Why did Parker Griffith vote AGAINST the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

Official portrait, Parker Griffith, MD as freshman member of the United States House of Representatives, Alabama 5th Congressional District.

Campaign photograph – 53rd Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, Jr., MD

As a politician, Parker Griffith has been described as “maverick.”

To describe it diplomatically, he has been “somewhat unpredictable.”

To be blunt, he’s a loose cannon.

His most recent political aspiration includes 2014 candidacy for Alabama governor under the Democratic ticket, challenging first term Republican Robert Bentley (described as “wildly popular”), whom is similarly a retired physician, and former Alabama State House Representative from Tuscaloosa, whom has publicly announced his opinion that he will be re-elected during a tour of Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, where sexual assaults, and abuses of innumerable kind have become so rampantly commonplace that Alabama’s prison system is verging upon federal takeover.

It was during his tour of that prison that “Our kindly country doctor governor toured Tutwiler in early March and quietly said, “we are probably going to have to build some new prisons in my second term.””

Griffith’s greatest obstacle is his past. More specifically, the greatest mountain he must conquer is his decision to switch parties (from Democrat to Republican) while in his first term in Congress, which abruptly ended his political aspirations.

The nightmare of his actions still haunts Alabama voters, many whom have not forgotten – including those in his hometown, Huntsville & Madison County. Like the ghastly spectre in Charles Dickens’ classic fiction “A Christmas Carol,” Parker Griffith must come face-to-face with the Ghost of Election Past, and Bentley with the Ghost of Alabama Yet to Come.

And in this real-life play, Bob Cratchit is played by the people, while 18.1% of the state’s population (the state poverty rate) are cast as the sickly child, Tiny Tim. They and others are the ones whom are denied by the Scrooge, played by Governor Bentley and Republican-dominated state legislature.

In reality, Griffith and Bentley play dual roles in this real-life political /social /medical /economic drama.

Charles Dickens circa 1850: he ‘kept on going by taking on too much’. Photograph: Herbert Watkins

Is there salvation for Griffith?

Will Bentley expand Medicaid?

Can anyone really help the citizens of Alabama?

Tune in next time! when we hear _?_ say…

Griffith’s last foray into politics – as Representative for Alabama’s 5th Congressional District – did not bode well, for after the first full year of a two-year term, he announced he was changing political party affiliation, for which he was resoundingly criticized at home by his constituency, in the press for his actions, and then subsequently resoundingly defeated by GOP challenger “Mo” Brooks in the 2010 Republican primary.

When he represented Alabama’s 5th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, Parker Griffith voted against

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:

Thoughts on Veteran’s Day 2012

This oath – and its variants which I have also taken – is one I have never, and shall never forswear:

“I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

That is a bond about which most will never know. I did so, because it is the good, just, right, honorable and proper thing to do. It still is, and always shall be.

Yes, I am

Led by GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner, Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing your “Do Nothing Congress” of 2012

Republican obstructionism, or Republican obstructionism?

So far this year, lawmakers have staged 195 roll-call votes, which boils down to only about 60 pieces of legislation, including post-office namings.

Among them are:
● The Mark Twain Commemorative Coin Act.
● The Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012.
● Legislation requiring the Treasury to mint coins commemorating the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Marshals Service.
● The World War II Memorial Prayer Act.
● The Permanent Electronic Duck Stamp Act.

Because the Democrats lack a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, they can bring virtually nothing to a vote without the blessing of the Republicans. Even with that hurdle, the Senate has been able to slog through a few bills in recent weeks, including

Cheap Labor: Alabama legislature to consider bill allowing prisoners to be hired

In Alabama, it’s “Deja Vu all over again,” or “Back to the Future” again, and again, all over again…

Some folks say they want to “take America back.”

The only problem I have with that, is that they never say where, or how far back they want to take America.

Do they want to take it back to the Jim Crow law era, before the time of Civil Rights?

Or, do they want to take it back to before suffrage (the right of women to vote)?

