Kentucky

Grant Wishard on why four young men risked prison to steal rare books from a Kentucky university library.

We're going to 20! My Cleveland Indians are red hot right now, having won 15 games in a row. Impressively, the Indians also won 14 straight last season. An Ohio roofing and window company celebrating its 15th anniversary thought it'd be a fun contest to offer customers a 100 percent refund on work…

So here we are, once again, coming up on the first Saturday in May and "the most exciting two minutes in sports." That phrase is generally attributed to Grantland Rice but it is a paraphrase. He actually wrote, in 1935, that, "Those two minutes and a second or so of derby running carry more…

When Kentucky governor Matt Bevin warmed up the crowd in Louisville ahead of Donald Trump’s speech in March, he seemed to share the president's taste for superlatives:

Mitch McConnell didn't have much to complain about on the night of November 4, 2014. In that day's elections, Republicans gained a net nine Senate seats, securing a majority and ensuring McConnell would become Senate majority leader. This was a crowning achievement in a turbulent year for the…

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes joins host Eric Felten to talk about Donald Trump's politically transformative use of Twitter technology. What promises will a President Trump be in a position to keep? Tod Lindberg tells us. And then Michael Warren Skypes in to talk about…

Mitch McConnell didn’t have much to complain about on the night of November 4, 2014. In that day's elections, Republicans gained a net nine Senate seats, securing a majority and ensuring McConnell would become Senate majority leader. This was a crowning achievement in a turbulent year for the…

Pippa Passes, Ky.

Pippa Passes, Ky.

Hillary Clinton condemned a protester at a rally in Kentucky Monday, calling her factually misinformed.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is shuttering his state's Obamacare insurance marketplace, the freshly elected Republican announced Monday.

The Lexington Herald-Leader published an editorial cartoon Thursday mocking the Republican governor-elect Matt Bevin's position against allowing refugees from Syria to settle in Kentucky. The cartoon, drawn by Joel Pett, shows a cowering Bevin underneath his desk, while an aide points to the framed…

Just about every American knows the sheer animal frustration of sitting in traffic. Numerous studies have also pointed to the serious economic toll that traffic jams exact. Less understood, however, are the major problems that congestion on the nation’s inland waterways present.

In his powerful dissent from Obergefell v. Hodges, the case in which the Supreme Court redefined marriage to include same-sex marriage, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of their faith” and that if they “exercise their religion in…

Louisville

Kentucky senator Rand Paul says the "hawks" in the Republican party helped create and grow the Islamic State terrorist group. Paul, who is running for president, appeared Wednesday morning on MSNBC, where host Joe Scarborough asked him about fellow senator Lindsey Graham's own likely White House…

President Obama said he'd "enjoy having some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell:"

Roll Call reports:

In a few minutes, Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes of Kentucky will meet with the editorial board of the Courier-Journal in Louisville. Campaign memos recently obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD show how Grimes and her staff prepare for these meetings, requiring the red-state…

Just before the start of the Labor Day holiday weekend, the reelection campaign for Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced its campaign manager, Jesse Benton, was resigning. Benton was leaving the campaign, Politico reports, "citing potential distractions over renewed attention to a scandal from the…

Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and Kentucky's secretary of state, is turning heads with her confusing answer to a question about the military conflict between Israel and the Hamas-led government in Gaza. Asked by the Lexington Herald-Leader about American support…

Republicans have distinct advantages in Senate races this year, including President Obama’s low job ratings, the number of vulnerable Democrats, and an unhappy national mood. But there’s another advantage: the generally high quality of their candidates. This wasn’t the case in 2010 and 2012, when…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Michael Warren on the recent primary elections and how they're bad news for Democrats seeking to run against an "extremist" GOP.

Alison Lundergan Grimes, the newly minted Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, is out with her first ad of the general election. The 60-second spot features Grimes speaking directly to the camera about how "no matter how many elections we have, nothing gets better in Washington--it only…

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has won the Republican nomination, the Associated Press projects. McConnell held off a primary challenge from Matt Bevin, currently winning 60 percent of the vote to Bevin's 35 percent. The call was made shortly after polls in Kentucky closed at 7…

I experienced some rough emotions rooting for my alma mater, the University of Kentucky, during the NCAA tournament. Partly because of the close games and come-from-behind wins, and partly because of their one-and-done reputation under Coach John Calipari. The media contrasted UK’s likely NBA-bound…

The Arkansas Senate race has been close in virtually every serious poll. The Republican challenger, Tom Cotton, probably had a small lead a month or so ago; after a massive negative assault on him by Harry Reid's Super PAC, the Democratic incumbent, Mark Pryor, is probably now ahead by a point or…

Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor has a 10-point lead in his race to retain his Senate seat, according to a new poll from the New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation. A two-term senator, Pryor has 46 percent support, while his challenger, Republican congressman Tom Cotton, has 36 percent…

Louisville

Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky and Senate minority leader, is tied with the leading Democratic candidate, secretary of state Alison Lundergan Grimes, in the race, according to a new poll from Rasmussen Reports. McConnell's Republican primary challenger Matt Bevin, meanwhile,…

