Different Day, Same Shit.

The above is a live stream of Texas Senator Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, several hours into a filibuster of SB 5, which would, if passed, prohibit abortions by law after 20 weeks of gestation.

SB 5 is also one of the most stringent restrictions on abortions and women's reproductive health, supported by fine folks like Republican state rep Jody Laubenberg. Let's see what Jody has to say about...rape kits:

Texas Rep. Jody Laubenberg (R) sponsored several anti-abortion measures currently making their way to the Governor’s desk. Taken together, they would shut down the vast majority of the state’s women’s health clinics and criminalize abortions after 20 weeks. But in reasoning out why she did not support an exemption for rape victims in the 20-week ban, Laubenberg betrayed a woeful lack of information on the procedures a victim of rape undergoes — namely, the “rape kit,” which is used to collect data on the assailant and in no way relates to pregnancy:

When Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, called for an exemption for women who were victims of rape and incest, Rep. Jody Laubenberg, R-Parker, explained why she felt it was unnecessary.

“In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out,” she said, comparing the procedure to an abortion. “The woman had five months to make that decision, at this point we are looking at a baby that is very far along in its development.”
The remark about rape kits, which is not accurate, sparked widespread ridicule on social media sites. Laubenberg, who has difficulty debating bills, then simply rejected all proposed changes to her bill without speaking until the end of the debate.

These are the kind of folks Sen. Davis has to fight against tonight. Wish her the best of luck.

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

James 3:5, King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Right about now, Alabama State Rep. Joe Mitchell of Mobile probably wishes he had exercised a bit of decorum, now that a comment of his has turned into kindling for opportunistic GOPers and the idiot masses. So what happened? I'll leave that to Redeye:

Let's recap. Retired coal miner and Jefferson County resident Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to all Alabama Legislators "warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law." Oh really?

Instead of ignoring Maxwell's email, or, sending out the standard thank your for contacting my office blah, blah, blab, blab auto reply, Rep. Mitchell chose to respond in the following manner;

"Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed (sic), imported criminal-minded kin folk."

He's speaking truth to power, no matter how many people would admit otherwise. Lots of people would dismiss the above as a wild, crazy outburst from a race card-waving black guy who needs to sit hisself down somewheres. But Rep. Mitchell's entitled to be as pissed as he wants - as far as I'm concerned, given the history of the Great State of Alabama and elsewhere in the Deep South and its collective track record for racial discrimination and wanton violence, he's earned that right and then some.

However, in an age where saying the wrong things could have a team of Breitbart's best ratfuckers gnaw through your image and reputation like field mice through Australian farmland, something like the above could cost you dearly. I imagine Rep. Mitchell's from the old school, where he's never had to deal with that kind of crap. Until now. He's already being cast as "eccentric," which is about a step and a half away from "crazy" and two from "insane."

Already is his outburst being equated with that of State Senator Scott Beason's "aborigine" remarks. Just part and parcel of the ongoing drive to prove that blacks can be just as racist as white folk. For a brief moment, whites can take refuge from the burning spotlight and show those blacks how it feels to be under scrutiny for racism, for once.

Saying the wrong things at the wrong time has its consequences, as an unnamed commissioner and then-manager Thomas Andrews of the Fulton County Department of Human Services shortly realized during a discrimination lawsuit launched by a former employee. Having fellow colleagues say that there were "too many white boys" on the staff was one of the things that cinched a settlement for the white ex-employee.

I doubt Rep. Mitchell will step down from his position, although state GOPers wouldn't mind one bit if he does. Just another slot for the Grand Old Party to slide a conservative candidate into. I also doubt his constituents would throw him under the bus like his own party is doing. It seems the Alabama Democratic Party is doing more than its fair share to ensure that Alabama remains a defacto one-party state under GOP dominance for decades to come.

H/T to Redeye for his continuing reports on the shenanigans going down back in my home state.

"It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.

"To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, OK?

"And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn't matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.

"If you don't keep that in balance, you're going to attract people who are not called, who don't need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance."

The above comes from Alabama state Senator Shadrack McGill (R). It's not every day you're confronted with a statement that is so irretrievably stupid that it takes the rest of the day just to wrap your mind around the sheer stupidity of it all.

For starters, I have yet to run into a passage in the Holy Bible that holds keeping teacher salaries at well below the national average as a "biblical principle." That's just something you won't see in the Old or New Testaments any time soon. McGill must have one of those custom-made Holy Bibles filled with "scripture" specially designed to justify the entire conservative philosophy.

Second, those who have a calling for teaching might initially go in without regard to how much they're being paid, but eventually their thoughts will turn towards keeping the lights on and the fridge stocked up. As this whole "calling" thing, sounds like McGill is mixing up teaching with preaching. The classroom is not a pulpit, the students are not church folk and there's no deacon walking around the room with a collection plate in hand.

Last but not least, sounding off a desire to keep teacher salaries as low as possible should be a red flag to just about anyone who is teaching or thinking of teaching in the state of Alabama. One of the things that brings the cream of the crop to the surface is a decent salary. Although the state has one of the highest starting salaries in the nation, the average salary is well below the national median. Depressing those salaries won't bring in the best and brightest, because the best and brightest want to be paid a decent salary that is commensurate to what they're worth and if they have to go outside the state to be paid well, then that's exactly what will happen. The idea that great teachers have to sacrifice their salaries and livelihoods just to do the job they love is quite nonsensical and patently stupid.

