Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: The charter schools trap

  In recent years, the Republican Party has taken control of the legislatures in all of the southern states. Alabama’s legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. The GOP holds a 25 to 9 majority in the Alabama Senate and an equally dominating 72 to 33 majority in the Alabama House of Representatives.

  Our supermajority GOP legislative body appeared to take on every conceivable ultraconservative reactionary issue during their first four year reign from 2011 to 2014. However, they forgot one - charter schools.

Michael Josephson: Coaching for character

  I’ve spent lots of time with some of the world’s most successful coaches. I discovered that many of them think about character a lot, especially traits that are important to winning – like self-discipline, perseverance, resiliency, and courage. They pay less attention to virtues like honesty, integrity, responsibility, compassion, respect, and fairness — aspects of character that make a good person, citizen, spouse, or parent.

Billy Corriher: Judicial elections make it impossible for Alabama judges to protect individual rights

  Alabama is the only state where the high court has defied a federal court to offer marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It is also the only state in which judges frequently override jury verdicts of life imprisonment to impose death sentences on convicts. It has become increasingly clear that what is happening in Alabama is the direct result of judicial elections.

  With the exception of Bolivia, the United States is the only other country in the world that elects its judges. This system ensures that judges are accountable to their constituents, but it also means that judges will face political pressure to rule in ways that please a majority of voters. A recent poll showed that only 32 percent of Alabama’s population supports marriage equality, and the state’s residents ardently support the death penalty. Alabama judges are keenly aware of these facts.

Charles C. Haynes: LGBT rights, religious freedom and the Utah miracle

  Whatever your faith or sexual orientation, what happened in Utah on March 12 should make you proud to be an American.

  That’s the day Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed into law groundbreaking legislation – Senate Bill 296 – protecting LGBT people from discrimination in housing and employment while also providing exemptions for religious institutions and protections for religious speech.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1450: Attacks on public education are mounting in Alabama

  Attacks on public education are mounting in Alabama. The attacks just keep coming. They come from different directions. They come in different forms. They come from different sources. The attacks on public education are mounting in Alabama.

  I personally know the power of public education. The public schools I attended were very separate and very unequal. However, without public education I would not have gone to school since my family of 15 was very poor (13 children, a mother and father). I certainly would not have graduated from high school or college or law school. I would not be serving in the Alabama Senate. I would not be writing this installment of Senate Sketches. Public education was one of the foundations of any success I may have achieved. The attacks on public education are mounting in Alabama.

Morris Dees: Fifty years later, we must rededicate ourselves to the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers' cause

  Fifty years ago today, I was standing near the steps of the Alabama Capitol when Dr. King spoke at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery March.

  It was a triumphant moment.

  The courage of those on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday had awakened the conscience of the nation and inspired people of good will from around the country to join in a great cause.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Can the doctor cure the General Fund?

  Our good doctor governor, Robert Bentley, has done a thorough physical exam on the state’s finances and his diagnosis is that the General Fund needs additional revenue. His Republican comrades in the legislature have been trying to starve the patient for the past four years. If the patient is an analogy to the state government, the approach over the past four years has been to put the patient on a rigid diet of starvation and bleeding to death in pretty much the same way that George Washington’s doctors did in his day. The patient according to basic tenets of medicine or government should weigh about 180 pounds. The legislature has starved the patient/government to 120 pounds of skin and bones.

Michael Conathan: Tracking seafood from bait to plate

  “Is this local?”

  This question, posed by consumers in restaurants and food markets across the country, has become a ubiquitous catchphrase. It even served as the subject of the very first sketch on IFC’s uber-hipster comedy series “Portlandia.” The bit focused on a cloying couple so concerned with the premortem welfare of the chicken offered on a bistro’s menu that they ditched dinner to ride out to the farm and check the bird’s paperwork.

Michael Josephson: Good karma

  I get lots of emails containing words of wisdom. I appreciate every one of them, but one time I got a real keeper. Here are 17 incredibly powerful observations attributed to the Dalai Lama worth posting on your bathroom mirror. Learn them and live them. They will improve your life.

1. Follow the three Rs: respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for your actions.

2. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

Senate Sketches #1449: How we made it over: 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday

  When our children’s children ask, “What mean ye these stones? You can tell them how you made it over." These are words from the Biblical Book of Joshua. They refer to the way the children of Israel miraculously crossed over the Jordan River on dry land to enter the Promised Land. I cite this passage to ask the question, “What mean ye these happenings at the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and the Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the 1965 Voting Rights Act?” I also want to tell how we made it over.