Capital City Free Press

Gene Policinski: Criminal libel: A bad idea in a free society

2012-02-18T13:39:00.001-06:00

Saying something untrue about a person may cost you later in court — but in about two dozen states it can land you in jail, too.

Libel lawsuits today in the U.S. almost always involve a civil case brought by one person against another, seeking compensation for damages suffered for an alleged false claim or statement. Truth almost always provides legal protection to the speaker or writer, and without proof of malicious intent or reckless disregard for the truth, few claims prevail.

But the continued existence in a number of states of “criminal libel” statutes raises the centuries-old specter of fines or even a prison term for writers or speakers found liable for damaging remarks.

Criminal prosecution for defamation extends back to Star Chamber’s secret activities in England in the early 1500s, when it was used — even for true statements — to punish insults to noble egos or opposition to royal policies.

Later, such disputes were moved into open courts and touted as positive alternatives to duels over matters of personal honor.

In Colorado, GOP State Sen. Greg Brophy has proposed repeal of his state’s 19th century criminal-libel statute, telling the Associated Press that the law “tramples on the First Amendment rights of people to write and or post online things that they want to post.”

A state Senate committee approved the measure Feb. 14 in a first step toward passage.

Critics say anachronistic laws such as criminal libel often use colorful but imprecise language that fails to meet modern constitutional tests. The Colorado law, for example, provides for prosecution of anyone for “any statement … tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation, or expose the natural defects, of one who is alive.”

Laws in other states have aspects that are out-of-date in today’s world, such as provisions focusing on insults to women or that base violations on vague ideas such as authoring remarks that cause a “general breach of the peace.”

Such laws could empower a government official in a vendetta against news operations, or those seeking to silence a blogger or punish a political opponent. The mere threat of a criminal charge carries a chilling effect regardless of the relative difficulty in winning a libel action of any kind.

An AP report cited two criminal-libel prosecutions in Colorado in the past two years. In one, a man faced 18 months in prison for sexually charged comments he posted about an ex-girlfriend. The charge was later reduced to harassment. In the second case, a university student faced the threat of criminal charges for creating a satirical blog about a professor. At one point, police searched the student’s home and seized his computer. Ultimately, no charges were filed and the student obtained a $425,000 settlement against the prosecutor who had signed off on the search warrant.

The law surrounding defamation — as with issues like cyberbullying and copyright protection for music — has not fully caught up with the challenges and promises of the Internet Age. Some argue that given the relative ease of widely spreading a falsehood online about someone, a criminal charge offers an effective means of punishing those with few assets to pay a civil court judgment.

But the legal point of a defamation lawsuit is lawful compensation for damages, not punishment. Jailing a writer or imposing a criminal conviction on a speaker as a means of holding him or her accountable to the truth has no place in a society based on the vigorous exchange of strongly held views and committed to the marketplace of ideas.

Civil lawsuits offer the restoration of reputation, and in most cases compensation for losses, to victims whose reputations have been sullied unfairly.

Criminal-libel laws belong in our history texts, not in our law books.

About the author: Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, is a veteran journalist whose career has included work in newspapers, radio, television and online.

This article was published by the First Amendment Center.

Eric Alterman: Is America getting more conservative?

2012-02-17T13:18:00.001-06:00

Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto and a senior editor at The Atlantic, wants to explain “Why America Keeps Getting More Conservative.” He notes, as does everyone who writes about the topic, that “Americans at this political moment are significantly more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal: conservatives outnumber liberals by nearly two to one. Forty percent identify as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent liberal.”

That’s hardly news. What Florida thinks is worth paying attention to, however, is the map he draws of “The Conservative States of America,” which he uses to illustrate his point that America is becoming more conservative. He originally wrote about it in March 2011 and now updates his analysis with Gallup’s year-end data.

Florida admits that the “associations” between certain kinds of people and certain kinds of political attitudes at the state level that he and his colleague developed in their research do not explain much. As he notes, “correlation does not show causation.” Even so, he says, “they reflect the deep cleavages of income, education, and class that divide America.”

In order to continue with this line of reasoning, the reader is forced to gloss over a few points—the most obvious being one of definition. The word “conservative” has different meanings in different places. To be “conservative” in New York City might make you nearly communist in parts of Mississippi or Alabama. And while “conservative” states may have people who self-identify as “conservative,” they might not hold views that the popular media identify as conservative.

So what does it mean to be “conservative” by Florida’s (and the Pew Research Center’s) definition? According to a Pew survey released this month, more than half (57 percent) of lower-income Republicans (those with family incomes of less than $30,000) said that government does not do enough for the poor, while less than one in five (18 percent) said it does too much. On the other hand, higher-income Republicans (those with family incomes of $75,000 or more, perhaps not surprisingly) overwhelmingly think government does too much.

It would appear that, according to this crucial measurement, being more “conservative” is simply a matter of having more money, though even here the matter is complicated. Florida notes that “while rich voters favor Republicans, rich states favor Democrats.”

It’s also apparently a matter of having less education. Florida recognizes that, “Conservative states are also less educated than liberal ones,” something that is also true on an individual level. The higher your educational attainment is, the more likely you will shed right-wing views. “The [negative] correlation between conservative affiliation and the percent of adults who are college graduates is also substantially higher than before (-.76 vs. -.53).” This may explain why conservatives are always seeking to cut student loan funding and other educational programs for the poor and middle class.

Florida also notes that states with more conservatives are less diverse. “Conservative political affiliation is highly negatively correlated with the percent of the population that are immigrants (-.56), or gay and lesbian (-.60).” Given that Florida’s argument is about how America is becoming “more conservative,” one might have expected him to note that America is becoming both more ethnically diverse and tolerant when it comes to what used to be called “alternative lifestyles.” Even half of Republicans support gay marriage or civil unions these days. (And let’s not even talk about contraception.) So maybe it’s not time to break out the beer and pretzels quite yet.

Nor does the future look so bright for conservatives when one factors in the role that class continues to play in determining political attitudes. “Conservative political affiliation is strongly positively correlated with the percentage of a state's workforce in blue-collar occupations (.73), and highly negatively correlated with the proportion of the workforce engaged in knowledge-based professional and creative work (-.61).” Given that manufacturing jobs are declining as a percentage of the workforce while “knowledge-based” occupations are rising, this too is bad news for the future of the right.

But among the greatest weaknesses of Florida’s analysis is the fact that political labels reflect far more about the implied meaning of the label than they do about a person’s actual politics. The word “liberal,” for example, has been subjected to so much abuse over the past four decades by an entire industry of pundits, politicians, think-tank denizens, talk-show hosts, and cable-news loudmouths that it’s a wonder that even one in five people are willing to cop to it at all, much less to do so where so much of the media and many in the pulpit equate it with Satan worship.

But when you add in those who call themselves moderate—and note that in almost all cases, those who hold moderate views fundamentally disagree with the putative “conservative” case—we come much closer to a workable analysis of the underlying attitudes of American citizens. Remember “moderates” do not wish to discriminate against gays, conduct a jihad against immigrants, or ban contraception, and they also actually believe in science and even math—just like liberals. (See my book, Why We’re Liberals?, for the data on this.)

This is not to say that our money-driven politics reflect these realities any more than our cable-news networks accurately reflect the views of those for whom their personalities profess to speak. A Pew poll in December indicated, for instance, that just slightly more Americans have a positive view of capitalism (50 percent) than a negative one (40 percent). Meanwhile, nearly one in three Americans (31 percent) think socialism is a good idea, which is almost as many as those who regard libertarianism the same way (38 percent). (The negative rating for libertarianism is just as high.) Our politics and political discourse can hardly be said to represent these realities.

It is inarguable, alas, that American politics have moved sharply rightward in recent decades. Keith T. Poole of the University of Georgia and Howard Rosenthal of New York University have been studying the phenomenon of political polarization over time. Their recently released updated numbers include the current Congress and go back all the way to 1879.

Skipping the first century of their data, Poole notes that “beyond doubt … Republicans have moved out to the right very fast, while the Democrats have drifted to the left, maybe, but nowhere close to what the Republicans have done.”

The journalist Michael Tomasky reads these numbers and notes that while House Democrats have become “50 percent more liberal than they were ... House Republicans are almost exactly three times, or 300 percent, more conservative than they were. Roughly the same is true in the Senate, with the asterisk that the Republicans there are not quite as extreme as their House counterparts.”

Tomasky quotes Sean Theriault, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, who observes, “If the Democratic senators have taken one step toward their ideological home, House Democrats have taken two steps, Senate Republicans three steps, and House Republicans four steps.”

To say that Americans are becoming more conservative provides a comforting narrative to mainstream media journalists who like to reassure people that all is hunky-dory in the world. After all, if our politics are more conservative, doesn’t that mean our people must be as well? In fact, it doesn’t. It reflects the reality that the power of corporate cash has become a much more significant factor in politics, as has the power of extremely wealthy individuals such as the Koch brothers to sway not only elections but the writing of our laws as well.

Conservatives are well-organized and well-funded. They are willing to use extremely tough tactics not only to demonize “liberals” but to prevent those who are likely to oppose them from being allowed to vote in both local and national elections. What they are not, however, is a majority. It is up to both “liberals” and “moderates” to ensure that, in the future, they have a much tougher time pretending to be.

About the author: Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a CUNY distinguished professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College. He is also “The Liberal Media” columnist for The Nation. His newest book is The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama, to be published in April. This column won the 2011 Mirror Award for Best Digital Commentary.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Gary Palmer: Reagan: America is too great for small dreams

2012-02-16T12:46:00.001-06:00

February 6th would have been Ronald Reagan’s 101st birthday. Considering the current condition of America and the world, I tried to imagine what he would say if he were still with us. Here are some of my thoughts.

First of all, I believe Reagan would challenge us directly and not with the impersonal language of a national collective. Our problems are really ‘our problems’ and the only way we will solve them is when we engage as individuals.

It is important to remember that when Reagan took office in January 1981, America was a struggling nation. A decade of liberal leadership from both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter left our military weak and our economy faltering. The Soviet Union was exerting itself globally, Islamic militants were holding 52 Americans hostage in Iran and we were losing the cold war. Moreover, America was dealing with double-digit consumer interest rates, double-digit inflation rates and double-digit unemployment with the highest rate of unemployment since the Great Depression.

Many people, both in America and abroad, thought we were on a path of irreversible decline … but not Reagan. In his first inaugural address in January 1981, he said, “We’re not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline.” He added, “I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”

The ‘we’ Reagan was referring to applied not just to his administration and not just to the members of Congress, it applied to every American. It is only when people take seriously their responsibility to get informed and get involved that the tide begins to turn.

Reagan did not just suddenly emerge in 1980 as the leader that the nation needed. Years before he held any elected office, Reagan was challenging the American people.

In his speeches from the early 1960s, Reagan asked the American people to educate themselves about the issues and then share what they learned with their family and friends. He understood that the change our nation needs will begin when men and women educate themselves about the issues and get involved. As he said in his farewell address in January 1989, “… lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”

In 1964, Reagan delivered what was perhaps the defining speech of his career entitled, “A Time for Choosing,” in which he said of that election, “This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

Even though his message was ignored in 1964, Reagan maintained an unfailing faith in the American people that he carried to the White House.

In his first inaugural address Reagan said, “It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams.” He continued, “I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to insure happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children.”

Because of his ability to connect with the American people, Reagan was called the “The Great Communicator.” He believed it was his message that resonated with what people knew to be true, not his skill as a speaker to connect with his audience.

In his farewell address, Reagan said, “I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things,” things that “…came from the heart of a great nation – from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.”

“The Reagan Revolution,” he said, “… seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.”

As Americans, we don’t have to wait for a great leader to emerge to get us back on track. If Reagan were still with us today, I think he would remind us that having a great leader is not enough. The rediscovery of our values and common sense must include resuming our responsibility as well. We must act “… worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done.”

About the author: Gary Parlmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

This article was published by the Alabama Policy Institute.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Scott Beason and the ghost of Big Jim Folsom

2012-02-15T09:10:00.000-06:00

Most political observers were shocked and somewhat in awe when State Senator Scott Beason chose to challenge veteran congressman Spencer Bachus in a Republican primary. Beason’s Don Quixote mission is a pragmatic approach to move up the political ladder in a normal setting. Beason is in the middle of a four-year term and has a free shot at the 20 year veteran congressman.

However, this scenario is so surprising because Beason has written the book on how to get bad publicity, especially in that particular Jefferson/Shelby County suburban district. It is almost comical that someone would seek higher office after being stripped of a powerful senate committee by his fellow Republicans because of embarrassing escapades. Then he was castigated as a racist and opportunist by a federal judge. He single handedly and arrogantly refused to allow Jefferson County to avoid bankruptcy. He also sponsored the immigration bill that made the state look racist and intolerant. I guess Beason’s theory in his quest is that any publicity is good publicity.

There is an old political adage that espouses that theory. It is, “just spell my name right.” Let me share with you the origin of that saying. Alabama has never had a more colorful character than legendary two-term Governor Big Jim Folsom. At 6’ 9” Big Jim was the most uninhibited and gregarious governor to ever live in the governor’s mansion. You have to realize that during his era there was no television. Folks only listened to the radio to hear country music and probably only on Saturday night to listen to the Grand Ole Opry live from Nashville featuring the likes of Minnie Pearl and Hank Williams.

There were no constant news networks, only the newspapers. There were the big city dailies, like the Birmingham News, Montgomery Advertiser and Mobile Press Register. However, most folks in Alabama lived in rural enclaves and only read their local newspaper. This was their only source of information. Big Jim’s people lived in rural Alabama. So Big Jim only catered to the rural people and rural newspapers. He ignored, made fun of and ran against the lying big city daily newspapers. These papers, as you can guess, had a good bit of animosity towards old Big Jim. Big Jim knew that the terrible things they wrote about him did not affect him one iota. Therefore, he had total immunity from the media. The small town newspapers only wrote about Big Jim when he came to town. They would feature him on the front page smiling and kissing the head cheerleader of the local high school.

One day the daily newspapers were getting ready to write a seething story about Big Jim’s administration, which they would do every few months. Out of courtesy they called Big Jim to tell him they were going to write an expose about him and give him an opportunity to tell his side. Big Jim said, “Boys y’all come on down and see Big Jim and tell me what you got on me and by the way have a drink with old Big Jim.” They dubiously came to the governor’s office leery of what antics the “Little Man’s Friend” had in store for them.

Big Jim did not disappoint. To their chagrin, Big Jim met them reared back in the governor’s chair with his barefoot size 17 feet perched on the desk and a glass of bourbon in his hand. He greeted the big city newspapers with total disdain and ridicule and bellowed out, “Where you boys been so long. I’ve been missing you. Have a drink with old Big Jim and tell me what you got on me.” They replied, “Governor, this is not a laughing matter. We have it on reliable sources and we have a list here of 37 people you’ve hired over in the Highway Department and circumvented the merit system and put them on the state payroll. Big Jim took a long pause then poured himself another drink and blurted out, “You lying daily newspapers, y’all lying about poor old Big Jim again. I ain’t hired 37 people over there. I got a list right here on my desk and it says I’ve hired 70 and the only merit they’ve got is that they’re Big Jim’s friends.”

In total dismay and bewilderment the big city newspapers declared to Big Jim, “Governor, we are going to put what you said in the newspaper tomorrow.” Big Jim, who knew that his voters did not read the Birmingham News, said, “Boys, I don’t care what you write about me. Just spell my name right.” Big Jim coined that phrase that day.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Ian M. MacIsaac: An Intense week in the Republican race comes to an anticlimactic end... with Romney on top

2012-02-13T20:54:00.002-06:00

It looks like last week wasn't an unmitigated disaster for Mitt Romney after all. He managed to scrape together a three-point win over Ron Paul in Maine when results were announced Saturday night, just hours after this year's CPAC poll declared him the winner over Rick Santorum, 38% to 31%.

It was a last-minute save for Romney, who has had one of the worst weeks since he began his campaign last year. Santorum seemed to be on the precipice of actually challenging Governor Romney for the coveted media coronation-title of "frontrunner" for a few days, following the former Pennsylvania senator's triple victory in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri February 7.

Since Governor Romney won the former two states by wide margins in 2008, his losing them four years later as the putative frontrunner did not bode well for his ability to win over the very conservative wing of his party, which will be crucial for turnout in the general election.

Nonetheless, because the three caucuses last Tuesday were nonbinding, Santorum is still losing 2-1 to Romney in terms of total delegates earned. Gingrich is in third place while Paul, who hasn't won a single contest yet, languishes in last place.

The economy temporarily receded as a campaign topic and social issues like birth control and gay marriage took a turn dominating the news cycle in a way they haven't since the Bush-Kerry election in 2004. As a result, Romney--his candidacy based virtually entirely on his perceived ability to fix the economy--began to flag in the caucuses as well as the polls, just as Rick Santorum's star began to rise.

Santorum's campaign since the very beginning has been framed around the "guns, God, and gays" rhetoric that seemed more at home in the Republican Party when Bush was president. Rick Santorum was one of President Bush's most faithful allies in the Senate on social and faith-related issues, notwithstanding Santorum's refusing to mention Bush in relation to himself even once in any stump speech he's given as part of this presidential campaign.

Santorum has managed to basically erase the vast majority of the last eight years of Republican stewardship in the White House--all the Republican candidates are--along with his association to it. He avoids bringing up the painful details of a previous era of Republican social conservatism and--arguably--disinterest in economic workings beyond "low taxes, low regulation, etc. etc. etc."

He has instead selectively picked the aspects of that conservative persona that remain politically viable within the party's primary process: the humble, hardworking rural man who nonetheless can see through the 'elites' in Washington; the image of the faith-crusader president that so many in places like Iowa, Texas, and rural Pennsylvania will vote for in an almost knee-jerk fashion.

And in a Republican year that has left the far-right of the party absolutely starved of conservative red meat--that sort of thing never having really been Mitt Romney's forte--just the idea of a Santorum candidacy gets these folks revved up in a way they haven't been in years, after the fall of their last president, the failure of their disappointingly moderate 2008 nominee, a 2012 race that seems headed toward the inevitable nomination of yet another moderate runner-up from an earlier Republican presidential primary year.

As Chris Matthews said so well during MSNBC's coverage of the caucuses the night of Santorum's Feb. 7 three-state sweep, Republican caucus-goers are supporting Santorum because, after voting for him, "they feel like they just took a bath. After they vote for Romney, they feel like they need one."

Those very voters were the reason Santorum did so surprisingly well in Iowa, where the social conservative streak is stronger than just about anywhere else in the country, and his continued, perpetual hammering of these issues that neither Romney nor Gingrich would touch until they absolutely had to continue to garner at least grudging support among conservatives for his consistency, if nothing else--a trait noticably lacking in Governor Romney.

When those very issues--Catholic payment for birth control, the unconstitutionality of Proposition 8 in California--became for a few days the absolute focal point of the Republican primary campaign, the entire American media covering domestic politics seemed to simultaneously conclude that Santorum was headed toward a full-on displacement of Romney at the top of the campaign totem pole.

In the wake of Romney's successful make-up day last week, however, the media seems to have reversed course just as quickly as they deployed the pro-Santorum narrative, declaring in the aftermath of Romney's Saturday comeback that, if anything, the last week had been a Romney-Santorum tie; which, in the end, is a Romney win by default, since the status quo supports his nomination, not Santorum's. Santorum is going to need better than that if he wants to make a credible claim to even co-frontrunner status.

Romney, for his part, will need to do better than simply tying with social issues candidates on the rightward fringe of the American political spectrum--not to mention losing heaps of caucus states to said rightwing nutjob--if he wishes to present himself as a Republican nominee with a credible chance of winning this November 6.

Having spent the past week traipsing around awkwardly in his campaign jeans while describing simple birth control as "abortive pills," however, is unlikely to have done him any favors with independents either, considering women are already a Republican weak spot in the electorate, and that independents, as a rule, are more on the Democratic Party's side as it comes to social issues, and in this election in particular are overwhelmingly focused on the economy as it is.

For now, the former governor will have to satisfy himself with his caucus win and his CPAC straw poll victory. In the former, Ron Paul was considered a likely winner, due to the weeklong length and low turnout of Maine's caucuses (low turnout in any race tends to give a boost to the candidate with the most fervent supporters: in this campaign, that would most certainly be Paul. In the run-up to the latter, many assumed Santorum or Paul would win the poll (Paul won it in 2010 and 2011); nonetheless, Romney pulled it out there too.

Since that poll is largely a contest of campaign organization, the CPAC straw poll victory shows that Governor Romney's campaign structure has not deteriorated in the wake of his tough week. If Romney can hold together his large organization on the ground and keep his level of national support just one vote in each state above Rick Santorum's--if no better--he will be able to pull out victories in Arizona and Michigan later this month on the 28th and will be able to win at least half of the ten states up for grabs on Super Tuesday on March 6.

If he can manage that, Governor Romney just might succeed in knocking Santorum back down to where Gingrich now sits: looking up. Whether he can do the same to President Obama is another matter.

About the author: Ian MacIsaac is a staff writer for the Capital City Free Press. He is a history major at Auburn University Montgomery in Montgomery, Alabama and former co-editor of the school newspaper, the AUMnibus.

Copyright © Capital City Free Press

Joseph O. Patton: Taking a bite out of animal education

2012-02-10T12:21:00.001-06:00

Read Montgomery Humane Society: The Bark, the bite and everything in between, the Capital City Free Press' comprehensive behind the scenes tour of the shelter.

The Montgomery Humane's Society's efforts to find forever homes for homeless animals and care for and nurture them until that time only represent a portion of the MHS's goals and duties.

The MHS' newest program empowers young people to learn about and assist shelter workers in caring for animals. Launched in the summer of 2010, the Junior Volunteer Program is open to ages 8 - 15 and includes parental involvement. Those volunteers meet monthly to learn about and develop new pet care skills. The young volunteers become shelter "helpers," assisting MHS workers with walking and bathing animals as well as various off-site activities.

MHS Marketing and Development Director Lea Turbert says the program already boasts 112 participating families.

A highly popular program which fosters an understand of animal needs and simultaneously helps boost literacy is Read To The Paw. Created by MHS Humane Education Coordinator Mary Hughes, the program utilizes dogs as a furry support group to help improve young people's reading skills.

Harvey - a Golden Retriever and "graduate" of the Montgomery Humane Society - is taken to area schools and listens to schoollchidren as they read aloud to him. The lack of judgment and criticism from Harvey helps boost the children's self-esteem, Turbert says. Also, she says the program has enabled many students to make great strides in reading and help develop their communication skills.

The success and popularity of the program has led to its expansion. Turbert says eight more pets and owners have joined Harvey in his efforts, allowing the program to reach a dozen area classrooms.

The Humane Education Program offered by the MHS stresses the interdependence among people, animals and the environment and teaches compassion and respect for all. In addition to helping prevent violence, Turbert says the program also "works hand in hand with character education programs that have been embraced by many Montgomery elementary schools."

As part of the Humane Education Program, the MHS visits classrooms, scout troops, YMCA branches and community fairs to educate young people on animal care. Turbert says from September 2010 to December of 2011, the MHS gave 165 program presentations at 49 locations.

Programs include “Animals Have Feelings, Too,” “How Do Animals Talk to Us?” and “Way to Be Bite Free” for grades K-4; “Things You Need to Consider Before You Adopt” for grades 2-4; “Too Many Pets, Not Enough Homes” for grades 3-6; and “What is a Domesticated Animal?” for grades 4-6.

For more information on these programs and other outreach and educational functions of the Montgomery Humane Society, visit the MHS online: http://www.montgomeryhumane.com or call 334.409.0622.

About the author: Joseph O. Patton is the editor-in-chief and founder of the Capital City Free Press. He is a former news editor for the Coosa County News, lead reporter for the Montgomery Independent and editor-in-chief of the AUMnibus, the student newspaper of Auburn-Montgomery. Patton is also the creator of and writer for the satirical news radio segment "Goat Hill Gossip," which previously aired on WAUD in Auburn, Alabama and has appeared on several Central Alabama radio programs as a political analyst.

Copyright © Capital City Free Press

Catherine Woodiwiss, Sally Steenland: 10 Things you should know about religion in the 2012 elections

2012-02-09T09:52:00.000-06:00

Religion is a dynamic force in America, so it’s no surprise that every four years religious language jumps to the forefront of presidential campaigns. From the Mormon faith of Mitt Romney to the voting clout of evangelicals and Catholics, religion is debated by candidates and seized on by the press.

Although the economy and jobs rank first in voters’ concerns, “God talk” is widespread and often loud this primary season, and culture-war issues like abortion and same-sex marriage get top billing in many candidates’ speeches. Hearing it all, voters can be excused for wondering: Is there anything more to say about God and politics?

Actually, yes. Despite the headline-grabbing appeal of the sensational and the strange, a number of important religious issues and trends have been under-the-radar, misinterpreted, or invisible in the 2012 campaign. Here are 10 things to know about religion that are likely to influence elections this year.

1. All major religious groups favor a more equitable distribution of wealth

Six in 10 Americans agree that society would be better off if the distribution of wealth were more equal. This majority includes every major religious group. Despite significant differences on other issues, one belief that unites white evangelicals (53 percent), mainline Protestants (55 percent), Catholics (61 percent), black Protestants (79 percent), and other faith groups (61 percent of the “non-Christian affiliated” including Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists) is that severe economic inequality is both unfair and morally wrong. Interfaith engagement in Occupy Wall Street protests, unemployment benefits protection rallies in Washington, and collective bargaining rights battles in Ohio and Wisconsin indicate that populist religion is alive and well. Candidates who seek to divide the religious vote along “class warfare” lines should take note.

2. Latino evangelicals may hold the key to swing states

Latino voters are among the fastest-growing group in the United States—and Latino evangelicals, at about 15 percent of the Latino population, are on the rise as well. Latino evangelicals constitute a significant presence in the swing states of Nevada, Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico, where they may play a decisive role this year.

According to Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, pollsters and candidates alike largely overlook Latino evangelicals as a subgroup. Similar to other groups, jobs and the economy rank as their top concerns. But their second priority is immigration reform, where both political parties have disappointed them: Latino evangelicals voted decisively for Bush in 2004 and then for Obama by a slim majority in 2008.

Same-sex marriage and abortion are also issues of top concern for Latino evangelicals. Whether these issues or immigration emerges as a voting priority for Latino evangelicals will help determine if their states will go red or blue.

