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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL GREETED BY PROTESTERSWoman confronts Sen. Mitch McConnell about welfare and coal jobs in Lawrenceburg | 0:56

A woman confronted Sen. Mitch McConnell about too many Kentuckians having to rely on welfare while accepting that coal jobs are dwindling due to mechanization. Sam Upshaw Jr./CJ

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Several hundred protesters gathered outside the American Legion Post in Lawrenceburg to rally against Sen. Mitch McConnell. Sam Upshaw Jr./CJ

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Several hundred protesters rallied outside of Sen. Mitch McConnell speech in Lawrenceburg.

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Woman confronts Sen. Mitch McConnell about welfare and coal jobs in Lawrenceburg

Several hundred protesters rally against Sen. Mitch McConnell in Lawrenceburg

Protesters rally outside of Sen. Mitch McConnell speech in Lawrenceburg

Jody Lambert of Georgetown, Ky. uses a megaphone to chant "Ditch Mitch" and other anti-McConnell sentiments outside the Louisville Marriott East with around 500 protestors Wednesday. McConnell spoke at the Jeffersontown Chamber of Commerce luncheon.(Photo: Matt Stone/The C-J)Buy Photo

When Victoria Keith came home to Kentucky a decade ago, she didnt expect to be leading a self-described resistancemovement against the president of the United States.

But the 72-year-old former documentary filmmaker, who lives on her family's farm a few milesoutside Hopkinsville in the western part of the state, said she is horrified byPresident Donald Trumps agenda.

"Its hard just to sit back and listen to all of this and not want to at least begin speaking up, Keith said.

Much like the conservative tea party groups that sprung up in the aftermath of President Barack Obama's election in 2008, citizens who see themselves as liberals,progressives or libertarian-leaning have organized to oppose Trump's policies.Many have used an online document called the Indivisible Guide" produced by a group of former Democratic congressional staffers as a blueprint.

The guide has reportedly spawned about 7,000 groups nationwide, and the main website shows Indivisible chapters oraffiliated groupsin all 50 states.

According to the website of Indivisible Kentucky, which is what the Louisville chapter calls itself, there are roughlya dozen groups in the commonwealth, with representationin all six congressional districts. There are more than four dozen in Indiana.

The 26-page guide, which has been downloaded more than 1 million times, "has made it easy to get going, said Keith, who joined with more than a dozen neighbors to form Pennyroyal Indivisible Kentucky named after an indigenous plant in the region.Its not just completely left up to you, theres a lot of support and help from this network of people.

Indivisible Kentucky was founded by Kim Hibbard and the Rev. Dawn Cooley after the 2016 election results left many in the community feeling angry. 2/22/17(Photo: Marty Pearl/Special to The C-J)

The Louisville chapterwasfounded in Januaryby the Rev. Dawn Cooley and Kim Hibbard, a computer systems administrator, before Trump even took office. It has since protested outside the offices of Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, drawing 300 people to McConnell's office in one demonstration.

It also encouragesmembers to get involved in other events,includingMayor Greg Fischer's pro-immigration event last month that attracted roughly 5,000 people outside the Muhammad Ali Center downtown.

Cooley, a Unitarian Universalist minister, and Hibbard met online just as the latter registered the group's website."I reached out to her and said, 'I've got people, and you've got tech,' and about a month ago she and I met and decided to work together and Indivisible Kentucky was created, Cooley said.

McConnelllikened the movement's rise toa tantrum thrown by liberals upset overTrump's victory. He said the protesters "did not like the result of the election,"during a speech in Lawrenceburg, Ky., where he was met with about 1,000demonstrators.

Scott Lasley, a political science professor at Western Kentucky University, said: "It was a pretty hard-fought, bitter election, and part of what you're seeing is a result they (the protesters) did not see coming. ... I wouldn't use the word 'sore losers,' I'd usethe word 'surprised losers.' "

Others have accused liberal megadonors, such as investor George Soros, of bankrolling the demonstrations. Sean Spicer, Trump'sWhite House press secretary,said during an interview on Fox News recently that unlike the conservative opposition to Obama, the anti-Trump protests are an"Astroturf-type movement" made up ofwell-paid activists.

