Trump's Gift to Veterans

I mean grift.

But it should still leave us speechless that only a few days ago the President of the United States was held liable by judge of defrauding veterans to the tune of millions of dollars via a fake charity he used for vainglorious personal and campaign expenses.
...
 
Our eyes glaze over reading this stuff because…well, it’s Donald Trump. But that’s only because our sense of moral outrage has become deadened by his behavior. Try, if you can, to imagine that Barack Obama had raised money for veterans only to spend it on a giant portrait of himself and a bunch of sports memorabilia. It would have singlehandedly destroyed his presidency and would likely have forced his resignation. George W. Bush was certainly no saint, and his administration was guilty of misdeeds of horrendous consequence. But he would never have been so tawdry and venal as to steal money from veterans for such things. If he had, it would likely have ended his presidency. Same for Clinton, Bush Senior, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. None of them would have survived such a revelation.

But in this funhouse horror of an administration, the news that the President of the United States was forced by a judge to repay $2 million to real charities because of these grifter scams was just another Thursday. It wasn’t even the top headline of the day.

Donald Trump skates by because we have come to expect this level of debasement from him. Because they refuse to hold him accountable, we have come to expect it of the entire Republican Party.

Also this indescribable Dishonor .

Veterans and active-duty military luuuurrrrvvve the Pumpkin Traitor and I will never understand it.

Happy Veterans Day.

"Dark Forces" Attacking Lt. Gov. Hampton Are the Ones She Eagerly Allied With

Lay down with repugs, get up with corruption, crime and clusterfucks.

And oh, yeah: racist, misogynistic motherfuckers.

You're a black woman, Jenean Hampton.  Successful and a veteran.  All the rights - ALL the rights you have as both an African-American and a woman have been brought to you by liberals and progressives (republicans for about 15 years 160 years ago, and Democrats since 1933.)

Why did you ever imagine teaming up with conservative assholes like Matt Bevin to destroy the Commonwealth and eventually the nation would turn out well for you?

Why are your wasting your own and everybody's else's time asking them to talk to an imaginary sky wizard? 

Why aren't you on Rachel Maddow exposing all of Bevin's crimes? Why aren't you rallying black and female voters behind Andy Beshear?

What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. You?

Bevin Admin to Give Tax Dollars to For-Profit Charter Scam-Schools

Because  all charter "schools" are scams.  Whether White Supremacy Apartheid charters, christian Dominionism Madrassa charters, Skimming Top Students Away From Public Schools charters, Killing Public Education For Fun and Profit charters or just plain old-fashioned Sucking Tax Dollars Into Private Pockets charters, they are all scams.

And Bevin will strip the public treasury bare to make all his billionaire buddies rich.

From the Herald:

Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis said Friday that he will ask the 2019 General Assembly to create a funding mechanism or process for charter schools, but that doesn’t mean that he is asking for extra money.

Of course not.  He'll take the money away from public schools, then use the resulting failure of unfunded public schools to justify making all schools charters.

“It’s simply a mechanism that shows how dollars — already appropriated public schools dollars — would follow a kid to a public charter school if their parents decide to enroll them in a public charter school,” he said.

At a meeting in Frankfort of the newly configured Kentucky Charter Schools Advisory Council, Lewis said he would advocate for anything else the state could do to raise achievement and close achievement gaps.

“It’s my job as Commissioner of Education to do everything that I can to move achievement ... to close achievement gaps ... and high quality public charter schools are one of the tools ... particularly with low income kids, kids of color, that’s what the research shows us.”

That is a blatant lie.  Many studies have shown that the handful of exceptional charter schools - non-religious and non-profit - at best do no worse educating students than do public schools.  Far more commonly, religious charters teach nothing but religion and for-profit charters teach nothing at all because all the funding goes to make the rich owners richer.

The General Assembly passed a law in 2017 to allow public charter schools in Kentucky for the first time. But none have opened.

Those who want to open charters in Northern Kentucky, Louisville and Richmond have said they are hesitant to file applications with their local school board as the law requires because there’s no current funding process for dollars to flow into charter schools, in state law. 

Northern Kentucky, home of Catholic freakazoids and John-Bircher-style conservatives.  I wouldn't put a dog I hated into the kind of charters NKY is likely to come up with.

