KFTC members Carl Shoupe and Teri Blanton were part of a group of coalfield citizens who attended the shareholders meeting for the Bank of America today to help expose the company's role in financing mountaintop removal coal mining operations.

I came all the way from Kentucky because I am trying to save my homeland from the total destruction caused by Mountaintop Removal (MTR) Coal Mining, which Bank of America is a leading financier of. The southern Appalachian Mountains have some of the most biodiverse forests in the world; MTR coal producers, funded by Bank of America, are exploding the tops off these mountains, and off our culture. This is not just about saving the climate, but also about the survival of our culture for our grandchildren and future generations.

-Carl Shoupe, a third generation coal miner and Benham city council member

The action was coordinated by the Rainforest Action Network and you can read an account of the meeting, including what Teri Blanton had to say, at their web site.

Thanks to one of our members for pointing us toward this interesting narrated photo essay on mountaintop removal mining on the Washington Post's website.  The piece introduces the issue to people living in DC whose power comes from coal mined in West Virginia.  It is a nice introduction to the issue with some really well-shot photos.

You can view the photo essay here.

Today is the last day to register to vote for the May Primary Election in Kentucky.  If you're not registered, you can visit your local county clerk today before they close, or print out a registration card from Here -  and get it postmarked today. 

For more information on Kentucky's voting rules, visit our blog entry below.

A Lexington Herald-Leader story on Sunday documented real conflicts-of-interest for 31 state legislators, ranging from Rep. Rocky Adkins, who, as House Majority Floor Leader, protects the coal industry for whom he works, to Sen. Damon Thayer who helps the horse industry get what it wants.

It's dismaying that conflicts of interest are so widespread and widely accepted at the Capitol, the newspaper quoted Truman Hurt, who lobbied with KFTC for community causes during the past two sessions.

"When you serve in Frankfort, your job is supposed to be serving the people fairly," said Hurt, who lives in Perry County. "You shouldn't be worrying about your other job until you go home. If you can't draw that line, you shouldn't be there."

Most legislators denied that their conflict of interest clouded their judgement when representing the public's best interest in Frankfort.

Read the whole story here.

A group of young artists from Maine are working on a graphic banner project that will tell the story of coalfield resistance to MTR and the role every consumer in the United States plays in the destruction of Appalachian mountains and streams. The Beehive Collective is an internationally known design group who's work takes on pressing social justice issues.

The group's previous projects have focused on large banners that tell the story of oppression in Latin America and a critique of the Free Trade Agreement.  Now the Hive are focusing their energy on an issue closer to home. 

A representation of Plan Colombia by the Beehive Collective

For their first design to ever  take on a movement  that is U.S.-based, the Bees are making a banner about coal with an emphasis on mountaintop removal.  Nine artists from the collective have been staying in Harlan County and visiting with KFTC members to collaborate on designing a banner that will tell the story of resistance to the industry and MTR in the coalfields and offer a vision of hope for the future.

"Even though it's going to be a challenging experience to capture the scope of devastation in our area, from what I know about their work, it's going to be a very informative and powerful project," said Carl Shoupe who recently met with artists from the Beehive Collective in Harlan County.  The poster is expected to be done by this Fall and KFTC will have access to a banner and will be able to sell posters of the design as well as use it as an educational and organizing tool.  The artists from Beehive are also designing educational materials on coal that will supplement their artwork. To learn more about The Beehive Collective  and view some of their work you can visit them online at: www.beehivecollective.org.

It feels like we've had an active University of Kentucky KFTC group forever at this point, but in fact, they've just wrapped up their first academic year together.

Highlights for the first year include:
- Massive student voter registration drives resulting in over 700 registrations
- Several dozen community tabling events
- Two large Restoration of Voting Rights for Former Felons events to raise awareness
- Great leadership development
- Great membership recruitment to help KFTC hit its goal of reaching 5,000 members
- Well-planned and fun Concert For The Commonwealth last Fall
- Great ally work
- Great work in the Legislative Session to bring students to Frankfort and otherwise
- Strong supporting role on the Robinson Forest campaign
- Great Voter Empowerment work around the UK Student Government Elections, launching a website with survey results from 40 candidates and 4,600 web visits to see them.

Kudos to Joe Gallenstein, Danny Cotton, John Ghaelian, Katie Goldey, Alise Marshall, Matt Harmin, Chuck Clenney, Watson Harding, Charlie Denison, Kim Hoffmeister, Hunter Palmer, Patrick Nally, Joan Braun, Kyle Randall, Rob Reyes, Sarah Kyser, Jessica Bookout, Phillip Gravatte, Rachel Lewis, and sooo many others who made UK KFTC's first year a success. 

The UK crew are going to gather one last time in the semester Tuesday at 8pm in Student Center room 106 to go out to dinner and celebrate the year.  Feel free to join them.

On April 21st at noon, UK KFTC is also organizing a Voter Empowerment event, encouraging UK students registered on campus but from elsewhere to vote early if they'll be out of the city on Election Day (after finals).  Come by and walk with us to the County Clerk's office downtown to cast your ballot early.  

Voter registration has played a minor role in KFTC's Voter Empowerment workplan so far in 2008, partially because of awkwardness of primary voter registration rules in Kentucky.

I know some of you will be registering voters over the next 2 weeks, so I wanted to write a quick memo to let you know about potential hazards of registration this season.

This gets complicated, so read carefully.
 
The deadline to register to vote for the Kentucky Primary Election is Monday, April 21st. People who have never registered in Kentucky before (even if they were previously registered in another state) can register normally up to and including on that date and they can pick any party and vote in that party's Primary.

