Beshear: NASCAR Sprint Cup race coming to NKY

This press release was issued today by Governor Beshear:

SPARTA, Ky. – Gov. Steve Beshear today announced that a NASCAR Sprint Cup race will be coming to the Kentucky Speedway on July 9, 2011. NASCAR will be moving into its first new market since 2001, and Kentucky will host the premier racing event in the nation.

“I am thrilled that all the hard work of my administration to bring a NASCAR Sprint Cup race to Kentucky has finally paid off,” said Gov. Steve Beshear. “The legislation we proposed and pushed and I signed amending our Tourism Development Act to attract legacy expansion projects to Kentucky was critical in bringing this race to Kentucky. In addition to the excitement this race will bring to race fans, it will have an unparalleled economic impact on the region. Kentucky Speedway – start your engines!”

In 2009, Gov. Beshear proposed legislation amending the Kentucky Tourism Development Act to help attract a Sprint Cup race to Kentucky. The legislation adds a new eligible category of so-called “legacy expansion” projects. Legacy expansion projects must conduct events that are in the top league, series or sanctioned level of their type of event, provide permanent seating for 65,000 spectators and be broadcast nationally. The venue must have previously been approved for incentives and the expansion project must exceed $30 million and present one or more “premier events” not previously held in Kentucky. The Kentucky Speedway was among the first projects approved under the Kentucky Tourism Development Act that provides tax incentives to new or expanding businesses.

“We’re going to create the biggest sports event in the history of the state in 2011, and any fan that comes here will know what it means to be lucky in Kentucky!” said Bruton Smith, Chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.

“NASCAR has a huge number of racing fans here in Kentucky, so finding out that a Sprint Cup race is coming is like an early Christmas present,” said House Speaker Greg Stumbo. “The Kentucky Speedway has long been one of the state’s crown jewels, and now it is going to get a chance to truly shine. This race, and the economic benefit it will bring, could not come at a better time.”

“The legislatively initiated policy that facilitated this long-awaited Sprint Cup is an example of how targeted incentives in special circumstances can allow entrepreneurs to create jobs and grow our economy,” said Senate President David Williams.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup series is the premier series of NASCAR races, and the number two rated regular season sport on television. It is the number one spectator sport, having more of the top twenty highest attended events in the country than any other sport. The Beshear administration and local officials believe this high level of spectator attendance will have an unprecedented economic impact on the Gallatin County region and beyond. Estimates of the impact to the Kentucky tourism economy range up to $150 million.

“It’s certainly going to mean a lot to Gallatin County and to the region,” said Rep. Royce Adams. “It’ll bring economic development to the whole area because of the increase in attendance.”

Rand Paul Campaign in Total Lockdown Mode

Today the DSCC issued this press release:

Rand Paul’s campaign is in total lockdown mode today, as a GQ story alleging Paul abducted and tried to force a female classmate at Baylor to use illegal drugs against her will has prompted serious questions. While the campaign has tried to smear the reporter and publication, they have yet to either address, or even deny the allegation that Paul physically abducted a young woman, forced her to bow to a false idol and tried to make her take hits of marijuana from a bong against her will. Paul’s campaign said yesterday they "are investigating all our options -- including legal ones." GQ’s Editor-in-Chief has said that he stands by the story. Today’s fundraiser with Mitch McConnell in Lexington presents a golden opportunity for Paul to take questions and explain, in front of McConnell and his supporters, what really happened. Despite Paul’s attacks on GQ, he still hasn’t answered the following basic questions:

• Is the alleged victim lying about Rand Paul tying her up, blindfolding her and abducting her?
• Is the alleged victim lying about Rand Paul trying to force her to use illegal drugs?
• Is the alleged victim lying about Rand Paul forcing her to worship false idols?

“Instead of running to his lawyers, Rand Paul should face the people of Kentucky and give some straight answers,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Communications Director Eric Schultz. “On issue after issue, Rand Paul refuses to be straight with Kentuckians. After shifting on numerous positions and backtracking on previous statements, Rand Paul is now refusing to address serious allegations that he abducted a female classmate and tried to force her to use illegal drugs against her will.”

National pundits have been puzzled by Paul’s failure to respond to these questions.

“The reporter called [the Paul campaign] up, asked them about the story, and they gave him a kind of non-denial denial,” Ken Vogel of Politico said Monday on MSNBC’s Countdown. “They weren’t ready for something they probably should have been ready for.”