Meanwhile, McGill believes that such sacrifices should not extend to the legislature:

McGill, R-Woodville, said a 62 percent pay raise in 2007 - passed first by a controversial voice vote and later in an override of a veto by then-Gov. Bob Riley - better rewards lawmakers and makes them less susceptible to being swayed by lobbyists.
Lawmakers entered the 2007 legislative session making $30,710 a year, a rate that had not been changed in 16 years. The raise increased it to $49,500 annually.

McGill said that by paying legislators more, they're less susceptible to taking bribes.

I doubt that. No politician who's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and perks is going to suddenly give that up over a nearly $20k annual pay raise. That's just extra change dug out from underneath the couch for those guys, on top of the kickbacks and gifts they'll continue to receive. It's interesting how McGill is willing to give legislators such as himself a larger paycheck, yet he's adamant about keeping teacher salaries as low as possible.

I suppose the end game of all this is to keep teacher salaries depressed to the point at which no one in their right mind would want to take up the job (at least in that state) for a living. This will be one of the many sources of justification for pushing ahead with the idea of charter schools as a replacement for the "failed" public education system, a system that is currently being driven into failure thanks to a number of factors, with underfunding being one of them. If you take a close look at most school systems in Alabama, you'll notice how inflated the salaries of the administration are in comparison to the faculty and staff within the schools themselves. That might not bother someone who approaches the issue of public education with a business mindset - after all, the CEO and other execs have to be "well-compensated" in order to perform a good job.

Looking at education from a business perspective also demands that the guys on the ground floor - the teachers and support staff - be paid as little as possible to preserve the bottom line. That's something that Casey Wardynski is introducing to Huntsville City Schools with "Teach For America." Instead of having qualified teachers with hundreds of hours in traditional training and years of experience in connecting with and motivating students, HCS students will be taught by fresh-faced college graduates who have relatively little experience. While the strong push for "Teach For America" is just Wardynski's way of making sure the Broad Foundation gets a return on their investment, a cunning politician can seize on TFA as being a backdoor for dumping qualified and experienced teachers in favor of what will eventually amount to as "temp workers." There is a certain allure towards paying teachers fry-cook wages, on the mistaken believe that they don't do much of anything aside from sit on their asses and babysit kids all day.

Perhaps McGill should borrow a proper copy of the Holy Bible and spend the next few days going over it from cover to cover, preferably with a good minister who'll guide him through the text. That should help him separate genuine biblical principles from the principles he's conjured up in his head.

Unemployment going down in Alabama! Why is this? Illegal Immigrants are leaving and Americans are getting their jobs. Amazing how law and order works. I wish the Democrats could understand this simple concept!

This is the meme conservatives tout when exhorting how well Alabama's immigration law is "working." The above relies on a non-understanding of how unemployment rates are counted and the suggestion that Americans are grabbing onto these jobs for dear life.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The basic concepts involved in identifying the employed and unemployed are quite simple:

• People with jobs are employed.
• People who are jobless, looking for jobs, and available for work are unemployed.
• People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force.

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Actively looking for work may consist of any of the following activities:

Contacting:

• An employer directly or having a job interview
• A public or private employment agency
• Friends or relatives
• A school or university employment center
• Sending out resumes or filling out applications
• Placing or answering advertisements
• Checking union or professional registers
• Some other means of active job search

Passive methods of job search do not have the potential to result in a job offer and therefore do not qualify as active job search methods. Examples of passive methods include attending a job training program or course, or merely reading about job openings that are posted in newspapers or on the Internet.

Workers expecting to be recalled from temporary layoff are counted as unemployed, whether or not they have engaged in a specific jobseeking activity. In all other cases, the individual must have been engaged in at least one active job search activity in the 4 weeks preceding the interview and be available for work (except for temporary illness).

A decrease in unemployment rates does not mean that more people have found work. To wit, if a person simply stops any and all efforts to look for a job, they're not counted as a person looking for employment and are therefore not counted in the statistics. Neither is a person who moved to another state seeking employment. As far as those who do become employed, those who became self-employed or found some form of freelance work may not be counted in the stats.

Plenty of illegal immigrants have packed their bags and moved out, leaving the jobs they used to work open and available for the taking by legal American citizens. But those folks aren't picking up those jobs, most of which happen to be laborious, backbreaking farm and production plant jobs, jobs that most Americans are woefully out of condition for and not desperate enough to take.

Conservatives believe that ordinary Americans are falling all over themselves to fill in the jobs left behind by their illegal immigrant counterparts. This may shed some light on why Americans aren't as enthusiastic about the new openings as conservatives believe they are:

On a sunny October afternoon, Juan Castro leans over the back of a pickup truck parked in the middle of a field at Ellen Jenkins’s farm in northern Alabama. He sorts tomatoes rapidly into buckets by color and ripeness. Behind him his crew—his father, his cousin, and some friends—move expertly through the rows of plants that stretch out for acres in all directions, barely looking up as they pull the last tomatoes of the season off the tangled vines and place them in baskets. Since heading into the fields at 7 a.m., they haven’t stopped for more than the few seconds it takes to swig some water. They’ll work until 6 p.m., earning $2 for each 25-pound basket they fill. The men figure they’ll take home around $60 apiece.