3. Don’t expect Romney endorsements from Mormon leaders

Mormon candidate Romney’s growing strength in the GOP primaries has prompted speculation about the role of the Church of the Latter Day Saints in his campaign—and its clout in the world, should he become president.

According to Mormon columnist and scholar Joanna Brooks, church leaders have been careful to not come out in support of Romney or former candidate Jon Huntsman. The church generally aims to steer clear of electoral politics for tax-exempt status reasons, and wants to promote a broader image of Mormons than its conservative reputation allows. Additionally, there is a perception of Mormons as having theocratic ambitions, and the church would prefer to avoid endorsing a candidate and inflaming that concern.

4. White mainline Protestants and white Catholics are trending in opposite directions

Fifty years ago, most Catholics voted for Democrats, while most mainline Protestants such as Methodists and Episcopalians voted for Republicans. But beginning in 1980, as Republicans began to champion conservative social issues, and Democrats embraced civil rights and social justice, these voting patterns started to change. Catholics have moved to being the bellwether swing vote, with white Catholic voters leaning more Republican, while mainline Protestant voters—historically more solidly Republican—are leaning Democratic. The result is a swing vote across the center from opposing sides, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. With each group important for electoral victory, will this be the year they switch sides?

5. Shared religious beliefs are directly related to approval ratings for candidates of either party

Two-thirds of voters say it’s important for a presidential candidate to have strong religious beliefs, according to a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute. Among these voters one in five say they’d be less likely to vote for a candidate whose religious beliefs were different from their own. Such attitudes hold true when it comes to President Barack Obama—only half of respondents say the president’s religion is similar to their own, and of those who see his religion as “very different,” a full 8 in 10 hold an unfavorable view of the president.

Robert P Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, interprets this finding as a way for voters to “vet” their candidate. According to Jones, religion is a proxy for moral character and trustworthiness, and a similarity in this realm reassures voters that the president’s moral compass will reflect their own. Conversely, if voters are not confident that a candidate reflects their own values, they are much more likely to register disapproval.

6. Flirting with the “nones”

Religious affiliation—identifying as a Catholic or Baptist, for instance—is waning, even as highly partisan gaps are developing between very religious and nonaffiliated voters (including those who identify as spiritual but not religious, often called the “nones”). This widening gap poses an ever-steeper challenge to any elected official who wants to speak to particular moral concerns and also unite a diverse public. Campaigns must target diverse religious and nonreligious voters, as well as those in the shrinking middle, appealing to each without alienating the others—no easy task.

7. “Islamophobia” is costing conservatives a key group: Muslims

In the past Muslim voters have trended conservative and voted for Republicans. For instance, in the 2000 election more than 70 percent of Muslims voted for George W. Bush. On issues ranging from free enterprise to same-sex marriage, Muslims are more likely to mirror the views of Republicans than those of Democrats.

But after September 11, two wars in majority-Muslim countries abroad, and anti-Muslim bigotry at home, Muslims have felt increasingly under attack by conservative and right-wing forces that portray Muslim Americans as an “enemy in our midst.” Anti-Sharia bills have been introduced by Republican legislators in more than a dozen states, and conservative media have been a megaphone for anti-Muslim rhetoric. Since the death of Osama bin Laden, anti-Muslim sentiment has risen even more, with 25 percent agreeing that American Muslims make the country more dangerous, and 33 percent agreeing that “the government and media has shown more respect to Muslims than they deserve.”

President Obama currently has high approval among Muslim voters (76 percent) in part for his support for democracy during the Arab Spring and his leadership in ending the war in Iraq. But some Muslims would prefer a libertarian president, and support for the president—and for political engagement in general—has waned with Obama’s opposition to Palestinian statehood and as anti-Muslim sentiment remains in the country. Muslims are unique, however, in that the more religious they are, the more Democratic they tend to vote. And if the GOP candidates engage in Islamophobic rhetoric, Muslims are likely to remain with Obama, despite lack of agreement with his social policies. As long as their religious identity is under attack, expect voting Muslims to trend left.

8. Evangelical voters are not monolithic

“Voting bloc” is shorthand for a demographic group whose members tend to vote in a predictably unified way year after year. Despite these patterns even the most allegedly reliable voting blocs contain diversity within their ranks that can, over time, disrupt their voting patterns.

Take, for example, the 26 percent of Americans who identify as evangelical. Historically this group has voted for socially conservative Republican candidates. Yet evangelicals are becoming more racially and economically diverse, and young evangelicals are becoming more politically progressive. They are more likely than their elders to see issues of poverty, immigration, and climate change as key to their faith. And contrary to the perception that evangelicals are primarily concerned only about “culture-war” issues, evangelical leaders and voters agree that the economy is the most important issue this year.

Outreach efforts matter to what is becoming less of an assured bulwark for conservative votes, particularly among nonwhite evangelicals and young voters. (In 2008, for example, Barack Obama doubled the young evangelical vote from his Democratic counterpart in 2004.) Ultimately, the conventional wisdom about evangelicals is no longer a robust narrative.

9. …And evangelical kingmaking days are over

A week before the South Carolina primary, a group of more than 100 evangelical leaders met in Texas to endorse a candidate in the hopes of influencing evangelical voters in their choice for president. Rick Santorum won their endorsement, but the vote was soon contested by Gingrich supporters and controversies over ballot-stuffing and other irregularities. Days later Santorum placed third in the South Carolina primary.

This lack of influence is in sharp contrast to the past, when evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority enterprise helped Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush win the Republican Party nominations. Shaun Casey, religious and political historian and professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, points to these trends as signs that “king-making” days are over. No longer can a group of men sit behind closed doors and decide who the Republican candidate will be. Casey points to the aging of conservative evangelical leaders and the coming-of-age of younger evangelicals who are not looking for top-down leadership for voting cues as two reasons for this shift.

10. Religious liberty will be a contentious issue

Religious liberty is an American value deeply ingrained in the core of our democracy. A long tradition of religious liberty has allowed faith institutions in our nation to thrive.

Unfortunately, the principle of religious liberty has become a divisive weapon in the 2012 campaign, as differences regarding conscience are being misused and extrapolated for political gain. Disagreement over a Department of Health and Human Services regulation requiring certain religious-based institutions to include contraceptive coverage in their health plans as part of the Affordable Care Act has morphed into divisive rhetoric and knee-jerk responses. The result is that “religious liberty” is likely to be in the arsenal of this year’s political battles.

As in years past, religion is once again playing a major role in the 2012 campaign. In order to educate voters and promote leadership that works for all of us, it is important for politicians, the media, and faith leaders to exercise civility, be truthful, and seek to bind us together rather than divide us.

About the authors: Catherine Woodiwiss is the Special Assistant for Faith and Progressive Policy and Sally Steenland is Director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Previewing the 2012 legislative session

2012-02-08T09:07:00.000-06:00

The 2012 Regular Session of the Legislature begins this week. The Republican majority House and Senate produced a prolific amount of conservative legislation in their inaugural session of the quadrennium last year. Included in their initial year was a controversial immigration law, a voter identification law, anti abortion legislation and tort reform legislation just to name a few. They also dealt with congressional reapportionment. It was an extremely productive session. It will be interesting to see what they do for an encore.

One of the foremost issues will be to deal with their own legislative district lines. They will have to redraw all 105 House districts and 35 State Senate districts to correspond with population changes occurring from the 2010 census. This project could be controversial. However, they may be able to handle it as easily as they did congressional redistricting.

Inherent in the process is a natural alliance between Republicans and African American Democratic legislators. It generally benefits each of these groups to corral their natural constituents into congruent districts. Thus making their respective districts even more Republican or more Democratic. This probable course of action works to continue the slow death of the white Democrat, who is gradually becoming a dinosaur in the Deep South.

The paramount issue this year will be dealing with the state budgets. The budgets that the legislature will be crafting this session are for fiscal year 2013, which begins on October 1, 2012. The Legislative Fiscal Office and the governor’s office are forecasting the most difficult financial picture seen since the Great Depression. Gone are federal stimulus dollars used to avoid Armageddon for a couple of years. This year the chickens truly come home to roost.

Both the Education Trust Fund Budget and the General Fund Budget projections are bleak. However, the Governor believes the General Fund faces the most devastating disaster. In fact, Gov. Bentley was going to propose a bold initiative. The good doctor, who is still working without a salary, was going to try something that George Wallace and Fob James offered in the 1970’s. Both were soundly denied. Bentley wanted to offer a constitutional amendment to dissolve the Education Trust Fund Budget and allow Alabama to work with one state budget. Bentley tested the waters thoroughly on this proposal and found there were not many takers. In the fall he said, “no one is sacrosanct. Education is not sacrosanct. We have to look at the entire state to see where we use taxpayer dollars.”

After floating the idea for several months and talking with legislators, Bentley found very little support. He has decided that discretion is the better part of valor. He will join Wallace and James and other governors who have tried but failed in this one budget approach.

The General Fund is facing at least a $400 million shortfall in the 2013 fiscal year. That would be a 22% cut from this year’s General Fund Budget, which is $1.77 billion. The Education Trust Fund Budget is $5.59 billion.

Alabama is only one of a handful of states that works with two budgets. Over 40 of the 50 states have one General Fund Budget. The National Conference of State Legislatures also ranks Alabama first among the 50 states in the percentage of state taxes reserved for specific uses.

Alabama earmarks an amazing 84% of state taxes for specific purposes. This makes maneuvering in this financial recession very difficult for legislators.

Along with the governor’s one budget idea, he also plans to float the selling of $2 billion in bonds for the largest road and bridge construction program in state history. He will also propose starting a limited number of charter schools in the state. This measure, along with the one budget idea, will be met with fierce opposition from the Alabama Education Association.

House Speaker Mike Hubbard has said that the House will concentrate on business friendly legislation. He said, “The end goal is to create jobs and get this economy turned around.”

The Session began Tuesday and will end in late May.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Ian M. MacIsaac: Romney, feistier than ever, solidifies frontrunner status with Nevada caucus win

2012-02-07T10:11:00.000-06:00

While Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have had their share of ups and downs in popularity over the weeks and months, neither have bounced about like Newt Gingrich. The former Speaker of the House has gone from potential frontrunner, to running a zombie campaign with zero staff and money, back to frontrunner again, and now back down to the doldrums.

On January 21st, Newt Gingrich won South Carolina and just about took frontrunner status away from Mitt Romney. Two weeks later, the Nevada caucuses on the night of February 4th told an altogether different story.

Coming off a devastating defeat in the even-larger Florida primary earlier in the week, the former House speaker admitted even before the caucus began that he had no chance of winning.

He was instead reduced to an underwhelming fight for second place against libertarian perennial candidate Ron Paul, working to scrape up as many delegates as possible in the proportionally-allocated caucus. Romney nonetheless won half of the states 28 delegates, the former House Speaker snagging only four or five.

As the contest stands now, Romney holds 74 delegates; Gingrich only 26. Santorum and Paul both have fewer than five.

Romney's Nevada caucus victory marks his widest margin of victory yet in the 2012 Republican primaries and caucuses--indeed, the widest margin of victory seen so far by any candidate for the Republican nomination this year.

Governor Romney demolished the former Speaker, 50-21%. Ron Paul collected just under 19%, Rick Santorum about 10%.

Congressman Paul had campaigned hard in the state, in which he had done well in 2008; Rick Santorum not so much; he mainly focused on the midwestern states of Minnesota and Missouri whose primaries come up today. Nonetheless, neither of them were in Nevada on election night, and neither of them made public appearances that evening either.

The focus was on Mr. Romney on Saturday night. He and his picturesque family made their appearance at a Las Vegas campaign party to celebrate their win. He spoke backed by signs reading "NEVADA BELIEVES" underneath the new Romney campaign logo.

It appears his advisers have finally convinced him to inject a bit of the populism into his campaign. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the 2008 Romney exhorting his supporters to do anything as base or populist as "believing." His hair certainly never would have moved or flapped nearly as much as it did Saturday night had that speech taken place during the '08 campaign.

Governor Romney seems very intent on not making the same mistakes he made the last primary season. He has been carefully honing the renewal of his temporarily-discarded 'frontrunner' message from 2011 after the brief Florida spat with Gingrich. Indeed, his victory speech in Nevada very conspicuously avoided any mention of Speaker Gingrich, by name or even by allusion, apart from a passing mention of "the other candidates in this race."

That is not to say Romney's words were positive. The former governor's speech surprised just about everyone with his sudden deployment a very unRomney-like tsunami of platitudes and epithets directed toward President Obama.

Romney declared that the president's inability to bring unemployment below 8% - as Romney argued Obama had claimed he would early in his presidency - constituted a failure on the president's part.

Then, in a statement shocking for just about any Republican candidate--not to mention one as elite and stodgy as Mitt Romney--he announced that, "And if you take into account all the people... who have just stopped looking [for a job entirely], the real unemployment rate is over 15%."

Although Romney noted that unemployment had come down considerably in the past year since its peak in late 2009, he told his audience what they already wholeheartedly believed: that the slight recovery "is thanks to the innovation of the American people in the private sector and not to you, Mr. President!"

His supporters began to chant his name; not "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt," as has been common at Romney's rallies in both 2008 and 2012, but this time "Romney, Romney, Romney." His family name, like Clinton, Bush, and Obama, means something to these people now.

Numerous times in the course of his victory speech the governor leaned into his microphone and raised his voice to a point that his words came through the PA system slightly muffled.

It is a classic rabble-rousing crowd-energizing tactic that President Obama has frequently employed, but which is part of a political and behavioral playbook that Governor Romney, a member of the New England socioeconomic elite, has up to this point been reluctant to employ.

Much of the credit for Romney's transformation has gone to Brett O'Donnell, a veteran Beltway debate coach, famous as the man hired to give Sarah Palin a political crash course after the announcement of her 2008 vice presidential nomination.

O'Donnell joined the Romney camp in time for the Florida debates with Gingrich, and Romney's uncharacteristically feisty retorts toward Gingrich in advance of that state's primary about the former speaker's investments in Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage giant, have been credited with Romney's January 31 win in that crucial state.

Although the Romney campaign loudly parted ways with O'Donnell on February 3rd, just one day before the Nevada primary, it was very clear nonetheless that his influence continued to dominate Governor Romney's rhetorical playbook. And, based on Romney's poll numbers lately, it seems to be working rather splendidly.

Unlike Santorum and Paul, Gingrich, on the other hand, was not about to let Mitt Romney have the spotlight by himself for a whole caucus night.

The former House speaker's campaign stated shortly before Romney took the stage at his Las Vegas victory party that he--Gingrich--would be giving a press conference in the aftermath of his defeat.

In his press conference, given from Las Vegas casino owned by Gingrich's top fundraiser and benefactor Sheldon Adelson, Gingrich derided Romney repeatedly in response to the questions posed by the relatively few journalists who showed up.

"I had never before seen a person who I thought was a serious candidate for president be that fundamentally dishonest," Speaker Gingrich said in response to Romney's recent statements on the campaign trail. Few, if any, of Governor Romney's stump speeches since the Florida primary have even mentioned Gingrich, however--which probably infuriates the former speaker more than anything Romney could actually say about him.

Taking the opposite tack, Gingrich focused in on his primary opponent to the point where he could not seem to avoid saying the former governor's name. "Every primary day or caucus day, the Romney headquarters in Boston sends out the rumor that they believe I will withdraw, which is of course their greatest fantasy," Gingrich retorted to calls for him to leave the race. He repeated his determination to take his fight all the way to the Republican convention this summer in Tampa. "I am a candidate for President of the United States. I will be a candidate for President of the United States," he said.

It remains open if any of the reporters among the crowd knew that the next day's New York Times was to report on the front page that Adelson himself has discussed with Newt the possibility that he may not be able to win, and that Adelson was determined to provide his financial support to any Republican thought capable of beating Obama. Newt is quite low on funds and has been so the whole campaign, if he loses Adelson to Romney, his campaign is finished.

About the author: Ian MacIsaac is a staff writer for the Capital City Free Press. He is a history major at Auburn University Montgomery in Montgomery, Alabama and former co-editor of the school newspaper, the AUMnibus.

Copyright © Capital City Free Press

Montgomery Humane Society: The Bark, the bite and everything in between

2012-02-06T14:57:00.005-06:00

To view the photo album from our visit to the Montgomery Humane Society, visit the CCFP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CapCityFreePress

I shouldn't gossip but the welcoming committee has puppy breath....

It was not the usual hum of computer keyboard-clacking and the ringing of a phone I encountered upon entering the administrative building but a litany of skeptical barks followed by the patter of apprehensive, retreating paws.

The Springer Spaniel - Jade - and the Sheltie mix - Ben - both strays rescued by the Montgomery Humane Society, are about 7 months old, each with a unique set of challenges... and hopes. And I would meet them again....

My guide for all things purring and pawing is Lea Turbert, who has served as the MHS's marketing and development manager for nearly seven years. She savors the "unlikely" adoptions, the animals that don't necessarily fit the standard idea of "cute." A prevalent struggle she says is educating prospective adoptees on the awesome responsibility inherent to adopting a new furry family member, expressing that it's "not just a dog or cat" or some "disposable possession."

Nearly a century in the making

The Montgomery Humane Society first began to materialize in the 1920s when a group of local citizens formed the Society, and through their efforts, got the Alabama Legislature to create a local law establishing the position of a humane officer. The officer was provided with a vehicle and a salary of $150, and he rounded up animals that were victims of cruelty or strays. Turbert says due to the lack of a facility one of the Society's members kept the corralled animals in her own yard. (And you think you have it rough keeping Miss Kitty from shredding your living room drapes.)

The 1950s ushered in a renaissance for the Montgomery Humane Society, rapidly accelerating its growth through acquiring cages from the City of Montgomery and ultimately renting a former veterinary clinic on Norman Bridge Road to provide a complete facility for the Society.

In 1952, the Montgomery Humane Society moved in to its first permanent home when a facility was built on the Mobile Highway. The building remained in use by the MHS until 1995. The current facility on John Overton Road has been in operation since that time.

The City of Montgomery and Montgomery County contributed to the latest addition to the MHS, the 'lost and found' portion of the facility which was built in 2008.

Intake

Much like a human patient entering a hospital, animals brought to the Montgomery Humane Society are examined by professionals... only unlike their human counterparts all cats and dogs are neutered or spayed as part of the welcoming program. For several years now, the MHS has spayed or neutered all incoming cats and dogs. If you're wondering why, consider this - each day 10,000 human babies are born in the United States. 70,000 puppies and kittens are born each day. Or consider a cat and her mate can produce up to a dozen kittens every year.

A medical check-up of each animal ensures that the animal won't be entering the facility's population and potentially spreading a disease. Turbert says the most common issues are upper respiratory infections. The treatment can take a week to 10 days. Animals are also checked for various skin conditions as well as heartworms. While receiving treatment, the animals are quarantined, prempting any possibility of spreading an infectious disease to the rest of the MHS population. Medically checking a dog takes 20 to 30 minutes and a little less time for cats.

About five animals per month have to be treated for injuries involving encounters with motor vehicles or attacks by other animals, Turbert says.

Come one, come all

Stray animals, those surrendered by their owners and sadly, cruelty cases all find their way to the facility. Stray dogs are held for five days, cats for three, and animals who have been abused or neglected are afforded special attention in a separate area away from the general population of animals. The 'lost and found' area houses 130 animals. After the holding period and standard medical check-ups, the animals are offered for adoption.

On an average day, Turbert says 10 to 50 animals are "surrendered" (brought in by owners who can no longer adequately care for them), and 10-20 per day are brought in by animal control officers. The latter are housed in the 'lost and found' portion of the facility.

Turbert says last year the MHS took in about 9,500 animals, down from the recent yearly average of 12,000. She attributes the decline to the change in policy which now mandates the spaying or neutering of every animal brought into the shelter.

The intake area - a temporary holding area - can accomodate three large animals and five smaller animals - all of whom are processed into another portion of the MHS facility within mere hours of arrival.

A key step in the intake process includes "temper testing" each animal. Temper testing generally includes observing how the animal interacts with other animals and with humans. For example, dogs are fed in front of their peers to see how that dog interacts with others.

The Montgomery Humane Society handled over 2,000 calls reporting animal cruelty last year, says Turbert, a sobering and somewhat shocking statistic considering Montgomery's population. The MHS is currently involved in three criminal cases against alleged animal abusers.

And despite a commonly held perception, the facility is not closed to the rest of the animal kingdom. Turbert says they've accepted creatures ranging from horses and monkeys to pigs and snakes. She says the MHS can find a home for any animal.

No-kill shelter?

The euthanization of animals is an understandly controversial topic, but many are unaware that putting down an animal is often purely a matter of public safety.

As part of the Montgomery Humane Society's intake process, "temper-testing" is also used to determine if an animal poses a threat to the human population. Only animals that are beyond rehabilation and will create a public safety threat are euthanized. Hurbert says many animals at the facility have actually been there for years and will remain until they're adopted into a forever home.

Adoption

Don't expect to point to a dog as though you're casually selecting a new pair of shoes from a display shelf then stroll out of the Montgomery Humane Society with an animal.

"This is not a petting zoo," Turbert says with a firm smile.

The adoption process begins with a two-page, thorough application, aimed at determing if the animal is a match for the prospective adoptee(s). Upon completion of the application, adoptees are involved in a 30-40 minute interview.

Among other items, MHS staffers ask, "What is your reason for adopting?"

If a prospective adoptee doesn't have a fence, staffers want to ensure that the owner will be able to properly house the animal and provide adequate exercise.

All cats - as a matter of policy - are "house cats." The MHS is adamant that cats should be kept indoors.

And as humorous as it may sound to some, staffers have to warn someone who is adopting a puppy and who has a small child that, yes, "the puppy will chew on your child." Puppies will be puppies!

Turbert says they are generally inquiring if the family or individual's lifestyle will be compatible with the needs of the animal. She says it's also imperative that the staff question the adoptee about any pets they currently have and about their previous experience(s) with pets.

A special outdoor area is used for individuals or families who already have pets and need to determine if their prospective adopted pet will be compatible with the existing pets. Owners, pets and potential pets can "meet and greet" to determine if everyone gets along.

Kittens are $95 to adopt, adult cats are $50. Puppies are $150 to adopt, adult dogs are $95. Turbert explains the differences in prices are due to younger animals having a higher "adoptability" rate.

Turbert says the mere "cute" factor makes puppies and kittens so easily adoptable and that the MHS has to take additional steps to find forever homes for adult animals, especially black cats and dogs. She says false perceptions formed through media portrayals make it difficult to place black adult cats and dogs, even prompting the shelter to lower the price of these animals.

"Pure breeds" are also in high demand, leading the MHS to often place potential adoptees on a "wish list" for these animals. Turbert stresses that adoptees shouldn't judge these animals based on unjustified perceptions about "pure breeds" or coloring.

And no animal leaves the facility without the basics in place - each animal will have a collar and leash and will bear a microchip before leaving the premises with their new family.

Turbert says the comprehensive interviewing process and measures taken before an animal can leave with a new family have kept their return rate to almost zero. Less than one percent of animals adopted out are brought back by their owner.

"We're here to find those puppies a forever home," Turbert says. "You can bring it back, but it's not fair to the animal."

Turbert says in any given month the Montgomery Humane Society receives about 45 applications for adoptions, and on average about 43 are accepted.

"Compassion fatigue"

Despite never-ending hours, nonstop calls and a seven-day cycle that many would consider overwhelming, a large portion of the staff even refuses to leave its work at 1150 John Overton Drive.

"They have to look in each one's face then go home," Turbert says, describing how a constant challenge for the team at the Montgomery Humane Society is to continue working while somehow suppressing their emotions for those they care for daily. She says most of the staff often "fosters" animals at home, utilizing their free time to provide specialized care and training to animals away from the facility. At the shelter and in staffers' homes, animals are often given potty training and help with behavior-related issues.

There are 32 individuals on staff at the Montgomery Humane Society, supported by about 50 active volunteers. At the helm is Steven Tears who has been the executive director of the MHS for nearly eight years.

And the money kept rollin' in?

Despite the perception that the MHS is some type of government entity or program, it's an independent, not-for-profit organization and only exists due to donations, making fundraising a do-or-die component of this community service.

The Dog-U-Tante Ball, held each April, allows pet owners to strut their pets' furry stuff. Much like a traditional beauty pageant - only with a little slobber and a bit more playfulness - pet owners get to "present" their dressed-up pets. (Think “Toddlers and Tiaras” but without the whining and bratty dispositions). The event includes dinner, a live band, a silent auction and even a presentation of some of the MHS's adoptable animals.

In June the Montgomery Humane Society hosts a photo contest. Partcipants can submit a photo of their pet(s) for $10, then the public can vote on their favorite ($1). The winners are then featured in the the MHS's Friends For Life Calendar.

In October the Society holds its Walk And Wag event, a one-mile pledge walk to raise money for homeless animals. Participants earn prizes for the pledges they secure. Prior to the walk, there are pet-friendly vendors, contests and activities for children in the Blount Cultural Park. Some of the MHS's adoptable animals are on hand to (hopefully) meet their future families.

During the holiday season the Montgomery Humane Society offers gift-wrapping for a fee at The Shoppes at Eastchase. The Wrap It Up service helps fund essential needs involved in caring for Montgomery's homeless animals.

The MHS gets around

The Montgomery Humane Society, its staff and volunteers are not limited to changing water, poop-scooping, providing medical care to the animals and facilitating adoptions. Its education and outreach programs run year-round and help inform and empower the Montgomery area to collectively better care for animals.

Programs include the Humane Education Program, which teaches young people to respect animals as well as adults and the environment. The Montgomery Humane Society also has a new program exclusively for 8-15 year olds. The Junior Volunteer Program offers training to young people, instructing them on how to care for animals and it also enables them to assist the MHS shelter workers.

To learn more about the Montgomery Humane Society's education and volunteer programs, stay tuned as we'll be publishing more information in an article Friday.

Jade and Ben had apparently consulted each other and arrived at some consensus as Lea I made our way through the facility because upon our return, they had become a bit more affectionate, no longer giving me the skeptical bark or the cold shoulder. The duo compose what Turbert calls, "little projects," animals that spend time in the administrative offices, allowing the staff to assist the workers in the main facility as they go about their regular duties.

Ben is afraid of men, and Jade has "potty issues" and is prone to jump up on humans. Turbert said they've made amazing progress in the two weeks they've spent in the office receiving special attention, and they'll likely return to their doggie friends in a week or so where they'll await an adoptive family that will provide them with a forever home.

"They're best friends," Turbert says. And they're likely to "greet" you, paws pumping and tongues flapping in what might be construed as a hug.

