Mourning the passing of a Kentucky political legend

Over the years, I've had changes of heart about a number of local, state, and national political figures. I've gone from admiring them to loathing them, and in some cases circling back to feelings of respect and admiration.

One of those individuals who earned, lost, and then regained my regard was Larry Forgy, the prominent Kentucky Republican who died Thursday after being in declining health for several years.

Forgy was an enigma to many in the state, myself included. His positions and viewpoints were sometimes hard to figure out, but he was loyal to himself and his ideology up until the end.

Long a player behind the scenes in Bluegrass politics in a party that seemed to be stuck in permanent minority status, Forgy suddenly took the spotlight as a "can't-miss" candidate for governor in 1987. The Democrats were engaged in a brutal primary, eventually won by businessman and political outsider Wallace Wilkinson, and Forgy was thought to have a great chance to win statewide and become the first GOP governor in 20 years.

Instead, Forgy shocked the political world by opting against a run for governor, citing a distaste for the fundraising required to win a position of that stature. Without a viable candidate, Republicans ended up nominating John Harper, a relatively-unknown Bullitt Countians, who lost in a landslide to Wilkinson.

Four years later, Congressman Larry Hopkins was the party's top choice to run for governor. He was envisioned to face Lt. Gov. Brereton Jones, who had feuded with Wilkinson during their term. (Back in those days, Kentucky governors were term-limited, and the governor and lieutenant governor were elected separately and not as a slate). Suddenly, inexplicably, at the last minute Forgy threw his hat into the ring, making political contribution and spending limits a central part of his campaign.

His entry into the race left a lot of Republicans scratching their heads. "Why did he do this?" they asked. "He was a shoo-in to win the nomination and stood an excellent chance of winning statewide four years ago, but he decided not to. Now we have a strong candidate poised to run, and he jumps into the race? Why?"

Forgy's presence in the race hampered the Republican efforts. Hopkins eked out a victory in a hard-fought primary against Forgy, but that race drained him of resources he needed to compete against Jones. He lost badly, and many Republicans (myself included) blamed Forgy.

Fast-forward another four years, and Forgy decided once again to run for governor. This time, he had the party's backing in his effort. He ran a close race, but ended up losing to Paul Patton in an election marked with allegations of vote fraud. Without some shenanigans in Louisville that were later verified, Forgy may have finally become governor.

I voted for Patton -- one of the few Democrats for whom I've cast a vote in a federal or statewide election -- for several reasons. One was because Patton was from eastern Kentucky and I truly thought he'd be beneficial for the entire region. (He really wasn't; his hometown of Pikeville fared pretty well, but the rest of the mountains didn't). But the biggest reason was my anger with Forgy. He'd sabotaged the party twice; once by not running for governor when he could have won, and again when he helped tank the candidacy of a candidate who could have won.

For years, I held this bitterness toward Forgy, whom I'd met only once. To be viewed as such a fine upstanding conservative, he'd done the movement two major disservices. But when the Republican establishment showed its true colors during Ernie Fletcher's gubernatorial term, the lawyer and orator from Logan County won back my admiration.

Fletcher's story is well-known. He finally broke the drought for Republican governors in Kentucky, but found himself battling partisan attacks from the Democrats by himself when the GOP leadership turned its back on him, and in some cases sided with the opposition. Forgy became one of the most vocal and prominent defenders of Fletcher, clashing with party bigwigs who had abandoned their governor.

Forgy continued to be a voice for true conservatism over establishmentarianism. He was publicly critical of Mitch McConnell and backed Matt Bevin in his 2014 primary run against McConnell. Even though the two had feuded publicly in latter years, McConnell was gracious in his comments about Forgy after news of his death spread.

As I mentioned, I only met Forgy once. It was in the spring of 1991 when he was campaigning for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, and I was editing a newspaper in Estill County. Forgy came to pay a call on the newspaper's publisher, who himself had been active in Republican politics, and they invited me in for a portion of the conversation. Forgy was warm, engaging, well-spoken, and articulate. He and Gatewood Galbraith were probably two of the best political orators I've ever met. But Forgy, as gifted and witty of a speaker as he was, couldn't win me over. I'd already thrown in for Hopkins, had his stickers on my vehicles, and was actively campaigning for him.

I don't regret supporting Hopkins over Forgy. I do regret voting for Patton, because he ended up being such a disappointment in so many ways. But that vote was really more of an anti-Forgy expression than one of support for Patton. And while I'm still disappointed over how things turned out in 1991, I respect Forgy's accomplishments and have come to understand his positions and his integrity with regards to conservatism and Republican politics.

Kentucky's conservative movement lost another giant earlier this week with the death of Scott Hofstra, who was a strong voice for freedom and a leader of various tea party groups. His passing drew warm comments of remembrance and sympathy and appreciation for his efforts. I never met Hofstra, but was certainly aware of his presence. (And unsurprisingly, certain liberal goons were quick to rejoice over the deaths of both Hofstra and Forgy, but that's become the norm these days.)

Rest well, Lawrence Eugene Forgy. You earned the respect of thousands -- and regained my regards for your loyalty in your golden years.

Several people are in need of a civics lesson

It's already been proven that many non-Kentuckians know nothing about the political history of this state, and that became apparent once again earlier this week when liberal author and political activist Don Winslow tweeted a series of anti-Bluegrass State slurs aimed at the voters of the commonwealth for electing Mitch McConnell to seven terms in the United States Senate.

But another controversy that brewed up in recent days shows that a number of Kentuckians need a refresher course in civics and how the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government works.

Vast outrage spread across the state when a Jan. 6 memo, from a high-ranking property taxation official in the Department of Revenue to locally-elected property valuation administrators, was made public. In Kentucky, property valuation administrator (PVA) is the official term for tax assessor. The memo notified PVAs that due to an increase in the "blue book" value of vehicles, tax assessments would be going up on average of 40 percent statewide.

No one -- other than perhaps government bureaucrats salivating at the opportunity to have more tax dollars to spend -- was pleased with the news. Quite predictably, those ultimately responsible this decision have backed away from it.

