Politics

Kentucky Senate President David Williams and his wife are divorcing after nine years of marriage.

The announcement came today in a release from Williams' spokeswoman in Frankfort.

In a statement, Robyn Williams says the "rough-and-tumble pressures" of politics put "unique and incessant pressure" on their relationship. David Williams was the Republican nominee for governor last year but lost to Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear.

Robyn Williams has been mentioned as a possible candidate for state attorney general in 2015.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling out New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman following a brief debate over public sector employment on Sunday.

The two appeared on ABC's This Week and had a disagreement over the size of government with Paul arguing that the size of government employment has ballooned since President Obama took office. Krugman pointed out that public sector jobs have actually declined since January 2009, but Paul says he was talking about federal workers only.

Paul says Krugman is being dishonest and "playing games with numbers", adding a challenge to a public debate to the mix.

From Sen. Paul's office:

"Professor Krugman argues statistics in his usual fashion: making them up or adding in irrelevant information to prove his predetermined point. On Sunday’s “This Week,” he and I were debating the size of government workforce under President Obama. The only logical number we could have been discussing was the number of federal workers. Since the last time I checked, Barack Obama was the President, not a mayor or governor.

State budget officials say they are paying close attention to revenue as the state budget sees a flat growth at the start of the fiscal year.

Budget director Mary Lassiter says in her monthly briefing that August revenues ticked up, helping make up 2 percent of losses in July. But that leaves revenues flat, while forecasters had expected an almost 3 percent growth this year.

Lassiter says while warning alarms aren’t going off yet, steady declines in income and sales taxes is giving her office causes for concern.

Central Intelligence Agency Director and retired four-star General David Petraeus says strategic counter-insurgency won out over brute force in the Iraq war.

Petraeus spoke at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center on Monday, where he discussed different leadership styles. He was invited to speakby Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who praised Petraeus as one of the country's best leaders.

The address bypassed partisan politics and noticeablly avoided security issues on the eve of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Instead, Petraeus offered insights into the U.S. military’s surge in Iraq that many credit with quelling much of the violence in 2007.

Petraeus says the amount of force that was used was less important than the larger idea behind the new strategy to win the conflict.

"Indeed with violence threatening to tear apart the very fabric of Iraqi society no surge of forces—no matter how large­—would have succeeded if we had not also changed our overarching approach," he says.

As Centre College prepares to host next month's vice presidential debate, several groups want to prepare Kentucky students for the event.

The Secretary of State and the non-profit Kentucky Youth Advocates have partnered with students from Bellarmine University to create lesson plans for Kentucky teachers. The lessons focus on basic civics and include information on political debates.