Kentucky's New Teabagger Gov. Matt Bevin Wasting No Time Screwing Voters, Poors

Newly elected GOP governor does shitty things. FREE BINGO SQUARE!

Kentucky governor and terrifying sentient forehead Matt Bevin was elected less than a month ago after fewer people showed up at the polls than saw  Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip  on opening weekend. He hasn't let his new kid status stop him, though, as he's already proving he can shit on his most vulnerable constituents just as well as any long-serving GOP governor. How is he accomplishing it? Oh, just by doing a thing he specifically promised he wouldn't do:

Matt Bevin reversed a move by his Democratic predecessor that had restored the voting rights of about 140,000 former felons.

Those impacted, who are overwhelmingly African American and lower income, had already completed their felony sentences but remained permanently disenfranchised. The order excluded those convicted of violent crimes, sex crimes, bribery or treason.

Bevin’s move Tuesday night goes against promises he made during the campaign to keep the restoration of voting rights in place. He even told reporters in November that he would stand up to his own party on the issue and convince them it was the right thing to do.

Now, you may think it's unethical to specifically pledge not to do a thing and then do that thing so quickly the Bible you were sworn in on hasn't yet a chance to hit the ground, but that just shows how little you know about the pressures of being a Republican governor. You guys know how it is: Scott Walker kicks 15,000 Wisconsinites off of food stamps and permanently rigs state elections, then Bobby Jindal screws 31,000 Louisianans out of unemployment benefits, then peer pressure just snowballs. "Come on, Matt; all the cool kids are letting their citizens starve to death," Maine's Paul Le Page probably said to him. "What are you, some kind of fucking square?" At that point, what else is the newbie going to do to make sure the popular kids respect him and invite him to their sockhops?

But wait, there's more! Kentucky's former governor, Democrat Steve Beshear (who you may remember from the time he essentially called Kim Davis a dumbass) , had raised the state's minimum wage for government workers from $7.25/hour to $10.10. We bet you can guess where this is headed!

In another executive order this week, Bevin reversed former Gov. Beshear’s move to raise the state’s minimum wage for government workers and contractors to $10.10 an hour, bringing it back down to $7.25 an hour. About 800 state workers who have already gotten raises will be able to keep them, but new hires will now have to start at the lower pay rate. In the order, Bevin hinted that he would prefer the state have no minimum wage at all: “Wage rates ideally would be established by the demands of the labor market instead of being set by the government,” he said.

We can totally see why he feels that way. After all, a lack of minimum wage and labor regulation/collective bargaining has historically   worked out so well for workers! 

Until such time as that distant, time-fogged utopia can be reclaimed, fuck those lazy poors. What do they need money for, anyway, to eat? Why, when Matt Bevin was your age, he survived on a diet of self-made grit washed down with bootstrap oil. GET A JOB! A second one, we mean, because Matt Bevin knows you don't need the first one to pay well enough to actually survive.

[ ThinkProgress ]