But check this from Wayne Zelinsky.

The Louisville Kennel Club, however, recently told the LEO that Zelinsky had not stopped pet confiscations by aggressive animal services officers. Zelinksy says the officers are acting legally.

“There are thirteen circumstances where a law enforcement officer can enter a residence without a warrant, one of those being consent,” he says. “If I come to your house and say, ‘Can I come in?’ and you say yes, I don’t need a warrant to have that.”

What about that quote doesn’t pass the smell test?

Discuss in the comments.

I am outraged over the current administration’s handling of taxpayers’ dollars.  Let us NOT forget that the recent state audit found 69 problems areas with metro government mostly due to MAJOR  accounting problems, including 23.5 MILLION dollars in question.

-SNIP-

I am disappointed over the latest ads from three of my opponents promising an “open and honest government” … promises that the city government will be held accountable.

It is all complete BULL- these current Metro  Council members are part of the establishment and part of the problem. Hal Heiner, Jim King and David Tandy are the reason our local government is in the shape it’s in.

In addition, we should remember that Councilman Tandy continues to promise transparency when he went on a fact finding mission to investigate the Cordish deal that involved 900,000 dollars of tax money- your hard earned money.

And Tandy ended up signing a confidentiality agreement while promising transparency- he knows what happened to our tax dollars- but agreed with the big corporation to keep it silent.

-SNIP-

I am also appalled that Greg Fischer & Tyler Allen did not see this issue as a priority and did not even show up at City Hall to hear Auditor Crit Luallen give her assessment and suggestions to this audit mess. It must not be important for them to know where taxpayer money goes.

Shannon ran Dress for Success, though, so she says that will make her a better mayor.

And here she is on video in front of a door:

Here’s a tip for Shannon: Metro Council members aren’t part of the mayoral administration. Different branch of gubmint entirely.

But there’s something funny going on.

Remember October 2007 when the Republican Governors Association illegally coordinated with Ernie Fletcher’s failed campaign by running ads featuring a Louisiana classroom? And then used the same footage for Bobby Jindal, which made major headlines?

Fischer is doing the same thing.

Allen Boyd in Florida is running ads touting increased communication access featuring this young lady and her laptop:

And whattya know? So is Greg Fischer:

Admittedly, it’s commonplace for media consultants like Fischer’s (Heller at Main Street in D.C.) to use stock video footage in advertisements. But Greg Fischer is touting increased transparency and originality every chance he gets. So it’s a little more hypocritical for him to be passing off stock footage recycled from another campaign as fresh and desirable.

If Fischer can’t be bothered with developing original campaign ads featuring Louisvillians… what else would he try to recycle?

Take a look at the two television ads after the jump…

Allen Boyd in Florida:

Fischer:

In accepting the new position, Redding left his post as chief blogger at The ‘Ville Voice, a successful local blog that operates in conjunction with the popular Page One Kentucky.

“I’m going to be covering a lot of the same stuff I’ve been covering before,” Redding told LEO at the time. “Basically, (I’ll be covering) what the people who have followed me at The ’Ville Voice have come to expect, know and like. Obviously, I think that they were reading it because of me.”

Although readers appeared to follow Redding to Mojo, advertisers did not. Meanwhile, longtime Mojo advertisers were not happy with the site’s shift to news, believing the social-networking vibe was a better fit.

Just want to say that not only did advertisers not follow, more came to The ‘Ville Voice. And our readership grew quite a bit. So obviously it had nothing to do with who was writing. I’m not saying it’s a result of the departure, but I am saying they weren’t interested in leaving – despite the critics who attacked me non-stop.

And here is where Redding is a bit mistaken:

“The successful models aren’t one-man shows, and no one has put together a bunch of competent writers for an online venture,” says Redding. “And I think if you have a pure news and information website, that would be supported by advertisers. It comes down to whether you have a product advertisers will buy into.”

Unfortunately… for what he suggested, I have built a successful model. Clearly advertisers buy into it. As do investors and others from all walks of political and media life. Things have grown exponentially since September 2009. More than I could ever have expected. While I often don’t toot my own horn, I obviously take this seriously and work all waking hours of every day I possibly can. I believe that hard work pays off.

And Ed Manassah, disconnected from media as he is, is partially right:

“The online (source) does a great job of supplementing and real-time distribution, but to create a simple model that says everything’s online, I don’t think we’re there as a consumer of media,” says Ed Manassah, executive director of the Institute for Media, Culture and Ethics at Bellarmine University. “For instance, Page One does a good job of exploring a lot of things, but I don’t know if that can be your main diet of news and information,” adds Manassah, former publisher of The Courier-Journal. “It’s not broad-based enough to where if you read that you’d be satisfied.”

