal suspects even have a legal right to be in the country. To be sure, the high court can look suspiciously like politicians searching for a compromise, but their approach has virtues conservatives relish: appropriate skepticism about Washington’s tendencies to grow by swallowing major chunks of state authority, and deference to a public that still prefers the ballot box and the legislative chamber as the deciding grounds for disputes.
The more unpredictable question is how the left, which has been so ascendant on gay marriage, would react to being invited into a state by state contest that, based on the reactions to last week’s arguments, it is hoping to avoid. I will venture two predictions: first, liberals have probably passed through the easiest part of the fight. To date, their strategy has been one of stigmatizing opposition to gay marriage, and guaranteeing a social and professional price in establishment circles to any contrary point of view. It is a course that has built a narrative in the media and run up a string of victories in heavily Democratic states where social conservatives are suspect. National Republicans, who depend on that same media for oxygen and who have to raise cash in New York, Chicago, and Washington boardrooms as much as Democrats do, have been thrown on the defensive.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The Next Round on Gay Marriage
What do you believe you can accomplish? What do you believe you can accomplish with your eyes closed and without thought of quitting or giving up?What is it inside of you that drives you to accomplish the impossible, the improbable and the exceptional?
This clip above is a perfect example of what happens when shut our eyes and keep going. Ignoring pain, forgeting about past failures and inching our way to victory. This can be you. This can be me. This can be anyone. Inside of all of us is a deep rooted fire that knows no quit and no defeat. It is up to you to believe in it.
Things will not always go your way, in fact more times than not it won’t. However, all things are possible through hard work and perseverance. And all things are possible through fitness.
Be sure to subscribe to The Recovering Politician‘s KY Political Brief: click here RIGHT NOW to do so — It’s delivered daily to your inbox FOR FREE!
If you don’t already subscribe to the KY Political Brief, you missed all of the latest news on the emerging national Judd/McConnell “scandal”:
WHODUNIT? : McConnell campaign calls in FBI over secret recordings – CNN – “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign is “working with the FBI” on how Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, obtained a recording of political aides meeting with McConnell and discussing opposition research on Ashley Judd, McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton told CNN Tuesday. In the recordings, political operatives huddling at the senator’s campaign headquarters in Kentucky, are heard discussing potentially attacking Judd’s mental health, as well as her left-leaning politics, if she had decided to make a bid against McConnell, who’s running for a sixth term in office next year.” [CNN]
—Statement from campaign manager Jesse Benton: “Senator McConnell’s campaign is working with the FBI and has notified the local U.S. Attorney in Louisville, per FBI request, about these recordings. Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell’s campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished presumably will be the subject of a criminal investigation.”
—Mitch McConnell accuses Progress Kentucky of bugging [POLITICO]
—ICYMI: Mother Jones obtained a “secret recording” of a McConnell strategy session held February 2, 2013. On the recording, staffers and McConnell can be heard discussing possible lines of attack against then-possible candidate Ashley Judd and others, including Alison Lundergan Grimes. … Original Mother Jones post
JUDD RESPONDS : Ashley Judd’s publicist released a statement yesterday in a response to topics heard being discussed on the McConnell audio tape: “This is yet another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington, D.C. We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp than to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter. Every day it becomes clearer how much we need change in Washington from this kind of rhetoric and actions.”
AL MAYO: “Espionage? I doubt it!” – KPB column – “… Then came the claim from McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton that the recordings were a result of bugging and the FBI was being called upon to investigate. Jesse–get a grip! If I were a betting man, I would consider it a lead pipe cinch that no bugging was underway. This is simply someone inside the meeting who recorded it via cell phone or other means on their person. I would further allege this wasn’t even done maliciously or with sinister intentions.” [KPB column]
SENATE DERBY : New PPP poll shows McConnell with narrow leads over possible opponents – PPP – “PPP’s newest poll of the Kentucky Senate race finds that Mitch McConnell continues to rank as the most unpopular Senator in the country, and that several Democrats are within striking distance of him in head to head match ups. … The good news for Democrats is that they still have several candidates who poll within striking range of McConnell. Alison Lundergan Grimes, despite having only 50% name recognition, comes within 4 points of McConnell at 45/41. … And former Congressman Ben Chandler trails McConnell just 46/41. Ed Marksberry, the only announced Democratic candidate in the race at this point, trails the incumbent 46/35.” [Public Policy Polling]
In his column this week for The Huffington Post, The RP applauds Kentucky’s Lt. Governor Jerry Abramson and Auditor Adam Edelen for their brave announcements this week in support of marriage equality:
Edelen & Abramson
As I proudly watched public sentiment dramatically shift on the subject over the past few years, I still didn’t expect any active statewide politicians in my old (conservative) Kentucky home to join me. After all, a recently released 2012 poll showed that support for marriage equality among Kentucky voters dramatically trailed the national average — at an embarrassing 33% approval clip.
