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:
The problem that Washington has faced over the last 18 years is that Democrats in Congress still do not accept their minority status and have fought the Republican Party since the revolution of 1994. The partisanship increased 100 fold as a result of the Democrat Party reeling that the country had the audacity to oust them from 40 years of entrenched power. Since then, many Congressmen have come and gone, but the so-called “moderate” has evaporated. While the Republicans tend to elect the principled, the Democrats tend to elect the partisan.
Republican presidential candidates are always labeled as extreme – the Democrats favorite label for any Republican. In Mitt Romney, they have a hard time labeling him as such since Romney himself took more moderate positions in his race against Ted Kennedy and for governor. In a twist of good fate, this has worked well for Romney: Democrats cannot label him extreme-right, on one hand, or a flip-flopper, on the other, since you cannot have it both ways. Either you are an entrenched, inflexible extremist, or you have a history of showing empathy for your political opponents.
Mitt Romney’s greatest asset, as we are now discovering in the last week of the campaign, is his ability to work accross party lines, bridge the divide, and work to resolve tough issues. The proof is in his leadership as governor. This was Barack Obama’s mantle in 2008 – using the the ‘not blue states, not red states’ cry – but he has proven to be the most liberal, leftist political partisan the White House has ever seen. There is, in fact, no hope with him or for him.
Mitt Romney will clean up Washington, DC by working with anyone who is ready and willing to tackle the hard issues of today and not kick the can down the road for the next generations to solve.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Nov 1, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
No Labels co-founder, and former U.S. Comptroller General, David Walker, shares the scariest part of this year’s Halloween celebration: the monster math:
By Nick Paleologos, on Thu Nov 1, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
We are very excited to introduce our newest contributing RP, Nick Paleologos. Nick was a Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for 16 years, and has since become a Tony and Emmy award winning theatre and film producer. We hope you enjoy his first piece, and many more in the weeks to come.
When I was a kid, I was blissfully unaware of the bone-crushing depression my dad lived through. He grew up on the hardscrabble streets of Lowell, Massachusetts—the son of Greek immigrant parents who were living in a cold-water flat known then (and now) as “The Acre.”
My dad (at far right in photo) was nine years old when Franklin Roosevelt beat Herbert Hoover for president in 1932. Hoover was a handsome guy who made a ton of money in the mining industry. By 1914, Hoover was so wealthy he was actually quoted as saying “If a man has not made a million dollars by the time he is forty, he is not worth much.”
The country clearly agreed. Between 1921 and 1929 (the first year of Hoover’s presidency) the top income tax rate for worthy millionaires like himself was slashed from 73% to 24%. Result? The Great Depression. By the time Roosevelt took over from Hoover, unemployment was at 25%, two million Americans were flat-out homeless, and all the banks in 32 of the 48 states (including the NY Federal Reserve) had slammed the doors shut on their depositors.
On Saturday afternoon March 4, 1933 Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address. Everybody in America (including my dad) was huddled around the radio waiting to hear what the new president had to say:
“This is the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly…This great Nation… will revive and will prosper. So…let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
You’re right. I am afraid.
“Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.”
How did this happen?
“Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence…Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.”
What can we do?
“…there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency. Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo.”
Does that mean we all might have to pay a little more?
“If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize—as we have never realized before—our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good.”
That’s what Franklin Delano Roosevelt told my father and millions of others in 1933. Within a hundred days of that speech, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was formed. For the next decade, millions of unemployed young Americans found jobs in national forests and state parks all over America. My dad went to Vermont. It was dependable, physical labor from which the country greatly benefited. For his part, dad earned $30 a month, of which $25 was required to be sent back home to his family.
So when FDR sounded the call to arms in December of 1941, my father was only too happy to return the favor. He signed up to fight for his country in the Pacific. At the end of World War II, when dad stepped off his PT Boat—proud, penniless, and newly unemployed—the president wanted him to go to college. Even though dad could not afford to, FDR believed that going to college was so important for America’s future that he insisted upon the country paying for dad’s education.
Under the GI Bill, dad went to college and became a lawyer. In addition, eight million other veterans went to college, or to vocational training schools, or received low cost mortgages and loans to start businesses. And what a difference they made.