Page One can’t be everything because I don’t want it to be everything. That’d be silly. It would distract from the little bits of information I am good at getting right.

I haven’t criticized Rick in all these months and won’t do so, despite all the shiz that has gone down. So critics need to get over it– especially reporters who continue to tell me that I’m trashed 24/7. I won’t be trashing him (you know I could). I am fortunate and know that. I am grateful for what I have. Let’s be honest… if I was in the wrong? I wouldn’t have ended up owning the majority (despite previously owning a minority) of a company that continues to see success despite serious economic woes.

All this said? I won’t be going anywhere. Expansion is coming. Operations will be improving. A lot is occurring that I can’t yet discuss. And actually, I’ll be asking for reader input over the coming months to determine exactly what you want out of these sites.

Original story:

The Courier-Journal editorial board must have selectively forgotten that it’s not just Dubya and McConnell’s wife who have given the coal industry the velvet glove treatment:

For eight years, of course, the coal industry received the velvet-glove regulatory treatment from the Bush administration that it had paid for, and especially from Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

Yup. That’s it. Surely the ed board has just forgotten that Steve Beshear has treated King Coal as well as – if not better than – any prominent Republican.

Take a trip down the wormhole…

On November 13, 2009 I broke the news that Ron Mills had been fired from the Division of Mine Permits. On November 17, 2009, the Courier-Journal exposed that Beshear and his office were directly involved in the firing. And that’s the last we heard about it in those pages for a while.

Several weeks later, the firing scandal exploded on the pages of the Herald-Leader. John Cheves delivered news on December 4, 2009 that Mills could have been fired by the Beshear Administration at the request of Ray Ashcraft of Alliance Coal.

It only got worse from there. The C-J loosely demanded that the governor start answering questions but left it at that. The H-L, on the other hand, expressed solid outrage at the firing of Mills and pointed further to Beshear’s direct involvement.

On December 9, 2009, the Courier-Journal editorial board decided it had a few more questions for Steve Beshear (after public outrage, of course) about the firing of Ron Mills. But it forgot that Beshear’s own staff members admitted – in that very paper – that Beshear himself was involved in Mills’ firing. That must be when the paper started being forgetful.

At the same time and on the same day, Cheves and the H-L were revealing that the Alliance Coal executive involved in the firing had been lobbying the governor without being a registered lobbyist. That came with tons of denials from Beshear’s spokesperson.

To further prove just how dedicated Beshear was to the coal industry, he went out of his way to ignore and marginalize mountaintop removal opponents on February 11, 2010.

Just some innocent forgetfulness on the paper’s part. That’s all it is.

Yesterday, on April Fools Day, the Metropolitan Louisville Women’s Political Caucus (MLWPC), that works to increase women’s participation in the political process and to identify, recruit, train and support women for elective and appointive public offices, endorsed Greg Fischer.

But, this isn’t a joke, and I am disgusted.

I have spent my entire life empowering women in this community and represent a female voice greatly underrepresented in politics,

• I started Dress for Success Louisville to empower women to achieve self-sufficiency.
• I helped develop a mentoring and coaching program at Women 4 Women.
• I worked as a consultant to raise critical funds for both The Center for Women and Families and NAWBO, The National Association of Women Business Owners.
• And, I was a monthly columnist for Today’s Woman Magazine for over five years.

Shame on MLWPC, who instead of choosing a champion for women in Louisville,  they choose a businessman who is popular in the polls and a long time member of the deeply entrenched old boys network.

My commitment to women from each corner of this city is unmatched by any other candidate in this race and my candidacy represents those who have not had a voice in the past.

-SNIP-

P.S. – Share your disgust and send Metropolitan Louisville Women’s Political Caucus President Angie Wallace a message at akwallace0818@yahoo.com and tell her that women in Louisville deserve more than front runner endorsements.

While there’s almost no question the endorsement of Fischer was a deal put together with the aid of his supporters in the group (Woodward, Candler, et al), isn’t it hilarious that Shannon White feels entitled to the endorsement just because she’s female?

But check this out– the publishing company he used decided to essentially censor him.