And it turns out that charter schools make all schools worse because they fail to address the real root of poor schools:  poverty and racism.

Erik Loomis at LGM:

You don’t say! You mean the problem with American education is poverty? Kids living through domestic violence? Kids lacking nutrition? Who fucking knew! Glad Gates spent $700 million discovering that the only way to fix education is to fix poverty and racism. It’s not like he could have discovered that before he spent the money by just asking people. Or, I don’t know, watching Season 4 of The Wire. Speaking of which, I love how David Simon went after charter schools scammers long before it was cool to do so, back when they were supported by internet liberals, not only in The Wire, but in Treme, even as it was a relatively minor theme in Season 2.

But then those solutions don’t fit the profiteers behind charter schools or the privatizers who hate public goods. No money to be made fighting poverty!

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article221407295.html#storylink=cpy

Here's Your Winning Democratic Speech Calling Out Repug Hate, Lying, Corruption

Courtesy of Kevin Drum.  Send it everywhere.

The entire Republican Party is dedicated to lying all the time. Climate change is a hoax. Sexual assault victims are making stuff up. Tax cuts are for the middle class. Heh. That’s because the closest they ever come to a real middle class voter is some Wall Street broker making a million dollars a year. And now they’re lying about terrorists marching their way up through Mexico to kill us all. They’re all just lies and everyone knows it. The Republican Party has turned into the party of lies.

There used to be at least a few Republicans compassionate enough to feel bad about ripping immigrant children from their mothers. Not anymore. The ugliest, meanest parts of the Republican Party love it when Jeff Sessions takes those babies away. It gets big cheers at all those creepy rallies that Donald Trump puts on for Fox News. The Republican Party has turned into the party of hate.

Democrats believe in the rule of law. Donald Trump believes the attorney general’s job is to help his friends and punish his enemies. And what do Republicans think of this? Well, the ones in Congress sure don’t seem to have any problem with it. The Republican Party has turned into the party of corruption.

The Only Issue is Corruption

Forget the ridiculous details.  Forget even the Russians.  It's the Corruption, Stupid.

 

Via Digby.

This piece by Adam Serwer clarifies the big question about how to think about this gusher of Trump scandals:

The sheer volume of Trump scandals can seem difficult to keep track of.

SNIP

 There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.

SNIP

In each of these cases, the president or one of his associates was seeking to profit, personally or financially, from their official duties and powers. When that conduct has potentially run afoul of the law, Trump has sought to bend federal law enforcement to his whim, the better to protect himself and his associates from legal accountability. The president’s ongoing chastising of his own Justice Department, and his war of words with current and former FBI officials, stem less from any coherent ideological principle than from Trump’s desperate need to protect himself. An authoritarian model of law enforcement,where the president personally decides who is prosecuted and who is not based on his own political agenda, is simply the best way for Trump to shield himself and his inner circle from legal consequences.

Also via Digby, Michael Tomasky  Michael Tomasky predicting dem losses in November unless they attack the Orange Menace directly.  He concludes:

The president is lawless. His lawyer is lawless. Both of his lawyers. All they know is to lie, deny, distort, extort, and bully. The country is being governed by Mafiosi values. If the Democrats are unwilling to say that, they’ll let down millions of Americans who are counting on them to defend the law, and they’ll lose, and deserve to. History sometimes presents moments when caution is called for. This isn’t one of them.

Dirty Energy Fighting Dirty to Kill Solar in Kentucky

Jim Gooch has been the stupidest and most corrupt member of a stupid and corrupt General Assembly for decades.  His name on legislation guarantees the bill will severely harm the poorest and most defenseless Kentuckians.  Compared to the Gooch, Jim Inhofe is a tree-hugger.

Of course Gooch is getting rich by doing utilities' dirty work to kill renewable energy.

Tom Eblen at the Herald:

The anti-solar energy bill that was narrowly passed by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate illustrates two weaknesses in Kentucky’s civic character: We try to cling to the past, and we tolerate dirty politics.

House Bill 227 was written by electric utilities to protect their monopolies by discouraging Kentuckians from installing solar panels on their homes.

Under current law, homeowners with solar panels get full credit for excess power they feed into the utility grid on sunny days for when they need to draw it out at night or on cloudy days. This bill would significantly cut that credit, while making them pay full price for power they draw out.

