We don't have a democracy to defend -- how the left is fighting against true freedom and democratic ideals

Every time I see some liberal complaining about how conservatives, Republicans, and Trump supporters are putting our American democracy in danger, I don't know whether to laugh or to cringe.

If these people had any sense, they would realize that the United States of America is not a democracy. This nation is organized as a constitutional representative republic. The founders realized the dangers of a true democracy, so they set the nation up as a conglomeration of states that can institute various systems of elective government.

You see it in the way some states have unique procedures. Nebraska has a unicameral legislature, while every other state has a bicameral one. Some states allow ballot initiatives or referendums on proposed legislation, which is about as close to a true democracy as we get in America. Some states allow for the recall of elected officials. Each state has its own constitution and a means for amending it. But it's obvious in the way the federal government was established that a democracy was not wanted. The president isn't chosen in a single election wherein the person who receives the most votes wins. The presidential election is actually the aggregate of individual elections in each of the states and territories, with the results weighted by population. The Senate was originally envisioned as a body that was chosen by and representative of the individual state governments, but the 17th Amendment changed that to take the selection of senators away from the state legislators and give it to individuals.

But if we did have a true democracy, it's not the American right that poses a danger to it. In issue after issue, the leftists have been the ones who have complained the most about the influence of individuals in the political process.

A number of public policy issues have risen to the forefront and angered and motivated members of the electorate. From the Wuhan Chinese virus to educational policy and curriculum, members of the public have grown sick and tired of the government's actions and are vowing to effect change.

This scares liberals. They don't want the public to have any influence over government policy. The government -- a big, nameless, faceless, entity that was created to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people" but has become a self-sustaining institution -- knows best. The people shouldn't control the government. The government should rule the people.

As parents and taxpayers organize to win school board seats and take control of school policy, the left is aghast. They don't want anyone else to have a say in what students are taught. Parents are rightfully concerned over the sexualization of their kids in the classroom, and the teaching of a flawed theory on race that pushes the false notion that America is an inherently racist country, decades after the Civil Rights Act was passed and nearly two centuries after slavery was abolished.

Much of the current wave of ground-level activism started when parents complained about various public school responses to the Kung Flu. They were angry about mask mandates and the closure of classrooms to in-person learning. Many of these educational issues were at the forefront of last  year's Virginia gubernatorial election, where Glenn Youngkin ran on a platform of turning control back to the parents and taxpayers and he defeated Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe.

If liberals really support democracy, then why don't they want the majority to control how tax dollars are spent? If they are the defenders of freedom, shouldn't they act like it?

An even more glaring example of this whole thing at play is how the left is reacting to what looks to be the imminent takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. There have actually been commentaries written that say allowing free speech to flourish on Twitter or other online sources is a detriment to democracy.  And people take some of these buffoons seriously. Robert Reich, the former Clinton administration official whose intellect is roughly equal to his physical size, was one of the first to weigh in. He was roundly roasted for his opinion, as have been most people who think that actually allowing more free speech is somehow harmful to freedom.

The marketplace of ideas is a cornerstone of a democratic society. The answer to free speech with which you disagree isn't censorship. It's not less speech. The answer is more speech. If someone says something with which you disagree, no matter how outrageous it might be, the solution is not to silence them. The proper response is to counter them. Point out what they're wrong about and why. Let the truth prevail.

In a true democracy -- or even in a representative republic, which is the actual form of government under which we operate -- the voices of the people are supposed to prevail. Those who actually support freedom and democracy want the people to dictate how government works, not the government telling the people how to live, and they want a robust exchange of ideas from which the truth emerges.

In today's "up is down and down is up" world, it's those on the right -- the ones the left think are trying to destroy democracy -- who are fighting for our freedoms. And those on the left, who claim that conservatives are the enemies of democracy, are the true enemies of it.

A glaring double standard in Kentucky politics

During my time as a newspaper editor in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we didn't have the Internet -- much less data-enabled mobile devices -- to provide reams of real-time data at our fingertips. We relied on printed directories for vital information about many of the governmental agencies we covered.

Each year, my newspaper invested in a thick book offered by Clark Publishing called The Kentucky Gold Book. It was an invaluable resource for information on who was who in Kentucky politics. We referred to it often if we needed to call someone in Frankfort for details on a story.

