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Presidential Material?

Read this about Gov. Beshear of Kentucky and then see if you agree that he is.

Undaunted: Courage is Contagious

This week, The Contrarian honors Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear 

JENNIFER RUBIN FEB 21

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Sadly, there is no governor as practiced in emergency response as Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. He has steered his state through a horrendous tornado, mass shootings (one of which took the lives of two friends), and record floods. The most recent left standing water statewide and twelve people dead.

As is Beshear’s style, he has been everywhere in his state, meeting with residents, coordinating with first responders and—even in these fraught times—heralding the work of FEMA, which the Musk-Trump junta have targeted for elimination.

“On Tuesday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told Morning Edition that he’s been traveling across the state on a pontoon boat, mourning with the families of recently deceased residents and helping those who were displaced,” NPR reported. With his usual calm, measured tone, he explained: 

“We’ve been hit again, and we’ve been hit hard….I was in Pike County yesterday seeing homes and businesses that have just been destroyed, several feet of mud, everything inside just wiped away. Folks that didn’t have a lot to begin with, losing what they had.”

Asked about FEMA, he replied, “What we're going to need from the federal government is approval for individual assistance that will provide some dollars for this emergency phase, for cleaning up. But then that’s up to $42,000 to help people get back on their feet. And we’re going to need that system to run smoother than it has in the past.”

Naturally, he has been asked repeatedly about the future of FEMA. He told CBS News, “I’ve been outspoken on the need for FEMA…. We have suffered loss, and we have suffered damage at a scale I’m not sure a single generation of Kentuckians have ever seen.” He acknowledged that the agency was not perfect, but emphasized that “how they surge resources in the search-and-rescue phase is critically important.”

In a state Donald Trump won by over 30 points, Beshear (who won re-election by 5 points in 2023) has advocated consistently for positions he thinks help his state—whether it is preserving FEMA, vetoing an anti-trans bill (which, he explained, required “too much government interference in personal healthcare issues and rips away the freedom of parents to make medical decisions for their children”), and advocating for women’s reproductive freedom.

For the latter, he excoriated the MAGA forced-birth stance, pointing out the burden on rape victims. “Their policies give rapists more rights than their victims. That’s not inconvenient. It’s just plain wrong,” Beshear said at the Chicago Democratic Convention. He added, “That fails any test of humanity, any test of basic decency, any test of whether you have any underlying empathy. Thankfully, this extremism is being soundly rejected all over our country.”

Beshear might not always produce the sort of fire-breathing rhetoric many in the Democratic base long for. But he defends core Democratic values (e.g., good governance, women’s rights, advocating for so-called red flag laws) with common sense and an emphasis on his personal faith. In the coming months and years in Trump 2.0, he will provide a model for Democrats to talk with (not to) rural voters, farmers, and other groups not normally part of the Democratic coalition but essential to its future.

As he recently told a Politico governors’ summit, “When people believe that you are actually improving their lives, and they see it and they feel it. Now they’ll change the way they vote.”

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There are few better spokesmen than he, for example, when it comes to explaining the hardship the USAID freeze imposed on farmers or the damaging impact of tariffs and rolling back green energy investment. “I would hope a president that said we’re going to make more cars in America would do things that helped us make more cars in America,” Beshear said recently. “We’ve announced about 10,000 EV jobs in Kentucky, and (Trump) won Kentucky by 30 points. And so, if you do the math, if he causes us to lose these EV jobs, he is eliminating jobs from the very people who voted for him.”

Beshear continued: “His plans and approach right now risks tanking that economy in a way that will hurt people.” He added, “The amount that gas will cost more will be the ‘Trump tax.’” Reminding voters that Trump promised to lower prices, he pointed out that “in Kentucky, we get hit the hardest, or at least close to the hardest."

And for good measure, Beshear declared, “What we’ve seen since he's been in office is an obsession with ‘culture war’ issues and a willingness to gamble our economic gains on non-economic issues. My hope is that they knock it off, along with areas like threatening our national security with a number of buyouts that could occur in the CIA.”

