Love this song.
Even if this world and this style are so far away from me. I'm from Harlan, too. Harlan is everywhere!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n57WBtvtC4
https://word.undead-network.de/2025/03/14/love-this-song/
#country #endoftheworld #harlan #music #workingclass #youneverleaveharlanalive
#EAS #WEA for Harlan, #KY: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 9:00 PM EST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Jackson KY #Harlan, #KYwx** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***
#EAS #WEA for Bell, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Leslie, #KY: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 8:45 PM EST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Jackson KY #Bell, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Leslie, #KYwx** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SO
#EAS #WEA for Bell, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Leslie, #KY: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 8:45 PM EST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Jackson KY ** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***
#EAS #WEA for Bell, #KY; #Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Knox, #KY; #Leslie, #KY: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 8:15 PM EST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Jackson KY #Bell, #KY; #Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Knox, #KY; #Leslie, #KYwx** DO NOT RELY ON
#EAS #WEA for Bell, #KY; #Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Knox, #KY; #Leslie, #KY: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 8:15 PM EST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Jackson KY ** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***
#EAS #WEA for Bell, #KY; #Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Knox, #KY; #Leslie, #KY: #Tornado Warning issued February 6 at 7:49PM EST until February 6 at 8:15PM EST by NWS Jackson KY Source: NWS Jackson KY #Bell, #KY; #Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Knox, #KY; #Leslie, #KYwx** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***
#EAS #WEA for Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Leslie, #KY: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 8:15 PM EST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Jackson KY ** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***
#EAS #WEA for Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Leslie, #KY: National Weather Service: #TORNADO WARNING in this area until 8:15 PM EST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media. Source: NWS Jackson KY #Clay, #KY; #Harlan, #KY; #Leslie, #KYwx** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SO
#Charles #Koch, perhaps the most legendary Republican financier of recent decades,
has never backed Trump, either.
The political network affiliated with him and his late brother #David remained officially neutral in the Presidential races of 2016 and 2020,
and spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat Trump in this year’s Republican primaries,
-- much of it supporting Haley.
When she dropped out, the Koch network concentrated on down-ballot races.
But Kochworld, like the Republican Party more broadly, remains divided.
“There are a lot of donors in that network lobbying Charles from the perspective of,
I know you don’t like him,
but he’s better than the alternative,”
Marc Short, who worked for a Koch-affiliated group
and later served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said.
Nevertheless, neither Koch nor Pence is supporting Trump this fall
—a remarkable rift, given the role that each of them has played in Republican politics.
At the same time, Trump has cultivated a new group of what might be called #maga #megadonors.
A study conducted for The New Yorker by the campaign-finance expert Robert Maguire,
of the nonprofit good-government group #crew,
found that, as of this summer,
more than forty of the G.O.P.’s biggest super-pac donors during Romney’s 2012 campaign had never given to a pro-Trump super pac,
including Oracle’s co-founder #Larry #Ellison,
the Dallas real-estate tycoon #Harlan #Crow,
and the hotel magnate J. W. #Marriott, Jr.
Meanwhile, nearly sixty pro-Trump donors in the study,
including #Lutnick, #Mellon, #Perlmutter, and the Wisconsin shipping magnates #Richard and #Elizabeth #Uihlein, had given nothing to the pro-Romney super pac.
Others have significantly increased their giving.
The #Adelsons, for example, donated $53 million to the pro-Romney super pac in 2012 and $90 million to support Trump in 2020,
when they were the largest individual donors of the cycle.
By the end of September, Miriam Adelson had given $100 million to back Trump in 2024.
With such sums at stake, Trump has pursued what the former Bush Pioneer called a “high touch” approach to the Republican billionaire class.
The ex-President has all but invited donors to view their contributions as business investments,
telling oil-and-gas executives who went to see him in April at Mar-a-Lago, for example, that, 
because he would allow unrestricted drilling, 
they should raise $1 billion for his campaign
—a statement redolent of Sondland’s “quid pro quo” that soon leaked to the Washington Post.
The campaign’s strategy, another longtime fund-raiser told me,
was essentially to let Trump be Trump:
“He talks the same book to everybody.”
Oliver, the former Bush finance director, observed that the difference between the model of the Bush campaigns and Trump’s is the difference between having a large pool of “institutional investors” which had been built up in the course of years, and a series of ad-hoc “transactional” dealings with a relatively small group of the ultra-rich.
Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton University, offered another key distinction. Trump’s billionaires—many of whom have made their fortunes as hedge-fund managers, activist investors, and corporate raiders—tend to be highly motivated ideologues and individual operators. “It’s transactional, but their end of the bargain is a lot different than just having access to the President of the United States,” Wilentz told me. “They see Trump as their instrument. This is an investment for them to take power.” Wilentz noted that, unlike the “traditional corporate conservative élite” dating back to the Gilded Age, this new “class of the super-rich” appears both more numerous and less civic-minded. “The other guys might have been robber barons,” Wilentz said. “These guys are oligarchs.”
Much to the consternation of his Federalist Society colleagues,
#Leonard #Leo had also begun
cannibalizing the organization’s own deep-pocketed donors to help finance some of his more personal initiatives
— and those of his friends.
In 2010, he co-founded along with Ginni Thomas an organization called "Liberty Central";
Thomas was the wife of his good friend Justice Clarence Thomas and they used a $500,000 donation from Dallas real estate billionaire #Harlan #Crow,
also a donor to the Federalist Society.
The group billed itself as “America’s Public Square,” promising to preserve freedom and reaffirm the core principles of the Founding Fathers.
The following year, he joined the board of "Chicago Freedom Trust", which had been set up by manufacturing billionaire #Barre #Seid as a pass-through
to anonymously channel funds to initiatives he wished to support
and to take advantage of the recent #Citizens #United ruling shielding big donors from disclosure.
Leo met Seid through #Eugene #Meyer, president of the Federalist Society, who envisioned the wealthy manufacturing tycoon as a potential donor to the law society.
Instead, Leo cultivated him as a funder of his own dark-money network.
The move brought Leo into contact with other central figures of the conservative dark-money world
— like #Whitney #Ball and #Adam #Meyerson,
the main actors behind #DonorsTrust, who were responsible for anonymously funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to various conservative grassroot groups,
including some linked to the far right.
He also used his influence there to divert funds to Opus Dei, with the pass-through soon becoming a regular donor to the Oakcrest School.
As Leo’s access to the world of dark money grew, his Opus Dei friends the Corkerys became critical as a front for the tens of millions of dollars streaming through Leo’s hidden network of nonprofits.
Neil and Ann had provided crucial cover for him during the campaign to secure the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito in 2005,
hiding the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to influence public opinion.
As more dark money poured in starting in 2010, they began to do the same again through various nonprofits such as the "Wellspring Committee" and the "Judicial Crisis Network".
Their importance only grew following Scalia’s death,
as Leo pumped his network for ever larger sums.
In the weeks after Scalia’s death, the Corkerys began opening the purse strings in what would eventually become a $17 million campaign to stop Obama from replacing Scalia
and instead ensure a reliable conservative filled the vacancy.
It was just the start.
Over the next five years, Leo and the Corkerys would oversee the transfer of almost $600 million of dark money to right-wing causes.
Their hidden ecosystem would eventually enable a conservative takeover of the Supreme Court that would disassemble
hard-won civil rights and turn back the clock on issues close to their hearts
— on abortion,
on affirmative action,
and on vast swathes of what they saw as a progressive agenda.
Much to the consternation of his Federalist Society colleagues,
#Leonard #Leo had also begun
cannibalizing the organization’s own deep-pocketed donors to help finance some of his more personal initiatives
— and those of his friends.
In 2010, he co-founded along with Ginni Thomas an organization called "Liberty Central";
Thomas was the wife of his good friend Justice Clarence Thomas and they used a $500,000 donation from Dallas real estate billionaire #Harlan #Crow,
also a donor to the Federalist Society.
The group billed itself as “America’s Public Square,” promising to preserve freedom and reaffirm the core principles of the Founding Fathers.
The following year, he joined the board of "Chicago Freedom Trust", which had been set up by manufacturing billionaire #Barre #Seid as a pass-through
to anonymously channel funds to initiatives he wished to support
and to take advantage of the recent #Citizens #United ruling shielding big donors from disclosure.
Leo met Seid through #Eugene #Meyer, president of the Federalist Society, who envisioned the wealthy manufacturing tycoon as a potential donor to the law society.
Instead, Leo cultivated him as a funder of his own dark-money network.
The move brought Leo into contact with other central figures of the conservative dark-money world
— like #Whitney #Ball and #Adam #Meyerson,
the main actors behind #DonorsTrust, who were responsible for anonymously funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to various conservative grassroot groups,
including some linked to the far right.
He also used his influence there to divert funds to Opus Dei, with the pass-through soon becoming a regular donor to the Oakcrest School.
As Leo’s access to the world of dark money grew, his Opus Dei friends the Corkerys became critical as a front for the tens of millions of dollars streaming through Leo’s hidden network of nonprofits.
Neil and Ann had provided crucial cover for him during the campaign to secure the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito in 2005,
hiding the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to influence public opinion.