I always perused each new edition of the Gold Book to learn my way around the labyrinth of state government, and one thing that always amazed me was the number of school teachers and principals who served in the General Assembly.

I had questions, such as, "How can these people leave their jobs for 60 days every two years to go serve in Frankfort? Doesn't it do a disservice to the students to have long-term teacher absences? How can these school districts justify paying these employees when they have these scheduled absences?"

Obviously, I knew that everyone who serves in the General Assembly has to leave work during a legislative session. My own representative worked for the railroad. But I figured that educators serving in the legislature was a different scenario, especially since tax dollars were involved. Were the needs of the students being served?

When I left the field of journalism to take a merit system job in state government in 1995, I had to learn an entirely new set of operating rules.  One eye-opening thing was the legal prohibition of civil service employees from holding partisan political office. Classified state workers under the merit system have to resign before they can even file to run for a partisan office. The only elective offices state employees can run for or hold are non-partisan positions such as school board, city councils, soil conservation boards, and other such offices.

In fact, state employees chafe under a number of restrictions on political activity that don't apply to other individuals on the public payroll.

Compare what state workers can do while engaging in the political process to the activities in which public school employees can participate. It's a glaring double standard. State workers can't organize fundraisers or bundle campaign contributions. They can't take part in certain campaign events or political organizations. They can't be local party officials. And even within the limits of what is allowed, a double standard exists. My hometown of Beattyville elects its mayor and city council members on a non-partisan ballot, so state workers are allowed to run for municipal office. One county seat west, in Irvine, the mayor and council candidates run under partisan ballots, so state workers can't run for or hold office there. There's no logic in that discrepancy.

Teachers? They can do all those things and more. There are really no restriction on what they can do politically. They can chair political campaigns or local party organizations. They can raise funds and pass out campaign literature. And they can hold partisan political office. After this year's redistricting takes effect for the 2023 General Assembly session, my representative will be someone who's a school principal in Jackson County.

This is hypocrisy codified. Teachers are one of the biggest politically active groups out there. They're loud and they're influential. But are they more important than social workers, corrections officers, state troopers, snowplow drivers, or others who are paid with tax dollars and perform vital public services? Why should they have privileges that other public employees don't?

Not all that long ago, Harry Moberly was one of the most influential members of the House of Representatives. He was the longtime chairman of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee when Democrats controlled state government. He was also a high-ranking administrator at Eastern Kentucky University, meaning he was able to use his legislative position to funnel state funds to EKU. Wasn't this an obvious conflict of interest? If an employee of a state university can serve in the legislature, why can't an engineer with the Transportation Cabinet or a Kentucky State Police detective or an auditor with the Department of Revenue?

There's an obvious fairness solution here. Much of KRS 18A needs to be repealed to give state employees the same political and First Amendment rights as other public employees. There's absolutely no common-sense reason that state merit system workers can't do the same things in the political process as a tenured school teacher.

Failing that, public school employees who serve in the legislature should be prohibited from voting on matters pertaining to education. There are ethics laws and policies that prevent the state from awarding contracts to businesses connected to certain officials. Shouldn't that extend to legislators voting to fund their employers? Should a public school employee be allowed to funnel money to his or her school district via the Department of Education?

Don't look for this statutory hypocrisy to be corrected anytime soon. Teachers wield a lot of political clout in Kentucky, and they don't want their influence to be curtailed, eliminated, or diluted. So expect the state to have to endure this double standard from now on, when certain voices are amplified and others are muted.

Did Beshear accidentally trip over his own two feet over redistricting flap?

It's no secret that Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has a toxic relationship with the Kentucky General Assembly. Beshear is the only Democrat of any prominence in state government, as all other statewide offices are held by Republicans, and both chambers of the legislature are overwhelmingly Republican, so it's in his best interests to try to work with the GOP. Instead, he's chosen the opposite route. He's been combative and uncooperative. Over the past two years, as the governor has made executive decisions impacting the lives and livelihoods of all Kentuckians, he's gone at it alone. He's failed to try to seek common ground with legislative leaders, or to even give them a heads-up as to what he's going to announce, as he's taken a wrecking ball to the state's economy and many of its small businesses under the flag of keeping us safe.

