The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

When I first opened my eyes and looked at the LaCross clock and temperature gauge Tuesday morning, it was 24-degrees outside in the Pinson Valley campsite. The local weather guys and gals on TeeVee say it was the coldest night of the winter so far.

Outside, the water in the bird bath is frozen, but the cardinals, finches and chickadees keep warm by flying back and forth between limbs in the dogwood tree, taking turns at the feeder.

The cold doesn’t bother me so much anymore, as long as there is a warm sleeping bag by a heater or a fire. The heat of summer is more annoying these days, perhaps because I have spent most of my life in the Sun Belt.

What annoys me more than heat or cold is ignorance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Glynn Wilson

Artur Davis sucking on a cocktail in Homewood

by Glynn Wilson

Former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis is a sore loser with questionable judgment, according to former state Supreme Court Justice Mark Kennedy, now head of the Alabama Democratic Party.

Davis, who held the congressional seat covering much of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and the Black Belt as a Democrat for eight years before jumping into a losing run for governor, is now making the rounds of conservative blogs bashing the Democratic Party and making all kinds of wild accusations. Apparently this is an attempt to make himself famous and switch to the Republican Party to run for office again, perhaps the U.S. Senate seat held by Richard Shelby of Tuscaloosa.

“It calls into question his judgment,” Kennedy said in an exclusive interview. “Only after being soundly defeated and repudiated by his constituent base does he now come out and continuously attack the system that he was actively a participant in.”

Kennedy said he wishes Artur would have been as proactive in advocating for working families and the poor while he was in Congress “as he is now being proactive in attempting to grab headlines.”

“I don’t understand what his deal is,” Kennedy said. “He’s now going to be remembered, by many of us, as a man who has repudiated his party. He continues to make these allegations but refuses to provide proof, I guess all because he’s a sore loser.”

For a man who desired to be the first African-American governor of Alabama, which would have been a historic event, to make a campaign contribution to the Republican nominee for governor in Mississippi who was running against a qualified African-American Democrat, he said, “Just crosses the line with me.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ron Spark publicly challenged Rep. Artur Davis Monday to level with the people of Alabama and to come clean on his position on all gaming issues facing the state.

Referencing a story in this weekend’s Mobile Press-Register in a press release, the Sparks campaign said Davis refused to state a position on several gaming issues, including casino gaming, sports betting, card games, slot machines, roulette and other games.

Sparks favors them all, and has said so from the beginning of his campaign for governor of Alabama.

“Why is Artur Davis afraid to take a stand on gaming issues, one of the most important issues facing this state?” Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks said. “He is hiding, cowering in the corner, while I have been perfectly clear in my support on each and every gaming issue. If the people of Alabama want it, they should be allowed to vote on it. I am leading on this issue, not running from it like Artur Davis.

“Alabama needs a governor who takes a stand and who commits the full force of his office to get this done for the people of Alabama. Sitting on a fence or hiding your views from voters like Artur isn’t leadership; it’s political cowardice. If you want gaming in Alabama, there is only one candidate committed to doing it, and that’s me,” Sparks said in the statement.

The Press-Register asked all gubernatorial candidates to answer eight positions on various forms of gaming. Artur only gave positions on three of them, answering “not sure” five times.

“That’s a worse percentage than his Congressional voting record this year,” Sparks said.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a sign of Rep. Artur Davis’ shifting priorities, according to the Associated Press, the Birmingham Democrat will be back in Alabama — not at the U.S. Capitol — for tonight’s State of the Union speech by his former Harvard Law School classmate, President Barack Obama.

Glynn Wilson

Rep. Artur Davis

Davis, now running for governor, has returned to the campaign trail, said Addie Whisenant, a spokeswoman in his congressional office. She referred other questions to campaign spokesman Alex Goepfert, who said that the congressman has been clear for some time “that he would be spending more days in Alabama as the campaign progressed.” Davis plans to watch the speech at home in Birmingham, Goepfert said.

Davis’ campaign web site shows that he was in Shelby County for a candidate forum this morning, but does not list any other events today.

Davis is running against state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks in June’s Democratic primary. Late this afternoon, Sparks issued a statement saying that “apparently, Artur Davis forgets he was hired to do a job in Washington, not in Alabama.”

“The people of his district, and the people of Alabama, expect those they hire to show up to work, vote and represent their interests,” Sparks said. “He should either show up for work or quit. Instead, his constituents are being cheated by the self-interest of Artur. When I’m Governor, I will work day and night creating jobs for working families and always put their interests ahead of my own.”

In related news, former political reporter Taylor Bright is joining Sparks’ Campaign for Governor as communications director, according to the press release.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Glynn Wilson

After Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis tried to make friends with the man who might be his Republican opponent if he were to win the Democratic Party primary next June, praising Bradley Byrne for his proposed ethics plan, Davis’s primary opponent Ron Sparks immediately called him a hypocrite.

“It is the height of hypocrisy for Artur Davis to bemoan what he called ‘the unlimited power of a few special interests’ to dominate Alabama politics by writing big checks, while, according to ConsumerWatchdog.org, Artur Davis received $364,000 from health-care special interest groups and then voted against President Obama’s health-care bill, despite the overwhelming support for Obama and health-care reform in his district,” Sparks said in a press release.

According to a blogger at al.com, Davis welcomed Byrne’s endorsement of several ethics proposals this week.

“While I am pleased that unlike Ron Sparks and the other Republicans in this race, Bradley Byrne has put forward an ethics proposal, I am mystified that he does not go further, to root out the real abuses that are breaking down trust in Alabama politics,” Davis reportedly said.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Glynn Wilson

Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks, the Fort Payne Democrat who is running for governor of Alabama against Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis, came out swinging on Monday two days after Davis voted against President Barack Obama’s national public health care plan in the U.S. House.

“It has been said that evil flourishes when good men fail to act. One of the greatest evils of our lifetime is no doubt that in one of the most prosperous nations in the world, over 48 million men, women, and children do not have access to the world’s greatest health-care system,” Sparks said in a press release.

Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform, he said. This weekend, the United States Congress, “stood firm against lies, misrepresentations, self serving political rhetoric, and the back-scratching and scare tactics of special-interest money to pass a health-care bill that once and for all will provide equal access to health-care for all Americans.”

Read the rest of this entry »

If Activists Don’t Engage, We May Not Have Health Care by Christmas

Somebody needs to head to Washington and read the riot act to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid left open the possibility on Tuesday that work on a health-care overhaul bill could drift into next year, as the House of Representatives pushed to take it up later this week, according to Reuters.

Here’s today’s AP version of the story…

Reid Indicates Timetable for Health Care May Slip

To insure national public health-care becomes a reality, a necessity not only for the U.S. health care system but critical for the national economy, the left needs to get off its arse, again…

Not that it will do much good to push the Alabama Congressional delegation. They are obviously more interested in campaign contributions and figure the voters are too uninformed reading al.com to notice.

Our Congressman in Birmingham, who wants to be governor, says he will vote against his good friend President Barack Obama’s plan. What a state…

Artur Davis to Vote Against Health Care Bill