The memo came from the director of the Division of State Valuation in the Office of Property Taxation within the Department of Revenue. Revenue used to be a cabinet-level agency in Kentucky, but has since been reformed as a department within the Finance and Administration Cabinet. In Kentucky, division directors are political appointees. They are hired by the governor and serve at the governor's pleasure. Administrators at this level are chosen to carry out the governor's wishes, directives, and policy initiatives. An edict of this magnitude would not come out of Frankfort without the blessing and knowledge of the governor or his highest lieutenants.

So naturally, Gov. Andy Beshear wants no blame for the fallout from this financial blow, which will, if not reversed or altered, add monetary burden to a citizenry already reeling from rampant inflation and high taxes. And his sycophants in the social media world are doing all they can to protect him and deflect the darts rightly being thrown at his administration.

Property tax amounts are derived from two components. The first part is the value of the property. That's assessed by an executive branch administrator and is supposed to be based on fair cash value, defined as what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in a voluntary transaction. The second part is the tax rate. That is set by taxing agencies, be they elected legislative bodies like legislatures, city councils, school boards, or fiscal courts, or appointed bodies like health and library boards.

Beshear was quick to avoid any responsibility for the increased assessments. "We didn't raise them," he basically said. "Inflation did. Your car is simply worth more now than it was last year." And his fanboys and fangirls on social media quickly chimed in. "Don't blame our beloved Andy and his administration. Blame the legislature. It's their fault."

Well, no. It's not the General Assembly's fault, although many legislators -- even some Democrats -- were quick to say they would clean up the mess during their current session. A couple of bills have already been filed to take care of the matter, and it's possible more will be forthcoming. It's quite likely that there will be no impact to the taxpayers from this decision.

But the idea that the governor's administration bears no blame for this debacle is asinine. If a political appointee saw information that would have a drastic negative effect on the constituency, the logical and astute thing to do would be discuss options with the higher-ups -- the department commissioner, the cabinet secretary, executive assistants in the governor's office, maybe even the governor himself -- before issuing a memo. The Beshear administration had options. One of them was to declare that the inflated vehicle values are a temporary phenomenon caused by Bidenflation, and to decide to base 2022 assessments on last year's values. That would still a windfall for taxing districts, though, because vehicles are a depreciating asset and their value goes down every year they're in service.

Why, then, did Beshear's "govern me harder, daddy" fan club try to say this whole mess was the legislature's fault? Were they trying to defend their king and savior? Or are they totally unaware of the separation of powers, and which governmental branch is responsible for assessing value and which branch has the role of setting tax rates? The answer is both. They've blindly followed Beshear on every possible issue while ignoring constitutional restraints that have resulted in a number of federal court rulings against the governor's executive orders. They'll defend him right or wrong.

The General Assembly will fix this problem. Public pressure and outrage is demanding it. But the legislature shouldn't have to deal with this issue at all. The governor's administration could have stopped this in the beginning. The executive branch had the ability and the power to nip the controversy in the bud. It chose not to. Those who want to shift the blame for this disaster away from the governor's office onto the legislature are guilty of civic ignorance. They need a lesson in how government works, which branch has which role, and how separation of powers is established and how it operates. It's a scary thought that these people are politically active, have loud and influential voices, and they vote. Their mindset is what we're up against as we try to make this state better.

That '70s rerun

The 1970s gave us great music, epic movies, and classic television shows.

If you're a sports fan in this area, the '70s was also a pretty heady decade. The University of Kentucky's basketball team toppled an unbeaten Indiana team in the NCAA tournament in 1975 before losing in the national championship game to UCLA in John Wooden's farewell, then won the NIT the following year when it still meant something with the nucleus of the team that went on to win the NCAA title in 1978. UK's football team broke out of mediocrity to enjoy a moment of relevance on the national stage in 1977. And the Cincinnati Reds were Major League Baseball's dominant team in the decade, with National League championships in 1970 and 1972 and World Series titles in 1975 and 1976 with a team full of stars that was affectionately known in the Ohio Valley as the Big Red Machine.

But pretty much everything else about the 1970s was forgettable. It was a dark time in our nation's history. Inflation ran rampant as prices on just about everything shot sky-high. Political unrest in the nation was palpable. There were shortages of vital products in the marketplace.

Now it appears that we're in a rerun of the '70s a half-century later but without the good entertainment options to distract us. All we need, pretty much, is a hostage crisis abroad and three really bad winters in a row, and it's the Jimmy Carter presidency all over again without Kyle Macy rubbing his hands on his calf-high socks before shooting free throws.

Far too many people who vote or make policy today weren't even born in the 1970s, or have no significant memory of how truly bad things were. Presidents Nixon and Ford had their issues, but the bulk of the debacle came during Carter's term.

The inflation we're seeing now, as prices rise on consumer goods, is often compared to the '70s. There was even a term coined for the phenomenon back then: "stagflation," meaning a huge round of inflation without beneficial economic growth. Sound familiar? That's what we're experiencing now, as families struggle to meet the burdens of rising costs for food, gasoline, and other necessities.

America experienced two separate energy crises, once in Nixon's term and again in Carter's term. Gasoline shortages were common, and long lines at the pumps were an everyday sight as prices rose. The problem wasn't limited to gasoline, though. There was a shortage of natural gas, as well, and for a period of time, businesses in Lexington closed their doors at 6 p.m. nightly.

A weak and ineffective president, Carter didn't actively seek solutions to the problems plaguing the country. Instead of trying to find a way out of the situation and leading a recovery, he spoke of a "crisis of confidence" that was termed by the press -- largely sympathetic to him and his ideology -- as "a national malaise." He told Americans to turn their thermostats down and wear sweaters at home during three straight brutal winters that caused the Ohio River to freeze over for days, such that people could walk between Cincinnati and Covington. Governors of his own party told him, basically, that he appeared to be neutered and incapable.

The Iranian militants certainly took advantage of his ineptitude when they took several Americans hostage at the embassy in Tehran. If his failures to handle the energy and inflation issues had put him at a disadvantage when he ran for re-election in 1980, the hostage crisis and the optimism exuded by Ronald Reagan sealed Carter's fate.

Conservatives have long debated which president was worse, Carter or Barack Obama. Both were terrible, but there were key differences. Carter was a lost ball in high weeds, well-meaning but incapable. Obama was malevolent, cunning and calculating and knowing exactly what he was doing to the country.