Whether it's arrogance, envy, stubbornness, or some other unknown and unseen reason, the governor has been absolutely unwilling to work with the majority to find common ground on policy issues. Yes, the governor is largely irrelevant, because if he vetoes anything the House and Senate pass decisively, the veto will be overridden. But he's still the top executive in the state and he needs to face political reality and deal with it.

One of his most recent fits of pique, however, may come back to bite him harder than anything else, given the state's current political mood.

The General Assembly is required to do only two things in its current session, which began last month and will last for 60 working days. The first task is to write a biennial budget. The second chore is to draw new federal and state legislative district boundaries using data from the 2020 Census. The two may be related this year, as you'll see later.

Because budget discussions usually dominate the biennial 60-day legislative sessions, General Assembly leaders hoped to have the new district boundaries in place prior to the start of the session. They asked Beshear to call a special legislative session late last year, but he declined. For reasons known only to him, he wanted to see the maps that legislative leaders had drawn up before he brought the General Assembly back into session.

There was no reason for the governor to see the maps prior to a special session. Legislative redistricting is the purview of the legislature in Kentucky. Yes, the governor can veto the redistricting bills, but that veto would have been moot because the GOP holds veto-proof majorities in both chambers. This year is the first time that Republicans have had complete control over the redistricting process. The chambers draw their own boundaries and the other chamber usually approves them as a formality, and they come to an agreement on federal congressional lines. For the past two redistrictings, Republicans held the Senate and Democrats controlled the House. In fact, the switch in control of the House came in districts the Democrats had drawn in 2012 in an attempt to protect their dwindling majority. This time, the GOP had unfettered access to setting the district lines.

So, because the governor refused to call a special session to get the new legislative districts in place prior to the start of the regular session, redistricting became the first order of business.

Two years ago, the legislature moved the filing deadline for the May primary election up from late January to the first week of January. That meant that the new district boundaries wouldn't be in place by this year's Jan. 7 deadline. So the legislature moved this year's deadline back to later in the month to allow candidates to know in which district they lived and where they were eligible to file.

Beshear vetoed the Kentucky House and federal congressional district maps, and let the Senate map become law without his signature. As expected, the legislature overrode his vetoes and the new districts became law, along with the extended filing deadline.

So far, no problems, right? Beshear knew he couldn't win the battle, but he prolonged it as long as he could. First, he didn't call a special session to allow the legislature to get the redistricting out of the way. Then, he vetoed two of the bills.

But the fight's not over. A group of Democrats sued in state court to block implementation of the state and federal House districts. To date, no challenge has been filed to the Senate district map, nor has a federal suit been filed. Both are still possible. So far, there's been no movement in the state court case.

The Republicans have made provisions for an extended court battle. The legislature is proposing that the primary election, this year only, be moved from May to August, with an accompanying extension of the filing deadline, should the legal fight drag on.

How might this come back to bite Beshear? And how does the redistricting brouhaha tie in to the budgetary process? They're related.

Conservatives in Kentucky are unhappy with the Republican establishment leadership in the General Assembly. They're angry that the House didn't move to impeach Beshear last year over his repeated federal constitutional violations. They're upset that legislation to end the Wuhan Chinese virus "emergency" declaration didn't go far enough. They're displeased that legislation to prohibit Kung Flu vaccination requirements as a basis for employment failed to move during last year's special session and hasn't even been assigned to a committee in the current session. A number of House Republicans who didn't act with enough vigor have drawn challengers for this year's primary. The possible delay in the primary and an extension of the filing date may bring more opposition.

In most 60-day biennial sessions,  action on the budget usually comes very late in the calendar, often in the last days. This year is different. The House has already approved its budget, with the stated goal of moving on to tax reform now that the budget's out of the way. This ought to scare the dickens out of every Kentuckian. The last time the GOP-controlled General Assembly addressed tax reform, we got a broad expansion of the sales tax to cover services such as auto repairs and veterinarian fees. Both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats were opposed to that move, but it didn't matter. It's also widely expected that another gas tax increase, similar to ones that have been proposed in past sessions, will be brought up again. At a time when fuel prices are surging to levels not seen in nearly a decade, that's a burden Kentuckians can't afford.

