By Glynn Wilson – President Barack Obama nominated veteran appeals court judge Merrick Garland of Illinois to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, a moderate intended to head off a political showdown with Senate Republicans who vow to block any nominee to the high court by this controversial Democratic president. Garland, 63, now serves as…
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — When voters go to the polls in Alabama on Super Tuesday, not only will they be voting either Republican or Democrat for their favorite candidate, Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump or one of the others. There is an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot which is…
By Anita Kumar – CHARLESTON, S.C. – At least 1,818 emails that Hillary Clinton sent or received contained classified material, according to the State Department’s latest update from its ongoing review of more than 30,000 emails. The State Department released a new batch of 1,589 pages of Clinton’s emails Friday evening in response to a…
U.S. Senator Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat, took to the Senate floor this week to blast U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans for trying to block President Barack Obama from appointing a replacement for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who recently died in Texas. It is a factual argument every…
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — A federal judge here ruled against the state of Alabama and for the Gulf Restoration Network on Tuesday and blocked the use of early BP restoration funds for the construction of a lodge and conference center on the Gulf State Park beach in Gulf Shores. U.S. District Judge…
By Glynn Wilson – The death of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, 79, may be the best thing to happen for the future of the planet than anything since the national Sierra Club and 350.org convinced President Obama to take on climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels…
By Glynn Wilson – Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, 79, was found dead while visiting a luxury resort in West Texas, according to the San Antonio News-Express. The death was confirmed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, according to Reuters, who issued a statement sending his “deepest condolences” to Scalia’s family. The U.S. Marshal’s…
By Glynn Wilson – PORTLAND, Ore. – Nine additional individuals have been charged by federal indictment and seven were arrested Friday in connection with the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon. The defendants are scheduled to make appearances in federal court in six states over the next couple of days, according…
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.†— William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2 – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — It’s Joe Cain Day, the Sunday before Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras Day, when some people on the Gulf Coast feast before some Christians observe a…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It looks like the insurgent occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon is winding down. While it could be viewed as more tragic than funny, especially for the wildlife, it strikes me as bordering on hilarious that the remaining cowardly cowboys who are ready to…
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — A federal judge grilled lawyers here Tuesday about the questionable legality of a plan put forward by the administration of Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to use BP oil spill environmental restoration money for economic development to build a hotel and convention center on the state park beach in…
Private Company Sues Park Service for $50 Million Claiming Ownership of Park Names, Including Yosemite – By Glynn Wilson – A private contractor running many of the operations in America’s national parks is now suing the federal government claiming it owns the intellectual property rights of famous names like Yosemite National Park, along with the…
Taking over a federal building at the point of a rifle gives protest a bad name – By John Kiriakou – The armed men occupying an isolated federal building in a remote Oregon bird sanctuary say they won’t leave until the federal government stops its “tyranny.” Yet it’s not clear what that tyranny is, exactly.…
The recent announcement that federal authorities have returned nearly $12 million in recovered losses to more than 1,000 victims of an elaborate fraud scheme represents still another cautionary reminder “that all that glitters is not gold,” according to an announcement just out from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For nearly seven years, Goldfinger Coin and…
Following in the footsteps of his father, who made headlines in 2014 by leading an armed standoff between ranchers and the federal government over grazing rights in Nevada, Ammon Bundy and his fellow protesters are occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns Oregon demanding that the government surrender public control of a habitat preserve…
Environmental Group Pushes for Expedited Oral Arguments – By Glynn Wilson – The Bentley administration is stalling in federal court by opposing expedited oral arguments in a lawsuit filed against the proposed use of $58 million in BP oil settlement money — designated to restore the Gulf eco-system — to build a hotel and convention…
By Glynn Wilson – Finally, the despised and unworkable George W. Bush-Republican Congress “No Child Left Behind Act” is history. President Obama on Thursday signed a new law, which passed the House and Senate with rare bipartisan support, called the “Every Student Succeeds Act,” which gives state governments the power to evaluate schools and determine…
By Glynn Wilson – When we were young and naive, back in the day before the Bush Years, we consumed the government and American history text books that told us how the judicial branch of government is supposed to be above politics. When I first set foot in a newsroom across the street from a…
By Rebecca Riffkin and Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Contrary to the conventional wisdom among conservative Republicans on the national presidential stage, in Congress and in the mainstream and social media circus, Americans with government health care plans are far more satisfied than those with private, corporate plans, according to the latest Gallup poll…
By Robert Reich – Giant Wall Street banks continue to threaten the wellbeing of millions of Americans, but what to do? Bernie Sanders says break them up and resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated investment from commercial banking. Hillary Clinton says charge them a bit more and oversee them more carefully. Most Republicans say…