NBC’s Tom Brokaw dubbed them the “Greatest Generation.” But they were really Roosevelt’s Kids. Because the country FDR gave them was built upon his conviction that freedom from fear of destitution was crucial to unleashing America’s limitless potential–a belief that largely prevailed…until 1980.
That was the year that another affable, popular president was elected. In Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address he took the country in a profoundly different direction.
“In this present crisis” Reagan famously declared, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
In the three plus decades since that assertion (except for a brief interlude in the 90’s) America returned with a vengeance to the philosophy that characterized the Roaring Twenties: tax cuts for the wealthy, Wall Street run amok, and banks acting more like casinos than caretakers—with the same catastrophic result.
Baby boomers–who grew up in Roosevelt’s America where the cumulative income growth of the bottom 90% outpaced the top 1% by more than four to one—have only recently realized that during the past three decades in Reagan’s America (our working lifetime) the American economy has gone ass over tea kettle in the opposite direction. The top 1% outpaced the bottom 90% by a staggering 25 to 1.
In other words, during the Roosevelt decades (1945 to 1980) as the country got richer, the biggest winner was a rapidly growing middle class. During the Reagan decades (1980 till now) practically all of the wealth created in America ended up in the hands of the top 1%. But don’t take my word for it. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman stated flatly, “There’s no measure I can think of by which the U.S. economy has done better since 1980 than it did over an equivalent time span before 1980.”
So when the Great Recession ravaged our country between 2008 and 2010 (according to the Federal Reserve) what little wealth left for the middle class during the Reagan decades (mostly home equity) was all but wiped out.
Read the rest of… Nick Paleologos: “The only thing we have to fear…”
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Nov 1, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
OK, RP Nation: Here is your opportunity to win 2 FREE lower-arena tickets to the defending national champion University of Kentucky Wildcat men’s basketball team’s official home opener at Lexington’s Rupp Arena, versus Lafayette University, on Friday, November 16 at 7:00 PM.
(Note to the uninitiated: This prize is a big deal. If you do not understand how big a deal this is, read Why Kentucky Basketball Matters.)
The award will be presented to the winner of our Electoral College contest — the individual who most accurately predicts the final Electoral College vote, with tiebreakers and stipulations listed below.
To win this prize, you must abide by the following instructions — which will be interpreted literally by the contest judge, me:
The 2008 Electoral College Map
1. Go to The Recovering Politician‘s new RP Facebook Page, Facebook.com/RecoveringPol, If you haven’t already, “Like” the page. No likey — no win.
2. Make your predictions in the Comments section of the “Official Contest Post” at the new RP Facebook Page, which is labeled very clearly as such. Entries sent in by email or posted elsewhere will be disqualified.
3. Only one entry per person. If you have more than one entry, only the most recent one will qualify.
4. Comments must be entered by 6:00 AM EST on Tuesday, November 6. Entries made later will be disqualified.
5. Your entry into the comments section of the Official Contest Post shall include:
Your prediction of the 2012 Electoral College tally. I.e., Obama 269, Romney 269
First tiebreaker: Your prediction of the partisan composition of the Senate for the next session of Congress. I.e., 50 Democrats, 48 Republicans, 2 Independents.
Second tiebreaker: Your prediction of the partisan composition of the House for the next session of Congress. I.e. 230 Republicans, 205 Democrats.
6. Because recounts are very likely, particularly in Congressional races, to calculate the winners, I will use the vote tallies that are listed in the print edition of Thursday morning, November 8 New York Times. While these tallies will undoubtedly be incomplete for many races, and winners will not be declared in several campaigns, whoever is leading as of the Thursday morning tally will be the winner for the purposes of determine our champion.
7. The winner will be awarded my two awesome lower arena tickets (Section 23, Row RR) for the University of Kentucky’s home opener against Lafayette University on Friday, November 16 at 7:00 PM. The winner will make arrangements with me to pick up the tickets or have them placed in will call. Transportation or any incidental costs associated with attending the UK game must be assumed by the winner of the contest. And I ain’t paying for your dinner.