Carter is widely depicted as a good man, a man of faith; although that description is hard to reconcile given his pro-abortion stance and his anti-Israel views. The similarities in events between the current ones of Joe Biden's presidency and what happened in Carter's term may make it more suitable to compare Carter to Biden instead of Obama.

"Lunch Bucket Joe" tries to pass himself off as a regular guy, a man of the people, a good and decent fellow. Yet we're a year into his presidency and he's bumbling and stumbling. Gas prices are rising even as domestic production and continental pipelines are scaled back. Store shelves are empty to the point where trends on Twitter, a forum generally sympathetic to Biden, point it out.

The parallels to the 1970s are uncanny. Biden hasn't yet faced a serious international challenge along the lines of the Iranian hostage crisis , but it's coming. For all the talk about how Donald Trump was Vladimir Putin's puppet, Russia stayed pretty much in check during Trump's term. Now, the Russians are threatening Ukraine and Biden seems determined to get America into a mess that's really none of our business. North Korea and Kim Jong Un blinked when Trump stood up to them, but they're likely to feel emboldened after watching Biden's bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, which may come home to roost as Islamic terrorists again flex their muscles.

If the 2020s are a repeat of the 1970s, and Biden truly is the second coming of Carter, then how do we escape it? Do we get new classic rock bands like Aerosmith and Van Halen? Another "Star Wars" trilogy? Or are we doomed to endure a repeat of the absolute worst decade of my lifetime without any redeeming properties?

As inflation continues to burden the American public, as our way of life becomes harder to sustain, as it becomes more difficult to find essential products on store shelves, we can only hope that someone emerges to stop the decline and restore America the way Reagan cleaned up after Carter. Whether that's another term for Trump, the election of a new leader cut in the mold of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or some as-yet unknown leader, it's obvious that we're in another crisis of confidence and heading toward a dark, cold season of national malaise unless something changes. Otherwise, it's a rerun of That '70s Show. Let's just pray the river doesn't freeze over again and we don't have snow cover on the ground from Christmas until March.

The real "big lie" about Jan. 6

Three totally separate and distinct events happened in Washington, D.C., last Jan. 6.

The United States Congress met to certify the votes of the Electoral College following the 2020 presidential election. During that certification, a number of senators and representatives objected to the seating of electors from certain states in which the elected officials felt were worthy of being challenged.

A political rally and protest took place on the National Mall, and some of the participants later took their protest to the grounds of the Capitol, where the vote certification was taking place.

Finally, a few of those who were protesting at the Capitol decided to enter the building in an attempt to disrupt the congressional proceedings.

Only one of these events was illegal or improper. The other two were totally and completely legitimate actions. Federal law and the Constitution spell out the process for certifying the Electoral College results and allow for challenges to the seating of electors. And political rallies and protests are one of the fundamental human rights enumerated in the First Amendment.

Yet, those on the left are trying to conflate those three events and claim that anyone who participated in the two legitimate and proper proceedings -- legislators who voted against certifying the election results and citizens who attended the rally -- is an insurrectionist and a traitor to the United States.

This claim is the real "big lie" about the 2020 presidential election. The same liberals who have championed the right to protest against government actions when Republicans are in charge are aghast that conservatives might challenge a proceeding that benefits Democrats.

Anyone who has been involved in the governmental bureaucracy or a corporate environment knows what "scope creep" is. This phenomenon happens when a project takes on a life of its own and expands far beyond its original intent. The investigation being undertaken by the House of Representative's Jan. 6 "select committee" is a textbook example of "scope creep."

Ostensibly formed to investigate how the rioters breached Capitol security and entered the building, the committee's focus has turned to the totally legitimate and lawful, legally and constitutionally enumerated process by which some sought to challenge the legitimacy of President Biden's election.

There's no evidence that any elected official organized a group of people to storm the Capitol. The sham committee should be trying to determine just why the Capitol Police stood down and allowed the incursion instead of trying to stop it. Instead, they're focusing on communication between prominent Republican officials, Trump administration personnel, and others; a PowerPoint presentation outlining a lawful method of carrying out an election challenge; and other things not related in any way to the violence that took place last year.

The idea that Donald Trump somehow ordered or controlled what happened is absurd. Trump never told anyone to commit a violent or illegal act. It's obvious that some people came ready to misbehave, but what happened is a classic example of a flash mob. When large numbers of people gather, emotions can run high, and a mob mentality can take over. "State Street" has become a cliché in Kentucky, because every time the University of Kentucky wins a big ballgame, revelers in Lexington congregate on the street near campus and there's usually a couch burning or two. Sometimes protests turn violent. Once upon a time, panty raids were common on college campuses. Groups of males would congregate outside women's dorms and ask the female occupants to toss undergarments out the windows to them. When I was a student at Morehead State University, one panty raid at what's known as the Mignon Complex (a group of women's dorms named after Mignon Doran, who was the wife of former MSU president Adron Doran) got out of control, and the participants ended up overturning a car.

There's a concept in logic called Occam's Razon. Summarized, it states that the simplest explanation for an event is usually the correct one. This perfectly describes the riot on Jan. 6. At its base, it was a flash mob gone wild. It wasn't organized by President Trump or any public official, and it wasn't some type of formal insurrection or coup.

And what of that investigative committee, anyway? It's painfully obvious it is acting not as an independent finder of fact, but is instead seeking to confirm a preconceived notion. There's nothing bipartisan or objective about it. The two Republicans on the team are Trump-haters. Democrat leaders in the House would not even allow anyone even remotely sympathetic to Trump, such as Rep. Jim Jordan from Ohio, to be on the committee. Going far beyond their original charge to figure out how the Capitol was breached, they're now treading on First Amendment territory by wanting to interview political commentator Sean Hannity over his communications with Trump administration officials and the president himself.

As for the election itself, the laughable "objective" journalists and liberal commentators continue to use the phrase "big lie" to describe Trump's claims that the 2020 election was not free, fair, and above-board. They continually use terms  like "untrue," "false," "unwarranted," and other similar words to describe the allegations. This in and of itself is an example of intellectual dishonesty. The correct phrase is "as-yet unproven" or an equivalent. To my knowledge, none of the various court cases challenging the results of the election have been decided on the merits of the case. They've all been dismissed for procedural reasons -- usually over who has standing to file the suit.