So how does all of this tie together? Republicans may think the primary field is already set, and they can levy new taxes and increase existing ones with impunity, but if the state redistricting court case isn't decided soon -- it's likely that it will end up at the Kentucky Supreme Court -- or if it goes to federal court or if new challenges are filed, the window will be open once again for challengers to less-than-conservative Republicans. Those same GOP challengers will be even more hostile to Andy Beshear. If the GOP legislators currently serving open themselves up to potentially more challengers, a number of them could end up losing their seats to Republicans who not only will hold the line on new taxes, but will go after Beshear anew. He could even end up being impeached, this time by an effort led by House members instead of private citizens.

Beshear may have been better off just calling a special session last fall. That would have given any potential court challenges more time to play out and would have put a rest to any possibility of an extended filing period. Instead, he's opened the door to even more resistance from the legislature by making it possible that Republicans angry at the establishment will take power. He would have no chance to have any of his initiatives considered and would face an even more hostile General Assembly in 2023 as he enters his re-election year. Through his own hubris in not working with the legislature to get new district boundaries in place in a timely fashion, he may have done himself even more damage, and emboldened Kentucky conservatives who are already restless from how they're being ignored by their party's leadership.

A grand case of political grandstanding in Louisville

Democrats have become the masters of identity politics. They don't try to unite us as a community, state, or nation, and address issues that affect all of us. Instead, they seek to divide us and exploit our differences, turning us against each other. They pit black vs. white, rich vs. poor vs. middle class, urban vs. rural, devoutly religious vs. faithless, young vs. old vs. middle age, native-born American vs. immigrant, male vs. female, heterosexual vs. homosexual, homeowner vs. renter, employed vs. unemployed, and so on. You get the point. They want us fighting amongst ourselves so we don't unite to fight them and their bad ideas.

Liberals have also given rise to the notion that a government official can't represent someone unless they have the same pigmentation, genitalia,  or other similarities. They think a white female cannot represent a black male's interests. Diversity above all else seems to be a major goal for the left. Look at the furor over the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. Not just any liberal will do; President Biden must nominate a minority female to make the court "look more like America."

This isn't just a national phenomenon. Kentuckians got a good dose of it last week in some machinations involving a state House of Representatives race.

Over the past decade or so, Kentucky has gone from the Democrats having a substantial majority in the lower chamber to facing a Republican supermajority. The transformation has been remarkable. Given voting trends, it was probably inevitable, as the GOP was gradually picking up seats, but 2016 was successful beyond the party's wildest dreams. Even some Democrats thought to be unbeatable, like House Speaker Greg Stumbo, went down to defeat. No doubt President Trump had long coattails on the 2016 ballot, but the flip in the majority was going to happen eventually.

This year is the first time that Republicans have been in charge of the decennial redistricting required as a result of census data. In Louisville's 44th District, the new boundaries mean that it is a "majority-minority" district; meaning that the majority of the population belongs to a racial minority.

The 44th District is represented by Joni Jenkins, who serves as the head of the Democrats' dwindling caucus numbers in the House. As the minority floor leader, she is the top-ranking member of only 25 Democrats. Jenkins is a white female who has served in the House since 1995 and as her party's leader for the last two years. But that won't be the case after this year.

Jenkins filed for re-election, but due to delays in passing the redistricting bill, the filing deadline was extended from Jan. 7 to Jan. 25. During that time, Beverly Chester-Burton, the black female mayor of Shively, also filed to run for the seat. And that paved the way for Jenkins to do a bit of political grandstanding.

Jenkins withdrew from the race after Chester-Burton's entry on the filing deadline day, touting the Democrats' line that pigmentation matters. "I have long advocated for a General Assembly that looks like Kentucky, so when minorities became the majority in the newly redrawn 44th House District, I did not want to be a person of color joining the Kentucky House of Representatives," Jenkins said in her withdrawal announcement.

Neither Jenkins' decision, nor the all-but-assured new representative, are without controversy. Accusations quickly came that Jenkins had tipped Chester-Burton off to her decision and recruited her into the race, thus hand-picking her successor in a district in which no Republicans filed. And Mayor Chester-Burton was charged with driving under the influence in December 2020 when she crashed her vehicle into a utility pole after allegedly passing out in a White Castle drive-through line. (No resolution of that charge came up via an Internet search). So the residents of the newly-created 44th District will be getting a representative with some personal and political baggage that may hamper her effectiveness.