CreateSpace, an Amazon.com company, received payment for promotional services and the staff spent several weeks ironing out a press release and promotional strategy with Eklof. And the company took issue with the book’s content, saying in an email to Eklof, “We try to stay away from controversial subjects in headlines and also did not incorporate the phrase Jesus’ followers.” Pretty milquetoast, eh? The two parties came to an agreement and settled on acceptable language in the release and CreateSpace assured Eklof it would be sent in early March.

Nothing happened. Eklof contacted the company and was again assured his release would be sent. “Your press release is currently in the distribution queue and we will be distributing within the next two weeks.” Then two weeks went by and eyebrows were raised.

You’ll wanna CLICK HERE to read the rest…

Yesterday you were called out for your stance against the Fairness Ordinance. That was based on your initial vote as a Metro Councilcritter against Fairness.

Your staff promptly called me to make it clear you have no intention of working to nix Fairness. Verbatim, from your campaign manager, “I just want to be clear that you understand Hal has no intentions of overturning fairness if elected. Zero.”

That’s nice. But none of that changes the fact that you stand against Fairness. According to your staffers, you stand against the Fairness Ordinance because it is “unneeded government regulation.” Because, according to you, discrimination based on sexual orientation and such is already covered under federal statutes and upheld by the Supreme Court… which, here in the reality-based community, we know is patently false. That’s a flat-out lie on your part.

Long story short: Just admit where you stand and leave it at that. The last thing you need is a cadre of gays working to beat you with Chris Thieneman– a guy more delusional than you on the Fairness front.

This is Louisville. The largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. One of the gayest towns in the region. Definitely one of the most progressive on the social front. Most Republicans I know support and wholly defend the Fairness Ordinance. It’s not an issue of Right vs. Left but common sense vs. ignorance.

It’s a shame that the two most prominent Republican candidates in the mayoral race are so openly ignorant and willing to discriminate.  Even more shameful that the Heiner has decided to obfuscate on this matter because he knows he’ll need the gays in a general election.

During his failed 2008 U.S. Senate bid, Fischer repeatedly referred to himself as a co-inventor of an ice dispenser. And just a few weeks ago he appeared at a downtown mayoral forum in which he declared he was the inventor of a combination ice-beverage dispensing machine:

But reality is much different. A commenter in early February summed things up nicely:

Servend, originally called Servend Distributors, began as an Indiana company and remained one, one that was founded by a Sellersburg man named Jerry Landers while Greg Fischer was still in high school.

What’s troubling isn’t the “move” but rather that the Fischers so often allow themselves credit for starting Servend when in actuality they bought it. They tacked “International” on the end after the purchase so I suppose when they refer to founding Servend International they mean the legal entity on paper and not the company on the ground, but it hardly seems accurate to base one’s early acumen on such a technicality. Servend Distributors held patents on ice machines before the Fischers were ever involved.

Since Fischer is an open book… maybe he’d care to admit he isn’t the inventor, but the guy who bought it? According to court documents, SerVend Distributors, Inc. (Jerry Landers) invented the ice machine. Then George Fischer (Greg’s dad) purchased the company. Greg’s name does appear as a co-inventor – not inventor – on U.S. Patent No. 4,641,763, a dispensing apparatus. And it appears his name was appended to the original patent. But for the 13 other patents SerVend holds for the ice dispenser? Fischer’s name doesn’t appear as an inventor. Jerry Landers’ does.

Or is that too much honesty and transparency for a mayoral candidate?

What’s with State Senate President David Williams’ glaring hypocrisy? His quilt of denial is coming unraveled quite quickly. [Page One]

Metro Councilcritter Tina Ward-Pugh will hold a campaign kick-off celebration for her re-election this evening. 5:30 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. at 2622 Frankfort Avenue (next to Oscar’s Hardware). So stop by to meet her campaign staff, sign up to volunteer and learn more about your 9th District councilwoman. She’s – for whatever reason – got some misguided Democratic opponent who thinks he can beat her. [Press Release]

Metro Animal Services could finally be getting a new incinerator. No more dumping bodies of dead pets. [WLKY]

This week Fairdale Bigfoot, who is no longer running for mayor, provides insight (not the terrible cable provider that screws the entire region) into dating realities. [Consuming Louisville]

Ford shares hit a five-year high. Maybe because their products no longer suck. Which feels pretty good to say. [C-J]

Is there an excuse for a cut in school days in Kentucky? The legislature is in a hot mess over it all but I rarely hear anybody in Louisville mention it. [H-L]

There’s some kind of king coal & Rand Paul rally in Louisville today. All five people in the city who love mountaintop removal will show up. [Page One]