That 20%, or approximately $400,000 of KY Gov Steve Beshear’s current primary dollars comes from state employees and appointees doesn’t help as whistle-blowers have come forward to allege strong-arm tactics were used to solicit campaign dollars on his behalf.

FRANKFORT—The Republican Party of Kentucky and an employee of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet are alleging Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration strong-armed some state employees for contributions to Beshear’s re-election campaign.

Dr. Rodney Young, a 27-year state employee who works for the Department of Juvenile Justice, delivered a signed letter Monday to RPK Chairman Steve Robertson claiming the Cabinet’s Deputy Secretary, Charles Geveden, pressured him and other state employees for contributions to Beshear’s re-election campaign. The letter was also delivered to Attorney General Jack Conway’s office and Robertson filed complaints with the Executive Branch Ethics Commission and the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.

The complaints cite a December 2010 CNHI News Service story about similar complaints by non-merit — or politically appointed — state employees that they felt pressured to attend a Frankfort fundraiser for Beshear shortly before Christmas. A spokesman for Beshear’s campaign told CNHI News at that time no state employees should feel any pressure to contribute to Beshear’s campaign which “strictly follows all campaign laws.”

There have been similar previous reports involving Beshear, one going back as far as December 2010.  This time, however, there is a whistle-blower involved, one who has named other individuals who reportedly suffered the same strong-arm tactics in a quest for campaign cash.

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Individual earmarks may have swum upstream for the winter, but there’s still something very fishy going on with Congress in terms of spending. Despite all the discussion about austerity and countless campaign promises to cut spending, the crafters of the Continuing Resolution let stand a rulemaking policy no one can be proud of: a special interest-driven program that will create over 100 new government employees, more red tape, and hundreds of millions of new federal spending, without any benefit to taxpayers…all for – you guessed it – a fish.

You may have thought that Ted Stevens’ giant salmon of a private plane was the most spectacular fish-related waste of taxpayer dollars in history, but you’d be wrong. It turns out that the government’s handling of real fish -specifically, catfish – dwarfs that million-dollar monstrosity.

A special interest provision tacked onto the 2008 Farm Bill mandated that the USDA inspect all imported catfish.  Proponents, who unsurprisingly included those with a stake in the American catfish industry, cited safety concerns as the reason behind the program, patriotically claiming that protecting Americans from bad foreign catfish was as important, if notmore important than protecting them from foreign terror groups.

Unfortunately, their argument for a sort of “catfish TSA” doesn’t hold water. As it turns out, all catfish are already inspected by the FDA, so this second inspection would be superfluous at best and at worst, a complete waste of taxpayer funds. Second, catfish are actually low on the threat-level scale, labeled a “low-risk” food by both the CDC and – get this – the USDA itself.

You read that right.

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