Sunday, July 28, 2013

Use These Affiliate Marketing Tips To Grow Your Business | Content ...

Author: Tony Shawrtz | Total views: 107 Comments: 0
Word Count: 914 Date:

This sort of system is so attractive because it is fairly cheap and easy to manage. There is no product involved for the affiliated businessman. It is not as easy as it first appears, however. It takes a committed effort if you want to develop a reliable income stream.

Make sure that your partners don't take advantage of cookies, and certainly don't do it yourself. At best, this is irritating to the visitor. You could possibly spread viruses or break the customer tracking chains.

Always disclose when you are using affiliate marketing and see how it affects your readers and visitors in a positive manner. Transparency is always appreciated, particularly in the field of affiliate marketing. If your readers understand the reasons you utilize affiliate marketing, they may be more positive and responsive to the links provided on your site.

Selecting an affiliate products company with several payment options should be high on your list, especially if you need a quick turn-around for your earnings. There are affiliate companies that only offer payment once you have reached a particular dollar amount, while others will direct pay you through a checking account or other online payment services.

As a time saving tip for affiliates who are dealing with many emails with instructions that need to be addressed, don't waste time continuing to go back to the emails to reread the message. Save time and be productive put them into a word document. By using the document as your reference, you can work more quickly and efficiently.

When visitors come to your sports-focused website, they are expecting information about sports. Providing affiliate links may prove to be unfruitful if the links are forwarding visitors to websites that do not pertain to sports. If your link is close to the website topic, your visitors are going to be more interested in it.

Paid advertising, such as Google Ads, is a good way to make money from affiliate marketing programs. Use targeted keywords in your ads to attract customers to your site.

When selecting prospective affiliates, do so with purpose and with a clear idea of who your target audience is. This allows you to drive traffic and connect with your target market through a sense of shared understanding.

Choose affiliate companies that are supportive and help their affiliates by sharing resources that can help sell their products. Generally, affiliate businesses are not stupid. They do research to learn what marketing techniques convert customers. Successful companies share their information with affiliates in an effort to create customized marketing campaigns to sell products.

If you employ banner ads try to put a question on it, some people will click and not be able to refuse clicking. Most people will be unable to leave without clicking on the banner. Reward the visitors by presenting discounts to those that answered the question correctly.

When you are reviewing a product, spice up your opinions with movies, pictures, and whatever else you can think of that will really make that product look good to others. You will be able to bring in more income with affiliate marketing if you go this route. These will help people see how great the product is and convince them to buy one. Be very precise and specific in your reviews. Buyers want to know everything there is to know about something before they buy it.

Knowing real time statistics is incredibly important. These will help you to track how much traffic your site is getting, and exactly how many of your products have been purchased.

A crucial element of affiliate marketing is obtaining as many backlinks as you can, but it can backfire on you if your visitors feel deceived by inappropriate content. A visitor will not be happy if the link they clicked on did not take them to the destination that he or she thought it would. This will speak of dishonesty to your visitors, no matter how well the strategy is planned.

You should not conclude that 100% commissions are a program scam. Take the time to read through it and you may find that there is no scam to it. There are legitimate companies that offer such programs. While you enjoy the 100 percent commission, the company makes money on subscriptions that follow the original purchase. This can greatly benefit you, so pay close attention to an offer similar to this.

You need to make sure that you remain relevant if you wish to find success with affiliate marketing. Keep up with your affiliates and what sort of promotions they may be offering. Check out the constantly evolving tools that will draw customers into your affiliate marketing goals.

Be upfront and disclose that you do make money when your readers buy from your affiliate link. Visitors to your site are likely savvy consumers; resist the temptation to cover up the nature of affiliate links. Early honesty will improve your chances of increasing repeat visits and affiliate customers.

Always try to push your goals further. One day you could turn this into a real profit opportunity. Keep on pressing forward, never let up on working hard, and you will see your profits continue to grow. It can be hard to get started but if you keep at it you can succeed.

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1: Article Marketing Strategy: Putting Together a "Class Schedule" For Your Article Topics

Businesses go to so much trouble when there is one sure-fire, simple, very inexpensive way to attract new clients to a business: Teach a free class. That is what article marketing is like. Your articles are just like free classes. You teach your target readers something helpful in your article. Your resource box then says, "If you enjoyed this article you can visit my website and apply what you have learned."

2: Simple Article Writing: 5 Steps For Beginners Who Are Learning To Write Articles (Try This!)

When you look at an article, you may say, "That article looks great, but I have no idea how I would produce something that good." In this article I am going to help you break your article creation process down into "blocks"--smaller bits of information that when assembled together will form a top quality article submission.

3: Why You Need To Build Multiple Streams of Income For Yourself

Being an entrepreneur and earning multiple streams of income is a dream that many have, but in reality it does take some initial hard work to achieve this. Earning multiple streams of income is the wave of the future, and here are some tips and advice for you when you are looking for ways in which to do this for yourself.

4: Understanding Online Business Success

Starting a home based business to earn income online takes a significant amount of time and energy upfront to get things going. Not seeing results immediately can be discouraging and cause people to give up too early. In this article, we look at the process of starting a home based business and working through the frustrations to be there when the sales come flowing in.

5: Back Link Building - 6 Methods You Can Use To Rank Your Blog Posts

Panda and Penquin Google has changed the game with back link building. Here are the backlink strategies I use to get quality backlinks.

Source: http://www.content4reprint.com/internet-marketing/use-these-affiliate-marketing-tips-to-grow-your-business.htm

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White History Month Facebook page to hold motorcycle rally and meetup


27
Jul

White AdvocacyWhite History Month Facebook page to hold motorcycle rally and meetup

t-shirtAmerican White History Month [AWHM] is a Facebook page that grew to almost 75,000 followers before being deleted by Facebook without warning two weeks ago.?There is a replacement Facebook group here.

The AWHM is holding it?s first real world event in Knoxville, TN on August 17th. Click here for flyer in pdf

REWG flyer

Source: http://topconservativenews.com/2013/07/white-history-month-facebook-page-to-hold-motorcycle-rally-and-meetup/

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Kids Eat 4 Less! app released for Windows Phone

Have you ever been out and about looking for a restaurant where your kids can eat for free or at a discounted rate? Kids Eat 4 Less! will show you restaurants within a selected range (in miles) from your current location that offer free or discounted kids meals.

This app is relatively new and the list of available restaurant deals is still growing. Kids Eat 4 Less! relies mainly on crowdsourcing, so, if you find a great deal that is not already registered within our app, you can add it in less than a minute making it immediately available to everyone else using the Kids Eat 4 Less! app.Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Once you?ve located a restaurant that you would like to try out, you can jump directly into your phone?s map application (for driving directions) with a single tap. You can also pin your favorite restaurant to your Start screen for easy access.

The free trial version never expires but is ad-supported. However, you can opt to buy the full version if you do not want to see the ads. The app is currently US-only. Depending upon the success and popularity of the app, other marketplaces could be considered.

Download the app here or scan the QR Code right.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WmPowerUser/~3/Q4DtR64C-ZY/

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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Nokia Lumia 625 official: a 220 euro LTE Windows Phone with a 4.7-inch display coming this September (hands-on)

Fun, Fast and Affordable: Nokia Unveils Lumia 625

Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced the Nokia Lumia 625, an accessibly priced 4G smartphone to help people see more of what they love. The Nokia Lumia 625 delivers high-speed entertainment to a wide audience with a large 4.7-inch super-sensitive LCD screen and 4G Internet access.

Nokia Lumia 625Building on the award winning Nokia Lumia design, the Nokia Lumia 625 includes five brightly coloured changeable shells, which add to the Live Tile personalisation brought by Windows Phone 8.

The Nokia Lumia 625 also provides many innovations found in the recently announced flagship Nokia Lumia 1020. These include a range of integrated camera applications like Nokia Smart Camera, offering handy features like removing unwanted objects from pictures, and Nokia Cinemagraph, which turns photos into living memories with added movement.

"With our largest smartphone screen to date, the Nokia Lumia 625 is a perfect example of how Nokia is delivering leading smartphone innovation and experiences at every price point," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president, Nokia Smart Devices.

Powered by the latest version of Windows Phone 8 and including the Nokia Lumia Amber update, the Nokia Lumia 625 delivers a richer and easier to use smartphone experience at a competitive price. Live Tiles update direct to the home screen, and People Hub makes it easy to stay connected with friends and family. Windows Phone 8 also includes Xbox Live, Microsoft Office, and 7GB of online SkyDrive storage to simply make life easier.

With access to more than 165,000 apps including Vimeo, Temple Run and WhatsApp, the Nokia Lumia 625 offers faster mobile fun, as well as safer surfing with Internet Explorer 10 - making it ideal for viewing videos, games, and other content. The Nokia Lumia 625 also offers SD memory card support, allowing up to 64GB of additional content storage.

Nokia Music provides unlimited streaming of ad-free mixes without registration or subscription, plus the ability to download mixes for listening offline with the Nokia Lumia 625. Nokia has also teamed with Coloud(TM) to create BOOM(TM) headphones that combine audio prowess with excellent value, and integrated microphone and buttons for voice calls and music control.

With its big screen and super-fast connectivity, the Nokia Lumia 625 offers leading maps and location experiences from HERE, providing free maps, turn-by-turn navigation and public transport guidance.

The Nokia Lumia 625 will be available in a range of colours including orange, yellow, bright green, white and black with an array of changeable shells enabling easy personalisation. With an estimated retail price of 220 Euros before taxes and subsidies, the Nokia Lumia 625 is planned to begin selling in China, Europe, Asia Pacific, India, Middle East, Africa and Latin America in Q3 2013.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/23/nokia-lumia-625-entry-level-lte-windows-phone/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Friday, July 19, 2013

Last-of-Its-Kind Tortoise Gets Royal Treatment from Taxidermists [Slide Show]

Preserving an iconic animal like Lonesome George is all about the details


View the Lonesome George slide show. Image: American Museum of Natural History/D. Finnin

  • For centuries, we?ve toyed with our creature companions, breeding dogs that herd and hunt, housecats that look like tigers, and teacup pigs that fit snugly in...

