Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Bentley’s poll numbers and the approaching storm

  In a recent reliable poll Alabamians expressed overwhelming satisfaction with the job that our doctor governor is doing.

  The poll done by the Capital Survey Research Center revealed that a whopping two-thirds of Alabama voters approve of Gov. Robert Bentley’s job performance. When asked for their impression of Bentley, 63% of the surveyed voters reacted favorably to his performance, 20% were unfavorable and 17% were neutral or did not recognize the governor’s name.

  These are pretty good numbers for an incumbent governor one and a half years into his four year tenure in office. Such favorable approval ratings bode well for his reelection possibilities in 2014.

Cameron Smith: Obamacare options for Alabama

  As Alabama and the nation continue to process the Supreme Court's June 28th opinion on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), most of the talk has revolved around the preservation of the individual mandate, albeit in the Court's reformulation as a tax.

  But the Court's holding leaves Alabamians with two important decisions to make: Should the state expand Medicaid under the PPACA and should the state set up its own PPACA-compliant health insurance exchange?

  In the PPACA opinion, seven Justices placed a significant restriction on the coercive power of federal spending by striking down the ability of the federal government to condition all Medicaid funding on a state's willingness to expand Medicaid coverage under the PPACA. As a result, Alabamians are asked to balance expanding Medicaid to include an additional 351,000 to 456,000 citizens against the reality of scarcely being able to fund existing Medicaid obligations.

Ian M. MacIsaac: Former FBI Director's report on Penn State scandal shows evidence of cover-up by Paterno, others

  Multiple officials at Pennsylvania State University, including university president Graham Spanier and longtime coach Joe Paterno, exhibited "total disregard for the safety and welfare of... [the] child victims" of retired defensive coach and child rapist Jerry Sandusky, according to a report released on Thursday.

  Authored by former FBI director Louis Freeh, who spent the last seven months investigating the case on behalf of the Pennsylvania state attorney general's office, the report alleges serious misconduct by those in the university administration concerning their handling of the allegations, as early as 1998, that Sandusky was committing sexual acts against children in Penn State football facilities.

  The four men damned in the report--President Spanier, Coach Paterno, Spanier's Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley--professed limited to nonexistent knowledge of Sandusky's indiscretions when the scandal blew up toward the end of last year.

Sheldon Richman: Government shows itself impotent on economy

  It should finally have dawned on the American people that the politicians who presume to guide the economy have no bloody idea what they’re doing. We’re long past the time when knowledge of economics was required to see that the government is impotent when it comes to creating economic recovery. If you want evidence of that impotence, just look around.

  Governments are very good at creating recessions and at impeding recovery. That is the limit of their powers. If you expect something constructive, you’ll be disappointed. Politicians from President Obama on down will promise the moon, but they will deliver only worthless rocks. They will blame everything and everyone for their failures, but their inability to succeed has one source only: the political process — which is founded on force, not peaceful economic cooperation — is singularly inappropriate for creating prosperity.

Gadi Dechter: Call it a penalty, call it a fine, don’t call it a tax

  Having lost their Supreme Court fight against the Affordable Care Act, opponents of health care reform have in recent days been attacking the individual mandate provision of the law as a “tax” on the middle class. This line of reasoning only makes sense if you think penalties for littering, speeding, or engaging in other irresponsible behavior are also “taxes.”

  Yes, it’s true that conservative Chief Justice John Roberts used a tax rationale when upholding the constitutionality of the individual mandate—and the entire law—last week. But Roberts was making a technical argument and using the word “tax” in a way that really only makes sense in an arcane legal context.

  First, some background: The health care law’s so-called “individual mandate” provision requires people who can afford to buy health insurance to do so, and when it’s phased in, it will assess a penalty of up to 2.5 percent of household income on those who don’t. That’s only fair, since the health care costs of the uninsured are borne by the rest of us.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Is Rubio the ticket?

  Most of our modern presidents have been given two terms. The mindset of not changing horses mid-stream prevails. One of the glaring exceptions was the 1992 upset of George Bush, Sr. by Bill Clinton. It was the economy that caused Bush’s demise, not his underachievement. The economic state of the nation drives the vote of most Americans for the presidency.

  When Bill Clinton set sail to derail Bush’s quest for a second term it was well known that he had two pronounced problems. First of all, it was common knowledge in political circles that he had a bimbo problem. As Governor of Arkansas he allegedly had innumerable extramarital affairs. Most of these dalliances were with unsavory women who were likely to kiss and tell. His unbridled and insatiable sexual appetite was likely to continue as he moved into even greener pastures on the national campaign stage.

Ian M. MacIsaac: Mitt's mysterious money: The growing controversy around Governor Romney's shadowy finances

  Mitt Romney loves his money. He loves it so much he does not want to pay taxes on it, keep it in the United States where it might be monitored by the IRS, or even allow the public to know how much of it he has (estimates hover around $250 million).

  He refused to release his tax returns during the 2008 campaign, and released them this time around only after being politically hammered into doing so by his fellow Republican candidates, namely Rick Santorum.

  And, despite having officially retired from the business world in 1999, Romney still makes a heaping pile: $42.5 million in income in 2010-2011, with taxes of only $6.2 million--below 15 percent taxation, just over half of the overall rate paid by the average American.

Kia Smythe: Online study and the loneliness of the long distance freshman

  The ever increasing availability and power of home computing and the internet means that 31% of all higher education students in the U.S. now take at least one course online. Whilst the growth rate for online enrollments may have recently slowed a little, it still far exceeds the growth of the overall higher education student population. These trends mean that 65% of all higher education institutes include online learning as a fundamental part of their long term strategies.

  Despite this, there is a vocal minority of academic leaders concerned that the quality of online instruction simply does not measure up to equivalent courses delivered face-to-face in traditional bricks-and-mortar colleges. Overall, academics’ opinions on the respective quality of learning outcomes from traditional versus online tuition appear to be rather subjective – influenced more by whether or not their particular institution offers online programs, rather than on any hard evidence of lower attainment or standards of the online cohort.

  The simple fact of the matter is that online tuition is both here to stay and will continue to expand; driven as much by economics as by any other single factor.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Back in '78

  Recently a good friend and reader asked me about one of Alabama’s most interesting governor’s races. The 1978 gubernatorial contest was truly one of the best. My friend was curious as to where all the players on the 1978 stage are today.

  The 1978 race was a classic upset contest. In fact, it may very well be one of the most epic and stunning surprise outcomes in the annals of Alabama political history.

  It was assumed that the iconic career of the legendary George Wallace was coming to an end as he was leaving the governor’s office that he had owned for close to two decades. He would prove the pundits wrong four years later when he came back for one last hurrah in 1982.

Gene Policinski: What was right about high court’s Montana ruling

  Amid the flap over what was supposedly wrong the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week to throw out Montana’s 100-year-old campaign-spending limits, can we take a moment to consider what was right about it?

  The Court held 5-4 that Montana may not continue to limit what corporations and unions may spend in support of or opposition to a political candidate. Some are calling the ruling “Citizen’s United 2,” in a nod to the landmark Citizens United v. FEC decision that dumped such limits for federal elections. That 2010 ruling said it was a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech to restrict such spending.