"I mean, protesting has become a profession now," Spicer said. "They have every right to do that, dont get me wrong. But I think we need to call it what it is. Its not these organic uprisings that we have seen over the last several decades."

Hibbardsaid hergroup hasn't received anyoutside fundingand is made up of volunteers. The group sets up a donation box at meetings, she said.

"This is a strictly organic group of people that are willing to give money out of our own pockets to maintain our common goal," Hibbard said. "We are the constituents of Kentucky.We have a voice, and we will be heard."

Cooley attributes the movement'srise to people of different backgroundsfeeling threatened by Trump's action, such ascontroversial restrictions on the travelof immigrants from seven largely Muslim countries. She said the group has heard from immigrantrights groups and others who are forming a coalition and have participated in their demonstrations.

The Indivisible manual borrows from the tea party's early tactics that empowered grassroots conservatives who opposed Obamas $830 billion stimulus package and health care overhaul.The tea party movement'sinfluence was felt in the 2010 elections, when it propelled Republicans to take control of the U.S. House and helped secure Paul's Senate victory, among others.

Cooley said she wouldn't be surprised if members began to consider running for elected office in the near future but that it isn't part of their current strategy. She also isn't sure if those candidates would challenge local and state Democrats in primary elections, as Paul did,or work more closely with the party.

"One of the strengths of Indivisible right now is our very laser focus," Cooley said. "We're focused on stopping Trump's agenda through direct action and lobbying our own representatives."

Lasley said he doubts whether any liberal-leaning movementcan pry Kentucky from conservative hands, especially in rural areas. "Republicans are going to be in pretty good position for the next 30 to 40 years," he said.

Trumpwon Kentucky by 30 percentage points in November, and by even larger margins in large swaths of the state where many are hoping hecan make good on promises such as reviving the coal industry. One of Trump's first moves in office was a measure to end an Obama regulation protecting waterways from coal mining waste thatindustry leaders had said would lead to job losses.

Protesters greet Sen. Mitch McConnell with heated questions

Sen. Mitch McConnell hears it from protesters -- this time in Louisville

Against that backdrop, Hibbard said Indivisible Kentucky isencouragingmembers to get involved with anydemonstration that aligns with their beliefs. The Indivisible guide advisesconstituents to attend town hall meetingsand other public events where members of Congress appear, swarm district offices and clog congressional phone lines.In Utah,Indivisible-affiliated groups made news last month when about 1,000 demonstrators shouted questions at Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz during a town hall meeting.

In Louisville, Cooley and Hibbard said they planto continueprotesting outside McConnell's office every Tuesday for the first 100 days of Trump'spresidency. They call the protests "Trump Tuesdays."

Indivisible Kentucky memberstried toconfrontMcConnell when he arrived atLouisville's airport on Feb. 10 to no avail. Later, a larger group protestedoutside the Senate majority leader's Louisville houseover the nomination ofJeff Sessions asattorney general.The grouphas a "hunt for Mitch" section that alerts chapters across the state on his scheduled whereabouts.

Other chapters are planning to flood congressional offices with letters and postcardsand are looking for opportunities to rattle members of Congress anytime they return from Washington.

Deborah Hankins, a retired schoolteacher who founded Ashland KentuckyIndivisible, said her group ofabout 40 members want a town hall meeting with Congressman Thomas Massie. She said the congressman's district office said he wouldn't be backduring Congress' recess last week but that she saw a picture of Massie in Henry County, which is in thedistrict.

"I think he's forgotten there's an election coming up that he's going to participate in and thinksthat this movement isgoing away, and he doesn't have an answer that we'll accept," she said.