    Read More??

Eleanor Sterling happened to be visiting the Gal?pagos Islands on June 24, 2012, the day Lonesome George died. George, the last of a species of giant tortoise unique to Pinta Island, had become an iconic symbol of the struggle to conserve disappearing species. Sterling had come to the islands on conservation business, but she dropped everything when she heard that George had expired.

The first thing Sterling did was put in a call to George Dante, a New Jersey taxidermist. Sterling, who directs the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Center for Biodiversity and Conservation in New York City, knew Dante from his previous work for the museum. He impressed on her the need to act quickly to protect the iconic tortoise?s body from the ravages of decay. George?s eyes and the skin, being most prominent, were particularly vulnerable.

That turned out to be no easy matter on Pinta, one of the smaller and more remote islands in the archipelago. Sterling and members of Galap?gos National Park Service began to search local stores for freezer plastic or some other material to wrap George in. They had little success at first?store after store told them they would have to wait until the next plane of supplies arrived from Ecuador. As the day went on, Sterling and the others grew discouraged.

View the Lonesome George slide show.

But their luck quickly changed. Storeowners, moved by Lonesome George?s death, got on the phones and began scrounging up supplies. ?All of a sudden, the materials that we needed started coming from a pig farm here and a fish factory there,? Sterling says. Before any damage occurred, George had been wrapped from head to tail and safely frozen, ready to be swaddled in insulation and shipped out.

Nine months later, on March 11, 2013, Lonesome George arrived at the AMNH. Scientists there inspected the frozen tortoise for any damage that may have been done during his trip, and then packed him up and sent him by truck to Dante?s studio, Wildlife Preservations, in Woodland Park, N.J.

Dante unwrapped George and waited for him to defrost. He and his team of four taxidermists then began to take dental alginate and silicone molds of George?s feet and head. The taxidermists then poured polyester resin into the negative molds to create three-dimensional models. The models will be used for reference throughout the six-month or so process of being stuffed and mounted.

Next, they removed George?s skin and placed it in an acid solution, which cleans and thickens the skin (the skin remains in the bath). They now plan to spend several weeks sculpting all of George?s muscles out of an oil-based clay. While sculpting George?s musculature, the taxidermists will repeatedly wrap the skin around Dante?s clay model and make refinements until it fits perfectly.

Dante, who has done projects for the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Smithsonian Institution, prides himself on the scientific accuracy of his work. He prefers museum projects, he says, because of their high standards. George is particularly challenging. For one thing, the sculpting process tends to be more difficult for reptiles than for mammals. With reptiles, he says, ?There?s no fur to hide anything. The anatomy underneath has to be as perfect as it can be because the skin is a very thin membrane.?

George also may be the world?s most famous tortoise, which makes it all the more important for Dante to be true to life. Whereas he has in the past ordered premade musculature that he then modifies, this time Dante is taking no shortcuts: he will sculpt Lonesome George from scratch.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/ScientificAmerican-News/~3/_dQx4-cMNmE/article.cfm

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Senators ready to restore lower college loan rates

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A bipartisan group of senators is announcing a deal that lets students dodge higher interest rates when they go back to campus this fall.

The group on Thursday told reporters they have reached a compromise that lowers the rates for all students who borrow from the federal government. The rates would be linked to financial markets, meaning interest rates would climb in coming years.

Democrats insisted on and won a cap on how rates could climb.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois says the bill does not give any negotiator everything he sought. But it provides relief for students who were facing interest rates that doubled to 6.8 percent on new loans.

The House has already passed similar legislation and the differences could be resolved before students return to campus.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senators-ready-restore-lower-college-loan-rates-072515654.html

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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Kerry briefs Arabs on peace bid, Egypt, Syria

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry briefed senior Arab officials Wednesday on his efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and on American views of the crises and Syria and Egypt.

On his sixth trip to the region in as many months as America's top diplomat, Kerry met in Jordan with representatives of the Arab League and nine of its members that support a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia. In addition to the peace process, Kerry was updating the Arabs on U.S. support for the Syrian opposition and attempts to convene an international conference to establish a transition government there, as well as Washington's position on Egypt's political turmoil.

The gathering came a day after Kerry had a five-hour dinner meeting in Amman with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Officials said Kerry and Abbas discussed the way forward and projects aimed at bolstering the Palestinian economy. No further details were available, and Kerry and Abbas were planning to meet again Wednesday.

It remained unclear whether Kerry would meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any of his top aides on his trip. Israel is not currently on Kerry's itinerary, although officials said that could change.

Kerry has spent hours with Abbas and Netanyahu trying to set the stage for a return to peace talks that foundered and collapsed in 2008. Kerry insists progress has been made but there have been few, if any, discernible signs that the two sides are getting closer to agreeing to discuss the major issues that divide them.

Kerry said Tuesday after talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh that he wanted to see a Syrian refugee camp, and it appeared likely that if such a visit is arranged, it would happen Thursday before he is scheduled to return to the United States. Judeh said Kerry had expressed concern about the economic impact the humanitarian crisis in Syria has had in Jordan, which hosts more than a half million displaced Syrians.

Should the visit materialize, it would be the first by an Obama administration Cabinet-level figure to Syrian refugees, some of whom have complained about a lack of U.S. support. Syrian rebels have also complained that they are not receiving promised military assistance from Washington.

Later Wednesday, Kerry is to meet Jordan's King Abdullah II and then brief reporters at a news conference with Judeh.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-briefs-arabs-peace-bid-egypt-syria-084547775.html

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Microsoft offers free Xbox Live Gold subscription with Microsoft Office 365

SOFTWARE FLOGGER Microsoft is granting punters who invest in its Home and Student Microsoft Office 365 packages a year of free Xbox Live Gold gaming.

"Make school enjoyable all year round," says the firm, perhaps with a loose grasp on what people do at school.

"If you have purchased an Office 365 Home Premium annual subscription or Office 365 University, just follow the three simple steps below to start enjoying 12 months of Xbox Live Gold."

The rules are simple. All you have to do is use your activation code for Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium annual or Microsoft Office 365 University between now and the end of September to get an Xbox Live Gold code.

Get your Xbox Live Gold code and head for your Xbox or the Xbox website. Once there use your code and your Microsoft email credentials to get the connection.

It's probably not a bad deal, particularly if you want to use Microsoft's subscription based productivity software and you like gaming.

A year of Microsoft Office 365 costs just under ?80, and a year of Xbox Live Gold is priced at around ?30. At present and through the summer Microsoft is giving Xbox Live subscribers a series of free games. Assassin's Creed 2 is available at the moment, which if you have missed it is worth a punt.

If you don't like the idea of spending ?80 a year on email, word processing, spreadsheets, storage and slides, then consider tricking yourself into thinking that you are paying that amount for the gaming. If that works for you, you can just pretend that all the cloud software is free.

In March Microsoft was offering a free three month trial to wavering cloud students. ?

Source: http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/554/f/7127/s/2ed84aa5/l/0L0Stheinquirer0Bnet0Cinquirer0Cnews0C22833720Cmicrosoft0Eoffers0Efree0Exbox0Elive0Egold0Esubscription0Ewith0Emicrosoft0Eoffice0E365/story01.htm

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Apple browsers targeted by simple Javascript ransom scam

Ransom attackers have finally made the jump from Windows to the Mac with news of a stunningly simple hack that tries to trick browser users into paying a $300 (?228) fine using a simple JavaScript routine.

The attack was detected by security firm Malwarebytes is a mixture of sleight of hand and social engineering that the firm reports that it will work against several Mac-based browsers (using an OSX interpreter) with JavaScript enabled.

Victims reportedly encounter it after running one of a number common searches where they are unlucky enough to end up on the ransom attack page. This demands the money on behalf of the FBI for claimed copyright infringement or downloading porn.

It is the common or garden police ransom scam, made more implausible by its request to receive the money as a US GreenDot MoneyPak code of the sort that can be bought for cash from Walmart. The scammers even use a bogus FBI URL in an attempt to add a small element of authenticity.

The problem is that getting rid of the page appears to be impossible thanks to an embedded iFrame that fires up the page 150 times to deter the user; leaving or closing the page is impossible.

Attempting to 'force quit' Safari looks as if it has worked but reloading brings up the same page again and again. The only way out of the loop is to force reset the browser (which will lose some of its settings) or, less radically, by holding down the shift key to stop the same page reappearing.

Because the Javascript is on the web page, there is no malware involved. The same attack principle could be tried against Windows browsers too as long as Javascript is enabled and it works with their interpreters.

PCs are usually assailed by more complex types of ransom malware. The attackers probably chose this method to wield against Macs because it involves no complex programming to speak of and Apple users are seen as easy meat. Ransom attacks are still in their infancy on the platform.

"Cyber-criminals, well known for not re-inventing the wheel, have ?ported' the latest ransomware to OS X, not by using some complicated exploit but rather leveraging the browser and its ?restore from crash' feature," said Jerome Segura of Malwarebytes.

"The bad guys know how to use social engineering to entice victims as, for example, I was lead to this locked page by doing a search for Taylor Swift on Bing images."

The attack's surprise is its simplicity. Occasionally in cybercrime, it is the simplest attacks that are the cleverest. This particular one is not complex but it might be good enough to catch at least some victims.

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IDG News Service?

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Source: http://www.techcentral.ie/article.aspx?id=22116

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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Business students win top honors in national competition | GRU News

? PBL National Winners 2013

AUGUSTA, Ga. ? Four students in Georgia Regents University?s James M. Hull College of Business received national recognition during the 2013 Phi Beta Lambda National Leadership Conference?s Awards of Excellence held June 25 in Anaheim, Calif.

?With more than 1,800 business students participating, this year?s competition was tougher than ever and included teams from many prestigious universities,? said Todd Schultz, Advisor for GRU?s Phi Beta Lambda chapter and Professor in the Hull College of Business. ?I am proud of our chapter, not just for their competitive spirit, but for their leadership, fund-raising, service, and team-building all year long.?

