My Thirty Minute Phone Call From Mitch McConnell!

Last night, just as I was falling off to sleep, my telephone rang and I answered. To my ecstatic surprise, it was Mitch McConnell in the flesh, so to speak, since so many million Americans have begun to doubt his existence. I spat, sputtered, regained control of my rapidly beating heart and finally responded, "Mr. Senator, thank you very much for calling me! I'm surprised you remember me since it has been so many years since we last spoke." Mitch rejoined, "Not remember you??? How could I not remember you? We ate pinto beans together at the old Rock House Restaurant at the mouth of Slone Fork between Hindman and Mousie in the summer of 1968 when we were both just young whipper snappers. You were sixteen years old and fresh out of high school at that wonderful old Knott County High School at Pippa Passes on Caney Creek, what an institution! I was a young, wet behind the ears attorney, just twenty-six years young, just graduated from law school the year before, working for Marlowe Cook in his run for the US Senate seat as his college coordinator with all the colleges in the state. We were desperate for every vote we could find so he sent me to see you in Knott County because you were enrolled in Alice Lloyd College after a wonderful academic summer or two in Upward Bound, that reprehensible program which had been such a waste of federal money by Democrats." I was thunderstruck to say the least but I tried to speak, to ask what he could possibly need from me now almost 60 years after that fortuitous bowl of pinto beans. I tried to speak, to question why it was his idea to call me now. "You and that bowl of pinto beans changed my life forever. You actually agreed to be the campus student chair for Marlowe Cook and Richard Nixon, God bless their sainted souls! You worked that job so hard, called me once a week at my office in Louisville and repeatedly told me the truth, that there were no Republican votes on Caney Creek. You taught me how to face the truth with that kind of honesty. You set me on the path to great power, motivated me to become a powerful United States Senator and Senate Majority Leader for a record stretch. I'll never forget you or that wonderful bowl of pinto beans." I said,"Sir, I'm afraid that you have more important calls to make than this one. I hope you don't intend to waste twenty minutes of your valuable time with me as you have with so many of your Republican colleagues! To my utter surprise, Mitch then said with a sly chuckle, "Waste twenty minutes? Oh no, this won't be a waste, and I'm going to give you a full half hour unlike the others. Just relax and listen as I tell you my plans." I agreed to sit quietly and listen as the half hour flew by, or actually just twenty-eight minutes of it. I can't divulge what plans Mitch told me about but they were fantastic, exhilirating, stupendous, supercalifragilisticexpealidoscious, but he swore me to secrecy. Then just as my bedside clock showed the call to have been going on for twenty-seven minutes, I heard a stentorian but heavenly voice in the background of Mitch's call. "Mitch, it's time. Let's go, please!" I heard Mitch respond, "Peter? Saint Peter, NO, it can't be. I have so much to do. I was just telling Roger Hicks how much I have planned from now until the end of my term...". Then,to my utter consternation, the line went dead...and, I suspect, the line did not go dead alone.

July 4, 2025, A Major Political Announcement For Kentucky's 5th Congressional District

On July 4, 2025, my wife Candice and I traveled to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, to attend and support the announcement by Ned Pillersdorf that he is running against Congressman Hal Rogers in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District. It has been far too long in this district since a viable Democratic candidate has run against Rogers. The event was held in Rosenberg Square, a small, but beautiful park at the corner of West Court Street and North Lake Drive in Prestonsburg. The event was attended by somewhere in excess of 100 people which, in my opinion, is a good turnout for a political event on a major holiday which is often saved for family reunions and yard sales. And the heat was in the low to mid 90's all day so it was somewhat oppressive which probably depressed attendance to one degree or another. Ned gave a speech after being introduced which is roughly what is conained in the text of one of his blog posts this morniing which can be found by scrolling down his Facebook page which is found listed as "Ned Pillersdorf". Or you can go to this link on Facebook and watch or simply scroll to the point Ned starts speaking and see this video of the event which lasts in total for slightly more than an hour. I am actually completing this post on July 7, 2025, and some of the media responses to Ned's announcement have now been deleted from their companys' websites. But I remember one in which the writer stated roughly that Ned had given a "blistering speech" about TRAITOR Trump's "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill". I was somewhere between surprised and shocked by that coverage of the speech I had seen in its entirety. I had thought that Ned had given an honest, accurate, and measured response to the "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill". You can bet that if I had been asked to speak to a crowd of a hundred in Kentucky or anywhere else in the nation, even Texas, Alabama, or Mississippi, the speech I would have given would have been far more derogatory of TRAITOR Trump than anything Ned Pillersdorf said in Prestonsburg on July 4, 2025. Yes, Ned's speech was accurate, tasteful, mild in my estimation, and a lot less than anyone deserves to have been accused of who voted to support that 900+ page attack on America, her citizens, and the world in general. Ned Pillersdorf is the first viable, electable, and deserving candidate for congress in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District in at least twenty years. Ned has done more for the people of the district in the last forty years than Hal Rogers ever attempted to do. Vote for, support, and elect Ned Pillersdorf to the US Congress from the 5th District of Kentucky.

