Alabama Governor’s Anti-Gambling Gambit Continues…

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson refused on Monday to issue a temporary restraining order blocking a raid by the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling on the Country Crossing bingo hall in Dothan, ruling that the issues should be dealt with in state court, according to the AP.

Meanwhile, reporters have learned that a group of people associated with marketing Mississippi casino interests met in mid January to discuss ways to fight increased gaming activity in Alabama, according to the Dothan Eagle newspaper, which has a special section on its Website to keep up with all the news on the controversy.

Roger Shuler of the Legal Schnauzer blog asked, are Mississippi casino interests influencing Alabama government?.

“Is it coincidence that Alabama Governor Bob Riley, who reportedly received campaign support from Mississippi casino groups, ordered attempted raids on two Alabama facilities roughly two weeks after the meeting?”

Read the rest of this entry »

Less Than 36 Percent Attend Church Every Week

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

In a continuation of our detailed look at public opinion in this state and country on issues such as religion, gambling and the environment, versus how those issues are covered by the media and portrayed by politicians, the Capitol Survey Research Center reports that 82 percent of respondents in Alabama favor legalizing and taxing gambling.

Among voters for the Democratic Party, the number is 84 percent, while 83 percent of Independents support the idea and even 82 percent of Republicans do.

Also according to the Capital Survey Research Center, only 31 to 35 percent of the public in Alabama tell pollsters they attend church once a week. The higher number is from counties in the northern part of the state and the lower number is from the coastal counties in the south.

Now compare those numbers to public support for pro-environmental policies.

Environmental activists have been painted as liberal extremists by conservative pundits and many were investigated as potential “terrorists” by the Bush administration. But according to detailed public opinion research collected over many years, the reality is something entirely different.

“As the ‘green’ movement continues to mature, those extreme portrayals are becoming largely outdated as mainstream culture comes to grips with the fact that environmental concerns are here to stay, and they must be addressed in ways that everyone can live with,” according to Gallup.

Public opinion research shows that 70 percent of Americans express attitudes showing broad support for pro-environmental public policies, and the numbers are not that much different on the state level in Alabama.

In fact, a couple of public opinion scholars I studied with at the University of Alabama in the early 1980s and the mid-1990s said support for a clean environment in the U.S. was as common as “mom and apple pie.”

Read the rest of this entry »