Alabama Legislature OK’d tax money for private schools. Now Governor Bentley backpedals.

The Texas State Legislature doesn’t think public tax dollar$ should go to private schools.

But Alabama’s State Legislature just OK’d & Governor Bentley signed the Alabama Accountability Act of 2013 (HB 84), aka the School Flexibility Bill, aka the Private School Voucher Act.

http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/04/house-votes-to-bar-state-funding-for-private-school-vouchers.html/

Criticizing the President: This one’s on Obama

This OpEd is probably some of the best, and most genuinely warranted criticism of President Obama which I’ve yet read.

As late former president Theodore Roosevelt wrote:
“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.* Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”

-Theodore Roosevelt’s OpEd Column entitled “Sedition, A Free Press and Personal Rule” published May 7, 1918 in the Kansas City Star

*Roosevelt’s sharp criticism of President Wilson‘s leadership during World War I led the Post Office to warn that the Star that such views might cost the paper its second-class mailing privileges.

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Obama A Big Hypocrite? Ask Legal Schnauzer, Roger Shuler

By Joan Brunwasser (about the author)     Permalink
Life Arts 5/18/2013 at 22:24:54

My guest today is Legal Schnauzer, Roger Shuler. Welcome back to OpEdNews, Roger. 

JB: Your recent piece The President Paints Himself Into An Ethical Corner By Voicing Outrage Over Evolving Scandal At The IRS  is pretty scathing. What’s got you so upset?

RS: In early January 2009, just a few days before he took office, President-Elect Obama said he intended to “look forward, as opposed to looking backwards” on apparent crimes under the Bush administration. As president, Obama seems to have followed through on that pledge because his Justice Department has failed to review political prosecutions such as the one involving former Governor Don Siegelman in Alabama, where I live.

Political prosecutions, of course, were just of one of many improper acts on the justice front during the Bush years–torture, warrantless wiretapping, firings of U.S. attorneys were among the others. In essence, Obama issued a decree that no one would be held accountable for those acts.

Obama’s “look forward” statement made no sense at the time, and it makes even less sense now, coming after he expressed outrage the other day over disclosures about the IRS targeting conservative groups for political reasons. Obama said in a news conference that he would not “tolerate” such actions, that wrongdoers must be held “accountable,” and the problem must be “fixed.”

But his inaction toward the DOJ shows that he will tolerate the targeting of political opponents, that he will not hold individuals accountable for such actions, and he will not take steps to fix the problem. Obama was uttering empty words at his press conference about the IRS. Many of us expect that from a Republican chief executive; we should demand better from a Democrat.

JB: For readers unfamiliar with the Siegelman case, Roger, can you give us a brief overview of what happened and why anyone outside of Alabama should care? It didn’t happen under Obama’s watch so how can he be blamed?

RS: Don Siegelman was a Democratic governor in a deep-red state, a state where Karl Rove has a strong power base. Siegelman accepted a campaign donation from a businessman named Richard Scrushy, and then appointed Scrushy to a health-care regulatory board–a board on which Scrushy had served under three previous governors.

The standard for a bribery conviction in the campaign-donation context is that the prosecution must prove an “explicit agreement” in a something-for-something deal (known in legalese as a “quid pro quo.”) No evidence at trial pointed to such an unlawful deal, and the federal judge presiding over the case (a George W. Bush appointee named Mark Fuller) gave incorrect jury instructions that did not include the “explicit agreement” requirement. He allowed the jury to

Alabama Republican Introduces Bill to Eliminate Overtime Pay

I wouldn’t have believed it had I not read it for myself from the official Congressional website.

U.S. Representative Martha Roby, a Republican from Alabama’s 2d Congressional District has introduced H.R. 1406, officially named the “Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013″ which would END the requirement of the Fair Labor Standards Act for employers to pay Time-and-a-Half to employees for every hour worked over 40 in one week.

http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1406

The Congressional Budget Office has reported on the bill, and in part wrote that:

Gay Marriage, Civil Union, Domestic Partnership, Marriage and Civil Rights

What you’re about to read is NOT about religion.

For a brief moment – if you can – set aside a religious mindset (if you have one) about homosexuality.

As an ‘institution,’ marriage confers legal benefits to each spouse which are enforceable in courts of law in all 50 states.

For example, the following is a partial list of legal benefits

Official Sources: Huntsville Hospital gets low patient safety rating, patients’ lives at risk

Realistically, what does that mean for you, your loved ones or friends if – God forbid – they’re hospitalized at Huntsville Hospital?