The "lady" lept about, quite excited over Lea's return and even approached me... though I'm more inclined to think she simply wanted to examine my camera and notebook. Even the reclusive fella entered the fray, still subdued but at least willing to let me pet him. Posing for photos, it became clear that even with Ben's waning fears and Jade's struggle to overcome leaving unwanted "presents" on the floor, these two will be making such a profound, positive impact soon enough. They'll be making two families whole.

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For more information on the Montgomery Humane Society, call 334.409.0622 or visit them online: http://www.montgomeryhumane.com. Don't forget to return and visit the Capital City Free Press Friday for an in-depth look at the educational and volunteer opportunities provided by the MHS.

To view the photo album from our visit to the Montgomery Humane Society, visit the CCFP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CapCityFreePress

About the author: Joseph O. Patton is the editor-in-chief and founder of the Capital City Free Press. He is a former news editor for the Coosa County News, lead reporter for the Montgomery Independent and editor-in-chief of the AUMnibus, the student newspaper of Auburn-Montgomery. Patton is also the creator of and writer for the satirical news radio segment "Goat Hill Gossip," which previously aired on WAUD in Auburn, Alabama and has appeared on several Central Alabama radio programs as a political analyst.

Copyright © Capital City Free Press

Michael Linden: What caused this year’s deficit? Hint: It wasn’t an Obama 'spending binge'

2012-02-04T13:21:00.001-06:00

The federal budget deficit will again exceed $1 trillion this fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office reported today. That news is sure to trigger another round of condemnations from politicians and pundits who have a political or ideological interest in pinning these deficits on the domestic spending policies of President Barack Obama.

Unfortunately for them, today’s report—along with dozens of other similar CBO reports in recent years—actually proves the opposite—that the current deficit is overwhelmingly the result of two factors: events that occurred before President Obama took office and tax cuts.

In fact, higher spending under Obama accounts for less than 20 percent of this year’s deficit, and nearly half of that was additional defense spending—not domestic spending. Bottom line: The narrative that an “Obama spending spree” caused our deficit problem is utterly false.

From surplus to deficit

In January 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the federal government this year would be running a surplus of $170 billion, or about 1 percent of gross domestic product. We know now that this year’s budget will actually be in the red by a little over $1 trillion, or 7 percent of GDP.

So what went wrong? A close look at how the CBO’s estimate of the 2012 budget changed over the past five years reveals precisely how it came to be that we went from a projected surplus to a massive deficit.

By the time Obama took office in January 2009, the budget projection for 2012 had already deteriorated dramatically. By inauguration, the CBO was projecting a 2012 deficit of $264 billion. In other words, the projected surplus was already gone by the time Obama set foot in the Oval Office.

Most of that swing from surplus to deficit was the result of the Great Recession’s onset. Between September of 2008 and January of 2009 alone, economic conditions prompted the CBO to revise estimates of 2012 revenue collections downward by over $240 billion.

Increased spending prior to 2009—especially on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—also contributed to this year’s deficit, to the tune of $153 billion. That’s because higher spending in 2007 and 2008, mostly relating to overseas military operations, caused the CBO to adjust its assumptions to more realistically project similar spending in 2012.

All told, 35 percent of the swing from a $170 billon projected surplus to a $1.079 billion deficit is directly attributable to events that preceded the current president’s term.

The remainder of the deterioration did happen after 2009, but higher spending wasn’t even close to the main culprit. The real problem was lower-than-expected revenues.

In January 2009, the CBO forecast 2012 revenues at $3.1 trillion. Today, the CBO expects that this year’s revenue will be just $2.5 trillion, a nearly $600 billion difference. That revenue decline accounts for fully 48 percent of the swing from projected surplus to current deficit.

And while some of that decline has to do with continued economic weakness, the majority of it, about $335 billion, is the direct result of the tax cut deal signed into law in December 2010. That deal, which extended all of the Bush tax cuts, even those that exclusively benefit the very wealthy, is the legislative factor by far most responsible for this year’s deficit.

Together, events that occurred before January 2009 and the precipitous decline in tax revenues account for about 83 percent of the difference between what the 2012 deficit actually is and what it was expected to be five years ago. The other 17 percent, approximately $115 billion, is the result of higher-than-expected spending.

And of that $115 billion, about $100 billion came from increased defense spending.

In May of 2009, Congress passed and the president signed the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009, which included $80 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It had been the Bush administration’s custom to fund the wars through those types of “supplemental” bills. By doing it that way, CBO projections only intermittently included the future costs of those overseas military operations.

When Obama signed the 2009 supplemental into law, it caused the CBO to increase its projections of military spending, not only for 2009, but for all future years, including 2012. CBO’s post-supplemental projection of defense spending for 2012, released in August 2009, turns out to have been relatively accurate. It expected 2012 defense spending of about $700 billion. The current CBO expectation is that defense spending will amount to $708 billion.

With over 90 percent of the 2012 deficit already spoken for—35 percent from events prior to 2009, 48 percent from lower tax revenue, and 8 percent from higher defense spending—that leaves higher non-defense spending responsible for just 9 percent.

That’s right, just 9 percent of this year’s deficit comes from higher nondefense spending. And most of that spending is recession-related: the last vestiges of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and higher-than-normal unemployment insurance payments.

The real culprit: Low revenues

Not only do these numbers debunk the notion that the deficit is the result of some kind of “spending binge,” but they also help us understand the real challenges we face in trying to bring that deficit down.

Tea Party conservatives are keen to have the public believe that the deficit is a spending problem and not a revenue problem, but that is plainly false. Since 2007, fully 70 percent of the swing from projected surplus to trillion-dollar deficit derives from lower-than-expected revenues. If we misdiagnose the problem, we will never cure the disease.

About the author: Michael Linden is the Director of Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Gary Palmer: Time-honored standard of conduct: "Women and Children First"

2012-02-03T13:34:00.001-06:00

With the shipwreck of the luxury cruise ship the Costa Concordia, one of the most honored codes of seamanship, indeed of Western manhood, was violated … the code of “women and children first.”

Most of the coverage has focused on the cowardice of the captain who cravenly abandoned his ship, his crew and his passengers. However, it has been widely reported that male passengers and crew literally pushed women and children aside in their efforts to save themselves. In doing so, they shamed themselves by not abiding by a standard that was set 160 years ago. In fact, February 26th marks the 160th anniversary of the sinking of the HMS Birkenhead, the event that historically defined manly courage and responsibility in the face of maritime disaster.

While transporting British troops to Algoa Bay, the Birkenhead struck an uncharted rock off the coast of South Africa near Cape Town around 2:00 in the morning. Due to poor maintenance of the two largest lifeboats, the ship had only a few small lifeboats available. Robert Salmond, captain of the Birkenhead, ordered the women and children to disembark first, firmly establishing the protocol that is expected of men to this day.

Once the women and children were safely in the lifeboats and away, Captain Salmond told the soldiers and sailors to abandon the ship and save themselves. But recognizing that his soldiers would likely swamp the boats carrying the women and children, senior army officer Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Seton ordered his men to assemble in ranks on the quarter-deck of the ship and to “Stand Fast.”

Only three men broke rank. The others carried out the order and went down with the ship.

Of the 631 persons on board the Birkenhead, only 193 survived. But, as a result of the gallantry of the officers and men, all of the women and children survived. News of the courageous sacrifice of the soldiers and sailors in what is known as the “Birkenhead Drill” spread worldwide and became the standard for the conduct of men in the face of disaster.

Five years later, that standard was upheld when the SS Central America sank off the North Carolina coast. Captain William Lewis Herndon ordered the women and children placed in lifeboats and transferred to a smaller ship that had come to their aid. Of the 575 persons on board, only 152 people survived. In the single largest loss of life for a commercial ship in U.S. history, the men passengers and crew gave themselves up to save the women and children.

In the most famous of all maritime disasters, the standard was upheld again by the captain and crew of the Titanic. While not all the women and children were saved, the figures show that they were clearly given priority over the male passengers. Over 74 percent of the women and over 52 percent of the children on the Titanic survived, compared to only 20 percent of the men. Among the lost were some of the world’s wealthiest men who voluntarily went down with the ship including John Jacob Astor, Ida Strauss, and Benjamin Guggenheim.

After helping the women and children into the life boats, Guggenheim along with his manservant changed into tuxedos in order to die like gentlemen. Guggenheim is reported to have said, “Tell my wife … I played the game out straight to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward.”

This standard of what is expected of men in the face of a disaster continues to be honored and upheld. We saw it on September 11th as fire fighters and policemen gave themselves up to save others.

And we saw it again in 2009 when U.S. Airlines Flight 1549 was forced to ditch in the Hudson River. While the rear of the jet was sinking, the male passengers allowed the women to evacuate the plane first. Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot, made two passes through the cabin of the plane to ensure every passenger and crew member was out before he left his plane, courageously upholding the standard set by the men of the Birkenhead.

Speaking of Captain Salmond and Colonel Seton, an eye-witness to the sinking of the Birkenhead said,"Side by side they stood at the helm, providing for the safety of all that could be saved. They never tried to save themselves."

It is a shame that 160 years later, the same cannot be said of the captain and crew of the Costa Concordia.

About the author: Gary Parlmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

This article was published by the Alabama Policy Institute.

Ian M. MacIsaac: Mitt's negative display nets him a win in Florida

2012-02-02T08:46:00.002-06:00

Going dirty has paid off. Mitt Romney has destroyed Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary, by 15 percentage points at that--trouncing him even more thoroughly than Mitt himself was by Newt in South Carolina earlier in the month.

The former Massachusetts governor won the primary through a calculated turn: away from an overall positive and proposal-driven message with Barack Obama as a primary target, to a fully negative message with Newt Gingrich instead as the singular focus of all speeches, statements, and advertisements.

Romney campaigned hard in Florida for more than a week, making multiple appearances a day. Each appearance ratcheted up the tone of his anti-Gingrich spiel, his heat reaching heights that many among Mitt's fellow northeastern Republican elites thought might actually turn voters in the Sunshine State off from their often wooden, occasionally feisty, candidate.

Somehow, the unsteady and uncertain collection of interest groups and narrow slices of electorate that make up the Republican coalition of voters in Florida decided to go for Romney's sudden fire-breathing all-in.

Cuban emigres in the state's southeast, farmers in the central areas, elderly northeastern transplants along the coasts of the peninsula, and southern-minded voters in the panhandle all voted in droves for his angry words, devoid of policy proposals, and for the millionaire former CEO from Massachusetts who spoke to them day after day after day, the mediocre former governor with slick-backed hair and an impossibly clean veneer, and a nine-figure trust fund for his even-more-impossibly clean-looking sons.
_____

In light of the way he won this primary, it was nothing short of ballsy of Mittens, in his victory speech (given c. 7:30 PM Central--quite early for a primary night) to pivot completely away from Gingrich, and instead resurrect his old message: pure opposition to the president based on Mitt's supposed pro-business and pro-military credentials.

At least his anti-Obama stump speech contains some actual proposals for a Romney administration, unlike the past few weeks of Gingrich bashing, which featured literally nothing pro-Romney but was purely anti-Gingrich.

Although it rather struck me when, as I watched the first results roll in from Florida on primary night, I heard Chuck Todd on MSNBC note that it had been 56 days since Romney had mentioned the 59-point economic plan that had been, up until about a month ago, the centerpiece of his campaign plan's domestic policy proposals.

It is a single fact that makes a broad statement about the direction this erstwhile frontrunner's campaign has taken since the onset of Newt Gingrich's most recent upsurge in the polls, in what has amounted to the most potent threat to Romney's candidacy since Herman Cain seemed poised to take over the heart and soul of the Republican Party, before said party showed it continued to possess at least one iota of sense and respectability and threw the pizza guy out from behind his podium.

Indeed, on the night less than two weeks ago when Gingrich won the South Carolina primary, he seemed poised to knock Romney fully off the pedestal of 'Republican front-runner' that the former governor had occupied continuously since McCain lost the last presidential campaign. Romney has spent this time since Obama's victory more than four years ago presuming--as it tends to go in the Republican Party--that, as the graceful runner-up of the last campaign, he would be next in line for the nomination when 2012 came around.

And now here comes this troll from the '90s on his third wife who seems to be doing his very, very best to upset this slick politician and businessman who the comparatively folksy and southern Gingrich sees as predatory and entitled.

Gingrich's concession speech on primary night was just as belligerent as anything else in this campaign, though. He spoke against a solid backdrop of signs reading "46 states to go" in angry white capital letters. His speech was a standard incomprehensible Gringrich stemwinder, interspersed with the standard pseudo-historical Newt fare about the 1800s, and Pearl Harbor, and Abraham Lincoln, and all that stuff that the common folk lap up as thoroughly patriotic but that few of them actually understand. I think Newt said something about Winston Churchill too, on top of a dash of Ronald Reagan. If I'm wrong, Gingrich must have been off his game. Doesn't he have another book of historical fiction coming out soon?
_____

Rachel Maddow is a master of sly observations that, without forcing the truth upon the viewer, make all but her point of view seem eminently foolish within a few sentences nonetheless, and she was on top form tonight. It was not ninety seconds after Governor Romney left the stage after his primary-night victory speech that Dr. Maddow noted how every single pundit, journalist, campaign worker, or politician who had been on MSNBC during the primary coverage that night had commented on how virulent and ugly the rhetoric had gotten in Florida in the lead-up to its primary--every single guest, that is, except the two Romney campaign strategists who had come on with their talking points earlier in the night.

Romney has begun to show a side many of us who knew him back in 2007 have never seen before. He's always been negative when he needs to be, but he's never been so spirited about it; he's never been joyfully sarcastic and snide like this. He spent his victory speech on primary night in Florida not talking about his own plans for his perspective presidency, but instead criticizing Obama for thinking like his buddies "in the faculty lounge," as Mitt put it, and not operating instead with a more common-folk, can-do spirit.

Romney said Obama didn't understand what it was like to "build something out of nothing." As if Romney--whose father was a Governor, a national leader in the Mormon Church, and a millionaire--ever started anything in his charmed life with 'nothing.'

Romney is a charming man compared to Newt Gingrich, and the former governor will almost certainly beat Newt for this year's Republican nomination. In the end, this reporter does not feel that question is really even open anymore.

What does remain to be seen, however, is how low Governor Romney and his campaign are willing to go to ensure their victory in this greying-templed, sixty-four-year-old power-monger's second try on the wild merry-go-round of a national presidential campaign, and whether or not this former CEO and corporate raider can withstand close inspection by American voters in a presidential campaign against a Democratic president with a strongly populist economic record in this second economy-centric election in a row.

This is going to be ugly, all the way to November. Four full years past the end of the Bush Era--and arguably, the end of the Reagan Era as well--this reporter is not sure how much lower the United States Republican Party can go. Let's see.

About the author: Ian MacIsaac is a staff writer for the Capital City Free Press. He is a history major at Auburn University Montgomery in Montgomery, Alabama and former co-editor of the school newspaper, the AUMnibus.

Copyright © Capital City Free Press

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Growing crowd seeks to oust Bachus

2012-02-01T09:22:00.001-06:00

Believe it or not the 2012 election season is upon us. The legislature, in a cost savings measure last year, moved our primaries up to March 13. Our presidential preference primary and our regular primary will be on the same day, which is less than six weeks away.

Most of the contests this year will be for judicial posts. Five of our nine Supreme Court seats are up for election, along with several appellate court positions. One of the three public service commission offices, the presidency, is also on the ballot.

All seven members of our congressional delegation have to run every two years. Therefore, they are always running. Our delegation to Washington is made up of six Republicans and one Democrat. We have two females and five males. All seven are seeking reelection to Congress.

As the deadline for qualifying ended on January 13, the biggest surprises were the number of opponents that our incumbent congresspeople picked up. Incumbent congressmen win reelection at an over 90% rate. The odds are over 95% that an incumbent Republican congressman will win reelection in a GOP primary. Republican voters tend to stay with a known commodity more than Independent or Democratic voters. Therefore, the biggest shock to the early campaign season was the amount of opposition that veteran 6th District Congressman Spencer Bachus drew in his eleventh campaign for congress.

Bachus’ district encompasses the suburban enclaves of Jefferson, Shelby, Blount and Tuscaloosa counties. It is one of the most Republican congressional districts in the nation. Bachus will be favored to win. He has represented the district for almost 20 years and has a million dollar campaign war chest. However, he finds himself facing five fellow Republicans. All five appear to be willing to disregard the adage made famous by Ronald Reagan, “speak no ill of another Republican.”

The only theory as to the onslaught of opposition is that these challengers sense that Bachus may be vulnerable due to a recent expose by 60 Minutes that featured him. He is the senior member of our Potomac delegation and has risen to the chairmanship of the Financial Services Committee. In that position he has access to private financial information. The CBS show insinuated that Bachus took advantage of that privileged information to guide his personal investments.

Two of Bachus’ opponents would be categorized as serious. Gardendale State Senator Scott Beason and Blount County Probate Judge David Standridge are not political novices. Both men have strong political bases of support in the district. Three other candidates will get some support. Tuscaloosa businessman Stan Pate could spend some money and become a factor. Al Mickle of Alabaster and Justin Barkley are also running.

If indeed Bachus prevails he has to face a Democrat in the fall. Either retired Air Force Colonel Penny Huggins Bailey of Leeds or defense lawyer William Barnes of Birmingham will be on the ballot in November. Although Bachus will probably prevail, his million dollar war chest may be depleted and he will bare a few scars.

The other interesting race will be the 5th District Tennessee Valley/Huntsville seat. A rematch between first term Congressman Mo Brooks and former U.S. Representative Parker Griffith is on the agenda. They were pitted in a close race two years ago and the only reason Brooks won was because he was a Republican and Griffith a Democrat. They are both running as Republicans this year. This one could be worth watching.

The other GOP congresspeople, Jo Bonner, Martha Roby, Mike Rogers and Robert Aderholt only have token Democratic opponents and should coast to reelection.

The lone Democrat, Terri Sewell, escaped Democratic opposition. She has one of the most Democratic districts in the country making it likely she will return to Washington next year.

There is an unusually high number of candidates for congress in the state for a cycle when none of the seven seats are open. It should make for a more interesting year than anticipated.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Eric Alterman: As Ronald Reagan said... Oh never mind

2012-01-31T08:39:00.000-06:00

Conservative media outlets are falling all over themselves looking for the “true” heir to Ronald Reagan. (For a telling example see here.) But one area in which pretty much all conservatives today are completely off base when it comes to Reaganism is capital-gains taxation.

Take David Frum, who has developed a reputation of late as being among the most thoughtful of prominent conservative commentators. He has twice recently made the conservative case for minimal capital-gains taxation here and here. In doing so, he defends a position held by virtually every conservative (and would-be Reaganite) in America.

Thing is, Ronald Reagan actually raised capital-gains taxes.

As The New York Times’s Floyd Norris notes,

     For most of the history of income taxes in America, long-term capital gains—defined at different times as investments held for minimum periods of as little as six months and as long as 10 years—have been taxed at substantially lower rates than top ordinary income tax rates. But there was, in fact, only one time that capital gains were taxed at the same rates that were paid by people who earned their money by working. That was during the years 1988 to 1990, as a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 — a law championed by President Ronald Reagan.

This constituted a 30-percent increase in their tax rate at the time. There were good reasons for this, though one is hard-pressed to argue that Reagan knew what they were at the time. For instance, as Greg Anrig notes (care of a recent column by Paul Krugman):

     The tax-favored treatment of capital gains is a notorious source of complexity in the tax code, diverting the energies of highly paid accountants and lawyers into wasteful efforts to shelter the incomes of wealthy clients from taxes. The elaborate tax forms known as Schedule D (“Capital Gains and Losses”) and Form 8949 (“Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital Assets”) provide a superficial glimpse at how the differential tax treatment of capital gains can suck up enormous quantities of time and money for the well-heeled and their tax pros. But much more costly and wasteful than the tedious forms are the strategic energies engaged in manipulating income flowing to the wealthy in ways that minimize tax liabilities.

Anrig cites a study by the Internal Revenue Service that finds “the primary source of capital gains income has shifted from stocks to ‘pass-through’ entities (gains on assets sold by partnerships, S-corporations, and estates and trusts),” a development that significantly benefits money managers who oversee private-equity partnerships. But while these efforts have demanded “an enormous investment of brainpower, administrative work, and other energy that has profited individuals engaged in those activities,” there has been no “discernable payoff to the rest of society. Little of that unproductive work would continue if capital gains were taxed at the same rates as earnings from work.”

One undeniable effect of the low rate for capital gains has been a vast acceleration of the “Hood Robin” legislative process, whereby lobbyists compel Congress to take from the poor and the middle class and give to the rich. “Wall Street loves the preferential capital gains rate. All of America’s 20- or 30 million wealthy small investors love capital gains rates,” economist Marty Sullivan explained to two Washington Post writers. “It’s just a tremendously popular item with political contributors. It’s something that directly impacts every wealthy household in America.”

Far from benefiting most citizens, Jacob Hacker, political science professor at Yale University and co-author of Winner-Take-All Politics, notes that “Capital gains taxes [are] actually pretty foreign to the experience of most voters.” He added, “These are things that are only a concern for those who itemize [their tax returns], which most Americans don’t,” but “members of Congress themselves, particularly senators, are well off and they’re more likely to be sympathetic to the argument for low capital gains.”

And as Forbes editor Robert Lenzner writes, the richest 0.1 percent of Americans earn half of all capital gains:

     Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1 percent of the nation’s earners– rather than the more common 1 percent. The top 0.1 percent—about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million—are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after one year; and these capital gains make up 60 percent of the income made by the Forbes 400.

Now one might argue that all of this could somehow be justified if a lower capital gains rate lifted all boats. After all, many, if not most, Americans are OK with the rich getting richer—as long as the rest of us do too. Perhaps some conservatives will argue that “history shows” this, but they wouldn’t be talking about U.S. history. Again, Greg Anrig writes:

     Advocates of the capital gains tax break have claimed for decades that the exclusion benefits the economy and all workers by encouraging higher levels of investment and savings, which in turn promote growth and prosperity. But researchers have never been able to demonstrate that such connections actually exist. Capital gains tax rates have gone up and down over the years with little apparent relation to economic performance, aside from fleeting effects on realization of capital gains when rates change.

Warren Buffett concurs, explaining from personal experience that he has “worked with investors for 60 years and [has] yet to see anyone —not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77—shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off.”

Furthermore, The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein notes that a study by Troy Kravitz and Len Burman of the Urban Institute finds that over the previous half century there has been zero “correlation between the top capital gains tax rate and U.S. economic growth —even if you allow for a lag of up to five years.”

Conservatives used to argue for the value of hard work above all. But The New York Times’ Norris reminds us that what we now call “capital gains” and “carried interest” used to be more accurately termed “unearned income.” He adds, “It does seem odd that those who work for their money generally pay higher tax rates than those who simply collect investment income.”

Odd indeed, but no odder, one supposes, than allowing our political system to be, as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz argues, “Of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent, [and] for the 1 percent.” After all, as any good conservative, even Ronald Reagan, could have told you: In politics, as in life, you get what you pay for.

About the author: Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a columnist for The Nation, The Forward, and The Daily Beast. His newest book is Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama. This column won the 2011 Mirror Award for Best Digital Commentary.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Charles C. Haynes: In R.I., a student’s lesson in religious freedom

2012-01-30T09:13:00.000-06:00

At the tender age of 16, Jessica Ahlquist has already endured more verbal abuse than most people experience in a lifetime.

A high school student in Cranston, R.I., Jessica has been taunted and threatened at school, targeted by an online hate campaign, and called “an evil little thing” by a state representative on the radio.

Her crime? She asked school officials to remove a “school prayer” banner from the auditorium of Cranston West High School. Addressed to “Our Heavenly Father,” the prayer banner was presented to the school by the class of 1963 and has been affixed to the wall as a mural ever since.

At the School Committee hearing to consider the issue, public outrage turned the meeting into a religious revival. Angry citizens lined up to proclaim their allegiance to God, quote the Bible, and condemn Jessica to hell.

“If you take the banner down,” one woman testified, “you are spitting in the face of God.” Another banner supporter warned: “You can’t vote to take this down and say that you’re standing with God.”

After the School Committee bowed to public pressure and voted to keep the banner, Jessica’s father (supported by the American Civil Liberties Union) filed suit on her behalf.

On Jan. 11, U.S. District Judge Ronald Lagueux ruled in Jessica’s favor and ordered the banner removed. It was an easy case. For more than 60 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that promotion of religion by public school officials violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

“When focused on the Prayer Mural,” wrote the judge, “the activities and agenda of the Cranston School Committee became excessively entangled with religion, exposing the Committee to a situation where a loud and passionate majority encouraged it to vote to override the constitutional rights of a minority.”

Undeterred, supporters of the prayer banner are holding a “prayer rally” this week to urge the School Committee to keep fighting.

Jessica may be in the minority in Cranston, but she’s in good company as the latest in a long line of Rhode Island dissenters — beginning with the state’s founder, Roger Williams.

Williams, who was himself verbally attacked, was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 for objecting to the entanglement of religion and government that, he believed, corrupted both.

He founded Rhode Island as the first government in history with no established religion and a commitment to protect liberty of conscience for every person. As a deeply religious Christian minister, Williams vowed to put an end to centuries of oppression and coercion by erecting what he called “a wall or hedge of separation” between the “Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the World.”

Rhode Island was to be a “haven for the cause of conscience” where government stayed out of religion and all people (including Quakers, Catholics and others persecuted in surrounding colonies) would be free to choose in matters of faith.

If he were alive today, there’s little doubt that Roger Williams would be solidly in Jessica’s corner. He would view the “school prayer” banner as blasphemous state appropriation of religion. However big or small the issue, Williams believed that any state entanglement with religion violates conscience, divides society, and (most important for him) offends God.

Of course, keeping government neutral toward religion did not mean for Williams then, and does not mean now, keeping religion out of public life. He would applaud that Cranston students are free to pray alone or in groups (as long as they don’t disrupt school). Moreover, under current law, students may bring their scriptures to school, share their faith with classmates and form religious clubs.

You might think it would be easy to stand up for religious freedom in the birthplace of religious freedom — but apparently it isn’t. In Judge Lagueux’s words, Jessica Ahlquist “is clearly an articulate and courageous young woman, who took a brave stand, particularly in light of the hostile response she has received from her community.”

Thanks to Jessica, the spirit of Roger Williams — America’s first great dissenter — is alive and well in Rhode Island.

About the author: Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C., 20001. Web:http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/. E-mail:chaynes@freedomforum.org.