Award recipients include Erica Playford, International Business; Austin Hixenbaugh, Cyber Security; LeRoy Ramsey, Information Management; and Yat Wang Ying, Statistical Analysis.

Phi Beta Lambda is the university extension of Future Business Leaders of America, and the combined FBLA-PBL is the world?s oldest and largest business student organization. The society hosts annual state and national competitions where students compete in business related leadership events including impromptu speaking, job interviewing, public speaking, and sales presentations. Other competition areas cover topics such as accounting principles for professionals, management, small business management, contemporary sports, sports management, computer applications, business communication, business ethics, parliamentary procedures, financial services, hospitality management, human resource management, and network design.

###

Georgia Regents University is one of four public comprehensive research universities in the state with nearly 10,000 students enrolled in its nine colleges and schools, which include the Medical College of Georgia ? the nation?s 13th-oldest medical school ? the nationally-ranked Hull College of Business and Georgia?s only College of Dental Medicine. The clinical enterprise associated with the university includes the 478-bed Georgia Regents Medical Center and the 154-bed Children?s Hospital of Georgia. GRU is a unit of the University System of Georgia and an equal opportunity institution.? http://www.gru.edu

Source: http://news.gru.edu/archives/9320

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Woodland 10-year-old softball team finishes 7th at California State Games

The contingent of Woodland 10-and-under softball players placed seventh of 19 teams participating in in the California State Games in San Diego over the weekend.

The tournament was double-elimination with the opening ceremonies taking place at QualComm Stadium.

After Friday's opening win, Woodland dropped a close 3-2 loss to Coranado of San Diego on Saturday morning. The locals then won a one-run game of their own, advancing past

Central Calif. champion Selma, 5-4, before bowing out with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Pismo Beach.

"No shame in the losses we had," said coach Matt Bryson. "They were good games, we just came up a little short.Tthe experience of going down ... and being in a top notch tournament was pretty cool."

Bryson noted the success Pismo Beach and Coranado had, as the two teams placed second and third in the tournament, respectively.

Bryson praised the defense of battery Lauren Bryson and Rylee Brown and shortstop Zenie Coranado-Casebolt, along with the offense of Bella Vuentes and Ari Pena.

Source: http://www.dailydemocrat.com/sports/ci_23668121/woodland-10-year-old-softball-team-finishes-7th?source=rss_viewed

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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Jay-Z's Magna Carta Is 'Not Sh--That I Like,' Earl Sweatshirt Defends

'I stand by the fact that I don't like that album, but I love Jay-Z,' Earl tells MTV News after getting backlash for his negative review.
By Nadeska Alexis

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1710644/earl-sweatshirt-jay-z-magna-carta.jhtml

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Collaboration needed to maximise Ireland's trade with Africa

Collaboration needed to maximise Ireland's trade with Africa

Collaboration needed to maximise Ireland's trade with Africa

Lagos. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Ireland has an enviable reputation across Africa arising from its educational and aid support delivered for many decades but our trade links are still underdeveloped, an event heard least week.

?Exports to Africa have the realistic potential to reach ?24bn by the end of the decade and we are confident that high export growth can be achieved if? the various agencies and the private sector can work together to support companies by identifying opportunities and facilitating trade,? said Brian Delaney, chairman of the Irish Exporters Association Africa Business Forum at the meeting.

?There are currently 160 Irish companies exporting to 23 African countries and 36 Irish companies have a presence on the ground there.? We need to tap into this network and experience to improve our knowledge of the vast markets in Africa and to identify where opportunities lie.

?Companies such as the Irish Dairy Board, which have been trading in Africa for nearly 35 years, have considerable experience of the market and demonstrate the potential that exists for Irish exporters.?

To identify opportunities there is no substitute for getting out there and getting to know the people, he continued.?

?Last year saw the first Irish trade mission to Nigeria in 20 years.? One in every 43 people in the world is Nigerian and the importance of regular missions going forward must not be underestimated if we are to build sustainable momentum in these markets.?

South Africa is often used as a platform to access other African markets and Enterprise Ireland recently opened an office and incubation centre in Johannesburg.

?This office along with our 11 embassies throughout Africa and the Irish business networks that are being developed provide a strong structure for trade promotion,? said Delaney.??

?The Africa-Ireland Economic Forum which will be held in October will also represent a chance for potential exporters to meet successful African business people.?

The IEA is currently developing a strategy for Ireland-Africa trade promotion and is inviting submissions and comment from interested companies.

?

Source: http://www.businessandleadership.com/exporting/item/41906-collaboration-needed-to-max

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A Pull Start Mower For Fruits and Vegetables

A Pull Start Mower For Fruits and Vegetables

You know that incredibly satisfying feeling you get when a lawnmower finally starts on the second or third yank of its pull cord? You can relive that exact same experience in your kitchen when making salsa or guacamole with this chopper that shreds your veggies as you yank on its plastic handle that's tethered to a similar pull cord.

Read more...

Source: http://gizmodo.com/a-pull-start-mower-for-fruit-and-vegetables-801101940

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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Parting Schotts: FOX Sports 980 adds more NBC Sports Radio programming

WOFX-AM (980) is associated with FOX Sports Radio, but it's adding more programming from NBC Sports Radio.

Thursday night marked the debut of the "Amani and Eytan" show. The program, which runs from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., replaces "FOX Sports Tonight."

Also, WOFX is adding some weekend programming from NBC Sports Radio. Saturday shows will run from 7:30 a.m. until noon, while the Sunday lineup goes from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. The Saturday shows are "Safety Blitz with Rodney Harrison" (7:30 to 9 a.m.), and "The Clay Travis Show" (9 a.m. to noon).

The Sunday program is "The Jason Page Show."

WOFX has been carrying "The Dan Schwartzman Show" from 1 to 6 a.m. for several months. It also has been airing NBC Sports Radio updates during "Big Board Sportstalk with Rodger Wyland."

WOFX program director Josh Everett said the station has added NBC Sports Radio programming as part of its deal to carry the NFL and NCAA basketball tournament package through Dial Global, which is affiliated with NBC Sports Radio.

Follow @slapschotts on Twitter. Follow @dgazettesports on Twitter.

Source: http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/schott/2013/jul/12/fox-sports-980-adds-more-nbc-sports-radio-programm/

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Justin Bieber -- Janitor's Union PISSED OFF Over Mop Bucket Video

Justin Bieber
Janitor's Union PISSED OFF
Over Mop Bucket Video

Exclusive

0712_justin_bieber_01
Justin Bieber
's got less respect for the little people than Godzilla ... so says a rep for the biggest janitor union in the country, after TMZ posted video of the singer taking a leak in a restaurant mop bucket.

A rep for 32BJ SEIU -- aka the largest property services workers union in the US -- tells TMZ, ?Unfortunately, people are often oblivious to the fact that workers like our members are faced daily with the consequences of such thoughtless acts."

The rep adds, "[Bieber's behavior] serves as a stark reminder of the essential jobs that building workers perform and the very difficult conditions under which they perform them. We welcome a heightened awareness of workers? dignity among young people, and hope many will be moved to work for economic justice.?

Maybe Bieber should suit up for a day or two and see what it's really like to clean up after spoiled little twerps.

Here's the pee bucket video again for good measure.

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Florida jury in Zimmerman case asks about manslaughter charge

By Ellen Wulfhorst

SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida jury deciding the fate of George Zimmerman for killing unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin asked for clarification on Saturday on manslaughter, the less-serious charge he faces in the case that has sparked debate on race and guns.

The panel of six women, which has deliberated more than 12 hours over two days, could decide on manslaughter, second-degree murder or acquittal for Zimmerman, who says he shot the 17-year-old Martin in self-defense.

Zimmerman, 29, said Martin attacked him on the night of February 26, 2012, in the central Florida town of Sanford.

Prosecutors contend Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch coordinator in his gated community, was a "wannabe cop" who tracked down the teenager and shot him without justification.

To convict Zimmerman of second-degree murder, which carries the possibility of a life prison sentence, the jury must find Zimmerman acted with ill will, spite or hatred. The option of manslaughter, which has a lesser burden of culpable negligence, carries a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

The jurors, who are sequestered, heard 12 days of testimony and two days of closing arguments before deliberating.

Although small compared with the protests that erupted after the killing last year, about 100 demonstrators braved the blistering Florida sun to gather outside the Seminole County courthouse as the deliberations proceeded.

Only a handful, including one brandishing a sign that read, "George You Got Hit, You Must Acquit," appeared to support Zimmerman.

Carrying placards reading: "Jail the Killer" and "Justice 4 Trayvon," many called for a murder conviction. Some wore T-shirts with an image of Zimmerman in the crosshairs of a gun, with the words "Yes Sir ... Creepy Ass Cracker" on the back.

"Creepy ass cracker" were the words Martin's friend Rachael Jeantel told the court he used to describe Zimmerman on a cell phone call moments before he was shot.

At the courthouse, Judge Debra Nelson said she would allow the jurors to set their own working hours. The panel worked through lunch on Saturday, returning only at about 6 p.m. (2200 GMT) to ask for the clarification on the manslaughter charge.

The saga began on the rainy February night when Zimmerman called police to report a suspicious person in his neighborhood. That was Martin, visiting the home of his father's fiancee.

In the fight that ensued, Zimmerman suffered several head injuries and he shot Martin once through the heart with a Kel Tec 9 mm pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets.

Police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman, believing his account of self-defense. That provoked demonstrations, which spread nationwide, accusing Zimmerman of racial profiling and demanding his arrest.

Zimmerman was arrested 45 days after the shooting, after the Sanford police chief stepped down and the governor appointed a special prosecutor who pressed second-degree murder charges.

(Additional reporting by Tom Brown in Miami and Barbara Liston in Sanford; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jury-resumes-deliberations-zimmerman-cases-134425783.html

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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Sprint HTC Evo 4G Android Cell Phone (Black), Without Contract

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Powerful GOP congressman may be dethroned

PADUCAH, Ky. -- Ever since the U.S. government's uranium enrichment plant started hiring in 1951, there has been a Buckley helping to run it. Before his sons, a daughter-in-law and a grandson clocked in, Fred Buckley, now 86, would travel three hours a day from his home in West Tennessee to make $1.46 per hour as a plant security guard.