It means that when you, your loved ones’ or friends’ are a patient in the hospital, you or they could get an infection, or some other serious bug or problem while being treated for something else entirely different. And by so doing, it could make your stay more unpleasant, and in fact, could increase the risk of complications of your treatment – up to, and including your death – was well as increase the length of your stay, among other factors.

What does that mean for the Hospital?

Because insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid have STOPPED paying for the treatment of preventable problems that are a direct result of hospitalization, it means that Huntsville Hospital will be stuck with the bill (the costs of treating their own mistakes upon you while you’re there)… and will try to pass the cost along to you to recoup the cost of the loss, which is a DIRECT result of their own sloppiness.

Huntsville Hospital has essentially become a monopolistic monstrosity of an enterprise, gobbling up numerous hospitals in the North Alabama region, including BOTH hospitals in Decatur, the only hospital in Athens, the only hospital in Red Bay, Helen Keller Hospital in Tuscumbia area of the Shoals, and the only hospital in Lawrence county.

Meanwhile, Huntsville hospital has fought tooth-and-nail to keep other hospitals OUT of competition in the Huntsville market, and spent untold millions of dollars in a protracted legal battle against Crestwood Hospital – and continues to spend millions to prevent Crestwood Hospital from offering services that would benefit the entire city and county.

Such anti-competitive practice has all been accomplished by and through the state of Alabama‘s Certificate Of Need Board.

The commentary of Mr. Burr Ingram – Huntsville Hospital’s official mouthpiece – which is contained in this article is entirely and wholly unwarranted, and weasel-like.

Not only that, but Huntsville Hospital is NOT a Nursing Magnet Hospital.

There are many things Huntsville Hospital is not.

And sadly, quality is one of them.

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Watchdog Report: Consumer Reports gives both hospitals in Huntsville low safety ratings

Published: Thursday, July 12, 2012, 9:06 AM     Updated: Thursday, July 12, 2012, 9:30 AM

By Challen Stephens, The Huntsville Times

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Consumer Reports magazine ranked the two hospitals in Huntsville as the least safe in Alabama. But the magazine’s list of hospitals is far from complete.

“We were kind of perplexed at some of what it reported,” said Burr Ingram, spokesman at Huntsville Hospital. “When you think about it, it’s fashionable for everyone to rate hospitals. And Consumer Reports is the latest to use public data that is available.

“But at times, it’s difficult to know how these ratings come about.”

Huntsville Hospital, The Huntsville Times

The magazine’s August edition lists scores in four safety categories. Both Huntsville Hospital and Crestwood Medical Center received low marks for poor communication with patients and for high rates of infection. Both received mediocre marks for high rates of re-admission and unnecessary scans.

Yet the report ranked

Alabama State House Committee OKs Home Brew Bill

Finally!

Little by little, in some regard, Alabama is moving into the 21st century.

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House committee approves bill that would legalize home brewing of beer

By Mike Cason | mcason@al.com
February 20, 2013 at 5:35 PM

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — The House Economic Development and Tourism Committee today approved a bill that would allow those 21 and older to make home brewed beer, wine, mead and cider for personal use.

Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Huntsville. (Robin Conn/The Huntsville Times) 

The bill, by Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Huntsville, would limit the total production to 15 gallons every three months.

The committee approved the bill after a public hearing, putting it in position for consideration by the House of Representatives.

Several home brewing enthusiasts spoke in favor of the bill.

Jason Sledd of Huntsville told the committee he took up home brewing as a hobby last year.

“At the time, I had no idea what I was doing was illegal in the state of Alabama,” Sledd said.

Sledd said he learned home brewing was illegal after joining a home brewers club.

Rep. Berry Forte, D-Eufaula, said he was opposed to the use of alcohol because of what it had done to some family members. He asked Sledd whether he brewed beer in front of his children.

Sledd said he did, and said he was teaching them the responsible way to use alcohol.

“They will have years of experience of seeing an adult drink alcohol and not being intoxicated,” Sledd said.

Joe Godfrey, executive director of ALCAP,

Ronald Reagan on carrying loaded firearms in public

“Americans don’t go around carrying guns with the idea they’re using them to influence other Americans. There’s no reason why a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

-Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, speaking in Sacramento, California, Tuesday, May 2, 1967, after “a dozen of the armed youth – members of

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Blasts Congressional Budget Impasse: Condemns “Fiscal Cliff”

This is the complete text of the Supreme Court’s Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.