July 4, 2025, Stand Up With Ned Pillersdorf And Kentucky's 5th House District

On July 4th 2025, at 5pm, in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, Attorney Ned Pillersdorf will hold his formal announcement of his candidacy in the Kentucky 5th US House District in the upcoming 2026 election. He is opposing long term Right Wing Radical Repugnican Hal Rogers who has just voted to support TRAITOR Trump's Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill which will be highly likely to force the closure of 23 hospitals in the district due to the vicious, widespread cuts to Medicaid. The Announcement will be held at Rosenburg Squre in Prestonsburg about one block from the Floyd County Judicial Center. I am asking all my readers of this blog to make an honest effort to attend the announcement. Ned Pillersdorf is the most legitimate opposition to Rogers to arise in the district in twenty years or more. He is a nationally known and respected attorney who won more than 1,000 appeals of the cuts of Social Security benefits which werel levied against a vast pool of the former clients of attorney Eric C. Conn. Ned is also the attorney who represented the former employees of Blackjewel Mining when their jobs were cut and they were not paid for their last weeks of work. For forty years, Ned has represented the poor, needy, disabled, infirm, and elderly of the 5th district when they were engaged in tough fights against a plethora of agencies, prosecutors, and corporations who were determined to make the lives of those people even worse by their actions. Ned is also the spouse of former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Janet Stumbo who has also devoted her career to the improvement of the human condition in the 5th district. Please attend the announcement and join in the huge show of support for Ned and his candidacy. Bring your family! Bring your friends! Join all of us who will be attending in a show of support for change in the US House, protection of constitutional rights in America, and common human decency around the world.

Ned Pillersdorf Is Running Against Hal Rogers For Congress!

On Friday, July 4, 2025, in Rosenberg Square in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, attorney Ned Pillersdorf, the husband of former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Janet Stumbo will announce his entry into the Democratic primary election in opposition to long time Congressman Hal Rogers, who at 89 is one of the longest serving members of congress, and perhaps one of those most likely to be unable to successfully complete another two year term. Kentucky's 5th district contains most of the ten poorest counties in the state, and has one of the highest percentages in the nation of recipients of both Medicaid and SNAP, commonly referred to as Food Stamps. The district is also the site where in 1964 President Lyndon Johnson launched the War On Poverty. The district is also sometimes the bearer of the brunt of the heartless jokes about how "we declared a War On Poverty and poverty won". It is also the disrict in which former Congressman Carl Perkins spent his career working tirelessly for the betterment of all Kentuckians. Ned Pillersdorf has also spent his entire legal career working tirelessly in the district for the betterment of all Kentuckians without having ever spent a day in public office. Pillersdorf is the attorney who put together the coalition of pro bono lawyers who won thousands of appeals of highly unjust deprivations of Social Security benefits to the former clients of jailed attorney Eric C. Conn. He is also the attorney who represented the dismissed employees of Blackjewel Coal in their battle to receive unpaid wages when the company folded without warning. No one in the last 40 years has done more for Eastern Kentucky and its people. Every person who has benefitted from the work of Ned Pillersdorf should be in Prestonsburg on July 4, 2025, to support the man who has supported you in your times of greatest need, always been there when injustice was running rampant, when the wrongly persecuted workers of Kentucky were facing the loss of everything they ever owned, when widows and orpans were in danger of losing pension benefits from their deceased fathers, and anytime injustice was continuing to preserve poverty in the 5th district of Kentucky. I look forward to the day when Ned Pillersdorf will be sworn in as Congressman Pillersdorf and the US House can once again have a Democratic majority.