At a time when Democrats need not only strong voices, but effective ones to reach Americans who may have given up on Democrats, Beshear provides a powerful example of successful governance and strategically smart rhetoric. We at The Contrarian believe that such courage is contagious.

Today, we honor Governor Beshear for remaining Undaunted in his defense of democracy and of the health and well-being of his constituents. 

Has Anyone Heard of This?

24 HOUR ECONOMIC BLACKOUT

This was posted by Jon Stewart but initiated by John Clemens: “The 24 hour Economic Blackout

 

WHEN:

Friday February 28th from

12:00 AM to 11:59 PM

WHAT TO DO:

Do not make any purchases

Do not shop online, or in-store

No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy

Nowhere!

Do not spend money on:

Fast Food

Gas

Major Retailers

Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Only buy essentials of absolutely necessary

(Food, Medicine, Emergency Supplies)

If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.

SPREAD THE MESSAGE

Talk about it, post about it, and document your actions that day!

WHY THIS MATTERS!

~ Corporations and banks only care about their bottom line.

~ If we disrupt the economy for just ONE day, it sends a powerful message.

~ If they don't listen (they won't) we make the next blackout longer (we will)

This is our first action.

This is how we make history.

February 28th

The 24 Hour Economic Black Out Begins.”

 

Here's the website behind this. _._,_

.He,_ 

Got this on Monday from Common Cause. 

The billionaire-owned Washington Post doesn’t want you to see this Fire Elon Musk ad.

Our ad was all set to run tomorrow morning, with a signed contract and all. But at the last minute, Jeff Bezos's newspaper rejected our ad from running in its White House edition with no explanation, even though they have run similar ads praising Trump. [1]

You read that right. The Washington Post – which has a responsibility to hold a magnifying glass up to powerful people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump – refused to run our ad calling them out.

The Post – whose tagline reminds us that “democracy dies in darkness” – won’t tell us its reasoning (believe us, we asked!) But when you look at our ad for yourself, I bet you’ll put two and two together:

I’m writing to you because this isn’t just about one ad or even one billionaire – it’s about who our democracy is for: all of the people or just the ultra-rich?

Let’s back up a bit: Common Cause has spent the past few weeks going all out on D.C. decision-makers to keep Elon Musk’s greedy hands off our schools, our hospitals, our personal information, and our Social Security.

After hundreds of thousands of petition signatures – plus over 5,000 Common Cause members like you stepping up financially to back our Fire Elon Musk campaign – we decided to send a message they couldn’t ignore: a newspaper ad delivered straight to the White House and congressional offices.

So, when the Washington Post abruptly pulled out and refused to explain why, we had some questions:

• Did our ad get censored because it criticizes Elon Musk and Donald Trump, the two most powerful men in the country?
• Will the Washington Post only publish things they think the president will like?
• And… is Jeff Bezos more worried about an angry phone call from the White House than his paper’s journalistic integrity?

Just a few weeks ago, Bezos had a front-row seat with Musk at Trump’s inauguration – not to mention Mark Zuckerberg, whose cowardly and profit-driven decision to end fact-checking on Facebook Bezos appears to be mirroring. 

Marcia, it seems like wherever you look, from “independent” media outlets to our elected leaders in Congress, institutions we used to rely on to defend our democracy are dropping the ball. They’re choosing profit, comfort, or political convenience over their duty to the American people.

That means it’s up to us – and Common Cause is ready to do whatever it takes.

We won’t let billionaires like Musk and Bezos silence the truth. If legacy media refuses to hold the powerful accountable, then we’ll do it ourselves with your help. Together, we can succeed where others have failed, answer the call, and do what’s right – no matter who tries to stop us.

Thanks for all you do,

Virginia Kase Solomón, President and CEO 
and the team at Common Cause