It felt to Buckley like he was back in the Army, working with a close-knit group of men on a secret mission. He'd served in World War II -- after a few weeks of basic training, he ended up on the front lines at the Battle of the Bulge. He rose quickly from infantryman to staff sergeant to squad leader. The job at the plant promised the safety of a stable income and a sense of purpose at the dawn of the Cold War. One month before he started, the first of his two sons was born.

It seemed like Paducah was being reborn too. As new workers from neighboring Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee showed up, the small city in Western Kentucky faced a housing shortage. "So many people came in, you know?" Buckley told The Huffington Post. "Anything that had a roof on it -- chicken house, any kind of outbuilding, they were in it."

Room rates tripled until local officials imposed rent control. Home construction blanketed the city, while trailer parks rose up on cinder blocks throughout the surrounding county. More than 1,100 homes were built while Buckley waited for his chance to move to the Paducah area. After more than six years, he found a one-story, two-bedroom white frame house on a corner lot off Highway 60, just three miles from the plant. He still lives there today.

The flood of well-paid men had ramifications well beyond the homebuilding industry, lifting almost every business in the region. Even the local brothel expanded.

Paducah embraced the plant and its patriotic celebration of nuclear power. It called itself "The Atomic City" and envisioned thoroughfares bright with shiny, pastel-colored automobiles, a downtown humming with Cold War money. "The plant just made the town, you know?" Buckley says. He still remembers when they first raised the American flag in front of the plant's administration building. He was there, standing at attention.

fred buckley

Fred Buckley (left) with the Paducah plant union's vice president, Jim Key.

Nobody understands the plant's importance more than Mitch McConnell. For the past 30 years, the Senate minority leader, now 71, has been the plant's most ardent defender in Washington. The Republican lawmaker knows its 750 acres located just 12 miles from downtown. He's walked its grid under the haze of the ever-present steam cloud emanating from its cooling towers. He grasps its history, its hold on the imaginations of men like Buckley. No other jobs in Western Kentucky presented the opportunity to use more electricity than Detroit and more water than New York City every day of the week.

The senator has remained loyal to the plant and its workers, keeping it running on federal earmarks and complicated deals with the Department of Energy to convert its core function from producing warheads to mining nuclear waste to create electricity. At least in Paducah, McConnell is not the "abominable no-man," the sour-faced persona of Washington gridlock. He is an honorary union man. "He's been the best friend to the plant we've had over the years," Buckley says. "He went above and beyond the call of duty for the union."

Up until the tea party-led ban on earmarks a few years ago, McConnell played out this dichotomy across Kentucky. In Washington, he voted against a health care program for poor children. In Kentucky, he funneled money to provide innovative health services for pregnant women. In Washington, he railed against Obamacare. In Kentucky, he supported free health care and prevention programs paid for by the federal government without the hassle of a private-insurance middleman. This policy ping-pong may not suggest a coherent belief system, but it has led to loyalty among the GOP in Washington and something close to fealty in Kentucky. It has advanced McConnell's highest ideal: his own political survival.

McConnell's hold on Kentucky is a grim reminder of the practice of power in America -- where political excellence can be wholly divorced from successful governance and even public admiration. The most dominant and influential Kentucky politician since his hero Henry Clay, McConnell has rarely used his indefatigable talents toward broad, substantive reforms. He may be ruling, but he's ruling over a commonwealth with the lowest median income in the country, where too many counties have infant mortality rates comparable to those of the Third World. His solutions have been piecemeal and temporary, more cynical than merciful.

And with McConnell's rise into the GOP leadership, his continuous search for tactical advantage with limited regard for policy consequences has overrun Washington. McConnell has more than doubled the previous high-water mark for the number of filibusters deployed to block legislation, infamously declaring that his "top political priority" was to make President Barack Obama a one-term president. This obstruction has had serious consequences, as the Great Recession grinds on and large-scale problems like climate change march inexorably forward. Congress has failed to address the nation's most pressing challenges, and America has come to look more and more like McConnell's Kentucky.

At the Paducah plant, and throughout the Bluegrass State, McConnell's influence is a complicated, even poisonous one. As other aging nuclear facilities have been shuttered, Paducah has groaned its way into the 21st century. The plant has become a barely functional relic in the midst of a decades-long power down. The town's post-war pastels have given way to rust, padlocks and contaminated waterways. After three decades under McConnell, Kentucky residents are wondering whether his survival is good for them.

Up for reelection again in 2014, McConnell faces dismal polling numbers. In January, a Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll found that only 17 percent of residents said they were planning on voting for him. A recent Public Policy Polling survey showed him tied in a hypothetical race against Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky's Democratic secretary of state, weeks before she announced she was running on July 1. Today, McConnell finds himself at both the most powerful and most vulnerable moment of his career. He faces not only a Democratic opposition out to avenge McConnell's attacks on Obama, but an energized tea party unhappy with the GOP establishment and independents disgusted with Washington.

Keith Runyon was a veteran reporter and editorial page editor for the Louisville-based Courier-Journal, Kentucky's dominant statewide paper, which has generations of close personal ties to state and national Democrats. He witnessed McConnell's rise in Louisville and its suburbs of Jefferson County. He met his future wife, Meme Sweets, when she worked as McConnell's press secretary after his election as the county's judge-executive. Runyon came to know McConnell well. He says that McConnell was not always such a ruthless partisan obstructionist.

"It was not the local Mitch McConnell that became the problem," he told HuffPost. "It was what he became when he went to Washington."

In 2006, the former editor and publisher of the liberal Courier-Journal, Barry Bingham Jr., 72, "was dying and knew it," Runyon says. A week before his death in early April, he summoned Runyon to his home.

When he arrived on that balmy morning, Runyon recalls, Bingham was sitting up in a chair in his library. A breeze was drifting in through the windows. Among the many things Bingham wanted to talk about, the paper's early support of McConnell was one them. "He looked at me and he said, ?You know, the worst mistake we ever made was endorsing Mitch McConnell' in 1977."

MODERATE MITCH

Squint long enough and hard enough, and you can see vestiges of the young, moderate McConnell in his funneling of federal money toward Kentucky projects. This is the McConnell who forged a political identity at the elbow of Kentucky's iconic reformer Republicans, the McConnell who didn't just admire Martin Luther King Jr., but made a point of witnessing the March on Washington from the Capitol steps and later spoke up for the cause on his University of Louisville campus.

In the summer before he began law school at the University of Kentucky, McConnell went to Washington as an intern for Kentucky's beloved Republican statesman, Sen. John Sherman Cooper. The senator had helped draft the first legislation for federal education aid, had fought school discrimination and had been a co-sponsor of the bill that created Medicare. He'd been hit with a lot of flak back home for the health care legislation, but his experiences taught him a bleak lesson.

"I noticed that the old country doctors and the country officials -- people who had been out in the country and had seen the plight of the people who live in the hollows and down the dirt roads -- they were for it," Cooper told reporters in 1972. "And I remembered my experiences as county judge in Pulaski County, when I'd go out in the county and see these people -- desperate, hungry, sick and nowhere to turn, and no one to help them except the old country doctors. You just can't let people go hungry. You can't just let them lie there sick, to die. Not in this country. Not with all we've got."

Cooper had also been an ardent supporter of one of Lyndon Johnson's signature achievements, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and helped defeat the filibuster against it. The summer after his internship, "Cooper grabbed a visiting McConnell by the arm and spontaneously took him to the Capitol" where the two watched Johnson sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to John David Dyche's Republican Leader, a biography of McConnell.

McConnell later joined Marlow Cook's campaign for Senate in 1968, as a field organizer at colleges across the state. By the time he was through, every campus had a Cook group. "I think he believed in what we were doing," Cook says. "He believed that we were trying to bring a moderate Republican to succeed a moderate Republican. As a Republican, I was the one that could do that."

After the successful campaign, McConnell joined Cook's staff in Washington where he worked with the senator to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have guaranteed equal rights for women. Cook says McConnell and his staff all "had to work like hell on it." The amendment passed but ultimately failed to be ratified by enough states to be written into the Constitution. Cook had been the only Republican leading the deeply controversial effort. "We were fighting the likes of Phyllis Schlafly that didn't want women in the military," Cook explains. "All the churches were against it."

John Yarmuth, another young reform-minded Republican, crisscrossed the state with McConnell campaigning for Cook, and remembers McConnell as pro-choice and a supporter of Planned Parenthood. Yarmuth says that after his stint with Cook, McConnell boasted about his work on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment. Yarmuth himself is now serving a fourth term in the House of Representatives, after switching parties to become a Democrat in the mid-1980s.

Back home, Louisville in the 1970s was experiencing a progressive heyday. The city's new Democratic mayor, Harvey Sloane, a doctor by trade, had spent two years in Appalachia as part of President John F. Kennedy's health care initiative. In Louisville, he set up a health center that served primarily African Americans in the West End neighborhood, which helped him launch a political career. As mayor, Sloane started an emergency medical service and helped create a public transportation system. Neighborhoods began to invest in historic preservation. The county started an ecology court to tackle environmental crimes.

"The community was in a can-do frame of mind," Sloane recalls. "Those were times where people were willing to step up to the plate."

The city still had plenty of problems that needed solving, of course, with deeply entrenched racism at the forefront. In 1975, courts ordered local officials to implement a new busing program in an effort to desegregate the school system. For a time, uglier forces prevailed. The Klan showed up and mass anti-busing demonstrations were held. After a calm first day of school, mobs burned buses, attempted to block firefighters from putting out blazes and attacked the police. The National Guard had to be brought in to restore order.

