The final episode of this series about the natural and human history of Appalachia sparks both heartbreak and hope for the region’s ransacked mountain ecosystem is now running on public television.
Early 20th-century mineral barons ruled Appalachia with an iron fist. Company spies tracked miners’ every move. If they found a man’s union card, he would be fired, even killed.
Inspired by a brave little old lady who talked like a preacher and cursed like a sailor, mineworkers organized and demanded better treatment. The dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority drowned ancestral homesteads, but the project eliminated abject poverty for thousands.
Democratic Party Chairman Mark Kennedy answers questions on Alabama’s strict, new immigration law. Watch the video to see what he had to say and share it with your friends and family. You won’t find this kind of honest coverage anywhere else, not in the newspapers, on local television news, on cable news or even in The New York Times.
Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Mark Kennedy talks about the role of labor in politics in the state and country and the agenda for the Democratic Party in the years ahead in this exclusive interview with The Locust Fork News-Journal.
Al Henley of Montgomery was elected president of the AFL-CIO of Alabama this week. In this exclusive interview with The Locust Fork News-Journal, he talks about the state convention, what organized labor’s plans are for the next year in Alabama and the presidential election of 2012, and how unions are planning to use new technology to get its message out to the American people.
Alabama Senate Minority Leader Roger Bedford, a well-liked and respected Democrat, had some interesting things to say about politics and new technology at the AFL-CIO Convention this week. Watch the video to see my interview with him.
This footage from the Occupy Oakland protest on October 25 shows protesters running to the aid of a badly-injured person and an Oakland police officer deliberately lobbing a flash grenade into the crowd. Whatever you think of the Occupy movement, police behavior of this kind is criminal and should be prosecuted, according to the YouTube poster.
Garry “Gabby” Frost, the business manager for UA Local 498 in Gadsden, Alabama, and president of the North Alabama Labor Council, shared some interesting insights on politics, labor and the media for working folks in this interview with Glynn Wilson of The Locust Fork News-Journal. Watch the video to hear what he had to say.
The Obama administration is taking steps to increase college affordability by making it easier for students to manage student loan debt, part of a series of executive actions to put Americans back to work and strengthen the economy since Congressional Republicans will not act, according to a press release from the White House. The changes carry no additional cost to taxpayers.
The administration is moving forward with a new “Pay As You Earn” proposal that will reduce monthly payments for more than one and a half million current college students and borrowers. Under the plan borrowers will be able to reduce their monthly student loan payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income, starting in 2014.
“In a global economy, putting a college education within reach for every American has never been more important,” President Obama said. “But it’s also never been more expensive. That’s why we’re taking steps to help nearly 1.6 million Americans lower their monthly student loan payments.
“Steps like these won’t take the place of the bold action we need from Congress to boost our economy and create jobs, but they will make a difference,” the president said. “And until Congress does act, I will continue to do everything in my power to act on behalf of the American people.”
A memo obtained by former Bush political aide Karl Rove’s American Crossroads reveals his plan to kill any jobs bill in Congress before the 2012 presidential election: Vilify union workers.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
