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The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson
Where to start?
When you are in the superhero save the world journalism business, sometimes it is hard to know which crisis to chase, which people to save.
Did you ever wonder how Superman did it? I mean, how did he choose which disaster to prevent? Which people to save?
Other than his city of Metropolis, I mean, and his girlfriend, Lois Lane.
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The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson
The skies are grey. Rain’s on the way. It’s about time to take the canoe off the Chevy van for the winter and remove the futon mattress from the back too.
But I’m not quite ready for that. There must be one more useful trip in the works before the holidays take over the news and the weather turns ugly.
Oh, wait. Checking my Facebook events, it appears the Occupy Birmingham group is planning a road trip protest on Dec. 3 to the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden where Alabama prison officials tend to hold all the alleged illegal immigrants before deporting them back to Central and South America. This might be a newsworthy trip.
The first I heard of the place was in an interview I did with Democratic Party chair Mark Kennedy recently at the AFL-CIO convention near Montgomery. In case you missed it, he referred to the place as a “gulag,” named after Gulag the government agency in Russia that administered Soviet forced labor camps.
One of the main sponsors of Alabama’s strict new immigration law, Republican Senator Scott Beason of Gardendale, was quietly ushered out as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday in advance of the next session of the Alabama Legislature.
Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh said Senate Majority Leader Jabo Waggoner of Vestavia Hills will lead the Rules Committee for 2012, according to the AP.
Marsh claimed the Republican leadership made the change for “the most efficient operation of the Senate,” although there is little doubt the move came in the wake of all the ongoing controversy since Beason wore an FBI wire in the gambling corruption case and referred to customers of a casino in a predominantly black county as “aborigines.”
Beason, his comments and the immigration law have all been the subject of national controversy of late.
Alabama Democratic Party Calls for Bachus’s Resignation
The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they’ll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year, according to CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Few of them are doing it for the salary and all of them will say they are doing it to serve the public. But there are other benefits: Power, prestige, and the opportunity to become a Washington insider with access to information and connections that no one else has, in an environment of privilege where rules that govern the rest of the country, don’t always apply to them.
According to a recent 60 Minutes report, Rep. Spencer Bachus of Birmingham would attend closed meetings with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the fragile state of the market, only to turn around — sometimes the next day — and essentially short the market by buying stock options whose value would increase if the stock market collapsed.
According to the Alabama Democratic Party, Bachus should resign as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, even though what he did was not technically illegal.
Says if he is Guilty, Governors Like Rick Perry of Texas Could be Jailed Too
See the related story and a longer video at this story link:
Siegelman Says if he is Guilty, Texas Governor Rick Perry Could be Executed
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman outside the federal courthouse in Montgomery
by Glynn Wilson
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman says if he is guilty of bribery and corruption for being the fourth governor to appoint HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy to a hospital regulatory board — in his case allegedly in exchange for contributions to an education lottery campaign — then Texas Governor Rick Perry could be “executed” for what he has done in that state.
Mr. Siegelman made the comment after a hearing on Wednesday requesting more information from the federal government to form the basis of an evidence gathering proceeding that could lead to a new trial for himself and Scrushy.
“If they can put me in prison for nine months for being the fourth governor to reappoint Richard Scrushy, they ought to be able to execute Rick Perry for what he did in Texas,” Siegelman said (see video below).
“There is a standard of justice that should apply across the board and I think the United States Supreme Court will see that and will apply the rule of law in this case,” Siegelman said, talking to the media in front of the federal courthouse in Montgomery after a three hour hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles S. Coody. “Rick Perry would be in prison today if this were the standard.”
Lori and Don Siegelman stand together outside the federal courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, after a hearing on alleged “selective prosecution” and “judicial misconduct” in his case that traces its roots back to the late 1990s, when political operative Karl Rove was making a name for himself in the campaign world in Alabama.
by Glynn Wilson
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| Glynn Wilson |
| Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in front of the federal courthouse in Montgomery on a break from his sentencing hearing in June, 2007. |
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman will be back in federal court in Montgomery again Wednesday, this time making an oral argument before a different federal judge asking for a chance to be heard on issues related to “selective prosecution” and “government misconduct” in the handling of his case.
In an exclusive interview Tuesday morning, Siegelman, a Democrat, told me his attorneys will be making an argument that former U.S. Attorney Leura Canary — the wife of Bill Canary, head of the conservative Business Council of Alabama — had a partisan conflict of interest in bringing the alleged bribery and corruption case against him.
They will be revealing documentary evidence that Ms. Canary never actually recused herself from the case, he said, an issue we have reported on extensively in the past. She recused herself on the pages of the Birmingham News, but never actually filed a formal recusal document with the court, and e-mail messages show she was involved in directing the prosecution team even after she claimed to recuse herself.
Evidence will also be presented about judicial misconduct on the part of Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller, who handled the case against Siegelman. Because of that, Siegelman said, Fuller will not be hearing the evidence on Wednesday. Instead, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles S. Coody will be presiding.
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.
Related Coverage
Federal Judge With Ties to Bush Fails to Strike Down Alabama’s Immigration Law
See more below…
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Harper’s No Comment
