Andy Barr, the representative from Kentucky’s 6th district since 2013, is now muscling in to succeed Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate. In the last few years Barr has gone from moderate business republican to now cozying up to the farthest right-wing elements, acting as a Trump Mini-Me , groveling for MAGA endorsements and corporate PAC cash. Don’t let the mild-mannered suit fool you. Underneath, it’s the same stale MAGA playbook and empty promises. Career Counselor to Wall Street When Andy Barr talks about “serving Kentucky,” he means the part of Kentucky that runs hedge funds and holds real estate portfolios. Not the folks in Eastern Kentucky struggling with hospital closures or the teachers paying for classroom supplies out of pocket. Barr didn’t build his career on Main Street; he built it lobbying for, and then legislating in favor of, America’s most powerful financial institutions . Before running for Congress, Barr cut his teeth as a staffer for Mitch McConnell and later worked...

Josh Calloway doesn’t just want to legislate his beliefs. He wants to embed them into the very foundations of Kentucky’s public education system. Through a calculated mix of religious fundamentalism, state-sponsored surveillance, and a fetish for authoritarian control, Calloway is helping to lead the charge in transforming schools from places of learning into instruments of ideological enforcement. Faith-Based Counseling Without Accountability It begins with the deceptively soft pitch of “pastoral counselors” in schools. On the surface, this might seem like a compassionate gesture toward addressing student trauma and mental health. But these counselors aren’t licensed professionals. They’re faith-based actors, selected not for their credentials in psychology or therapy, but for their alignment with a narrow, sectarian worldview. And under current proposals, they would be embedded directly into public institutions, paid with public funds, and granted access to vulnerable students, witho...

 In Kentucky and across the country, public education is under attack. But the threat isn’t just budget cuts or teacher shortages. It’s a coordinated effort to gut public schools by funneling public dollars into private, often religious, institutions. At the center of this push in Kentucky is Rep. Josh Calloway , a lawmaker who blends far-right ideology with evangelical zeal, all while cloaking his agenda in the language of “parental rights” and “school choice.” Calloway’s legislative record reads like a blueprint from national dark-money think tanks. He backed House Bill 208 , a bill that opens the door for Kentucky tax dollars to subsidize private religious schools. Though marketed as a way to give families more “freedom,” the real agenda is clear: defund and destabilize public education while using the state to prop up a narrow, sectarian vision of schooling. The Hope Academy Connection: Religious Rehab as Public Policy One of the clearest windows into Representative Josh Callow...

  From Pulpit to Power The Rise of a Kentucky Culture Warrior Rep. Josh Calloway isn’t just another small-town lawmaker. He’s the spearpoint of a growing movement to fuse Christian fundamentalism with state power, and Frankfort is his pulpit. If you’ve never heard of Rep. Josh Calloway, that’s by design. He doesn’t showboat like some of his far-right colleagues. He doesn’t need to. While others chase cable news hits, Calloway quietly builds a theocratic infrastructure, one bill, one board appointment, one fire-and-brimstone soundbite at a time. Calloway’s rise from pulpit to power reflects a broader strategy playing out across red states: reshape public life to reflect a narrow, often authoritarian brand of Christianity. The stakes for Kentucky? Public schools, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom, and the very idea of secular government. Who Is Josh Calloway? To understand Rep. Josh Calloway, you have to understand his mission: this is a man who didn’t run for office to govern. He ...

Kentucky’s legislative session took a hard turn this summer. Not to audit overspending, but to purge diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from our campuses. HB 4, passed this year, was sold as a cost-cutting, viewpoint-neutral reform. But when state officials leaned on universities about DEI and courses like UK’s Gender & Women’s Studies, the conversation suddenly shifted from policy to political fear-mongering. DEI Didn’t Cost the State Much But They Still Targeted It Let’s get something straight: this wasn’t about saving money. At the July 15 hearing , representatives from Kentucky’s public universities reported how much money was "saved" by complying with HB 4’s DEI restrictions, and the numbers are laughable. Western Kentucky University reported just $13,000 in savings. The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) redirected about $2.5 million (>1% of the total budget) from DEI programs to generalized student support. Not cut, just reallocated. ...