What better example of identity politics could one ask for? Give Jenkins credit; she put her money where her mouth is. But is it possible that the real reason she's decided not to run for another term is that she sees her party becoming even more of an irrelevant minority after the 2022 elections? The consensus among political observers is that the GOP legislature drew GOP-friendly districts, even though it pitted two sets of incumbent Republican representatives against each other. (It also pit two sets of Democrats against each other, but in one of the districts, one of the incumbents decided to run for a judicial position instead of seeking re-election to the House.) There is a very real possibility that there could be fewer than 20 Democrats in the House of Representatives when it convenes in 2023 for its organizational and 30-day session. The caucus would be powerless, and trying to lead to lead it would be an exercise in futility. It makes sense that Jenkins would want no part of that.

We as a community, state, and nation, are more alike than we are different. We have common goals that are worth attaining and common enemies that wish to destroy us. It's pointless for us to fight among ourselves; we need to channel our energies to point in the same direction. But the left wishes to separate and divide us, while our goal is to unite as Americans and as residents of our states and communities. Identity politics is an obstacle to that goal, and political grandstanding in its name like that Joni Jenkins engaged in last week is harmful to our progress and does nothing to elevate the discourse.

A tribute to Coach Joe B. Hall

It was the spring of 1984. I was just three months out of college and starting my career at my hometown newspaper, where I'd worked during school breaks since I graduated from high school. I was young and ambitious and had high hopes of becoming a regional correspondent for the Lexington Herald-Leader as a career goal.

I had planned to start a job search upon my graduation from Morehead State University in December 1983, and had asked my hometown editor-publisher to help me and let me know of any job vacancies. But she had other ideas. She was familiar with my work, having been my boss for summers and Christmas vacations for several years. She was looking to expand coverage in both my hometown and in the neighboring county where she also owned and published the newspaper.

At the time, the local high school's basketball team was one of the best in the state. On top of that, the local school system wasn't getting the same level of coverage as were the city and county governments. My task was to cover sports, school board meetings, and educational issues in my hometown, help with general news coverage in the adjoining county, and take over layout and design of the front pages of both papers.

One of the things I did was to resurrect a sports opinion column that I'd written for a while in the college newspaper, for which I'd won a Kentucky Intercollegiate Press Association award.

So it was in that atmosphere that the University of Kentucky Wildcats completely and utterly collapsed in their 1984 NCAA Tournament national semifinal game against Georgetown.

The game remains a nightmare for longtime UK fans. The Cats led by seven points at halftime, but the Hoyas completely dominated the second half. UK didn't score a point until nearly midway through the final period, and scored only 11 points and made three of 33 field goal attempts in the second half of what became a 53-40 loss.

The Cats languished while the school's all-time leader in field goal percentage, Melvin Turpin, mostly sat on the bench in the second half. Turpin and oft-injured Sam Bowie made up the team's vaunted "Twin Towers" lineup that flailed against Patrick Ewing and "Hoya Paranoia."

Georgetown was the villain of college basketball that year. The team was coached by John Thompson, who seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder as if he was mad at the world. To have them beat my Wildcats was embarrassing, especially when the team squandered the halftime lead and floundered while their best-ever shooter rode the pine for much of the decisive period.

In my mind, only one person was to blame -- the head coach, Joe B. Hall, who died over the weekend at age 93. Hall was the one who failed to make adjustments to the offense. Hall was the one who kept Turpin riding the pine. I was livid.

My sports column the following week was a screed demanding the ouster of Hall as UK's coach. Someone needed to pay for that debacle, and Hall was responsible.

It didn't help Hall's standing with me that in his first season as UK's head coach, he had benched local star Larry Stamper. Stamper, the best player ever to suit up for the Lee County Bobcats, had been a key reserve as a sophomore, and then a starter as a junior on Adolph Rupp's last team. But when Hall took over, he played a number of younger players and Stamper was reduced to mop-up duty.

So I wrote my poison pen column and put it on the page. Back in those days, production for the Beattyville paper was basically finished on Tuesdays except for breaking news, and then Wednesdays were reserved for the Jackson paper. Both papers were taken to the printer at the same time.

My boss' brother was probably the most loyal UK fan I've ever met. If ever anyone bled blue, it was him. His affection for the Big Blue was unmatched by anyone I've ever met. He worked there at the newspaper in retirement as a way to keep busy, and as therapy as he recovered from a number of health issues. He and I became great friends in the years I worked there. But here was one instance where I let him down.