On the other hand, people who are currently registered in Kentucky cannot change their party affiliation (since the deadline in December of last year).

If, for example, someone was registered as a Kentucky Republican last year and turned in a voter registration card tomorrow and marked Democrat (perhaps wanting to have an impact on the big presidential primary), not only would they Not be allowed to vote in the Democratic primary, but they also would Not be allowed to vote in the Republican primary. They'd only be allowed to cast a vote in the handful of non-partisan races throughout the state.

This is especially complicated because so much of our voter registration work is with transient communities and people who are updating their addresses. If they don't know what party they're in now and they "guess" wrong on the voter registration card, they'll lose the right to vote in any partisan primaries.

There's a website people can visit to find out whether or not they're registered in Kentucky and what party they're registered as. It's helpful, but not all that efficient to have at community tabling events, etc. https://cdcbp.ky.gov/VICWeb/index.jsp

Members and organizers should try to make people aware of these issues before people fill out the cards, but we should also use the above website to check people's voter registrations after events but before we turn them in.  In cases that people list a different party affiliation than they presently hold, we should call those people before we turn in the cards and give them a chance to change things.

There's a lot of groups out there registering voters in Kentucky right now, and I fear that some of them are doing it in such a way that disenfranchises more people than it empowers... Let's be careful not be one of those groups.

Call or email me if you have questions.

The event is an opportunity to celebrate our successes and energy. To that end, we've organized a fun, family-oriented event on Thursday at La Bamba (across from Aguas Calientes) on Alexandria Drive. There will be live music and community representatives sharing their stories and successes in working for justice for immigrants. Though it serves as a nightclub on the weekends there will be no alcohol on Thursday.

Many folks are doing great things here in Lexington and around the state. Let's focus on what draws us together to keep building a welcoming Kentucky. All are welcome.

Hope to see you Thursday!

¡CELEBREMOS LA SOLIDARIDAD!
¡A 2 AÑOS DE LAS GRANDES MOVILIZACIONES “10-10-10”
DE INMIGRANTES Y AMIGOS DEL 10 DE ABRIL DEL 2006!

Jueves, 10 de Abril
de 6:00 a 11:00 PM
en LA BAMBA Nightclub (en Alexandria Dr. cerca de la Versailles Rd.)
LEXINGTON, KY

¡Vengan a celebrar, a reunirse, y a continuar la lucha... para que el miedo no nos paralice!

Para inmigrantes, amigos, y toda la familia.

No habrá alcohol.

Si le gustaría a usted ser parte del programa favor de ponerse en contacto con nosotros.

859-685-0387 / ahutson@kcirr.org

Join us for a two year anniversary of the the 10-10-10 Rally for Immigrant Rights on April 10, 2006.

Thursday April 10
6 PM - 11 PM
La Bamba Nightclub (on Alexandria Dr, near Versailles Rd.)
LEXINGTON, KY

Come have fun, get together, and continue the fight for immigrant rights!

Open to immigrants, friends, and the whole family.

If you’d like to be part of the program please contact us.

859-685-0387 / ahutson@kcirr.org

Members of KFTC and several other ally groups are in Washington D.C. this week lobbying members of Congress to support the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169).  This bill would expand the Clean Water Act to prohibit the dumping of mining waste into rivers and streams, effectively outlawing the practice of valley fills.  The Clean Water Protection Act currently has 129 co-sponsors in the House (including Reps. Ben Chandler and John Yarmuth from Kentucky), and we are working to expand that list.

We are asking everyone who cares about protecting our streams to call the Capitol Message Line (202-225-3121) and leave a message for your member of Congress, asking that they sign on as a co-sponsor to this legislation or thank them if they already have signed on as a co-sponsor. 

Please visit ilovemountains.org for more information on this action and a list of co-sponsors.

KFTC members are speaking out against the budget that passed through the Senate and the House, and that now goes to the governor for approval or a veto (or line-item veto).

Steve Boyce, of Madison County, said that the budget sends a message about the legislature, and about the direction that lawmakers are taking the state.  "With this budget," Steve said, "the legislature is saying, 'We can’t get ourselves together enough to say that education, the quality of life, and health care are priorities.'"

"I heard one of the legislators on the radio saying that there’s pain in this budget but that in these hard times, with the national economic downturn, this budget is the best we can do, blaming the economy for the entirety of our revenue problem. That’s a cop-out. This budget isn’t just hard times.  If that legislator doesn’t know that, he is uninformed at a dangerous level.  Kentucky’s structural imbalance is well documented.  We’ve been aware, and many legislators have been aware, that this is the result of a long-term structural deficit and the legislature’s lack of will to fix the problem.  At some point, that structural deficit has to be dealt with.”

K. A. Owens, a Jefferson County member and KFTC's vice-chair, called this budget "the sad result of a completely failed process."  "When [Rep. Harry] Moberly calls it 'a diabolical deal,' he’s on the right track.  The budget is a tragedy.  Now is the time for us to plan,rebuild and reorganize.  We need to get better legislators.  The fact that some of the good legislators, like Rep. [Jim] Wayne and Rep. Moberly, worked hard to support a budget that would have been effective in putting the state on a sound footing gives us hope for the future. The fact that some of the good legislators voted against the bad budget, shows that people of character still exist in Frankfort.   We need to get more legislators of good character in Frankfort to support them.  KFTC and allies have more work to do.  We need more good legislators in Frankfort.  The results of the 2008 budget process demand new, better people in Frankfort."

It is unclear if the governor will veto or sign the budget into law, or let it become law without his signature. He can also veto individual line items. Gov. Beshear has acknowledged that the budget will cause pain, although it appropriates more for health care, environmental protection and education than his original budget proposal.