Was their hacking of electronic voting machines to alter the vote totals to favor Biden? Most likely not. Were there improprieties in voting via paper ballots, with the late-night ballot dumps and ballot harvesting? Probably so. Were there issues with the constitutionality of the way some states conducted their elections? Definitely.

The Constitution requires that state legislatures set the parameters for presidential elections in each individual state. As part of the reaction to the Wuhan Chinese virus, many states changed their voting procedures, but in most cases, those changes weren't approved by the state's legislatures as required. What happened in Kentucky was a prime example. The General Assembly never approved the changes that were made to the process. Working together, Gov. Andy Beshear (a Democrat) and Secretary of State Michael Adams (an establishment Republican) postponed the primary election date, allowed universal paper mail-in absentee balloting, and reduced the number of in-person polling places. The legislature did not sign off on these changes, and there's no provision in the Constitution that allows state legislatures to delegate this power to the executive branch.

But, back to Jan. 6. There's a continued attempt to lump those who attended the rally and protest and didn't engage in any improper activity in with the rioters who breached the Capitol with little resistance from the law enforcement officials whose duty it was to protect the building and its occupants. And legislators who followed a legal and constitutional process to object to the election are called insurrectionists by many who forget that a number of Democrats objected to the seating of electors in past elections won by Republicans.

We'll never know the real truth about Jan. 6. The media won't report the facts, and the congressional committee isn't interested in what really happened. Liberals in government and in the press will continue to push their own "big lie" and misuse their positions for partisan political and ideological gain -- I would say to the detriment of "democracy," but America isn't a democracy; it's a representative republic.

The populace needs to continue to view everything done by the Jan. 6 investigators with discernment and cynicism, knowing their underlying motivation and what they want the ultimate outcome to be.

Kentucky storms bring out the ghouls of society

Kentuckians hadn't even begun to attempt to comprehend and evaluate the damage from last weekend's deadly storms before the political opportunist ghouls emerged from their dens, seeking to exploit the tragedy and destruction for their own partisan and ideological means.

It's to be expected that the left would do this. It's their modus operandi. "Never let a crisis go to waste," after all. We saw it with the recent Michigan school shooting, and now we're seeing it here in the Bluegrass State where it hits close to home.

The piling-on comes in two pretty definable categories. The common thread is that Kentucky is a red state represented in the United States Senate by Republicans Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, and thus deserves what happened.

The first claim is that the tornado outbreak was caused by global warming climate change and McConnell and Paul and the rest of their party members are climate deniers. And with Kentucky's status as an important coal-producing state, the storms are karma for contributing so much to harmful carbon emissions.

There's absolutely no proof that global warming climate change had anything to do with the tornado outbreak. There's a perfectly logical meteorological explanation for what happened that has nothing to do with any alleged long-term worldwide increases in temperature. There was a warm, moist airflow coming up from the south consistent with the La Nina weather pattern we're in currently. At the same time, there was a fast-moving cold air mass aloft in the atmosphere that collided with the warm southerly flow.  Warm air rises, and when it encountered that fast-moving cold air aloft, it produced discrete supercell thunderstorms due to the convection and updraft. It didn't help matters that there was a seasonal cold front behind those colliding air masses, pushing eastward. It was a recipe for disaster, and could have been much worse had there been sunshine fueling atmospheric instability.

Even the Associated Press, which has been tilting leftward for years, sent out an "explainer" trying to answer the question as to whether or not global warming climate change contributed to the severe storms. The conclusion was that there is no evidence to confirm that hypothesis. So if even an outfit as liberal as today's AP can't tie the storms to the left's cause of the day, then it's pretty obvious the left is once again trying to politicize a tragedy and try to use it to further their agenda.

The second claim is aimed more directly at Paul, and it's probably not coincidental that he's up for re-election next year. As one might expect, Paul (along with McConnell and the rest of Kentucky's federal congressional delegation) asked President Biden for a federal disaster declaration for the impacted areas. The shrill voices on the left immediately began calling Paul a hypocrite, citing his stances on past disaster relief efforts in states run by Democrats. The example most often cited was aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy several years ago.

Paul and other Republicans have never opposed federal aid for any natural disaster. Most of their disagreement has centered on those aid bills being larded up with unrelated pork to fund liberals' pet projects. They only opposed congressional appropriations if they were full of poison pills. They would gladly have voted for the relief bills if they were clean. (And this Kentuckian hopes that if any legislative relief bills are full of appropriations not connected to the disaster here and in nearby states, Paul and the rest vote against it, too.) In addition, Paul has long advocated for disaster relief funding to be offset by cuts in other government spending, instead of coming solely from printed and invented money. It's not hypocritical for Paul to ask for federal aid for Kentucky if he insists on the same parameters as he wanted for New Jersey and other states.

There was a little local piling-on as well. The Mayfield candle factory that was destroyed had received state incentives during the administration of former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, and it employed prisoner labor under a work-release program partnership with the Graves County jail and a deputy jailer on duty supervising the prisoners was killed, so naturally some criticism was lobbed at the GOP as if it was somehow responsible for those people being hurt or killed. Some have even tried to link the wages paid by the candle manufacturer to the fatalities, and then they get upset when called out about it.

As more and more national leftists began echoing these sentiments, a funny thing happened. Naturally, Kentucky conservatives decried these statements, but some of the state's loudest liberal voices joined in the condemnation. They're fine with politicization of tragedies elsewhere, but they're appalled when it happens close to home. Imagine that. And some of the same Kentucky lefties who were bashing the candle factory were also complaining about the comments of those from elsewhere. There's the real hypocrisy, not any position or statement attributable to Paul.

In the interests of intellectual honesty, it's not only liberals that attempted to use the deadly storms for their own purposes. A few right-wingers did too. There were instances of critics of Gov. Andy Beshear musing that if someone who had tested positive for the Wuhan Chinese virus was killed in the tornado, they'd be listed as having died from the virus. That's just as unacceptable as what liberals did and deserves to be called out.

Kentucky is hurting, specifically the western third of the state. Towns like Mayfield, Dawson Springs (the hometown of the governor's family), Bowling Green, and others have been devastated. The main tornado tracked well more than 200 miles from northeastern Arkansas, across the bootheel of Missouri and northwestern Tennessee, before entering Kentucky and leaving a swath of destruction nearly to Louisville. Other tornadoes, including the Bowling Green twister, were spawned separately. The storms struck after sunset, but videos of the storm that tore Mayfield to shreds have surfaced showing a huge wedge tornado reminiscent of those seen out on the Great Plains in the spring.