Most Americans believe themselves to be far more valuable in regards to labor than $60 for 11 hours of work, or $7.50 to $9.00/hr. They have families to support and unlike illegal immigrants, not enough family members in the home able or willing to commit 95% of their time spent to working minimum-wage jobs. At least when the illegal immigrants go home, they'll live very comfortable lives on the U.S. dollars they brought with them (provided they aren't robbed, harassed or killed by one of the many cartel groups prevalent in most areas of Mexico and other Central American nations). Meanwhile, Americans remain mired in a knee-deep morass of debt, with no way of pulling themselves out anytime soon.

The men lean against the car, smoking cigarettes and trying to figure out how to finish the job before day’s end. “They gotta come up with a better pay system,” says Rayford. “This ain’t no easy work. If you need somebody to do this type of work, you gotta be payin’. If they was paying by the hour, motherf—–s would work overtime, so you’d know what you’re working for.” He starts to pace around the car. “I could just work at McDonald’s (MCD),” he says.

Now there's an idea. Raising the pay would be a worthwhile incentive to most folk who wouldn't touch these jobs with a ten-foot pole. Most employers won't do this because it will eat into their bottom lines. Others aren't able to do it, since they're already operating on bleeding-edge margins:

Rhodes says he understands why Americans aren’t jumping at the chance to slice up catfish for minimum wage. He just doesn’t know what he can do about it. “I’m sorry, but I can’t pay those kids $13 an hour,” he says. Although the Uniontown plant, which processes about 850,000 pounds of fish a week, is the largest in Alabama and sells to big supermarket chains including Food Lion, Harris Teeter, and Sam’s Club (WMT), Rhodes says overseas competitors, which pay employees even lower wages, are squeezing the industry.

Conservatives just don't realize that people won't go for just any job because it happens to be there. A job that entails backbreaking, monotonous work for 12 hours or more per day won't be filled unless it pays a wage that working people can support themselves and their families on. They won't put themselves at risk for developing arthritis, joint pains, back trouble and other health problems unless they know they're getting a working wage that will hopefully compensate them for putting so much wear and tear on their bodies. And a bit of health insurance wouldn't hurt, either. This was why unions came to be in the first place.

I suspect most conservatives already have jobs -- salaried ones that trend towards the six figures. They already got theirs, and they're scratching their heads over why their poorer fellow Americans won't just shut up and take whatever's given to them. They have no concept of how hard most of these agricultural and factory processing jobs are. No concept of standing on one's feet for 12 hours a day, up to six days a week if necessary, for wages that barely support a single person, let alone a family of four.

Individual states are grabbing the issue of illegal immigration by the balls because they feel the federal government isn't doing enough to enforce immigration statues. Perhaps President Obama would do good to find a way to put immigration law back under the purview of the federal government before states like Alabama hurt themselves further.

"UAB is a national and world leader in many fields," St. John wrote. "The hospital and medical school are points of pride for everyone in our state. But in the last 10 years UAB has faced increasing challenges. In health research funding, UAB's national ranking has declined significantly over the last 10 years. The cancer and cardiology programs are no longer nationally ranked. Changes in health care funding will require intense focus and leadership to maintain the excellence we expect from UAB. I would hope that everyone who cares about UAB and the people it serves will encourage UAB to make these matters of crucial importance to its students and the state of Alabama its highest priority."

The above is University of Alabama System trustee Finis St. John telling the University of Alabama at Birmingham to stay in its lane. Nevermind that UAB wants its own on-campus stadium to expand and further support the Blazers football team. Or that UAB is financially well-positioned to fund its construction. Or the fact that Birmingham mayor William Bell supports the effort, as do the alumni, students and prominent business figures. No, UAB has its position to play, and the folks in Tuscaloosa will be damned if they left one of their offshoots do anything to take shine off the Crimson Tide football program.

This is about the egos lurking within the main Tuscaloosa campus wanting to be the end all/be all when it comes to college football. It's a huge and nasty turf battle that stands to stunt UAB's growth and lock it into an idea of what the T-Town trustees believe it should be instead of what it could be. It's bad enough that UAB only has minimal representation on the Board of Trustees, while UA-Huntsville appears as a mere afterthought.

There's always Legion Field.

A 70,000-seat stadium located miles away from the campus that's in desperate need of upgrading (or rebuilding, in my humble opinion). The Gray Lady's seen better days. In contrast, the new on-campus stadium features a more modest 30,000 seats and will most likely be better equipped than Legion Field.

If you build it, they still won't come.

Lack of use and lack of support, two arguments used for almost any city or county venture. It was the same talk used to discourage the city from building the infamous domed stadium. It's a general "why bother?" attitude that helps hold the city back and allows it to stagnate.

Meanwhile, other cities in the state are allowed to grow as they see fit. It's only the Birmingham/Jefferson County area that's bitch-slapped every time it decides to grow beyond adding a few new restaurants in the Highland/Five Points South area.

