The Obama administration’s renewed workforce investment in Kentucky

  The Obama administration recently took an important step in confronting the challenges of a rapidly changing national energy landscape by helping Kentucky coal miners navigate the country’s ongoing energy transition. On June 4, the U.S. Department of Labor, with strong bipartisan support, announced that it is committing $7.5 million in National Emergency Grant, or NEG, funding for re-employment assistance for Kentucky workers affected by coal-mining layoffs.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: On to the runoff

  The big news out of last week’s political primaries is that there was no news. The results of every race came down almost precisely as was predicted.

  The prevailing hypothesis among experts that there would be a low voter turnout was fulfilled. The turnout was around 20% statewide, as was expected. The reason for the sparse voter participation was because there was very little reason to go vote. Most of the major statewide and constitutional races were decided before the first vote was cast.

Clay Calvert: Still risky for citizens to video police – even in public places

  Let’s start with a trio of foundational assumptions that affect us all as citizens and citizen journalists.

  First, when people are situated in public venues, such as parks, streets or sidewalks, they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. What they do in those common locations thus is fair game for anyone else to witness and, in turn, to photograph and record.

  Second, police officers and law enforcement officials are public servants and government employees. They work for us – the taxpayers – and their actions are not only of public interest, but also of public concern.

Adam Hersh: Economy’s new jobs strain to deliver middle-class wages

  Employment growth continued on its too-slow-but-steady trend in May, when U.S. employers added 217,000 jobs, according to new data released this week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. The headline unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.3 percent.

  May marks the first time that the U.S. labor market surpassed its pre-recession level of employment—last seen in December 2007—making this the longest march to employment recovery in the postwar era. Over the past year, job growth averaged 198,000 new jobs per month, according to BLS data. While the economy continues adding jobs, these new jobs are too few to deal with the deep problem of unemployment and too often fail to deliver middle-class wages.

Michael Josephson: There’s no such thing as business ethics

  Some years ago, a senior executive at a Fortune 100 company objected when I asserted that corporations have an ethical, as well as a legal obligation to keep promises and honor their contracts. He said that the decision to live up to or ignore contractual commitments is a business decision, not an ethical one. The other party has legal remedies, he said, and therefore responsible managers have a duty to evaluate whether it’s in the company’s best interest to honor or breach contracts. The decision should be based on a simple cost/benefit analysis. Ethics has nothing to do with it.

David L. Hudson, Jr.: Qualified immunity protects Secret Service agents

  A recent unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of two Secret Service agents shows the power of the qualified-immunity doctrine.

  The high court ruled in Wood v. Moss that the agents were entitled to qualified immunity when they moved protesters an additional block further away than supporters of former President George W. Bush were allowed to gather in Jacksonville, Ore., in October 2004.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: 1964 election is still reverberating in Alabama

  You know the results of Tuesday’s primary elections. However, my column had to go to press prior to Tuesday’s vote. Therefore, we will discuss and analyze the outcome next week.

  It is doubtful that there were any surprises. Gov. Robert Bentley more than likely waltzed to the GOP nomination. He will probably face Parker Griffith in this fall’s general election. Ironically, both Griffith and Bentley are 72-year-old retired physicians. It is not likely that such a matchup has ever occurred in an Alabama governor’s race.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1408: Vantage points from behind-the-scenes in elections

  What really goes on behind the scenes in elections? We see signs on the roads. We see ads on television. We hear ads on the radio. We see candidates at forums, at meetings and sometimes in our neighborhoods. None of these actions tell us what really goes on behind the scenes in elections.

  With this primary election coming to a conclusion as this Sketches is published, I thought it might be worthwhile to peek behind the scenes at a few election issues. This is not about the race I just concluded or my previous races. It is a collection of experiences shared and information gathered over 42 years.

Charles C. Haynes: In higher education, low tolerance for free speech

  Daniel Harper, a student at Cameron University in Oklahoma, is the latest victim of the censorship pandemic currently infecting America’s colleges and universities.

  Earlier this semester, Harper handed out flyers expressing his religious objections to the World Mission Society, a religious group active on Cameron’s campus. Harper, an evangelical Christian, believes the group is a dangerous cult.

Michael Josephson: A call for more civility

  When George Washington was 16, he discovered a booklet of 110 maxims describing how a well-mannered person should behave. He was so convinced that these maxims would help him become a better person that he set out to incorporate them into his daily living. Among Washington’s many virtues, his commitment to civility marked him as a gentleman and helped him become a universally respected and enormously effective leader.