Glynn Wilson

by Glynn Wilson

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — What are the voters of Alabama’s Sixth Congressional district to do?

Due to the strange district maps that come out of the meat grinder of political gerrymandering, rich Mountain Brook Republicans are thrown in with white Baptists in Gardendale and country folk in St. Clair County. The district neighbors the Sixth District, designed to be a place where a minority candidate could get elected in Alabama. Since 1992, the people of the Seventh District have been represented by Spencer Bachus, who now faces an insider trading ethics probe for personally profiting from information gleaned from his position on committees in Congress.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative agency, is investigating Bachus, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, over possible violations of insider-trading laws, according to individuals familiar with the case. According to the Washington Post and other news organizations, Bachus has been a frequent trader on Capitol Hill, buying stock options while overseeing the nation’s banking and financial services industries. Investigators recently notified Bachus that he is under investigation and that they have found probable cause to believe insider-trading violations have occurred.

The report first surfaced on the CBS investigative show 60 Minutes, and since then, Gardendale Republican State Senator Scott Beason has decided to challenge Bachus in the Republican primary.

“Insider trading by members of Congress became a hot button issue after Peter Schweizer’s book, Throw Them All Out, was released,” Beason now says on one of his Websites. “In his book, Schweizer detailed how Bachus profited by insider trading during his tenure in Congress. In fact, virtually the entire second chapter entitled “Crisis for All, Opportunity for Some” dealt with Bachus’s deals.”

“It is no wonder the public trust has eroded when there are career politicians that continually abuse the privileges of their office,” Beason says. “If we want to change Washington, we must elect leaders that will serve their constituents, not themselves.”

But there is evidence that Beason is not such a great businessman himself and is seeking to become one of those “career politicians” he likes to rail against.

The Alabama senator is best known for sponsorship of the state’s controversial anti-immigration law, which has cost the state jobs instead of creating them, according to numerous industrial recruiting experts. He is also known by voters in the Sixth and Seventh Congressional districts for holding up a vote on a bill that could have prevented Jefferson County from having to declare bankruptcy. He wore a wire for the FBI in the federal investigation of gambling in Alabama and was quoted calling the black folks who work for dogtracks “aborigines.”

But an investigation into Beason’s business activities shows he may need his $50,000 a year legislative salary just to feed his family and make ends meet, because he is not such a successful businessman.

According to financial disclosure forms filed with the Alabama Ethics Commission, Beason has never made more than $50,000 in a single year combined from his family renovations business, his public relations firm or a Planet Smoothie franchise he was a partner in on Birmingham’s Southside in Five Points South.

Sources say the Planet Smoothie went out of business in recent years and left unpaid rent behind. In an interview in Montgomery this week during a tea party rally, Beason denied it and claims while he still held the LLC and reported it on his ethics forms, he sold his interest in the business in 2006 (see video above or at this YouTube link).

According to mandatory forms filed with the Alabama Ethics Commission and the Secretary of State’s office, Beason disclosed interest in Southside Smoothie LLC from 2003-2011. He is listed as the “owner/operator” of the business and his home address in Gardendale is listed as the official address for the business office. Two partners are listed, but no address or phone contact information is provided for them.

In 2003, Beason reported making “$1,000 to 10,000″ from the business. In 2004 he checked the “less than $1,000″ box and in 2005 Southside Smoothie is simply listed alongside the construction and renovation businesses as part of the statement declaring that he was self-employed. No profits are reported, in other words.

In 2006, the year Beason claims he sold his interest in the Planet Smoothie, no report is made about the sale of his business interest.

Ethics Form 2006 Page 1

Ethics Form 2006 Page 2

Ethics Form 2006 Page 3

The report is virtually the same in 2007. In 2008, the last year forms are available online, Beason reported that he made “more than $10,000″ from his public position in the legislature, and between $10,000 and $50,000 from two other businesses. They include Custom Renovators and Old South Construction, a business his owns with his wife, and the Leonides Group LLC, a public relations firm. Also in 2008, he reported $25,000 to $50,000 in credit card debt.

In 2009, he reported more than $10,000 from his public position and more than $10,000 from the two businesses together, but no debt. In 2010, he reported $10,000 from his public position but only $1,000 to $10,000 from the two businesses, yet no debt, and again, no income from Planet Smoothie.