Or, God forbid, dare they take it back even further? Surely not to King George!

Where ARE our “leaders'” sense of ethics, righteousness and justice?

I remain convinced, they are

AL GOP Rep Mo Brooks, 5th, confesses incompetence

You’d never have imagined hearing the radical Madison county Republican cozying up to his favorite pork projects in North Alabama. But hey, any job is a good job in this economy, eh, Mo? And you sure as Hell don’t want to put folks out of work… now DO you, Mo? Seems like you’re caught between the proverbial “rock and a hard place,” old man.

Those “pork barrels” sure do look different when they belong to you, don’t they? (I think they’re called “JOBS” and they belong to those class of people you call your “constituents.”)

Let’s buy more waterproof coffee pots, HSNDDs, and HSBLDs – hard steel nail driving devices, and highly specialized bullet launching devices.

Instead, why don’t we spend some money to  improve (translation: INVEST in improving) our national infrastructure – roads, electrical power grid, waterways, schools and parks? Surely you remember GOP President, former 5 Star General Dwight David Eisenhower‘s warning about the “military industrial complex,” don’t you?

 

Congress will cut defense, Congressman Mo Brooks says, possibly programs in Huntsville

Published: Thursday, February 03, 2011, 5:30 AM     Updated: Thursday, February 03, 2011, 6:12 AM

HUNTSVILLE, AL – U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, said here Wednesday that Congress will “probably” cut defense spending next year, possibly including R&D programs based in Huntsville, but, if he gets his way, it will boost

AZ Congresswoman Shot; 6+ Tucson fatalities

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot in head

Posted by Max Brantley on Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 12:38 PM

• U.S. REP. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot in the head at point blank range in Tucson today and several staffers were wounded. She was at a public event at a grocery store. The shooter was tackled by a bystander and is in custody.UPDATE: A sheriff’s spokesman has said that Giffords has died, one of at least six fatalities, and at least 12 people were shot. But a variety of sources are saying at 2 p.m. Little Rock time that the congresswoman remains in surgery in critical condition. CNN says one may have been a federal judge.

The New York Times quotes a witness who said the gunman fired at least 20 shots. He was described as a white male in his 20s who was shabbily dressed. The article notes that her House office was vandalized hours after the House approved health care reform legislation, which she supported. She told MSNBC then that she was not afraid, despite numerous threats. “Our democracy is a light, a beacon around the world” because it effects change at the ballot box, not by violent acts.

Regards a topic addressed earlier today, just for the record from opencarry.com

Arizona is one of our “Gold Star” open carry states. There is complete state preemption of all firearms laws, open carry is common and law enforcement is well educated as to its legality.

People with guns may be asked to store their firearms or leave places open to the public in Arizona Though Giffords has supported some legislation supportive of concealed carry, she earned a D from the NRA for overall voting record, such as support for background checks of gun purchasers at gun shows. There is, of course, no way to know if the shooting today was related to gun issues or other hot-button issues that roil Arizona, such as

Alabama’s Certificate of Need Law

Wow!

With what I know about Alabama’s CON law, I could write volumes! And then, the title’s enough to get me started. I decided to use the “KISS” principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid.

If you’re a follower of Alabama politics – even casually – then you most likely have heard of, or remember former Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy being convicted jointly of a “quid pro quo,” or more exactly, Siegelman was accused of accepting Scrushy’s bribe… to sit on the CON Board.

Never mind that the FBI extensively coached a known perjurer about what and how to testify – itself an illegal act – and never mind that Scrushy was appointed by two governors of two different parties to sit on the CON Board, and publicly expressed disdain for serving again. But that’s all water under the bridge. I only mentioned that because of its poignancy, and is relative to this post.

I sincerely doubt that most folks know that in Alabama, at least, not just anyone, or any organization can decide to build a hospital. For example, if Warren Buffett and Bill Gates decided that together, they wanted to gift the good people of Alabama with a hospital, they could NOT do it.

Why?

Read on to find out!