Corrections Corporation of America Lobbyists in Alabama

Tobin "Toby" Bernard Roth & John W. Hagood of Capital Resources, LLC

*Updated 6/12/2012  -  Alabama Judge Says Enough With the Debtor's Prison  Roth & Hagood may not have managed to create a CCA prison in Alabama, but as the linked article illustrates, they've been doing a lot of damage in a short span of time. A record check of Judicial Correction Services in the Alabama SOS database shows the entity address as the Capital Resources, LLC Alabama office of Roth & Hagood.

"Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The nearly two million Americans behind bars—the majority of them nonviolent offenders—mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for profiteers." --Eric Schlosser The Atlantic

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has been slithering in and out of Alabama to  some degree since *the late 1990's when Hal W. Bloom, Jr. (The Bloom Group) lobbied briefly for the corporation. Fine & Geddie were next in 2006. In 2011, new players Roth & Hagood are entering the 'incarcerate for profit' game-- CCA is back, and possibly positioning themselves to profit from the "meanest immigration law in the country."

Who else in state political power will benefit if CCA becomes Alabama's next nightmare reality? Someone always does. Alabama didn't become one of the most politically corrupt states in the nation by chance-- it's an honor among elected thieves that they strive to excel at dishonor, every chance they get.

Will Alabama eventually go the way of Arizona and allow CCA to reap windfall profits from HB 56?

What happened in Arizona, in the run up to their anti-immigration law, SB 1070, gives us a glimpse into the intertwining of the Prison-Industrial Complex, the agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the undue influence both held over Arizona's elected officials in adopting the stern immigration legislation. The same law that cost long-time AZ Senator Russell Pearce his seat in a recent recall election largely fueled by citizen outrage over SB 1070. NPR reports:

It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.

It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.

Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.

And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.

Once Pearce's bill landed on the AZ House floor sponsors jumped on and the money started to flow from CCA:

Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.

Elected officials rattle on incessantly about the dangers of prison overcrowding and how "we must deal with this pressing issue" in our states, but their true motives are simpler and more devious: it's all about the money and what CCA is willing to pay to gain access to a steady flow of prisoners.

In 2003, CCA paid the State of Alabama $25,000 benefiting a PAC for former Governor Riley's 2003 Alabama Excellence Initiative Fund aka "The Riley Plan" which voters defeated by a wide margin. What was going on in Alabama in 2003, coupled with Bob Riley approving a flurry of prisoner transfers to CCA facilities in other states, gives us a hint of the power of CCA's monetary persuasion. Via AP 6/26/03:

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Alabama will transfer about 1,400 male inmates to a private prison in Mississippi to help address the state's overcrowded prison system.
Gov. Bob Riley and the Alabama Department of Corrections have authorized an emergency contract with Corrections Corporation of America to send the inmates to CCA's Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Miss., CCA said in a statement issued Thursday.
The contract with the medium-security facility will be on a short-term basis while the state develops a plan for the future, the statement said.
The state is trying to comply with two court orders to end overcrowding -- one calling for removal of state prisoners from county jails and another ordering the state to reduce the number of inmates at Tutwiler Prison for women in Wetumpka.
The state has already sent 300 women prisoners to a private lockup in Louisiana to alleviate overcrowding at Tutwiler. 

Alabama has always had issues with prison overcrowding. Those long-standing problems will only worsen with the recent state budget cuts directly impacting the state's woefully inadequate judicial system. Admittedly, there is a real dilemma with outdated facilities that are overloaded, understaffed and not serving anyone any good--staff, inmate or taxpayers.

The same taxpayers that always carry the load of Alabama's poor political decisions, have also paid dearly for Alabama's attitude of 'incarcerate, not rehabilitate' for decades, and it appears the Alabama legislature is content to lumber down that same ineffective path for some time to come.

Or is it?

With the presence of notorious GOP operative Toby Roth, and the former head of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) John Hagood, now on the CCA payroll, there may be a change coming. There's an oddity in Hagood that reminds us of the strange circumstance of former Alabama Department of Corrections (ALDOC) Deputy Commissioner Vernon Barnett. Mr. Barnett was a Riley appointee in the ALDOC.

Barnett moved quickly from an all-but-done-deal position as the successor to outgoing ALDOC Commissioner Richard Allen, into another position as an ADEM lawyer. He figured prominently in former state legislator Greg Canfield's coal ash bill that moved at lightning speed into law. A majority of Alabama Power Company's 26 state lobbyists were hard pushers for the wrong-headed legislation. (Canfield is now enjoying a plum role as the head of Alabama's quasi-governmental economic development agency.)

It seems ridiculous that a background in corrections translates to a job in environmental management, and vice versa.The two careers seem as far removed from each other as ethics in Alabama politicians, but here once again, is a connecting path between the two departments with Hagood in the employ of CCA.

