Politics

President Obama is America’s Political Jackie Robinson

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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

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Watch the Video Read the Text There is a ritual on State of the Union night in Washington. A little before the address, the White House sends out an embargoed copy of the President’s speech to the press (embargoed means that the press can see the speech, but they can’t report on it until a…

Selma the Film: Clearing Up the Controversies

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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…

Mobile Congressman ‘Denounces’ President Obama for Policy on Cuba that Would Benefit Mobile

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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…

Obama Administration Announces First National Regulations on Coal Ash Disposal

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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…

EPA Proposes Tougher Smog Standards to Further Safeguard Americans from Air Pollution

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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…

As Health Care Enrollment Begins, 37 Percent of Americans Approve of Affordable Care Act

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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…

Shenandoah’s Lewis Mountain Campground Welcomed African Americans

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Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – LEWIS MOUNTAIN, Va. – When the National Park Service was established in 1935 and the U.S. Department of the Interior along with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps began building roads, retaining walls, campgrounds and trails to get ready for visitors, there was an interest on the…

Climate Change Comes to Shenandoah

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Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — The Shenandoah salamander is no endangered polar bear, cuddly panda cub or playful dolphin the American public may warm up to in the cause of fighting global warming from the burning of fossil fuels. Yet it is the latest poster child from…

On the First Snow, Net Neutrality, Climate Change, the Keystone Pipeline and the Backward Ignorance of Republicans

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – THURMONT, Md. – The weather forecast is calling for a dusting of snow here in the woods north of Washington, D.C. Thursday night, which we might as well call the first act of winter after one of the most lovely falls in memory for the people of…

The Choice of the Century

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By Robert Reich – The President blames himself for the Democrat’s big losses Election Day. “We have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the right direction,” he said Sunday. In other words, he didn’t sufficiently tout the Administration’s…

Maryland Voters Elect Far Right Dixie Loving Republican to Office

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By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – If you are an educated liberal, an urban progressive Democrat or just an independent American voter looking for candidates to make government work better in the U.S., you are probably severely disappointed at the outcome of the election on November 4, 2014, concerned about the next two years…

The Jefferson Memorial and Legacy at Monticello in Autumn

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Thomas Jefferson As A Tactful Tactician – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MONTICELLO, Va. – In the introduction to one of the versions of The Writings of Thomas Jefferson available online at Project Gutenberg, former West Virginia Governor George W. Atkinson describes Jefferson as the quintessential tactful political tactician and statesman. “Thomas…

Riding Out Election Day in a Mountain Campground

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Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – BALDFACE ROCK OVERLOOK, Va. – It is election day all across America and the big question is whether the Republicans will take over control of the U.S. Senate. But since I am not now living and working in Louisiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas or one of the…

Suicide in Alaska and the Republican Empathy Deficit Disorder

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By Robert Reich – Commenting on a recent student suicide at an Alaska high school, Alaska’s Republican Congressman Don Young said suicide didn’t exist in Alaska before “government largesse” gave residents an entitlement mentality. “When people had to work and had to provide and had to keep warm by putting participation in cutting wood and…