Massie spokesman Lorenz Isidro said last summer the congressman hosted nearly two-dozen events across Kentuckys 4th congressional district, which stretches from Louisville's eastern suburbs to Ashland.

"He plans to continue this unprecedented level of public accessibility and interaction both through public forums and on social media," Lorenz said."Constituents are encouraged to follow his Congressional Facebook page to receive notices of upcoming public events."

Asked about the rising protests, McConnell spokesman Robert Steurersaid his boss believes that the U.S. Constitution affords all citizens the right to peacefully assemble. "As Senator McConnell has said, 'Going back to the beginning of this country we've had a pretty open ability to complain about whatever you want to and it's about as American as apple pie.' People are free to express themselves," he said.

On Tuesday in Lawrenceburg, McConnell said he was "proud" of the protesters.

While exercising that right, Indivisible Kentuckyleaders stressed that members must avoid embracing anger. Many who carried signs at the McConnell protest in Lawrenceburg, for instance, held signs calling the senator a coward and comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler.

"We don't want to become our enemy," Cooley said. "... We've got righteous anger, but righteous anger is not the same as vitriol, as hate speech and so I don't want to get into thatwhich is against our values."

Hankins said the angeris already beginning to wane in her part of the state, and that it's important for progressive-minded voters and people who live in rural America to listen and persuade Trump voters who are their neighbors.

"We have to point out to people they need to vote in their own self-interests, which has puzzled liberals for years," she said. "And I don't think lecturing from the outside is going to do it, we need to learn how to speak to people."

Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at 502-582-4475 or pbailey@courier-journal.com.

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Anti-Trump movement may be spawning liberals' answer to the tea party - The Courier-Journal

A day after the head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) warned the ceasefire had failed, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel urged Kiev and Moscow to hold fast to the agreement.

Despite assurances given by both parties, he said, the "ceasefire is not holding."

"We can only urgently appeal to both sides to implement the agreements we have reached -- otherwise, we will risk an intensified military escalation with many other civilian victims and a continuation of the standstill in the political process," Gabriel said in a statement.

"Even the most intense negotiating efforts are in vain when there is no political will to implement them."

Both sides had agreed to the withdrawal of "heavy weapons and full compliance" with the ceasefire, which was supposed to start Monday, Gabriel said.

Speaking Tuesday at the headquarters of the United Nations, OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier revealed there had been "no signs of the withdrawal of the weapons."

"The crisis in and around the Ukraine continues to be a major source of tension and instability in Europe," he said.

Zannier had been invited by the Ukraine delegation of the Security Council to speak before the chamber.

He told the Security Council that the OSCE was "monitoring the ceasefire and are ready to observe the much-needed withdrawal of heavy weapons."

Zannier told reporters that there continued to be a number of violations and that the impact on civilians in the disputed regions was becoming "increasingly significant."

"We will need to keep pushing and activate the international community also to put pressure on the sides to implement" steps to ensure the ceasefire holds.

His appearance came just before the organization's principle deputy chief monitor told CNN that there were about 200 ceasefire violations overnight Tuesday local time. The number is in addition to hundreds more observed since the ceasefire nominally began Monday.

Alexander Hug, principle deputy chief monitor of the OSCE's special monitoring mission to Ukraine, told CNN's Clare Sebastian that about 100 of those violations were explosions, indicating that heavy weaponry, such as tanks and mortars, is still in place.

Unlike the last few weeks, when critical infrastructure was cut off, there is no immediate crisis as of now, but any of these explosions could knock out a power line and make things worse, Hug added.

Zannier said relations between the West and Russia remain "strongly adversarial" and that "in Europe, we increasingly see the impact of an approach to the post-Cold War phase (of cooperation) with a Cold War mentality."

Zannier said there was a "very real risk of escalation" in fighting in the region and that Russian President Vladimir Putin's executive order to recognize travel documents from the de facto, pro-Russian separatist authorities in disputed areas of eastern Ukraine "complicates the implementation of the Minsk agreement."