Roth, on the other hand, is a very savvy political animal with on-high powerful connections. He's not going to waste his time on anything that doesn't have big money and bigger power attached to it for him to glorify himself. His mere presence with CCA is very unsettling and indicates a high probability that something big is in the works behind the curtain, out of public view.

Hagood, Roth and Barnett all have one thing in common: deep connections to Bob Riley. Mr. Riley stunned everyone by suddenly announcing his 'new job' and beating a rapid departure to DC to become a lobbyist earlier this year. He's well-positioned to aid Roth & Hagood on the federal level in their CCA endeavors with Alabama's representatives in Congress, especially the two powerful federal purse-string pullers, Spencer Bachus and Richard Shelby. (No relation to the author.)

Alabama tried this private prison idea before in Perry County with bad results. Less than a year into the contract, Alabama had to buy the facility back from the LCS Corporation and wasted $60 million dollars in the process. The state seems poised to take another bite at the private prison poison apple, and this time they couldn't have picked a more unsavory corporate character than CCA. 

If Alabama's anti-immigration law stands the test of an expected SCOTUS challenge, violators of the law will have to be housed somewhere. We don't believe it's a series of chance coincidences that so many moving parts, with connections to other states actions, don't have the same kinds of connections in Alabama.

Here's what we do know about Alabama that gives us pause:

• HB 56 is a bill rooted in ALEC agenda--the state legislature imposed their own draconian ideas into the final legislation creating the "meanest" immigration law in the country
• ALEC has made strong inroads into Alabama in the last decade
• The (Koch funded think tank) Alabama Policy Institute is firmly on-board with prison privatization
• Senator Jabo Waggoner, an ALEC member, is in place as the chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee in the legislature 

Proponents of prison privatization always make the same case based on false positives: "saving thinly-stretched state budgets money," "removing a burden from the state," etc. As with other states that have bought what CCA peddles, reality eventually settles in, and the numbers game just doesn't add up for anyone involved except CCA's bottom line and a few well-lined political pockets.

*Update: Osborne Ink upload Senator Arthur Orr's SB63 bill for 2012 Alabama session

              (Rep Jim McClendon has two bills HB30 & HB36 that mirror ALEC's)

               Homeland Security, ICE & Alabama Representative Aderholt

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In the Company of Scoundrels

Grover Norquist and the felonious Jack Abramoff

"Abramoff would have had no value without Norquist," said J. Michael Waller, a scholar at the Institute of World Politics who followed the two men at College Republicans. "Norquist was the pivot, he had the speaker of the House as his friend, all the new leadership, all the visionaries for more than a decade."

Abramoff was convicted of fraud and tax evasion in 2006. He was recently released from prison and now he's busy hawking his new book "Capital Punishment" with includes four pages of fodder pertaining to Alabama, Indian gaming money and influence buying  His long-time friend and money funneler, Grover Norquist, emerged miraculously unscathed from Abramoff's scandalous criminal enterprise and is "living well."

Grover is continuing to wreak havoc on America's political process while earning himself a fat stipend in the process. He's still up to his old tricks that he learned from his galloping days with Abramoff, and hasn't changed his political stripes one bit--even though he really deserves stripes of the black and white hue furnished by the federal penal system.

He's a scoundrel, a mighty mouse motormouth who deceives sheeple voters, conservative groups and willing politicians with red-hot anti-government rhetoric he's paid to deliver by the biggest special interests around: the Koch Brothers. In the republican world 'special interest' is a dirty word, a scourge to be rooted out and banished from existence before it "destroys America"--unless it's on the 'right' side of the equation.

Norquist plays that fiddle with all the dexterity of Nero inciting the right wing masses to dance in rapturous approval oblivious to the fact that real democracy is burning:

Today, GOP politicians who have signed Norquist's anti-tax pledge include every top Republican running for president, 13 governors, 1,300 state lawmakers, 40 of the 47 Republicans in the Senate, and 236 of the 242 Republicans in the House. What's more, the GOP's Tea Party foot soldiers are marshaled by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor – a veteran of Norquist's farm team, who first signed the pledge as an ambitious member of the Virginia legislature. Under Cantor's leadership, Norquist's anti-tax pledge was directly responsible for last summer's debt-ceiling standoff that wrecked the nation's credit rating by leading the nation to the brink of default. "Congress was willing to cause severe economic damage to the entire population," marvels Paul O'Neill, Bush's former Treasury secretary, "simply because they were slaves to an idiot's idea of how the world works."

Grover's undue influence has managed to rope-a-dope numerous Alabama politicians into signing his infamous pledge--a pledge that demands allegiance to Norquist first, and the respective office of the promised politician last.

