UNITE continues to defy the stereotypes. From the Corbin Times Tribune:
When a suspected drug dealer is arrested in an early morning drug roundup, the local UNITE Coalition, made up of community leaders, pastors and other volunteers, makes sure the little things are taken care of.
They feed the cat, make sure the kids have a ride from school, and contact family members to let them know what’s happened.
They also make sure some bigger, spiritual needs, are addressed.
“The reason I’m here is because I know these folks need some kind of spiritual counseling,” said J.W. Binnon, pastor at Wesley Chapel Independent Methodist in Corbin and chaplain with local Civil War reenactment groups. “We’re here to help them and their families. They’re going to do their time and pay for their crime, but we’re here to let them know that the Lord loves them and wants them back.”
In 2000 George W. Bush was elected President largely on a platform of Compassionate Conservatism. But events quickly caused him to lose focus on that part of his agenda. Hal Rogers, meanwhile, picked up that baton in a way that nobody else has.
If you want to understand what compassionate conservatism is, come spend some time in Hal Rogers’ district.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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13 comments:
Is this similar to the treatment Rush received for his addiction to Hillbilly coke ?
I hope so. Prayer is good for everyone.
Hal Rogers will be in office for as long as he brings home the bacon - he makes Carl D. Perkins look like a rank amateur in pork barrel politics. Rogers is doing in his district, at least around Somerset, what Robert Byrd did in W. Va. Keep it up and the Pentagon will be at Science Hill.
Rogers best achievements defy standard claims of pork. They include UNITE, an organization w/ strong community grassroots coalitions, religious ties, support for treatment and even money for law enforcement.
Another example is PRIDE, an org. that helped clean up E. KY's garbage dumps and provide septic tanks to the underprivileged and create community awareness about the need to keep our streams clean.
Then there are the economic development organizations that support local businesses via low interest loans and even venture capital.
There's money for math and science education that Rogers gets, and there's funding for entrepreneurship training for EKY youth and scholarships.
Simply claiming that this is pork is easy when you live outside the district. But when you've faced its chronic problems for decades and see a visionary like Hal come along, it's danged impressive.
Then why is he known as "Kentucky's Prince of Pork?"
"This pay-to-play corruption on the appropriations committee extends to national security. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), who heads the homeland security appropriations subcommittee, has diverted funds for making tamper-proof identification cards to “companies that are donors to his political causes,” according to the New York Times. Rogers has taken 11 trips paid for by an organization to which the congressman helped steer a no-bid contract, and even moved funds to a company that employs his son. The result of Rogers’ shenanigans has been a more than two-year delay in the production of the ID cards."
"U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers put $500,000 in this year's federal budget to build a parking lot for a private resort on Lake Cumberland that is owned by one of his campaign contributors.
Rogers, who represents southeast Kentucky's 5th Congressional District, directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assist J.D. Hamilton, who bought the Lee's Ford Marina Resort in 2003 and is promising to make sweeping improvements."
"The Quest for Hometown Security
Rogers's Sway Over Spending Benefits 'Silicon Holler' in Kentucky
By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 25, 2005; Page A19
SOMERSET, Ky. -- The evidence of Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers's leverage over the federal budget has accumulated over the years in the poor hill country of his Appalachian Kentucky district here.
There are high-tech industrial parks, railroad freight facilities, economic development offices, even a parking lot at a lakefront resort, all funded by federal tax dollars. Particularly striking is the Center for Rural Development, a grand building in one of the nation's poorest regions.
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The center, dubbed the "Taj Mahal" by some residents, has a soaring ceiling, a wall of windows and a performing arts theater. On a pedestal in the lobby sits the Harold "Hal" Rogers Leadership Award, an etched-glass bust of the powerful Republican lawmaker."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/24/AR2005122400990.html
Bill:
Actually he's known as Hal, as nearly everyone affectionately calls him in the 5th.
Of course he's brought in things like hi-tech industrial parks and buildings that promote economic growth. Since when was that wrong.
But you continue to gloss over the points I make:
* UNITE, an organization w/ strong community grassroots coalitions, religious ties, support for treatment and even money for law enforcement.
* PRIDE, an org. that helped clean up E. KY's garbage dumps and provide septic tanks to the underprivileged and create community awareness about the need to keep our streams clean.
* economic development organizations that support local businesses via low interest loans and even venture capital. (And yes, hi-tech office parks.)
* Money for math and science education and entrepreneurship training for EKY youth and scholarships.
These things defy the lablel of pork, not that you'd ever admit it.