SNIP
 
Solar panel installers — mostly small businesses scattered around the state — say drastically cutting the so-called net metering rate would all but put them out of business, costing Kentucky hundreds of jobs. Fewer homeowners will install solar panels if low credit rates make it harder for them to recoup their investment. 

What this bill is really about is protecting the utilities’ traditional business model and protecting their monopolies on generating electricity. It’s as if carriage makers a century ago had tried to ban automobiles from the road, claiming they were unfair to horses.

SNIP

 he story of how this bill even made it to the House floor is a case study in dirty politics. 

It was the work of Rep. Jim Gooch of Providence, a Democrat-turned-Republican and longtime chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. Gooch, the coal industry’s best friend in Frankfort, is most famous for a 2007 legislative hearing he organized on the science of climate change that included no scientists, only climate-change deniers.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article205488339.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article205488339.html#storylink=cpy

Accomplishments

From Political Animal:

 It is about time to sum things up, so here ya go:

Mat Molina@Trollin_Trump 

Here's a few of @realDonaldTrump actual first year presidential records: 

1) Most days vacationing
2) Most games of golf played
3) Least amount of bills signed
4) Lowest approval ratings
5) Most provable lies
6) Most cabinet firings/registration
7) Most criminal indictments

7:59 PM - Dec 28, 2017

Trust

Divine Irony:

Bevin adopts trumpian lies to cover up corruption.

Now we know the "tell" of politicians out to destroy the social contract and Democratic principles: trumpian lies.

From the Courier-Journal editorial board:

Poker players refer to tells, the clear signal another player unconsciously puts out that makes his hand evident.

A tell, obviously, is a liability in poker. Tells appear in other avenues of life, too, like politics.

Take Gov. Matt Bevin, for instance, whose political tell was in full effect Tuesday before a tour by an assessment committee at his Anchorage mansion that will be used to help determine the true value of the home.

More: Reporters denied access to inspection of Bevin's Anchorage mansion

 

Bevin turns positively Trumpian when he's under pressure, unleashing a flurry of falsehoods to try to deflect attention from the real issues, like whether he got a sweetheart deal on his mansion's purchase price from his buddy and political crony.

Here are some examples of the laughably ridiculous tweets he fired off Tuesday.

Lie 1: He accused the Courier-Journal and WAVE 3 News of flying a drone over his home.

Lie 2: He claimed the drone was filming his children.

Lie 3: He said Courier-Journal reporter Tom Loftus came to the governor’s home with three attorneys trying to get into his home.

These claims are false. TV station WDRB acknowledged flying the drone. There were no children filmed. Only one attorney accompanied reporter Tom Loftus, there to point out that the inspection was a public meeting subject to the Kentucky Open Meetings Act.

More: Gov. Matt Bevin falsely claims Courier-Journal flew drone over his Anchorage house

 

More: Did Matt Bevin get a deal on his Anchorage home? A house call may settle this

 

Bevin's tell is worth paying attention to, especially as state government gears up to tackle the crippling pension crisis.

We know the pension problem is real and we fully support Bevin's determination to fix it. 

We also know the governor's tell, and we'll be watching closely for it as his priorities play out. 

It's a church! It's a business! It's a Lying Bunch of Grifters

The Big Gay Wooden Box is revealing the true soul of religion: use it to justify whatever you want to do.

Linda Blackford at the Herald:

Three days after state tourism officials suspended an $18 million tax incentive, officials at a Noah’s Ark theme park have sold their main parcel back to their for-profit entity for $10.

The issue started in late June after Ark Encounter LLC sold the parcel to its non-profit affiliate, Crosswater Canyon for $10. The deed continues to describe the property as worth $18 million even though the Grant County PVA has assessed the land for $48 million.

Ark Encounter officials have declined to say why they sold the property in the first place, but the move in June coincided with their refusal to pay a safety assessment tax levied by the city of Williamstown. City officials worried that the sale might be the first step in the ark park claiming non-profit status, which would exempt it from property taxes.

Thanks to the Freedom From Religion Foundation for demanding Kentucky withdraw the tax incentives.  If only we had a non-freakazoid governor who would use the money for the benefit of all, rather than his co-religionists.