Worse, in the recently-concluded session of the Kentucky General Assembly, a vast majority of Democratic and Republican legislators joined together to override Governor Steve Beshear’s brave veto of legislation — posed misleadingly as a “religious freedom bill” — that could undermine ordinances in Lexington and Louisville that protect the LGBT community from job and housing discrimination. If politicians couldn’t stand for simple fairness, how could they be brave enough to support marriage equality?
However, with nearly the entire U.S. Senate Democratic majority lining up to legalize same-sex marriage, one liberal Kentucky columnist — LEO Weekly‘s Joe Sonka — decided to put the state’s five Democratic statewide elected constitutional officers to the test, asking each of them their position on the issue. Sonka’s tweets revealed his skepticism about their responses: He guessed two would say “no,” two wouldn’t respond, and one would offer gibberish.
But then the unexpected happened. First Lt. Governor Jerry Abramson, the former uber-popular “Mayor-for-Life” of Louisville announced his support:
“I don’t believe government should judge which adults can and which cannot make a loving, life-long commitment to each other. That’s why both Madeline and I support marriage equality for all adults.”
And then, within a few hours, Auditor Adam Edelen — who at 38 is one of the Democrats’ bright young stars — declared his support, arguing:
“I believe equal protection of the law and equality of opportunity are central to the American experiment and they ought to apply to every American.”
I know both Abramson and Edelen well, and understand that their announcements came from their sincere support of the true American value of equality for all. But I also can attest that both are very savvy politicians, who wouldn’t stake out a position that could result in their imminent political demise. They understand that in the 2o15 gubernatorial race — which both men are considering — support for marriage equality will no longer be a disqualifier in the general election, and could indeed be a pre-requisite for winning a Democratic primary.
And if you too support marriage equality, I urge you to thank Jerry Abramson and Adam Edelen for their statements. We are always bad-mouthing politicians that disappoint us. So, why not thank true leaders when they make a selfless, brave announcement? And if they accrue some political mileage out of their actions, it will encourage others to follow their lead and join the marriage equality bandwagon.
Click here to sign a petition thanking Kentucky Lt. Governor Jerry Abramson, and click here to sign a petition thanking Kentucky Auditor Adam Edelen.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Apr 10, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
An historic week for equality in my old (conservative) Kentucky home…
Despite the fact that a recently released 2012 poll showed that support for marriage equality among Kentucky voters dramatically trailed the national average at an embarrassing 33% approval clip (although, I imagine that has ticked higher in the intervening few months), leading statewide elected officials are courageously coming forward to endorse marriage equality.
Early yesterday LEO Weekly magazine’s Joe Sonka broke the news that Kentucky’s Lt. Governor, Jerry Abramson, became the first active statewide official to endorse marriage equality.
Within a few hours, state Auditor Adam Edelen bravely took the plunge as well. Edelen declared his support for marriage equality because:
“I believe equal protection of the law and equality of opportunity are central to the American experiment and they ought to apply to every American.”
(And let’s give Joe Sonka some mad props for his simple, but groundbreaking questioning. Tweet at the dirty liberal columnist: @JoeSonka)
But most of all, please join me in expressing our support and gratitude to Auditor Adam Edelen for his courageous public statement by signing on to this petition below:
Thanks Auditor Edelen for Supporting Marriage Equality!
I may be a card-carrying knee-jerk liberal, but I do my best to understand opposing points of view. (Maybe it was all my years as a high school & college debater, where you had to argue convincingly on both sides of any question.) I may not like their reasoning, but I can see why gun enthusiasts worry about any new laws, or why people who view life beginning at conception would try to ban abortion – They have something at stake. However, I have yet to see a single way in which allowing same-sex marriage does anything at all to heterosexual marriage. Divorce rates are down in Massachusetts, kids still play hockey in Canada, and the “it’s not natural” argument has been thoroughly debunked, not just by psychologists but by the volume of evidence about animal homosexuality being perfectly natural. Bonobos do it, birds & bees do it, and probably educated fleas do it. (Apparently there are even bisexual flowers and trees!)