Putin effectively withdrew from the Minsk agreement last week by signing an executive order recognizing travel documents issued by separatist authorities in the region.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Russia is recognizing the travel documents "for humanitarian reasons."

But at a Security Council briefing Wednesday, the Ukrainian delegation said Russia isn't fully living up to its end of the deal.

"Instead of full and good-faith implementation of the Minsk commitments, Russia resorts to political and military provocations, blackmail and political pressure," the delegation said in a statement.

In addition, Ukraine said, the Trilateral Contact Group -- representatives of Ukraine, Russia and OSCE -- "should pay particular attention to achieving immediate and unconditional release of Ukrainian citizens, who remain illegally detained as hostages or political prisoners in the occupied areas of Donbas and in Crimea, as well as in the Russian Federation."

The Minsk agreement, which was negotiated in 2014 but never fully implemented, calls for the "bilateral cessation of the use of all weapons," and the decentralization of power in the region "with respect to the temporary status of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions."

At the time, then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk spoke of the deal with guarded optimism.

"We had just two options: bad, and worse," he said. "So we decided at this particular period of time to get the bad option. Probably this option will save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, and I hope this option will save lives of Ukrainian civilians, of innocent people, who are under a constant shelling of Russian-led terrorists."

"It's better to have this new deal rather than not to have (it)," he said. "But we do not trust any words or any papers. We are to trust only actions and deeds."

CNN's Richard Roth contributed to this report.

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Ukraine ceasefire: No sign of weapons withdrawal, official says - CNN

The Ukrainian term Holodomor has yet to enter the worlds genocide vocabulary, as Shoah and Cambodia and Rwanda have done. But we should hope that the world soon becomes as familiar with the Holodomor as it has with the Holocaust: not for the sake of a comparative wickedness contest and still less to deny the singular character of Hitlers Final Solution, but to honor the victims of one of the most pitiless exterminations of a population in history and to take from their awful fate some important lessons for the future.

Starvation is a terrible way to die, which is why the Nazis used the starvation bunker in Auschwitz I as a weapon against prisoner rebellion: Revolt, and you will die a slow, agonizing death, your humanity degraded to an animalistic level. Yet what happened in Cell 18, Block 11 of KL-Auschwitz to a few men at a time (including Saint Maximilian Kolbe) was deliberately inflicted on millions of Ukrainians in 193233 by the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. As with all such clandestine slaughters this one hidden with the connivance of such regime toadies as Walter Duranty of the New York Times, whose ill-gotten Pulitzer Prize has never been revoked there are disputes about the body count. The (very) low-end figure has 2.5 million Ukrainians starved as an act of Soviet state policy, while reputable demographic studies suggest that as many as 10 million innocents died in the Holodomor.

There was nothing accidental about the Ukrainian terror famine. While inadequate harvests played their part at the outset of the slaughter, the state policy was clear Ukraine was to be systematically depopulated by starvation as a means of reinforcing Soviet control over a population that had briefly tasted national freedom and independence in the post-Romanov, postWorld War I chaos following the breakup of the old Russian Empire. And while there was a Marxist-ideological element in this lethally systematic cruelty the kulaks or rich peasants were one target of Stalins policy it also seems clear that ethno-racism and atheistic passions played a significant role in the decision to starve millions to death. These Ukrainians were, after all, mere little brothers of the Great Russians, lower life forms who, in addition to their ethnic deficiencies, stubbornly clung to their faith, their icons, their sacraments, and their priests in the worlds first officially atheist state. That this policy of feed-the-Russians-first-by-starving-the-Ukrainians was ordered by a native Georgian (Stalin) was perhaps bitterly ironic; but then Stalin, the former czarist prisoner, was eager to confirm his position, not only as Lenins ideological heir, but as the father of the Great Russian fatherland which required him to deny the reality of Ukraines unique nationality and culture, and its formative role in the history of the eastern Slavs.