The Resistance: Hit the Streets

Digby:

I'm glad to see it. This is from Move On, but I think it's happening with every Resistance group in the country:

Host a Mueller Firing Rapid Response Event

New revelations of Russia's meddling in our elections are increasing the odds that Donald Trump will try to block the investigation of his Administration's potential collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice.
Experts believe that there is a good possibility that Trump will fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
If Trump fires Mueller, we want to be ready to take the streets to protest within hours - to demand that Congress respond quickly and forcefully – to protect our democracy and justice system.

This isn't hysteria. People need to be prepared for what they will do in case this constitutional crisis comes to pass.

If It Quacks Like A Meth Whore

Rude Pundit nails it:

But at some goddamned point, if you keep sucking dicks for money for meth, you're a meth whore. Sure, sure, you suck one or two dicks and get paid and then go buy meth, maybe we can let it slide as tweaker shit. But if you're doing it every day, then you, my friend, have a problem with meth. And handling your finances. But mostly meth.
It's becoming more difficult to deny that the Trump administration is a meth whore. And we know who the john is.

No Healthcare for Working People, But a Quarter-Million for Freakazoid Fraud

So Kentucky taxpayers are just tickled to death - literally - that their healthcare dollars are now going to ensure that only straight, white, christian, conservative, repug married couples get to adopt.

Next "reform": firing all child protective workers who are gay, muslim, atheist, darker than a paper bag or just too liberal.  I give this motherfucker six months to purge the department.

From the Herald:

Democratic lawmakers have vocally opposed Bevin’s hiring of Dumas, criticizing his qualifications and the amount he’s slated to earn when compared to salaries for child-protection workers in the state.

“I don’t think this particular individual was qualified for the job,” Carroll said after the meeting of the Government Contract Review Committee. “My personal opinion is that [Bevin] was playing for the religious vote. He constantly does and that’s his privilege.”

Bevin has defended his hiring of Dumas to overhaul Kentucky’s adoption and foster care systems, saying the criticism is unjustified.

SNIP

The number of substantiated child abuse and neglect findings in Kentucky increased 55 percent from 2012 to 2016. There are more than 8,000 children in Kentucky’s foster care system. An estimated 1,200 of those are available for adoption.

Despite the testimony lauding Dumas’ leadership qualifications, Carroll remained skeptical.

“I don’t see any justifiable reason to pay a minister who knows absolutely nothing about adoption, he knows nothing about the operation of state government,” Carroll said. “He’s had one adoption, so now he’s an expert at adoptions?”

Nope.  He's an expert at establishing and enforcing Dominionism.

Secrecy: Authoritarianism's Dead Giveaway

This is so fucking cute. Bevin snatches a quarter-million dollars from Medicaid patients losing their health coverage in a secret repug Senate bill to pay for a secret hotline run by political hacks to keep state government corruption - wait for it - secret.

Your ass is showing, motherfucker.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration is spending nearly $250,000 this year for a new hotline and website that state employees and Kentucky residents can use to report wrongdoing in government.

Attorney General Andy Beshear said he has “serious concerns” about the new hotline, calling it redundant and lacking independent, trained investigators.

“I, like all Kentuckians, want to ensure that reports of unethical or illegal actions are reported to and investigated by a trained, independent and nonpartisan government agency,” Beshear said in an email.

Beshear, a Democrat, noted that state employees may anonymously report any questionable activity to his office through its Department of Criminal Investigation at 866-524-3672. That number is answered by sworn law enforcement officers, who are career merit employees, not at-will employees, he said.

Under Bevin’s hotline, reports “will not go to an independent law enforcement agency, but to his political employees who will then decide which allegations are investigated and which are not,” said the state’s chief law-enforcement official.

“That is putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” Beshear said.

Freakazoid Failure Fucking Over Kentucky Taxpayers

Not just predictable, but predictED by many of us who screamed bloody murder about $18 million in state tax dollars and millions more in local tax dollars going unconstitutionally to a creationist boondoggle.

Now the locals who stupidly put their faith in grifters touting an invisible sky wizard are reaping what they sowed.

I'd laugh, except that it's my tax dollars they are stealing.

Linda Blackford at the Herald

Plants’ partner, Matt Griffith, moved to Williamstown from West Virginia last September, when he opened the restaurant, and he readily admits that those hordes have not yet appeared. In fact, he closed it down for three months over the winter.

