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The former Kentucky clerk who refused to grant a gay couple a marriage license must pay an additional $260,104 to the couple, a federal judge ruled last week. David Ermold and David Moore sued former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in 2015 after she declined to issue the couple a marriage license because doing so would violate “God’s definition of marriage” and her religious beliefs as a Christian. The additional fees Davis must pay are on top of the $100,000 in damages she was ordered to pay Ermold and Moore in September after losing the lawsuit the couple brought. Davis’s...

The beer was cold, America was great! and there were no trees or color TVs in Brooklyn!

Former U.S. Senator and Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Bunning has died at age 85. ... Jim Bunning served as a state senator, becoming minority leader of the Republican caucus in his first term, before winning northern Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District seat in 1986. He mounted an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1983 against former Gov. Martha Layne Collins and went from the U.S. House of Representatives to the Senate in 1998, where he served for two terms. Bunning, who suffered a stroke in October, pitched Major League Baseball’s seventh perfect game in 1964 as a member of the...

Tea party darling Thomas Massie on Tuesday won the Republican nomination to run for an open congressional seat in Kentucky's 4th District. The relative newcomer of politics, a protege of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, beat two well-established Republicans in state Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington and Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore. With 74 percent of precincts reporting, Massie had 13,708 votes or 45 percent, to 8,844 votes for Webb-Edgington or 30 percent. Moore had 5,299 votes or 17 percent. The race proved that the tea party movement remains strong in Kentucky. Paul endorsed Massie and was actively involved in the race, even...

In a stinging rebuke of the Kentucky Republican establishment, tea-party-affiliated Lewis County Judge-Executive Thomas Massie won tonight’s GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Geoff Davis (R) in the 4th district. With 72 percent of precincts reporting, the Associated Press called the race for Massie. He had 44.9 percent of vote, state Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington had 29 percent and Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore had 17.4 percent. Davis, along with former Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning (R), backed Webb-Edgington, who had broad establishment support. Conservative Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Mike Lee (Utah) backed Massie. The district is safe Republican turf,...

CORBIN — LEXINGTON (AP) — Kentucky Senate President David Williams told a group of law students that state legislators, not voters, should choose members of the U.S. Senate — comments that drew a negative reaction from Kentucky’s two senators. Declaring himself “a tea partier,” Williams on Wednesday called for repeal of the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides for popular election of U.S. senators, the Lexington-Herald Leader reported. Williams is seeking the Republican nomination for governor next year.

In the most predictable act in an otherwise completely unpredictable election cycle, the liberal editors of Louisville's The Courier-Journal (CJ) newspaper have decided to "enthusiastically endorse" (to use their words) Jack Conway for election to the U.S. Senate. Conway is running against Republican candidate Dr. Rand Paul for the Senate seat currently held by the retiring Jim Bunning. The CJ editors concluded their enthusiastic endorsement for Conway with these closing statements: "Kentuckians should not gamble on a candidate far out of the political mainstream. The should send Mr. Conway to the Senate." From those statements it is clear that the...

When Sen. Jim Bunning complained on the Senate floor in February that he'd missed the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game because of a debate on unemployment benefits -- a debate the Kentucky Republican himself prevented from proceeding to a vote -- Bruce Shore got angry. "I was livid. I was just livid," said Shore, 51, who watched the floor proceedings on C-SPAN from his home in Philadelphia. "I'm on unemployment, so it affects me. I'm in shock." Instead of just being angry, Shore took action: He sent several emails to Bunning staffers, blasting the senator for blocking the benefits. "ARE you'all...

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) is leaving the Senate, but he's not going quietly. Bunning on Wednesday announced that he will support Rand Paul in the GOP primary to take his seat. The move will be seen as a direct affront to the state's other senator, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and the candidate he is more closely tied to, Secretary of State Trey Grayson. “Kentucky needs a conservative who will say no to bailouts, stop the government takeover of our economy, end wasteful spending, and bring down our national debt," Bunning said. "And Kentucky’s families need a conservative who believes...

Sen. Jim Bunning cut a deal with Democrats to release the hold he had blocking a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits and subsidized COBRA health insurance. But the impact of his stand against more deficit spending will hang over Washington for some time. When he said on the floor Tuesday night that, "If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support, how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything? That is what senators say they want, and that is what the American people want." The Inside the...

Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, a 78-year-old grandfather of 40 who is not running for re-election, has single-handedly fought a battle on Capitol Hill over the past week that ought to inspire all taxpayers to rally around his banner of commonsense. Bunning not only said "NO" to a Congress that week after week has been driving the nation deeper and deeper into debt, but decided to use what power he has under Senate rules to make sure his "NO" was heard. Three weeks ago, President Obama signed a law allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion....