There are a lot of people out there who want to see the city of Birmingham crumble and have Tuscaloosa or Montgomery take its place. And there are a lot of people who want UAB to "play its position" and cease their silly notions of their silly football team who, mind you, is currently coached by a guy who only got his position because he was buddies with Paul "Bear" Bryant's son. And that guy has a losing streak that's a mile wide and a mile deep:

UAB fans and boosters have long felt that Alabama Trustees were not in favor of the decision to build a football program in 1996. That suspicion gained strength in 2007 when UAB began conducting a search to replace football coach Watson Brown. UAB likely could have hired one of the hottest young coaches in the country to run the program; then-LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher. A few influential UAB boosters proposed that they would assist with donations to help cover Fisher's $600,000 salary, but the Trustees stepped in and squashed the hire, claiming "financial considerations." On its face, that argument appeared bogus. Again, UAB supporters suspected that a few paranoid Trustees feared that UAB might wind up with a better coach than Alabama and that some members of the Board overstepped their boundaries and handpicked another coach, Neil Callaway, which has turned out to be a sub-standard hire.

The reception to Callaway's hire from UAB fans was cool—and with good reason. Five years later, Callaway's record is 16-41, and for 2011, his record is a disappointing 1-8.

He's a veritable dud. But that dud knows Junior, and Junior won't let him go anywhere. The Board of Trustees should stop playing Fiefdom Lords to the serfs in the UA system.

I've already covered one instance of fallout from Alabama's immigration law, also known as "HB 56" or "Scott Beason's Royal Cock-Up" in most circles. From what was reported, it seemed BBVA Compass was quietly making moves to pare down its investment and presence in Alabama to a minimum, thanks to this law.

And now there's this story.

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver's license with him under Alabama's new law targeting illegal immigrants, police said Friday.

Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said.

The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver's license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said.

It wasn't immediately known how long the man was in custody or the status of his court case.
The law -- parts of which were put on hold amid legal challenges -- requires that police check citizenship status during traffic stops and take anyone who doesn't have proper identification to a magistrate. Anderson said that's what was done, but someone in the same situation wouldn't have been arrested before the law took effect.

"If it were not for the immigration law, a person without a license in their possession wouldn't be arrested like this," he said. Previously, drivers who lacked licenses received a ticket and a court summons, according to Anderson.

Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman Felyicia Jerald said the man is from Germany and was visiting Alabama on business. The company's first U.S. assembly plant is located just east of Tuscaloosa.

"This was an unfortunate situation, but the incident was resolved when our colleague ... was able to provide his driver's license and other documents to Tuscaloosa police," Jerald said.

Even if this executive shrugs off this "Papiere, Bitte" moment, it's bound to leave a bad impression on the rest of the Daimler AG group. You can now expect them to have a heart-to-heart with the governor and key Alabama legislators over this little incident. Money talks, and when it does, politicians listen carefully.

Given how the good doctor is busy wooing automobile manufacturers to open shop in the Heart of Dixie, he might want to be careful in making sure HB 56 doesn't step on the wrong set of toes, if you catch my drift.

In late September, the SEC ended its case for disgorgement against former Birmingham mayor, former Jefferson County commission president and former Fairfield mayor Larry Langford, after the SEC discovered the only asset they could get as part of restitution was a 1/2-interest in his home. It's the only thing he has left, aside from a mess of debts stemming from criminal and civil penalties.

Langford is currently serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison, after being convicted of over 60 counts of bribery and corruption. Given his age (65) and how he won't be eligible to walk out of prison until at least 2023, it's a possibility that this man will die in prison. On the other hand, the two men convicted alongside him, investment banker Bill Blount and former lobbyist Al LaPierre, earned much lighter sentences. True, they plead guilty and Langford didn't, but the disparity in sentencing only raises the usual conclusions about racially-motivated "justice" in this country.

Most AL.com commentators have been chomping at the bit for Langford's demise and rolling around in his family's misery like happy pigs in slop. Blount and LaPierre never got this much bile thrown at them.

Larry Langford's story meshes neatly with the story of Jefferson County's staggering debt and how it was finally forced to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Rolling Stone magazine has a staggeringly comprehensive backstory on the entire saga, including what led Jefferson County to build a high-tech sewer system in the first place and how $250 million ballooned into over $4 billion in debt thanks to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and its three-card credit swap monte.

Langford, Blount, LaPierre and J.P. Morgan Chase banker Charles LeCroy were instrumental in driving Jefferson County further into debt. To summarize, LeCroy would pay Blount millions of dollars to help grease the lending skids with whoever was in charge of signing off those deals. Blount then feted then-county commissioner Langford (with LaPierre as a go-between) with what would eventually total over $240,000 in clothing and other gifts. Langford would then effectively steer business back towards Blount's investment firm when he signed off on the deals that would eventually land the county in the financial shithouse. This happened quite a lot.

And it kept happening until those bills came due.

For Jefferson County, the deal blew up in early 2008, when a dizzying array of penalties and other fine-print poison worked into the swap contracts started to kick in. The trouble began with the housing crash, which took down the insurance companies that had underwritten the county's bonds. That rendered the county's insurance worthless, triggering clauses in its swap contracts that required it to pay off more than $800 million of its debt in only four years, rather than 40. That, in turn, scared off private lenders, who were no longer ­interested in bidding on the county's bonds. The banks were forced to make up the difference — a service for which they charged enormous penalties. It was as if the county had missed a payment on its credit card and woke up the next morning to find its annual percentage rate jacked up to a million percent. Between 2008 and 2009, the annual payment on Jefferson County's debt jumped from $53 million to a whopping $636 million.