The document itself is available as a PDF document via: http://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2012year-endreport.pdf

Page breaks and page numbers are annotated at the bottom of the page enumerated beginning with page 2.

Note: The links provided in this version are NOT part of the original version.

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EMBARGOED until 6 p.m. E.S.T. December 31, 2012 (No wires, no broadcasts, no Internet until 6 p.m. E.S.T.)

For further information, contact the Public Information Office 202-479-3211

2012 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary

Imagine a young seaman, two hundred years ago, standing night watch at the rail of an American frigate. Just one generation removed from the war for independence, he finds his Nation once again squaring off in battle with Great Britain, the world’s preeminent sea power. The sailor has ample reason to be anxious. Britain’s Royal Navy includes 115 ships of the line and 126 frigates, while the United States Navy consists of only 17 vessels. Perhaps the seaman musters confidence from the name of his ship: USS Constitution.

Named by President Washington himself, the Constitution was one of six frigates Congress authorized in 1794 to bolster the fledging United States Navy. The name was apt. The ship’s designer, Joshua Humphreys, drew on venerable Old World principles and New World ingenuity to engineer a nautical vessel uniquely suited to the country’s needs. Like the Framers, Humphreys produced an American original. He fashioned a ship long on keel but tight of beam. Constructed from frontier timber and copper bolts

forged by Paul Revere, the Constitution was durable but economical, nimble yet powerful. Christened with a bottle of madeira—the favorite beverage of future Chief Justice John Marshall— she launched on October 21, 1797.

During her early years, the Constitution patrolled the eastern seaboard and saw action in the Caribbean and along the Barbary Coast. But she became the stuff of legends two hundred years ago, at the outbreak of the War of 1812. Called into battle off the coast of Nova Scotia on August 19, the Constitution engaged and decisively defeated the British warship HMS Guerriere. The American ship’s sturdy oak hull repelled the Guerriere’s 18-pound cannon balls, earning her the nickname “Old Ironsides.” Four months later, the Constitution repeated the feat off the coast of Brazil. On December 29, she traded broadsides with HMS Java and reduced the British ship to an unsalvageable wreck.

The War of 1812 was fought over a wide field of battle. Measured against the whole war effort, the Constitution’s unexpected victories did not play a decisive role in the outcome of the conflict. But facing long odds, she did her part and did it well. The triumphs of Old Ironsides boosted America’s sagging morale during the early days of the war. Her exploits were celebrated in the paintings of Thomas Birch, the poetry of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and the prose of James Fenimore Cooper. Through

Hostess Twinkies go Bye-Bye… for now. But why? Who’s to blame?

Who’s to Blame for the Hostess Bankruptcy: Wall Street, Unions, or Carbs?

By Jordan Weissmann

Try all of the above.

There are two important things to realize about this rather sad situation. First: Twinkie, Wonder, and all the other high-calorie marvels of culinary science Hostess sells aren’t going to disappear from shelves for good. One of its competitors will likely swoop in, buy them up, and restart production. So you can stop bidding on $100 boxes of Sno Balls on eBay.

Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkie and Wonder Bread, is getting ready to bake its last corn-syrupy snack cake. After failing to win major contract concessions from one of its key labor unions, the beleaguered 82-year-old company has asked a federal bankruptcy court for permission to start liquidating its assets — or, in real person speak, begin the process of selling off pieces of the company to the highest bidder while laying off most of its 18,500 workers. (Reuters)

Second: This is not a simple story that anybody should try to slot neatly into their political talking points. It’s not just about Wall Street preying on Main Street, or big bad labor unions sucking a wholesome American company dry. It’s about an entire galaxy of bad decisions that will cost many people their jobs and money.

As David Kaplan chronicled at length for Fortune earlier this year, the roots of this debacle go back to when Hostess entered its first bankruptcy in 2004. Not unlike the situation automakers would find themselves in a few years later, the company was collapsing under the weight of flagging sales, overly generous union contracts replete with ridiculous work rules, and gobs of debt. But unlike the automakers, the five years Hostess spent trying to fix itself in Chapter 11 didn’t fix its fundamental problems.

