ECONOMY

Up to $600 Million in Federal Grants Now Available to Build Rural High Speed Internet Infrastructure

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Staff report… Rural utilities are being encouraged to apply for the up to $600 million in loans and grants now available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help expand high speed internet infrastructure, according to a statement out Friday from U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama. Municipalities, telecommunication companies, rural electric cooperatives, internet service…

What Democrats Need to Do to Combat Trump: Face the Economic Problems of the Middle Class

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By Robert Reich – Why did working class voters choose a selfish, thin-skinned, petulant, lying, narcissistic, boastful, megalomaniac for president? With the 2018 midterms around the corner, and prospective Democratic candidates already eyeing the 2020 race, the answer is important because it will influence how Democrats campaign. One explanation focuses on economic hardship. The working…

Buck’s Pocket State Park Campground Could Reopen in the Fall

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By Glynn Wilson – GROVE OAK, Ala. — Jamie Godwin began telling me her story at a party by a campfire on a bluff looking out over Shoal Creek in St. Florian, Alabama, near Muscle Shoals. She is inspired in part by the story of a native American medicine woman named Teh-la-nay, who once walked…

Climate Change Denier Scott Pruitt May Be On the Way Out at EPA

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By Glynn Wilson – One of the most disheartening facts about the Trump administration’s policies to the millions of Americans who care deeply about the Earth’s natural environment is the outright war on the planet being waged by President Donald Trump and his cabinet. A couple of new stories just out demonstrate the problem, and…

Gutting the EPA Confirms Trump’s Damning ‘Alabamafication’ of America

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ANALYSIS By Glynn Wilson – President Trump needs a new slogan. Instead of declaring that he wants to “make America great again,” if he was an honest man he would say instead: “Let’s make America more like Alabama.” That’s what’s going on as his administration guts the Environmental Protection Agency. If it was possible to…

The State of Government and Democracy in Trump’s America

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By Glynn Wilson — WASHINGTON, D.C. — If President Donald J. Trump was actually as smart as he likes to say he is and actually had a plan to make America great, he would have shut down his Twitter account on Inauguration Day and ordered his cabinet to come up with real plans to address…

Senate Democrats Join Protesters in Rally to Save American Health Care

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By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Activists held a rally outside the Capitol on Tuesday to try to save the American health care system with chants of “kill the bill” as Republican senators inside held a procedural vote to debate the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would leave millions of people, including…

An Update on Thoreau’s Necessities of Life

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“The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden By Glynn…

Trump’s Federal Hiring Freeze Makes America Less Safe

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Even Members of Congress and Trump Voters and Fans Who Visit Washington – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — When New York celebrity businessman Donald J. Trump took office in January, one of his first acts as president was to immediately sign a symbolic memo calling for a “hiring freeze” on federal employees. The…

One Hundred Days and More of Trump Grief

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Not since George W. Bush’s 100 day losing war with Iraq based on bad intel has America suffered such days of grief as the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency. For those who are too young to remember or who somehow rode out the Bush years…

Freshman Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz Faces Protesters

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Republican Defends Bill to Abolish the EPA By Glynn Wilson – MILTON, Fla. — Freshman Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz faced protesters and supporters at his first day of town hall events since the election, defending a bill he put forward with three cosigners in the House to abolish the EPA. The Florida Panhandle Progressives, local…