[Hoot Gibson]

Some areas of the planet took intervention. EKY was one of them. I will be the first to tell you we have a culture of entitlement that is hindering our economy. The secondary wave of development was never completed, so we have an underdeveloped area and undereducated population. And since you can't draw blood from a turnip, like it or not, the govt will have to intervene in some way to lift this region as they have in the past.

I recognize the link. I also recognize the link of the drop in public funding and rise in college enrollment straining the system. Let's not forget to couple those high dollar professors with the millions spent in athletics.

Kentuckians can do more than manufacturing...just drawing off the inference of when Kentuckians headed up the Hillbilly Highway and worked in manufacturing. That doesn't exist these days.
Maybe, you're right, the boom that Kentuckians should chase is in technology. That will mean a change in public education accountability along with reliable communications.

And we are back where we started; Senator McConnell would be helping Kentuckians if he used his power to improve infrastructure and communications. No one wants more handouts to individuals just bring KY out of the bottom tier. Heck, he is the high power make Kentucky the best in transportation, communications, and utilities.

Governments do not create wealth...people do...governments consume wealth. Our federal government is spending money belonging to American citizens who have not yet been born. Deficit spending spreads the misery of poverty to future generations. The federal government should play no role in providing cell phone or internet service to anybody. We are broke.

[Cardfan1]

Governments do not create wealth...people do...governments consume wealth. Our federal government is spending money belonging to American citizens who have not yet been born. Deficit spending spreads the misery of poverty to future generations. The federal government should play no role in providing cell phone or internet service to anybody. We are broke.

Well...that could be debated. Plenty of folks get wealthy from our government just not the middle class.

Wait...! Do deficits matter? Neither side of the aisle act as if it’s an issue.

Free phone service has existed since Reagan.

Improving the infrastructure of cellular phones and internet is not giving free services to the people of Kentucky. It’s making those services reliable and challenging those companies to provide service to the citizens.

We are broke, but we are still spending money and it’s all about priorities. I’d just like to see McConnell help spend that money we don’t have spent on our Kentucky citizens and not on a bomb in the desert or some billionaire in New York.

[Mister D]

I appreciate your point Hoot about having more tech based jobs in the area. That is for sure a way to provide decent jobs in an area where infrastructure is lacking and probably wouldn’t be able to support a ton of manufacturing jobs.

I will say that I have graduated from Johnson Central in the past ten years and they have a pretty solid technology program there. Classes in computer coding, video production, graphic design, etc. But I would doubt that other schools in the area are able to have similar programs as it’s hard for smaller schools to offer very many programs outside of the basic classes. I would love to see a shift to some more technical based classes at the high school level that lead directly to IT related jobs.

[Mister D]

The Republican Party has been very disingenuous though about deficit spending. I know Democrats are usually accused of running up massive budgets but according to a lot of the reports I’ve seen recently Trump has substantially increased the deficit over the last few years. At least Democrats have been honest about wanting more federal spending. Republicans have been campaigning on cutting spending for years but once they get to Washington they vote for massive spending bills. The vast majority of that has been under Mitch’s leadership.

[Hoot Gibson]

Well...that could be debated. Plenty of folks get wealthy from our government just not the middle class.

Wait...! Do deficits matter? Neither side of the aisle act as if it’s an issue.

Free phone service has existed since Reagan.

Improving the infrastructure of cellular phones and internet is not giving free services to the people of Kentucky. It’s making those services reliable and challenging those companies to provide service to the citizens.

We are broke, but we are still spending money and it’s all about priorities. I’d just like to see McConnell help spend that money we don’t have spent on our Kentucky citizens and not on a bomb in the desert or some billionaire in New York.

No, the fact that governments do not create wealth cannot be debated, at least not in a rational manner.

Deficit spending has never not been an issue with this conservative. You are fooling yourself if you support running up the national debt and providing luxury items to the nonworking class and sill do not realize that you are a liberal.

McConnell does not have any money to spend. Elected representatives are in the business of redistributing wealth, not creating it, and they redistribute it for political gain.