Our state needs prayers, and it also needs material and financial assistance. Private and corporate donations so far have been overwhelming, with some aid stations already reporting they have more supplies than they need. It will be a long process as officials assess damage, families bury their loved ones, and communities rebuild. Grabbing on to this horror story and trying to use it to advance a political agenda is abhorrent and unhelpful. Shame on those who try to use this sad event -- or any tragedy, for that matter -- for their own ideological purposes. The "somebody's gotta do SOMETHING!!!" mentality, rooted in emotion, never results in good public policy.

If you believe in global warming climate change, or think Rand Paul is hypocritical for wanting federal disaster aid for Kentucky, do the world a favor and keep your opinions to yourself until we at least get a chance to lay our dead to rest and begin the slow process of recovering and rebuilding.

The pretend defenders of our rights

Liberals are quick to proclaim themselves as the staunch defenders of individual liberties, and accuse conservatives of trying to take away fundamental rights from vulnerable citizens. Yet evidence and practice shows the exact opposite to be true. Leftists detest our basic freedoms and the way we exercise them.

The First and Second amendments are the cornerstones of the American republic. The left's hatred for firearm ownership rights is documented on a daily basis. So, too, is libs' disdain for religion. Remember, this is the same absurd mindset that equates erecting a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn to the government establishing an official religion.

The most recent freedoms to come under assault from the left are speech and press freedoms. There's a growing move to silence dissenting voices and leave only one approved narrative standing. It's one symptom of the "cancel culture" that seeks to have only one conforming viewpoint to which everyone must adhere.

One of the leaders of this movement is someone named Nandini Jammi. She first rose to notoriety as part of the Twitter account "Sleeping Giants," which took on the cause of trying to get advertisers to quit spending money with right-leaning outlets. She's since moved on to her own undertaking called "Check My Ads," which does the same thing. They're out to silence and deplatform conservative outlets.

Chief among their recent targets are the Post-Millenniai and Breitbart Web sites, as well as Dan Bongino's multiple endeavors. That last attempt is where she's running into issues.

Bongino is a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent who was on the presidential protective detail for Barack Obama. He's run unsuccessfully for Congress before becoming a best-selling author and a media personality. He's a frequent participant on Fox News Channel panels, a former regular substitute host on nationally-syndicated radio shows, and now has prominent Web presences as well as being an investor in a number of startup Internet outlets designed to compete with or augment censorship-happy YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Bongino has also become the unofficial successor to the late Rush Limbaugh on the radio. While Clay Travis and Buck Sexton were tabbed to be the official replacements for Limbaugh's nationwide syndicated show on his Excellence in Broadcasting Network, Bongino launched a competing show in the noon-3 p.m. Eastern Time slot before Limbaugh's permanent successors were announced. Many of the stations that carried Limbaugh's show opted for Bongino's Cumulus-distributed offering over the Travis-Sexton program. While Bongino realizes that Limbaugh was a one-of-a-kind talent, he's rapidly showing he's the rightful heir to the daytime talk radio throne. He offers no-nonsense, hard-hitting commentary that calls it like it is, and is learning to mix humor into the programming just as Limbaugh did in his successful formula. He doesn't suffer liberal fools as gladly as did Limbaugh, though, and is more likely to put liberal callers in their place than to humor them as Limbaugh did.

That Cumulus affiliation is important. It denotes just how out of her league Jammi is in dealing with Bongino. Bongino is a cancer survivor who's at risk of recurrence. On advice of his doctors, he's been vaccinated against the Wuhan Chinese virus. (And he caught the virus around Thanksgiving despite his having had the shot.) Yet he opposes any kind of vaccine mandate requirements, be they from the government or from employers. He thinks individuals should make their own decisions based on their own best information. Cumulus issued an edict requiring all its employees to be vaccinated, and at least two local radio station hosts at Cumulus-owned stations -- friends of Bongino -- were fired for noncompliance. Bongino has threatened to take his syndicated show off the air unless Cumulus rescinds that requirement. His show was off the air for more than a week earlier in the fall, and the negotiations are still ongoing, but his willingness to end his show on principle shows just how much integrity he has.

He's fighting back against Jammi and her censorship efforts in a way that her other targets haven't. He calls her out on the radio, in his podcasts, and on his social media outlets. He's exposed her falsehoods numerous times, yet she keeps coming back for more.

Although she will occasionally fire a shot at Tucker Carlson, two prominent conservative broadcasters she hasn't taken aim at are Sean Hannity and the Mark Levin. Levin is quick to threaten those who engage in behavior such as Jammi's with tortious interference lawsuits, and they usually back down. Maybe that's what Bongino needs to do. If Jammi is attempting to mess with Bongino's finances, maybe she needs to learn an expensive lesson of her own.

People like Jammi are quick to brand conservative commentators and outlets as liars, purveyors of misinformation, racists, antisemitic, and other pejoratives, but they can never provide proof. She would never agree to confront Bongino or Carlson or Andy Ngo and challenge them on a specific statement and try to prove them wrong. She merely tries to silence them or to remove their outlets.

The answer to free speech with which you disagree is not less speech. It's more speech. Censorship is never the solution. If you have a problem with what someone is saying, then offer an alternative viewpoint. If you think they've uttered a falsehood, provide what you perceive to be the truth and offer the facts to back it up. There's a marketplace of ideas enshrined in the American Constitution for a reason. Our founders envisioned a society where the populace would debate competing subjects and topics and compare the relative merits of each.

We're at a point now where liberal orthodoxy is worshiped as truth and other viewpoints are not permitted. You're not allowed to have valid questions about the electoral process, skepticism about the safety and efficacy of the Chinese virus vaccine, to say or think that the government overreacted with its lockdowns and other limitations, to think that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, or hold and express any conservative thought.

They don't want to hear what you have to say and then correct you if you're wrong. They want to put forth their views, then silence any dissent. Variation from the approved narrative is not permitted.

The Second Amendment has withstood attacks for years, and no doubt will withstand the coming assault arising from the Michigan school shooting. Likewise, the First Amendment has stood strong against those who wish to control speech, publication, protest, or religion in the United States. Jammi and her cohorts are on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the American way. They must be made to pay a price for their anti-freedom stances.