8. I retain the right to make all eligibility decisions and winner calculations, as well as the right to withhold the prize from any obnoxious Duke Blue Devil fan.
By Michael Steele, on Wed Oct 31, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Contributing RP Michael Steele, Former Democratic Senator from Arkansas Blanche Lincoln and USA Today’s Susan Page talk about where President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are Tuesday and how Hurricane Sandy could impact the last week before the election:
Imagine a political party “really” wanting America governed progressively. Imagine its platform stressing social justice, human and civil rights, peace, disarmament, and other populist policies. The two-party duopoly may say they support progressive values but upon closer analysis they are actually spurned.
Presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein of America’s Green Party believes another United States is possible but another party is necessary.
She fully embraces the Green Party’s ‘Green New Deal’ platform. The Green New Deal is the only detailed program from any political party for moving America quickly out of crisis into a secure, sustainable future.
Inspired by FDR New Deal that helped us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the ‘Green New Deal’ will provide similar relief and create an economy that makes our communities sustainable, healthy and just.
Here are some but not all of the policies Dr. Stein and the Green Party proposes.
Dr. Stein believes our country cannot truly move forward until the roots of inequality are pulled up, and the seeds of a new, healthier economy are planted. Thus she supports an economic bill of rights that ensures all people:
1. The right to employment through a full employment program that will create 25 million jobs by implementing a nationally funded, but locally controlled direct employment initiative, offering public sector jobs when private sector jobs are not available;
2. Workers rights including the right to a living wage, to a safe workplace and to organizing a union without fear of firing or reprisal;
3. The right to quality healthcare achieved through a single-payer Medicare-for-All program;
4. The right to a tuition-free, quality, federally funded, local controlled public education from pre-school through college;
5. The right to decent affordable housing, including an immediate halt to all foreclosures and evictions by creating a federal bank with local branches to take over homes with distressed mortgages and either restructuring the mortgages to affordable levels, or renting the homes by expanding rental and home ownership assistance;
6. The right to accessible and affordable utilities, expanded Internet for all, and public transportation through democratically run, publicly owned corporations that operate at cost and not for profit;
7. The right to fair taxation distributed in proportion to earnings and one╒s ability to pay. In addition, corporate tax subsidies will be made transparent by detailing them in public budgets where they can be scrutinized, not hidden as tax breaks.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 31, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
I was once a millionaire.
Not for long. But for about a year. And I only recently found out about it. Even though it happened some 40 years ago, I find myself reflecting a lot recently on that year—“My Big Year.” And asking myself, what went wrong and what can I learn from it?
In 1971 my father sold his controlling interest in Kentucky Fried Chicken. He made a good deal of money and, as the story goes,
created a $1M trust for each of his three children, my two sisters (Sissy and Sandy) and me.
Which was a surprise hearing about all these years later since my father reminded us regularly growing up that he didn’t believe in giving his children money because it would take away their motivation. But this one time, he apparently did. (In my teens I once suggested he test his theory by doing a pilot project with me as the one child who gets money–and my two sisters as the control groups— and see how I do. “If I fail,” I reasoned, “you can continue with your current policy and be reassured by recent supporting data that you are doing the right thing.” But all I got was a laugh.)
Anyway, I was 8 years old at the time and totally oblivious to the fact that I was a millionaire. At least I was “on paper,” as a lot of millionaires seem to be fond of saying. I’m not sure what that means but I like the sound of it and so I’m repeating it here.
Read the rest of… John Y’s Musings from the Middle: I Once Was a Millionaire
Closing arguments for President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney should contrast their respective records and declared agendas. But that’s not enough. Each candidate lives and breathes in a political party ecosystem with a dominant worldview and armies of enforcers to keep office-holders, even presidents, from straying too far from received doctrine.
Let’s start with the President’s record. He was sworn in facing the worst economic conditions in 80 years, and with only three Republican votes enacted an economic stimulus agenda that saved or created 1.4 to 3.3 million jobs. The stimulus worked. He saved General Motors and Chrysler from collapse, signed Wall Street reform legislation and, to top it off, drove through Congress the most important health care reform since the 1960s. He brought our troops back from Iraq as promised. Obama rang up historic accomplishments in the teeth of fierce Republican opposition even to proposals (like Obamacare) with a strong Heritage Foundation roots.
