PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Ambassador Carlos Alzugaray Speaks on US-Cuban Relations at South Alabama

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By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The United States and Cuba finally have a chance to normalize relations and benefit both countries from the exchange of cultures thanks to the recent announcement by President Barack Obama that the long and tragic trade embargo should be lifted, according to Cuban Ambassador Carlos Alzugaray. He spoke…

Controversy Continues Over President’s Visit to Selma on Fiftieth Anniversary of Selma-to-Montgomery March

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By Glynn Wilson – MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The controversy between the White House, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and African-American Alabama political leaders continues and has not been resolved, according to information obtained by the New American Journal on Saturday. The SCLC held a press conference in Montgomery on Friday reiterating…

Noam Chomsky Comments on the Future With Climate Change

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By Glynn Wilson – I woke up Sunday morning thinking about something besides aphrodisiacs and Valentines Day, same sex marriage and Mardi Gras. While everyone else seems to be focused on these things, including the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, I am still wondering when the devastating news about the rapid pace of climate change…

Same Sex Marriage and Same History in Alabama

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By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – The threat of gay marriage in Alabama has roused governor George Wallace to rise from the dead and stand again in the schoolhouse door. When Roy Moore, chief justice of the state supreme court, flung himself this week between a federal judge in Mobile and the local bureau…

Alabama Political Future Damaged by Labor vs. Environment Split

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — A few years ago, Princeton graduate Charles Scribner with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper in Birmingham saw my coverage of the BlueGreen Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Washington, D.C. and sent me an e-mail asking an important question: Do you think it would be…

Judge Roy Moore Turns the Screws on the Public Again

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Thank You Jere Beasley and Alabama Trial Lawyers – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — I wonder if Jere Beasley and the Alabama trial lawyers are happy now? Old Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore is making headlines around the country again in another stand in the courthouse door, this time against a growing federal…

Mobile Residents Say No to Canadian Tar Sands Crude Oil Tank Farms

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Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The citizens of Mobile, especially those in the historic Africatown community along with members of the Mobile Bay Sierra Club, have held public meetings and spoken up: They do not want the Mobile Planning Commission and the City…

President Obama’s Job Approval Rating Hits 50 Percent

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By Glynn Wilson – Less than a week after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address to a new Republican-dominated Congress, his job approval rating reached 50 percent in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, the first time since June 2013. Three months ago, in mid-October, only 39 percent of Americans approved of Obama’s…

Obama Administration Proposes Further Wilderness Protections for Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Recommends Largest Ever Wilderness Designation to Protect Pristine Habitat – WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s administration moved this week to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, widely considered one of the most spectacular and remote areas in the world. The Department of the Interior is releasing a conservation plan for the refuge that…

President Obama is America’s Political Jackie Robinson

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By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — How can I explain this in a way everyone will understand, including conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and the national and state press corps? President Barack Obama is and must be our political Jackie Robinson. You may recall or have heard that Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson was the first…

President Obama Delivers 2015 State of the Union Address

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Watch the Video Read the Text There is a ritual on State of the Union night in Washington. A little before the address, the White House sends out an embargoed copy of the President’s speech to the press (embargoed means that the press can see the speech, but they can’t report on it until a…

Selma the Film: Clearing Up the Controversies

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By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — If you are really any kind of patriotic American — Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, libertarian, whatever — you must be willing to acknowledge that what happened in Alabama and Washington in 1965 was a pivotal moment in U.S. and world history. By “pivotal” I do not…

Studies Show 2014 Was the Warmest Year On Record

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By Glynn Wilson – The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest on record since 1880, according to two separate analyses by scientists from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000, they say in a release just out…

Obama Administration Announces First National Regulations on Coal Ash Disposal

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By Glynn Wilson – The Obama administration on Friday released the first national regulations to provide for the safe disposal of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the final rule that establishes safeguards to protect communities from coal ash impoundment failures, like the catastrophic 2008 spill in Kingston, Tennessee,…