“I think they’re going to have to talk about the issue at some point,” Jonathan Martin of Politico said on Hardball. “Paul’s going to be asked about it on the campaign trail in Kentucky.”

Rand Paul has spent the past two months walking away from his record and who he really is. A month after saying the Civil Rights Act shouldn’t apply to private business and refusing to say he would have voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act, Paul backtracked on his positions, saying the federal government was right to impose civil rights on private business. Paul committed the same politically expedient move after he defended BP after the oil spill, calling criticism of the company “Un-American.” Under fire for his remarks, Paul went back on his comments, saying government regulations of offshore drilling were not adequate. Paul has also gone into hiding with the media, refusing to conduct interviews and forcing journalists to submit all questions in writing despite “offering detailed answers on just about any topic during his primary campaign.” Paul recently held a fundraiser in Washington DC with the same establishment Republicans he railed against on the campaign trail.

Editorial comic roundup

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President Obama's weekly address

The President discusses a new Medicare Trustees report showing Medicare to be on much stronger footing as a result of the reforms in the Affordable Care Act.

McConnell's idea of 'bipartisanship'

Via ThinkProgress:

Today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sat down with a group of political reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Despite leading the most obstructionist minority party in American history, McConnell attacked Democrats and the President for what he perceived as their lack of bipartisanship. The Kentucky senator then called for more bipartisanship, but in the very same breath, said he is not willing to give an inch to the left:

McCONNELL: If you have a big majority, what you want to do is pick off a Republican or two, give it the taint of bipartisanship and do what you want to do. If you’re between 55 and 45, you get genuine bipartisan agreement. And what I hope we’re going to have — and it will be up to the American people — but what I hope we’re going to have is more balance, more balance, which will give us opportunities to do things together, that simply are missing when you have this kind of disparity. But, I’m not going to be very interested in doing things left of center. It’s going to have to be center-right and I think the President is a flexible man and I’ll think he’ll become a born-again moderate.

Sarah Palin: Liar, Liar

Sarah Palin gets fact-checked by the nonpartisan PolitiFact:

Sarah Palin said she wrote her notes on her hand so the "liberals" couldn't say she got her numbers wrong when she appeared on Fox News Sunday. Well, we're independent fact-checkers, and we still found accuracy issues with the former governor's statements on the expiring Bush tax cuts.

...Palin said, "Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history." She was asked about tax cuts for the top 2 percent. Either Palin is confused about the revenue numbers involved with extending the tax cuts, or she's willfully distorting the Democratic plans. We'll let you be the judge of that. Regardless, Wallace was very specific about asking her about tax increases for the top 2 percent. And that does not represent the largest tax increase in history. The unlikely outcome that she seems to be talking about -- that all of the Bush tax cuts will be repealed -- wouldn't be the largest tax increase in history either. Palin read the number on her hand correctly, but that's about all she got right. So we rate her statement Pants on Fire.

John Boehner caught lying

PolitiFact makes a great catch:

On the Aug. 1, 2010, edition of Fox News Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, tried to crystallize how bad the current job picture is. "This is the first time since the depression that unemployment has stayed above 9 percent for two consecutive years," Boehner told host Chris Wallace.

We decided to check whether Boehner was right.

...any way you look at it, Boehner's statistic was wrong. We rate his statement False.

McConnell's hypocrisy on campaign disclosure

Today's Herald-Leader included this great editorial:

Given McConnell's 20-year devotion to the Holy Grail of [campaign contribution] disclosure, it may seem puzzling to hear him speak of it now as if it were the handiwork of Lucifer himself. But there's no puzzle to it. McConnell's apostasy on this issue is born of a Supreme Court decision that took his "money as free speech" argument to its ridiculous extreme.

Now that corporations are people, too, in the eyes of the court and free to spend at will on political causes, McConnell doesn't want his buddies in the nation's boardrooms pestered by any disclosure rules.

So, he's leading the filibuster that so far has blocked passage of a proposal to require corporations, unions and most other independent organizations to open up the books on their political spending.

Choices

President Obama's weekly address

President Obama praises the successes of the auto industry restructuring as good news for our economy, and calls on Republican leaders in the Senate to "stop holding America's small businesses hostage to politics" by blocking a vote to help them create jobs.