More nonsensical outrage from the nonsensical left

Recently, the teenage daughter of a member of Congress got her first vehicle. The proud parents posted on social media a family photo of them standing around the vehicle, with a huge red bow atop the new car, symbolizing an early Christmas present.

Howls of outrage from the left were immediate. How dare they be so insensitive, releasing such a photo so soon after the tragedy in which someone ran over and killed six people at a parade in Waukesha, Wis.? How shameless and tone-deaf could someone be to openly mock the victims of that senseless violence? How could a prominent elected official show such a lack of respect?

What, you're saying that this event didn't happen? No one got their knickers in a twist over a picture of a family with a car? And it would be ridiculous if anyone did get upset about it?

Well, you're right. It didn't happen. There was no family picture of a U.S. representative's kid with a new car. And there was no fictional outrage about this fictional event. But something that did happen was just as nonsensical as this hypothetical example would have been. Protests are continuing over Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie's photo with members of his family holding guns while standing around a Christmas tree. They think that Massie's photo is somehow insulting to the victims of the recent Oxford, Mich. school shooting.

In fact, substitute "Wisconsin parade" for "Michigan school," "car" for "gun," and "American Automobile Association" for "National Rifle Association" and see how utterly illogical and asinine it sounds when discussing the tragedy that happened in Michigan.

Guns, like cars, are inanimate objects. They're incapable of acting on their own. They're neutral devices. They are tools that can be used for good or bad purposes, depending on the intent of the user.

There was nothing insensitive or disrespectful about Massie's photo. It had nothing to do with what happened in Michigan. His picture has exactly the same connection to that event as a car ad on television has to what happened in Wisconsin.

This is part of the problem we have today. Intellectual honesty is sorely lacking among those of a certain political viewpoint. If you point out the inconsistencies in their arguments, they accuse you of deflecting, "whataboutism," or any of several other scary-sounding acts to try to escape their own lack of reasoning.

The same people who complain about Donald Trump's lecherous behavior with women voted not only for Bill Clinton twice, but for the woman who accepted and enabled his behavior for her own political means. Those who complained about Matt Bevin being a "carpetbagger" voted for Brereton Jones for Kentucky governor in 1992. They criticize those who voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results using perfectly valid legal and constitutional procedures, or those who participated in a peaceful First Amendment-protected political rally and protest, and lump them into the same category as the lawbreakers who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Truth is, nothing Massie says or does is OK with his critics. His independent streak gets him scorn not only from liberals, but fellow GOP members as well. It's not uncommon to hear complaints about him from establishment Republicans,  conservative tea party adherents, Trump-supporting populists, or other subgroups on the right, depending on the topic. And he certainly doesn't shy away or back down from the notoriety. If he's feeling especially froggy, he'll mark his social media posts with the #SassyWithMassie hashtag. He knows the backlash will be coming, and he seems to relish it.

But while Massie's Christmas greeting photo is the specific incident that's called attention to this topic, it's not the main subject of this treatise. The usual gun control arguments were being made by the expected voices before the young shooter's parents had even been arrested for their role in the crime.

A gun did not cause these deaths, just as a car was not responsible for the deaths in Wisconsin. The blame in Michigan lies in many places: obviously the student, but also his parents who provided him the gun and missed so many warning signs, and the school that failed to adequately remove the threat other than asking the parents to take him home.

Normal life can't come to a stop anytime there's a tragedy, even a preventable one. No one asked hunters or target shooters to not fire their weapons for a period of time after the Michigan shooting. Society didn't demand that vehicle ads be taken off the air, parades be canceled, or car traffic come to a stop for a designated mourning period after the Wisconsin parade. If we view every event through the lens of what's been in the news recently, then society will grind to a halt because everything can be associated with some not-so-pleasant event if you stretch it hard enough. If there's been a high-profile drowning, would it be improper for a politician to post photos of their children swimming? If there's a plane crash, is it in bad taste to take a picture of an airplane you're boarding? At what point does the nuttery end?

Tom Massie, and millions of other Americans, believe in the Second Amendment and celebrate the right to keep and bear arms as an essential part of America's past, present, and future. To link his actions in any way to the Michigan shooting is just more ridiculousness.

Lessons Kentucky can learn from its southeastern neighbor's gubernatorial election

Tuesday's gubernatorial election in Virginia, in which Republican political newcomer Glenn Youngkin defeated his venerable Democrat challenger, Terry McAuliffe, has sent shockwaves through the country.

Youngkin's win in a state that had been trending "blue" for several years, has alarmed liberals who are now very worried about next year's midterm elections, in which President Biden's policies and accomplishments will be on the ballot in every contested Senate and House race. With the effect's of Biden's initiatives on full display -- supply chain issues, runaway inflation with the promise of even more price hikes to come, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan -- part of the Virginia governor's race was indeed a national referendum.

But the main issue was a local one, and the primary lesson that can be learned from that can be applied to neighboring Kentucky as candidates already position themselves for the 2023 gubernatorial election here.

It's widely thought that McAuliffe torpedoed his own candidacy by some of his own words and deeds. Remember, he basically said that parents have no role in educational policy. His supporters and defenders claim that his remarks were taken out of context, but that's just willful ignorance on their part. He said what he said, and it's on the record and the context is clear.

McAuliffe brought in his party's big guns to campaign for him, including Biden and his ideological predecessor, Barack Obama, as well as the reigning champion of election-outcome whining, Stacey Abrams, and Vice President Kamala Harris. But it was all to no avail. Areas that had supported Biden last year and Ralph Northam four years ago reversed course. Virginians also elected a black female, Winsome Sears, as their lieutenant governor. Sears is a naturalized citizen and therefore isn't eligible for the presidency, but she is a true rising star in the Republican Party, with an inspirational story. Republicans like Sears, Tim Scott, Allen West, and Kentucky's Daniel Cameron terrify the liberal race-baiters who seek to use pigmentation as a political weapon and a policy driver.

So, what's the takeaway as Kentucky Republicans look to unseat Gov. Andy Beshear in two years?

This election turned on education, and specifically, parental involvement in school policy. There's a huge school of thought out there that the taxpayers, parents, and the public at large -- the people who have children, elect school board members, and fund public schools -- should have no say in what goes on in the schools. The issues surrounding education are just too important to leave to the citizenry. Complain too loudly about what schools are doing, and the federal Department of Justice just might brand you as a domestic terrorist.

