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 Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jun 21, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
For those of you who’ve heard the recent news about Facebook’s acquisition of Face.com, a facial recognition startup based in Israel, that’s just a tip of the melted desert iceberg.
By Michael Steele, on Thu Jun 21, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
Monday, we announced that we would be working together in a new company focused on bipartisan solutions in Washington. The reaction on the Internet on the left and right has been — surprise! — personal attacks, bile, blatant false accusations.
Exactly proving our point.
It’s time to change the game.
We’re from different parties, with widely diverging political philosophies, supporting different candidates.
We, like the American people, are divided on many things. We don’t agree, for example, about raising taxes, repealing health care reform, legalizing gay marriage or other issues that divide liberals and conservatives.
But we share a strong passion for what the country needs. Polls show that most of the American people agree: They want to hear Obama and Romney debate the issues and tell us their solutions — not attack each other.
Over the past 10 years, we have watched political leaders in Washington free-fall from one decision to the next. Whether on jobs, our nation’s debt, spending cuts or entitlement programs, the partisan excuses, outright misrepresentations and the blame game have grown old.
Lanny Davis
As the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns gear up, it is already assumed that the American people will just accept the inevitable bile of negative, personal attack ads (after all, “they work”) and half-truths about each candidate and his record.
During the Republican nomination campaign, Romney ran an ad last November taking Obama’s statements about the economy during the 2008 presidential campaign out of context, distorting their meaning. Obama had actually been quoting Sen. John McCain.
When asked, Mr. Romney replied, “What’s sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander.”
The Obama campaign recently ran a misleading ad, saying Mr. Romney’s leadership at Bain Capital caused the loss of jobs after the steel company it had acquired went bankrupt. Then the truth came out that Romney had left Bain two years before this bankruptcy. In fact, the person in charge of Bain at the time is now a big Obama fundraiser.
The partisan game of “gotcha” and outright misrepresentations has grown old and, frankly, we’re sick of it. As Newark Mayor Cory Booker, talking about misleading, personal attack ads on both sides, said recently, they are “nauseating. … Enough is enough.”
We urge both campaigns to repudiate these negative personal attack ads and, instead, instruct their campaigns to tell us the candidates’ ideas and specific answers to the problems that Americans care about most.
The American people want a great debate between Obama and Romney on big solutions for the economy, health care, Social Security and Medicare. They want to hear about each candidate’s ideas that could spur the private sector to create more jobs; address the problems of the poor and seniors; reduce our $15 trillion national debt and ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare.
For too long, too many have preyed on the fears of red and blue America. But now is the opportunity for Obama and Romney to embrace the hopes of a purple nation.
Read the rest of… Michael Steele (w/Lanny Davis): Memo to Obama, Mitt — Nix Negativity
One day before Grover Norquist heads to Capitol Hill for a closed-door meeting with members to discuss his organization’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” No Labels is renewing its calls for an end to special-interest pledges in Congress. In doing so, No Labels is joining a growing and bipartisan list of lawmakers seeking to reduce the influence of special interest pledges.
“In recent weeks, we have seen Sen. Lindsay Graham and Tom Coburn decry the Americans For Tax Reform pledge, and it’s not hard to see why,” said No Labels Co-Founder and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. “Pledges to the ideological right and left put a straitjacket on elected officials. They prevent them from thinking for themselves and from working across the aisle to reach reasoned and reasonable compromises. And ultimately, these pledges serve special interests a lot more than the longer-term interests of the American people.”
Walker added, “The proliferation of pledges has gotten out of control. Right now, over 80% of Congress has signed a pledge to either never raise taxes or never reduce Social Security benefits. What that basically means is that Congress has signed away its ability to ever seriously address our country’s fiscal problems. They are elected to solve problems not to stonewall solutions.”
By Patrick Derocher, on Wed Jun 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Governor Andrew Cuomo is once again coming to blows with New York’s union leaders over proposed education reforms.
With a teacher evaluation plan, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo finds himself once again at odds with some of the same unions that helped get him elected two years ago. The governor is facing off with Democrats in the state legislature over a provision that would allow parents to see their children’s teachers’ evaluations, including the teacher’s name. Names, however, would be withheld on the publicly available evaluation database. If the governor and legislature don’t come to an agreement by the time an evaluation system is agreed upon (which may not be any day soon), then all information will be visible in the state databases. The only person pushing for that setup? Mayor Michael Bloomberg. [NY Daily News]
Here is some interesting insight into the state of Florida’s Republican Party. The subject of the piece is former Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice, who is running for his old job in the large, politically moderate, suburban Tampa county. Rather than running on his record, Rice has embraced some of the furthest right of the far right wing, questioning President Obama’s citizenship, declaring ObamaCare a socialist plot, and entertaining the notion of Agenda 21 as a move toward World Government. All this for a sheriff’s seat. [Tampa Bay Times]
The Virginia GOP finds itself in an interesting position, as evidenced by its underwhelming convention in Richmond last week. To be sure, it got the business of the convention done, but without any of the usual pageantry such events normally entail – none of the state’s highest-profile Republicans, including Governor Bob McDonnell and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, was in attendance. One interesting piece of news came out of the meeting: Next year’s gubernatorial nominee will be selected at convention, a maneuver that places firebrand Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli at an advantage over Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling. [Washington Times]
A California Assemblyman has found a novel way of fundraising in an era of austerity – for the low price of $1,000, he will shine your shoes. Das Williams, a Santa Barbara Democrat in his first term, is hosting a 38th birthday fundraiser at Russo’s Shoe Repair, across the street from the California State Capitol. Tickets start at $1,000 and go for as much as $3,900, the state limit for a general election campaign, but Williams has said he will let invitees attend for less. [Sacramento Bee]
In recent months, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has received some criticism for the $43 million in tax incentives it is providing for “Ark Encounter” — a theme park offering a full-size recreation of Noah’s Ark developed by Answers in Genesis, a “Young Earth” fundamentalist Christian group that also hosts the “Creation Museum” — dedicated to the proposition that the Earth is less than 6000 years old.
Joe Sonka, a local liberal blogger, now with Louisville’s LEO Weekly alternative magazine, has been perhaps Ark Encounter’s loudest, most vociferous, and downright funniest critic. Click here and here and here to read some of his columns.
In this week’s “Fake Issue” of LEOWeekly, Sonka writes about a new project coming to Kentucky, Koran Kountry:
MUHLENBERG COUNTY, KY — Gov. Steve Beshear attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday for the opening of Koran Kountry, the radical Islamic theme park that could receive up to $75 million in tax incentives from the state.
“We are excited to be here for the grand opening of Koran Kountry,” Beshear said. “This park will bring almost 1,000 jobs to this region and give a vital boost to our economy, with millions of tourists visiting the commonwealth.”
The controversial park is the creation of Answers in Koran, LLC, who seek to bring visitors to the “family-friendly attraction that celebrates the truth of the Koran, and the power of the global jihadist movement to liberate Muslims from the oppression of the infidels and Jews. We also have roller coasters.”
The $300 million park, built on top of a reclaimed surface mining site in Muhlenberg County, was constructed with the help of unnamed international investors from Pakistan and Iran. Their feasibility study projects millions of tourists from the Middle East and South Asia will come to the park in its first three years of operation.
“This day would not be possible without the great help we received from the Beshear administration,” said Kenwal Hamza, CEO of Answers in Koran. “Muhlenberg County is now truly the closest thing to Paradise on Earth.”
In addition to potentially $75 million in tax rebates from the state if the park meets its attendance projections, the state also spent $27 million on infrastructure improvements to the Wendell Ford Parkway and the Muhlenberg County Airport to accommodate the influx of tourists.
Koran Kountry contains a dozen thrill rides, including the Dead Sea Water Safari and the “Paradise Sling Shot,” which flings riders 400-feet straight up into the air, “recreating the ascension of the prophet Muhammad into the heavens.” There are also carnival-type games, including one in which people throw rocks at a female mannequin wearing a bikini in order to win a prize. The park also contains several high-tech multimedia shows in the “Martyrs Exhibit Hall,” celebrating the history of such groups as Hamas and Hezbollah, and attacking “the Zionist and Christian crusaders who occupy our homeland.”
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jun 20, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET
I can’t tell you how many people have complemented me for the design of this site. And I have to humbly admit, it is pretty cool.
I say “humbly” because I had very little to do with it. My Webmaster Justin Burnette is responsible for the orderly and sharp manner in which all of our posts are presented.
But my greatest contribution was asking my sister, Jennifer, for a recommendation of an artist to deisgn the heading. And her suggestion, John Lackey, was outstanding. The design at the top of the page was John’s inspiration and his execution. And I can’t imagine The Recovering Politician without it.
John Lackey happens to be a rising star artist. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, but his work is getting international notice.
If you agree, I urge you to join me in voting for him to win a gallery show in New York City and a $10,000 grant. And it is SO easy to do so.
Simply click here and then once at the click on “Collect Me”
If you want to learn more about John’s incredible work, click here.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jun 20, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Got Clout? I mean the other kind–with a “K”
I’m fascinated with analytics.
Not in how they work. I don’t really understand that.
But how they can be used as a tool for better assessment and prediction purposes. And, of course, better decision making.
But analytics may be the new statistics–in the sense of being a mysterious new numbers logic that because of its air of inaccessibility to lay people carries with it an air of irrefutably.
It won’t be long until some says “There are 4 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics, and analytics.”
OK. I guess technically speaking someone just did…but that’s beside the point.
My recent questioning of exuberant uses of analytic tools is with the website Klout. I’m sure they are on to something…but have a long way to go. True, you must find a way to measure something to fully understand it. But some things are more amendable to metrics than human relationships. Workflow processes, controlling inventory and related business tasks come to mind. How trustworthy, reliable, persuasive, likeable, etc a person is within a functional network is much harder to measure with numbers.
It’s still worth a try….but we have to realize the results are more of a fun sideshow compared to more serious analytics work.
I see it like the difference between standing on a scale for weight data versus putting on a mood ring to measure my “mood.” Sure, it’s something…but not enough to bother too much with. Otherwise eHarmony and other such metric driven dating sites would be called “marriage tools” instead of a dating tool. They may help recommend a first date…but don’t base an important decision on it.
Analytics are incredibly useful where they are truly applicable.
And by the way, Klout has so far helped me in only two measurable, concrete outcomes. It caused me to waste several hours trying to understand the new vanity meansure. And it’s provided a topic for this Facebook status update. A really useful analytics tool would have predicted that outcome in advance and saved me the trouble. ; )
The Israel Project Conference Call: Jonathan Miller TODAY @ 12:00 P.M. EDT
Author, public servant and Huffington Post contributor Jonathan Miller spent nearly two decades in politics before joining the private sector last year.
A former two-term elected Kentucky State Treasurer, he is the author of the recently released book “The Liberal Case for Israel: Debunking Eight Crazy Lies about the Jewish State,” in which he highlights deep factual misunderstandings, media disinformation, and the perpetuation of “Eight Crazy Lies” by those who seek the Jewish State’s total destruction.
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