Thorns & Roses: Rand Paul Attacks Media, QAnon Madness Heads For Kentucky

ROSE: LEO Victorious!
After a multi-year respite from the Louisville awards scene, LEO Weekly emerged from hibernation to swipe two, first-place awards from the Society of Professional Journalists Louisville Pro Chapter — and from the clutches of the local mainstream media. Departing editor-in-chief Aaron Yarmuth won first place for editorial writing across Metro Louisville for his series on the Louisville Metro Police Department. And, former LEO editor-in-chief and current contributor Cary Stemle won first place in feature writing for the magazine category for his series on the Louisville protests last summer — proving that the greatness of LEO clings to its writers long after they move on. Go to leoweekly.com to read Yarmuth’s and Stemle’s award-winning work.

THORN: QAnon Madness Headed For Kentucky
A slate of Stop the Steal conspiracy theorists are set to appear at “the biggest patriot rally of the year” in Muhlenburg County this September. Special guests include My Pillow magnate Mike Lindell, Trump-fanboy lawyer Lin Wood and — how the mighty have fallen — former General Mike Flynn. All continue to claim that President Joe Biden stole the election from former President Donald Trump, despite the fact that there continues to be no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the event is that tickets start at $250 — just slightly out of reach for the average American. This type of rally is especially dangerous considering that 16 Kentuckians so far have been arrested in connection to the failed, Jan. 6 insurrection.

THORN: Rand Paul’s Favorite Straw Man
Last week, when speaking on a roundtable with local law enforcement in Erlanger, Kentucky, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said he was “disturbed” by how the media has portrayed the police. “I think the media and many in the public are treating and portraying law enforcement as if you’re 99% bad. I think it’s the opposite — I think 99% or higher are good, and there’s occasionally bad people,” he said, according to the Courier Journal. Reporting on the police is obviously an essential public service by journalists, and oftentimes that uncovers injustice and tragedy, but, let’s be honest, no Kentucky media outlet, including us, a very mouthy alt-weekly, has said that all police officers are inherently bad. He’s just trying to delegitimize very legitimate outlets and reporters by acting like “the media” has been throwing around absolutes, while area journalists have actually been doing precise, award-winning reporting. He’s just trying to create a blanket of media distrust, trying to convince the public that all media is bad, which is dangerous, because he’s doing what we’re not — dealing in absolutes.

THORN: Just Take The Damned Shot

COVID vaccines are readily available. Worldwide, over 2 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine and over 1 billion have been fully inoculated against COVID. And yet, here we are, in the richest nation in the world with all of the access and all of the opportunity to return to regular living, ignoring the privilege we are afforded in vaccine availability and allowing COVID numbers to rise and the Delta variant to take hold. Here in Kentucky, the COVID positivity rate has risen to over 5%. Remember when schools wouldn’t open until the rate was under 4%? I guess we’re looking at more school closings and more loss of work hours. Good job, Trumpies and anti-vaxxers. You’re really out here “winning” while the rest of us lose family, time and money to a virus that we can safely curb and prevent with a simple shot.

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