The key issue in Virginia appears to be critical race theory, a misguided way of thinking that twists actual history into something it's not, and tries to cast people alive today as being to blame for racial injustices of the past. But transgender bathroom issues also played a big role, with the fiasco in Loudoun County where a biological male who called himself a female and dressed as one sexually assaulted a girl in a bathroom, then was transferred to another school where he did it again.

Kentucky parents have spoken out about critical race theory and bathroom policies, but the main issue in this state where they've tried and failed to influence school decisions has to do with the Wuhan Chinese virus. Beshear tried to issue an executive order requiring mandatory wearing of masks in schools, but he was restrained by a court decision, and a legislative majority that didn't ratify his order. So he got his handpicked state board of education to issue the policy.

This is Beshear's McAuliffe "parents shouldn't make decisions about schools, these matters are too important and should be left to the elites" moment. Despite parents loudly and frequently saying they were in favor of voluntary masking and against a mask-wearing requirement, school boards opted to follow the state's directive, even though legislation passed earlier this year gave them an "out" and an alternative.

The political landscape can change drastically in two years, but this is something that needs to be remembered. "We wanted you to do one thing, but you did the opposite. You dismissed our desires and concerned as unimportant and misguided."

Another lesson? Don't bring in national liberals as your surrogates. Biden was a liability for McAuliffe, and his popularity is not likely to increase by 2023 as the country's economy continues to deteriorate. Virginia Democrats even tried to make Donald Trump a campaign issue, and it backfired miserably. Trump supported Youngkin, but made no appearances on his behalf. The 45th president maintains his popularity in Kentucky, and if he opts to run for another term in 2024, it's quite possible he'll come to Kentucky a year prior to campaign with the GOP nominee.

Beshear's supporters may also want to think twice about asking Randi Weingarten with the American Federation of Teachers to stump for him. Remember that in an effort to seek legitimacy, the "120 Wrong" group, which mostly existed as an online presence, affiliated itself with AFT a few months ago. Weingarten campaigned strongly for McAuliffe, to no avail. Given that "120 Wrong" was the group who encouraged Kentucky's teachers to stage an illegal sickout and travel to Frankfort to protest pension preservation efforts, they aren't exactly a persuasive voice in Kentucky politics. The Bluegrass State will want no part of Weingarten and her group's extremism.

Election results across the nation sounded an alarm for Democrats. They're now seeing catastrophe next year, and even some of the most bullish backers of Charles Booker's Senate race in Kentucky are acknowledging he's not likely to fare well. Some are even theorizing that his race is more about positioning himself to become a paid contributor on a liberal cable outlet like CNN or MSNBC than it is a legitimate attempt at winning back for the Democrats the seat Wendell Ford held for years.

Even the GOP losses were wins. No one expected the Republican challenger to come close to beating New Jersey's Phil Murphy, but he did, in a race that wasn't final until (surprise, surprise) late votes were found and tallied. The overall vote flip from Democrat to Republican in areas where Biden won easily has shaken the liberals. It shows in the urgency of fundraising messages Beshear has launched this week, fueled by the Virginia election.

Beshear's already in trouble in his re-election bid because of his heavy-handed Wuhan Chinese virus mandates and the beatings they've taken in federal and state courts, and for his administration's response to the unemployment system's problems. Kentucky continues to trend more conservatively every year, and if there's a national move to the right as shown in the Virginia election results, he'll be an underdog even as an incumbent.

Virginia has showed the way for Republicans to re-take a governor's office -- and even moreso, put on display how Democrats can lose the office through campaign missteps.

Hazard High School incident highlights left's hypocrisy

Debates are raging across the country over educational policy. On matters as diverse as restroom usage, participation on sports teams, curriculum, and Wuhan Chinese virus mitigation efforts, the discussion covers not only how to address these subjects, but who's qualified and entitled to make decisions.

Earlier this week, it was even posited in a Washington Post opinion piece that parents do not have the right to have a say in how their children are taught. The paper then doubled down with an editorial comparing activist parents using their rightful powers as voters and taxpayers to bullies. The issue has become a major factor in the Virginia gubernatorial race, where Democrat Terry McAuliffe says that parents shouldn't dictate school policy, with Republican Glenn Youngkin taking the opposite viewpoint.

Liberals are horrified that parents, taxpayers, and voters are taking greater interest in school board meetings and are speaking out against policies they oppose and in favor of policies they support. The left fears an influx of new school board members, elected by the public, that may reverse years of decisions made by the "educrats" with which they disagree.  The idea of the people who actually fund the schools through their tax dollars and elect the board members who make policy having a say in how schools are run terrifies them.

That's what makes the reaction to this week's news out of Hazard, Ky., even more astonishing. The same liberals who see nothing wrong with biological males using girls' restrooms and playing on girls' sports teams are outraged over a risqué homecoming assembly at Hazard High School.

The story has made national headlines. A student assembly at the southeastern Kentucky school included male athletes dressed in drag and giving simulated lap dances to coaches and other personnel, females wearing Hooters attire pretending to be waitresses, and other activities and apparel one generally wouldn't associate with an in-school activity.

Condemnation has come from across the state and from all sides of the political spectrum, but some of the loudest criticism has come from the Lexington and Louisville liberals who see nothing wrong with a male who pretends to be a female merely by "identifying" as one using the girls' bathroom or competing against girls in scholastic sports. Ask a certain parent in Loudoun County, Va., just how well those "inclusive" bathrooms work.

They're OK with letting boys and girls use the restroom or the locker room together, but an over-the-top school spirit skit offends them and they demand heads to roll? Doesn't that not only seem hypocritical, but illogical?

Most of the criticism has been levied at the school's longtime principal, Donald "Happy" Mobelini, who is also the city's mayor. He's a popular figure in the community that serves as a regional commercial and medical hub for a large portion of the southeastern Kentucky mountains. But the small city school district's superintendent has also come under fire, for a quick investigation into the incident that ended with the announcement of undisclosed discipline against unnamed individuals. She cited personnel privacy concerns for her veiled public statement. However, state education officials are also looking into the matter, and decisions such as revocation of an educator's professional certification are not private.

