<meta name="description" content="Objective news, effective policy, progressive commentary. The progressive voice for Kentucky politics."> Bruce Maples (bruceinlouisville@gmail.com) - Forward Kentucky (Page 9) Skip to content

Bruce Maples (bruceinlouisville@gmail.com)

Must have left a mark

Apparently, my editorial about scholarship tax credits left a mark. Why else would multiple sites run rebuttals? I suppose they didn’t like the word “scam.” Unfortunately for them, people across the state are catching on to these “back-door vouchers.” Teachers, superintendents, policy wonks, and citizens of all kinds are

Members Public
The president's Kentucky poodle dog

The president's Kentucky poodle dog

Not surprisingly, Rep. James Comer played presidential poodle dog during Michael Cohen’s dramatic appearance before the House Oversight Committee this morning. His performance ought to at least earn him another free ride on Air Force One. As expected, too, Trump’s former fixer ripped “his old boss as a

Members Public

No, I can't donate to your campaign

Even before the filing deadline hit, I started getting fund-raising emails from various campaigns. So, in order to keep anyone from feeling I am ignoring them, let me just say this: No, I cannot donate to your campaign. BUT – there’s a caveat. I cannot donate to your campaign during

Members Public
It’s time to stop blaming the safety net

It’s time to stop blaming the safety net

As decision-makers go after the very assistance that hundreds of thousands of low-income Kentuckians use to help make ends meet, the harm to families and communities deepens. Erecting barriers to participation in food assistance, Medicaid, and other programs ignores what is really holding back Kentuckians: there are not enough quality

Members Public
MLK: 'Our needs are identical with labor's needs'

MLK: 'Our needs are identical with labor's needs'

“The labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told the 1961 AFL-CIO convention. As we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I’m thinking of a different King. Rep. Steve

Members Public
Pro-life? Or just anti-woman?

Pro-life? Or just anti-woman?

I’ve been mulling over my colleague Berry Craig’s excellent piece, “Republicans win on the Three Gs — plus an L for ‘Lying’,” which ran last month. A centerpiece of the Republican strategy that has made inroads in the rural parts of the state is to swear their allegiance to

Members Public
"This is how cowards run a government."

"This is how cowards run a government."

School teachers, public employees, and their supporters quickly mobilized Monday after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin called a special session of the Kentucky legislature to make changes to the state’s pension systems, giving them only four hours notice. “I think we’ll see at least as good a crowd as

Members Public
The Repubs have never listened to the West End before

The Repubs have never listened to the West End before

State Representative Regina Huff (R-Williamsburg) would like you to know that Republicans aren’t pursuing charter schools because the schools are a license to grift for out-of-state charter school chains and the hedge-fund managers that run so many of them — even though, historically, Republicans have been very generous to their

Members Public
Clicky