The Trump administration’s two-pronged assault on public health

  The 115th Congress and the Trump administration have already set their sights on gutting the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other cornerstone protections that ensure that our air is safe to breathe and our water safe to drink. They have promised to get rid of pollution limits for power plants instead of shifting to clean energy and nullify pollution limits for oil and gas drilling—as they also promise to drill anywhere and everywhere. These actions alone would greatly endanger public health and environmental quality. If that was not enough, however, congressional Republicans and the administration are also set on eliminating health insurance coverage for millions of Americans. This extreme rollback of federal regulations and services would allow more pollution, affect public health, and, at the same time, remove health care options for treatment when people get sick.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1548: The time is upon us!

  The time is upon us. It comes every year like clockwork. It commenced February 7, 2017 this year. It will go until mid-May. The obstacle will be great. The challenges will be gigantic. The results will fall short. It’s the 2017 Alabama Regular Legislative Session.

  Even after 33 years, I can’t tell you all or most of the issues that will come before the 2017 Alabama Legislative Session. I can tell you two for certain. I can tell you others with a great degree of certainty. I can predict others, but predictions are worth very little in this legislative narrative. It’s the 2017 Legislative Session.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: The looming dark cloud of Medicaid

  As the third regular session of this quadrennium begins, the paramount focus once again will be on the budgets. Even more specifically, it will be about the General Fund Budget.

  Alabama is one of five states that has two budgets. Our Education Budget now receives over two-thirds of our tax revenue due to the fact that our growth taxes, income and sales, are earmarked for Education’s coffers, whereas our General Fund gets the remaining one-third of revenue and that will continue to shrink because it has no growth taxes.

Charles C. Haynes: “A shameful day”

  On Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily halting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, suspending the refugee program and permanently imposing a religious test for refugees going forward.

  Jen Smyers of Church World Service spoke for many people of faith working on behalf of refugees when she called Jan. 27 “a shameful day” in the history of the United States.

  Numerous national security experts and diplomats — including more than 1,000 State Department officials — have also spoken out, warning that the order is wrongheaded and dangerous. The optics of an American policy that appears to target Muslims seriously tarnishes the reputation of the U.S. in Muslim-majority countries and throughout the world.

Craig Ford: My hope for the future of Alabama and the Democratic Party

  For the last six years, it has been my privilege to serve as Minority Leader in the Alabama House of Representatives. On Wednesday, I will step down and a new leader will be elected.

  While I will continue to serve in the legislature and represent the great people of Etowah County, I would like to share my outgoing thoughts on our state and the Democratic Party.

  One thing that seems to be clear after six years of the current supermajority is that their policies aren’t working for regular people in Alabama.

  Alabama’s unemployment rate continues to be well above the national average, and our public school system has lost millions of dollars to charter schools and the Accountability Act since the Republican supermajority took over in 2010.

Will Tucker and Cassie Miller: Systematic voter suppression — not 'voter fraud' — is the real cause for concern

  President Trump last week resurrected a big lie from the campaign trail, claiming that he lost the popular vote because as many as 5 million people voted illegally – all for his opponent.

  He offered no evidence. There is none. In fact, studies show conclusively that voter fraud is exceedingly rare.

  At best, Trump’s search for phantom voter fraud is a distraction from the very real voter suppression efforts carried out systematically by his own party – and from the recent, high-profile federal court decisions striking down those laws.

  At worst, it’s a precursor to a renewed push to suppress voting.

Gene Policinski: Wrong. Good idea – if it works both ways. Missed the point

  In order: Wrong. Good idea — if it works both ways. Missed the point. And, wrong.

  Trump administration senior advisers Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway each vented — again — against “the media” in the midst of a turbulent week. Their comments are worth parsing.

  Bannon, not long departed from the perpetually vocal, ultra-conservative Breitbart News online site, said on Jan. 25 that “the media should … keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.” In that rare news interview, he also called the news media “the opposition.”

  And then there’s Conway, complaining to “Fox News Sunday” on Jan. 29 that “Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go….”

Deregulation Nation: Congress wants to let corporations take charge

  The new congressional session is still in early days, but members have wasted no time laying the groundwork to give Congress and the courts unprecedented power to vitiate critical federal regulations and prevent new rule-making. This push is in line with President Donald Trump’s promise to cut 75 percent of government regulations, but it goes against the wishes of Americans, a majority of whom oppose lifting regulations on businesses and corporations.

  Yet on January 4, the House passed the first in a suite of legislative actions to this end: the so-called Midnight Rules Relief Act, which expands an existing law giving Congress the power to review and disapprove recent agency regulations. The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, or REINS, Act, and Regulatory Accountability Act, or RAA, which create new mechanisms for blocking new rule-making and overturning well-established rules, followed days later.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: What's next for gaming in Alabama?

  During the past couple of months, everywhere I go people continually ask me why in the world the Alabama Legislature could not simply put the issue of whether they could vote for or against a lottery on the November ballot.

  The fact that this inquiry has lingered for this long tells me that folks are upset about this travesty. They are angry at the legislature. The blame, however, lies with the governor.

  Indeed, the legislature met in a special session to address this issue of whether or not to put the lottery proposal on the ballot and let the people vote on this lingering issue. Most polls indicate that the good people of Alabama would vote in favor of it, provided that there are no sweetheart deals, hidden chicanery or favoritism in the proposal.

Our Stand: Lay off our young people

  Monday evening we read the comments of many Montgomery-area Facebook users who unleashed a torrent of vile, misguided and utterly disgusting sentiments directed at young people who had organized and lead a symbolic demonstration at Montgomery Regional Airport. The demonstration was in opposition to President Trump's executive order banning travel from seven nations in the Middle East and indefinitely barring refugees from Syria from entering the United States.

  What troubled us most is that the target of the comments, which ranged from insults like "retard" to even accusing the participants of being aimless, unemployed and/or recipients of "government handouts," were in fact high-achieving students from the educational gem LAMP (Loveless Academic Magnet Program), home of some of Montgomery's best and brightest young people. Perhaps those hurling insults online were intimidated by these young people, and we were just witnessing their crippling insecurities bubbling up online.