Some in the community have defended the homecoming assembly, or at least not outright condemned it, but anger and disgust have been voiced from people of all political persuasions. Kentucky's liberal governor and lieutenant governor have stated they're displeased with this, as have some of the state's most conservative legislators and political observers.

It's not surprising that conservatives who oppose transgender bathroom policies are also upset with the Hazard homecoming event. Indeed, it can be argued that drag beauty pageants, simulated adult entertainment scenarios, and a representation of serving alcohol are not appropriate for school activities in any setting. But most of the students categorize it as just good harmless fun. Can the same be said about letting individuals with penises use the girls' bathroom? Both are legitimate issues and are ones that parents who send their kids to schools, voters who elect school board members to represent them, and taxpayers who fund public schools have every right to speak out about.

If it's OK for liberals in big-city Kentucky to complain about this, why should it be compared to domestic terrorism for rural conservatives to speak out against teaching a warped view of racial history or their kids being made to wear masks in school? If parents and members of the public are to have a say in one area of school activities, shouldn't they have a voice in all educational decisions?

It is fascinating to watch the various reactions to this situation from people who couldn't find Hazard or Perry County on a map, get it confused with the fictional Hazzard County, Ga., of "Dukes of Hazzard" television fame, and know nothing about the area's cultural and political history.  Those who have no clue about the region are the first to jump to conclusions in online comment sections.

But the overall point remains: If people miles away from Hazard can have strong opinions about what happened there and call for a response, why can't people express their thoughts and demand action on things affecting their own children and occurring in their own communities?

There's a growing nationwide wave of people who are tired of "of the people, by the people, and for the people" having become "of the government, by the government, and for the government." They're sick of dealing with an unresponsive bureaucracy that ignores their concerns. They're motivated to become activists and run for office to shake up the system. The idea of a true citizen government terrifies the entrenched interests worse than any Halloween horror film. And it all starts with public involvement.

Liberals just shouldn't be surprised when they complain about citizen activism in education and then get called out for their double standards when they lose their minds over what happened in Hazard.

Republicans' courtship of Democrats' approval never ends well

For political observers, the events of the day always provide an opportunity to learn a new lesson, or to reinforce an old one. Nearly every headline provides a teachable moment, but all too often, those who would benefit most from the learning experience never take it to heart.

The death of Gen. Colin Powell offers yet another chance for Republicans to learn why they always end up heartbroken when they try to court the support and approval of liberal Democrats. Those attempts never end well. Their advances are rejected and they never succeed in winning over the other side. And when the opportunity presents itself, the left will viciously turn on those who have acquiesced to them and patronized them.

There are a number of parallels between Powell and John McCain. That's why Powell's betrayal of McCain in the 2008 presidential race was especially ironic.

McCain tried to stake his political legacy on his "maverick" reputation. He often took great delight in opposing the policies and principles of the Republican Party. He became the quintessential RINO. He refused to run a hard-hitting campaign against Barack Obama, appeared far too deferential to him during and after the 2008 race, and maintained that posture in his final days as a United States senator, casting a decisive vote against the repeal of Obamacare in an act of defiance to conservatives.

One would think that McCain's positions would have been right up Powell's alley. Frequently mentioned as a wished-for GOP presidential candidate, Powell never entered the political arena after his service as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later as secretary of state. He initially supported McCain's 2008 presidential run, but then pulled one of the most amazing about-faces in American presidential political history.

Powell chose pigmentation over policy, and threw his backing behind Obama, snubbing McCain. The change in direction from the man who had served for a time as Ronald Reagan's national security adviser didn't go over well with Republicans who had been supportive of Powell and his career. Some even took to calling him "Colon" Powell in response to his betrayal of his principles.

What usually happens when Republicans court the affection of Democrats is that they not only fail to win the liberals over, but they lose the love from their own side. It certainly happened to McCain. He never succeeded in winning over the left, and he became a pariah among the base of the Republican Party. He'll be a poster child for RINOs for years to come. Even in death, he didn't get the warm fuzzies from the Democrats that he'd spent much of his political career chasing.

The same thing happened to Powell. Within a few hours of his death, before the ever-changing news cycle had gotten a chance to move on to the next headline, the term "war criminal" was trending on Twitter. The liberals, whose approval Powell had sought for many years, were turning on him due to his support for the Iraq war in 2002. Even in death, he couldn't get the bipartisan approval he craved.

It's a lesson from which Republicans should take heed. We're seeing it play out on national and regional stages every day. Members of Congress such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are playing to the liberals by siding with them in their battles against Donald Trump. But it's still common to see leftists complain about their voting records, while at the same time the faux Republicans have torpedoed the grassroots support from their own party. Illinois Democrats were so grateful for Kinzinger's anti-Trump support that they have attempted to gerrymander him out of his House seat for next year's elections.

This scenario is ongoing in Kentucky politics, as well. Secretary of State Michael Adams is often criticized by Republicans for capitulating to Gov. Andy Beshear on temporary voting procedure changes that were implemented last year, some of which were made permanent. Yet some liberals are also on his case over some of the steps taken to combat fraud and ensure election integrity. By playing to both sides, he's made enemies of both. No wonder he's mulling a race for Kentucky's vacant 3rd District congressional seat next year, especially now that state Sen. Julie Raque Adams has indicated she doesn't plan to run.

Legislative leaders in the GOP-dominated Kentucky General Assembly have drawn the ire of the left for standing against many of Beshear's executive mandates regarding the Wuhan Chinese virus, but the GOP rank and file are angry with them for not fighting back hard enough. They see the recent special session as a lost opportunity to enact reforms such as making employers liable for workers compensation claims as a result of vaccination requirements, or prohibiting forced vaccination in order to get or keep a job or otherwise participate in society.

Donald Trump weighed in on Powell's death on  Tuesday in his typical outspoken way. Trump haters immediately pounced on Trump's language, but nothing he said was untrue. It could have been phrased a bit more diplomatically, but the substance of Trump's observation was correct. Powell was a RINO who failed miserably when he coddled liberals.

Powell's passing is noted here. It is not celebrated as some did before his family had an opportunity to make funeral arrangements, but neither is it mourned. But the lesson in how his death has been noted is something that conservatives and Republicans should take to heart when they cast their lots with the left and seek their devotion and approval, and abandon their core principles in search of acceptance.