There is only one report on file with the Secretary of State’s office dealing with Planet Smoothie, and it lists Beason as the owner/operator of the franchise from March 12, 2003 until it was dissolved on March 18, 2011. His partners are listed as Michael D. Burrow and Robert L. Bellenger. No address is provided for either. The only address provided for any of the businesses is Beason’s home address, 1689 Quail Ridge Drive, Gardendale, AL 35071-2874. His phone number is (205) 631-0091.

Background

Beason’s first stab at getting into Alabama politics came in 1994, the year of the Gingrich revolution in Washington, when Beason ran for state Senate against Jack Biddle. He lost 60 percent to 40 percent.

Beason was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 1998, when won the primary runoff in District 51 against Jim Townsend with 53 percent of the vote and the general election with 99 percent. He was easily reelected 2002.

In 2006, he sought a rematch against Biddle, the incumbent of the state’s Senate District 17, and this time Beason defeated Biddle, receiving 59 percent of the vote. He won the general election in 2006 with 99 percent and re-election in 2010 with 81 percent, where he was elevated to head the important Senate Rules Committee. But after Beason’s controversial, racist remarks captured on FBI recordings that came out in Alabama’s so-called “Bingo Trial,” the Republican leadership quietly ushered Beason out as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, replacing him with Senate Majority Leader Jabo Waggoner of Vestavia Hills.

Beason is also known for his vote for a bill to require the Alabama Driver’s license exam to be given in English only, and he supported a constitutional amendment making English the official language of Alabama. He opposed his own party by opposing Amendment One, which would have allegedly been the largest tax increase in Alabama’s history.

Campaign Finance Reports

According to campaign finance reports (linked below), most of Beason’s political money comes from the usual Republican suspects, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Petroleum, Big Banks, Big Health Care companies, Alabama Power and ALFA. But the same corporations support Bachus.

Campaign Finance Reports for 2006

Campaign Finance Reports for 2002

Campaign Finance Reports for 1998

In 2010, Beason reported $256,550 in cash contributions and $220,659 in expenditures. The main expenses he reports are for his home Internet access through Charter and a cell phone bill from T-Mobile, and he apparently he likes to eat out on the campaign trail, mostly barbecue. He likes Jim N Nicks and Moe’s, although he really likes to splurge at Stix.

Beason holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from the University of Alabama from 1991, and on his Website, he lists his hobbies as a coach for his childrens’ soccer and basketball teams. According to a puff piece in the Birmingham News, Beason is reportedly “one of the taller Alabama lawmakers” at 6 foot 5 inches, and he supposedly has some affection for old Scottish names (something his wife attributes to the movie “Braveheart”), which led to the naming of his youngest child, McCalan. He has two children with his wife Lori, the other two named Keller and Merritt. Beason was born in Hartselle in 1969.

There are at least a couple of Facebook pages devoted to opposing Beason, one from this who oppose the immigration law, and another in general opposition is he reelection to any office.

You can find out more on a Wikipedia page devoted to him.

We would welcome feedback in the comments section from people in that district (although we do not publish crazy anonymous comments. This is a moderated comment section with strict publication standards, unlike a lot of other blogs). What are you thinking?

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Gardendale Republican Senator Scott Beason thumbed his nose at the Justice Department Tuesday while addressing the tea party on the status of Alabama’s controversial anti-immigraiton law on the first day of the 2012 session of the Legislature.

He said when the Republicans talk about “clarifying” the law, that really means they will be making the law even “stronger.”

“And if the Obama Justice Department doesn’t like it,” he said, “frankly, they can lump it.”

He also claimed the Occupy movement had to bring in protesters from “out of state” to oppose him.

Glynn Wilson

Oh, no!

Not again.

Say it ain’t so, judge.

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

Most working people in America don’t have the time to pay close attention to the daily ins and outs of politics. What they know of the political system they hear from quick blurbs in passing on television news while they are busy providing dinner for their families, or what they hear on the radio in the car on their commute to and from work. More educated liberal Democrats tend to get more of this news from public radio, but for the average Southerner, this tends to come from talk radio.

More and more people are getting their news from social networking tweets on Twitter and Facebook, but unless they take the time to delve into the details of the story links, they will still only obtain a superficial outlook on public policy debates.