I know you're impressed with UNITE, and you probably know I consider the so -called 'war on drugs' a failure. That said, you think UNITE negates all that pork?
Bill:
I'm not one of those folks who sit around railing about earmarks, so I'm pretty favorable on Hal's work.
As for the drug wars, you have to understand that UNITE offers three things to help communities with drugs: law enforcement, community support and involvement, and therapy/treatment for users.
I also have suggested you look at PRIDE. Septic tanks for poor families? Are you really against that Bill? Would you let your kids play in the creeks back home in Letcher County?
Venture capital for tech companies and alternative credit for others... this is pork?
There's no doubt that Hal brings construction projects into his district, like Chandler, Yarmuth and virtually every other Congressman, that one could tag with the label pork. But you have to look at the totality of the man's work. He approaches systemic problems in the region and through a blend of grassroots activity, non-profit governance, and federal appropriations tries to solve some of the area's most intractable problems.
That's why folks all around KY are trying to emulate Rogers' drug courts.
That's why Congressman Chandler tried to get a Bluegrass PRIDE chapter going.
Hal's work works. And the centerpiece of his efforts are the orgs I described above, esp. PRIDE and UNITE. These defy the easy/lazy label of pork and more appropriately fall under the rubric of compassionate conservatism.
I'm running in the 2010 Democratic Congressional Primary to give the people of Kentucky's Fifth District better representation in Washington because Hal Rogers' brand of money-driven, "business-as-usual" politics isn't good for our District, our Country, or our People.
Hal Rogers' 28 years of pork-swilling has brought untold millions of dollars into the 5th District, but they haven't been spent on long-term economic projects that will furnish large numbers of stable, good-paying, middle-class-enabling jobs.
Hal Rogers' pork-barrel money has gone to make the rich richer, rewarding the political donors who fill Rogers' campaign war chest to overflowing, and influencing votes for all the political and economic "leaders" who each have their own "arrangements" with him.
Rogers has been a reliable vote in Congress for the policies that have wrecked our economy and financial system, and which have put us into endless foreign wars that don't benefit anybody except defense contractors and those who would like to see America fall.
After 28 years of Hal Rogers in Congress, the working people of Kentucky's 5th District are still at rock bottom in terms of health and life expectancy, education, income, and prospects for the future. Our region leads only in such statistics as drug addiction and prison construction, precisely because people here have little connection with the progress they see elsewhere in America, and little reason to hope that anything will be different in the future. And given Hal Rogers' record of "representing" them in Congress for the past 28 years, who can blame them?
I'm a working person serving the people of southeast Kentucky as an Emergency Medical Service helicopter pilot, a family man and homeowner in Laurel County, and a veteran of twenty years' active duty military service.
I stand for the things that are important to working people: re-vitalizing and opening up the middle class through policies that will ensure that the majority of Americans who work to produce wealth share in it, instead of seeing their situations decline while those at the top of the economic ladder get more and more obscenely rich.
I stand for an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing our troops home from foreign outposts, and securing our borders against illegal immigration.
I stand for a comprehensive energy policy that serves America, not OPEC and the big energy companies.
I stand for reversing the disastrous "free trade" policies that result in losing millions of good-paying American jobs and the destruction of our basic manufacturing industries.
I'm asking the people of Kentucky's 5th District to support my campaign by telling their neighbors and making a contribution. Please visit my campaign website, www.holbertforcongress.com. Thank you.
--Jim Holbert, www.holbertforcongress.com
Jim:
Yeah, rewarding rich donors by paying for addicts drug treatment, or getting septic systems to the poor, or cleaning up our streams, or providing arts to the good people of Somerset, or flood relief to Bell County, or money for Rogers' scholars.
Looks like you're flying into turbulence with your goggles off.
How is Rogers "cleaning up our streams" when he supports mountaintop removal?
How is Rogers putting people in good paying jobs when the 5th is still second poorest in the nation?
How is Rogers helping our kids get a good education? Last time I checked, the 5th has one of the highest drop out rates in the country, as well as one of the lowest college attendance rates in the country,
Rogers is useless. Vote for Jim.
So Jim's against mountaintop removal mining? Good to know.
As for the economic conditions and educational stats you cite, we're all well aware of those. Most realize these are chronic problems and that in order to alleviate and improve upon them, we need someone in DC who can bring home needed infrastructure money. That person's clearly Hal.
If we are "well aware" of the economic conditions, why the heck do we keep re electing this guy? Do we think if we re-elect him enough times maybe he'll do something effective? East KY has been poor for the entire time he has been our Congressman and will continue to remain that way until we elect Jim Holbert to the United States Congress.
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