By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two Birmingham lawyers and an Alabama coal company executive were indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday on charges of conspiracy, bribery, wire fraud and money laundering for paying a state legislator to fight the cleanup of a Superfund site in north Birmingham. U.S. attorneys, IRS and…
Monthly Archives: September 2017
Judge Roy Moore Wins Republican Runoff, but His War Against the Separation of Church and State is About Over
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — So the stage is set. One more time, the people of Alabama have a chance to fight the final battle of the American Revolution and the Civil War, and this time stamp out racist, religious politics for all time. The national media is still writing about the special…
Gallup Poll: Trump’s Unpopularity Drives Public Favorability to Democrats
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — The shrinking popularity of President Donald Trump and the public pronouncements and policies of his administration are creating a boost for Democrats that could play out to their advantage going into the 2018 mid-term election cycle. A Gallup poll just released shows a significant increase in the American…
National Media Scrambles to Understand Alabama Politics
Learning the Lesson of the Birmingham Church Bombing
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Sunday, September 15, 1963, when the bomb went off in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham, I was only five-years-old about to turn six in October. My family lived just 15 miles northeast of the church in the suburbs, but oddly,…
Privatizing National Parks Puts America’s Best Idea At Risk
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nothing is more American than the iconic National Park Ranger hat. The idea of protecting nature and providing public access to natural beauty began in the United States and has spread across the world, but now it’s at risk. While the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest…
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft Ends Journey on Saturn
WASHINGTON, D.C. — NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made its final plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn on Friday, ending its 13-year tour of the ringed planet. “This is the final chapter of an amazing mission, but it’s also a new beginning,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.…
President Trump’s Decision to End the Dreamer Immigrant Program in Doubt
By Kimberely Blackburn Delta Digital News Service JONESBORO – President Donald Trump announced his decision to discontinue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a decision placing those brought to the United States as children by undocumented immigrant parents, often known as “dreamers,” at risk for deportation. Trump’s decision comes after lawmakers from 10 states…
Cassini Spacecraft Makes Final Approach to Saturn
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is on final approach to Saturn, following confirmation by mission navigators that it is on course to dive into the planet’s atmosphere on Friday, Sept. 15. Cassini is ending its 13-year tour of the Saturn system with an intentional plunge into the planet to ensure Saturn’s moons – in particular Enceladus, with…
New Poll Shows Democrat Doug Jones in Dead Heat with Republicans in Senate Race
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new public opinion survey of likely voters in an Alabama special election to fill Jeff Sessions’ U.S. Senate seat indicates that Democrat Doug Jones is in a virtual dead heat with Republicans Judge Roy Moore and Senator Luther Strange. The poll, conducted by the communications department at…
Why Hate Speech is Not Free Speech
A Few Options for Virginia to Replace the Statue of Robert E. Lee in the U.S. Capitol
The Big Picture By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – So far key politicians in Virginia have not learned the lesson of Charlottesville. There is no public evidence that Governor Terry McAuliffe, Senators Tim Kaine or Mark Warner have noticed that there is a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the U.S. Capitol,…
Former Alabama Legislator Pleads Guilty to Bribery Conspiracy, Fraud and Tax Evasion
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Former Alabama legislator Oliver Robinson pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to accepting bribes from a Birmingham lawyer and an Alabama coal company executive in exchange for advocating their employers’ opposition to EPA actions in North Birmingham, according to a press release just out from the U.S.…
Maya Angelou Inducted into Women’s Hall of Fame
By Kimberely Blackburn – Delta Digital News Service – LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame inducted Maya Angelou along with eight other women and one convent into its 2017 class Thursday evening in the third-annual award ceremony held at the State Convention Hall. Immediately preceding the event, the board…
Republican Leadership Tainted by Dirty Russian Money
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – We need a new term to describe Donald Trump’s leadership style, modeled on his idol Vladimir Putin of Russia. People in the United States probably still think of Russia as a Socialist-Communist country. But it’s not. Not since the breakup of the Soviet Union…
Alabama Democrat Doug Jones Has A Chance to Be the Next U.S. Senator
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Democrats in bars and coffee shops around the nation’s capital and across Alabama are asking each other an implausible question: Is 2017 the year a Democrat might get elected to the U.S. Senate from the conservative state? The 63-year-old former federal prosecutor Doug Jones, who jailed a couple…
Photo Essay: A White House Tour
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – For the past three years I have chased a dream to visit the White House and stand on the same hallowed ground where so much American history has taken place in the nationâs capital. Finally, thanks to the helpful staff of Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the Congressman from…