Some conservative outlets recognize a street fighting omnipotent thug when they see one as Joseph Farah wrote for the ultra-conservative website World Net Daily in October of 2011:

Grover Norquist represents a grave danger to the conservative movement – and thus to the future of America. In my view, if America is to be saved from the gruesome fate of its current projector, the conservative movement will need to play a major corrective role. I simply don't see how that is possible when it is compromised, infiltrated and misdirected by people like Grover Norquist who are covertly promoting an agenda that is not only unconservative but, frankly, un-American.

Alabama doesn't get it and some of our political leaders made a deal with devil by signing Norquist's pledge despite what's known about him. Farah continues:

Over many years, he has carefully constructed a power base for himself inside the movement through relationships, favors, money, introductions. His official resume looks strong. And few of those he has worked with over the years are prepared to defy him, question his funding, investigate his friendships or connect the dots of his many and varied and sometimes seemingly contradictory alliances.

The GOP party in Alabama proudly places a high priority on morals, ethics, religion and keeping the right kind of company, lest they be judged by socializing with unsavory sorts who may tarnish their carefully polished public images. Ironically, those carefully crafted images are being peeled back through Abramoff's confessions and the Norquist element, revealing the gigantic hypocrisy within their party and what really happened in Alabama:

Abramoff's book does not detail how the $20 million was spent in Alabama over the course of five years. Part of his crimes included overcharging his clients and pocketing the extra money.
Abramoff said he "war-gamed" the Alabama strategy with his partner Michael Scanlon, who also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 months in prison.
Abramoff wrote that conservative activist Ralph Reed, whom he enlisted to help on the Alabama anti-gambling campaign, didn't want his "co-religionists" to know the operation was financed with gambling money.

The way in for Abramoff's scheme was to rapture the religious right and the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed was the go to guy to pull that maneuver off successfully:

"It was obvious to me that the only way to stop Siegelman, MacGregor (sic) and the Poarch Creeks was to organize the Christians," Abramoff wrote. "Ralph could do this in his sleep."
"Our efforts for the Choctaw in Alabama were extensive and expensive, and included radio and television advertising," he wrote. "We organized scores of pastors and voters to lay siege to the statehouse and the governor's office." 

Former Alabama Governor Bob Riley (now a Washington lobbyist who's also "living well") was the brains behind anti-gambling in Alabama. Riley's connections to Abramoff's 'injun money' didn't dull the fool's gold shimmer of his own political legacy. Like Norquist, he walked away scot-free--a beneficiary of blind justice and the larger-than-life obvious corrupt behavior, deflected by "I didn't know" weak explanations:

The book does not mention the financial donations that Scanlon made to Republican groups and PACs that in turn made donations to Siegelman's anti-lottery Republican opponent, Bob Riley. Scanlon, who worked for Riley briefly in Congress in 1997, never made a direct personal donation to Riley. But Scanlon's public relations consulting firm gave more than $650,000 during that election cycle to four entities that contributed large sums to Riley's campaign. 

A half-sighted man in dark woods could have seen how unsavory that situation was. The corruption, payoffs and influence buying coupled with the complete disregard for ethics is revolting beyond the pale. Everyone involved with Abramoff is tainted. Not everyone involved with him is in jail. Or judged with the same standards the upright Christian soldiers apply to the democrats and any of their special interest groups.

This is why republicans are the epitome of hypocrisy and ridiculed for their many positions on policy matters--do as we say, not as we do. It's becoming increasingly clear to us that 'Christian' is rapidly gaining the notoriety usually associated with a four-letter word. The more the right makes excuses for, and turns a blind eye to, the systemic and pervasive corruption operating within their own ranks, the less credible they appear on anything.

So Say We The Opinion Board Of The Vincent Alabama Confidential 

*Abramoff interview with Lawrence O'Donnell 
Precursor to Abramoff book from 2009 "So Damn Much Money" 

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Bronner pulls a few surprises from his hat - The Wetumpka Herald: Opinion

"Superman's" palace--RSA Boardroom

The Huntsville Times called it “the ultimate recycling project.”

I call it “the ultimate Hat Trick.”--Bob Martin--The Montgomery Independent

Luring National Steel Car (NSC) to Alabama was hailed as a "victory" by former Governor Bob Riley in 2007. It was a short-lived economic win because, as Mr. Martin writes, "the company defaulted" on their loans and Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) became the new owners.

"Waiting For Superman"

David Bronner is the CEO of RSA.

Bronner has turned the brim around on the bad hat deal and found a tenant for the site in Navistar. It's deal that best hold together more cohesively than the last go around with NSC for Bronner's sake, but is there more to the Navistar announcement than meets the eye? Will the company's move result in a draining of union jobs in their northeast locations to the non-union right-to-work state of Alabama?

