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 Fri Apr 27, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
Last week’s we featured a piece by our newest Friend of RP, John Y. Brown, IV (son of contributing RP John Y. Brown, III) in which the 18-year-old Brown announced that he was breaking with family tradition to be a Republican.
We never could have imagined how popular the piece would be — but at 5,000 readers and growing, it is the most popular piece this blog has ever published that didn’t discuss prison sex.
Well, another 18-year-old Kentuckian registered to vote today. My daughter, Emily. And I’m proud to say that she registered as a Democrat. Woot!
Unfortunately her father embarrassed the family name by taking her picture in the County Clerk’s office. Oh well.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri Apr 27, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
The first round of the NFL Draft is in the books and it was the most exciting one in recent memory. The beginning of the draft last night was full of trades and very quick picks. The second and third rounds continue tonight and the fourth through seventh rounds conclude on Saturday. Click through to read an in-depth analysis of each first round pick. [Fox Sports]
There is the conservative critique of Barack Obama that contends that he has grown the size and scope of government too much; then there is the liberal charge that he has moved to the middle and forfeited the progressive moment. The first is more true, the second more stinging to an administration that believes it is on the verge of breaking the political right.
There is a third case, however, that is tied not to a theory of how big or small government should be but to the idea that a leader has obligations to speak with precision and clarity about the nature of the country’s burdens. By that elusive standard, the famously slippery Bill Clinton still fares well on an issue like welfare reform, where he reminded his base that an entitlement that penalizes work is a social disaster. Jimmy Carter, for that matter, deserves points for an energy policy that meant to cap the rising dependence on foreign oil at 1978 import levels, which had future presidents stuck to his efforts, would have us paying $2.25 at the gas pump.
President Obama gets low marks on the precision and the clarity scale when he outlines a budgetary vision that treats Medicare and Social Security as asterisks and not the biggest driver of deficits, and trusts the future of Medicare in particular to the old trope of going after “waste, fraud and abuse.” He gets similarly low marks when his defense of healthcare reform channels Newt Gingrich’s tirade about unelected judges trumping our venerable elected congressmen (whose job rating bats .100) And he gets barely passing grades on his case for the Buffett Rule, a kind of minimum tax for millionaires that would trim the deficit next year by the grand sum of a tenth of one percent while diminishing charitable giving much more.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The Shrinking Obama Vision
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Apr 26, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
The 2012 NFL Draft is tonight and todays WWG is all about the mock drafts. We’ll start off with the only mock draft that NFL.com’s Mike Mayock did all year. [NFL.com]
Walter Football has done fantastic work keeping their mock draft updated this year. Here is the most recent iteration. [Walter Football]
Drafttek’s mock is fine but make sure to check out the other information they have available like team needs and positional rankings. [DraftTek]
Here are the combined mocks from the experts at CBS. [CBS Sports]
Don Banks has submitted his 7th and most recent mock draft to SI. [Sports Illustrated]
Finally, here is you complete draft order for reference. [ESPN]
By Michael Steele, on Thu Apr 26, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
After 10 days of discussing women and the role of women in the home, the workplace or just about any other space you could think of, a number of friends began to boast (or lament) about the presidential election turning on “social issues.”
No doubt such issues are important and will be as much a part of our national debate as health care or the War on Terror. But there is one issue, perhaps not as politically hot as contraceptives but just as potentially life changing: $5 trillion! That’s a number that doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue too often, but that’s how much the federal debt has increased since January 2009.
To be certain there have been a lot of fingers in that pot to make it grow to be as big as it is.
During the course of the Bush administration Republicans found their mojo for Big Government Republicanism. For example, in 2003, President George W. Bush announced his administration would spend “up to $400 billion” over 10 years to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare.
Problem was by 2008, that Medicare drug entitlement program was projected to cost $783 billion over the next 10 years. And then there was the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”) from which funds were used to bail out the banks and General Motors. As Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia)noted at the time, “It is now clear that the creation of TARP was a rueful mistake which has failed to provide urgent market stability, yet has put our country perilously in debt for the foreseeable future.”
Read the rest of… Michael Steele: 1 is Not the Loneliest Number; 5 Trillion is
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Apr 25, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Some guys are into souped up, pimped out cars. Others are into collecting sophisticated or rare guns. Me? I’m into bad a** tooth brushes.
I just picket up a new tooth brush with—get this (forgive me for geeking out)
Sonic technology, slimmer than Sonicare Essence. It creates Sonic vibrations and a dynamic bristle cleaning action that removes more plaque than a regular manual toothbrushes.
Two Brushing Modes and two Oral-B replacement heads (Pulsonic and Precision Tip) meet my unique teeth cleaning needs. And will leave me with a radiant smile.
I asked the store clerk if this was essentially the AK-47 of toothbrushes. She wasn’t sure what I was talking about. But I clarified that I didn’t want to hear about another –even more powerful toothbrush being available—if I bought this. She assured me that would not happen.
I asked her if any of the toothbrushes were Taser-capable.
She again acted confused.
But I think she was secretly very impressed and was merely trying to conceal it.
If I pull up to a Ferrari I’ll look over as if to say to the driver “Nice car” while holding up my toothbrush for the driver to see and reciprocate with a look back of “Nice toothbrush.”
Hilary Rosen’s put-down of Ann Romney has operated in a remarkably generous manner for all sides of the dispute. For Republicans, the incident has been galvanizing, sympathetically raising the profile of Mitt Romney’s strongest validator, and reviving familiar arguments about liberal condescension toward traditional family structures. For Team Obama, the lightning fast denunciations of Rosen were an opportunity to claim solidarity with non professional married females who have lagged in their enthusiasm for the president in most surveys; and to simultaneously highlight the wealth gap between the Romneys and those same non professional marrieds.
Even for Hilary Rosen, while her 33rd visit to the White House has been indefinitely postponed, she is now another previously interchangeable DC consultant whose business will thrive from the glow of 15 minutes of fame.
So, spare the ritualistic outrage over the Rosen comment, and the dissection of whether she was an aberration or just speaking out of school, long enough to consider the following: an election that seemed destined to be about job growth and consumer confidence is taking on broader dimensions.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The Culture War Begins
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