For those who take the time to find an independent journalist to follow closely, they will over time end up with a better understanding of how democracy works, the so-called “sausage factory” that is government.

One thing that I think tends to sometimes escape the understanding of the average American, who now tends to believe there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans, is the extent to which the party in power gets to set the daily agenda for what issues are brought up in public debates in Congress and state Legislatures. This is one of the most powerful tools any political party has to control what we all talk about on a daily basis, whether people fully grasp this or not.

I honestly don’t think some of the new political activists in the Occupy movement really get why this is so important, so I want to tell you a couple of stories to illustrate this before I pack up the computer and head for Montgomery for the first day of the legislative session in Alabama for 2012.

I was talking to a friend in Virginia about this yesterday, a photographer who is in the process of moving from New Orleans to Charlottesville after a short stint teaching in Auburn. He and I endured the Bush years together, often bitching about the national situation on the golf courses of New Orleans or over beers by a campfire in an Alabama state park or the Great Smoky Mountains. We agreed that one of the worst things about those years was having to wake up every day to find out what crazy nonsense was on Bush’s agenda. It literally dominated eight years of our lives in a way I don’t think most people fully understand.

You see one of the most important powers the president of the United States has is to set the national agenda. The president can basically tell Congress what issues to focus on, which inevitably becomes what the press focuses on. Ultimately that is what we all end up talking about at the bar or the dinner table.

On the state level, the governor and the leadership in the Legislature have the same power, only less so, because even fewer people pay attention to state politics or local politics than national politics.

But the point I want to make for my friends in Alabama right now is that you are suffering from a similar fate that we all faced across America when Bush was in the White House and the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. For the first time in Alabama history, the Republicans control all three branches of government.

Oh, its true. They have had several Republican governors before now, since the 1980s. How did you like the leadership of Guy Hunt, Fob James and Bob Riley? They have also controlled the state Supreme Court since the 1990s. Have you tried to sue an insurance company lately for not paying a legitimate claim? If not, ask around. You can’t.

Now we have this Tuscaloosa dermatologist in charge, Robert Bentley, who got off to a rocky start by insulting everybody in the state who does not share his religion. Well I’ll be the first to admit he ain’t no brother of mine, and I have no doubt I will disagree with his priorities from sunup to sundown every day until he is defeated in the next election.

But the fact is, Bentley is not really such a powerful guy. He will not be able to rule this state with an iron fist like George Wallace did for much of the 1960s, ’70s and even into the ’80s. In this state, the guy you have to watch out for is the Speaker of the House.

Now I doubt half the people in Alabama even know who that is, so let me introduce you to Mike Hubbard (not to be confused with Paul Hubbert of the Alabama Education Association). Hubbard is the Auburn Republican who is now in charge of what you will be thinking about for the next little while. He is the head of the state Republican Party and Speaker of the House.

The official press arm of the Republican Party in this state, what I like to call the Newhouse monopoly press, ran an opinion column from Hubbard this week. If you live in the Birmingham area, you could have read it in The Birmingham News, but the same thing ran in the Mobile Press-Register and the Huntsville Times — or as most people online have come to know them, simply al.com.

In this editorial, Hubbard set the agenda for this year’s legislative session.

According to his list of priorities, the first item on the agenda will be to destroy the public school system in the state by funding charter schools, a crafty way to ruin the education for urban minorities in this state forever. If you are a rural or suburban racist, redneck, you will like this legislation and you should support it. Everybody else should organize a massive protest march to stop it.

Along with this idea, you will hear the term “accountability” a lot, something we heard from Bush a lot too. On the national level, this resulted in the No Child Left Behind Act, a law designed to actually leave a lot of children behind. It was designed to kill the “liberal” idea that students ought to be taught to think for themselves and replaced it with a system of memorizing answers to select questions so students could pass a test so the schools could keep their federal funding.

Now that that system has failed across the country, the Alabama Legislature would like to implement it here. You know what they say. The South is always a decade behind the rest of the country. Well, the Republicans in Alabama are out to prove this theory, because they think it serves their economic and political interests. It doesn’t, but they are going to try to convince you that it does. Don’t be fooled.

Another thing you are going to hear a lot about is talk that the Republicans are going to cut government spending, and they will do like Bush and talk about it in terms of how the “average family” has to “balance its own checkbook.”