It gets worse. Remember the swap deal that Jefferson County did with JP Morgan, how the variable rates it got from the bank were supposed to match those it owed its bondholders? Well, they didn't. Most of the payments the county was receiving from JP Morgan were based on one set of interest rates (the London Interbank Exchange Rate), while the payments it owed to its bondholders followed a different set of rates (a municipal-bond index). Jefferson County was suddenly getting far less from JP Morgan, and owing tons more to bondholders. In other words, the bank and Bill Blount made tens of millions of dollars selling deals to local politicians that were not only completely defective, but blew the entire county to smithereens.

And here's the kicker. Last year, when Jefferson County, staggered by the weight of its penalties, was unable to make its swap payments to JP Morgan, the bank canceled the deal. That triggered one-time "termination fees" of — yes, you read this right — $647 million. That was money the county would owe no matter what happened with the rest of its debt, even if bondholders decided to forgive and forget every dime the county had borrowed. It was like the herpes simplex of loans — debt that does not go away, ever, for as long as you live. On a sewer project that was originally supposed to cost $250 million, the county now owed a total of $1.28 billion just in interest and fees on the debt. Imagine paying $250,000 a year on a car you purchased for $50,000, and that's roughly where Jefferson County stood at the end of last year.

Last November, the SEC charged JP Morgan with fraud and canceled the $647 million in termination fees. The bank agreed to pay a $25 million fine and fork over $50 million to assist displaced workers in Jefferson County. So far, the county has managed to avoid bankruptcy, but the sewer fiasco had downgraded its credit rating, triggering payments on other outstanding loans and pushing Birmingham toward the status of an African debtor state. For the next generation, the county will be in a constant fight to collect enough taxes just to pay off its debt, which now totals $4,800 per resident.

And to think this all started with a consent decree.

In 1996, the EPA ordered Jefferson County to revamp its aging sewer system after a lawsuit involving the Cahaba River Society. Something about keeping waste out of the rather fragile Cahaba River, which also served as a source of the city's drinking water. Instead of ordering the city to repair that particular problem, the EPA issued a mandate to eliminate all sewer outflows. That would require a damn-near brand-new sewer system designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible. So the city of Birmingham set out to build the new sewer system, to the tune of $250 million.

A $250 million estimate, turned into a $4 billion clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Meanwhile, whatever chance JeffCo had of paying that debt off ended when its occupation tax did, started in 2005, the 1-cent tax was the county's attempt to recoup some income from the hordes of suburban commuters from outside of the county who still worked in the Birmingham/Jefferson County area. After a fair bit of whining from the usual anti-tax forces, the occupation tax was rendered unconstitutional and struck down, leaving Jefferson County with little to no options for paying down its debt.

At some point, the sewer system fell under receivership and under control of John Young, state court-appointed and given the power to raise sewer rates as necessary. Second Front talks about how he endeared himself to the citizens of Jefferson County:

Since appointed, Young has become one of the least popular public figures in the sewer debacle, mostly because he has been paid $500 per hour for his services, even when giving interviews to the media or speaking to civic groups. Last week, the receiver’s total compensation exceeded $1 million. Also, Young has told the state court that a sewer rate increase of 25 percent would be appropriate for the creditors and affordable for most ratepayers.

In these economic times, seeing a guy get paid $500/hr to putz around with people's future sewer rates is a bit much to bear.

Two county commissions spent three years coming to an amicable agreement on how to repay the debt, but it fell through at the last minute:

Three of the commissioners interviewed by Reuters said the turning point came last Monday when creditors who include JPMorgan sent a document to commissioners outlining new settlement terms.

They said the new terms weren't what they thought they had negotiated and they spent two days combing through the document with lawyers before deciding that bankruptcy was a better alternative to accepting a revised deal.

Among the concerns, the creditors were insisting on being paid back $2.19 billion of the $3.14 billion debt, rather than the $2.05 billion the commissioners had expected. And the commissioners claim that the revisions meant an assistance program to help those on a low income pay higher sewerage rates would have to be shouldered by the county for 10 years.

"When I read the document that came back Monday my blood pressure shot up. I felt like everything was in favor of the creditors and nothing was in favor of the county," said Republican Commissioner Joe Knight.

The Commission President David Carrington, also a Republican, said he had been optimistic up until last Monday night. "When I left here (the commission offices) Monday night I thought we had an agreement. I felt good. But I got a call from one of our attorneys. It was about nine o'clock, saying there was these new revisions," he said.

"They had these conditions and those conditions are unacceptable. I knew it wasn't going to happen," he said.

In a last ditch effort, creditors urged governor Robert Bentley to call the state legislature to a special session:

In the wake of the tentative deal, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley promised to call a special session of the state legislature to consider a bill to allow the county to raise fresh funds to address a shortfall in its general fund that could, in itself, have led to bankruptcy.

Already, it has forced the county to cut jobs and services so that, to give one example, a long line snaked outside the courthouse early on Thursday morning of residents waiting to pay for their car tag renewal.

No session was called, however, and there appeared to be little appetite in the Republican-controlled legislature for any increase in taxes. The source said the county voted for bankruptcy mainly because that special session looked increasingly unlikely to happen.

When that didn't happen, Commission President David Carrington filed bankruptcy on behalf of the county and subsequently lost over $1 billion in concessions from creditors.

The fallout's been horrific. Langford, LaPierre and Blount were convicted and sentenced. The old county commission was seen as a bunch of corrupt assholes. The Jefferson County government had to furlough employees, shut down courthouse satellites and even stop county sheriffs deputies from responding to traffic accidents. Sewer customers will most likely see their rates rise by 25% and even higher in subsequent years. This municipal bankruptcy is the largest in recent history, after Orange County's $1.5 billion bankruptcy.