This article was published by the First Amendment Center.

Gary Palmer: Keystone XL Decision: Another energy policy that hurts the poor

2012-01-28T11:12:00.001-06:00

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to spread the wealth around by using “government power to balance the scale between America’s rich and the rest of the public ….”

But the truth is the policies of this Administration are increasing the financial burdens of the poor.

How so?

Just days before, the Obama Administration blocked the construction of the Keystone XL project, an oil pipeline that would have immediately provided 20,000 new jobs and would have provided the U.S. with an additional 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada as well as from South Dakota and Montana. By blocking access to America’s vast energy resources of oil, coal and natural gas and trying to force green energy on the country, the Obama Administration has forced energy costs to be significantly higher than they should be which disproportionately hurts poor families.

The Keystone project has been under review by the federal government for Obama’s entire term as president. During the course of the evaluation, the federal government has determined that the project would have “limited adverse environmental impact during both construction and operation.”

The need for approval of the pipeline is evident from within the Obama Administration itself.

In their 2011 year-end report, Obama’s own President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness stated, “Additionally, policies that facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of pipeline, transmission and distribution projects are necessary to facilitate the delivery of America’s fuel and electricity and maintain the reliability of our nation’s energy system.”

Moreover, former National Security Advisor to the Obama Administration, Gen. Jim Jones, said “If we get to the point where we cannot bring ourselves to do what is in our national interest, then we are clearly in a period of decline…. A nation that fails to secure the energy its citizens and its economic engine need to keep functioning leaves itself vulnerable to external contingencies in a dangerous and uncertain world and to the whims of foreign leaders and other actors who may not always have its interests at heart.”

In plain English, the Obama Administration’s block of the Keystone XL pipeline project further weakens the American economy, blocks access to jobs for millions of Americans who are out of work, undermines national security by making America reliant on oil from countries that are not friendly toward the U.S. and increases financial hardships on low- to middle-income American households.

Obama and Democrats have cast themselves as the protectors and defenders of the poor and down trodden. Yet their anti-fossil fuel agenda has created a highly regressive hidden tax that disproportionally falls on low- to middle-income families.

Two years ago the Democrats, who at that time controlled both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, were trying to pass the Cap-and-Trade Bill that was supported by the Obama Administration. The Tax Foundation published what the bill would cost U.S. households, broken down by household income. According to the Tax Foundation, as a percentage of disposable income, households with the lowest incomes would pay five times (6.2%) more than the highest income households (1.4%).

Another report issued last year showed that over the last ten years household energy costs have almost doubled. After paying their taxes, households earning less than $50,000 annually now spend an average of 20 percent of their disposable income on energy costs. Paying energy bills now consumes 23 percent of the disposable income for households earning less than $30,000, including 31.5 million senior citizen households with annual incomes below $15,500.

Considering 2009 data, 62 percent of Hispanic households and 67 percent of black households had average annual incomes below $50,000, compared to 46 percent of white households and 39 percent of Asian households. Obviously, these anti-energy policies also disproportionally affect minority families. Approving the Keystone XL pipeline project would be a great step forward in reducing these imbalances.

Therefore, if the Obama Administration and the Democrats truly want to help the economy and American families, they would not have blocked the Keystone XL pipeline for the last three years. Moreover, they would unlock America’s vast oil, coal and natural gas resources which would create millions of new jobs, lower household energy costs as well as add hundreds of billions to state and federal revenues.

When it comes to balancing the scale between America’s rich and the rest of the nation, blocking the Keystone XL pipeline project and other efforts to access the vast resources of oil, coal and natural gas simply allows the Obama Administration to hypocritically maintain that wide gap.

About the author: Gary Parlmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

This article was published by the Alabama Policy Institute.

Laurence M. Vance: Food stamp politicians

2012-01-27T22:05:00.002-06:00

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is in hot water for referring to Barack Obama as “the food-stamp president.”

The NAACP and the National Urban League have sharply criticized Gingrich for saying that “the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”

In the FOX News Republican presidential debate held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on January 16, Gingrich was asked about these things by panelist Juan Williams. Gingrich denied that he was insulting black Americans and seeking to belittle people and stated, “The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.”

Gingrich’s statement was made the focal point of his new ad that ran statewide in South Carolina making the case that he is the only candidate who can beat Obama. The exchange was also highlighted in a fundraising email headlined, “Standing Ovation,” in which Gingrich writes, “I would be the strongest candidate to face Barack Obama one-on-one on stage and challenge him for being the greatest food-stamp President in American history.”

In the CNN Republican presidential debate held in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 19, the only mention of food stamps was by Rick Santorum. Speaking about “the working men and women of this country,” he said, “You have the Democratic Party and Barack Obama, and all he wants to do is make them more dependent, give them more food stamps, give them more Medicaid.”

The federal food-stamp program, which is now officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is a federal program administered by the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but operated by the states. About 46 million Americans currently receive food stamp benefits averaging $133 per person, per month.

In my state of Florida, some of the maximum monthly food-stamp benefit amounts are $200 for a 1-person household, $526 for a 3-person household, and $793 for a 5-person household.

The first food stamp program was temporary. It lasted from 1939 to 1943. A pilot program was operated from 1961 to 1964. The program was made permanent in 1964, and has been expanded, reformed, and revised every few years since then.

Someone hearing about the food-stamp brouhaha who wasn’t aware of the wide bipartisan support for the program might be inclined to think that Republicans want to abolish it. But at no time did Gingrich or Santorum ever call for the elimination of the food-stamp program.

When did House Speaker Gingrich and the Republican-controlled Congress for six years under President Clinton ever make an attempt to eliminate the federal food-stamp program? When did Senator Santorum and the Congress the Republicans controlled for more than four years under George W. Bush, a Republican, ever make an attempt to eliminate the program?

The truth is that after decreasing every year during most of the Clinton years, the number of Americans on food stamps rose from 17 million in fiscal year 2001 to 33 million in fiscal year 2009. Bush should also be called the food-stamp president.

The usual Republican proposal regarding the food-stamp program is to fix or revamp the program and never to phase it out or abolish it. Here is an all-to-typical example from a critic of the food stamp program:

As a prerequisite to receiving food stamp benefits, the individuals should have to complete a short nutrition education course.

I would like to go a step further to say that the government should change the way the benefits are received from a lump sum to specified recipient items. These items would be chosen and calculated by [a] panel of government paid nutritionists to give the individuals what is needed for a healthy diet.

We already have a program that works similarly to this: the Women Infants and Children program. In this program, they are given a set amount of necessities such as milk, diapers and formula.

I simply propose that we work food stamps the same way. Each family would get a sum from which they may purchase their choice of protein, a certain amount of whole grain starch, and allotments for fresh fruits and vegetables.

As it currently is, these individuals can get sushi, prime rib, lobster, cake, soda and ice cream. I am not saying that the recipients should never get those items but instead put a small amount aside that is the “discretionary fund.” This would instill a reminder that although they are receiving this food free of cost, it is not free. We, the taxpayers, pay for it each week out of our paychecks.

Because the money is coming from the government, the recipients should be held responsible for how it is spent.

Gingrich and Santorum are food-stamp politicians. Although they may call for reforms, reductions, improvements, restrictions, more efficiency, and less fraud, they fully support the food-stamp program. Just as they, along with most of their fellow Republicans, fully support most of the New Deal and Great Society welfare programs.

There are three reasons that there should be no food-stamp program. The first is constitutional; the second is ethical, and the third is philosophical.

One, the federal government is delegated very limited and very specific powers by the Constitution. Not only are providing food stamps or food assistance not one of them, but the Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to have anything to do with food. It is not a matter of a liberal, a conservative, or some other view of the Constitution. There is simply no mention of food anywhere in the Constitution, period.

Two, taking money from one group of Americans and giving it to another group of Americans is immoral. It doesn’t matter what the purpose of the taking is. Redistributing wealth from one person or group to any other person or group for any reason — including “good” reasons such as feeding the hungry — is just plain wrong. The federal food-stamp program is an income-redistribution scheme that enjoys widespread support only because of the images of starving children put forth by its proponents.

And three, it is just simply not the purpose of government to be involved in any way with feeding people, fighting hunger, providing nutritional guidelines, regulating or subsidizing agriculture, combating obesity, distributing food, or making sure children don’t go to bed hungry.

The federal government should have nothing to do with the food business for the same reason it should have nothing to do with health-care or the automobile industry — it is an unconstitutional, immoral, and illegitimate purpose of government.

About the author: Laurence M. Vance is a policy advisor for the Future of Freedom Foundation and the author of The Revolution That Wasn’t. Visit his website: http://www.vancepublications.com. Send him email.

This article was published by the Future of Freedom Foundation.

How much do you know about health reform? Take the quiz!

2012-01-26T15:42:00.000-06:00

From the Center for American Progress - take an interactive quiz to see how much you know about the Affordable Care Act:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/01/aca_quiz.html

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Gambling on another trial

2012-01-25T11:42:00.000-06:00

The second round of the gambling corruption trial begins this Monday in Federal Court in Montgomery. Last year’s first trial ended in a victory for all defendants. A jury of 11 women and one man quickly returned not guilty verdicts on 91 charges and could not reach a unanimous decision on 33 charges. Two defendants, Montgomery State Senator Quinton Ross and lobbyist Bob Geddie, were cleared of all charges. The remaining seven defendants go on trial Monday. The odds favor their acquittal.

In the first trial the defendants’ lawyers were so confident that the prosecution had failed to make a case that they never even offered any rebuttal testimony. The 91 to 0 score proves that they were correct in their course of action. The federal government spent millions of taxpayer dollars, used every trick in the book, and spent weeks offering testimony and witnesses and still got embarrassed by the decision.

The prosecution asking for another trial is analogous to a football team, which used its best plays and players but still lost 91 to 0, asking for a rematch with the team that dominated them without even using its first string. Furthermore, the odds have even gotten worse for the prosecution. A federal judge ruled that former Gov. Bob Riley must testify. Along with Riley will be his former cabinet members and campaign lieutenant Bill Johnson. Johnson has presented evidence to U.S. Attorneys and the FBI and will testify that Riley’s 2002 campaign for governor received $3 million laundered and funneled from the Mississippi Choctaw Indians.

This assertion is pretty much common knowledge. There was some testimony to the same effect during Senator John McCain’s Indian casino corruption hearings in Washington. The FBI testified that Indian gambling money went to the Alabama governor’s race to inhibit gambling expansion by Alabama entities.

Convicted Indian gambling lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in his recently released book, “Capitol Punishment,” writes that over a five year period the Mississippi Choctaws spent $20 million in Alabama to fight the expansion of gambling in our state. Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon were both convicted in the Indian gambling scam in what has been called the largest corruption scandal in the nation’s history. Scanlon worked for Riley when he was a congressman.

This new trial could develop into a colorful show. Defense attorneys will be able to show jurors that the entire episode and trial are simply politics. Riley was on the side of the Indian gambling interests and fought to preserve their monopoly. Milton McGregor and his Alabama gambling interests wanted to be able to compete with the Indians on a level playing field. Both sides gave money in the form of political contributions to their political allies. Neither side offered personal bribes. Giving campaign contributions to your friends is not illegal. If it were the feds did not have to come all the way to Alabama to indict folks. They could have just walked down the street and indicted all 435 members of Congress.

One of the jurors in the first case granted an interview after the first trial. She is a rural mail carrier in Covington County. She said the federal prosecutor told the jury in his opening statement that wiretapped phone calls and secretly recorded meetings would tell a story of greed and corruption in Alabama but she continued by saying the tapes never lived up to their billing. It just looked like politics. She said from the very beginning when listening to the tapes, “Surely this cannot be all they have. I kept waiting and waiting.”

This trial should be more interesting and entertaining than the last but will probably conclude with the same result.

See you next week.

About on author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Michael Josephson: The Peculiar concept of “ethics laws”

2012-01-24T11:04:00.000-06:00

Cynicism about the ethics of elected officials may be at an all-time high, continually fueled by new stories of outright corruption or bad judgment. At every level of government there are politicians who can’t seem to recognize or resist conflicts of interest, inappropriate gifts, improper use of the power or property entrusted to them, or the discrediting impact of shameful private conduct.

Thus, it’s no surprise that news media are continually shining light on real and perceived improprieties and putting the heat on federal, state, and city legislatures to pass new and tougher ethics laws to restore public trust.

The phrase “ethics laws” is peculiar because it marries two very different concepts. Ethics refers to standards of right and wrong, how a person should behave according to moral principles such as honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect. Living ethically is a matter of conscience. Unethical conduct results in shame and perhaps criticism, scandal, or disgrace.

While ethics is about should, laws are about must. They prohibit or mandate specific conduct. Obeying the law is a matter of compliance, and illegal conduct results in sanctions including fines and imprisonment.

Ethics laws meld the two concepts. They both require conduct such as open meetings and disclosure of financial interests and forbid transactions that could compromise the integrity of government. Because of a high tendency of those regulated to evade the spirit and purpose of such laws, statutes have become more complex and technical.

Historically, legislative bodies have been reactive rather than proactive, doing only what they absolutely must. Thus, existing laws often are a hodgepodge of regulations designed to prevent reoccurrence of specific past improprieties. That’s a big part of the problem.

What we need is nonpartisan statesmanship and visionary leadership willing to face up to the fact that relying on the individual judgment of each elected official is a failed strategy that guarantees a continuous flow of scandals that discredits their institutions and even the enterprise of democratic government itself.

While I wish more emphasis was placed on character rather than compliance, the raw reality is that voters do not consistently demand scrupulous integrity as evidenced by the re-election of people severely stained by scandal.

It’s often said you can’t legislate morality. This is true. But we can require moral conduct. Ethics laws don’t make people ethical, but they do deter unethical conduct. And that’s an important first step.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

About the author: Michael Josephson is one of the nation’s most sought-after and quoted ethicists. Founder and president of Josephson Institute and its CHARACTER COUNTS! project, he has conducted programs for more than 100,000 leaders in government, business, education, sports, law enforcement, journalism, law, and the military. Mr. Josephson is also an award-winning radio commentator.

Edwin Feulner, Ph.D.: Top ten, but falling

2012-01-23T13:17:00.001-06:00

If you were to rank the countries of the world in terms of economic freedom, where would the United States fall? First, or at least in the top three? The top five, surely.

Because there is, in fact, a resource that ranks every country by this measure -- the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, and the United States comes in at No. 10. That’s right: the nation that is supposed to lead the world in liberty finishes behind nine others, including Ireland, Chile, Switzerland and Canada. Even the small African nation of Mauritius beats us.

And while this ranking represents a new low for the U.S., which was ninth last year, it’s part of a recent trend. As recently as 2008, the U.S. ranked seventh worldwide, had a score of 81 (on a 0-100 scale, with 100 being the freest), and was listed as a “free” economy. Today, the U.S. has a score of 76.3 and is “mostly free,” the Index’s second-highest category.

Now before we explain why, let’s back up and briefly touch on how the editors of the Index -- published annually since 1995 by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal -- figure out the scores. Each country is evaluated in four broad areas of economic freedom:

1) Rule of Law. Are property rights protected through an effective and honest judicial system? How widespread is corruption -- bribery, extortion, graft, and the like?

2) Regulatory Efficiency. Are businesses able to operate without burdensome and redundant regulations? Are individuals able to work where and how much they want? Is inflation in check? Are prices stable?

3) Limited Government. Are taxes high or low? Is government spending kept under control, or is it growing unchecked?

4) Open Markets: Can goods be traded freely? Are there tariffs, quota or other restrictions? Can individuals invest their money where and how they see fit? Is there an open banking environment that encourages competition?

For the most part, of course, the United States does very well on these measures. Finishing 10th out of 179 countries, after all, is impossible if you don’t have a large degree of economic freedom, and the U.S. is very free. Property rights are strong. Our court system is independent. Business start-up procedures are efficient. The labor market is flexible.

But in certain key areas, the United States is lagging badly. A big one is government spending. The U.S. now ranks 127th in the world in this category. Spending by government consumes 42.2 percent of gross domestic product. Total public debt is now larger than the entire economy.

Taxes are another problem. The U.S. score isn’t helped by the fact that the U.S. tax structure relies so much on taxes on capital and investment, which restrict growth. Regulations continue to grow in number, making it harder than necessary for our economy to recover. How bad is it? More than 70 major rules have been imposed since 2009, and they cost Americans nearly $40 billion last year.

The deterioration of the U.S. score on freedom from corruption is especially troubling. Blame the government (read: taxpayer) bailouts of troubled industries such as automakers. These create the perception of corruption. As far as many Americans are considered, it’s politically well-connected companies and special-interest groups who get the breaks. They see the more than 1,100 companies that have won exceptions to Obamacare, and they can’t help but wonder if some form of cronyism is involved.

We can’t hope to create the number of jobs we need under these conditions.

That’s why we have to get serious about cutting government down to size, overhauling our tax system, and transforming costly entitlement programs. Otherwise, the United States has just completed its last year as a top-10 finalist in the Index.

About the author: Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation.

This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Gene Policinski: Loving free speech is easy, until we hate what somebody said

2012-01-22T09:41:00.001-06:00

Does anybody have a sense of humor anymore?

The First Amendment’s role in protecting free speech is to shelter remarks that most people don’t like. Words that everybody finds acceptable need no defense.

In between those two polar points is the daily give-and-take of discourse. The verbal tumult of braggadocio, insults, satire and plain speaking can pass the time of day or give rise to what lawyers and Supreme Court justices politely call “robust discussion.”

There’s no First Amendment requirement for civility, politeness or any constitutional test for relevance, deep meaning or common sense. Still, most of us use the freedom to speak to say something worth hearing.

So why is the marketplace of ideas so increasingly jammed with incivility, with responses ranging from the testy-and-snide to the vulgar-and-vile, and even the threatening-and-dangerous? Web anonymity may be a factor, but the trend cuts across more methods and media than that.

Case in point: What began as a traditional wager between mayors of cities with NFL teams in the playoffs, in this case Denver (the Broncos) and Boston (the New England Patriots), has slipped into a frothy back-and-forth about … beer.

The “bet”-a-tete turned a bit more serious a few days ago when Boston Mayor Tom Menino slammed Colorado’s beer offerings. A mere “hop,” skip and jump later came a snippy retort about beer sales from Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, and a reported e-storm of critical comments between ardent defenders of the two metropoli and their respective microbrewers.

Shift to Minnesota, where a mixed-martial-arts championship fighter and assistant wrestling coach said he had been placed on paid administrative leave by his school district for insulting remarks in a TV interview he made last month about President Obama.

Including the term “glass-ectomy,” the coach used figurative imagery that although clearly vulgar is just as clearly fantasy and his personal view. Nonetheless, the coach’s slam at a martial-arts match in Denver prompted a parent at his school to complain. Despite the coach’s never mentioning his school — and despite this country’s protection for political speech — officials ordered him to take time off.

Now we turn to Iowa and a much more serious situation. University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom, along with his family, is receiving death threats, virulent and disgusting anti-Semitic faxes, and harassing phone calls. Bloom also is being pilloried statewide and beyond, in print, on TV, and online. Why? Because of an essay he wrote in the December Atlantic magazine about the good and bad aspects of Iowa. It hit the newsstands just as national attention was ramping up for the Iowa caucuses.

Bloom says he meant only to portray the true state of affairs in his state. Critics say he did so with a snide tone and snarky emphasis on the negative. The debate over appropriateness and accuracy can rage on — that’s fine. But the threats and attacks against Bloom are troubling aftershocks over a 5,600-word essay on the Hawkeye State.

Sally Mason, president of the University of Iowa, said in a news release on Dec. 15, “I strongly disagree with and was offended by Professor Bloom’s portrayal of Iowa and Iowans.” The statement went on to lavish kind words on the state and its residents. So far, Bloom says, even though the university knows of the death threats, it has made no mention of his First Amendment rights, or made even a nod to the idea that a university should be, above anywhere else, a safe harbor for the expression of discordant views.

Instead, there’s chatter through the state about policies to warn professors about the “dangers” of self-expression on social networks and elsewhere, requests for copies of professors’ e-mails, and even a posting criticizing Bloom by some of his journalism department colleagues.

Social and political commentary can inform, fuel outrage or spark needed discussion – sometimes all at once, a la Bloom. One person’s right to enrage today is another person’s right to enlighten tomorrow. Community leaders — including university presidents — have a duty to defend that concept, even when they disavow the content.

Standing up for free speech is easy. Until it’s not.

About the author: Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, is a veteran journalist whose career has included work in newspapers, radio, television and online.

This article was published by the First Amendment Center.

Sheldon Richman: A Fitting symbol of the American Empire

2012-01-21T12:13:00.001-06:00

The image of four U.S. marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan fighters is a fitting symbol of American intervention in Central Asia and the Middle East. That picture will live forever in the memories of people in the region, along with the pictures from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Most Americans aren’t much interested in making fine distinctions in foreign affairs. As Republican presidential contender Ron Paul points out, the Taliban (U.S. allies against the Soviets) never wished the American people harm. What they oppose is a foreign presence in their country, Russian or American, and they have no desire to attack anyone who stays home and minds his own business.

Other than Paul, the Republican candidates see the desecration of dead foreigners as an issue with which to score points on President Obama. The candidates and their supporters sympathize with the marines. After all, they say, the Taliban kill Americans. They are the enemy. They all should be killed.

This may be fodder for demagogues, but it’s plain nonsense. The Taliban are the home team. The American forces are the visitors — invaders and occupiers, to be precise. As Ron Paul likes to ask, how would Americans feel if there were an occupying army in the United States propping up a corrupt government? Would they turn militant? Would they mount an insurgency? I think we can predict they would.

Therefore, American belligerence toward Afghans who resent the presence of foreign occupiers is unjustified. That resentment is not anti-American, because behind it lies no wish to harm our society. When will the American people learn that?

In his comments at the first South Carolina debate, Paul distinguished the Taliban from al-Qaeda, which took responsibility for the criminal attacks on 9/11. Apparently, to most Americans, “they” are all the same. But the distinction makes a difference. Al-Qaeda was largely made up of men from various Arab nations, not Afghans.

In the 1990s, the Taliban leadership allowed Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda to live in Afghanistan. Does that implicate the Taliban in 9/11? In pondering this question, it’s helpful to realize that after the attacks, the Taliban leadership offered to turn bin Laden over to the U.S. government if given evidence of his guilt. The U.S. government refused. Maybe the Taliban leadership was bluffing, but we will never know what would have happened had they been tested. (This was one of many counterproductive moves committed by President George W. Bush. Iran’s offer to cooperate after 9/11, before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president, was similarly rejected.)

This is not to defend the Taliban regime. After the Soviets were beaten, it ran a brutal theocracy that engaged in inexcusable destruction. But two things should be kept in mind. Most people fighting the U.S. occupation today had nothing to do with the regime, al-Qaeda, or 9/11. And it’s been reported that most Afghans know nothing about 9/11. All they know is that armed foreigners stalk their land, bursting into their homes in the night and dropping bombs from the sky. Some of the resisters may well believe the occupiers are Russians.

Unfortunately, the Republican primary process is anything but conducive to a careful discussion of U.S. foreign policy. Except for Paul, the candidates see maximum advantage in sounding tough, no matter how irrational their claims and proposals are. So we saw Rick Perry (now gone from the race) condemn the leadership of Turkey as “Islamic terrorists” and Mitt Romney reject any diplomatic contact with the Taliban because “These people have declared war on us. They’ve killed Americans. We go anywhere they are and we kill them.”

But, as noted, the Taliban have not declared war on the United States, and when they kill Americans, they are killing invaders and occupiers. Does Romney realize that U.S. forces are in their country?

Here’s the irony: The attacks on 9/11, as Ron Paul has explained many times, are comprehensible (though not justifiable) only as “blowback” from long years of violent U.S. intervention in the Arab world. Intervention creates enemies bent on vengeance, something the U.S. military leadership itself acknowledges.

The upshot is that continued occupation of foreign lands can’t make Americans safer. It simply invites further anti-American violence.

About the author: Sheldon Richman is a senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va., author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog Free Association at http://www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email.

This article was published by The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Eric Alterman: The Tea Party: Struggling for political relevance

2012-01-20T09:50:00.000-06:00

In the New York Times this past Sunday, Sam Tanenhaus, senior editor of the New York Times Book Review and a student of conservatism, pronounced the impending death of the Tea Party. He noted that “even in South Carolina, a seat of conservative activism, the opposition to Mr. Romney appears to be fragmented and diffuse, as Matt Bai reports this weekend in The Times Magazine. Others have put the case more bluntly. ‘Where’s the Tea Party?’ a headline in Politico asked last week.”

My, what a difference a presidential election year makes. In the same article Tanenhaus quotes William Kristol, publisher and editor of The Weekly Standard, who “exulted that the Tea Party protest was ‘the best thing that has happened to the Republican Party in recent times.’” However misguided, Kristol, a true believer in conservative power divorced as an end in and of itself, can be forgiven for believing the hype he published in his own magazine and consumed elsewhere in the media. As for the rest of us, well, it seems we never really fell for the conservative hype or the misguided rush to embrace this idea by the mainstream media.

Recall how much of the mainstream media treated the Tea Party as if it were the center of the “real America.” This was evident almost everywhere, but perhaps nowhere so much as on CNN. Remember when that allegedly unbiased station decided to treat the Tea Party as if it were deserving of its own “State of the Union address” by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)? Even then, as I noted in this space at the time, its views represented fewer than one-fifth of the nation’s views according to most polls. “To get a liberal equivalent of Rep. Bachmann, CNN would have had to turn over their cameras right afterward to Ward Churchill.”

How did they justify it? CNN Political Director Sam Feist defended the decision at the time by explaining, “Based on our news judgment, we decided it was worthwhile to take it live.” He added, "The Tea Party has become a major force in American politics and within the Republican Party. Hearing the Tea Party's perspective on the State of the Union is something we believe CNN's viewers will be interested in hearing, and we are happy to include this perspective as one of many in tonight's coverage."

Dave Weigel, notes The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, added some crucial context at the time, observing that "CNN has a longstanding romance with the Tea Party Express," the political action committee that promoted Rep. Bachmann's speech. In fact, CNN and the Tea Party Express co-sponsored a GOP presidential debate in September.

But all this rush to brand the Tea Party as hugely relevant never caught on in the minds of the broader American public. A study of the views and attitudes of 2,000 voters sympathetic to the Tea Party presented to the 2011 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association by four academics noted that their attitudes could be characterized as reflective of “four primary cultural and political beliefs” in greater measure than in other Americans: “authoritarianism, libertarianism, fear of change, and negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration.”