McConnell had witnessed government's righteous potential under Sens. Cooper and Cook, and he wanted to lead it. As Dyche notes in his biography, McConnell tried to distinguish himself during Watergate by coming out for campaign finance reform in a Courier-Journal op-ed: "Many qualified and ethical persons are either totally priced out of the election marketplace or will not subject themselves to questionable, or downright illicit, practices that may accompany the current electoral process." McConnell called for dramatic reductions in campaign contribution limits and labeled the idea of a city-run campaign trust fund a "progressive" proposal.

In 1977, he decided to challenge Democrat Todd Hollenbach Sr. for Jefferson County judge-executive, a job that exercises administrative authority over the Louisville suburbs and some city functions like welfare. The job had oversight over the most populous county in the state.

Hollenbach confesses today that he did not consider McConnell a threat. "First time I ever saw him, I must admit I was amused," he said. "I just didn't take him seriously. I can remember thinking to myself, ?I bet he carried a briefcase in the third grade.' I thought he was just a comical-looking kind of character. ... He had no personality. He was very uncomfortable in a crowd."

But McConnell had a message that was independent enough to gain traction. There were roads that required fixing, cronyism that needed stamping out and a jail whose locks could be broken with a toothbrush. "He was kind of a good-government guy," remembers Meme Sweets Runyon, who worked as McConnell's campaign coordinator and later became his press secretary. "He thought the government could do good and could be a solution."

Charles Musson, a campaign staffer who also later worked in the McConnell administration, agrees: "He wanted to make sure government was effective."

Position papers and campaign strategy were formed in McConnell's basement during brainstorming sessions -- much of it aimed at reaching working-class Democrats. "Mitch would ask questions, and someone would be assigned to do research on that and become the expert on that," Musson remembers. McConnell worked the fried-fish-and-fried-chicken circuit. Some mornings, he served coffee to workers arriving for their shift at the General Electric plant.

McConnell came out in favor of collective bargaining rights for workers and netted the endorsement of the Greater Louisville Central Labor Council. One of his most heavily run ads featured McConnell walking with Cooper, highlighting the young politician's ties to the progressive GOP's old guard.

Dyche reports in his biography that the young politician's message did not include any Republican branding. "Breaking with local tradition," Dyche wrote, "he ran his campaign independently from the Jefferson County GOP apparatus and refused to share a slate with the Republican candidates in other races down the ballot."

While he used negative ads to batter Hollenbach -- most notably one that featured a farmer arguing that Hollenbach's statements on taxes amounted to shoveling manure -- Musson and Dyche recall McConnell showing a soon-to-be-discarded restraint. He chose not to run an ad addressing the court-ordered busing that had caused so much upheaval two years earlier. Hollenbach had no say over the busing but had fought it in court in an embarrassing and losing effort. Another potential ad featuring the young victims of a high-profile traffic accident was similarly deemed insensitive.

McConnell sealed his victory with the surprise endorsement of the editorial board of the Courier-Journal. The young politician told Louisville Today that the daily's nod showed voters that "the community isn't going to go to hell if you have a Democratic mayor and a Republican county judge. It's OK to split your ticket."

Once in office, McConnell governed with bipartisanship in mind. He became "very good" at compromising, Musson says. He hired some of Louisville's leading feminists for his inner circle and began forming coalitions with his Democratic counterparts on the county legislature. "He expected more from me and thought I could do more than I did for myself," Meme Sweets Runyon says. "He demanded a lot from me and insisted that I could do it."

McConnell sought to diversify the county's powerful boards and commissions, which had great sway over planning and development, and had historically been stacked with elites.

He invested in significantly expanding the Jefferson Memorial Forest, adding close to 2,000 acres. His administration also replaced trees uprooted by a tornado. "He was always willing to support green things if you made a good case for it," says Runyon, noting that he also started an office dedicated to environmental issues and had a well-respected liberal run it.

McConnell became known for his insistence on quality personnel. There were no more jailbreaks with toothbrushes. "He believed in things like historic preservation and the environment and functional social services," Runyon adds.

During his second term, McConnell worked closely with the progressive Sloane. If he took a position that might appear hostile to the Louisville mayor, McConnell would give him a warning. "He would call me and explain where he's coming from," Sloane remembers. "There wasn't personal acrimony there. I did the same thing with him." J. Bruce Miller, the Democratic county attorney, says McConnell had the same deal with him.

McConnell joined forces with Sloane to attempt a county-city merger as a way of cutting duplicative services and infusing suburban wealth into the city. It was a fairly liberal idea that proved ahead of its time. The referendum failed twice during their terms, but finally passed in 2000 and went into effect a few years later.

On the merger project, Sloane said the two didn't disagree a lot. "I think he was shrewd, and he did attract some good people," he said. "He wasn't intimidated by progressive people and thinking. [The merger attempt] didn't help either of us. I give him some respect for that. ? He was very pragmatic. We were not there to be ideologues."

'BAD DOGGY'

On the stump, McConnell likes to tell a story about an encounter with a tobacco farmer during one of his early Senate campaigns. "I'm for you," McConnell recalls the farmer telling him. "And what's more, you're going to win." The tale has multiple iterations -- sometimes it takes place in Western Kentucky in Graves County; at other times, McConnell leaves the location vague. But the story always has the same punch line: McConnell, a Louisville politician, asks the farmer why he's so sure McConnell will be victorious. "That feller," the farmer explains, "he's from Louie-ville."

"I believe you're right," McConnell tells the farmer, and walks on.

McConnell looks like a guy who would foreclose on your farm. The senator has a net worth of somewhere between $9.2 million and $36.4 million, according to his latest financial disclosure filings. Yet he has so much rural authenticity that small-town voters mistake him for one of their own.

McConnell's communion with the working class isn't the result of any intuitive genius. He studied farmers and coal miners for years, cultivating an understanding of the issues and anxieties that dominate rural Kentucky. He learned to hang.

"He can get down on the level with anybody," says Mary Canter, who has worked for a decade at the Graves County Republican Party office. "He can come down to just the average John IQ." Although Canter has met McConnell many times, she can't say where he lives. His credibility is so well established that his background isn't questioned.

Even in his early years campaigning for Cook, McConnell made it a point to respect the local language. Yarmuth remembers getting lost in Appalachia with McConnell. When they finally stopped and asked for directions, "It's right back there," the man told them, down "the road a couple hollers."

Yarmuth, a lifelong Louisvillian, recalls asking the man, "How loud the hollers?"

But McConnell understood, quickly ended the interaction and told Yarmuth to get in the car. In Kentucky, a holler or hollow is an address -- a nook or cranny in a mountain where a family builds a home. In locales without official roads or house numbers, "the next holler over" can be the best way to give directions.

McConnell capitalizes on his country cachet with ads accusing his opponents of being inauthentic creatures of the political machine. The first and most notorious was a cold-blooded ad he ran in his first Senate race in 1984 against Walter "Dee" Huddleston, an ad that became infamous for debasing the tone of national campaigns.

Although Huddleston had one of the strongest attendance records in Congress, he had missed a few votes while giving paid speeches. McConnell's "Hound Dog" ad, produced by future Fox News chief Roger Ailes, featured a man with a pack of dogs searching for Huddleston. It was funny, wry and gently mocking, but the effect was devastating.

Huddleston didn't think anyone would fall for the ad. "I thought the bloodhounds were kind of silly, but as it went on, I thought it was pretty effective," he told HuffPost. "It wasn't true."

The ad was so effective that McConnell spit out a sequel in which the man chases an actor playing Huddleston up a tree.

It was a sign of things to come, and the launch of a long arc in a lengthy and controversial career. Once McConnell won high office and moved to Washington, his embrace of the broad uses of government dwindled, and he came more and more to focus his career on the goal of acquiring power.

By 1990, when Sloane took on McConnell for his Senate seat, the old respect between the two men had gone out the window. On the stump, McConnell called for abolishing campaign donations from political action committees, yet by October he had taken close to $900,000 in PAC money. He deployed class-war tactics, calling Sloane his "millionaire opponent" for holding stock in oil companies, although McConnell and his campaign were highly favored by the industry. "Just remember: Every time the price of gas goes up, rich people like Harvey get richer -- and Kentucky families get poorer. We need to fight back," McConnell argued.

McConnell's campaign even came out and said he was open to raising taxes on the wealthy by eliminating some deductions. In a TV ad, he professed the belief that "everyone should pay their fair share" in taxes, "including the rich."

The central selling point of Sloane's campaign was his long dedication to universal health care. McConnell tried to steal his message with a weak proposal providing meager tax credits and tort reform. He used his own childhood bout with polio to obscure the limitations of his plan. "When I was a child, and my dad was in World War II, I got polio," he said in another ad produced by Ailes. "I recovered, but my family almost went broke. Today, too many families can't get decent, affordable health care. That's why I've introduced a bill to make sure health care is available to all Kentucky families, hold down skyrocketing costs, and provide long-term care."

No attack was too personal for McConnell. Sloane had been caught prescribing himself pain medications with a Drug Enforcement Administration registration number that had expired three years earlier. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure eventually cleared him, and Sloane even took a drug test proving he was no addict. Yet McConnell hyped the whole controversy in an ad seemingly inspired by "Reefer Madness." As the camera flashed to pills and vials, a voice-over described Sloane as downing a "powerful depressant" and "mood altering" drugs.

"I got releases by my physicians that this wasn't the case," Sloane, who had a chronic back injury and a bad hip that would need to be replaced immediately following the election, told HuffPost. "What else can you do?"

Sloane went down in defeat.

Miller, the elected county attorney who worked alongside McConnell, says the senator is a formidable opponent in part because he focuses relentlessly on politics. Miller recalls throwing a Valentine's Day party that McConnell attended. After making small talk with McConnell about the Super Bowl, a friend pulled Miller aside in exasperation. The friend, Miller says, couldn't believe McConnell didn't know who had actually played in the game.

McConnell used to invite Miller out for dinner about three times a year. "It always centered around politics," Miller says, of their social interactions. If there was any conversation about their children, Miller says he'd be the one to bring it up. "He had daughters, and I would be the one that would have to initiate a discussion of them. ... He knew I had a son who was a professional golfer at the time. ... If I asked him about his daughters, he wouldn't say, 'Tell me about your son.'"

