After Previously Accusing Him Of Abusing Cancer Patients
Huntsville doctor Parker Griffith, a North Alabama Congressman, who switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in December, will be delivering the weekly Republican YouTube address on Sunday — presumably from the standpoint of being a medical doctor who is opposing the Democrats on health care.
“The fact that a doctor who left the Democratic caucus is delivering the address this week is no coincidence,” an anonymous senior GOP aide boasted in an e-mail to news organizations. “This is a shot across the bow of any ‘moderate’ Democrat in the House who is considering voting for a health care bill loaded with tax hikes, Medicare cuts, and notorious backroom deals.”
As has been previously reported, however, there is an irony in this particular doctor being embraced by the GOP — after they openly accused him of some very serious acts of medical malpractice during the campaign against him in 2008.
During the 2008 election, when Griffith was seeking the open Congressional seat, the National Republican Congressional Committee ran an attack ad that accused Griffith of a practice known as “warehousing” cancer patients — meaning to deliberately give poor care to patients in order to keep them bedridden and make more money from their medical treatments.
The Alabama AFL-CIO has scheduled a second public press conference for Monday, March 8, at 3 p.m. at the Huntsville Marriot concerning the re-election efforts of Rep. Parker Griffith in the 5th congressional district. It will be in the Enterprise Room at 5 Tranquility Base.
“Parker Griffith has scammed us out of $219,000 and that, my friends is a bitter pill to swallow,” AFL-CIO spokesman Al Henley said in a statement. “He used our volunteer base to advance is personal political goals and has done a terrible job of representing middle class working families the short time he has been a congressman.”
“After using us and our money to get elected and create name recognition he has aligned himself totally with corporate America and the wealthiest 5 percent of our country’s population,” Henley added. “We intend to do all we can do to see that his political career ends ASAP and this scheduled press conference is another step towards reaching that goal.”
In addition to voting more for conservative Republicans than just about any other state in the country, earning the state red status on the national political map, Alabama scores a low down red on the green report card issued by the League of Conservation Voters.
Conservative Republican Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby both scored Fs for Failure in a report released Monday. Sessions scored 9 out of a possible 100, while Shelby got an 18.
One of the primary reasons for the low score was due to the fact that Alabama’s delegation took a hard line against the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would help bring more than 29,000 clean energy jobs to Alabama, according Conservation Alabama, a statewide conservation group that today joined the national League for the first time on our suggestion in releasing the 2009 National Environmental Scorecard.
“Alabama’s Congressional delegation opted against bringing clean energy jobs to the state and voted against reducing our national dependence on foreign oil,” Conservation Alabama’s executive director Adam Snyder said in a press release accompanying the report.
“In a state that has 11 percent unemployment, with some counties at nearly 25 percent, Alabama’s Congressional delegation cannot afford to send a message to the world that we are not open for business for clean energy jobs,” he said, even though that’s exactly what they did.
Bob Riley must explain to the people of Alabama why he received a specific $500,000 campaign contribution from disgraced lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon in his 2002 campaign for governor.
Abramoff and Scanlon sent the funds to the Republican Governor’s Association, which then added an additional $100,000 dollars. That $600,000 amount was deposited directly to Riley’s campaign account.
Let’s review the facts, all easily found posted online.
Abramoff and Scanlon received a total of $66 million dollars from six Indian tribes. Among the recipients of this money included Riley, former National Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and Texas Congressman Tom Delay.
The Abramoff/Scanlon agenda during that election year was to block gambling in Texas and Alabama, which benefited the Louisiana Coushatta Tribe and the Mississippi Choctaw Tribe. They were successful.
Abramoff and Scanlon pleaded guilty to corruption conspiracies, Delay has been in legal limbo with pending criminal charges and a lot of hot air gets floated about who is supporting gambling and who isn’t.
Alabama’s senior Senator gets famous, but NOT in a good way…
MSNBC’s Olbermann echoes our story at Truthout.org, which you can see here, in case you missed it…
An Alabama Senator with long-standing ties to the US military-industrial complex and an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama is backing down from a direct confrontation with the White House today after taking the unprecedented step of announcing last week that he would filibuster all the president’s appointments to secure earmarks for his home state. US Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who switched from the Democratic Party to be part of the Gingrich revolution in 1994, placed a hold on more than 80 presidential nominations before the Senate last week. He relented on Monday, saying he had simply been trying “to get the White House’s attention.”
An Alabama Senator with long-standing ties to the US military-industrial complex and an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama is backing down from a direct confrontation with the White House today after taking the unprecedented step of announcing last week that he would filibuster all the president’s appointments to secure earmarks for his home state.
US Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who switched from the Democratic Party to be part of the Gingrich revolution in 1994, placed a hold on more than 80 presidential nominations before the Senate last week. He relented on Monday, saying he had simply been trying “to get the White House’s attention.”
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.
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