Hubbard’s compatriot in the Senate, a guy you’ve never heard of named Del Marsh, will be talking about something called the “efficiency-in-government initiative.”

Now when you hear this, your eyes are going to glaze over and you are going to head for the Budweiser cooler, but take my word for it. You are going to be screwed by this initiative just like Bush screwed you with his deregulation scheme that led to the financial meltdown and the BP oil spill.

When you hear things like, “We aim to ensure the financial stability of vital state programs, particularly the retirement systems and our prisons,” what you should read into that is that the Republicans want to privatize the prisons and continue the trend of locking up more people for profit, especially long-haired redneck hippies who like to smoke a little pot with their beer. It also means they are going to try to raid the state retirement system like Bush tried to privatize Social Security. Bush failed, but unless enough people start paying attention and get involved to stop it, they might just succeed in Alabama.

I’m here to tell you that if they screw up my 85-year-old mother’s retirement, I am coming after them. I would rather stop them now with words that influence public opinion. So listen up and get busy protesting.

The stated goals of this session are going to be passing an even more draconian anti-abortion bill to screw the rights of women even more, to “reform” the anti-immigration law to let the churches off the hook so they can support it, and to repeal a legislative pay raise they passed that they are calling the “Democrats pay raise.” Don’t believe everything you hear.

And contrary to their stated goal of getting the government out of your lives, they are going to put the cops in your car more than ever before because they are going to try to pass a bill prohibiting texting while driving. If the overly draconian anti drinking and driving laws in this state were not enough to keep you locked in your suburban homes glued to the TeeVee forever, now you won’t be able to tweet on the road either.

Sorry college kids. You may as well get your plan together to move to a state with mass transit now. You have no future here. Try the metro system in DC or New York, or Porland, Oregon for that matter. Get out while you can and move to a real city, where people think for themselves.

Are you happy with your choices yet? If not, next time you go to the polls to vote, remember that the party you vote for sets the agenda for what you have to think about. If you like talking about screwing women, bashing teachers, destroying a democratic government and turning its functions over to private, for-profit corporations so they can cut your pay some more, vote Republican.

But if you are watching what’s going on at the national level, where things are starting to turn around and get better in this country with unemployment down, more people getting jobs — and yes, the American automobile industry back on top again — consider putting your pet social issues aside and voting to make government work again for practical reasons.

Don’t believe anybody who tells you they are running for office to destroy government. It turns out they are telling the truth at least about that. It’s about the only truth that ever passes their lips.

Then ask yourself: Is that really what I want? To destroy our ability to govern ourselves in America or Alabama? Do you really like BP, Exxon-Mobile, ATnT, Southern Company, ALFA and the rest of the corporations so much that you want them running the government too?

Sorry, but I will take a little government regulation of the private sector any time over a politician who claims the corporate model is better. I have lived through too many tough times listening to that destructive rhetoric, and I have seen that it doesn’t make things better, only worse. Perhaps one day more people will wake up and see that too, hopefully before it’s too late.

Editor’s Note: I apologize in advance for what I’m about to say to my friends who live in the reality-based community in places such as New York, Washington, D.C., on the West Coast and in Europe. I would rather eat nails (which would be hard considering how many teeth I have left) than to have to write this story. But I feel a certain obligation to let people the world over know just how bad things are in a place called Alabamaland.

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

It should have come as no great surprise considering where we are, but I must say, I was a bit taken aback when I saw this story hit Pam’s List yesterday and when I got the e-mail message from the Alabama Democratic Party responding to it.

You see, my friends, we have a new Republican state Senator in the Northern part of Alabama who is named after a famous character from the Bible. Although his mommy and daddy couldn’t spell very well, I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. McGill had the best of intentions when they named their son Shadrack.

Surely even my atheist friends will remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were allegedly thrown in a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar II, the King of Judah, but walked out alive thanks to a surprise appearance by someone named “Christ.”

Well, it must seem like a modern-day version of being forced into a fiery furnace for Mr. McGill these days, because every time he opens his mouth, something crazy comes out, and he gets written up in the press somewhere like he is a complete moron.

Now I must confess, I have never met the man, never talked to him on the phone either, or seen any of his posts on Facebook. But here’s what we know about him.