"He's intense," Miller says. "It's almost single-minded intensity. I'm not being critical of it. That's why everybody got beat by the guy."

McConnell kept producing animal-themed attack ads that made "The Dukes of Hazzard" look like Shakespeare, with messages so over-the-top as to mock the hillbilly humor they were meant to evoke. The G's are dropped, and the mud is thrown. In his 1996 reelection bid against the future governor Steve Beshear, McConnell's ads played off his opponent's last name. One warned voters in a Kentucky drawl not to get "BeSheared." In another, the voiceover declared "Old Beshear's a state fair champion at fleecin' taxpayers" who has taken thousands of dollars "from them foreign agents and lobbyists." The ads all featured sheep being sheared.

McConnell only played dumb on TV. Behind the scenes, he engineered key victories in U.S. House races as he built the Republican Party in Kentucky into a powerhouse. "He is the person primarily responsible for making us a Republican state," says Al Cross, the veteran political reporter and director of the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

When longtime and popular Democratic Sen. Wendell Ford decided not to seek reelection in 1998, McConnell saw an opportunity to expand his political empire. He'd been Kentucky's first Republican senator in 12 years. Now, as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), he tapped Rep. Jim Bunning, who had won six consecutive House elections, to grab the other Senate seat.

"He was the chairman of the committee, and he was recruiting," says longtime Bunning aide Jon Deuser. "They had a great working relationship."

Bunning's opponent, Rep. Scotty Baesler, cut the profile of a promising Democratic politician. He was known across the state as a college basketball star for the University of Kentucky's iconic coach Adolph Rupp. He'd worked as an attorney providing free services to the poor before being elected mayor of Lexington.

Baesler had used his political capital to implement key support programs for seniors and anti-drug initiatives targeting schoolchildren. During the 1998 campaign, he helped push the Clinton administration into providing more than $19 million to overhaul public housing in Lexington and provide job training programs for the city's poor. He was the pragmatic liberal alternative to McConnell.

Bunning had only one innate advantage over Baesler: He'd had the more distinguished sporting career as a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and Detroit Tigers. He'd thrown a no-hitter and a perfect game. As a politician, however, Bunning never got out of the minor leagues. He'd been an unremarkable representative in the House, best known on Capitol Hill for his acerbic blather and combative disposition.

McConnell, however, saw someone he could steer to victory. "He was practically the campaign manager for Bunning in that race," says Dave Hansen, a GOP campaign manager who served as political director of the NRSC in the 1990s. The senator sent his top men to aid Bunning. Kyle Simmons, his chief of staff, took a leave of absence to become the Bunning campaign coordinator. Tim Thomas, McConnell's field representative for Western Kentucky, took personal leave to volunteer for the Senate hopeful.

But the senator was more than just a careful stage manager. He was the campaign's pivotal instigator. In August 1998, McConnell took the stage at the annual Fancy Farm Picnic in Western Kentucky and delivered a speech that would define the contentious race between Bunning and Baesler.

The colorful, open-collar campaigning at Fancy Farm, a state-fair-sized festival, is a rarity in contemporary American retail politics. Typically, stump speeches are choreographed for the press, their audiences stacked with enthusiastic supporters. But at Fancy Farm, those running for office are expected to tailor their speech to the setting and let it rip under the ceiling fans. It's as much a comedic roast as it is a political rally.

"It's kind of this throwback," Hansen explains. "Candidates get up there, and they make the most outrageous comments to stir people up."

McConnell gave Bunning a clinic in his ruthless approach to campaigning at the Fancy Farm event. The Republicans coordinated vicious speeches targeting Baesler's status as a founding member of the Blue Dogs -- a caucus of conservative House Democrats. Much to the chagrin of progressives, Blue Dogs have since become a major force in Democratic politics, but the group was still something of a novelty in the late 1990s, a fact that McConnell and Bunning exploited to comic effect. McConnell slammed Baesler as a "blue chihuahua," who had "mistaken Kentucky taxpayers for a fire hydrant" and who would serve as a "lap dog" for President Bill Clinton. Bunning delivered a call-and-response mockery with the festival's GOP audience.

"He would go through all these votes Baesler made and say, 'What do y'all think about that?' And the crowd would shout, 'Bad doggy!'" recalls Trey Grayson, an attorney and party activist who would later be elected Kentucky's secretary of state.

The typically mild-mannered Baesler took the bait and responded with a brutal stemwinder of a speech against Bunning, replete with outsized hand gestures and ugly facial contortions. Although his rant played well with the live audience, an angry man wildly waving his arms and shouting in the August heat left a visual impression that was ripe for McConnell's manipulation. As soon as Baesler's rant ended, McConnell was eager to make sure his staff had caught it on tape.

"We filmed it," says Hansen, who was working for McConnell at the time. "We put it to Wagner music, and it made one hell of an ad."

With Baesler's antics playing out in slow motion over music by Adolf Hitler's favorite composer, McConnell moved the tone of American political ads even lower than his landmark "Hound Dog" spot or the Beshear sheep ads had.

"Mitch saw the video and thought he saw something. He showed it to the Bunning folks," says Grayson. "Baesler looked crazy. He looked kinda like Hitler."

"When I ran, he was the best help Jim ever had," Baesler says of McConnell. "He got that ad running lookin' like I was a crazy man. I thought that thing -- without question, he saw its value."

The race was not called until well after midnight, but Bunning eventually emerged victorious by a little more than 6,000 votes. The barrage of negative ads against Baesler not only worked, they effectively ended his career in national politics. At 57, he was a washout. Two years later, Baesler ran for his old House seat and lost to a Republican by 18 points.

At least in Kentucky, McConnell has proven to be an incredibly effective Democrat-vaporizing machine. He has ended the political careers of everyone he has ever defeated, except Beshear, who was elected governor in 2007, 11 years after losing to McConnell.

"When he took over a long time ago, Republicans weren't alive in Kentucky," Baesler says. "Now everything's competitive. They've even had a Republican governor. That wasn't the case until he got involved a long time ago. He's the backbone of the whole thing. And I wish he wasn't. If he hadn't been with Bunning, I woulda won."

McConnell had moved Kentucky Republicans a long way from Cooper's passionate defense of Medicare. The defeat of the practical, reform-minded Baesler had consequences for the state. In his 12 years as a senator, Bunning's most significant legislative achievement consisted of single-handedly blocking the extension of federal unemployment benefits in 2010. His hardline stance eventually became a standard negotiating position of the Republican Party, cold comfort to the more than 10.7 percent of Kentuckians who were officially out of work at the time.

Bunning's Senate career will be best remembered for his message to those politicians who dared to provide aid to needy citizens: "Tough shit."

PADUCAH'S FALLOUT

On their way to victory, McConnell had shared with Bunning a strategy that he had long preached to his own campaign staffers. The senator had adopted what he called his "west of Interstate 65 strategy," named for the highway that splits the state from Louisville in the north down to the Tennessee border. McConnell believed that his elections were won or lost west of I-65. The far western counties were once a Democratic stronghold, but the territory showed signs that it could be open to a determined Republican.

"He basically told other parts of the state they weren't going to see him as much from, say, the first of August till Election Day," a former McConnell staffer recalls. "He primarily was going to focus west of I-65. That's where he thought more gains could be made."

McCracken County, set along the banks of the Ohio River in Western Kentucky, played a pivotal role in McConnell's expanding power and influence. With its history of strong African-American leaders and outspoken union membership, the county initially opposed him: When he was first elected to the Senate in 1984 by a narrow margin, McConnell lost McCracken by about 4,000 votes. It was a victory to even get that close.

In his critical reelection fight against Sloane, however, McConnell took the county by more than 1,500 votes, and his influence in the region has grown ever since. McConnell now owns the west. Al Cross credits Paducah, the McCracken county seat, and the surrounding area as "the key to his success."

caren seligman

Sen. Mitch McConnell (right) talked with USEC General Manager Howard Pulley during a media tour of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in the plant's Central Control Facility on Aug. 12, 1999. (Photo by Billy Suratt)

To capture Paducah, Cross says, McConnell had to court the uranium enrichment plant's workers. "He understood from the get-go, you ... try to take care of the biggest employer in the key town," Cross says. That meant promising job security.

There were good reasons to be concerned about the Paducah plant's survival. With the Cold War arms race giving way to the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 and new hope for arms treaties between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the Atomic City began to lose its luster. In 1980, the Paducah plant employed about 1,940 workers in production activities. Within five years, more than 650 of them were gone. In 1987, a similar uranium enrichment facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., was shuttered, leaving Paducah and a third plant in Ohio as the only such operations left over from the Manhattan Project. The technology was fast becoming obsolete. Among the workers, rumors of the plant closing became an ever-present part of the job.

If the Paducah plant were to close, it would have a devastating effect on the local economy. Production only accounts for a fraction of the plant's economic significance: Hundreds of guards, drivers and other contract workers are employed at the plant, while restaurants, homebuilders, and other establishments are all dependent on the business that the plant's employees provide.

In 1990, McConnell offered an incumbent's solution by playing up his ties to then-President George H.W. Bush and floating the idea of a new state-of-the-art plant in Paducah. According to news accounts at the time, Sloane was far less enthusiastic about nuclear power, citing concerns about safety and hazardous waste. "That killed Sloane in that campaign," the plant union's vice president, Jim Key, told HuffPost.

Paducah never got that new plant, but McConnell discovered a winning strategy and continued to patch together new contracts and make-work jobs, exploiting residents' fears over layoffs. The senator kept the plant's doors open, but he did so at the expense of the workers' own well-being. For decades, the plant's toxins had spread through the air and into the ground, slowly killing its own workers and tainting the surrounding area -- a fact McConnell ignored in Washington and in Paducah.

Workers had breathed in plutonium-dipped dust, sloshed through areas high in harsh chemicals, and got hazardous powders on their food and in their teeth. They'd taken the poisons home with them on their clothes. On site, workers had erected "Drum Mountain," a scrap heap that bled contaminants into the soil. Lawyers and scientists would later deploy "groundwater plume maps" to show how far the toxins had spread.