The free market has stood the test of time as being the most efficient method ever devised to allocate resources in a free society. Pay for your own cell phone and internet service. If you cannot afford to do so, then move to a place where you can afford those services or do without.

[Hoot Gibson]

The Republican Party has been very disingenuous though about deficit spending. I know Democrats are usually accused of running up massive budgets but according to a lot of the reports I’ve seen recently Trump has substantially increased the deficit over the last few years. At least Democrats have been honest about wanting more federal spending. Republicans have been campaigning on cutting spending for years but once they get to Washington they vote for massive spending bills. The vast majority of that has been under Mitch’s leadership.

You are absolutely correct about federal spending under recent Republican administrations and Congresses. However, virtually every fiscal conservative who advocates cutting budget deficits and works toward that goal is a Republican. The problem is that those individuals are greatly outnumbered by big spenders like McConnell.

[Cardfan1]

No, the fact that governments do not create wealth cannot be debated, at least not in a rational manner.

Deficit spending has never not been an issue with this conservative. You are fooling yourself if you support running up the national debt and providing luxury items to the nonworking class and sill do not realize that you are a liberal.

McConnell does not have any money to spend. Elected representatives are in the business of redistributing wealth, not creating it, and they redistribute it for political gain.

The free market has stood the test of time as being the most efficient method ever devised to allocate resources in a free society. Pay for your own cell phone and internet service. If you cannot afford to do so, then move to a place where you can afford those services or do without.

Governments create wealth for individuals. There is no reason to dig up a list of individuals that have gotten rich off of govt decisions.

If you support the current administration...stop about deficit spending. You lose.

Yes, McConnell appropriated nearly a billion dollars to projects in Louisville and WKY. He has money to spend.

Who said the govt should pay any utility bills? Reagan...oh....

Kentucky doesn’t have reliable services. It’s people will find a way to pay and get a job in a industry that requires that technology.

[Hoot Gibson]

I appreciate your point Hoot about having more tech based jobs in the area. That is for sure a way to provide decent jobs in an area where infrastructure is lacking and probably wouldn’t be able to support a ton of manufacturing jobs.

I will say that I have graduated from Johnson Central in the past ten years and they have a pretty solid technology program there. Classes in computer coding, video production, graphic design, etc. But I would doubt that other schools in the area are able to have similar programs as it’s hard for smaller schools to offer very many programs outside of the basic classes. I would love to see a shift to some more technical based classes at the high school level that lead directly to IT related jobs.

I am skeptical that high schools will ever produce many graduates ready to enter the IT field. My point is that there is nothing to stop students and high school graduates from learning technical skills such as programming on their own.

The free software and training materials that are available online is amazing. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and many others offer free software and training on their products and programming languages.

All that is needed to access these tools is a computer and an internet connection and the internet connection does not have to be lightning fast. As I mentioned previously, a complete Raspberry Pi system can be purchased for under $100 and for less than $150 you can by the top Raspberry Pi model with 4 gb of memory, a deluxe case, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, a micro SD card, and a camera. That, plus a monitor, keyboard, and mouse is essentially all a person needs for a basic platform to learn to program. Raspberry Pi computers are often used as the brains for remote controlled cars and robot projects.

I have my Raspberry Pi configured so that I can run it remotely using a Samsung tablet over my WiFi network. I bought it to run digital communication modes on my ham radio using battery power.

There are certainly better software development platforms than a Raspberry Pi, but the cost of equipment necessary to learn programming is small compared to paying for traditional training courses delivered by an instructor. I have found that I don't get much out of instructor led programming classes unless I have already spent some time learning the material on my own before signing up for a traditional class.

Time is by far the biggest expense in learning to program a computer. If a person is unemployed or underemployed but has time to watch 2 or 3 hours of TV a day, then they can afford to learn to program.

Raspberry Pi 4 link:

MAX Raspberry Pi Starter Kit

Sample Free Programming Resources:

Python For Beginners



HTML Tutorial

CSS Tutorial

[Hoot Gibson]

Governments create wealth for individuals. There is no reason to dig up a list of individuals that have gotten rich off of govt decisions.