A recently released feature film, Bitter Harvest, tries to bring a human texture and a certain comprehensibility to this almost incomprehensible tale of systematic, state-sponsored mass starvation, telling the story of the worst period of the Holodomor (when some 30,000 Ukrainians starved to death every day) through the lives of two young lovers, one of whom is transformed from artist to anti-Soviet partisan in response to the horrors he sees as the starvation policy begins to take its human toll. The film, while perhaps not great cinema, succeeds in personalizing the Holodomor and reminding us that this genocide happened, literally, one person at a time, as an elderly peasant, a child, or a wife and mother each died from state-induced malnutrition and starvation, wasting away to nothingness while Soviet thugs blocked the borders of Ukraine to prevent their escape and ruthlessly expropriated (or destroyed) every possible foodstuff in order to bring Ukraine to heel. Those who want to honor the innocent dead by learning the story of the Holodomor in full would do well to read Robert Conquests pioneering study of the Ukrainian terror famine, Harvest of Sorrow, or the more recent Bloodlands, by Timothy Snyder. But for a mass audience, Bitter Harvest will, one hopes, do for the Holodomor what the 1978 television series Holocaust and Stephen Spielbergs film Schindlers List did for the Shoah: bring such hard-to-conceive awfulness home, making it real in microcosm.

That remembering is important in itself, as an act of solidarity with the dead. It is also important as America and the West consider their response to the Russian aggression in Ukraine that began three years ago this month. For while Putins war in eastern Ukraine has not taken anything close to the toll of the Holodomor, it has rung up a serious butchers bill: Ten thousand dead and 23,000 wounded, with 1.8 million internally displaced persons trying to rebuild their lives in other parts of Ukraine. And as Brian Whitmore of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty points out, this is not (as so many in supine, feckless, or mindless Western political circles seem to think) the Ukraine conflict. This is, as Whitmore puts it, a war on Ukraine, and it is a war of choice. So was the Holodomor.

Moreover, the 21st-century war on Ukraine is the result of one mans deliberate policy, as was the terror famine of the 1930s. Then the perpetrator was Stalin; today, the perpetrator is Vladimir Putin, who, it will be remembered, has not been loath to see a rehabilitation of Stalins memory and image in his new Russia. And it is not difficult to find a further parallel.

Stalins war on Ukraine was motivated in part by his insistence that Ukraine was not a national reality deserving of independence. Putin, for his part, has said that Ukraine isnt a real country. For men of power without consciences, it is a short step from saying that Ukraine is not a real country to ordering the murder of Ukrainians, in their thousands or their millions. And to what end? To secure the Soviet empire, then, or recreate it in 21st-century form, now.

That ought not be an option the West is prepared to tolerate, for obvious strategic reasons and in fidelity to its own professed ideals.

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washingtons Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.

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Bitter Harvest and the Bitter Present in Ukraine - National Review

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort during RNC

Former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort quit Trumps campaignin Augustunder a cloud of suspicion, but it now appears that more than potential investigations may have been behind his departure. Manafortwas also being strong-armed by someone with inside knowledge ofunder-the-tablepayments and a secret meeting between Donald Trump and a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician.

The undated communications, which are allegedly from the iPhone of Manaforts daughter, include a text that appears to come from a Ukrainian parliamentarian named Serhiy Leshchenko, seeking to reach her father, in which he claims to have politically damaging information about both Manafort and Trump.

Attached to the text is a note to Paul Manafort referring to bulletproof evidence related to Manaforts financial arrangement with Ukraines former president, the pro-Russian strongman Viktor Yanukovych, as well as an alleged 2012 meeting between Trump and a close Yanukovych associate named Serhiy Tulub.

Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist,has claimed to have no connection to the texts, but whatever their source, the authorseemedto have advance knowledge of the investigation launched by Ukrainian officials into more than$12 million in off the books payments supposedly funneled to Manafort. These payments may have continued while Manafort was employed by Trump.

