I paid 118 percent on a payday loan. The administration is canceling efforts to rein them in.

  There was a moment in my life when it felt as if everything that could go wrong went wrong — and all at the same time.

  I had just started a new job. My household went from two incomes to just one, and we were definitely starting to feel it. The mortgage was due, all of the regular household bills and responsibilities were still there, and my son still needed money to cover school and sports expenses.

  I managed to use the remainder of my savings to pay for everything, but I was still $500 short for my mortgage payment. I was stressed out, trying my best to make ends meet and keep some normalcy in my son’s life. I knew I had a paycheck coming, but it would not arrive in time to avoid all of the late fees and the credit hit for being 30 days late on my mortgage.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1656 - Come with me as I participate in the 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee!

  Come with me. Come with me as I participate in the 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, Alabama. I will not go into the months of preparation. I will not share the behind-the-scenes developments. I will just start with the first day of the 2019 Bridge Crossing Jubilee. Come with me vicariously as I participate in the 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

  Jubilee is comprised of so many events I cannot possibly participate in all or most, or half or even a quarter of these 40-50 events. You are now vicariously experiencing some of my participation.

National-security statism and North Korea’s nukes

  The Pentagon and the CIA and their policy of foreign interventionism are the root cause of the nuclear crisis with North Korea.

  Keep in mind that we are talking about one country, Korea, which was artificially divided into two halves, North Korea and South Korea. Therefore, the war that ultimately broke out between North Korea and South Korea was actually nothing more than a civil war, one in which the North was trying to reunite the country under communist rule and in which the South was trying to retain its independence.

'If I’d been white, I guarantee you they wouldn’t have taken my money'

  “The robber didn’t get anything, but the police got everything.”

  That’s what Isiah Kinloch told The Greenville News during its investigation into civil asset forfeiture in South Carolina.

  Kinloch fought off a home intruder, sustaining head injuries that put him in the hospital. He called 911, and when North Charleston police arrived at his apartment, they found an ounce of marijuana, charged him with possession with intent to distribute, and seized the $1,800 in cash they found in his apartment.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - State revenues up as legislature prepares for session

  The governor has been inaugurated and the Alabama Legislature has had its organizational session. The quadrennium has begun. It is time for our state officials to get to work.

  Among the three branches of government, legislative, executive and judicial, our 1901 Alabama Constitution renders our legislative branch as the most powerful.

How one tribe is fighting for their food culture in the face of climate change

  As in many tribal communities, the Swinomish relationship with the environment is complex. The Northwest coastal tribe not only uses the land for food, medicine, and material goods, but many cultural traditions like ceremonies are land-based.

  The federal government has long attempted to sever tribes from the land — their source of knowledge, culture, and health. Through war and forced relocation, tribes were physically removed. Policies such as the 1887 General Allotment Act forced many to adopt sedentary lifestyles and use Western agricultural techniques. And contemporary legal restrictions on centuries-old fishing, hunting, and gathering techniques mean that tribes are still limited in how they can gather foods and medicines.

Gas tax increase should be ‘Even Steven’ – raise one tax, lower another

  Can Alabamians support raising our gas tax for better roads while remaining true to our belief in limited government and protecting a beneficial, low-tax environment for our businesses, our families, and our future?

  Yes … if taxes are lowered elsewhere so that the overall amount of money taken from the people doesn’t increase.

  The concept is called “revenue neutral tax reform.” It essentially means that if Alabama raises one tax by $100 million next year, then it should have a comparable decrease in something else.

We should be building great schools, not great prisons

  Earlier this month, Gov. Kay Ivey announced her plan to spend almost a billion dollars of taxpayer money to build three new prisons for men (there will be no new prisons for women, even though it was the conditions at the women’s prison in Elmore County that started the whole prison debate).

  There’s no question that the hard-working men and women who staff and run our prison system deserve to have a safe and proper work environment (they also deserve to be paid a whole lot more than they are, and deserve some help in the form of more corrections officers and healthcare staff).

  But I question any state leader who would choose to spend a billion dollars on prisons instead of education.

The legal loophole that lets companies like Doordash steal tips

  Popular courier services such as Instacart, Doordash, and Amazon Fresh have been making headlines recently with the news that they’re meeting minimum pay promises to drivers by cutting compensation and using tips to make up the difference. In other words, customers were tipping under the impression that drivers got tips on top of the delivery fee earned per trip, but instead, the companies subtracted the value of those “tips” from the payments that they had promised to workers — saving the company money but cheating drivers. (Under pressure, Instacart recently reversed its policy.)

  Why can these companies get away with such behavior, especially in states like Washington where the tipped minimum wage is illegal? The answer is that these workers aren’t employees. They’re independent contractors, and labor law for independent contractors is very different than it is for employees. As self-employed workers, they are entitled to fewer protections, but also, in theory, have a greater degree of freedom and control.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1654 - A 400-year sojourn of continuous struggle

  The year 1619 does not mean much to most Americans. For those who understand the significance of 1619, it was the beginning of a journey of 400 years of continuous struggle for Africans in America. It is now 2019, and the struggle continues and continues and continues.

  It was in 1619 that 350 Africans were stolen from the continent of Africa, likely in the area of what is now Angola. They were intended to be taken to Mexico on a slave ship named Bautista. Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, the ship was robbed by pirates. A number of enslaved Africans were stolen from Bautista. Of the 350 Africans who left the West Coast of Africa, 147 arrived in Mexico. More than 20 arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. Many died in what was known as the Middle Passage.