Now that the county's officially declared bankruptcy, the federal courts have stepped in to resolve the matter, first to determine if the county is actually eligible for bankruptcy and second to determine the best financial settlement terms possible for the county and its creditors. A bit of side drama is whether the sewer system remains under control of John Young or whether it defaults back under control of the county itself.

Lots of lives and livelihoods were devastated by the willingness of several entities to engage in greed, and it seems the only people who aren't paying for it are those under employ of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., although it was one of the institutions instrumental in causing the county's fiscal collapse.

BBVA Compass originally planned to build a new office tower in downtown Birmingham, as part of a plan to expand operations and relieve crowding conditions at the corporate headquarters in the Daniel Building. According to a Birmingham News report, it looks like that's not going to happen. Instead, BBVA Compass will spend $15 million on renovations on renovating and expanding its operations center east of Railroad Park.

This wouldn't be a noteworthy story to blog on DDSS, except for a few interesting comments from AL.com's comments section:

A good friend of mine was working on the project for quite some time. The real reason is that the leadership of BBVA in Spain saw the excessively harsh immigration laws of Alabama as bigotry against Spanish speaking immigrants. They were particularly disturbed by Sen. Beason's comments in the paper last Sunday... with him stating that the fact that immigrant families were being broken up were a sign that the "law was working".

Keep spewing your mindless drivel if you want, but I assure you, the blame for this one rests squarely on the shoulders of the leadership in Alabama. I forget... which party pushed for this immigration law that's causing all this damage?

I can vouch for this post. BBVA is now pouring resources into Houston and as a result of the immigration law in Alabama will continue to move more people over to Houston. Why would a Spanish speaking executive want to be viewed as a second class citizen in Alabama?

The building was cancelled because of the immigration bill and that's just beginning.

Thanks for the article Russell. It is likely Alabama's immigration law caused Birmingham to loose a major investment. I have heard a similar rumors.

It is time for the governor and other bill sponsors to "listen" to concerns. Last week, RSA chief executive David Bronner spoke with the Birmingham News about a group that cancelled their golfing trip to Alabama because of the law.

Has the Birmingham News contacted Mayor Bell or Gov. Bentley for comment?

BBVA has high rise building planned for multiple locations including Houston. Birmingham was on the list, but the immigration law killed that future investment. A lot more jobs are moving to Houston now and the Birmingham economy is going to hurt because of it.

If this is true, then the impact from HB 56 isn't just being limited to farms and small businesses. When multinational corporations take a dim view of your shenanigans and decide to scale back on in-state investments, that's a pretty big hint you'd have to take. The other shoe that'll drop behind this is BBVA Compass leaving Birmingham altogether in favor of Houston.

I expect the lawmakers in Alabama who supported HB 56 to stand by their convictions, right up to the moment when their own campaign funds and kickbacks become threatened as a consequence of HB 56.

When Alabama state senator Scott Beason and former representative Benjamin Lewis testified in the federal bingo corruption trial, they weren't doing so out of a sense of justice or the kindness of their own hearts. Instead, it turned out to be something a bit more insidious:

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in an order today lambasted two key prosecution witnesses in the State House vote-buying case as being motivated by political ambition and racial prejudice.

Thomson said Republicans Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale and former Rep. Benjamin Lewis of Dothan had ulterior motives when they assisted investigators in the case. Beason and Lewis were key prosecution witnesses in the case, in which VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor and others were charged with offering and taking bribes to try to get a gambling bill approved in the Alabama Legislature. The two Republicans said they approached FBI agents after they felt gambling interests made improper offers to try to secure their votes on the bill.

"The evidence introduced at trial contradicts the self-serving portrait of Beason and Lewis as untouchable opponents of corruption. In reality, Beason and Lewis had ulterior motives rooted in naked political ambition and pure racial bias," Thompson wrote.

"The court finds that Beason and Lewis lack credibility for two reasons. First, their motive for cooperating with F.B.I. investigators was not to clean up corruption but to increase Republican political fortunes by reducing African-American voter turnout. Second, they lack credibility because the record establishes their purposeful, racist intent," Thompson wrote.

Ouch. But that's not all:

Beason wore a wire for the FBI, and the recordings picked up a conversation among Republicans talking about the effect a gambling referendum would have on voter turn-out during an election.
They talked about how "every black, every illiterate," would be taken to the polls on "HUD-financed buses."

In another conversation, Beason used the word "aborigines" to refer to people at Greenetrack, a casino in predominately black Greene County.
Thompson said such statements "demonstrate a deep-seated racial animus and a desire to suppress black votes."

Want more? Here ya go:

Beason, Lewis, and their political allies sought to defeat SB380 partly because they believed the absence of the referendum on the ballot would lower African-American voter turnout during the 2010 elections. One of the government’s recordings captured Beason and Lewis discussing political strategy with other influential Republican legislative allies. A confederate warned: “Just keep in mind if [a pro-gambling] bill passes and we have a referendum in November, every black in this state will be bused to the polls. And that ain’t gonna help.”