Indeed, the audience for the CNN/Tea Party Express debate showed why this may be the case. The audience cheered the death of a sick man who lacked health insurance. They booed when one of the candidates pointed out that not all Muslims were responsible for 9/11.

As political scientists Davie E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam pointed out in August, “The Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic.” They noted that:

In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent. … [the Tea Party is] even less popular than … “atheists” and “Muslims.”

The true test of how far the Tea Party has fallen in popularity will be the remaining Republican presidential primary contests and then the general election in November. Those who still boast of their Tea Party loyalties are divided over whom to support. For a movement that already lacks a cohesive leadership, this failure to unite behind one candidate could be the final struggle highlighting its increasing irrelevance.

About the author: Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a columnist for The Nation, The Forward, and The Daily Beast. His newest book is Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama. This column won the 2011 Mirror Award for Best Digital Commentary.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: 1970s court ruling still impacts the Alabama Legislature today

2012-01-18T10:14:00.000-06:00

Last week I discussed the inordinate power that Black Belt senators wielded in the legislature during most of the past century. This power was garnered through the practice of Black Belt counties’ wisdom in keeping their legislative delegation in place for a long time. They seldom would be opposed and would usually die in office. This created a wealth of knowledge, experience and seniority for the region. However, the primary reason was that the state legislature was egregiously malapportioned.

The legislature was malapportioned from the beginning of the 1901 Constitution and because the legislature refused to reapportion for over 60 years it became unbelievably out of balance. Even though North Alabama had more people, they had less representation. This terrible injustice was finally rectified in the 1970’s. It was done by the federal courts. The courts drew the lines to give representation to black Alabamians. In the process they also gave fair and equal representation to North Alabama.

The change in power in the legislature also came in the mid 1970’s. When the courts mandated legislative reapportionment, the Black Belt lost its power. The last hurrah was the 1974-1978 quadrennium. The House was controlled by two Black Belters who had immense power and came from the same sparsely populated southwestern part of the state. Joe McCorquodale, who was the Speaker, came from Jackson in Clarke County and his able ally, the Speaker Pro Tem, was the veteran Rick Manley from Demopolis in Marengo County. Both men were perfect examples of Black Belt power. Their counties adjoined each other and had less then 25,000 people.

Both men served for many years and mastered the rules. They were dominant but after the 1970’s their power was gone forever. With the fall of white Black Belt legislative domination, also began the demise of the power of Farm Bureau, or now the Alabama Farmers Federation. They are still powerful, but not the Kings of Goat Hill that they were for decades. With the 1970’s reapportionment mandate the Alabama Education Association replaced Alfa as the dominant special interest group.

An ironic twist in the traumatic 1970’s shift of power due to reapportionment is played out by two sets of characters. The McCorquodale and Manley duo were the dominant controlling leadership during the 1974-1978 quadrennium. There were two freshmen House members elected that year, Roy Johnson from Tuscaloosa and Jimmy Holley from Elba. They were a different breed. They were elected by the AEA. Dr. Paul Hubbert helped them get elected and he chose them as his boys. He took them under his wing and coached them in the rules of the House. They ate dinner together every night. They were diligent and quick studies.

Johnson and Holley became a pain in the neck to the Black Belt duo of McCorquodale and Manley. They would fight and question the Speaker on every issue. The Black Belt team would beat them and swat them like flies but Johnson and Holley would fight day after day. The McCorquodale/Manley House was extremely anti AEA. The Black Belt delegation still had the votes and the power. They ran roughshod over Johnson and Holley but through these defeats they gained immense knowledge of the legislative process. Hubbert schooled them well.

By 1982 school was out for the large farm interests and the Black Belt. Johnson and Holley became the new leadership as AEA took control. Hubbert’s boys, Johnson and Holley, put the knowledge Hubbert imparted to good use. They became powers.

I had the opportunity to sit next to Jimmy Holley for eight years. He was and still is one of the best legislators I have ever seen. He read and knew what was in every bill. I saw him build a whole new school system in Elba one year when their schools were devastated by floods. They did not need flood insurance, they had Holley.

Roy Johnson became Speaker Pro Tem in the 1982-1986 quadrennium and was arguably the most powerful legislator in the state for those four years. He left the House to become head of the state junior college and trade school system where he became extremely greedy. He is now in prison.

The mid 70’s was a watershed era in Alabama political power. The shift in power created by reapportionment was dramatic and profound. However, the change that occurred last year with the Republican takeover was even more seismic.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Richard Schwartzman: Be careful what you wish for

2012-01-17T09:36:00.000-06:00

Mitt Romney’s recent comment about how he would repeal Obamacare if elected president was almost laughable. After all, Romney was the man who brought the same type of mandatory health coverage to Massachusetts when he was that state’s governor.

Government healthcare has been a political issue for generations, and interest accelerated during the Clinton years, when it was called “Hillarycare.” But Mitt delivered Romneycare.

No matter whose name is on the alleged care, it’s government controlled, and that’s a problem for at least two reasons: the practical and the constitutional.

Let’s look at the practical first. Universal healthcare will be anything but what its advocates say it will be. The idea is reminiscent of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where, after the animals held their successful revolution for equality and overthrew the farmer, some animals became more equal than others and said they were deserving of special privileges and luxuries.

It was former U.S. Representative Joe Sestak who led me to make the analogy. Let me first say that I truly respect the man and his thirty-one-year naval career. I’ve had the opportunity on a number of occasions to interview him and even have personal conversations. I like him, but I disagree with him.

During his first campaign for Congress in 2006, he explained that he became strongly aware of a need for government healthcare while his young daughter was being treated for cancer. She received excellent care and, he said, he couldn’t imagine how other families managed without the ability to pay for such wonderful treatment.

Well, let’s face it. Mr. Sestak was then Rear Admiral Sestak. You bet his daughter got good care. It’s called RHIP: rank hath its privileges.

For confirmation, I’ll offer my own personal experience with government-provided healthcare. As an eight-year-old, I went to visit relatives in New Orleans. I had a bicycle accident and cut my leg from knee to ankle. My uncle was a commander in the navy and he got me to the emergency room at the naval base, where I received prompt and excellent treatment. All that I was left with was a scar and an entertaining story to tell.

Jump ahead twelve years. At that point I was a twenty-year-old Air Force enlisted man who got sick one day while stationed at Westover Air Force Base. I had to go to sick call three times before the doctor ever put a stethoscope to my chest. When he did, he immediately admitted me to the hospital with pneumonia.

Would an officer’s relative have had to wait three days for a doctor to perform such a basic check? Would a senator’s relative? In private practice, listening to a patient’s heart and lungs would be routine.

Universal healthcare is supposed to make care accessible for all, regardless of income or social status. But just like the animals in Animal Farm, whenever there is political influence, some people will become more equal than others — and there is political influence in anything and everything the government does.

Beyond that fact, there is the question of whether government healthcare is even constitutional. Most politicians really don’t care about that. The contemporary proof of that carelessness comes from an exchange between U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-SC, and Judge Andrew Napolitano during the 2009 discussions over Obamacare.

According to Napolitano, the judge asked Clyburn where in the Constitution Congress is granted the authority to get involved in healthcare. The congressman responded saying that most of what they do in D.C. has nothing to do with the Constitution.

So what’s next?

The country is waiting for the Supreme Court to drop its shoe regarding federally mandated healthcare in the form of the Affordable Care Act. The single most controversial aspect of the bill is the individual mandate, the requirement that everyone buy some form of health insurance.

How anyone can read Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution and say that the federal government has the power to force such a thing is beyond reason. It goes back to Clyburn’s comments about Congress doing things that have nothing to do with the Constitution, even though the oath of office is to preserve, protect, and defend that document.

The court will hear arguments for and against the mandate and make a ruling later this year. One can only wonder at this point what the high court will decide. It’s a scary thought.

Getting the government involved in the health of society and its citizens creates a dangerous situation. The promise of equal access to medical care beyond what the free market can deliver is a lie and a smokescreen. There was a time — 1927 in Buck v. Bell — when the court even ruled that forced sterilization of undesirable people was constitutional. How’s that for government health care?

About the author: Richard Schwartzman is managing editor at Chadds Ford Live in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

This article was published by The Future of Freedom Foundation.

David L. Hudson Jr.: Honoring Martin Luther King’s legacy of freedom

2012-01-16T10:53:00.001-06:00

Today, a federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., people should take time to remember and reflect on how the First Amendment can better society.

Without the First Amendment, protesters could not have assembled and voiced their clarion call for an end to segregation laws. Without the First Amendment, the press would not have been able to report as freely on civil rights abuses.

King himself exercised his First Amendment freedoms at great peril. He faced arrest numerous times for his willingness to challenge local officials and galvanize people for social change.

Consider his role in the Albany Movement — a struggle in Albany, Ga., between civil rights groups and city officials over various demonstrations. Officials arrested King and many others in December 1961 in a coordinated plan of mass arrests designed to thwart the movement. It would not be the only time King was arrested by Albany police. He faced arrest in Albany again in July 1962 after holding a prayer vigil outside the city hall. Some considered the Albany Movement a failure, but King insisted that the lessons learned from Albany were the key to greater successes in showcasing civil rights abuses in Birmingham and Selma, Ala.

King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and countless other civil rights activists protested, petitioned and prayed in public in the face of hostile resistance. They often overcame arrests, libel suits and bombings.

We know that ultimately King did not escape assassin bullets, which took his life in Memphis on April 4, 1968. But, the day before, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. In that stirring oration, he said:

“But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”

King read and understood the 45 words of the First Amendment and its panoply of freedoms. He knew that government officials hostile to his cause often did not honor those freedoms. Yet, despite this hostility, King knew our freedoms and believed in them.

On Martin Luther King Day, take time to honor Dr. King and the First Amendment.

About the author: David L. Hudson Jr. is a scholar at the First Amendment Center.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Gary Palmer: Voter ID protects right to honest elections

2012-01-14T11:35:00.000-06:00

Alabama is once again at odds with the U.S. Department of Justice … this time over the voter ID law that the Alabama State Legislature passed during the 2011 legislative session.

Alabama joined six other states, including South Carolina, in passing a law that requires voters to present some form of picture ID such as a driver’s license before they will be allowed to vote. Similar laws passed by Georgia and Indiana have already been upheld in federal court. Even though Alabama’s new law makes exceptions for the very few people who do not have a photo ID, that may not be enough to prevent the U.S. Justice Department from filing suit.

Advocates argue that photo IDs are required to cash a check, board a plane, enter your child’s school, and so many other things that it is now an accepted part of our lives and should also apply to protecting the integrity of our elections. Yet, the civil rights groups assailing these requirements related to voting are conspicuously silent when the very same requirements are mandated for cashing a check, boarding a plane or volunteering in a school.

Nonetheless, liberal activists and civil rights groups, including the ACLU and the NAACP, have asked the Justice Department to block voter ID laws. They claim the laws are racially motivated to suppress turnout among blacks and other minorities. The Justice Department has already blocked the South Carolina voter ID law claiming that the law, which requires a valid photo ID, will keep tens of thousands of minorities from voting.

Data from that state suggest this is an exaggeration. According to the Associated Press, the South Carolina Election Commission had reported that 240,000 active and inactive voters lacked driver’s licenses or other valid ID cards. However, Kevin Shwedo, the executive director of the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), said that the state Election Commission knew the data it presented was inaccurate. Shwedo sent the state’s attorney general an analysis showing that 207,000 of the voters listed as a lacking driver’s license moved to another state, died, allowed their license to expire or the name in the voter file simply did not match the name on the driver’s license.

Shwedo told the attorney general that the Commission created “artificially high numbers to excite the masses.” The Election Commission later announced that it would purge nearly 60,000 names of deceased voters and individuals whose names did not match state DMV records.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Elections Commission, pointed out that the Justice Department claims that 8.4 percent of registered voters in South Carolina who do not have a photo ID are white and 10 percent are black. Blacks make up only 28 percent of South Carolina’s total population so, in terms of real numbers, more whites would be affected by the voter ID law than blacks yet the Justice Department has blocked the law claiming it discriminates against black voters.

South Carolina, Alabama and other southern states have a despicable history of racial injustice, including laws that disenfranchised blacks and poor whites. These and other states also have a despicable history of election fraud that also disenfranchises voters, particularly black voters.

In an article he wrote for the Montgomery Advertiser in October 2011, former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis wrote, “I’ve changed my mind on voter ID laws—I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one—and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.”

Davis said, “The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.” He added, “Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights—that is suppression by any light.” What Davis was saying is this: the old entrenched interests maintain their power by stealing elections through voter fraud and thus suppressing other reform-minded black voters, particularly in Democrat primaries.

Despite opposition from various liberal activists groups and some entrenched politicians and power brokers, a required photo ID will not deny anyone the right to vote. However, as Artur Davis pointed out, it will help ensure that every person’s right to an honest election is protected.

About the author: Gary Parlmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

This article was published by the Alabama Policy Institute.

Charles C. Haynes: Pagans, atheists, Christians and the battle for equal treatment

2012-01-13T10:14:00.000-06:00

Religious freedom is hugely popular in America — until, of course, it’s applied to unpopular groups.

Consider North Windy Ridge Intermediate School in Buncombe County, N.C. In December, school officials arranged for students to come by the office during break to pick up Bibles donated by the Gideons.

In the view of many people in the community (especially those of the majority faith), outside groups like the Gideons should have a religious-liberty right to distribute Bibles in public schools.

But then Ginger Strivelli, a parent with a child in the school, brought pagan spell books for the school to make available in the same way — and, poof, the distribution policy disappeared.

Strivelli didn’t actually want the school to give out religious material of any kind. But after her complaints about Bible distribution were rebuffed, she decided to test the school district’s commitment to equal treatment.

According to a story in the Asheville Citizen-Times, the school’s principal was all for fair play in December: “If another group wishes to do the same,” she said at the time, “I plan on handling that the same way as I have handled this.”

By January, however, the school district had decided that maybe the whole distribution thing wasn’t such a good idea after all.

It may be legal for school administrators at North Windy Ridge to arrange for “passive” distribution of religious materials (at least one lower court has upheld such a policy), but if, and only if, they are willing to give the same access to a wide variety of religious and community groups. That’s unlikely to happen in Buncombe County.

Strivelli’s strategy of demanding “equal treatment” has been successfully used by other minority groups to push back against what they see as the privileged place of the majority faith in the public square.

In recent years, for example, atheists have moved from demanding removal of crèches from government spaces in December to demanding equal treatment for their own message. Now many government buildings and public parks during the holiday season feature messages like “There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven, and no hell” alongside Nativity scenes and menorahs.

Not surprisingly, the equal-treatment tactic angers many people of the majority faith (atheist “holiday signs” in Santa Monica, Calif., were vandalized last year). But in other First Amendment arenas, equal treatment is exactly what many Christians demand for themselves when they believe government is unfairly excluding their organizations from programs or services.

In recent decades, for example, conservative Christian groups have argued that the First Amendment’s establishment clause doesn’t bar faith-based institutions from receiving taxpayer money in the form of school vouchers or funds for social-service programs on the same basis as secular organizations. And on the school-voucher question, at least, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed.

“Equal treatment” is a siren song few faith communities can resist. But applying it is often messy for government at best — and dangerous for religion at worst. In a country with thousands of religious groups, how can schools or city halls open the door to all? And if and when state money flows to religious institutions, what happens to the independent and prophetic voice of faith?

Wherever the courts ultimately draw the establishment-clause line on these difficult questions (and there are many line-drawing battles to come), the days of an unlevel playing field are numbered. The legal trend is clear: If government provides access or benefits to some, it had better be prepared to provide the same for all.

About the author: Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C., 20001. Web:http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/. E-mail:chaynes@freedomforum.org.

This article was published by the First Amendment Center.

Laurence M. Vance: Three views on the Drug War

2012-01-12T09:05:00.001-06:00

One of the most important things the Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul said as a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno recently was what he said during his backstage interview after the show was over.

The first thing Representative Paul was asked was a question submitted by a Jay Leno Facebook fan: “Are you gonna legalize marijuana?” His answer was that he was “not going to enforce any federal laws against marijuana.” He went on to say that there was “no authority in the Constitution to regulate anything a person puts in their body.”

In a Ron Paul interview with Jon Stewart back in October, there was an omitted clip that appeared only online. In that segment, Dr. Paul said he fears the war on drugs more than he fears the drugs themselves. He not only said the war on drugs violates civil liberties, but also made the case for freedom of choice when it comes to drug use, including the freedom to use heroin.

That wasn’t the first time that candidate Paul had talked about heroin use. During the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina back in May, Fox’s Chris Wallace brought up the subject of Paul’s belief that the federal government should stay out of people’s personal habits. He then specifically mentioned the legalization of drugs and then bluntly asked Paul, “Are you suggesting that heroin and prostitution are an exercise of liberty?” Paul said “Yes,” and then made the case that Americans don’t need government prohibitions against heroin to keep them from using heroin.

Although Paul is correct in emphasizing that the Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to regulate the personal habits of Americans, whenever he talks about the drug war he ultimately focuses on how the decision to use or not use drugs is a matter of individual liberty and personal freedom.

He is simply expressing the libertarian view of the drug war. Although using hallucinogenic drugs may be immoral, sinful, unhealthy, destructive, a waste of money, a dumb thing to do, or all of the above, in a free society people must have the freedom to use or abuse drugs for freedom’s sake.

The libertarian view is simple and consistent: Since it is not the business of government to prohibit, regulate, restrict, license, limit, or otherwise control what someone wants to smoke, snort, sniff, inject, or swallow, then there should be no laws whatever regarding the buying, selling, possessing, using, growing, processing, or manufacturing of any drug for any reason. Therefore, not only marijuana, but all drugs should be decriminalized — immediately; all drug laws should be repealed — immediately; and all those imprisoned solely for drug crimes should be released — immediately.

Although there is a place for practical or utilitarian arguments about how the war on drugs has unnecessarily made criminals out of too many otherwise law-abiding Americans, clogged the judicial system, and expanded the prison population, and how it has cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars with no substantial benefits to show for it, increased the size and scope of government, and violated the financial privacy and civil liberties of people who did not use or traffick in drugs, the libertarian view of the drug war is ultimately a moral or philosophical one.

The opposite view of the drug war is that of prohibition. Although there is still a Prohibition Party in the United States and a candidate for president from the party every four years who runs on a platform of bringing back alcohol prohibition, most Americans — even those who are strictly religious or who don’t drink alcohol — recoil from the thought of turning back the clock to the Prohibition era. Yet, the same people see nothing inconsistent about the prohibition of drugs.

It doesn’t matter what their political persuasion, liberals, conservatives, Democrats, and Republicans all generally support prohibition when it comes to drugs. Although some may argue that using drugs is immoral and others may argue that using drugs is destructive to one’s health, their arguments are really the same: Instead of individuals deciding on whether to use drugs, it is the state — in collusion with legislators, regulators, nanny statists, drug warriors, paternalists, bureaucrats, and busybodies — that decides which drugs should be legal for use.

But a supposed moral and healthy society is not necessarily a free society. In a free society the individual makes his own decisions about his health and lifestyle; in an authoritarian society the state thinks it know best how to make those decisions. In a free society the individual is free to make bad decisions; in an authoritarian society the state thinks it knows best what decisions people should make. In a free society the individual person is responsible for the consequences of his actions; in an authoritarian society the state thinks it knows best what actions people should take.

In between the libertarian view of the drug war (freedom) and the prohibitionist view of the drug war (tyranny) is a confusing mass of inconsistency, hypocrisy, and nonsense.

There is no disputing that the war on drugs has utterly failed. It has failed to prevent drug abuse and drug overdoses. It has failed to keep drugs out of the hands of addicts and teenagers. It has failed to reduce drug trafficking and violence. It has failed to reduce drug use and the demand for drugs. It has failed to respect natural rights and civil liberties. It has failed to be practical and cost effective.

But in spite of recognizing some of the drug war’s shortcomings, advocates of a “third way” when it comes to the drug war still believe in some kind of a nanny state to monitor the behavior of its citizens. They are really just partial prohibitionists.

Some want the drug war to be better managed. Others want to focus on drug traffickers instead of drug users. Some want to legalize medical marijuana, but not all marijuana. Others want to decriminalize marijuana use, but not cocaine use. Some want to legalize certain drugs, but only so they can be taxed. Others want to legalize certain drugs, but only if they are regulated by the government.

Individual liberty and personal freedom are the farthest things from the minds of these partial prohibitionists.

Libertarians, as well as civil libertarians and strict constitutionalists who share the libertarian view on the drug war, must remain diligent and uncompromising in defense of absolute drug freedom. Constitutional, practical, utilitarian, emotional, medical, empirical, and common-sense arguments for drug freedom, although they have a time and a place, must always yield to the moral and philosophical ones. That is not to say that partial drug freedom is not preferable to outright prohibition or that steps toward drug freedom — such as decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana — are bad ideas. But it should never be forgotten that all people everywhere have the natural, moral, and civil right to buy, sell, grow, manufacture, or ingest whatever substance they choose for whatever reason they choose, including — are you listening Jon Stewart and Chris Wallace? — heroin.

About the author: Laurence M. Vance is a policy adviser to The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is the author of The Revolution That Wasn’t. Visit his website: http://www.vancepublications.com. Send him email.

This article was published by The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Alabama’s legislative civil war

2012-01-11T10:32:00.000-06:00

Ever since Alabama’s creation as a state in 1819 there has existed a political rivalry between North and South Alabama. This tug of war has mostly been played out in the legislative arena. The North Alabamians have perceived, and rightfully so, that they have generally gotten the short end of the stick.

Historically, this advantage has gone to the area of the state known as the Black Belt. This area runs across the southern and middle portion of the state and has rich black soil. This fertile soil was conducive to growing cotton, which was the South’s staple cash crop for over 100 years. Therefore, the planters who owned this rich soil became rich from the cash it produced. They also owned all of the slaves in the state.

The plantation landowners migrated to the new State of Alabama mostly from the tidewater area of Virginia. They were landowners and political leaders and they expected no less in their new home land. They understood politics and quickly devised a system to count their slaves as part of the population. This increased their legislative power at reapportionment time. Thus, these plantation owners controlled Alabama politics from 1819 through the Civil War, which ended in 1865.

If it had been up to their neighbors in North Alabama we would probably not have chosen to secede from the Union. The folks that settled North Alabama were yeomen farmers mostly from the Carolinas and Tennessee who owed 40 acres and a mule. The soil in the hill area of the North was more conducive to row farming and livestock. They owned no slaves. At the creation of the State they were counted out by the crafty Black Belters when it came to legislative apportionment. Even though they had more people they had less representation.

After reconstruction the same crafty Black Belters created a constitution adopted in 1901 which disenfranchised the black folks in the Black Belt and also many of the poor farmers in North Alabama. Ironically, our 1901 Constitution was passed by chicanery and fraudulent voting in the Black Belt. They created legislative districts which stole power from more populated North Alabama. They refused to reapportion for over 60 years so they controlled the legislature. They would team up with the industrialists of Birmingham and pick a governor. This bourbon rule existed from 1901 through the 1960’s.

This system created some very powerful legislators from the Black Belt. Selma and Dallas County seemed to spawn the most, including legends like Walter Givhan and Earl Goodwyn. Wilcox County had the legendary Roland Cooper, known as the Wily Fox from Wilcox.

An interesting twist to this Selma power is that now that blacks vote and the area is majority black these black voters and their elected leaders control the politics of the Black Belt. Therefore, the most powerful senator in the state for years was a black Harvard educated lawyer named Hank Sanders. Selma still had the most legislative clout but it was a black man yielding the power and not a white.

Selma, the historical heartbeat of the Black Belt, managed to retain their power. This legislative power was garnered not just by illegal malapportionment but also because the region would stick by their chosen senator and reelect him time after time. He would serve 30 years, learn the rules and dominate because of his knowledge and experience within the legislative system. However, North Alabama would change House and Senate members every four years.

As a young Page I observed this practice of South Alabama keeping their House and Senate members in place for decades. These South Alabama legislators usually ran without opposition and totally controlled legislative leadership. When the North Alabama legislators arrived they would hardly learn where the bathroom was located before they were back home and some new member was in their seat. I assumed that South Alabamians liked and understood politics better then North Alabamians. I once made this assumption in a statement to Bill Baxley. Baxley quickly took opposition to that theory. He said folks in North Alabama like politics more. He explained that they will have three or four young lawyers running for a chance at a legislative seat so there is a bitter fight and bad blood spills over to the next election. Thus, these local fights killed off any potential for long term senators and governors.

Regardless of the reason for the disparity in influence, it is only now that you see North Alabama garnering their rightful power.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Becky Norton Dunlop: How liberty can fuel energy production

2012-01-10T19:10:00.001-06:00

Freedom, opportunity, prosperity and a civil society have made America exceptional. But without energy — secure and affordable energy — many of our great accomplishments would not have been possible.

Unfortunately, our already tenuous energy security is being threatened and diminished by policies emanating from Washington. That need not be the case, and conservatives can meet the challenges we face by applying important principles of a free society to natural resource and energy policies.

Almost every thoughtful person knows that reliable and affordable energy is essential to have a healthy economy that creates jobs and to make everyday life possible. Hurricane Irene brought this home dramatically, as families in the Eastern part of the country worried about the storm’s effects on electrical power, food supplies, businesses and hospitals. Irene made those in its path more conscious of something we often take for granted.

Although the storm has passed, damage to our energy security continues as Washington bureaucrats seek to constrict energy use, obstruct its development and mandate just what kind we use without consideration of how efficient it is.

The reality is that we need more reliable and affordable energy, and there are three principles that can help us get it.

First, we need to clearly state and stick by the principle that people are our most valuable resource. Natural resources and energy policies should be judged first and foremost on how good they are for people. Meeting human needs should be paramount. This is because we value people’s well-being above other measures such as carbon emissions or the population of a rare insect and because we recognize that the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit of a free people hold the keys to meeting our challenges.

Americans have always been able to meet our energy challenges, discovering ways to find, extract, develop and market energy resources. Impediments aside, Americans will continue to meet our needs today and allow for other generations to enjoy our natural resources as well.

It was a private visionary, not the Department of Energy, who combined existing technologies — horizontal drilling and fracking — to dramatically increase the amount of natural gas we may now be able to tap.

Green extremists and their Washington bureaucratic allies are trying to stop us from harnessing this energy, warning of irreparable environmental harm. The truth is that we can tap energy sources while being good stewards of the air, water and other resources that make up our environment.