The most recent arguments against marriage equality have gotten even more ludicrous. First there was Sue Everhart, the Georgia Chairwoman of the GOP, who claimed that same-sex marriage would encourage fraudulent marriage claims in order to get federal benefits, but neglected to explain why people don’t do that already with straight marriage. Then Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon & new darling of the right, stuck his foot even further in his mouth by using a weird series of fruit analogies (??) to explain that just because he linked gay marriage, pedophilia and bestiality in an argument against gay marriage, he didn’t really mean it. But Dr. Carson is just the most recent marriage equality opponent to bring animals into the discussion. Rick Santorum used the ‘slippery slope’ argument almost 10 years ago, Bill O’Reilly once famously claimed people would want to marry their pet turtles, and recently Texas Representative Louie Gohmert digressed from his opposition to limiting ammunition magazine sizes to opine that we needed some limits or people would start marrying animals. As Jon Stewart ranted last week, “What’s with all the animal f-&#*%ing?”
Even Bill O’Reilly has seen the writing on the wall, and recently drew fire from his fellow conservatives by correctly stating that most of the objections to marriage equality involved bible-thumping rather than rational thinking. And as more and more conservatives have children who come out to them, I think we’ll see more conscience-driven switching. Of course, as a humorist, I’m still hoping for one of the more staunch opponents to be caught tickling his interns or playing footsie in an airport men’s room, but in the meantime, might I suggest that anyone who is still against marriage equality start using an argument that doesn’t involve nature or animals. And while they’re trying to come up with one (good luck!), here’s a musical look at the whole animals argument:
In the Spotlight: Goal of No Labels is to get lawmakers to stop fighting
By Jonathan Miller
Democrats and Republicans in Washington can’t seem to agree on much these days, but four members of Illinois’ congressional delegation are working to change that by joining No Labels’ fast-growing group of Congressional Problem Solvers. The group — first announced just two months ago with a dozen members — now features 55 members who are meeting regularly to build trust across the aisle.
Reps. Rodney Davis, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Lipinski and Cheri Bustos are part of something unprecedented. Ask any member of Congress and they will tell you that before the advent of the Problem Solvers, there was literally no forum where rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans could actually meet together to discuss solutions. It’s a shocking revelation and a big reason why dysfunction has dominated D.C.
With Democrats controlling the U.S. Senate and Republicans controlling the U.S. House of Representatives, no one can get everything they want. Our Problem Solvers recognize that they have to find a way to work together or else they will get nothing done
In linking up with No Labels, the Illinois representatives are helping supercharge a movement that is growing by the day. I helped launch No Labels in December 2010 as a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents dedicated to a new politics of problem solving. Today, we have hundreds of thousands of grassroots supporters across the country. We have a growing presence on Capitol Hill, as evidenced by the emerging Problem Solvers. And we have a serious government reform agenda that is gaining traction.
In fact, the Senate passed a budget for the first time in four years last month thanks in large part to a measure that No Labels created and pushed relentlessly. We have an idea in our Make Congress Work! action plan called No Budget, No Pay that is as simple as it sounds: Members of Congress don’t get paid if they don’t pass a budget on time.
A modified version of No Budget, No Pay passed as part of the debt ceiling extension bill in February, and clearly compelled Congress to get serious about timely budgets.
We’re just getting started. On April 16, I’ll be flying the No Labels flag alongside an exciting lineup of speakers at the “Returning Civility to Our Public Discourse” Symposium at Bradley University in Peoria. The event is open to everyone. In the meantime, you can visit NoLabels.org to learn more about how regular citizens can get our leaders to stop fighting and start fixing America’s problems.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Apr 9, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
You can call me Al. Or at least an Al lover. Al Jarreau, that is.
In high school I tried to get into the heavy metal music that was popular at the time. I tried and failed.
That more I caved to peer pressure and tried to pretend I liked the dense, loud, manic lyrics belted out by AC/DC and Black Sabbath, the more drawn I became to what, I suppose, could be called its opposite: the melodious and soulful harmonizings of a little known singer (at the time) named Al Jarreau.
I remember having more Al Jarreau cassettes in my car than any other musician in 1979. But I would never play them when a friend was in the car. But when I was alone, it was Al and me.
My first great love affair with music was with this man’s remarkable voice.
Blog this!