“No one really knows it’s here,” he said. “Signage is our biggest issue,” partly because the restaurant sits on one side of Interstate 75 and the Ark is on the other. “But I like to be optimistic. We’ve been here a year and it’s going to grow.”

Stormey Vanover is less hopeful.

She has operated Country Heart Crafts on Williamstown’s Main Street for the past nine years, sometimes with a profit, sometimes at a loss.

“We do get a few people from the Ark, but they don’t really know we’re here,” she said amid the Kentucky-made soaps, candles and ornaments featured in her store, which is surrounded by empty storefronts. “It’s just not impacting us the way we thought it would.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article154014269.html#storylink=cpy

Maybe because impact has no meaning as a verb except in reference to teeth or bodily orifices.

It has been almost a year since Ark Encounter opened, promising a surge of economic development in the county of 24,000 people in return for generous state and local tax breaks.

Ark co-founder Mike Zovath said the attraction will attract its 1 millionth visitor by July, but there is no way to independently verify that number. He says all of Answers in Genesis, including the Creation Museum, will employ about 900 people this summer.

Locals do see cars and tour buses full of tourists eager to see the life-size wooden boat, filled with exhibits of young-Earth creationism, an animatronic Noah and friendly dinosaurs. What they don’t see is those tourists crossing over I-75 to drive the mile or two into downtown Williamstown to eat, drink and shop.

Main Street has been in decline since the 1970s, when I-75 replaced KY-25 as a major north-south artery that was filled with cars and people, locals say. The Ark was the first ray of hope the city had seen in years.

In his office at the old county courthouse, Grant County Judge-Executive Steve Wood has heard all the complaints. Dry Ridge, about five miles north on I-75, has seen an uptick in hotel and restaurant business, but Williamstown, which sits farther off the interstate, hasn’t appeared to share in the bounty.

Wood knows that tourism revenue is up based on hotel tax receipts, but as the anniversary of Ark Encounter approaches, he doesn’t think the benefits are yet outweighing what Grant County and the state gave away.

“It’s a really bad deal for taxpayers,” Wood said of the Ark Encounter’s agreements with the county and city, which were made before he took office last year. The biggest property tax break will be in place for 30 years. “It was a shock for me because I didn’t really know all the details. Maybe I should have.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article154014269.html#storylink=cpy

Ya THINK?!

Answers in Genesis received a generous combination of state and local incentives, acknowledging in numerous documents that without them, the $100 million attraction would not be built in Grant County.

Former Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration awarded the project a sales tax rebate under the state’s Tourism Development Incentive Program for as much as $18 million over 10 years. It was later canceled after state officials found out that the attraction would require declarations of Christian faith from potential employees. Ark officials sued and won in federal court. Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration then reappproved the initial request.

The company will report its first-year sales to the Tourism Development Finance Authority in August, officials said.

The state also agreed to expand the I-75 interchange at costs that ranged between $9 million and $11 million. State transportation officials recently decided to rebuild the exit ramps at a cost of $2.4 million, making them wider so traffic doesn’t back up onto I-75. That project is scheduled to start this fall.

Grant County and Williamstown officials also offered a series of incentives, none of which have accountability measures, such as requiring the company to maintain a certain number of jobs.

SNIP

The first year of the Ark park has coincided with the near-bankruptcy of Grant County, troubles that stem from inefficiencies and overspending at the county jail. Wood and the fiscal court recently implemented a 2 percent payroll tax, which will infuse a much-needed $3 million into county coffers. That tax will drop to 1.5 percent in the second year and 1 percent in the third.

SNIP

“The Ark’s growth is great for their success,” Murphy said. “But until we see some of that here, it’s really not done as well as we hoped.”

Gov. Bevin's New Anti-Crime Program: Pray It Away

And of course this is not just a cynical ploy to exploit African-American religiousness to put black community activists in the path of black criminals.  No, of course not.

This is not about race, because nothing is ever about race.

Juanita Jean:

The Republican Governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, has a solution to crime in his capital city: “Volunteer patrols that will not report or stop criminal activity, but pray it away.”

 

He appears to be serious.

Bevin suggested at a community meeting that volunteer groups of between three and 10 people would adopt specific blocks and walk around them while praying, according to WHAS, the Louisville ABC station.

