Alabama Democrats Vote to Save Jobs: ABC Privatization Bill Dies in Senate Committee

A bill by State Senator Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) to privatize the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board has died in the Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee by a 7-6 vote along party lines, with one Republican voting ‘NO.’ The vote received applause from attendees.

A substitution bill presented by Orr would’ve changed the suspension penalty for Selling to Minors from one year to one week, and increased taxes, was also adopted along party line vote.
Orr said earlier that, “Part of our job is to downsize government,” and demanded a committee vote be taken on his bill today.

Alcoholic Beverage Control Board Administrator Mac Gipson testified that employees are paid from mark-ups from sales in the state’s 176 ABC stores. He also noted that by comparison, there are 587 private package stores in the state.

In Alabama, liquor is marked up at

Cullman Alabama Mother & Son Plead Guilty to Theft from Poverty Healthcare Program

Cullman County Scum.

“Some folks just need killing.”

Either that, or chop off their hand, or foot.

This is OUTRAGEOUS!

Stealing from the poor!

This makes me LIVID!!

They’re both human ostomy bags.

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Mother, son charged in federal health agency fraud; more than $100k used on items including adult website, fish finders

By Kent Faulk | kfaulk@al.com
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on August 27, 2014 at 5:15 PM, updated August 27, 2014 at 5:16 PM

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – A mother and son from Cullman have been charged in a scheme to defraud federal health agencies and a nonprofit east Alabama health center of more than $100,000, which they used to buy personal items such as electronic fish finders, truck tires, cell phones and an adult website membership, federal prosecutors announced.

Sheila Osborne Parker and James Robert Parker were charged in separate documents today in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, according to a joint press release issued by U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard D. Schwein Jr., IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Veronica Hyman-Pillot, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Office of Inspector General, Atlanta Regional Office Special Agent in Charge Derrick Jackson.

AL.com and The Birmingham News recently reported that a federal grand jury has been investigating the financial dealings of the federally-funded Birmingham Health Care center, which at one time a pioneer in the care of the homeless in Birmingham, sources tell AL.com.

Sheila Parker, 59, faces six counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud and two counts of failing to file federal income tax returns, according to the press release. James Parker, 33, faces five counts of wire fraud and two counts of failing to file income tax returns. The mother and son have both entered plea agreements with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Sheila Parker worked for Birmingham Health Care, a nonprofit organization in Birmingham intended to provide free or low-cost health care services to the homeless and to people living below poverty level in the metro area, according to the press release.

In 2008, BHC assumed responsibility for

Goodbye & Good Riddance: Alabama Public TeeVee COO Charles Grantham resigns effective August 31 2012

FOR THE RECORD:
Good bye, and good riddance. Time to say ‘goodbye‘ to the old cr3w, and welcome a new day.

Why?

APTV has NOT yet achieved its potential.

That new and glorious day is ahead.

Thanks be to God that the old Board members, CEO, COO & CFO are gone.

Again, why?

They have NOT led APTV to glory.

Duh!

Hello?!?

If Alabamians were as rabid for APTV as they are for their cockamamie football team from Tuscaloosa, we’d have had a First Rate, Nationally Award-Winning organization & programs a long time ago.

The problem is, it was only once, and a very long time ago.

And we’ve been scraping the bottom of the barrel ever since.

For example, why did APTV close the long-time Montgomery bureau, only to open a Washington, D.C. bureau?

Be sure to ask that of the fired CFO Pauline Howland & fired Executive Director Alan Pizzato. They’re likely to know.

Bear this in mind as well, my commentary, while critical, is in no way reflective upon those individuals as human beings. That is to say, I have no ‘axe to grind’ with any of them, and I have no reason to suspect or imagine that they’re anything other than fine people.

However, they have a job to do, and APTV has been sucking wind for way too long.

In the competitive arena, if you don’t earn market share or provide value, your business dwindles. Keep that up, and the CEO’s head will roll, along with the COO, CFO, and possibly members of the Board of Directors, as well.

And that’s exactly what has happened.

It’s time to change.

To that denunciation, I add this additional withering criticism: The second story indicates that Mr. “Grantham told reporters that commission chairman Ferris Stephens instructed him that he was no longer allowed to talk to the media about the recent upheaval at APT.”

That is an illegal act.

And someone like Ferris Stephens ought to know better than to do something as stupid as that, because he’s an Assistant Attorney General at the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.

Not only is the management of the network a matter of PUBLIC RECORD, but the employees have Freedom of Speech rights under the First Amendment.

Particularly, according to Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 384 (1987) “The threshold question . . . is whether [an employee’s] speech may be ‘fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern.'” There is little doubt that Mr. Grantham’s public speech may certainly be characterized as being on a matter of public concern.

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Alabama Public TV COO Charles Grantham Resigns

By Associated Press

Credit aptv.org / Alabama Public Television

The chief operating officer for Alabama Public Television has resigned after

“Why do you want to work for Huntsville Hospital?” A Lesson in (dis)honesty.

Honesty… is it ALWAYS the best policy?

Recently, I’ve found that some search engine terms which have led to this blog include this question “Why do you want to work at Huntsville Hospital“?

In Huntsville, Alabama – where I resided for many years – there are ONLY TWO hospitals in town.

One, Huntsville Hospital, is a public not-for-profit, and the other, a much smaller Crestwood Medical Center, is a private, for-profit hospital.

Many of the professors and instructors at the Nursing School from which I graduated have privately expressed their frustrations to their students, and to me, about Huntsville Hospital’s virtual monopoly on the hospital-based healthcare delivery in Huntsville, AL.

Part of that problem stems in large part from

Recess Appointments -OR- Shut up, and stop your whining, John!

Saying, “I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government,” President Obama has announced 15 recess appointments, including the much anticipated appointment of union attorney Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments about the validity of some of the 580 decisions rendered by the two-member NLRB since its five-member panel has had no quorum for over two years. The two members are a Democrat and a Republican.

Mr. Becker earned his law degree from Yale Law School, and has argued labor and employment cases before many appellate courts and the Supreme Court. He is also the Associate General Counsel to the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO.

Senate Republicans had blocked Becker’s nomination claiming he would bring a radical anti-big business agenda to the job, and requested

NCLEX Nurse Entrance Exam Gets Tougher

Studies continue to demonstrate that among all professions (jobs for which one has specific higher education, must be licensed often at a state level, and typically has continuing education requirements), Nurses continue to be held in highest esteem. And, rightfully so.

Nursing is not just hand holding and bedpan emptying, although there is a component of that in almost every nursing assignment.

Now Nursing Students will become even more challenged – as right they should. Increasing burdens call for increasing competency, and hardly anyone could disagree with “raising the bar” for entrance just a wee bit higher… particularly when your life depends upon it!