The National Right to Life Committee, which typically endorses pro-life incumbents, has endorsed Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell for reelection in 2014. WDRB.com has the story:

In an interview with Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins, Kentucky senator Rand Paul criticized "some" Christians who support Israel and the Jews and those Christians' "overeagerness" to go to war. Adding to sentiments he expressed in a speech earlier this year, Paul told Buzzfeed:

What does Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat, think the United States should do in Syria? No one knows -- and asking her only makes things more confusing.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the five-term Republican from Kentucky, has drawn a primary challenge for his reelection effort next year from businessman Matt Bevin. Bevin, who will likely self-finance part of his campaign, is out with his first ad Wednesday. The 30-second spot purports to…

Post time for today’s running of the Belmont Stakes, the 145th running of the 1½ mile-long Grade 1 stakes race and final leg of the triple crown, is 6:36 p.m. With the Kentucky Derby won by Orb, the morning-line favorite in today’s race at 3-1, and Oxbow, going off this morning at 5-1, winning the…

David Corn, the Mother Jones writer who released the "secret tape" of a Mitch McConnell campaign meeting, might have broken the law by publishing information that appears to have been obtained illegally, according to sources.

A Louisville-area Democrat says two employees of Kentucky Progress, a left-wing activist group, are responsible for secretly recording a strategy session between Republican senator Mitch McConnell and his campaign staff. WFPL, the Louisville National Public Radio affiliate, has the scoop:

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, is asking the feds to investigate whether a closed campaign meeting was illegally wiretapped by his political opponents. The issue arises after the liberal outlet Mother Jones published "A recording of a private meeting between the Senate GOP…

College basketball player Kevin Ware's compound fracture in Sunday's Elite Eight game has gained widespread media attention. And now a Kentucky group is trying to capitalize off the Louisville player's injury. 

Despite Hollywood actress Ashley Judd’s high-profile political rollout, national Democrats appear to be looking for an alternative Senate candidate in Kentucky to challenge Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell next year. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for instance, has remained…

Mitch McConnell, the leader of the GOP minority in the Senate, struck an upbeat tone in his Friday morning address to the conservative activists gathered at CPAC. “Friends, this is a moment of renewal. I truly believe it,” he said. In this era of new beginning, McConnell is seeking his sixth Senate…

Senator Ted Cruz, joining in support of Rand Paul's filibuster, said today was the first day he had the chance to speak on the Senate floor. "It don't get no better than this," Cruz said, quoting a beer commercial:

The White House today released Michelle Obama's guest list for tonight's State of the Union Address. On that list is Bradley Henning, a machinist at Atlas Machine and Supply, in Louisville, Kentucky, whose boss, Rich Gimmel, recently testified in front of Congress that Obama's policies are hurting…

Is Mitch McConnell already losing his reelection campaign? That's what a new poll from the Louisville Courier-Journal released Tuesday suggests. According to the survey of 609 registered voters in Kentucky, just 17 percent say they would vote to reelect the Republican and Senate minority leader,…

Fox News projects Mitt Romney the winner in Kentucky and Indiana. Fox also projects Barack Obama the winner of Vermont.

Three elected Democrats from Kentucky won't be in Charlotte this fall. The State Journal reports:

LEXINGTON, KY (AP): Fifty-two-year-old Harrodsburg businessman Arnold J. Uncommitted, who had never before run for public office, stood before a delirious crowd of supporters at his makeshift headquarters here last night, basking in his near-upset of President Obama's reelection campaign in…

'Uncommitted' is keeping it closer than expected in the Kentucky Democratic presidential primary. With 104 of 120 counties counted, President Barack Obama leads 'Uncommitted' by only 20 percentage points. The tally so far: Obama with 105,487 votes (or 60.04 percent of the vote), while 'Uncommitted'…

Tonight’s NCAA national championship game between storied basketball programs Kentucky and Kansas probably won’t top the 1992 East Regional final between Duke and Kentucky. Sportswriter and ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski meticulously recaps that March Madness landmark twenty years later in The…

As the country teeters on the edge of recession, two competing visions of government’s role in the economy are being offered in Washington. President Obama again proposes big government programs and Keynesian stimulus. House Republicans have a different idea.

President Obama arrived in Cincinnati Thursday afternoon to tout his newest bill meant to stimulate the economy with billions of dollars in infrastructure investment for job creation. The Obama team chose the “functionally obsolete” Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio, and the still…

Louisville Kentucky is one of just four states electing governors this year, and the race—pitting Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear against a Republican nominee to be chosen in a primary on May 17—will be colorful and could be close.

ABC's Jonathan Karl documents how Democratic attack ads recently have been nothing about the policy and all about the personal. Take, for instance, this snippet about a House race in Kentucky:

Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and Juan Williams talk about the Kentucky, Illinois, Colorado and Nevada Senate races on Fox News's Special Report:

The liberal host of MSNBC's "Hardball" eviscerates Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway on national television: