By Linda Blackford | Editor
Happy Monday! We have lots of interesting election news this morning. Tom Loftus keeps looking at campaign finance reports and found that state Sen. Julie Raque Adams has gotten a tsunami of funding from outside Republican interests, more than anyone else in the legislature so far.
Then, thanks to Appalachian News Exchange, we have a story from Joe Sonka looking at the partisanship being injected into what has traditionally been nonpartisan, an election to the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
Our national desk details how much local police have helped in Trump’s immigration roundups.
And since coming to the Kentucky Lantern, it’s been a real pleasure to publish the work of James Branscome, whose insights into Appalachia are both wise and witty. Today, he takes us through his own personal journey, which returns over and over to Berea College.
Have a great week and enjoy.
Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, speaks to a legislative committee, March 12, 2025. (LRC Public Information)
By Tom Loftus
FRANKFORT – Since early last May, Republican outside groups have spent more than $620,000 to help reelect Julie Raque Adams to another term in the Kentucky Senate.
That’s nearly twice as much help as any other candidate on the Kentucky ballot this year – Republican or Democrat – has gotten from outside groups, according to the list of “independent expenditures” on the Kentucky Registry of Election website.
A photo on the campaign website of Judge Will Moynahan features him standing in a courtroom next to Gov. Andy Beshear (left), who is supporting him in his Kentucky Court of Appeals race. (Moynahan campaign website)
By Joe Sonka, Louisville Public Media
Fifty years ago, a constitutional amendment approved by Kentucky voters was implemented that dramatically reformed the state’s judicial system, including changing all judicial races from partisan to nonpartisan.
For the third consecutive election cycle in Kentucky, that principle of a nonpartisan judiciary is being challenged in a high-profile race, with Republican and Democratic officials lining up to support and contribute money to opposing candidates.
By Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — This summer, arrests of immigrants in the United States soared to the highest levels since President Donald Trump returned to office.
An unprecedented increase in cooperation between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration officers through collaborations known as 287(g) agreements helped drive numbers up.
Built in 1938 and renovated as recently as 2002, the Draper Building is one of the largest academic buildings on the Berea College Campus. It houses a variety of departments and programs, including Sustainability and Environmental Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies. (Photo courtesy Crystal Wylie/Berea College)
COMMENTARY
By James Branscome
At Standard & Poor’s in New York, I had young analysts with credentials far better than mine, MBAs from schools I could not have afforded to walk past.
Every few months one of them would appear in my doorway and say, “Mr. Branscome, I’d like to discuss my career.”
Because I liked them, I told them the truth. “Your career is going to be far more random than you are prepared to accept. It depends mostly on where you happen to be standing when the angels of light and darkness pass by.”
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