Second, we need environmental policies that are site- and situation-specific. What works for the people of West Virginia or Alaska may not work elsewhere. The Environmental Protection Agency and other federal minders don’t always know best, but the regulators do hold many big sticks. Congress should require them to leave to the states as much of the processes overseeing energy resource development as is possible and right.

State officials can set standards that allow energy sources such as coal, oil and gas to be tapped responsibly and cost-effectively. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana, Texas and Colorado are among states with known energy resources that could be tapped more quickly with state and local officials, rather than Washington bureaucrats, overseeing site- and situation-specific regulation.

Third, we need to recognize that the most promising opportunities for improving our environment are not in government ownership and regulation, but in extending the protection of private property and unleashing the creative powers of the free markets.

Owners of land with energy resources have the incentive to develop energy using the most effective technologies. If they are also responsible for any real pollution they create, free-market competition will spur technologies that reduce negative impacts to keep down development costs.

Where energy sources are held on government property, it gets trickier. The government owns about a third of the nation’s land and most of the ocean areas where energy resources could be tapped. The permit process and other regulatory hurdles have been used to stymie energy development on the federal estate, all of it treated like “leave only footprints” national parks.

Yet the hundreds of millions of acres held by the Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service or in the outer continental shelf were never meant to be shut off like a national park.

This needs to be acknowledged, and the size of the federal estate should be limited. We need to establish means of extending rights that will encourage rather than discourage responsible tapping of national energy resources. Locking up these resources is not good stewardship and not in the best interests of Americans.

Free markets, protection of property rights, site- and situation-specific oversight and keeping people first are principles that can help us secure affordable and reliable energy supplies.

About the author: Becky Norton Dunlop, a former secretary of natural resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia, is now Vice President for External Relations at The Heritage Foundation.

This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Alex Rothman, Lawrence J. Korb: Defense in an Age of Austerity

2012-01-09T10:39:00.000-06:00

In the decade since 9/11, defense spending has grown by more than 60 percent in real terms, reaching levels not seen since World War II. This year the total defense budget will top $675 billion when one takes into account the Defense Department’s baseline budget and supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s about $200 billion more than we spent on average during the Cold War. This level of spending is dramatically out of proportion with the threats facing our country.

Unnecessary defense spending does not make our nation safer. In these times of fiscal austerity, each dollar spent on defense diverts resources away from other critical investments in the American economy—the real foundation of the United States’ global power.

Given the long-term threat the federal deficit poses to American security, power, and interests, it is imperative that Congress and the Obama administration make real progress on getting our nation’s fiscal house in order. Sensible reductions in the defense budget must be part of the solution. Implementing the following recommendations would save more than $600 billion over the next decade without undermining our national security.

1. Personnel. About 150,000 active-duty personnel are stationed in Europe or Asia. Yet the Cold War ended decades ago and many of our allies are cutting their defense budgets to deal with their own deficit problems. Due to improvements in U.S. capabilities for troop transport and long-range strikes, the United States can reduce this commitment by one-third without detracting from our national security interests.

Furthermore, in order to carry out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department increased the size of U.S. ground forces by 92,000 personnel. But the United States is due to transition out of Afghanistan by 2014 and withdraw completely from Iraq within the next few months. Considering we are unlikely to attempt forced regime change or nation building under fire in the near future, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta should return our ground forces to pre-9/11 levels as Iraq and Afghanistan wind down.

2. Procurement. Cutting spending on overbudget, ineffective, or unnecessary weapons programs could save the Defense Department $350 billion through 2015.

First on the chopping block should be the failed V-22 Osprey and underperforming missile defense initiatives such as Ground-Based Midcourse Defense.

Next up should be reducing the procurement of weapons systems that increase the United States’ already overwhelming naval and air superiority. The U.S. Navy currently possesses more firepower than the next 20 largest navies combined, many of which are U.S. allies. With such an overwhelming advantage, the Pentagon can afford to slow the procurement of DDG-51 destroyers and littoral combat ships, which cost $2 billion and $1 billion, respectively, per ship.

Similarly, while the United States maintains 11 aircraft carriers, no other nation has even one of comparable size and power. Retiring two existing carrier battle groups and associated air wings would save $50 billion through 2020 without jeopardizing U.S. naval power. Finally, the F-35 program continues to suffer extreme cost overruns, with lifetime cost estimates for the fleet reaching $1 trillion. Alternative fighter jets such as the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet continue to be effective, so cutting the F-35’s Navy and Marine variants—while allowing the Air Force to keep its entire buy—would help control spiraling costs in the program without compromising American air superiority.

3. Health care. Military health care costs skyrocketed by 300 percent over the past decade and now consume more than 10 percent of the baseline defense budget. A recent report by the Center for American Progress maps out a plan to reduce military health care expenses by $15 billion a year by 2015 without compromising the quality of coverage for our troops and military retirees. It limits double coverage, increases cost sharing, and phases in moderate fee increases for retirees based on ability to pay.

4. Nuclear weapons. Our massive nuclear stockpile is a relic of the Cold War, expensive to maintain, and largely useless in combating the threats facing the nation today. According to strategists at the Air War College and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, the United States requires only 311 nuclear weapons to maintain a credible deterrent. Such a reduction would save at least $11 billion a year.

As the United States transitions out of Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress and the Obama administration have an opportunity to join a historically bipartisan tradition of drawing down defense spending in the aftermath of major conflicts. President Dwight Eisenhower cut the defense budget by 27 percent after the Korean War, President Richard Nixon reduced defense by 29 percent after Vietnam, and the combined efforts of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton slashed defense spending by 35 percent after the end of the Cold War.

Reducing wasteful defense spending will not undermine our national security. Instead, ending the Pentagon’s addiction to unlimited funding will ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively. Over the past decade the Pentagon has been so poorly managed that it is now unable to conduct an audit: It cannot keep track of how its money is spent or on what. This is no way to run the keystone of our national security apparatus.

The stronger our economy, the stronger we are around the globe. Targeted defense cuts present an opportunity to free up resources for initiatives that create American jobs while preparing the country to compete in the 21st century economy.

About the authors: Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Alex Rothman is a Special Assistant with the National Security and International Policy team at the Center.

Download this issue brief (pdf)

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Gary Palmer: Unconstitutional appointments violate oath of office

2012-01-07T13:50:00.001-06:00

The primary focus of the 2012 election has been the economy, but there is another major issue that should be on voters’ minds in November … the blatant disrespect and disregard of the Constitution.

With President Barack Obama’s appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the President brushed aside the Constitution’s requirement for all presidential appointees to be approved by the United States Senate. In addition to appointing Cordray, Obama also bypassed the Senate by appointing three new members to the National Labor Relations Board.

The Obama Administration attempts to justify these appointments by claiming that the Constitution provides for a president to make appointments while Congress is in recess. It should be noted that Congress is not in recess because the Republicans specifically wanted to block these and other Obama appointments. It should also be noted that the Democrats used the same tactics to block President George W. Bush’s appointees.

According to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, Congress cannot be in recess for more than three days without the consent of both chambers. Neither chamber passed an adjournment resolution, therefore, Congress is not in recess and in fact, continues to hold pro-forma session.

Despite this fact, the Obama Administration has argued that Congress is not doing any work and is therefore not in session. Because the Constitution requires that both the House and the Senate pass adjournment resolutions, it doesn’t matter whether or not Congress is actually doing business or even if a majority of members are present. According to the Constitution, they are still in session.

During the Bush Administration, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the Senate in pro-forma session to prevent Bush from making any recess appointments. As a member of the Senate, Obama supported this tactic. And even though President Bush was urged to ignore the pro-forma sessions and make recess appointments anyway, he refused to do so.

In an effort to justify Obama’s appointments, some argue that Bush did the same thing when he appointed former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court during an “intrasession” recess. That argument was whether or not the President could make appointments during an “intrasession” recess instead of an “intersession” recess and doesn’t apply here because Congress is not in recess.

On January 5th, The Wall Street Journal editors wrote, “These appointments are brazen enough that they have the smell of a deliberate, and politically motivated, provocation.” The Obama campaign has made it clear that running against Congress will be central to their re-election strategy. However, by running rough shod over the Senate’s advise and consent authority for presidential appointees, the Obama Administration has made the Constitution a major election issue.

Restoring constitutional government is a mainstay of the Tea Party Movement agenda. It was a major element in the 2010 elections that resulted in the Democrats losing control of the House of Representatives and almost losing the majority in the Senate. Voters in that election were outraged by the perceived abuses of the Constitution in everything from environmental policy to the passage of Obamacare.

Considering that a November 2011 Rasmussen survey reported that 69 percent of Americans believe that the federal government no longer has the consent of the governed, brushing aside the Constitution and making these appointments only reinforces that perception. It is the political equivalent of throwing more fuel on a political fire that burns hot, not only with Tea Party members, but also with millions of others who are concerned that the Constitution is being violated.

In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether or not the Republicans in Congress will stand and fight for the Constitution. After all, they did take an oath to uphold and defend it.

About the author: Gary Parlmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

This article was published by the Alabama Policy Institute.

Eric Alterman: Conservatives prefer Reagan fantasies to reality (And so did Reagan)

2012-01-06T10:08:00.000-06:00

A bizarre incident took place during the “60 Minutes” interview with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on New Year’s Day: When Leslie Stahl asked Rep. Cantor whether he would be willing to compromise with President Barack Obama to improve the legislative performance of the current Congress, Rep. Cantor responded: “Compromising principles, you don't want to ask anybody to do that. That's who they are as their core being.”

When Stahl replied that President Ronald Reagan, Rep. Cantor’s “idol,” had compromised, Rep. Cantor stuck to his guns, replying, “He never compromised his principles.”

Stahl, at the ready, answered, “Well, he raised taxes and it was one of his principles not to raise taxes.”

Rep. Cantor, slightly flummoxed, came back with “Well, he—he also cut taxes.”

And here things got interesting.

Rep. Cantor’s press secretary, Brad Dayspring, began yelling from off screen, “That's not true. And I don't want to let that stand.”

Stahl, in a taped voice-over, later added in the mildest language imaginable, and without any personal aspersions cast—“There seemed to be some difficulty accepting the fact that even though Ronald Reagan cut taxes, he also pushed through several tax increases, including one in 1982 during a recession.”

President Reagan’s voice was then heard to say, “Make no mistake about it, this whole package is a compromise,” followed by Rep. Cantor, doubling down, “We as Republicans are not going to support tax increases.”

The interview has generated a great deal of attention in the blogosphere. ThinkProgress jumped on it immediately, noting that President Reagan did not “compromise” just this once, but actually increased taxes “in seven of his eight years in office, including one stretch of four tax increases in just two years.”

The site quoted the Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman, noting that “no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people.”

The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen pitched in with his observation that the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, which was Reagan’s biggest tax hike, is today “generally considered the largest tax increase—as a percentage of the economy—in modern American history.”

Moreover, says Benen, “between 1982 and 1984, Reagan raised taxes four times, and as Bruce Bartlett has explained more than once, Reagan raised taxes 12 times during his eight years in office.”

Benen believes that President Reagan’s legacy makes contemporary conservatives “look ridiculous.”

On MSNBC’s “The Ed Show,” Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein took a stab at explaining why this must be the case, noting that the grand poobah behind the “Reagan Legacy Project,” and so much right-wing political thinking and organizing today, is Grover Norquist, who “has a vested interest in promoting the myth of ‘Saint Ronnie the Tax Slayer’ to justify his ‘no new taxes ever’ ideology.”

This is true, but it misses what is really strangest about this incident.

It is actually unheard of for a press secretary to attempt anything like Dayspring’s interruption, especially in so high profile a forum as “60 Minutes” and with a boss in as influential a position as Rep. Cantor. (It is especially crazy to do so in one in which the editing process allows the correspondent to have the last word.) To do so with a bald (and easily demonstrable) falsehood would be under almost any imaginable circumstances a firing offense, as it makes both men, politician and aide alike, appear uninformed, incompetent, and generally out to lunch.

Rep. Cantor’s office did attempt to “clarify” Mr. Dayspring’s outburst, insisting that it “referred to the cumulative effect of President Reagan’s various tax increases and cuts, when added together.”

Again, this is not the point. President Obama has lowered taxes more than he has raised them, and they are today lower than they were in President Reagan’s time. But you don’t hear conservatives crowing about that.

No, the real story here is the vehemence of the conservative movement’s commitment to ignoring all forms of evidence that it finds inconsistent with its ideological preconceptions, regardless of circumstances or even consequences.

Ironically, tendency to ignore inconvenient facts and unwelcome evidence is actually President Reagan’s true legacy, as I noted in The Nation back in 2000, before the current right-wing mania for President Reagan gained its full force. His worshipful, if fanciful, biographer Edmund Morris even called him an “apparent airhead.” The president’s famous cluelessness was so obvious during his years in office that his defenders would attempt to deploy it as a defense of his actions, as if he were a small child or a beloved, but incompetent, uncle.

The president tended to “build these little worlds and live in them,” noted a senior advisor. “He makes things up and believes them,” explained one of his kids. President Reagan thought he'd liberated concentration camps. He invented what he called "a verbal message" from the pope in support of his Central America policies, news to everyone in Vatican City. In 1985 President Reagan one day announced that the vicious South African apartheid regime of P.W. Botha had already "eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country." And note that I have not even mentioned the words “Iran Contra,” a scandal that was filled with more presidential lies than one can comfortably recount here.

President Reagan’s preference for fantasy over fact was evident from the first moments of his presidency. “In the early years of Reagan rule,” as the libertarian author Murray Rothbard notes, “the press busily checked out Reagan’s beloved anecdotes, and found that almost every one of them was full of holes. But Reagan never veered from his course.”

This strategy proved so successful that it became a template for the modern conservative movement, and hence underlies its leaders' statements on virtually every topic from economics to the environment to the beliefs of this country’s founders.

This explains why Mr. Dayspring still has a job, as well as why his particular error was made in the service of protecting the phony public image of an alleged secular saint—insofar as contemporary conservatives would have it—who is actually an almost pathological liar. It is a shame for Americans, liberals, and conservatives both that increasingly our right wing does care to recognize the difference. And it is our media’s shame that such lies are rarely, if ever, identified as such. So one must conclude that in the isolated case of Leslie Stahl and “60 Minutes,” we must be grateful for small favors.

About the author: Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a columnist for The Nation, The Forward, and The Daily Beast. His newest book is Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama. This column won the 2011 Mirror Award for Best Digital Commentary.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: To those who have the cash…

2012-01-05T10:12:00.000-06:00

The older you get you realize that old adages you heard as a child are actually accurate such as sayings like “if you have your health you have everything.” Golfers will attest that the sporting phrase, “you drive for show and putt for dough” or “it ain’t how you drive, it’s how you arrive” are par for the course.

The most on point political analogy is that “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” It is generally the truest test of the viability of a campaign. Generally speaking, the best political candidates are the best fundraisers. Many times an incumbent candidate’s large political war chest wards off opposition. A good example would be our senior U.S. Senator Richard Shelby. It would be ludicrous for a challenger to take on Shelby, who has a campaign account bulging with $18 million. Shelby should start a fundraising school for aspiring politicians.

In presidential politics history tells us that usually the best fundraiser is the best politician and that premier politician/fundraiser will prevail. In recent presidential contests this theory has been proven. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and now Barack Obama were and are prodigious and prolific fundraisers.

Candidates have always found creative and questionable ways to raise campaign money. Clinton allowed supporters and potential contributors to spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom to help spur donations. Our state’s riddled system of PAC to PAC transfers was nothing more than legalized money laundering. That system was curtailed last year in a special session. However, there are indications that plans are being made to circumvent the system by using political parties as conduits in the 2014 elections.

Some of the schemes being used by this year’s presidential contenders appear to have been cooked up by organized crime. Minions of President Obama are taking advantage of lax campaign finance laws and a 2010 Supreme Court decision that equated big dollar contributions to free speech. The result is that this year’s presidential race will be a wild west anything goes affair.

The newest and most nefarious innovation is the use of super PACs. These PACs appear to have no purpose other than to get around the $2,500 donation limits to presidential candidates. These super PAC’s are supposed to operate independently of candidates. That is why they can raise unlimited sums from individuals, corporations and labor unions. However, it is difficult to conceive that the candidate does not know who is giving to these innocuous super PACs when the PAC turns right around and gives their money to certain candidates.

If the super PAC shell game is not bad enough, some deep pocket donors want to remain anonymous. Last year a mysterious entity called W Spann gave $1 million to a super PAC backing Mitt Romney. The W Spann PAC was set up and dissolved within two weeks solely for the purpose of hiding a $1 million contribution made by longtime Romney supporter Edward Conrad.

In another effort to hide the name of some donors some groups have used a section of the tax code meant for nonprofit entities to set up sham groups that can accept secret donations. Karl Rove instituted this concept during the 2010 congressional elections. Prominent Democrats have now stolen the concept. Former Obama White House aide Bill Burton has created numerous tax sheltered campaign fundraising havens. His most recent vehicle is labeled Priorities USA.

The Supreme Court opened the door to these recent campaign fundraising shenanigans with its 2010 ruling. An unwilling and inept Congress has ignored the problem. Likewise, President Obama has turned a blind eye to the dilemma while he gleefully takes advantage of the gaping loopholes in the law. The fact that neither Congress nor the President have moved to close the cracks in the system speaks volumes.

In the meantime, they are all raising money at a record clip. It is no wonder. They are operating under essentially nonexistent federal campaign finance laws.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

J. L. Johnson: The Job Creator Myth

2012-01-04T17:12:00.001-06:00

Let us assume that the Republicans who tell us that they do not want to raise taxes because doing so would hurt the "job creator" just do not know what they are telling us. We would otherwise have to say they are liars. To begin to understand the reality of the "job creator" myth, begin with an understanding that only the top 5% of income earners realize tax savings that make it possible to create a job above a poverty level income with their tax savings, and the small businesses that are the job creating engines of our economy are not among them.

When Republicans say that small businesses would be hurt by tax increases, they appear misinformed at the very least. The fact is that no increase on the incomes or tax rates on small businesses that create jobs is even under consideration. There are wealthy small business owners, most of whom are corporate attorneys and doctors whose specialties afford them with the leverage to earn phenomenal incomes. They are however not likely to provide new jobs or lay off employees who handle the routine work, and do the work their employees perform themselves! Nor are all of the higher income small business owners under consideration for a tax increase. Only 1% of small businesses have revenue over $1 million, while the remainder earn well under a million dollars.

Venture capitalists are also among the "small businesses" that might be affected by tax increases on the wealthy, but do they create jobs? When Mitt Romney mentions his private sector experience creating jobs, he is referencing his time with Bain Capital, the private equity firm that earned him his millions. As his former business partner put it: "I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation." Bain's model for creating profit was to buy up companies and maximize profits "by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits."

The truth about small business is that "small business owners with less than one year of experience in running an organization earn an annual salary ranging from $34,392 to $75,076. Those with more than 10 years experience, on the other hand, earn upwards of $105,757 per year."

There is no evidence to the "job creator" myth, nor simple logic to it. The phrase is simply a rhetorical slight of tongue, a red herring intended to distract people from contemplating this fact. What are the salient facts and logic that should be considered?

One fact is that a net 1.1 million jobs were created in our domestic economy under the Bush tax cuts, while 1.3 million jobs were created in India, the Phillippines, China and elsewhere. Another fact is something that can be understood only through simple logic, coupled with the basic understanding of economic principle. Products are produced only if a demand exists, and jobs are created to produce the products in demand. Therefore, without demand, neither the product nor the job necessary to produce the product are a necessary expense for a capitalist enterprise to make the profit that motivates it. As Nick Hanauer, a wealthy venture capitalist, puts it, "Rich businesspeople like me don't create jobs. Middle-class consumers do, and when they thrive, U.S. businesses grow and profit."

There are two other salient facts that should point out the absurdity of the "job creator" myth. Most consumers are now scaling back their consumption, and focusing on lowering their personal debt. Ten million other former consumers are now unemployed. Logic should now suggest that the cumulative effect of this on an economy that reached its apex on the back of consumerism will not sustain rapid job growth.

Yet another fact is that people who earn just several hundred thousand dollars per year spend a lower percentage of their income than someone who earns only as much as $100,000 per year, let alone the working poor family working for him, whose income is under $20,000 per year. The well-to-do and wealthy invest the greater part of their income to build wealth. Moreover, despite their expenditures, their participation as consumers in the economy is dwarfed by the consumerism of the 95% of the population with lower incomes.

The simple logic, which alone should debunk the job creator myth, is that no one who receives a tax cut will create a job just to create a job. Nor has anyone. Jobs are created to fill a need for a business to maintain a level of productivity necessary to fully meet demand for its product or service. Consumer demand creates jobs, not tax cuts. Whether the "job creator" myth is a lie or rhetorical nonsense used to cover up their ignorance, Republican politicians do not deserve our vote!

http://antirepublican.us/

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-income-small-business-owners-5189.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Fergus Hodgson: Frustrated with immigrants? Just wait until they leave

2012-01-03T12:20:00.001-06:00

The enforcement of laws against illegal immigrants remains a bone of contention between states and the federal government (and on the GOP presidential campaign trail), and the U.S. Supreme Court has now agreed to weigh in on the issue. There is, however, an irony to this battle that appears to be lost on deportation proponents: many people are already leaving voluntarily or choosing not to come.

That’s right, for the first time in sixty years, net illegal migration from Mexico has gone to zero; it may even have tipped into the negatives. Approximately six out of ten illegal immigrants in the United States originate from Mexico, but in just the past three years apprehensions along the southern border have fallen by 53 percent. In fact, the Pew Hispanic Center puts the current number of illegal immigrants at 11.2 million, down from a peak of 12 million in 2007.

A further testament to the reversal is that the demographics of illegal residents are changing. Just 15 percent of today’s illegal residents arrived within the last 5 years, for example; it was 32 percent in 2000.

And it’s not only illegal immigrants eyeing distant lands. The Census Bureau’s net international-migration measure has been trending downward since 2000. Even if the accuracy of that data may be questionable, anecdotes abound of immigrant communities packing up shop and heading home. The Atlantic magazine went so far as to call this trend “The End of Chinatown.”

As fewer immigrants come, legal or otherwise, and more return home, two grains of truth become apparent for those willing to observe. First, immigration is not the cause of America’s problems, so its reversal will do nothing to restore economic prosperity or individual liberty. Second, America is no longer the shining city on a hill that many people revere. It is becoming less free and prosperous at an alarming rate, and the changing immigration flows reflect that.

Fears about immigrants

One leading fear regarding immigrants is that they tend to replace domestic workers. This, of course, assumes individuals born in a certain location or holding certain government-granted privileges are more valuable than other individuals. However, if we put aside the nativism, a recent incident in Asheville, North Carolina, shows that this fear is unfounded.

To comply with the E-Verify program and avoid legal charges, a wholesaler of flowers fired more than 60 illegal immigrants in 2009. Two years later, despite 8 percent unemployment in the county and higher than 10 percent unemployment in the state, the owner has been unable to find replacements. “Those who want to work fail to pass E-Verify, and those that pass fail to work,” he explained.

The work ethic of these immigrants, and their willingness to accept menial labor rather than pursue welfare, puts many native-born Americans to shame.

Okay, but perhaps their departure will require employers to pay better wages to attract locals. That does make some economic sense, but as the warehouse owner points out, “Without comprehensive immigration reform, [verification requirements are] going to kill agriculture.” In other words, some ventures are simply not viable at a higher cost of labor.

And, as Bryan Caplan of George Mason University has noted, “Immigration has little or no effect on overall wages. Educated Americans are primarily customers, not competitors, of new arrivals.” So pushing foreigners out in the hopes of increasing the employment of native-born Americans is a fool’s errand.

What about crime then — shouldn’t that be subsiding as the number of immigrants decreases? Perhaps this will be surprising to some, but evidence suggests that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. Even the Center for Immigration Studies, which actively seeks to reduce immigration into the United States, admitted that they “found no strong evidence one way or the other for the notion that immigrants commit either more or less crime than the American population.”

Why is immigration falling?

The sad part of this story is that people are leaving (or not coming in the first place) because the American dream is on the way out. Migration follows economic freedom, and the United States is no longer the freest nation on earth — far from it. In fact, according to the Fraser Institute ranking, the United States has less economic freedom than Canada and the United Kingdom; and it fell four places, from the sixth to the tenth position, in the latest ranking (based on 2009 data).

“Much of this decline is a result of higher spending and borrowing on the part of the U.S. government, and lower scores for legal structure and property rights,” the release notes. Of course the many trillions of official debts and unfunded liabilities are hardly enticing to would-be immigrants or Americans. Who would want to be stuck with that tab?

About the author: Fergus Hodgson is Director of Fiscal Policy Studies with the John Locke Foundation and a policy advisor with The Future of Freedom Foundation.

This article was published by The Future of Freedom Foundation.

David Weinberger: From time to trains, government is no innovator

2012-01-02T12:57:00.001-06:00

On virtually every policy issue and in most sectors of the economy, the left’s solutions call for bigger government. The clear implication of that worldview: We should trust government bureaucrats more than private individuals to innovate, create and provide prosperity and general well-being.

President Obama argued in a recent speech on the economy, for instance, that we need to “make the investments … in things like education and research and high-tech manufacturing.”

And in his blueprint for energy for coming decades, Obama says government must fund and lead the way to new energy solutions: “We can get there by creating markets for innovative clean technologies … the Federal government needs to put words into action and lead by example.” Others on the left agree, even some on the right and still others go even further, insisting that government must soup up its already pronounced role, and lead the way in medical research, transportation, education and more.

Whatever Barack Obama’s latest claims to Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive mantle, though, history dismantles the notion that without paternalistic governmental guidance, the economy would be left in a morass of confusion and stagnancy. In fact, just the opposite is the case. Government often lags, and even obstructs the ingenuity of the private sector.

Consider three historical examples:

We often are told of government’s indispensable role in forging the booming railroad industry of the 19th century. This narrative suggests that without government subsidies and loans, the railroads never would have been completed. It’s true that government poured aid into virtually all major transcontinental railroads, including the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, which crisscrossed the country and connected in Utah, culminating in a ceremonious hammering of the “golden spike.”

In fact, the more difficult the terrain upon which the railroads were built, the greater were the subsidies. Perversely, this encouraged the builders to slap together tracks in amazingly shoddy and illogical logistical fashion, resulting in corruption, frequent breakdowns, repairs and bankruptcy for nearly all of the railroads.