But the effects of the toxins were plain to see. As early as the 1970s, Fred Buckley's patriotic fervor had begun to dim. He no longer completely trusted management. Although he moved up the plant's ranks, from security guard to running control rooms, he suspected the work was far more dangerous than his bosses had let on. When he welcomed his son Michael at the plant in August 1973, he did so with a warning: Better make sure the equipment isn't contaminated. Don't trust the company. Trust yourself. "I tried to stress -- be sure to not take anybody else's word for it," he recalls.

Buckley had seen his friend Joe Harding waste away to nothing. The two had known each other since childhood, when their families had adjoining corn and soybean farms in Tennessee and they walked to school together along crop-lined roads. Valedictorian of his high school, Harding took in a year of college while Buckley went off to war. But when the two reunited at the plant, Buckley began to notice how the work made Harding sick and the bosses hounded him for speculating about possible radiation contamination. "They didn't give him the respect they should have," Buckley says. "He did his job. Joe came to work after he looked like a ghost."

Sores crept up Harding's legs and wouldn't heal. Fingernail-like protrusions grew out of his elbows, wrists, palms and the soles of his feet. The nails, he said in an audio diary, were "very, very painful." He'd try to trim them, but they'd just grow back. His daughter, Martha Alls, now 71, recalls watching his head shake violently from tremors during Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.

Harding, who would develop a fatal stomach cancer, knew he had company among his fellow workers. He kept a record of 50 other workers who were either dying or had died of cancer. An internal memo from the plant revealed that management kept its own death list in secret.

In 1971, the plant fired a very sick Harding; he was denied workers' compensation, pension, and health insurance. But Harding continued to speak out against the plant and became a minor celebrity with the anti-nuclear movement. He spent the night of his death in 1980, with his body wasted away to barely more than bones and his skin wrinkled like a walnut shell, giving a last interview to a Swedish media team who had flown in. "I picked them up at the Holiday Inn," Alls says of the foreign reporters. "They stayed with Daddy until midnight. I took them back to the hotel. He died the next morning. I think it just wore him out telling it all."

The year before McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984, Clara Harding had her husband's body exhumed and his bones tested, which, according to news accounts, revealed excessively high levels of uranium. A decade later, a co-worker told The Boston Globe that Joe Harding's exhumed body "was hotter than a firecracker."

Clara Harding kept up her husband's crusade, but it took a toll. She had to sell her house and move into a duplex. "I think she wrote to everyone in the government," Alls says. "I just felt like this was a hopeless case. This was the government -- you don't mess with your government." The federal government fought Harding's claim. According to the Courier-Journal, the feds spent $1.5 million in legal fees to deny her the $50,000 she sought in benefits.

McConnell's sole concern about the plant seems to have been protecting it from layoffs and lawsuits. Midway through his first Senate term, he came out in favor of economic sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime, but fought the ban on importing that country's uranium. McConnell worried about the effect of fewer uranium shipments on jobs back in Paducah. In 1988, he voted against an amendment that would have made Department of Energy nuclear subcontractors liable for accidents caused by intentional negligence or misconduct at plants like Paducah.

McConnell's opposition to trial lawyers became his justification for inaction on worker health. After coming out against another provision aimed at assisting workers in high-risk jobs, he complained that the bill would simply "stimulate personal injury and worker compensation litigation on a scale far beyond our present imagination."

Back in Paducah, however, the litigation was just about to begin.

In the late '80s, wells near the plant were showing signs of possible contamination. Ronald Lamb helped run a mechanic shop on his family's old farmland a few miles from the plant. He and his father and mother all drank from the same well and started getting sick. "We thought we were dying," Lamb told HuffPost. "I lost the hair on my arms. It looked like I had chemo."

On Aug. 12, 1988, government officials contacted 10 households with an ominous directive: Stop drinking and bathing in the water from their wells. The Department of Energy began sealing off wells near the plant and re-routing the water supply for roughly 100 residences.

Lamb says he repeatedly wrote letters to his local elected officials, including McConnell, but didn't get much more than a form letter in response. "They felt your pain but felt like you were being taken care of," Lamb recalls.

Lamb didn't think so and spoke up around the country, including two trips to Washington in the early '90s on his own dime. He and his family also filed a lawsuit. Even though that case was unsuccessful, it led to a January 1997 class-action lawsuit with Lamb and dozens of other area residents that argued the plant had rendered their properties essentially worthless. The complaint alleged that "massive" discharges of radioactive materials and heavy metals had spread to their land, "causing and threatening severe property damage and health problems." The complaint further alleged that the flow of hazardous waste continued unabated. That case was settled in 2010 for an undisclosed amount.

Ruby English, a West Paducah resident whose well was shut off, says her husband Ray had also written to McConnell without success. English had thyroid and colon cancer. Ray worked in the nearby wildlife refuge bordering the plant, she says, and he'd come home with stories about seeing the creek water turn purple and yellow. He'd drink from the well and wash in the creek. He died a few years ago, his immune system a wreck. "The damage is done. I feel sorry for the workers the most," English says. "They're right in the middle of it. ... It's pathetic, it really is."

"Once full of aquatic life," the court complaint filed on behalf of residents stated, "the Little Bayou Creek is now void of any meaningful plant or animal life." A pair of deer were found near the plant in the early '90s with trace amounts of plutonium in their systems, according to the Associated Press. A 1990 Department of Energy inspection report noted that hazardous contamination had spread to rabbits, squirrels and apple trees.

The inspection highlighted management deficiencies and evidence of contamination at the Paducah plant. In multiple areas, management acknowledged the plant lacked the tools to measure such contamination or had not put adequate safeguards in place. Four years later, the Environmental Protection Agency declared the facility a Superfund site, adding it to the agency's official list of ecological cleanup priorities.

drum mountain

The Paducah plant's hazardous "Drum Mountain." (Photo from a GAO report)

Michael Buckley remembers the very room where they had held worker meetings had to be cordoned off; the room was found to be full of contaminants. Drum Mountain, he says, was no secret. "I didn't consider it a joke," he remembers. "Everybody knew the residue in the barrels was contaminated. You know that runoff's gonna get into the underground water."

The workers had little control over the mess and lacked suitable protections. "The essential problems were created in the haste to build nuclear weapons," says Terry Lash, director of the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy during the 1990s. "Because of the threat to the existence of the country, they just didn't worry about the long term."

McConnell and other Kentucky officials were intimately familiar with the plant's problems. Tim Thomas, who worked on McConnell's staff as a field representative for Western Kentucky starting in 1997, told HuffPost that the senator's office and the Department of Energy had discussions "on a regular basis."

McConnell and his staff toured the facility every few years and knew about the contaminated water supply and the mountain of leaking storage containers. McConnell also knew the name of Joe Harding. "I had heard of the widow," Thomas says. "We had heard of Joe Harding. We didn't know if this was an isolated incident or what. We were not in an investigative position."

Mark Donham, 60, served as chairman of the Paducah Citizens Advisory Board, which was tasked with watchdogging safety issues and making recommendations to the Department of Energy about the cleanup. He doesn't recall Thomas or any other representatives from McConnell's office taking a big interest or even attending the board's public meetings detailing the contamination spread.

Meanwhile, the plant's own community relations plan in January 1998 noted that the number of possible hazardous waste zones had soared to 208. Despite all the concerns, Donham says, "McConnell never stood up and lobbied for an investigation."

When The Huffington Post asked McConnell at his weekly Senate press conference on the Hill in June about his handling of the hazardous waste issue, the senator brushed it aside. "That's of course a parochial question," he said. "I'll be happy to address it if you'll check with the office." His office did not respond to follow-up questions or multiple requests for an interview with the senator.

It was not until The Washington Post reported in August 1999 -- 19 years after Harding's death and five years after the Superfund listing -- that thousands of plant workers "were unwittingly exposed to plutonium and other highly radioactive metals," turning the plant's problems into a national scandal, that McConnell finally sprang into action. He called for hearings into the contamination outside the plant and rushed to Paducah for a tour of the facility.

McConnell and Bunning requested a Government Accountability Office report on the situation at the plant, but the agency returned a scathing indictment of the senators' own inaction. Since 1993, McConnell had served on the Senate Appropriations Committee -- the panel responsible for the government's final funding decisions -- but according to the GAO, the Department of Energy hadn't been given the money it had requested to clean up the Paducah site.

"The funding available for cleanup had been much less than requested [by DOE]," the April 2000 report reads. "Cleanup at the site, including the removal of contaminated scrap metal and low-level waste disposal, was delayed because of funding limitations."

All told, there were roughly 496,000 tons of depleted uranium in storage, according to the GAO, along with 1 million cubic feet of "uncharacterized waste." Drum Mountain had swollen to 8,000 tons of life-endangering scrap and stood nearly 40 feet tall. The feds suggested that the plant, so utterly compromised, could become its own spontaneous threat. "Some of this waste and scrap material poses a risk of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction that could threaten worker safety," the report reads.

With a wave of press coverage focused on the Paducah plant, McConnell did something that few in Washington would expect from the fierce Obamacare opponent: He worked to pass what amounted to a new entitlement that allowed plant workers over age 50 access to free body scans and free health care. The program also provided $150,000 lump sum payments to workers who developed cancers or other illnesses from radiation exposures, and up to $250,000 in compensation for medical problems caused by other toxins. Spouses and children were also eligible for the program, which cost the federal government more than $9.5 billion.

But the legislation was not a high priority on Capitol Hill. When the bill stalled, Bill Richardson, then President Clinton's energy secretary, credits McConnell with pushing it through. "I remember the bill was in trouble," Richardson told HuffPost. "There was some last-minute shenanigans, and McConnell got it done."

At least to Richardson, McConnell claimed to have worried about safety at the plant. "McConnell talked to me about this issue," Richardson says. "He was pretty outraged, but he basically said that he had been trying to work [on this] and I was the first secretary to listen."

