Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich address a sympathetic crowd at the Alabama Theater (click here to see more photos)
by Glynn Wilson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich came out swinging against President Obama on energy policy at the Alabama Theater Monday night, the day before the primary election in the state, due to comments by the president’s press secretary responding to Gingrich’s provocative statement on the campaign trail: “I’ve been talking about the need for an American energy policy, and the idea that we should develop our capacity for oil to the point where no American president would ever again bow to a Saudi King.”
That’s a great applause line for the Republican base, like those gathered at the theater in downtown Birmingham, but it also suffers the same problem with most of Rick Santorum’s rhetoric and that of Mitt Romney as well. Those kinds of oil reserves do not exist on American soil even if we sent drillers in places even they do not want to go and to depths that cannot be reached. New Gingrich knows this, or he should.
He also knows this: The only way we are ever going to get past our dependence on oil from the Middle East is to develop alternative energy sources. That strategy also just happens to be in our national interest to reduce air pollution to improve our health, and to reduce our dependence on burning fossil fuels for energy that leads to global warming and climate change.
But the Republican base believes in God and in bringin’ on the “End Times,” so not only do they not “believe” in global warming, they are not interested in saving the planet. According to their book, the earth is going to be destroyed anyway so why worry?
The Bill Goes to the Senate, but Voters Will Have a Chance to Defeat it at the Polls in November
by Glynn Wilson
The Republican controlled House of Representatives in Alabama voted 65-22 this week to pass a bill dubbed “The Goodyear Bill” that is being billed by Republicans and the mainstream media as “Gov. Robert Bentley’s jobs plan,” another amendment to be tacked onto an already overburdened constitution that would authorize new and expanding corporations to keep the income taxes of their employees rather than paying them to the state.
No where in the Republican rhetoric or the news coverage does anybody address the fact that the state can’t afford to give away more tax money to corporations which already pay no corporate taxes, because the state is already too broke to continue funding many state agencies and programs. They state can’t afford to continue maintaining some roads. There is all kinds of hand-wringing going on over continued funding for the state retirement system.
While Governor Bentley pledged to raise no taxes yet continue fully funding law enforcement in his State of the State Address, it has become obvious that the state does not have the money to continue paying for an already over-crowded prison system.
The bill now moves over to the 35-member Senate. It will need 21 votes to pass. If approved there and signed by the governor, opponents would have a chance to raise a campaign to stop its approval at the polls. The voters would have a shot at defeating it in a referendum vote during the general election in November.
The Alabama Democratic Party Also Opposes This Legislation
by Glynn Wilson
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama branch of the AFL-CIO is mounting an opposition campaign to try and stop passage of bills in the state Legislature that would create another amendment to the state’s already overburdened constitution that would allow corporations to keep their employees income tax withholdings.
“The Alabama AFL-CIO is very much in favor of job creation in the state, even if incentives are required to get them,” state AFL-CIO president Al Henley said. “But we believe taking money from the Education Trust Fund and denying our children as good an education as possible to get the jobs is a horrible idea.”
If passed by both houses and signed into law by the governor, House Bills 159 and 160 would have to be approved by voters at the polls in November to become law.
“It is a sorry state of affairs when Alabama taxpayers have to give the wealthiest corporations in the world money to stay in the state,” Henley said.
Occupy Birmingham held a candle light vigil on Saturday, Jan. 7 at the Ward’s home in Center Point and about 50 people turned out (see video above). The city of Center Point is now reeling from the devastating affects of an F3 tornado that hit on the morning of Monday, Jan. 23, but the Ward home, just a couple of hundred feet from where the storm hit, was spared. Shortly after the vigil, Bank of America agreed to change the foreclosure sale date from the Jan. 26 to the March 29 and to consider a proposal for the Ward’s to obtain a new mortgage, according to Occupy Birmingham. If you want to help, you can sign an online petition here.
A federal appeals court has balked at deciding a controversial legal case pitting the Alabama Education Association and its ability to raise membership dues against the new Republican administration dead set on weakening public employee unions and suppressing votes for Democrats.
According to a court filing that just popped up online from the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the federal appeals court panel tossed the state’s appeal in the case back to the all Republican Alabama Supreme Court. The professional organization for teachers won a victory in a lower court and obtained a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a law passed by the new so-called “Super Majority” of Republicans in the state Legislature, a law written to prohibit payroll deductions to groups that use some of the money for “political activity.”
The appeals court panel indicated it would be “constitutional” for the Legislature to block the payroll deduction if the organization is guilty of “electioneering.”
Earlier Monday nearly 20 protesters were arrested in the atrium of the World Financial Centre following a protest against Goldman Sachs. This video shows a credentialed photographer attempting to photograph the arrests of protesters, being pushed back with a baton by one NYPD officer. Another officer continues to block his line of sight.
Free-lance photographer Robert Stolarik, who was working for the New York Times, was one of the few media able to remain in Zuccotti Park during the November 14 raid. His photos of Monday’s action appear with the article.
“A Question of Integrity” examines growing concerns about ethically questionable and overtly political behavior by some Supreme Court justices, and explores the need the need to apply the same ethical standards that govern every other judge in the federal court system to the nation’s highest court. Viewers are called to action in support of reforms essential to preserve the integrity of our most important legal institution.
Editor’s note: The following is the foreword to Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It, by Jeffrey Clements, a new book from Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Rarely have so few imposed such damage on so many. When five conservative members of the Supreme Court handed for-profit corporations the right to secretly flood political campaigns with tidal waves of cash on the eve of an election, they moved America closer to outright plutocracy, where political power derived from wealth is devoted to the protection of wealth.
It is now official: Just as they have adorned our athletic stadiums and multiple places of public assembly with their logos, corporations can officially put their brand on the government of the United States as well as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the fifty states.
The decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission giving “artificial entities” the same rights of “free speech” as living, breathing human beings will likely prove as infamous as the Dred Scott ruling of 1857 that opened the unsettled territories of the United States to slavery whether future inhabitants wanted it or not. It took a civil war and another hundred years of enforced segregation and deprivation before the effects of that ruling were finally exorcised from our laws.
God spare us civil strife over the pernicious consequences of Citizens United, but unless citizens stand their ground, America will divide even more swiftly into winners and losers with little pity for the latter.
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.
