Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The citizens of Mobile, especially those in the historic Africatown community along with members of the Mobile Bay Sierra Club, have held public meetings and spoken up: They do not want the Mobile Planning Commission and the City…
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
President Obama’s Job Approval Rating Hits 50 Percent
By Glynn Wilson – Less than a week after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address to a new Republican-dominated Congress, his job approval rating reached 50 percent in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, the first time since June 2013. Three months ago, in mid-October, only 39 percent of Americans approved of Obama’s…
Obama Administration Proposes Further Wilderness Protections for Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Recommends Largest Ever Wilderness Designation to Protect Pristine Habitat – WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s administration moved this week to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, widely considered one of the most spectacular and remote areas in the world. The Department of the Interior is releasing a conservation plan for the refuge that…
President Obama is America’s Political Jackie Robinson
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — How can I explain this in a way everyone will understand, including conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and the national and state press corps? President Barack Obama is and must be our political Jackie Robinson. You may recall or have heard that Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson was the first…
President Obama Delivers 2015 State of the Union Address
Selma the Film: Clearing Up the Controversies
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — If you are really any kind of patriotic American — Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, libertarian, whatever — you must be willing to acknowledge that what happened in Alabama and Washington in 1965 was a pivotal moment in U.S. and world history. By “pivotal” I do not…
Studies Show 2014 Was the Warmest Year On Record
By Glynn Wilson – The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest on record since 1880, according to two separate analyses by scientists from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000, they say in a release just out…
Mobile Congressman ‘Denounces’ President Obama for Policy on Cuba that Would Benefit Mobile
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. – The new Congressman for Mobile and Baldwin County is making waves in Washington on Thursday with a statement he made on the House floor attacking President Barack Obama for restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba and recommending that Congress lift the entire trade embargo. Rep. Bradley Byrne issued a…
Americans Name Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as Most Admired Woman and Man in the World
By Glynn Wilson – Americans continue to name Hillary Clinton as the woman they admire the most in the world, while President Barack Obama gets top billing as the man they admire the most, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject. Ms. Clinton, who is positioning herself to run to become the first…
Obama Administration Announces First National Regulations on Coal Ash Disposal
By Glynn Wilson – The Obama administration on Friday released the first national regulations to provide for the safe disposal of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the final rule that establishes safeguards to protect communities from coal ash impoundment failures, like the catastrophic 2008 spill in Kingston, Tennessee,…
President Obama Announces Restoration of Diplomatic Relations With Cuba
By Glynn Wilson – In a historic announcement guaranteed to draw howls from conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama announced an agreement on Wednesday to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and called for an end to the Cold War economic embargo that has been in place since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961.…
Africatown Residents Oppose Industrial Rezoning for Steel Warehouse
Planning Commission Denies Rezoning By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — More than 140 residents of Africatown turned out at a town hall public meeting Tuesday night to oppose an industrial rezoning that would open the way for a steel storage warehouse right across the street from a proposed tar sands crude oil tank city…
Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern on the Torture Report
EDITOR’S NOTE: On Monday, Dec. 15 at 6 p.m. we will be talking with former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern about the US Senate’s report on torture. In 2006, McGovern returned his CIA medal to former House Intelligence Committee chair Pete Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan – see the letter below explaining his reasons for doing…
Where is Jeb Bush and What Does He Think of Torture?
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — Where oh where is Jeb Bush and what is his position on the torture ordered by his brother? As the media across the world continues to cover the story about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report just out on the Bush administration’s CIA torture program,…
Hispanic Voting Bloc Supports President Obama’s Immigration Plan
By Glynn Wilson – While a slim majority of Americans, 51 percent, say they disapprove of President Barack Obama’s executive action to deal with undocumented immigrants living in the United States, Hispanics, African-Americans and other recent immigrants by a wide margin approve of the policy plan to grant legal status to those who have been…
My Home Town Birmingham: Can’t Support a Football Team
EPA Proposes Tougher Smog Standards to Further Safeguard Americans from Air Pollution
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Based on extensive recent scientific evidence about the harmful effects of ground-level ozone, also known as smog, the Obama administration is proposing to strengthen air quality standards to better protect Americans’ health and the environment. The Clean Air Act requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the standards every five years…
Living in a Camper Van, if You Don’t Like the Weather, Move on Down the Road
As Health Care Enrollment Begins, 37 Percent of Americans Approve of Affordable Care Act
By Justin McCarthy – WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period begins, 37 percent of Americans say they approve of the law, one percentage point below the previous low in January. On the other hand, 56 percent of Americans sampled say they disapprove of the law. Americans were slightly more…