Keep in mind this is the same Scott Beason who is one of the chief supporters of H.R. 56, the immigration bill currently being struck down in parts by federal courts

Let's be honest: the GOP has had a field day this past decade and the last using the courts and these corruption cases to tar, feather and remove Democrats, their supporters and possibly voters who lean Democrat, out of play and out of pocket. It's part and parcel of a movement to make Alabama a one-party state for Republicans, as well as obscure GOP-facilitated corruption that goes on in the background.

So I'm not surprised to see a guy who thinks of himself as the next Jeff Sessions attempt to tilt the playing field in his party's favor by discouraging staunch Democrat voters from voting. This, on top of efforts nationwide to suppress Democrat votes.

Meanwhile, a suit was filed in federal court alleging the systematic exclusion of blacks from criminal case juries, specifically ones that involved the death penalty.

Alabama, don't you ever change.

Hat tips to Redeye and Legal Schnauzer.

Anyone remember Alabama's House Bill 56? It's the infamous state-enacted immigration law written to target "illegal immigration," only to open the doors to the specter of increased ethnic profiling of the state's Latino population. Arizona's SB 1070 has nothing on what the folks on Goat Hill cooked up:

The Alabama state legislature passed a controversial new immigration bill on June 9 that requires public schools to check students’ immigration status, criminalizes giving an undocumented immigrant a ride, requires employers to use E-Verify to check potential employees’ status, and instructs police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop if they suspect the person of being an undocumented immigrant.

The law is alarmingly tough, eclipsing Arizona's SB 1070 by several measures—including, among other punishments, incarceration and fines for anyone who knowingly employs, harbors, or transports illegal immigrants. Giving an undocumented immigrant a ride to work, offering them shelter, offering them sacrament: All of these acts are, with just the slightest interpretation, criminalized in the bill.

A federal judge is set to rule on the validity of the law today, as the order set down to block Alabama's enforcement of the law expires tomorrow.

As it stands, the law's had a pretty big economic impact on the farming industry in Alabama and other states that enacted similar laws. Latino workers, illegal or not, have pulled up stakes and left for elsewhere, leaving farmers in a jam when it comes to finding cheap labor. Apparently, the natives aren't up to 12 to 14 hours of back-breaking sunup-to-sundown labor for $7.50/hr, at least not without adding an extra $10/hr to that figure. Even the convicts and probationers aren't up to the job.

EDIT: Judge allows key parts of immigration law to stand:

A federal judge refused Wednesday to block key parts of Alabama's new law targeting illegal immigrants, including its requirements to check the immigration status of juvenile students in public schools and for police to verify the status of those they suspect of being in the county illegally.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn blocked some other parts of the law, which both supporters and critics say is the nation's toughest clampdown on illegal immigration by a state.

Blackburn wrote in her ruling that federal law doesn't prohibit the law's provisions on students or suspects pulled over by police. She didn't say when those and other parts of the law could take effect, but her previous order blocking enforcement expires on Thursday.

• Cities can unify basic utilities and other services that would otherwise be duplicated between cities, potentially saving taxpayers money.
• Cities under consolidation will have a broader tax base for funding important infrastructure repairs and improvements.
• The entire county can move forward with economic development as a unified team, as all cities can now reap the rewards of new businesses, attractions and services that make the metropolitan area more appealing to outsiders.
• Suburban taxpayers will finally have to "pay their fair share" and help fund the services and obligations of the city and county they work in.

The Birmingham Water Works has a drinking water intake on Mulberry Fork along the Shepard Bend, located in southeastern Walker County, AL, just southeast of the town of Cordoba. This intakes provides drinking water to 200,000 customers.

Drummond Company, Inc. plans to open a 1,773 acre coal mine that's approximately 1,000 feet from this intake. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management, an organization that one would think would pull the plug on such things, gave the company the go-ahead after its decision was upheld by the Environmental Management Commission.

This being the great state of Alabama and all, there's no telling how much grease was put on those skids. Or if the decision was designed as a "fuck you" of sorts to the city by a well-connected Good Ol' Boy network.

The Birmingham Water Works Board is in thorough opposition to the mine, for obvious reasons. Mine effluent dumped into the river and into the intake requires more thorough filtering, translating into higher costs for BWW and its customers. A number of other groups, including the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, is also in firm opposition against the mine.

The decision for Drummond to get cracking on building the mine rests on leasing or purchasing land currently held by the University of Alabama. Without that land, chances of the mine being built become slim to none. Hopefully, this adventure in environmental disaster can grind to a halt before any serious damage is done.

Remember when Milton McGregor and 10 other legislators and lobbyists were put in the clink for their roles in the electronic bingo scandal?

Jurors have found all defendants in the bingo trial either not guilty on each charge, or they were unable to decide a verdict. The judge has said he will declare a mistrial on any undecided charges.

After days of deliberation, the jury couldn't come up with a verdict on some of the charges and gave "Not Guilty" verdicts on others. Legal Schnauzer has much, much more on the goings on in the trial at his blog, including this rather interesting tid-bit:

* By far, the most important witness in the trial figured to be former Republican Governor Bob Riley. After all, it was Riley's crusade to stamp out gaming in Alabama that led to the bingo prosecution. It was Riley's documented ties to GOP felons Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon that sullied the Alabama political landscape in recent years. In fact, Riley's apparent desire to protect the market share of his Mississippi Choctaw backers was the overarching story behind the bingo case. Attorneys for defendant and gambling magnate Milton McGregor made quite a show of their intentions to call Riley as a witness. And sources tell Legal Schnauzer that McGregor's lawyers conducted pre-trial discovery with Mississippi Choctaw officials that shed significant light on Riley's actions. The defense, however, barely voiced a whimper before closing up shop without calling Riley. What gives? Has some sort of agreement--a fix, in other words--been reached by all parties involved?