After the bill became law and the entitlement was put in place in 2001, McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, who was President George W. Bush's labor secretary at the time, flew to Paducah and awarded the first $150,000 check and a folded American flag to Harding's widow. The money was nowhere near enough to cover the extent of his medical bills. "He didn't get anything compared to what he was supposed to," his daughter Alls, who says she's a McConnell supporter, told HuffPost. She added that the ceremony "meant everything to Mother. ... It was recognition that Daddy had done good." Residents who drank from the poisoned wells, like Lamb and English, weren't covered by the entitlement.

But the program was enormously popular in Kentucky, and with good reason. Workers who had seen nothing for decades were suddenly receiving payments. Thousands of others were being screened, and many lives were saved. The free checkups caught cancers and heart conditions.

The exams identified a few suspicious nodules in Michael Buckley's lungs. "I want to definitely keep track of the problems and make sure they don't get any larger," he says.

Years later, during his 2008 reelection campaign, McConnell was still championing the compensation bill in a TV ad that featured Michael's father, Fred, praising the senator for helping out Paducah's workers. "Without a doubt, Senator McConnell has saved people's lives," Fred Buckley told viewers. The ad ended with another worker declaring that the senator "cares for the working man."

McConnell had spun a political liability into gold, going from potential goat to savior. He flooded the media market in Western Kentucky with that ad. "They ran that thing every night it seemed like to me for two years," Fred Buckley recalls.

Cleanup is still slow in coming. Outside Big Bayou Creek, which flows into the Ohio River, the Department of Energy has posted a sign that warns of toxic sediment. "Use of this waterway for drinking, swimming or other forms of recreation may expose you to contamination," it states.

In 2008, the senator thumped his Democratic opponent by more than 4,000 votes in McCracken County.

MCCONNELL'S SAFETY NET

In Paducah, old men waited years with cancerous growths before they were treated. In Appalachia, men with rotting teeth give up waiting and yank them out with pliers. In the southwest part of the state, prenatal care for some expectant mothers is an emergency room visit after their water breaks. In central Kentucky, a woman must live five months with a numb arm before seeing a nurse at a free clinic 45 miles from home.

Kentucky doesn't have so much a safety net as a painful waiting list -- a very, very long one. More than 17 percent of its citizens go without health insurance of any kind, even as the state's high poverty rate results in more than 880,000 Medicaid patients. Only about 43 percent of the state buys health insurance from the private sector.

The public health results are what you might expect: terrible. The state has the seventh-highest obesity rate in the nation and, predictably, the eighth-shortest life expectancy. Kentucky babies start with disadvantages from their first cry: The number of premature births in the state has increased over the past decade, while the number of babies born addicted to drugs jumped by nearly 1,100 percent between 2001 and 2011. Certain counties have infant mortality rates higher than those of "third world countries," according to a March 2013 report from the Kentucky Department of Public Health.

To try to address the needs of Kentucky residents, health care providers in the state have been forced to get creative. In Elkton, the Helping Hands Health Clinic is supported by twice-a-week bingo games put on by the staff, while in Danville, the Hope Clinic operates out of an old bank and serves six counties. Last July, a mobile clinic set up a triage on fairgrounds in Wise County, Virginia, which served many Kentucky residents who crossed over the state line. Stan Brock, the clinic's founder, says that in a little more than two days, they saw 1,453 dental patients and pulled 3,467 teeth. "It filled several buckets," he recalls.

For years, McConnell responded to Kentucky's poverty and health care crises by directing millions of dollars in federal earmarks to various projects in the state, constructing what has amounted to a lottery system. To get help, the plight of Kentuckians did not have to rise to a national scandal like the Paducah plant's contaminated workers. Nor did it require the tint of a conservative cause. They just had to be very lucky. (Nobody has emphasized just how lucky more than the senator himself. McConnell has greeted the recipients of his earmarked funds like winners of the Powerball jackpot, complete with giant novelty checks.)

Earmarks have political benefits, and McConnell made a point of visiting remote counties to tout the federal money he had secured for his constituents.

"I hate to call it passing out checks, but you know that's kind of what it amounts to," says David Cross, who served as chairman of the Clinton County Republican Party until 2012. Cross remains a McConnell-supporting Republican, and still lives in Clinton County, which has a population of about 10,000 on the state's southern border. Cross says McConnell would visit Clinton "when there was some aspect of the federal government involved locally and Senator McConnell was involved and he wanted the local community to know he was involved."

McConnell was one of hundreds of politicians who benefited from making this kind of selective disclosure, since earmarks were essentially anonymous under congressional procedures for decades. New rules in 2008 required members of Congress to disclose their funding requests, and the practice was banned outright in 2011. A Huffington Post review of three years' worth of public earmarks, from 2008 through 2010, shows that McConnell orchestrated the delivery of nearly half a billion dollars in federal funds, with a pronounced emphasis on projects in his home state. If earmarks coordinated with presidential budgets are included, the figure swells to $1.5 billion.

Earmarks are no longer part of McConnell's political toolkit, but the senator is still campaigning on his pork-barrel legacy. Just days after Alison Lundergan Grimes formally jumped into the Senate race, he was already reminding voters of the federal benefits he has steered to Kentucky, and ridiculing Grimes' ability to bring home the bacon as a backbencher.

"Kentucky would lose dramatically by trading in a leader of one of the two parties in the Senate for a rookie," McConnell told reporters on July 3. "Kentucky is in an extraordinary position of influence as a result of their confidence in me over the years. ... Do we really want to lose the influence?"

The biggest chunk of McConnell's earmarks were devoted to defense spending, but they financed an astonishing variety of projects, including at least $21.9 million on civilian health efforts and $24 million for a "medical/dental clinic" at the Army's Fort Campbell.

McConnell directed money to everything from mobile health screenings to lab upgrades for stem cell research into heart failure. One earmark funneled money to a University of Louisville scientist for groundbreaking research into aging, with treatment implications for Alzheimer's and even space travel.

Indeed, the state's public universities have been big benefactors of the senator's earmarks. In the decade before the earmark ban, McConnell bestowed approximately $140 million on the University of Kentucky, according to Bill Schweri, the university's director of federal relations. Much of the McConnell largess went to new building construction and steady research support.

Schweri met regularly with McConnell's staff, becoming intimately familiar with what the senator would approve. McConnell's staff had the same basic questions for every pitch: How will this help Kentucky? How will this keep University of Kentucky alums from fleeing the state? "He wanted to see the university be an economic driver in the state," Schweri explains.

Using a public university to drive the state's economy, much less providing public health care, would be anathema to members of the tea party. At least nationally, the Senate minority leader isn't so generous or noble. McConnell has, almost as a matter of routine, favored corporate subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy over safety net support for Americans living in poverty. Nearly every social support program can count on McConnell's opposition, from home heating assistance to allowing states to access cheaper medications.

Children receive no special exemption from McConnell's tough love at the federal level. He has sought to prevent disabled children of legal immigrants from receiving benefits and has been a fierce opponent of the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides medical coverage for families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but can't afford private insurance. It is no shock that his opposition to Obamacare has been unwavering, all the way down to Medicaid expansion in his own state, which will give more than 350,000 Kentuckians access to the program.

But at least in Kentucky, there is what might be called the McConnell option. Some of his federal appropriations went to health care services for the state's most vulnerable citizens. And unlike Obamacare, his earmarks frequently provided direct government services without a private-sector intermediary.

In the 2005 and 2008 federal budgets, McConnell and his staff recognized the rotting teeth and premature birth problems in their state, and funded a program whose research saw a linkage between the two. The University of Kentucky received a total of $1.78 million for the program -- a drop in the bucket, but, Schweri says, an easy sell.

"Staff picked up on it right away," he recalls. "Senator McConnell has really, really good staffers. They are very knowledgeable. It never ceases to amaze me how clued in they are to the state of Kentucky."

The earmark funding trickled down to the Baptist Women's Clinic's pilot prenatal care program, known as "CenteringPregnancy," which targeted at-risk, soon-to-be moms. Along with providing sonograms and routine care, nurses and midwives moderated group sessions that went beyond breathing exercises and swaddling techniques. They found room to address what so much of Kentucky's social services could not.

centering pregnancy

A couple attending a group session at CenteringPregnancy in late February.

The expectant moms talked about not having a place to live, worries about completing high school, and living under the boot of abusive men. Some women confessed they couldn't afford transportation and had to walk to the sessions.

"It will be the heat of the summer, and you will have moms that are walking," says LeAnn Langston, a registered nurse and a nurse manager with the clinic. "We've had women pushing strollers in the heat of the summer." After bonding with each other at the sessions, groups formed carpools.

In 2006, CenteringPregnancy's first year, 370 women participated, almost all of them young and on Medicaid. The program's popularity ensured a significant impact locally, but like many of McConnell's other health solutions, it was all but irrelevant statewide.

The earmark provided for an examination room as well as a dentist and a hygienist on site to offer screenings and cleanings at no charge to the mothers. Oral infections can complicate a pregnancy and have an impact on birth weight. Some of the women, Langston recalls, had never been taught how to use a toothbrush. "A lot of it was the culture -- ?Everyone in my family has false teeth,'" Langston explains. "They would show up in the ER if they had a toothache. They really didn't acknowledge their mouth unless there was pain."

The clinic dentist flushed diseased gums, excavated years of calcified plaque and uprooted necklaces of dead teeth. Full-mouth extractions, Langston says, were not rare. Neither was evidence of drug use. After the clinic put in place random drug testing and ramped up counseling, Langston says, nearly 90 percent of the women who tested positive on the initial visit were drug-free by the time they were ready to deliver their babies.

The women needed all the help they could get. For many low-income mothers in Kentucky, Medicaid covers at most the first two months after they give birth. If they have drug problems, bed space at rehab facilities is limited across the state. Just traveling to these places can be a barrier, says Dr. Ruth Ann Shepherd, the director of the Division of Maternal and Child Health in the state's Department for Public Health. "I don't know that there is ever going to be enough treatment facilities," she adds.

Lack of space

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/mitch-mcconnell-profile_n_3550173.html

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