From the Cyberhillbilly blog ..
IN KENTUCKY .. where they love Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney
and have very nice homes
and believe in Islamofascism ..
and seem genetically unable to understand war crimes and torture
as AGAINST THE LAW
Some residents in the area take vacations abroad
and buy lovely diamond bracelets.
A good friendly place that seems to love materialism
and arch conservative politicians.
V
New Cheney Bio: VP's Views on Government Shaped by Run-in with Eastern KY Anti-Poverty Program
An embattled Republican Governor in Frankfort works furiously to undo decades of Democratic patronage. In the White House, a Republican President who many will ultimately suggest was one of the worst occupants of the Oval Office ever works to turn around a vicious insurgency in a foreign land. The President’s inner circle includes names like Cheney and Rumsfield. If you guessed the Prez’s name was Bush and the Governor’s Fletcher, you’re wrong. The correct guess would be Nixon and Nunn.
According to what is, up to now, the best available full length biography covering the life and career of Dick Cheney, an experience with an Eastern Kentucky Democratic apparatchik would be a formative factor in the future Veep’s views on the size and scope of the federal government.
In Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice-President, author Stephen Hayes devotes nearly 3 pages to a conflict between then Governor Louie B. Nunn and Breathitt County Democrat Treva Turner Howell.
In 1969 former Congressman Donald Rumsfield joined the Nixon White House. He received two portfolios: Special Assistant to President Nixon and Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. The OEO was created by President Johnson in 1965 and was the lead agency in implementing Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” By 1969 it was viewed by many Republicans as a boondoggle. Worse yet, in Rumsfield’s mind “the OEO had gotten to the point where a reasonable amount of money ended up going into radical organizations that were antisociety, and they were doing things that were, in some case illegal.”
According to Hays, in October 1969 Kentucky Governor Louie Nunn was “up in arms” about an “antipoverty project in Eastern Kentucky called the Middle KY River Area Development District” and wanted President Nixon to cancel the program altogether. Hays says “Nunn reported that the program was rife with corruption and double dealing and that its administrators were redirecting money intended for the poor to their political allies, all Democrats.”
Nunn’s complaints put Nixon between a rock and a hard place. Nunn had been his Chairman for the Southern U.S. in 1968. But the program was located in Congressman Carl D. Perkins' district. Perkins was the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, had authored the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the bill that crated the OEO, and was political allies with the prominent Turner family.
Nixon was eager to be responsive to the Governor and suggested sending a White House team to investigate. Rumsfield felt that was politically unwise. He suggested the White House might someday need to disavow his actions or the Governor’s: “You can always disown me or… Louie Nunn… but you can’t take it right into the White House and stick it right in the President’s plate.”
Rumsfield’s solution: “he would dispatch his best man”, says Hays, “Dick Cheney… [who] went to KY to meet with… Howell.” Hays describes Howell as a woman who came “from a family of powerful Democrats.” Upon hearing of Nunn’s accusations, Hays says, “she lashed out [and called them] “character assassins, purveyors of perjury, crybabies and cowards.””
Hays says that Howell turned on the charm when Cheney came to town. After taking him for a tour of the Middle KY facilities “she invited him into her house and… poured him three fingers of bourbon,” before doing her “best to persuade Cheney that the program was run according to the highest principles.”
Though Cheney left unconvinced, he also left empty handed. Non-evidence left Nixon little choice but to continue funding the program. According to Hays this made Nunn “furious [and] he threatened to hold public hearings that would “make the case of the taxpayers vs. the OEO.”” Hays says that Nunn “harangued” the White House into a Nixon promise to review the program a second time. When Nixon suggested again that the White House investigate Rumsfield talked him out of it, again. “Let’s get the FBI to do it”, Rumsfield said. The bureau did just that and also found nothing. Hays says that “throughout the episode Rumsfield backed his young aide [Cheney] against pressure from one of Nixon’s staunchest supporters [Nunn.]" Meanwhile, "incidents like those in Kentucky and California [which underwent another OEO scandal] began to shape the future Vice-President's views on the size and scope of government."
7 comments:
The more that things change, the more they stay the same.
Ever hear of Kentucky River Community Care? It's sucking up government dollars (and grant dollars) left and right, supposedly to provide mental health services in the area. The people involved are eaten up with the high-fallutin' gobbledygook and think they are better and smarter than the rest of us poor hillbillies.
The executive director? Her name is Louise Howell and she'd a descendant of the Turner clan.
These people are getting rich off the taxpayers and the "services" they provide are questionable. They seem to be in business more to obtain the next grant and make a little more money than to really help with the mental health care needs of the region.
Jon,
Great story here. You are right; I did enjoy it. I appreciate the additional postings here lately. GREAT COVERAGE!
I agree with that OVERSIZED BUDGET of KY. River Medical Care, QUICKSAND gang. I do know the workers are not getting rich their pay is far below the average Ky. workers. I BELIEVE A LOT OF THIS TO BE HOGWASH.I see it as another way to rip the tax payers, and to provide minimal service's at the best, and get away with it, as usual. That's our American way to do little get BIG PAY-- BIG NAME--BIG GAME.
Since you all are on the Ky. River gang I'll put in my two cents. I too, believe this operation to be phoney balogna. I have little confidence in the place. I don't know EXACTLLY how the grant money is being spent, but it is are not being used as recommended. They, the MKR PRO'S, are hiring only the very young, at a whopping $18,000 a year. For a real job one gets an oversized salary of 20,000 BIG ONES A YEAR. I'M A FORMER. Where is the grant money going? This grant money is supposed to be used for those who qualify, the less likely to be employed, but just an in need of empolment.Everybody I tried to hire was shot down in a hurry. Show us your Practice-- MKR BLOW THE DOUGH---It's FREE.
Seems to me it's not only the KY. River instution that's pulling in the dough, the medical professionals, (so called),are doing quite well for themselves, it seems. I say more SUCKING going on. Just let the U.S. Government keep on paying it has BIG MONEY little brains. Seems to me we are all paying--our tax money is being thrown to the birds. There are a number of BIG FAT BUILDINGS going up here in Breathitt County.
You should get more news out. Let people know about this website.
I just looked upon it.
I noticed KRCC has just received another BIG GRANT of $900,000 to waste.