For those that don’t know Kentucky is in the midst of deciding who its next Governor will be, and yesterday evening Republican candidates met in a first debate co-hosted by the Lexington-Herald Leader Newspaper and CN2’s Pure Politics.
To say that the debate was interesting would be an understatement, but it got particularly heated and some say down right punchy when the subjects of climate change (coal), healthcare, and education came up.
According to this report from kentucky.com: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/04/21/3812769/republican-gubernatorial-candidates.html?fb_action_ids=10155446824380582&fb_action_types=og.comments one liners abounded.
And in a show of force Kentucky’s Grand Old Party put forth their best mantras and clanged, bitterly, to their precious coal.
Lets be honest folks! Coal is what tobacco was to Kentucky. It is, for all intents and purposes, regarded by many across the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the last best hope. Because, in their mind’s eye IF we lose coal in this State it will kill this State. (They said that about tobacco btw to!)
But what about hemp and marijuana? One of the candidates for the Republicans, Ky. Ag. Secretary James B. Comer, happens to be a proponent of hemp and marijuana being grown in our State, Safely & Legally. As Kentucky’s Agricultural Secretary he’s championed a first-rate pilot program for industrial hemp to be grown throughout the Bluegrass. In Western Kentucky we have one such pilot program in Marshall County, Ky., and its paying HUGE dividends as one of the best grows in the State! They also have one in the Central portion of the State in Davis County, Ky. and one in Eastern and Northern Kentucky near the border by Cincinnati, OH. Comer himself wrote the pilot program. The state legislature and the outgoing Governor, Steven L. Beshear, signed off on it, and praised, openly, Comer and those other epic Champions of Kentucky Hemp including the late great Gatewood Galbraith.
Kentucky Agriculture Secretary and 2015 Candidate for Kentucky Governor The Honorable James B. Comer. (picture courtesy of The Louisville Courier-Journal Newspaper, 2015)
But Comer, to my disappointment, went off the rails last night, and in my opinion, it cost him dearly. Because he got into the so-called ‘silly season’ of our politics regarding the ‘War on Coal’.
To be sure Gatewood Galbraith was a HUGE SUPPORTER of coal, the Coal Industry as we know it across the Commonwealth, he worked, tirelessly, with the Miners and the Labor Unions to insure Jobs and the Economy in the future. And they all loved Gatewood to pieces for it. And when he would run for office – federal, state or local – the Coal Industry and Coal Miners along with the Coal Unions would be the first to endorse his candidacy publicly.
He and I respectfully agreed to disagree on this important issue, but where we found reliable common ground was in Hemp and Marijuana. So to is the case with Secretary Comer and I. But I FAIL to see why it is so damned important for coal to be kept, bitterly, here in Kentucky? But I am sure that a lot IF not all of Kentucky’s Coal Miners would love to come out of the ‘hole’, permanently, and get into some Emerald Fields of Marijuana and Hemp Green!
Mr. Comer and others would do well to consider this. Coal and the coal industry will always be around, it ain’t going nowhere, but it’s time to get piratical, get healthier, cleaner, and greener. It’s time for Industrial Hemp & Cannabis to be the new tobacco of Kentucky Progress. #RIPGatewood
— Rhett.
Say What News?! 