James J. Hill’s private transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern, however, was an exception. It traversed the nation from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, and was constructed without a penny of federal funds. Rather than build the Great Northern in a way to receive maximum subsidies, Hill focused on efficiency, cutting costs and laying sturdy rail in hopes of making a profit.

The results spoke for themselves. The Great Northern, historian Burt Folsom wrote, “was the best built, least corrupt, the most popular, and the only transcontinental never to go bankrupt.”

Similarly, governmental assistance in the early steam shipping industry only retarded progress. After Robert Fulton created the first steamship in 1807, government granted him exclusive rights to steamship traffic in New York for 30 years. However, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt relished the opportunity to challenge Fulton.

Vanderbilt defied the government-granted monopoly and enthusiastically transported customers more cheaply and quickly along the East Coast, despite having to evade the law. In 1824, after the Supreme Court voted unanimously 6-0 to overturn the monopoly in a decision written by Chief Justice John Marshall, Vanderbilt unleashed a storm of competition. The industry soared.

John Steele Gordon notes: “Fares from New Haven to New York fell by 40 percent thanks to competition, and the number of steamboats operating in New York waters jumped in less than two years from six to forty-three.” Vanderbilt dedicated himself to ruthlessly cutting fares, improving efficiency and innovating better ways to transport customers. The steamship industry exploded as the Commodore engulfed all the federally subsidized competition, launching him to the exalted status of richest man in America.

Third, government lagged behind in creation of modern time zones. Until 1883, each U.S. city had its own time zone, resulting in an assortment of times throughout a given state –not to mention the nation at large. Since trains were a primary means of transportation, the variety of time zones caused not only frequently missed train rides but danger as trains zigzagged across tracks within minutes of each other. Any slight error in time could yield catastrophe.

Fed up with such needless complication, private railroad engineers led by William Frederick Allen held meetings and designed times zones to take place at the 75th, 90th, 105th and 130th meridians west of Greenwich, roughly located at the cities of Philadelphia, Memphis, Denverand Fresno. “Railroad time” was agreed to take effect on Nov.18, 1883. It quickly caught fire around the country, but the federal government didn’t adopt the uniform time zones until 1918.

American history is replete with examples of private ingenuity, as all but the dullest of students know. However, by incorrectly crediting government with the success of past innovations, many of our schools and politicians have fueled the perception on the left that it is government’s duty to lead the way.

The truth is, the private sector has led the way — and often in spite of government impediments, as these three examples demonstrate. Government surely has an important role in our economy, but it doesn’t include taking the lead to innovate and create.

About the author: David Weinberger is the Communications Coordinator at The Heritage Foundation.

This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Charles C. Haynes: Religion story of the year: anti-Muslim bigotry in America

2011-12-31T10:49:00.001-06:00

The recent decision by Lowe’s Home Improvement to pull ads from the reality TV show “All-American Muslim” caps a very successful year for the growing anti-Muslim movement in the United States.

So successful, in fact, that anti-mosque protests, anti-Shariah laws, and anti-Muslim hate crimes could easily fill any list of “top five” religion stories in 2011.

Lowe’s withdrawal from sponsoring a show about the daily life of five American Muslim families was apparently in response to objections to the program from a conservative Christian group called the Florida Family Association.

Wittingly or unwittingly, Lowe’s action re-enforces the message anti-Muslim groups have been propagating for years: Portraying Muslims as ordinary Americans is problematic, if not wrong and dangerous, because it may lull the rest of us into ignoring the stealth threat of Islam and Muslims to the freedom and security of the United States.

Of course, the Florida Family Association and other anti-Muslim groups hasten to tell you, there are some “good Muslims.” But Islam itself, they argue, is inherently violent and oppressive — and eventually Muslims in America will subvert our laws by imposing their own.

Never mind how many studies show high levels of opposition to radical Islam and extreme interpretations of Shariah law among Muslim Americans. Never mind how much Muslim leaders and institutions in the U.S. help in the fight against extremism. Never mind the millions of Muslims who have practiced their faith freely and peacefully in America for generations — without undermining the Constitution.

No reasoned argument, no amount of scholarship, no pile of studies is enough to convince the diehard “stop the Islamization of America” crowd that they are wrong to demonize Islam and Muslims in the U.S.

In 2011, the anti-Muslim narrative migrated from the right-wing fringe into the mainstream. It’s gone so far that even an innocuous television show created to fight stereotypes loses a sponsor because it doesn’t portray the very stereotypes it attempts to dispel.

Fortunately, Americans who care about religious freedom are beginning to push back. As I write this, Christians, Jews, Muslims and others are organizing boycotts of Lowe’s in cities throughout the nation. And growing numbers of religious and political leaders are speaking out against intolerance and prejudice aimed at Muslim Americans.

If the decision-makers at Lowe’s had hoped to avoid controversy by pulling sponsorship from the show, they badly miscalculated.

In a world plagued by extremists acting in the name of Islam, it goes without saying that Americans have every reason to be worried about homegrown terrorism. According to the polls, Muslim Americans strongly share that concern. That’s why imams preach and work against extremism and Muslim Americans are actively helping law enforcement foil terrorist plots (studies support both of these assertions).

Incoherent and unnecessary laws banning Shariah, unfounded fears about mosques in the neighborhood, and ugly attempts to paint all Muslims with the terrorist brush, are all red herrings that divert Americans from our shared goal of fighting extremism (of all varieties) and securing our safety and freedom.

Ironically, Lowe’s cave-in to anti-Muslim prejudice may prove to be exactly what was needed to wake Americans up to the very real dangers of Islamophobia in our country.

If we must concede 2011 to the propagators of fear and hate, let’s work to make 2012 a banner year for proponents of religious freedom.

About the author: Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C., 20001. Web:http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/. E-mail:chaynes@freedomforum.org.

This article was published by the First Amendment Center.

Sally Steenland: 12 New Year’s resolutions for the 112th Congress in 2012

2011-12-30T10:14:00.000-06:00

Many of us start off the new year with resolutions to break bad habits and pick up good ones. Although these lists are usually personal, there’s no reason an institution can’t come up with ways to do better in the coming year. In fact, there’s good reason to do so if, like the 112th Congress, your likeability ratings are hovering in single digits and you’re paralyzed by inaction.

So here are 12 proposed New Year’s resolutions for Congress in 2012.

1. Cut out junk food: Get rid of tax cuts for millionaires. The revenue from just one week of tax cuts for millionaires ($866 million) will more than pay for one year of nutrition assistance for women, infants, and children ($833 million).

2. Make new friends: Pass comprehensive immigration reform. Without a fair commonsense federal immigration law, states including Alabama and Arizona have passed harsh, inhumane laws that cast suspicion on neighbors, weaken the state’s economy, and spur homegrown talent to move away.

3. Get in shape: Strengthen our roads and bridges through smart infrastructure investments. The National Infrastructure Bank, part of President Barack Obama’s Rebuild America Jobs Act, will provide much-needed repairs to our nation’s dilapidated bridges, roads, rail systems, and transit networks.

4. Waste less: Streamline the U.S. military by cutting unnecessary costs, changing spending priorities, and achieving efficiencies through new technologies.

5. Learn new things: Support educational reform and retraining programs for workers by reforming the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, supporting Pell Grants, and job training.

6. Spend more time with family: Pass federal legislation supporting paid sick days and paid family leave. Workers should not have to choose between taking care of a sick child and keeping their job. Policies that help men and women balance work and family make them better workers and better parents.

7. Lower stress levels: Stop fighting the Affordable Care Act. The law expands coverage, keeps down costs, protects against abuses by insurance companies, and provides flexibility and choice.

8. Be less judgmental: Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans violates basic principles of fairness, equality, and equal protection under the law. It’s time to get on the right side of history and make it illegal to discriminate against anyone in the workplace and in their personal lives.

9. Rekindle an old flame: Support our troops during their service and when they come home. It takes more than waving flags to show the love for our servicemen and women. They need jobs, health care, housing, and educational opportunities when they return home.

10. Don’t be selfish: Support nutrition assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and unemployment benefits. Many American families are struggling in today’s economy. Protecting them from reckless budget cuts and providing a basic safety net is not only the right thing to do, but helps stimulate the economy.

11. Be greener: Cut dependence on fossil fuels, invest in renewable energy, and tackle climate change in a serious way. It’s time to stop oil addiction and climate-change denial, and grow our economy through a significant investment in green jobs.

12. Be better informed: Stay up-to-speed on current events and stop conflating facts with fantasy. Unfortunately, many of our public debates live in a “fact-free zone” where outlandish claims take on the guise of truth. Think: death panels, birtherism, war on Christmas, and more. It’s impossible to solve the real problems facing our country until make-believe stops masquerading as factual reality.

All our good wishes to Congress for a productive and progressive new year!

About the author: Sally Steenland is Director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Wendy McElroy: Wisconsin invoices the exercise of rights

2011-12-29T10:40:00.001-06:00

Despite a proclaimed opposition to new taxes, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has advanced a policy that amounts to a new and draconian tax. People will have to pay the state for the “privilege” of free speech and assembly. To exercise those rights in or outside state facilities will entail permits at least seventy-two hours in advance and potentially prohibitive fees. The policy took effect on December 8 and is expected to be completely phased in by December 16.

State permission for various types of protest has long been required in the form of permits; in recent years, some locales have further limited freedom of speech by restricting it to “designated areas.” But Walker's measure goes a leap or so beyond the standard government policies on protests.

The new policy defines a “protest group” as a gathering of four or more people within a state facility and one hundred or more outside a state building; both gatherings require permits for “all activity and displays.”

The most controversial aspect of Walker's bill, however, allows authorities to charge groups for police security and for the cost of clean up. The security fee would be $50 per hour per officer at the capitol building, the state seat of government. Elsewhere, it would depend on the costs billed by police to the state; presumably, pepper spray would be extra.

Liability insurance (or a bond) and an advance payment to the police could be demanded as part of the permit-application process. Freedom of speech and assembly is now expensive in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin State Capitol building is specifically named in the bill. The capitol has been besieged by protesters since February, due to Walker's championing a law to limit collective bargaining for the state's public unions. If the protesters are required to pay $50 an hour per security officer, then those demonstrations are likely to diminish.

Moreover, punitive after-costs could blunt the protesters' future enthusiasm. The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel (Dec. 1) commented,

Any damage or cleanup after a demonstration could be charged to organizers. During the court fight earlier this year over access to the Capitol, Walker's administration said the demonstrators had done $7.5 million in damage to the building with the signs and other wear and tear. But almost immediately the administration sharply backpedaled from that claim, conceding the damage was significantly less.

Even “significantly less” than $7.5 million would likely be considerably more than protest organizers would be willing to shoulder. And the extra law-enforcement costs of this year’s demonstrations are estimated at $8 million.

Small protest groups in particular will be discouraged. For example, a labor chorus named the Solidarity Singers meets regularly in the rotunda of the capitol building to sing in protest of Walker's policies; the chorus is now uncertain about future performances.

Constitutional objections

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.”

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees constitutional rights at the state level.

Moreover, Article I, Section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution states, “Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right, and no laws shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.” And Article I, Section 4 states, “The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged.”

Walker's policy seems to violate not merely the United States Constitution but also the Wisconsin Constitution. Unfortunately, governments have legally established a “right” to preemptively regulate peaceful protests. The Journal Sentinel quoted First Amendment lawyer Bob Dreps as acknowledging that the state can legally put some restrictions on the “time, place and manner” of free speech. Nevertheless, the rules “still have to be reasonable on their face.” And so the question becomes whether Walker's regulations are reasonable.

The new policy on protests is unreasonable to an extreme and leaves broad ground for legal challenges.

For one thing, the policy defines a protest or rally so restrictively — four people — that it could include groups of touring schoolchildren or medium-sized families. Defining a rally as four or more people, Dreps said, was “laughable.”

Interestingly, the U.S. State Department's “2010 Human Rights Report” excoriated the Sultan of Brunei Darussalam (a small state bordering the South China Sea) for violating freedom of assembly. The report stated,

Under the emergency powers, the government significantly restricted the right to assemble. According to the Societies Order, public gatherings of 10 or more persons require a government permit, and police have the authority to stop an unofficial assembly of five or more persons deemed likely to cause a disturbance of the peace.

Now Walker is imposing an even more restrictive policy on gatherings, and he is doing so as a regular requirement, not as an emergency measure.

Another ground for legal challenge is that the policy discriminates against the poor by imposing a de facto fee both directly and indirectly upon groups who wish to voice opinions. The direct cost: it allows for the billing of police “services” that people do not wish and for which they have already paid in taxes; it also allows for a bond, insurance or other prepayment as a condition of the required permit. The indirect cost: organizers must assume unpredictable risks such as clean up even though their taxes also pay for this service. Moreover, any need for clean up could easily result from people not connected to the organization, including the police.

Thus, the cost of a protest not only converts freedom of speech and assembly into “fee-for-exercise” rights but also silences those without resources, such as the homeless. Chris Ahmuty, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, expressed concern specifically on this point.

A further ground for legal challenge is the ability of state officials and the police to apply the law selectively, punishing only those whose messages are objectionable to them. Department of Administration spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster has already stated that the rules on permits would not be applied to constituents’ or lobbyists’ visits to lawmakers’ offices. Certainly, Walker's speeches or other appearances at state buildings will also be exempted.

Ahmuty (ACLU) has also criticized the policy for leaving “too much discretion to the Capitol Police.” The police reaction does little to dispel this fear. For example, Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs has refused to explain whether he would arrest groups who did not comply with the new rules. When asked by the press, Tubbs replied, “I'm not going to show that hand today.”

Thus, Walker's anti-protest policy is likely to be legally attacked as an unreasonable restraint on Constitutional rights, as discriminatory against the poor, and as an invitation to selective enforcement.

Conclusion

Perhaps Walker's strongest argument for the new punitive policy is the public outrage over the tax-paid clean up at vacated Occupy Wall Street (OWS) sites. And yet Wisconsin state law already provides that applicants for gatherings “shall be liable to the state … for any expense arising out of any such use and for such sum as the managing authority may charge for such use.” The new policy seems redundant on this point.

The strongest argument against the policy is that it denies basic human rights. The Wisconsin ACLU announced its celebration of the Bill of Rights' birthday in front of the State of Wisconsin Office Building with the words “because of a new Department of Administration policy, this may be the last time we’ll be able to celebrate in this public area without a permit.”

The Wisconsin ACLU has asked Walker to stay the policy's implementation in order to reword it. In a statement of December 14, the ACLU stated, “This week, the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin voted unanimously to authorize appropriate legal action to challenge the new Department of Administration’s policies that restrict First Amendment rights at the state Capitol.”

Walker has a record of not backing down in the face of opposition. A recall effort is currently underway, and the anti-Walker organizers have collected more than half a million signatures, which is more than 90 percent of the number needed to cause an election. Walker's response? A lawsuit accusing the state board that oversees Wisconsin's elections of being lax in checking that the collected signatures are valid.

Hopefully, the ACLU will follow through on its threat to sue over the anti-protest policies. Other states are watching and nervously debating how to respond to the fresh protests that are bound to erupt with new “Occupy” projects and the downward-spiraling economy.

About the author: Wendy McElroy is the author of The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival (Prometheus Books, 1998). She actively manages two websites: http://www.ifeminists.com and http://www.wendymcelroy.com.

This article was published by The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: The 2011 Rewind

2011-12-28T19:11:00.002-06:00

As the world turns in Alabama politics another year is fast coming to a close. Dr. Robert Bentley is completing his first year as governor. He inherited a ship of state that was analogous to walking onto the deck of the Titanic. His predecessor, Bob Riley, did not do him any favors. Riley depleted every rainy day account available. In addition, the manna from heaven that came from Washington in the form of stimulus money has now run its course. The state coffers are in dire straits. The cupboard is bare and the state is facing financial problems unseen in state history.

If the state’s financial crisis was not devastating enough, Bentley was awakened on April 27 with the worst natural disaster in Alabama history. A record number of killer tornadoes ravaged the state. Some of the worst damage occurred in Bentley’s hometown of Tuscaloosa.

Bentley has also seen a series of changes in his original cabinet that looks like a scene of musical chairs. David Perry was Bentley’s initial Finance Director. He changed to become Chief of Staff after that post was vacated by Chuck Malone. Malone was appointed Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court following the resignation of Sue Bell Cobb. Gov. Bentley established a first for the State of Alabama when he named Marquita Davis Finance Director to replace Perry. Davis is a 44 year old Hoover resident. She is the state’s first female finance director and only the second African American to hold this coveted and powerful post. She was a surprising choice not because of her race or gender but because of her lack of experience in finance. She is an educator by training and has served as Commissioner of Children’s Affairs in both Riley’s and Bentley’s cabinet.

Bentley has chosen another one of his legislative colleagues to serve in his cabinet. His original choice for Alabama Development Director was former House Speaker Seth Hammett. Seth took this important job on a temporary basis. Bentley appointed Vestavia Representative Greg Canfield as his permanent ADO Director. Canfield joins several of Bentley’s legislative buddies in the cabinet. Mac Gipson and William Thigpen are heading the Alabama Beverage Control Board. Former Representative Spencer Collier is Bentley’s Homeland Security Chief.

Jefferson County declared bankruptcy in November. The state’s largest county defaulted on $4.23 billion of debt. The Jefferson County collapse and default is the largest in U.S. history. It has done irreparable damage to their reputation and will haunt them for decades on the bond market and in economic development. It will also more than likely reverberate with negative ratings for all counties and municipalities throughout the state.

Dr. Paul Hubbert, who transformed the Alabama Education Association from an ineffective entity to the most powerful political organization in Alabama, announced his retirement in October. Hubbert took the reigns of the AEA in 1969 at age 33. He rose to become arguably the most influential political figure of this generation. Over his 40 year reign he was the King of Goat Hill. Hubbert turned 76 on Christmas Day. The state and AEA will never be the same. He made quite an impact on public policy and education for four decades.

The longtime Director of Alabama’s Legislative Fiscal office, Joyce Bigbee, announced her retirement in October to be effective January 1, 2012. Bigbee has been Director of the Legislative Fiscal office for 25 years. Her expertise will be difficult to replace.

State Senator Scott Beason of Gardendale was removed as Chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee in November by his Republican colleagues. Senate Majority Leader Jabo Wagoner of Vestavia Hills will replace him. Beason was booted out after numerous controversies embroiled him all through the year.

Birmingham Mayor William Bell and Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange were overwhelmingly reelected in municipal elections this year. Bell bested five challengers and garnered an amazing 89% of the vote. Strange scored an equally impressive victory with 81% of the vote over his opponent.

Three prominent political figures passed away late this year. Emory Folmar, who served as Mayor of Montgomery from 1977 to 1999 and played a major role in building the modern Alabama Republican Party, died at his home in Montgomery in November. He was 81. Bessemer Circuit Judge Mac Parsons also died in November from a rare form of cancer. Parsons was the ultimate Yellow Dog Democrat. He was a colorful State Senator for two decades prior to going on the Bench. Parsons was 68. Ms. Ethel Hall also passed away in November in Birmingham. She was the first African American female to be elected to the State Board of Education where she served for 25 years.

Have a happy New Year.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Peter Juul: U.S. military strategy shifts focus

2011-12-23T11:44:00.002-06:00

The final withdrawal of American troops from Iraq marks the end of a year that has seen a remarkable shift in U.S. military strategy abroad. From the war in Libya and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden to the end of the war in Iraq and the beginning of a military transition in Afghanistan, the era of large-footprint counterinsurgency and nation-building operations is coming to a close. In its place, the Obama administration is instituting an approach focused on using targeted operations conducted by airpower, special operations forces, and the intelligence community, alongside cooperation with partners to achieve its objectives.

This past year marked the beginning of this alternative military and diplomatic strategy departure from the boots-on-the-ground-heavy track taken by the Bush administration in Iraq and initially by the Obama administration in Afghanistan. In retrospect, the war in Libya offered the first indication of a new approach to using American power. With its unique military capabilities, the United States played a leading role in destroying the Qaddafi regime’s air defenses. But the mission soon transferred to a NATO lead, with the United States playing a supporting role. With NATO support overhead, Libyan opposition fighters were eventually able to take down the Qaddafi regime.

The overthrow of Qaddafi only cost the United States $1.1 billion, with no American or NATO lives lost over the course of seven-and-a-half months. This compares with $1.38 trillion spent and 7,632 coalition lives lost in multiyear counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another indicator appeared in the May 1 raid to kill Osama bin Laden. Relying on painstaking intelligence work, U.S. Navy SEALs under CIA command assaulted bin Laden’s Pakistan compound and killed the Al Qaeda leader. The raid spotlighted the lethal and selective tool created by the fusion of military special operations forces and the CIA over the past decade. But it also showed how the United States can effectively target and eliminate threats without resorting to lengthy and expensive nation-building campaigns requiring large numbers of American boots on the ground.

While the bin Laden raid is the most dramatic example, the U.S. intelligence-special operations complex—including armed drones like the Predator—has been actively targeting Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked or affiliated movements in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen over the past few years. Though these strikes are extremely controversial, they are an effective alternative to large-scale military operations as a way of fighting terrorist groups.

Finally, the end of the war in Iraq and the transition from combat operations in Afghanistan to a military advisory role mark a shift in approach to securing U.S. interests in both countries. In Iraq the United States will not leave behind a sizable residual force to train and equip Iraqi security forces. Instead, the United States is forging a new, more normal relationship with Iraq. Its security assistance will be under State Department control, including the 250-400 military personnel in the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq. In Afghanistan the U.S. military commander is preparing a plan to transition NATO forces out of a combat role and into an advisory role as they decline in number.

Taken together, these key events illustrate a substantial shift in the way our nation is employing its power. Out are invasions and occupations by large U.S. ground forces. In are supporting partners and using unique, over-the-horizon capabilities such as airpower, drones, and special operations forces to achieve U.S. objectives. This shift in approach should prove more sustainable in terms of domestic support and spending than the multiyear, trillion-dollar counterinsurgency campaigns pursued throughout the past decade.

The implications of this approach should be felt primarily in the defense and intelligence budgets as they face tight fiscal times. Investments should flow toward capabilities such as airpower, ships, cruise missiles, drones, and special operations forces that allow the United States to conduct over-the-horizon strikes and support missions rather than large ground forces suited to fighting lengthy irregular wars. Robust ground forces will of course still be necessary to deter countries with dangerous ground forces close to key allies such as those arrayed by North Korea along the DMZ on the Korean peninsula and to advise partner militaries, but resources should be more dedicated to those areas that better facilitate the new approach.

In 2011 President Obama crafted a new doctrine for the United States’ use of force, but this doctrine is more apparent in his administration’s actions than in his speeches. The new doctrine effectively removes counterinsurgency and nation-building as the main approaches to advancing American national interests and replaces them with partnering with allies and leveraging America’s unique, over-the-horizon military capabilities. This new approach reduces the burdens on the United States in terms of high military casualties and out-of-control military spending while playing to its diplomatic and military strengths.

Regardless of the more controversial aspects of this approach such as drone strikes, President Obama has crafted a more sustainable way for the United States to use its hard power to advance its interests in the world.

About the author: Peter Juul is a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Gary Palmer: The Christmas that saved America

2011-12-22T19:42:00.001-06:00

Given the current condition of the American economy, there might be a temptation to view what Americans are spending this Christmas as the Christmas that saves the American economy… or at least keeps it from going deeper into recession. But regardless of what Americans spend this Christmas, you would have to look farther back to find the Christmas that saved America.

By the end of November 1776, American independence was on life support. Gen. George Washington had just suffered a devastating defeat and lost the city of New York to the British. Not only was New York City entirely in British hands, Washington made a strategic blunder by not evacuating his forces from Fort Washington and Fort Lee, on the Hudson River.

British and Hessian forces attacked and captured Fort Washington and Gen. Washington was forced to abandon the fort, leaving behind desperately needed guns, stores of rations, munitions, equipment and hundreds of tents. Washington’s battered and ill-equipped men were forced to retreat southward across New Jersey.

Washington‘s army of almost 20,000 in August was now down to less than 6,000 and without the critical equipment and supplies not only to fight, but to survive a winter encampment. To make matters worse, on December 1st the enlistment of 2,000 New Jersey and Maryland militiamen expired and they left the army.

On December 8th, this desperate force crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. With sickness and desertion also taking a heavy toll, Washington had only about 3,000 soldiers left under his immediate command. As Gen. Nathanael Greene wrote, it was “… a very pitiful army to trust the liberties of America on.” At this point, it appeared that America’s quest for independence would soon be crushed.

On December 20th, a remnant of about 2,000 soldiers joined Washington’s army. These men were described as being in more wretched condition than the soldiers in Washington’s camp and were formerly under the command of Gen. Charles Lee who had been captured. The army now numbered about 7,500, with only about 6,000 fit for duty. With an army dispirited, undersupplied, undermanned, and facing an enemy certain of victory, Washington saw an opportunity. He would cross the Delaware and attack.

On December 23rd, Washington ordered the reading of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet The Crisis to inspire his men: “… These are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he who stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

On Christmas night, Washington led 2,400 soldiers across the Delaware and to victory the next morning at Trenton. With this victory, Washington saved his army. While great credit is justifiably given to Gen. Washington for the boldness of his decision to cross the Delaware River and attack Trenton, it is not Washington alone whom we should marvel and revere.

We should also stand in awe of the volunteers who did not abandon the cause for freedom. They crossed the Delaware and marched in ragged clothes and with bloody feet across snow and ice to defeat the Hessians at Trenton, and a few days later, the British at Princeton. These were not summer soldiers. These were men willing to suffer discomfort and danger for a cause greater than themselves. These were the men who crossed an icy river on Christmas Day and saved America for future generations.

In some respects, the heroic figure of Gen. Washington represents the hope that so many Americans have for restoring America. Far too many Americans have a false hope that all that is necessary to restore our nation is to elect the right person to lead while the rest of us go about our business. That is futile. Just like that Christmas Day in 1776, what mattered most was the willingness of the men who boarded the boats to cross the ice-choked river with General Washington.

In an article he wrote for Christmas 2010, Rich Lowry quoted Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who wrote, “Our republics cannot exist long in prosperity. We require adversity and appear to possess most of the republican spirit when most depressed.”

As our history has proved time and again, America is at her best when we are faced with great challenges, not when we are flush with success and great with prosperity. The question for us today is simple: had we been on the icy banks of the Delaware River on Christmas Day in 1776, would we have gotten in the boat?

