Governor Riley has been trying to merge the workforce development work going on in two different areas of state government ever since the day he took office. I guess it took appointing Bradley Byrne to run the two-year system to finally get it done.
State, two-year system to share work force development director- al.com
We all know Troy “The Boy” King is insane, but he’s our attorney general, and he has scary powers. Like yanking a county DA off a case because, heaven forbid, he tried to be fair. Here’s the scenario: two defendants convicted of murder, one wins an appeal of his death sentence by arguing he committed the act as a juvenile and should not receive the death penalty. The other is still on death row and argues that under basic fairness he should not be sentenced to die when he is in the same situation as his co-defendant, who will be allowed to live. Troy is outraged at this opinion by the DA in the case.
“Both of those defendants deserve to be on Death Row,” Owens testified. “But out of plain fairness and simple equity in life, it’s not fair to leave the person on Death Row who didn’t kill anyone and take the person off Death Row who did.”
So, it’s obvious, Troy doesn’t believe in basic fairness. He believes in punishment no matter how unfair it may be.
As we have discussed many times before, the PAC-to-PAC transfers that are allowed in Alabama make it almost impossible to trace campaign contributions. The Birmingham News gives us another illustration this morning with the Birmingham mayoral race, but this is an issue for all campaigns in Alabama.
In many cases, the PACs took in large sums of money and gave donations to numerous politicians, ranging from the governor to state legislators to candidates in local elections. Often, the same PACs contributed to both Smitherman and Langford.
Making it more difficult to trace the source of money flowing into the candidates’ campaign accounts, the PACs mixed money from multiple donors, sometimes transferring it to other PACs and passing donations to more than one candidate.
Often, the maze-like system of contributions and transfers is deliberately used to hide the source of contributions, said Natalie Davis, political science professor at Birmingham-Southern College.
“Everyone gets to play the game but not necessarily be accountable for their contributions,” Davis said. “There is no transparency, and the people who control the game do not want there to be.”
When is someone going to step up and stop the madness?
I’m pleased to see the legislative “grants” are getting more scrutiny, because that is the whole basis for why this ridiculous appropriation is now legal. However, I want to state again my vehement opposition and outrage to this whole practice. This “slush fund” for legislators is ridiculous and wrong. We have many other priorities that should be funded with that $14.8 million dollars, and many other more accountable ways to appropriate it. These dollars end up going to who knows what because there is still no real accountability for how they are spent. I applaud the efforts of folks like State Treasurer Kay Ivey who are trying to make it more accountable, but the truth is the Legislature doesn’t want it to be.
montgomeryadvertiser.com�::� Legislators’ grants to get more scrutiny
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