As more dark money poured in starting in 2010, they began to do the same again through various nonprofits such as the "Wellspring Committee" and the "Judicial Crisis Network".
Their importance only grew following Scalia’s death,
as Leo pumped his network for ever larger sums.
In the weeks after Scalia’s death, the Corkerys began opening the purse strings in what would eventually become a $17 million campaign to stop Obama from replacing Scalia
and instead ensure a reliable conservative filled the vacancy.
It was just the start.
Over the next five years, Leo and the Corkerys would oversee the transfer of almost $600 million of dark money to right-wing causes.
Their hidden ecosystem would eventually enable a conservative takeover of the Supreme Court that would disassemble
hard-won civil rights and turn back the clock on issues close to their hearts
— on abortion,
on affirmative action,
and on vast swathes of what they saw as a progressive agenda.
Justice #Thomas Failed to Reveal 
More Private Flights
Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to the wealthy conservative donor #Harlan #Crow’s lawyer after records showed
undisclosed flights between Hawaii and New Zealand with the Supreme Court justice in 2010.
By law, justices are required to fill out a financial disclosure form each year,
including, among other things,
outside sources of income and gifts.
But Justice Thomas’s form for 2010 does not list any flights on Mr. Crow’s jet.
Mr. Wyden singled out the discrepancy in his letter,
noting that the justice had revised past records to reveal travel provided by Mr. Crow.
“To date, Justice Thomas has never disclosed this private jet travel on any financial disclosure forms,
even though Justice Thomas has amended disclosures to reflect other international travel on Mr. Crow’s private jet,” he wrote.
Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamie Raskin
are introducing a new piece of legislation aimed at 
putting a cap on the number and value of gifts U.S. Supreme Court justices can receive.
The "High Court Gift Ban Act", unveiled Tuesday, would prohibit justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50 at a time, or more than $100 total per year.
The bill would also put an $18,000 cap on gifts of personal hospitality, which are currently unregulated.
Justice #Clarence #Thomas has been under intense scrutiny after an investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee found that he failed to include luxury vacations paid for by Republican megadonor #Harlan #Crow on his financial disclosure forms.
Thomas has been subject to several other complaints, including that he never paid back a loan on his R.V. and that he cavorted with the #Koch brothers while ruling on cases they’d brought to the Supreme Court.
Earlier this month, a report from a judicial watchdog found that Supreme Court justices had received close to a total of 
️$3 million in gifts️ over the last 20 years
—with 
more than $2.4 million of those gifts being directed solely to Thomas.
Through gifts, Thomas has roughly doubled his official published income from the last 20 years.
Justice #Samuel #Alito has similarly come under fire for accepting lavish gifts from Republican billionaires, including over-the-top, all-expenses-paid vacations.
It seems, however, that little can be done to rein in the court’s high-ranking members over mounting concerns about their ethics.
Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez wrote to Chief Justice #John #Roberts late last week, seeking answers on
what he planned to do about Thomas, as well as Alito, whose recent flag scandal has also called into question whether he has conflicts of interest in cases before the court.
Roberts has not yet responded.“The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land but has the lowest ethical standards, which means pay-to-play billionaires, right-wing dark money groups and carbon-emitting special interests have freedom to purchase the best justice money can buy,” said Raskin in a statement Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez called their bill “a commonsense solution to address the deeply troubling and unethical influence dark money is having on our nation’s highest judicial body.”
“This is not about politics
—it’s about safeguarding the strength and integrity of our democracy,” she said.
It’s unlikely, though, that such a bill would pass in a brutally indifferent Republican-led House.
https://newrepublic.com/post/183099/aoc-raskin-rein-alito-thomas-gifts
https://raskin.house.gov/press-releases?id=243B1819-3D3A-4D6F-B104-C2B5513545F1
Billionaire political donor #Harlan #Crow provided at least three previously undisclosed private jet trips to Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas in recent years, an investigation by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats has found.
The flights, which were detailed by Crow’s lawyer in response to inquiries from the committee, took the justice to destinations including the region near Glacier National Park in Montana and Thomas’ hometown in Georgia.
The committee launched its investigation in response to ProPublica reporting last year that revealed numerous undisclosed gifts Crow provided to Thomas,
including private school tuition for a relative and luxury vacations virtually every year for more than two decades.
Democrats on the committee authorized a subpoena for information from Crow last November, but the subpoena was not issued, and the new information came as a result of negotiations between the Senate and Crow’s attorneys.