The answer to that question will come in the months and years ahead as we see how we respond to the current national crisis.

About the author: Gary Parlmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

This article was published by the Alabama Policy Institute.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: The Probate Judge

2011-12-21T08:28:00.001-06:00

We are in the midst of the holiday season with Christmas just around the corner. However, we are also in political season. Traditionally we have held our primaries in June but earlier this year in a cost saving measure the legislature changed the date of our primary. In order to have one primary instead of two they combined the presidential and general election primary into one date. That day is March 13. Thus, qualifying is fast approaching. The last day to qualify for the March 13 primary and November 6, 2012 general election is January 13. Therefore, you might be seeing campaign ads rather than holiday greetings on television and you might be getting a campaign solicitation letter with your Christmas cards.

The 2012 election could well be dubbed the Year of the Judge. The presidential contest will be the marquee event. However, our state judicial races will take center stage next year. Five out of nine of our State Supreme Court seats are up for election, as well as several seats on the State Court of Appeals and a good many circuit judges throughout the state. In addition to these very important state court posts, all 68 probate judges in the state are up for election.

Some of you may wonder why there are 68 probate judges and only 67 counties. Before you write to correct me, the imperial county of Jefferson has two probate judges. The once vaunted and mystical throne of probate judge in Alabama has gone by the wayside with the passing of years. It has become a quasi bureaucratic, quasi judicial and clerical position. They now spend a lot of time on family and estate matters. They have also become inundated with commitment hearings. Nevertheless, the GOP has made taking over these offices a priority in this election year in their march towards total domination of Alabama politics.

As late as 50 years ago the office of probate judge in Alabama was the most powerful and prestigious position in Alabama politics. In every county in Alabama, especially in rural Alabama, the probate judge was the omnipotent ruler of the county and essentially the king of the county. He was not only the judge, he appointed all county positions, hired all county employees and ruled the county as chairman of the county commission.

Not only was he the most powerful political figure in the county, he also became one of the wealthiest people in the county through his judgeship. There were no ethics laws in that era. Therefore, it was common practice for someone aspiring to sell equipment, gas, supplies or build roads for the county to grease the palms of the probate judge. However, this pay to play practice was not the most lucrative vein of remuneration for the judge. The probate judge by law was on the fee system. That meant that he essentially owned the highest office in the county. He received a fee off of all transactions made in the office. He got a cut off of every car tag or license sold in the county.

It was estimated that the salary of a probate judge in 1962 was around $100,000 per year even in small counties. That, my friends, would equate to about $300,000 or more today. He was not only king of the county, he also made a kingly salary. The probate judge term is for 6 years. With that kind of reward you can imagine the competition to capture that perch in that era.

The best politician in the county essentially emerged victorious. He knew where the votes were and how to count votes. There were quite a few votes that could be bought at that time. Usually with a pint of whiskey and a $5 bill. The probate judge knew who those folks were and where to find them. Thus, the economic saying that you have to spend money to make money applies to politics in this case. To the victor goes the spoils. The rewards of victory were quite lucrative and powerful.

The famous southern political historian and scholar Dr. V.O. Key said in 1950 without a doubt the most powerful figure in Alabama politics is the probate judge. In the days before television the best way to campaign for governor was to garner the support and endorsement of the probate judge in each county. Aspiring gubernatorial candidates would begin their statewide journey for the brass ring of Alabama politics by kissing the ring of the king of each county, the probate judge.

Happy Holidays.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

Michael Josephson: What is a good Christmas?

2011-12-20T11:50:00.000-06:00

Will this be a good Christmas?

How will you measure it?

For lots of kids, the answer may be embedded in the response to the question, “What did ya get?”

On the other hand, retailers and Wall Street investors will look to sales and profits.

What a pity that the spiritual and social potential of this a holiday can be so easily lost. To observant Christians, Christmas is a profoundly important day of worship, and so a “good” Christmas must include a meaningful religious connection with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

But for many Christians and non-Christians, there are other dimensions to this day.

In fact, Christmas is more than a single day; at least in the U.S., it’s a season involving weeks of preparation and celebration devoted to family, friendships and, most important of all, a grand vision of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.”

As someone who is Jewish, I understand how the desire to be inclusive (stimulated by no small amount of political correctness) has caused us to neutralize the denominational quality of what we now call the “Holiday Season,” which includes Chanukah and Kwanza.

At least for me, this dilutes the deeper meaning of a holiday devoted to celebration of a man and a message with a dominant message of love, forgiveness and peace.

If we look beyond and beneath the Santa Claus image and the obsession with giving and getting gifts, there is something both profound and powerful about the way Christmas brings out the best in us.

On a personal level, the optimism, good cheer, and goodwill embodied in the Christmas spirit are antidotes to selfishness and superficiality. They can help us find purpose and meaning in love, kindness, charity, gratitude, and forgiveness.

So, to me, a good Christmas is one that helps us become better people so we can have better lives and a better society.

A good Christmas is one when we can say we’ve made meaningful progress and an ongoing commitment to eradicate poverty, hunger, and homelessness. It would also be a good Christmas if we truly overcame the fears, suspicions, and prejudices that hinder our ability to truly experience and sincerely express goodwill to all, regardless of their ethnicity, national origin, or personal religion.

So regardless of your religion, I hope you’ll make this a good Christmas.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

About the author: Michael Josephson is one of the nation’s most sought-after and quoted ethicists. Founder and president of Josephson Institute and its CHARACTER COUNTS! project, he has conducted programs for more than 100,000 leaders in government, business, education, sports, law enforcement, journalism, law, and the military. Mr. Josephson is also an award-winning radio commentator.

Joy Moses: The Facts about Americans who receive public benefits

2011-12-19T10:31:00.003-06:00

Introduction

Gross misperceptions about who receives public benefits and for what purposes are leading the nation toward debates that distract from the real problems facing middle-class and low-income Americans. Most public benefits spending is for participants, largely senior citizens, who have paid for the services via a lifetime of work. This is far different from the picture painted by many conservatives of public benefits being for lazy poor people who do not want to work. These misperceptions put all public benefits programs at risk, including those that reach the middle class. They also derail benefits programs that specifically target people living in poverty and help them to join the middle class.

The facts about public benefits detailed in this issue brief help shape the real debate Americans should be engaged in—how to fund and shape public benefits programs that largely serve the middle class and those living in poverty for the long haul.

Fact: Most Americans receiving public benefits paid for them

For many, the phrase “public benefits” implies money handed out to poor people—but that’s not the case. Recipients who benefit from the nation’s major social insurance programs—Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance—include middle-class and low-income Americans. In 2010, 39 percent of households had at least one person participating in at least one of these programs. (See Figure 1) Within the fiscal year 2011 budget, those three programs accounted for an estimated 60 percent of the dollars going out to individuals. (See Figure 2)

Within these social insurance programs, most of the participants have paid into them, through payroll taxes taken out of their own paychecks and through contributions paid on their behalf by their employers. Like private life or property insurance, everyone makes regular contributions with the expectation that when a certain event occurs (in the case of public benefits, that event could be retirement, disability, or temporary job loss), they will be protected and able to collect benefits they have paid for.

Conservatives focus on how the costs of these programs have grown over the past several decades, but so too have the public’s payments into them. Currently payments into social insurance programs represent an estimated 37 percent (or $807 billion) of federal receipts in 2011, compared to 17 percent (or $124 billion) in 1961 and 31 percent (or $455 billion) in 1981, including federal employees’ payments into their retirement accounts (the historical numbers are adjusted for inflation).

These programs reflect what Americans value. Clearly our nation believes there should be programs that ensure senior citizens who work throughout their lives and contribute to these programs should have a minimum level of security and care safe from the ups and downs of the stock market. Social Security and Medicare account for 55 percent of federal benefits dollars. When we hear about how so many Americans are living off the government, this myth is often used to perpetuate a stereotype of poor adults unwilling to work. In fact, it reflects the many Americans who have paid into programs such as Social Security and Medicare and no longer work due to age and disability.

Fact: Most public benefits targeting low-income Americans are not paid in cash

Only about 10 percent of all federal dollars devoted to public benefits programs for low-income Americans are paid in cash. And of that 10 percent, more than two out of every three dollars are for Social Security disability benefits for individuals who have demonstrated to the government that they have a disability that interferes with their ability to work. The remaining cash payments go to needy Americans under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Participation in this program is low due to changes made in the 1990s that promoted work and created a five-year lifetime limit on participation.

The bottom line: Conservative rhetoric that the federal government routinely hands out checks to people who are too lazy to work is grossly inaccurate. Today federal cash assistance programs primarily focus on those unable to work. (See Figure 3)

What’s more, the non-cash benefits programs are each targeted toward a singular basic need. The largest ones, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, are entitlements (meaning services are guaranteed to those who meet program criteria) targeting health care and food needs. Many Medicaid beneficiaries live in deep poverty, with 38 percent of participating children falling well below the current poverty line in many states. And low-income families receiving food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program desperately need the additional help for food purchases. Case in point: Additional food assistance provided by the Recovery Act in 2010 kept 1 million people out of poverty.

Conservatives decry spending increases on these entitlement programs. Yet upswings in Americans falling into poverty through no fault of their own during certain periods such as the Great Recession of 2007-2009 as well as growing income inequality in the long term are at the root of more spending on basic public benefits programs. Moreover, most other forms of targeted, non-cash benefits programs such as low-income housing and energy assistance as well as higher education assistance are not entitlements. Their funding, decided on a yearly basis, tends to help only a small portion of those who qualify.

Fact: Many beneficiaries of low-income public benefits programs are elderly and disabled

As noted above, Social Security and Medicare account for much of our nation’s spending on public benefits. But other programs not specifically designated for the elderly reach a significant number of them as well as Americans with disabilities. The biggest programs demonstrate this point. Among those Americans receiving food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 36 percent of households have an elderly or disabled person. When it comes to Medicaid, in 2008, 65 percent of payments were for those 65 and over, blind, or disabled.

Fact: Investments in programs that offer a hand up to Americans in poverty are consistently small

To minimize spending on poverty-related entitlement programs, we could let more people go hungry or deprive them of life-sustaining medical insurance—steps that some conservatives fully embrace. Republican members of Congress, for example, regularly proposed cuts to Medicaid and federal food assistance as a part of this year’s deficit reduction efforts. Many of these efforts fortunately have been fruitless.

Alternatively, we could aggressively act to reduce poverty, which in turn would reduce the number of people in need of basic needs assistance. This would require a dramatic shift in priorities. Over the past 30 years, spending on education, training, employment, and social services remained a consistently small part of the overall federal budget, hovering around 3 percent. In fiscal year 2011, which closed at the end of September, it is estimated that spending on these programs amounted to a little more than $120 billion. By way of comparison, defense spending is more than six times that amount, at an estimated $768 billion in FY 2011. (See Figure 4)

The hard facts are that more federal money is being spent on basic-needs entitlements, while the share of spending going toward programs that would best reduce poverty (education, training, employment, and social services) have largely remained the same from one year to the next. In the real world this means that quality programs serving children, youth, students, and workers must water down their services and/or reach only a fraction of those people that stand to benefit. Because dramatic poverty reduction and growth in the middle class fails to occur, those needing help with basic needs such as food continues to grow.

What needs to be done

Many Americans don’t understand the basic facts about public benefits programs because conservatives so effectively peddle their myths. To combat these distortions, progressives not only need to present accurate information about these programs but also must focus more attention on issues that should be at the heart of our national conversation. This will help align good policy decisions with bedrock American values.

As noted above, current federal spending on public benefits is significantly directed toward those Americans who are retired or disabled and who often face subtle-yet-insidious workplace discrimination due to their age or disabilities. Further, when it comes to seniors, most have already completed a lifetime’s worth of work and are simply drawing down on programs that they significantly paid into.

Simply put, elderly and disabled Americans should receive public support from the federal government. Can we agree that in America we should at least be providing these minimal resources for the elderly and disabled? Recent Census data suggest that seniors aren’t living as well as official poverty numbers suggest due to out-of-pocket medical expenses and other factors. Should we be doing even more to assist seniors? The answer is yes.

This also means we need to support the social insurance programs such as Social Security and unemployment insurance that have served Americans well for decades. These programs aren’t perfect but that is hardly an argument for destroying them. Experts at CAP and elsewhere argue that we can find progressive ways of reforming Social Security and unemployment insurance so that they better serve participants and the needs of our nation.

Similarly, we should be investing more in our children, our youth, and our young workers. Twenty-two percent of Americans under the age of 18 live in poverty, and young workers have the highest rates of unemployment—with lifelong implications for their earning potential. Yet federal funding for programs to give a leg up to our next generation of workers is dismally low. Federal student aid accounts for about 2 percent of the federal budget. And federal support for child care, which opens up better employment opportunities for young workers and has the potential to improve children’s school readiness, accounts for only 0.2 percent of the federal budget.

The share of the federal budget spent on education, training, employment, and social services hasn’t changed much over the past couple of decades. If we reduced poverty, we could reduce spending on basic-needs entitlements while having more citizens who are earning incomes that allow them to contribute more to our economy and contribute more tax revenue to our government.

Education, training, and employment services are needed to improve our nation’s economic competitiveness, too. Our children and workers won’t be able to properly compete with other nations with just 3 percent of the budget going to investments. For those Americans living in poverty, struggling to enter the middle class, federal spending should be devoted to programs that give them opportunities to prosper on their own. That means federal assistance with health insurance, food, housing, home energy, and education so these Americans can concentrate on opportunities to join the middle class.

Today’s misplaced debate about how much to cut from federal benefits programs needs to become an honest debate about who receives public benefits and for what purposes so that we can retool benefits programs to better help all Americans, including those living in poverty, to have a piece of the American Dream. Federal programs that help reduce poverty and grow the middle class help our national economy and our nation remain strong and competitive. This is the debate we should be having today.

Download this issue brief (pdf)

About the author: Joy Moses is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Economic Policy team at the Center for American Progress.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Charles C. Haynes: A plea to politicians: Tell the truth about ‘school prayer’

2011-12-17T13:03:00.001-06:00

WASHINGTON — The latest attack on the “godless public schools” — a staple of Republican primaries past — is a new ad in Iowa by Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign proclaiming there’s “something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

Advocating for “school prayer” is, of course, a poll-tested winner for politicians seeking to stir voter outrage — and establish Christian conservative bona fides.

Michele Bachmann also took up the cry at a recent town hall in Iowa, declaring that government censors religion in public schools. She added a new twist to the charge by saying that Muslims get to practice their faith in schools, but “Christian kids aren’t allowed to pray.”

The claim that public schools are hostile to Christians may rev up caucus-goers in Iowa, but there’s only one problem: It isn’t true.

Truth be told, students of all faiths are actually free to pray alone or in groups during the school day, as long as they don’t disrupt the school or interfere with the rights of others. Of course, the right to engage in voluntary prayer or religious discussion does not necessarily include the right to preach to a captive audience, like an assembly, or to compel other students to participate.

Visit public schools anywhere in America today and you’re likely to see kids praying around the flagpole, sharing their faith with classmates, reading scriptures in free time, forming religious clubs, and in other ways bringing God with them through the schoolhouse door each day.

As for celebrating Christmas, students are free to say “Merry Christmas,” give Christmas messages to others, and organize Christmas devotionals in student Christian clubs.

It’s true that some public school officials still misunderstand (or ignore) the First Amendment by censoring student religious expression that is protected under current law. But when challenged in court, they invariably lose.

In fact, contrary to culture-war mythology, there is more student religious speech and practice in public schools today than at any time in the past 100 years.

When politicians demonize the courts for banning God from schools, they count on public confusion about the First Amendment distinction between government speech promoting religion, which the establishment clause prohibits, and student speech promoting religion, which the free-exercise and free-speech clauses protect.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that kids can’t pray in school. What the Court has done — and continues to do — is to strike down school-sponsored prayers and devotional exercises as violations of religious liberty.

As a result of those decisions, school officials may not impose prayers, or organize prayer events, or turn the school auditorium into the local church for religious celebrations.

Students, however, aren’t the government; they can — and often do — openly pray and share their faith in public schools.

When asked to clarify his claim that students can’t pray in schools, Perry said he was objecting to the Supreme Court’s prayer decisions in the 1960s because he thinks local school boards should be free to organize prayers if they so choose. He didn’t say whether he understood that kids are currently free to pray in school on their own.

Apparently, Perry wants to return to the days of school-sponsored prayer, overturning Court decisions by what he calls “activist judges.” If elected, he promises to push for a constitutional amendment to allow it — something Newt Gingrich tried and failed to do when he was in Congress.

If state-sponsored religious practices are what Perry, Bachmann and other candidates mean when they call for “prayer in school,” then why don’t they just say so — and stop telling voters that kids “can’t pray in schools”?

Could it be because they know that most Americans, if given the choice, would prefer the religious freedom students now have over a return to government-mandated prayers?

About the author: Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C., 20001. Web:http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/. E-mail:chaynes@freedomforum.org.

This article was published by the First Amendment Center.

Richard Schwartzman: A Bill of guarantees

2011-12-16T11:13:00.001-06:00

The best document ever written to preserve the liberty of a free people isn’t a complete document at all, but just a part of one. It’s the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Those ten paragraphs capture the essence of what it means to govern a government. Are they perfect? No, but how much in life is?

While the body of the Constitution is simply a framework or schematic diagram of the body of government, the Bill of Rights was an attempt to put chains on that government instead of letting the government put chains on the people (as is usually the case).

The Bill of Rights does not grant any right to any person. It guarantees the rights that belong to all of mankind. The source of those rights may be presumed to be God or our nature as human beings. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson cited the “Creator” as the source of those rights. And he referred to them as “inalienable” rights, meaning that they can’t be separated or taken from us. They are ours regardless of what a government decrees, because they existed before there were governments.

Among its five provisions, for instance, the First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. Recall that it says, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” It doesn’t grant a right to free speech.

Yet, disregard for the provisions of these amendments is diminishing the liberties of us all.

The House Judiciary Committee recently passed a bill making it illegal to even talk about using marijuana in places like Amsterdam, where there is no criminal penalty for the use of pot in coffeehouses.

The wars on terror and some drugs have virtually gutted the provisions of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments.

Asset-forfeiture laws take property from people without them ever being found guilty of a crime. Cities and towns, as we saw in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London, can now take private property via eminent domain and give it to other private entities, notwithstanding the Fifth Amendment’s “public use.” limitation.

The war on terror has only escalated the assaults on our guaranteed rights. Warrantless searches are on the rise, and now Congress has passed a law that would allow the military to pick up U.S. citizens on American streets strictly on suspicion, without charging them with any crime, and then lock them up in places like Guantanamo for an indefinite period of time.

Again, this law violates all the levels of due process guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments.

And despite the fact that one of the most unambiguous, easily read clauses of the Bill of Rights is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” several states and municipalities make it almost impossible to possess a firearm. At least the Supreme Court has ruled this to be an individual right that supersedes state and local laws.

Our rights are not finite — not limited by their enumeration. The Ninth Amendment tells us that explicitly, and the Tenth tells us that powers not delegated to the federal government are retained by the states or by the people.

While the government, through members of Congress and even presidents, violates these guarantees, it can’t get away with those violations unless the people allow it to happen. People allow the violations by electing officials who are more eager to accrue power than to ensure a condition of liberty.

The people are bought by a politician’s promise of security from criminals or foreign invaders, or a promise of some welfare benefit. In short, they’re bought by the welfare-warfare state.

As scary as that all is, we still have our rights. The government may seek to punish us for talking about doing things that are currently illegal, but it can’t stop us from talking about changing those laws or changing any law that violates our guaranteed liberty.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights don’t grant our liberty, but they do guarantee it. It can readily be said that the only difference between the United States and the rest of the world was our adherence to the Bill of Rights. We must reclaim it.

About the author: Richard Schwartzman is managing editor at Chadds Ford Live in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

This article was published by The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Sarah Jane Glynn: Out-of-work Americans are struggling and need benefits

2011-12-15T13:08:00.002-06:00

There’s never a good time to be involuntarily unemployed. But today’s conditions are among the worst in decades. For every new job created there are four people looking for work. With supply and demand this out of whack, it is not surprising that the average length of unemployment for a worker who loses his or her job is a little more than 10 months. But in the midst of this troubling scenario, House conservatives are proposing that the government should reduce the length of time people can collect unemployment insurance by 40 weeks.

A recent poll of the long-term unemployed, conducted by National Public Radio and The Kaiser Family Foundation, illustrates how disastrous being out of work in this economy can be, and the lengths people would be willing to go to find a new job:

    Seventy-four percent of the long-term unemployed have a negative outlook on their financial situation, and more than 60 percent are not confident they will be able to find a job that will provide them with the pay and benefits they need to get by.

    Only 22 percent of the long-term unemployed are currently receiving unemployment benefits. Among those who are, a full 94 percent think it is at least somewhat likely that their benefits will run out before they are able to find a new job. These fears are not unfounded. Among those who had previously received unemployment benefits but currently were not, 84 percent stopped getting them because they ran out.

    A majority of the unemployed would be willing to go to great lengths in order to find work. Eighty-seven percent would take an entry-level job in a different field, 68 percent would be willing to take a pay cut from their last job, and 44 percent would be willing to pack up and move to a new state if it meant that they would be able to find employment.

These findings echo what economists have been saying for some time now. The long-term unemployed are desperate to find work, their benefits are running out, and something needs to be done to assist them in this tough economy.

Nonetheless, conservative lawmakers such as Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) have argued that unemployment benefits discourage the unemployed from seeking work “because people are being paid even though they are not working.” This is not only a contradictory statement—because an individual must be actively seeking work in order to qualify for unemployment insurance—but it is also factually inaccurate according to recent research.

Jesse Rothstein, former chief economist at the Department of Labor and current professor of public policy and economics at UC Berkeley, recently released a paper that directly contradicts Sen. Kyl’s assertion. While some researchers have argued that extensions to unemployment insurance have contributed about 2.7 percentage points to the unemployment rate, Rothstein found that extending benefits to unemployed workers only raised the unemployment rate by approximately 0.3 percentage points. Less than half of this tiny effect was because people did not become re-employed, and there’s reason to believe that “the availability of extended benefits might have raised reemployment rates of displaced workers, by keeping them from abandoning their searches prematurely.”

Let’s be clear: Maintaining unemployment insurance doesn’t discourage a worker from finding employment again, and it can help some workers who are currently employed stay that way. Businesses cannot hire new workers unless there is demand for their services. People who are receiving unemployment insurance are more likely to spend the money they receive than save it, which means they are putting money back into local economies and supporting the jobs of their community members. For every $1 paid out in unemployment benefits, the economy grows by $2.

There are currently 13.3 million unemployed people looking for work in the United States, and 7.1 million are receiving unemployment insurance. A reduction in those benefits would not only spell further financial disaster to the individuals directly but would also further dampen the economic recovery of our nation as a whole.

About the author: Sarah Jane Glynn is a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: The Drama of redistricting

2011-12-14T16:26:00.000-06:00

The 2012 Legislative Session is looming. It begins in two months with the paramount issue being the reapportionment of their own legislative districts. All 105 House seats and all 35 Senate seats will be on the drawing board. They may have all been singing out of the same songbook last year but this issue will cross party lines. Redistricting gets personal. They will lay down their partisan badges when it comes to self preservation. As former Speaker of the House Jimmy Clark once told me, “Steve, old boy, the cardinal rule in political redistricting is you take care of yourself and the hell with everybody else.”

The U.S. Constitution, and concurrently the Alabama Constitution, clearly call for all congressional and legislative lines to be redrawn every 10 years so that each district has the same number of people. Thus, every man, woman and child has the same equal representation in congress and the legislature. That is why the census is taken every 10 years.

Our 1901 Alabama Constitution mirrors this mandate. However, Alabama ignored this basic law of the land for 70 years. Between 1901 and 1974 Alabama brazenly ignored this most basic tenet of American democracy. What is totally amazing is that over these 70 years nobody challenged Alabama in court. You could have written a simple one paragraph brief on a paper napkin and any court in the land would have ruled that Alabama was in blatant violation of the U.S. and its own 1901 Constitution.

It is well known and documented that the 1901 Constitution was written to disfranchise African Americans. However, most astute political historians know that it was also covertly intended to disfranchise poor whites as well. Deals were cut during the Constitutional Convention to give South Alabama Black Belt counties advantageous districts. However, the disparity became so pronounced over 50 years that the state legislative districts were so out of sync with the population that it was not only undemocratic and unfair the districts were so grossly aligned that they were comical. For example, a county in North Alabama, like Marshall, would have 100,000 people and one representative while a Black Belt county like Lowndes would have 15,000 people and two representatives.

As a 12 year old page I could see the unbelievable malapportionment when I observed the floor of the House. It was really incredible. One day I looked across the Chamber and watched a vote developing. The debate was a fight between Montgomery and fast growing Madison County, the home of Huntsville and the Redstone Arsenal. The census figures had just come out and it appeared that Huntsville had overgrown Montgomery in population and had become the third most populous county in the state.

Our county car tags are numbered based on alphabetical order with Autauga being first. However, Autauga does not get number one, it gets to be number four because the first three places are reserved for the three largest counties. Therefore, Jefferson is number one, Mobile is number two and Montgomery is number three. Well, Madison wanted their rightful place and wanted their tags to begin with number three instead of their alphabetical number 47 but they lost that vote, which they rightfully should have won. Why? Because, as always, they were counted out by the South Alabama Black Belt counties who sided with their Black Belt neighbor, Montgomery.

After that vote the bizarre unfairness of this situation sunk in. My cursory observation of the scenario brought it home. At the turn of the century in 1901 Huntsville was a sleepy cotton town with 12,000 people and Madison County had about 25,000 folks. At that time my hometown of Troy was identical to Huntsville. Troy had 12,000 people and the County of Pike was 25,000. On the day of that vote Huntsville and Madison County had grown to 250,000 people. Pike County still had 25,000. Folks get this, Huntsville and Madison County had two representatives and we in Pike County also had two representatives. That is why the good people of North Alabama had been getting the short end of the stick on a lot more substantive issues than the number on their car tag.

It amazes me that it took 70 years for the federal courts to get involved. In the early 1970’s the courts redrew the lines because the disregard for the Constitution discriminated against African Americans. It could very well be argued that white North Alabamians were more discriminated against than African Americans. Big Jim Folsom preached about this issue for over two decades in the hills and hollows of the Tennessee Valley. His cry was finally heard and resolved by the federal courts 40 years ago.

See you next week.

About the author: Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears weekly in 72 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. He may be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.