When he ran for office in 2010, he campaigned against a proposed 62 percent legislative pay raise, a pay increase that passed in a Republican-controlled legislature in a time of economic austerity across the land. This is quite odd, since the Republicans are always trying to convince people they are for reducing the size of government and the amount of money it spends. Something must have happened between the campaign and the election, I guess. Maybe god spoke to Shadrack and told him he deserves to make $50,000 a year after all for 30 days work.

In remarks at a DeKalb county prayer breakfast this week, McGill defended the pay raise by suggesting it made legislators immune to corrupt influence, all while citing Biblical principals as a reason to keep teachers’ pay low.

According to the Times-Journal out of Fort Payne, which seems to be the official newspaper of record for McGill’s wacky comments, Alabama legislators were making $30,710 a year before the raise and $49,500 after it went into effect, while unemployment hovered around 10 percent.

“That played into the corruption, guys, big time,” McGill said. “You had your higher-ranking legislators that were connected with the lobbyists making up in the millions of dollars.”

“They weren’t worried about that $30,000 paid salary they were getting,” McGill said, making the tortured argument that they were paid so low they might be susceptible to taking bribes.

“He needs to make enough that he can say no in regards to temptation,” McGill said. “Teachers need to make the money that they need to make. There needs to be a balance there. If you double what you’re paying education, you know what’s going to happen? I’ve heard the comment many times, ‘Well, the quality of education’s going to go up.’ That’s never proven to happen, guys.

“It’s a Biblical principle,” he claimed. “If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach. To go in and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK?

“And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn’t matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity,” he went on, and on, sort of like Glenn Beck used to do on Fox News before he was fired as a crazy man. “If you don’t keep that in balance, you’re going to attract people who are not called, who don’t need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance.”

That’s some definition of the word balance, don’t you think? But you must remember that McGill also introduced a bill last year that would have tied the pay of state legislators to the average teacher’s pay, including benefits, after getting elected because he campaigned against raises for legislators. I wonder. Does the Bible say anything about liars and hypocrites who go back on their word and their so-called principles?

The comments so shocked Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Mark Kennedy that he put out a press release in response.

“I’m stunned Senator McGill would use Biblical teachings as an excuse to attack public teachers’ salaries,” Kennedy said. “Apparently a pay raise in exchange for ‘raising someone’s child for eight hours a day,’ as he puts it, might draw wicked people into our schools … but somehow a 62 percent raise is supposed to keep wicked people out of our legislature? I can’t decide who I’m more offended for, our educators or the sitting legislators whose integrity the senator so casually calls into question.”

Kennedy said perhaps the senator could offer him some remedial Sunday school classes.

“But I wasn’t aware ‘you cannot serve both God and money’ only applied to public school teachers. I don’t think educators are the only ones who need to be called to serve, and Senator McGill’s lack of faith in his colleagues isn’t doing much to inspire confidence in his abilities as a legislator,” Kennedy said.

Other Democrats across the state responded to McGill’s comments, including state Rep. Craig Ford and Pam’s List owner Pam Miles, a member of the Alabama Democratic Party’s executive committee.

“You can’t tell me the teachers and educators don’t need a pay raise,” Ford told a local television news station. “We are dealing with somebody that does not have a full deck — and to say those statements and insult teachers and insult state employees, that is absolutely absurd.”

“I think it is one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard,” Miles said. “It’s a part time job and I’m sure that teachers would love to swap places with him and get paid $50,000 for a part time job, literally working 30 days a year.”

McGill says his words were twisted around, according to followup reports, but he claims to stand by what he said.

“It’s hard to be human and answer questions straight forward with some one because they have the tendency to want to turn that into a dagger and stab you with it,” he says.

Ms. Miles says his words were not twisted at all.

“I heard the audio clip. I heard exactly what he said,” she said. “I saw the transcript and read exactly what he said and it was very clear to me.”

Heavy sigh.

Don’t forget, the state legislature goes back into session next week in Montgomery on what some call Goat Hill. Stay tuned for more circus action from there, a place more recently named by some activists as “The Gump.”

They say truth is stranger than fiction. We don’t even have to make this stuff up around here and hide behind the anonymity of an anonymous blog. They say this stuff in public and don’t even feel bad about it. I guess all the annoying criticism is worth it to them — for $50,000 a year.