Instead, they set the stage for its eventual demise. A private equity company, Ripplewood Holdings, paid about $130 million dollars to take Hostess private, and the company’s two major unions, the Teamsters and the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, sacrificed about $110 million in annual wages and benefits. But

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley Defies Federal Law, Refuses to Establish Healthcare Insurance Exchange for Citizens

Governor Bentley is pulling a George Wallace stand-in-the-schoolhouse-door redux.

What an ignorant ass he is!

It’s exceedingly sad that he – as a physician – ordered Alabama’s 67 Counties Departments of Public Health to STOP giving Tuberculosis tests, thereby jeopardizing the public health of everyone who eats at a public restaurant, works in healthcare, and more – and was done as super-virulent, drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis are emerging. Gee, thanks, Governor Dr. Bentley. NOT!

Thanks for nothing, you jack-legged nincompoop!

By your defiant actions, Governor Bentley, you will FORCE the Federal Government to do something TOTALLY against your opinion – and that is, to establish a Health Insurance Exchange in Alabama.

You, Governor Bentley, are a lazy, sorry, idiotic jerk, in addition to being a liar, thief, incompetent boob, and contemptuous good-for-nothing.

Pejoratives aside, more than anything, this places the solitary onus of responsibility upon the governor and legislature to 1.) Increase education,; 2.) Increase employment; 3.) Increase Corporate Income Tax rates; and 4.) Increase Personal Income Tax rates on the wealthiest Alabamians who already pay a well-documented rate that is significantly lower than the impoverished.

By increasing educational attainment in Alabama, the governor will be demonstrating a high-quality, high-yield investment in the state’s most precious resource – people.

But the governor – bless him – is ignorant, and it is quite painfully obvious that he just doesn’t understand such simple concepts. He should understand them, however, because he has said previously, that he used the G.I. Bill to complete his medical training after his enlistment ended.

In stark contrast, Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam said, “I’ve always said from the very beginning that anything we [Tennessee] can run instead of the federal government, we are going to run it better and cheaper,” The simpler thing to do is to say, ‘Here, it’s your idea, you run it,’ but I’m not convinced yet that that’s what’s best for our citizens. There’s going to be an exchange and ultimately, our citizens — through their insurance companies — are going to pay for the costs of running that exchange. So who do we think can run it cheaper: us or the federal government? I’ll bet on us every time. But we have to be convinced that the flexibility they will give us is worth taking the risk of running it ourselves.”

For the benefit of the reader who may be unaware of what an Insurance Exchange is, the exchange is designed to allow uninsured people to compare and buy health insurance plans through a single Internet portal. Those who earn up to four times the federally designated poverty level will receive subsidies to pay for the coverage.

Essentially, it’s an Internet-based non-business (nobody is making any money), that creates a database of health insurance carriers that all adhere to certain guidelines for efficiency and coverage. The law allows states to join together to run multi-state exchanges – essentially, insurance across state lines – or to exclude themselves.

In essence, make a list of companies that sell health insurance in the state, make a comparison of their plans and prices, and provide a link to the company for folks to buy insurance from whatever company they want.

Not too difficult to figure out, eh?

Here’s a link to an informative flyer from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation about what Health Insurance Exchanges are, and what they do.

You may also be interested in reading the informative site http://healthreform.kff.org.

 

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Gov. Bentley says Alabama won’t set up exchange, expand Medicaid

By Kim Chandler | kchandler@al.com
on November 13, 2012 at 1:38 PM, updated November 13, 2012 at 5:19 PM

Bentley, in a show of continued resistance to the Affordable Care Act,  said this afternoon that he will not set up a state health care exchange and he will not expand Medicaid under the federal healthcare overhaul.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley speaks at the Birmingham Business Alliance 2012 Governor’s Luncheon in Birmingham, Ala., Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012. (Tamika Moore | tmoore@al.com) / Tuesday, November 13, 2012 1:17 PM

“I will not set up a state exchange in Alabama,” Bentley said during a speech to the Birmingham Business Alliance.

States have a Friday deadline to inform the  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  if they plan to set up a state-run exchange, essentially a marketplace for people and businesses to shop for insurance. If states don’t set up their own exchange, either alone or in federal partnership, then the federal government will step in and design it.

Bentley said he has been in communication with other governors  — including peers in Texas, Florida and Louisiana — about the exchange decision.  He expected multiple governors to show a united front of resistance to the Affordable Care Act.

“If we stand together, I do believe Congress is going to have to look at this again,”Bentley said.

Bentley said he expected other governors to announce similar decisions.

“That will