After I left the office that Tuesday, he read my column. To say he was unhappy with me was putting it mildly. He showed it to his sister, the editor and publisher. On Wednesday, when she came in, she told me I needed to reword my column to take some of the sharpness out of it. She originally wanted to pull it entirely, but I convinced her to let me run it with a milder tone. But at that moment, with the disappointment of a crushing season-ending loss still fresh, I wasn't over my anger at Coach Hall for the way he allowed the mighty Cats to go down to the upstart Georgetown Hoyas. And I wasn't disappointed in the least when Hall decided to retire the following year, although none of us could foresee what was coming during the reign of his successor, Eddie Sutton.

But like many other things, including my views on Kentucky Republican legend Larry Forgy, my thoughts evolved over the years. Instead of being angry at Hall over his treatment of Larry Stamper, or frustrated with how he couldn't stop the 1984 Final Four collapse, I began to appreciate his style of basketball and his love for the UK program. Hall remains the only native Kentuckian and former Wildcat to coach the team in the modern era. Watching how Rick Pitino, Billy Gillispie, and now John Calipari approached the job made me respect Hall that much more. I went from not thinking very highly of him to admiring him in a number of ways.

In retrospect, Hall did as good of a job as anyone could in succeeding the legend Rupp, who built the UK basketball program. He won an NCAA championship in 1978, won the NIT in 1976 when it still meant something, and engineered one of the greatest Wildcat wins ever, a regional final victory over the unbeaten Indiana Hoosiers in 1975. Many of us who underappreciated Hall grew to respect him, especially given some of the pitfalls his successors had. Sutton began a battle with the bottle and suffered the wrath of the NCAA due to a couple of unproven recruiting violation allegations. Pitino wasn't satisfied being the UK coach and thought the Boston Celtics had greener pastures. Tubby Smith, probably the coach most like Hall in terms of demeanor, began to wilt under the weight of the program and fan expectations, and left for Minnesota in a move remarkably similar to what happened when UK lured Bill Curry away from Alabama to be football coach. Gillispie proved he just wasn't up to the task and the 24-7 nature of the job. And Calipari has alienated fans through his penchant to bring in short-term mercenaries to gain the required one year of collegiate experience before bolting for the pros.

Hall gets credit for fully integrating the basketball program, starting with in-state players like Merion Haskins (younger brother of Western Kentucky great Clem Haskins) from Campbellsville, Larry Johnson and Dwane Casey from Union County, and finally hometown players James Lee and Jack Givens from Lexington. His selection of Leonard Hamilton as an assistant coach was also seen as a watershed moment in integrating the team, and it proved to be a wise decision, as Hamilton was an ace recruiter for Hall who went on to have a storied head coaching career.

After Hall's death, tributes poured in from his former players. One described him as "everybody's grandfather" and they nearly universally noted how much affection they had for him, and how the feeling was mutual. The retired coach became a beloved figure in the state, a start contrast from his coaching days when armchair critics like me pounced on his every misstep.

One of my current work colleagues played a key role in organizing a ceremony a few years ago to dedicate a bridge in Hall's native Cynthiana in his honor. She got to know the elderly coach and they became great friends. I've seen a number of pictures of the two of them together. When I heard the news of his death, she was the first person who came to my mind.

For all of Calipari's faults in the way he's managed the Kentucky basketball program, he's shown the proper respect for the past. His involvement in the recent ceremony in Rupp Arena honoring Smith is a prime example. But Calipari also reached out to Hall, having gotten the sense that the school had not paid proper homage to Hall's contributions. He became friends with his predecessor and made sure he knew just how much regard the state and fan base had for him.

In retrospect, I was definitely too hard on Hall. I was back in 1984 when UK lost to Georgetown, and I was back in the early 1970s when he drastically cut the playing time of our local Wildcat. Like many others, I've come to appreciate his accomplishments and his stewardship and guidance of the program. He brought a perspective to the coach's position -- native Kentuckian, former player, lifelong fan -- that has proven unique. No one could have possibly cared more about Kentucky basketball than Joe Beasman Hall.

Our state mourns his death, and I join thousands of others in offering sympathy and prayers for all those who knew him.

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.