"Campbell Brown . . . the only non-partisan cable news anchor at 8 pm." -- CNN description of Campbell Brown show "Non-partisan": yeah, right. The hit that Brown, with help from reporter Dana Bash, put on Jim Bunning this evening was worthy of that hyper-partisan guy over at MSNBC in the 8 PM ET slot. Bash first narrated a classic of the liberal media genre: an anecdotal story of someone allegedly hurt by hard-hearted Republican policies. Bash claimed that "in the real world," Bunning's position is having a "devastating effect" on people like single mother Madonna Alvarez. It got worse...

But I don't blame him. Not one bit. For one shining moment, Bunning stood up, tall and strong, against suicidal government spending, against ridiculousness, against the deficit-hogging juggernaut that is deliberately tipping this country over the edge into oblivion. But he could stand up and take direct hits for only so long. You knew it had to end. I blame the rest of the Republicans that let 2006 and 2008 happen and who, apparently, have no friggin' idea what 2010 represents for them and the nation ... because they didn't stand with him.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="285" caption="(March 1, 2010 - Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images North America)"][/caption] Retiring Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning has apparently decided to make the most of the time he has left in Washington by making the lives of his fellow senators a living hell.  In what has now become a four-day standoff with many from both sides of the aisle, Bunning is holding firm on his opposition to proposed legislation that would extend unemployment benefits to millions of Americans.  With Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN following the story almost exclusively all morning, his standoff is quickly becoming the...

WASHINGTON – To the increasing discomfort of his fellow Republicans, Sen. Jim Bunning on Tuesday again blocked the Senate from extending unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless. The Kentucky Republican objected to a request by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a fellow Republican, to pass a 30-day extension of jobless benefits and other expired measures. The measure would also extend highway programs and prevent a big cut in Medicare payments to doctors. Bunning has been single-handedly blocking the stopgap legislation since Thursday... ----- Bunning made the following quotes on the floor of the United States Senate: "I believe...

Washington White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Tuesday stepped up the war of words that the Obama administration has been directing at Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky, saying at a morning meeting with reporters, “I don’t know how you negotiate with the irrational.” Since this past Thursday, Senator Bunning, who is not running for reelection, has been blocking an extension of unemployment and health benefits for jobless workers. He did it again Tuesday morning, objecting to a request by fellow a Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, to extend the expired benefits for 30 days. Mr. Gibbs has acknowledged...

WASHINGTON — The effort to end a Senate standoff over unemployment benefits and health coverage for the jobless escalated on Tuesday morning as Senator Susan Collins, the moderate Republican from Maine, became the latest lawmaker, and the first Republican, to try to override the objection of Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky. The White House, meanwhile, called Mr. Bunning’s actions “irrational.” Ms. Collins, who took the floor shortly after the Senate convened, said her effort was being made on “behalf of numerous members of the Republican caucus who have expressed concerns to me.” “There are 500 Mainers whose benefits expired...

Sarah Palin stormed the bestseller list last year with "Going Rogue"-a political memoir whose title coyly referenced the former GOP vice presidential nominee's supposed defiance of the consultants running the McCain campaign. But this year we have a new poster boy for the Going Rogue playbook: GOP Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky. For the past week, Bunning has been single-handedly blocking more than a million Americans from receiving unemployment and COBRA health insurance benefits, as of today, when their benefits funded under the 2009 stimulus law run out. The suspension of benefits affects everyone from doctors to government employees

WASHINGTON — Some unemployment benefits could dry up Monday. Newly laid-off workers wouldn't get federal help with health insurance premiums. Road and transit bills could go unpaid, Medicare payments to doctors would stay high and rural satellite reception could be affected, all thanks to Sen. Jim Bunning's decision to block legislation that would keep alive a host of programs that expire Sunday night. The Kentucky Republican, according to several sources, told Democratic colleagues "tough s---" Thursday when they tried to get him to change his mind. The Senate is expected to consider a longer-term extension of the programs Monday, with...

A group of eight Democrats today asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the health care reform bill to be posted online for 72 hours before a vote on the measure and once again before a vote on the conference report that will meld the House and Senate versions. The senators told Reid that health care reform should be more transparent and easier for their constituents to understand. A CBS poll released last month showed that two-thirds of Americans say the issue is confusing and just 31 percent say they have a clear understanding of what reform will mean for...