As for the meeting between Trump and Tulub

The White House did not respond to a question about whether Trump had met with Tulub, a hunting buddy of Yanukovychs who had served as part of government when Yanukovych was prime minister.

Serhiy Tulub is the former coal industry minister and head of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration, and a close associate of Yanukovych. Its unclear what reason he would have had for meeting with Donald Trump.

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Former Trump campaign chief blackmailed over meeting between Trump and pro-Russian forces in Ukraine - Daily Kos

On February 3 Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko launched the fiercest of his rhetorical attacks against Russiaa country that has been financially underpinning Lukashenkos regime. Despite the audacious comments of the Belarusian leader, there is little chance that his words will convince Moscow to continue providing support to his country with few strings attached. The status quo will likely be extended, which means there will constantly be a diminishing value for Russia. Thus, Lukashenkos options are few. Either he fully participates in Russias integration initiatives, or he sees his power collapsing. At this point, Moscow does not even have to make dramatic moves to rein in Lukashenko, since time is working against the Belarusian president.

Lukashenko spent several hours at his press conference listing the grievances committed by Russia. Minsk made several (mostly symbolic) moves aimed at escalating a showdown with Moscow, which included the extradition of travel blogger Alexander Lapshin, a Russian-Israeli dual citizen, to Azerbaijan. (Baku is persecuting Lapshin for visits to Nagorno-Karabakh.) Lukashenko recently skipped several summits held by various Moscow-oriented organizations about the post-Soviet space and the neverending soap opera surrounding the Russian military base in Belarus. Minsk and Russia were supposed to establish a Single Air Defence System, per a controversial treaty signed years ago. The establishment of that system has been delayed, and now observers have begun discussing the possibility that a full-blown crisis could explode between Moscow and Minsk. How will that crisis unfold?

The mathematics behind Russian-Belarusian relations during the last twenty years is simple. The numbers vary, but moderate estimates show that Belarus has received approximately $100 billion of various Russian investments, preferences and support. Russias return, on the other hand, is very limited. The country receives no significant profits from bilateral enterprises, and incurs billions of losses to its budget as a result of different schemes for importing foreign goods through Belarus. Belarusian kiwis and Spanish hambecame the source of jokes in Russia after Belarusian entrepreneurs started supplying Western fruits and gourmet food that had been banned in Russia under the label Made in Belarus.

Politically, the Union State of Russia and Belarus that was formed in December 1999 never fully materialized. Furthermore, despite the geopolitical showdown between Russia and the West, Lukashenko has always adopted cautious positions, and Minsk has conducted its foreign-policy negotiations independently from Moscow. For example, Belarus has never recognized South Ossetia or Abkhazia as independent states. Belarus has also prevented its citizens from volunteering to fight for the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics as a show of good will toward the new Ukrainian authorities.

At the same time, the Eurasian Economic Union, an international organization in the post-Soviet space, initiated and advanced by Russia, has been maturing. The main difference between the union and previous Russian projects is that the union is more structured. Additionally, it has clear plans and benchmarks for integration that are similar to those of the European Union. That structured integration has left little space for Lukashenkos omnipotence and temper. The disagreements and conflicts between Minsk and Moscow have continued to multiply. After 2014, against the background of Ukrainian turmoil and a geopolitical face-off with the West, Moscow became increasingly prudent in managing its resources, including its foreign-political resources. An audit of relations with all Russian allies was on the Kremlins agenda. Under such circumstances, it was of no surprise that Lukashenko found himself under growing pressure to follow Moscows script or to defend his position.

Lukashenko chose the latter. Moscow will make the next move. Some observers predict that this move could be a very powerful one and could potentially include the forced removal of Lukashenko. Still, such drastic measures do not seem necessary. Lets remember that, theoretically, Minsk could win a showdown with Moscow by turning from Russia to the West. However, it seems the Belarusian president passed the opportunity to make such a turn a long time ago.

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Why Belarus Can't Afford to Be the New Ukraine - The National Interest Online