“You know, you walk to a corner, pray for the people, talk to people along the way,” Bevin said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “No songs, no singing, no bullhorn, no T-shirts, no chanting. Be pleasant, talk to the people, that’s it.”

That’s it, y’all.

We will meet at the south gate of the White House and pray like the dickens that God shoves Donald Trump out so we can change the locks.  Apparently, that’s all there is to it.

A couple of points:  Frankfort, population 27,557, is the third-smallest capitol city in the nation.  While it boasts a couple of sketchy neighborhoods, one just a few blocks from the Capitol where Bevin works and Governor's Mansion where he does not live, it ain't the kind of urban core Bevin and his conservative buddies like to terrify the suburban white folks about.

"Pray Away the Crime" is bullshit and Bevin knows it.  I just hope the people he's really targeting figure it out and tell him to pray his own damn crimes away.

Yes, Trump Is Still Putin's Pawn

This "getting tough on Russia" bullshit is a fake to make it seem that Trump would never have colluded with Putin to win the election.

I think that Putin is holding his promissory notes.  About $10 billion worth.

Because Elected Power is Never Enough for Republicans

They have to have permanent dictatorship. And they'll cheat to get it.

Zandar:

Kentucky Republicans in Frankfort have decided that since the state Attorney General is Democrat Andy Beshear, that maybe the office needs a hefty chunk of its power removed so that GOP Gov. Matt Bevin can do whatever he wants to.

The President of the state Senate has filed a change to a bill that would strip power from the attorney general and give the governor exclusive authority to represent the state in many legal matters. 

On Wednesday morning, attorney general Andy Beshear called the measure “an unprecedented power grab and one of the worst constitutional overreaches since the adoption of our current constitution.” 

“The attorney general is not the governor’s lawyer, he’s not the General Assembly’s’ lawyer, he is the people’s lawyer,” Beshear said. “Because, as the Supreme Court explained, in Kentucky, the people are the sovereign, the people are the king. Not the government and not the governor.” 

Beshear said the proposal amounted to a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for the governor.

 SNIP

Odds are really fantastic that this will pass and that Bevin will sign it.  Whether or not it gets past Kentucky's Supreme Court I couldn't tell you, but giving most of the office's statewide power to Matt Bevin seems like a horrendous idea.
It's also a serious ethical and oversight breach, but then again these are Republicans we're talking about.  Using government power for their own purposes is absolutely fine.  Using it to help the people of the Commonwealth, well that's unfair.

KY GOP Not Fooling Anybody

They are motherfuckers, and they are gonna fuck all the mothers, and they need every motherfucker they can get, no matter how racist, corrupt or otherwise purely trumpian.

 

Bruce Schreiner, AP:

Fellow Republicans considered preacher-turned-politician Dan Johnson to be a pariah during his campaign last fall after he kept racist images on his Facebook page disparaging Barack and Michelle Obama.

Now that he's sitting in the Kentucky House of Representatives, a party leader calls him a "fine fellow."

Johnson was welcomed as he quickly got to work during the General Assembly's frenzied first week. He gave floor speeches, joined GOP caucus strategy sessions on restricting abortions and weakening unions, and introduced a bill to keep "Sharia law" out of Kentucky's courts.

Kentucky Republicans won big as Donald Trump swept into the White House, but as political discourse becomes increasingly polarized and with the backlash against Johnson still fresh in their minds, they've sought to avoid controversies that could distract from their agenda.

"We told every member ... keep your eye on the ball, don't run off on tangents," said GOP state Rep. Kevin Bratcher, the new majority whip. "Our job right now is to pass legislation that gets people to work."

That means melting the party's initially icy approach to Johnson and his outsider campaign. The party stands by its denunciation of Johnson for the Facebook images, but considers it a "settled issue," said state GOP spokesman Tres Watson.

"We're ready to move forward," Watson said. "He's a Republican state representative and we're the Republican Party of Kentucky."

Illegitimate and Racist Aren't the Half of It

Scott Lemieux at LGM:

So an institutional mechanism designed to overrepresent slaveholders, with a major assist from the FBI, installed an overt racist as president. I’d say American constitutionalism seems very robust right now.

The crucial question is not why John Lewis isn’t treating Trump as legitimate, but why other prominent Democrats are.