Riley was slated to be a star witness in the trial, until his motorcycle accident in Alaska gave him an out from doing just that. Speaking of that guy, it seems he's been a bit preoccupied with ventures of his own.


What happens when the former governor of Alabama gives a company a $5 million dollar "economic development" grant during his term in office? Well, probably nothing except some "economic development" from that corporate entity.

Now, what if the former governor decides to register as a lobbyist and lands a job representing that very same company and others he had tangible ties to? No, that odor you're smelling isn't the local fish market.

Riley reported on his Ethics Commission lobbyist registration statement that he represented two clients starting in June and three more starting in July. He said his clients include Austal USA, which is building warships for the Navy at its shipyard in Mobile...

...Riley on his lobbyist registration statement also listed EADS North America as a client. EADS in February lost a competition with Boeing to build new refueling tanker aircraft for the Air Force. EADS had planned to assemble its tanker in Mobile if it had won.

Riley also reported that he represented Gulf Coast Asphalt Co., based in Houston; Brett Real Estate, Robinson Development Co. in Saraland; and VT Systems Inc. in Alexandria, Va., parent of a company that operates an aircraft maintenance facility in Mobile.

Looks as though it's a case of yet another politician sticking his snout back in the trough for seconds. And thirds. You'd figure that this would stink just a wee bit of conflict-of-interest:

Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, minority leader in the state Senate, questioned the appropriateness of Riley getting paid to lobby for a company that received state incentives when he was governor. "It could be a conflict of interest," Bedford said.

You'd be surprised and possibly shocked at the amount of corruption that goes on in this lil' ol' state:

Two days after Monica Cooper personally donated $100,000 to a Republican political action committee, five party officials received bonuses from the PAC of $38,000 each.


A second Republican PAC reimbursed Cooper, prompting state Democratic Party Chair Mark Kennedy to complain last week that the transaction and several other smaller ones violated the state's new law banning PAC-to-PAC transfers.

Before Cooper's contribution, there wasn't enough money in the 136 Years PAC to make those payments, according to campaign finance reports filed by the PAC...

...Two days later, the $38,000 checks were issued to John Ross, the party's executive director and the chair of the 136 Years PAC; Philip Bryan, party communications director; Kate Anderson and Sidney Rue, finance co-directors for the party; and Michael Joffrion, the party's political director.

"None of the money paid us was taken from the party or taxpayers," he said. "It was from people who appreciated the work we did."


Byran, who said his party salary was $50,000, said the five were promised bonuses in 2009 of $1,200 each for every Democratic legislative seat the Republicans were able to "flip" in the 2010 elections. He said Ross told him and his co-workers on election night they would receive the bonuses.

This doesn't seem the slightest bit unusual if you're used to PACs disappearing shortly after handing out large sums of money.

NOTE: The comments are working again, at least on my end. I suppose some ad-blocker setting on my browser got crossed up.

Yeah, I probably should get on with figuring out how the city of Birmingham can cure itself of "civic anemia". Or blogging about how Jefferson County is slowly headed down the road to Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy. Instead, yours truly will attempt to figure out what the hell is up with the state of Alabama and its never-ending quest to embarrass and impoverish itself further by playing hopscotch with whether or not bingo (or more importantly, electronic bingo) should be allowed in the state.

To start things off, here's a salient fact about the great state of Alabama: it's surrounded on all four sides by states that have some legalized form of gambling. Tennessee, Georgia and Florida have state lotteries, while Mississippi has full-on casinos, with slots, poker, blackjack, etc, etc. And every day, Alabamians leave their great state to visit these seething dens of vice and corruption, thus contributing to the bottom lines of these states, to the detriment of the great state of Alabama.

Now, you'd figure that the citizens of this great state would want to enact some sort of enterprise that can generate the kind of revenue that these forms of gambling create. After all, gambling is probably the only enterprise outside of exotic dancing where people are literally throwing money at you. Not so for this state, on both religious and legal grounds. Except on Native American reservations within the state -- more on that later.

In order to work around the legal and religious objections, a number of enterprising groups and companies have instead introduced "charity bingo" as way for people to satiate their desire to gamble while staying on the good side of the law. It's similar to regular bingo, only that instead of the right to shout "BINGO" after you won and possibly a few cheap trinkets as compensation, you receive a cash prize or an equivalent that can be redeemed for cash. According to the charitable gaming laws in the state, it's all legal, and many counties have their own constitutional amendments authorizing bingo for charitable purposes. If the sheriff of your county says it's OK, then for all intents and purposes, it's legal.

The problem comes with electronic bingo. Instead of paper bingo cards, you have electronic touchscreen machines, some of which may look too much like slot machines for their own good (check the pictures here for an example). Which is a problem, since Alabama does not condone this sort of gambling (check Section 13A-12-20 through 92), nor the possession of such devices used to facilitate gambling. The end result is a constant game of "is it or is it not", where state troopers drop by to close up your place of business and confiscate your machines, while you do battle in court, hoping the judge will determine that your machines are kosher and hopefully give them back so you can set up shop, again.
(More after the break)