It’s possible more revelations are yet to come. The office of the panel’s chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said that a report detailing the full findings of committee Democrats’ investigation would be released later in the summer.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-jet-flights-senate-investigation-scotus
Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas acknowledged for the first time in a new financial disclosure filing that he should have publicly reported two free vacations he received from billionaire #Harlan #Crow.
The pair of 2019 trips, one to Indonesia and the other to the Bohemian Grove, an all-male retreat in northern California, were first revealed by ProPublica.
Last year, Thomas argued that he did not need to disclose such gifts.
“Justice Thomas’s critics allege that he failed to report gifts from wealthy friends,” his lawyer previously said in a statement issued on the justice’s behalf. “Untrue.”
Legal ethics experts said that Thomas appeared to have violated the law by failing to disclose the trips and gifts.
The Thomas revelations helped plunge the Supreme Court into its biggest ethical crisis in the modern era.
Justice Samuel Alito also failed to disclose a luxury fishing trip that was paid for by wealthy political donors, one of whom had cases before the court.
In recent weeks, Alito has faced criticism for politicized flags that flew at two of his homes.
The public’s approval of the court has plummeted in the last few years, polls show.
In response, the court last year adopted a code of conduct for the first time in its history. The code, however, has no enforcement mechanism.
This is not the first time that Thomas has responded to public controversy about his disclosure practices by amending an old form. At least twice before, Thomas has similarly defended his failure to make required disclosures as an unintentional error or a misunderstanding of the rules.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-gift-disclosures-harlan-crow
Mark Paoletta: Flacking for the Thomases
#Mark #Paoletta is one of the most aggressive defenders of U.S. Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas
He has assailed Senators and reporters who raise concerns about the serious ethical issues raised by the actions of Thomas and his wife, Ginni.
When Paoletta worked in the George H.W. Bush administration he worked on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
#Leonard #Leo also worked on that confirmation battle.
In 1991, Anita Hill testified under oath that Thomas had engaged in gross sexual overtures toward her when she worked with him in the Reagan administration.
Thomas denied her claims, and his GOP allies attacked her character.
Since then, Paoletta has repeatedly defended Thomas, and since at least 2016 he has been part of the PR effort to buttress Thomas.
In 2022, for example, the Federalist, a far right-wing blog site funded by #Dick #Uihlein, published a piece by Mark Paoletta attacking an investigation by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker about #Ginni Thomas’ close ties to right-wing groups, including some that file briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Federalist’s piece resulted in a correction of how it tried to defend the Thomases with a comparison that effectively mischaracterized the recusal practices of another federal judge and her spouse.
Paoletta has penned other pieces defending Thomas in that blog, such as calling Anita Hill a liar.
This past July the Washington Post revealedthat Leo steered at least $1.8M into a PR and online astroturf campaign to attack a 2016 HBO film about the Clarence Thomas’ nomination.
Paoletta was the face of the campaign and, it turns out, was paid $300,000 by Leo’s Judicial Education Project, according to other disclosures.
When asked by the Post, Paoletta confirmed, “my good friend Leonard Leo’s group provided funding for this work,” including the Thomas film.
Paoletta also represented Ginni Thomas before the January 6th committee after the Washington Post reported that she repeatedly texted Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, to stop the Electoral College votes from being counted after the 2020 election and urged numerous state legislators to overturn Biden’s election too.
Paoletta also provided a statement to the Washington Post on Ginni’s behalf, after it was revealed that her group, “Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty,” received $600,000 in anonymous contributions funneled through Capital Research Center (CRC) to engage in culture war battles.
Around the time of this contribution, CRC signed onto a brief petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case on emission regulations.
In 2021, during the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation Paoletta was also listed as the contact, along with Judicial Crisis Network’s (JCN) #Carrie #Severino, on a memoir about Thomas.
JCN spent $1.5 million on an ad buy ostensibly about KBJ but that was mostly a promo of a vanity biopic about Thomas.
The ad buy was tied to Leo’s for-profit PR firm CRC Advisors.
That ad campaign touting Thomas came as news was breaking about Ginni’s role in repeatedly texting Meadows to try to stop Americans’ votes for Biden from being counted.
That JCN ad led True North to examine all the funders of that video where Thomas claimed to love hanging out in his RV at Walmart more than going to the beach,
and one of those funders was the long-time benefactors of the Thomases’ luxury lifestyle: #Harlan #Crow.
That painting,
which was called just five guys discussing the law by the artist,
includes Paoletta with Crow, Leonard Leo, Clarence Thomas, and another litigator, #Bo #Rutledge.
Paoletta is the one sitting between Leo and Thomas.
Ansev Demirhan, a researcher with True North, is the one who found that painting that has now been seen around the world.