In a second term President Obama is committed to further spending restraint and entitlement reform as long as the deficit-expanding Bush tax cuts are, for the super-wealthy, repealed. He’ll make immigration reform and strengthening America’s education system important priorities.
Mitt Romney’s rhetoric reflects the right-wing fear of “dependency” if Americans choose to tackle our pressing public challenges through government action. Since the goal is for government to spend and do less, it’s no wonder that he promises big tax cuts for everyone and “big change” without explaining what he means. But we should look beyond the rhetoric.
The ideas, bundled into worldviews, which define the parties today will shape the administration of the winner on November 6th.
For most congressional Republicans today and their active supporters, government routinely infringes upon personal liberty, undermines self-reliance and is generally inefficient and incompetent. Since government is the problem, taxes should be cut, regulations reduced and—somehow—all be well in time. How that will happen is a matter of faith, not evidence. Republicans would roll back health care coverage for more than 30 million Americans who will finally obtain it through “Obamacare.” They deny the overwhelming scientific consensus about the threat of climate change. The economic plan consists of vague “free market” generalities.
People who don’t believe in government don’t run it well. That’s one lesson from the George W. Bush administration. That’s why, given the enormous challenges of making the federal government work well, it should be left in the hands of those who are willing to try.
Read the rest of… Tom Allen: A Closing Argument for Obama
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
— Mark Twain
“The best part about being my age is in knowing how my life worked out.”
— Scott Adams
I’m particularly drawn to this last quote. It has me thinking about life as a story, experiences filling the pages of each chapter, and chapters are all made complete by both insignificant and significant details.
As I think about this, I see that we can’t possibly know the relevance of an experience until many experiences later when they’ve all been assembled and integrated into the story line.
But even having been the one to have lived my own experiences doesn’t automatically make me well versed in the symbolism and meaning therein.
Could I lead a high school or college English seminar on the symbolism of love, addiction, family, grief, bliss, and all the living that has been the great work of my life so far? Hmmm.
Hell, yes. I force my teen daughters to take this class almost every day. (I’m sure they’d say “hell” was a good way to begin this paragraph.) But they are allowed to audit because I am a kind and righteous mother.
But perspective isn’t immediate—it tends to be quite a little journey down that road of whatever experience and accompanying emotional stuff it features—it has to be that way, the panoramic view requires distance and space. And similarly, the plot doesn’t make sense when you read only chapter 18.
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Oct 30, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
I’m the proud owner of a uterus, and I’d like to be in charge of it. Period. (And yes, really bad pun intended.)
No matter how many positions Romney takes on female reproductive rights (and he’s taken more positions than are in the Kama Sutra), we have to look at his party platform and his choice of running mate, not to mention his unwillingness to withdraw his endorsement from candidates like Richard Mourdock. You know it’s bad when Romney comes across as a moderate, because he actually would allow an abortion exception in cases of rape . . . excuse me?
And as for the pundits and online commentators who wonder why so many women are ‘quibbling about irrelevant subjects like women’s stuff instead of the economy’? Even the best economy doesn’t matter to a woman who can’t control her own body, on top of the fact that the GOP also doesn’t believe that women deserve pay equity, or insurance coverage of birth control – and those ARE economic issues, by the way. (Plus anyone who was alive before Roe v. Wade might recall that making abortions illegal doesn’t end them, it just makes them more dangerous. I’m with Bill Clinton in hoping abortions will be safe, legal, and rare.)
Add in all of Romney’s mis-statements and condescension to 47%ers, like my mom who’s on social security and depends on Medicare, on top of his refusal to release tax returns, his belief that millionaires should pay a lower tax rate than I do, and his plan to return to the same unregulated, ‘trickle-down economics’ that caused the recession in the first place, his reliance on Bush-Cheney-era neocon hawks, oh, and did I mention his latest lie about Jeep moving to China, even running an ad after Chrysler explicitly refuted that story?)
Fortunately, before I start ranting too much, I’ll take a break and launch into song!
Blog this!
