State Senator Aaron Reed wants to look like a man of the people, boots, cowboy hat, and all, but his political playbook is pure MAGA cosplay. Beneath the costume lies a calculated career built on culture war posturing, military fetishism, and barely concealed far-right sympathies. With ambitions for higher office and a business that caters to gun culture, Reed isn’t just another right-wing state senator. He’s a walking billboard for Kentucky’s hard-right undercurrent. From Combat Boots to Cowboy Boots: Building a Brand on Macho Mythology Aaron Reed wears his military background like armor. Not just on his campaign materials, but in nearly every public appearance, policy pitch, and photo op. He leans hard into a narrative of discipline, duty, and strength, presenting himself as the hard-nosed patriot Kentucky needs. But scratch beneath the surface of this tactical persona, and what emerges is less a servant-leader and more a man obsessed with performance. Reed’s public image is carefull...

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...

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. ...

At a July 15 legislative committee hearing in Frankfort, Rep. Shane Baker, who once pushed to return the Ten Commandments to Kentucky’s Capitol, decided to interrogate a university course on Black Lives Matter, gender and women’s studies. He flat-out demanded to know why our tax dollars are funding lessons on equality and justice . Smokescreen of "Accountability" Rep. Shane Baker wants you to believe he’s just being a good steward of your tax dollars. That’s the role he plays in committee hearings, calmly asking bureaucrats why the University of Kentucky would dare offer courses that explore systemic inequality and gender justice. But don’t let the tone fool you. This isn’t budget oversight. It’s a censorship campaign wearing a fiscal mask. In the July 15 hearing, Baker singled out a UK course titled “Gender and Women’s Studies in the U.S.: Black Lives Matter.” He read the course description aloud to the committee with a tone of suspicion, pausing after this line: “The 14th...