Chapter: Jefferson County

 The invitation to participate in member-driven grassroots activism along with music, brownies, cookies, and sweet tea brought numerous current KFTC members and dozens of community members to the new Jefferson County KFTC office in Louisville’s Smoketown Neighborhood.  At the event speakers explained the two new local chapter campaigns, air quality in the Rubbertown Neighborhood and affordable housing, and an information table was there to connect people with state-wide work.  Attendees were invited to tour the new office, meet KFTC members and allies, and write their vision for the Smoketown Neighborhood on poster boards.  People identified 100% voter registration, ending the food desert, affordable housing, more green space, green energy, installing bike lanes and sidewalks, spaces for children, and more jobs as priorities for the neighborhood.

We all know money talks, but surely not to the American justice system, right?  Bruce Stanely knows it does, at least in West Virginia where powerful coal baron Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, bought two West Virginia Supreme Court Justices.  Stanely, presenting the book about his experience, The Price of Justice, told 55 attendees in an overflow crowd at Carmichael’s Book Store Frankfort Ave. about the 14-year struggle he took part in against Massey Energy and its coal baron mastermind Blankenship.  The struggle would result in sabotaged computers, behind the scenes trips to the French Riviera, betrayal by disgruntled lovers, and winning a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  It’s the sort of intrigue that usually belongs in a Grisham novel—in fact, Grisham has publicly said he wishes he wrote the book.