No matter how many times you repeat a lie, it does not become the truth. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not creating wealth. There certainly are people who become wealthy with the help of corrupt politicians, just as there are bank robbers who become wealthy by stealing the money deposited in banks by honest customers.

If you support the current administration...stop about deficit spending. You lose.

I don't support deficit spending by any administration. If you support deficit spending, which you obviously do, then you are the loser.

Yes, McConnell appropriated nearly a billion dollars to projects in Louisville and WKY. He has money to spend.

The federal government is broke. Borrowing and spending somebody else's money and calling such spending an "investment" is not honorable behavior.

Who said the govt should pay any utility bills? Reagan...oh....

If he said it, then he was wrong. If you say it, then you are wrong.

Kentucky doesn’t have reliable services. It’s people will find a way to pay and get a job in a industry that requires that technology.

I have used the internet services in Johnson County and it is much faster than what I have available in my development environment at work, which runs on a military network. You don't really need a fast internet connection to learn to program. It just needs to be fast enough to download the necessary software. In most cases, a local server can be set up on your workstation or elsewhere on your local network and used for application development.

I doubt that you have a clue as to how few resources are necessary to set up a software development environment at home. It's nice to have a very fast internet connection and a powerful workstation with abundant memory installed, but it is not essential. Companies in the IT business certainly need relatively fast and reliable service, but those companies are generally not going to locate offices at the head of a remote hollow. Most cities of any size have decent internet service.

[Cardfan1]

We are locked in a circular argument on wealth, spending, and the deficit. I guess I have reserved myself to believing that Washington/Frankfort is going to spend my money anyway, so it might as well be outside my window where I feel there is justified a need.

IMO, Arguing government fiscal responsibility is just a waste of time. Doesn't matter who is elected they won't even attempt to do what is needed to bring down the deficit and payoff of the national debt. They might campaign on it, but it's a lie.

Safe to say that reliable internet service has more uses than software engineering and learning coding. But one thing is for certain; the chances anything will move into EKY to employ its entitled citizens are pretty dang low without dependable communication services.

[TheRealThing]

We are locked in a circular argument on wealth, spending, and the deficit. I guess I have reserved myself to believing that Washington/Frankfort is going to spend my money anyway, so it might as well be outside my window where I feel there is justified a need.

IMO, Arguing government fiscal responsibility is just a waste of time. Doesn't matter who is elected they won't even attempt to do what is needed to bring down the deficit and payoff of the national debt. They might campaign on it, but it's a lie.

Safe to say that reliable internet service has more uses than software engineering and learning coding. But one thing is for certain; the chances anything will move into EKY to employ its entitled citizens are pretty dang low without dependable communication services.

PeeWee Herman, "I know you are but what am I." LOL, forgive me for injecting my opinion here but I believe you're making a low-ground argument in high-ground sounding terms.


The federal government was never meant to give things to people. Full stop. Benjamin Franklin recognized the true danger to the life of our Republic as it was being born, and said the following: "When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic." ---FRANKLIN

Politicians sell themselves for votes and always have. But it has been the Dems of late, who have taken the practice to the existential levels feared by MR Franklin. By voting for and electing Democrats, whether it be those on the taxpayer dole, or those riding the special interest 'Self Serving Express,' or the 4 thousand would be border crashers presently on their way to our southern border, routinely put ink to the contract which insures their representatives do their bidding. Which of course is to provide them the things they want. Votes for stuff. And in that Benjamin Franklin's worst fear has come to pass.

Social justice and freedom make strange bedfellows.

[TheRealThing]

As Senate majority leader he has been masterful.

Well after much snot slinging and liberals writhing in anguish, there will be no new witnesses in the Senate trial. Supposedly, in having to hear all the broken hearted liberal media of FOX News go on about the present state of affairs, McConnell is confused about what tack to take next in the trial. nicker: Right, Dems just got their heads handed to them by a Senate Leader who's kind of lost his way.

The President's defense team absolutely destroyed the House Manager's subterfuge. And watching the whole affair has served to remind one that failing proper legal interpretive prowess where Dems are concerned, there is no substitute for soap operish deep feelings. I mean they just yearn so, what a bunch of drama queens.