Navistar's Melrose Park, Illinois facility is almost the same square footage of the never materialized NSC facility in Alabama. Former employees aren't real happy (admittedly there is the potential for bias in their reviews) and describe the company as "stuck in the old ways...disorganized and less professional than competitors" along with this less-than-glowing accolade of the corporate environment at the Melrose Park location:

If you're a hard worker then management is more than happy to work the life out of you. Hard work, talent, and accomplishment as a rule do not lead to promotions, recognition, or advancement. The path to management is too often being loudest, brashest, most cut-throat person, not the most talented. Workplace politics, gossiping and rumors are excessive.
(Source: Glassdoor.com)

If there's one thing we don't need in Alabama, it's the presence of another oligarchic corporation made worse by the exploitative nature of wage suppressing right-to-work laws. Odds are Alabamians will be paid less than their union counterparts and be subject to the whims of management who will have a freer hand in taking advantage of workers.

Navistar recently announced on October 6th the loss of 186 jobs (only 27 are non-union) at its Ft. Wayne, Indiana facility:

FORT WAYNE – Fort Wayne will have 186 fewer jobs by the end of the year.

Navistar International Corp. on Wednesday notified the state of plans to eliminate 106 union positions and 27 non-union jobs by Dec. 31.

The cuts are scheduled to begin Dec. 2.

The company cites consolidation to its Chicago location, but the timing is a bit coincidental in light of the Alabama move in our opinion.

Republicans control Alabama on all levels of government and their disdain for unions is no secret--they've convinced the public (with the help of 'all right wing all the time' state radio) that unions are only a notch above chicken droppings in terms of value to society and companies interested in locating in Alabama:

(Governor) ...Bentley laid out an economic strategy that he said is designed to recruit new industry and help existing businesses to expand.

One of the keys to job growth, he said, is Alabama's status as a right-to-work state. That status makes it difficult for labor unions to organize, because workers are not required to join a union as a condition of employment.

"There are companies across the world that won't even consider you unless you're a right-to-work state," he said. "Your Asian companies, they won't even talk to you. So they're not going to Michigan. They're not going to the Northeast. They're coming to Alabama, and we're happy to have them."

Workers who belong to unions, however, have a different value determinant, and believe that union protection against corporate exploitation keeps them from being covered in droppings in terms of wages, rights, legislative representation and worker benefits.

If Navistar saves this NSC site from just being an expensive "rent house" for the RSA, then kudos to Bronner, but we'll have to wait and see if the workers join in on the Bronner "superman" acclaim.

David Bronner's annual salary of $611,000.00 makes him the highest paid state employee on the rolls. 

He should be capable of more than a hat trick or two at that taxpayer funded price!

Revolving Doors

Martin goes on to alert us to what he calls a "Montgomery Surprise." Leura Canary, former US Atty. for the Middle District of Alabama, has a new gig courtesy of Bronner (and Alabama taxpayer money) and she's joining Bronner's team of persuaders to better position RSA wants with the legislature's law making powers.

No need to hold the door for folks in positions of power in Alabama--many of them, like our former-governor-turned-lobbyist, tread easily on moving sidewalks leading to revolving doors of inside influence at the drop of a hat.

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Dr. Bentley's Rx: Deception--Costs and In-Depth Details of Elevated Highway 280 Plan Remain Hidden

Works of "art" or outdated concrete behemoths?

August 11, 2010 Stan Diel Birmingham News--Dr. Robert Bentley, the Republican candidate for governor in the November election, today said he favors building an elevated toll road over U.S. 280 to relieve congestion.

Governor "Dr. Dr." Bentley prides himself on his medical curriculum vitae and claims to be the "smartest man ever elected governor of Alabama." He's convinced himself he's just what Alabama needs and will cure all of our ills with his own brand of corporate-infused republican medicine. Especially our so-called current state budget crisis that's resulted in deep cuts to education, slashed social services and a gutting of numerous programs that directly affect regular folks who are struggling just to get by.

“Alabama is hurting, and we need a doctor,” Bentley, a former dermatologist from Tuscaloosa, told voters in last year’s campaign. Once he took office in January and looked at the patient — the budget — he said: “We’re a lot worse off than you think.”

Predictably, the usual suspects joined in the chorus of misery: Speaker of the House Mike 'Road Man' Hubbard and Senator Jabo "Clueless" Waggoner. Neither of these two political animals experiences life by the drop as most of Alabama does. The same public who did not create the mess are the ones being asked to bleed for the good of the state's insiders economic prosperity--i.e. private profit equals public pain.

The 'Dr. who can't' seems oblivious to the practice of good-for-the-folks medicine, because he refuses to end cronyism, despite promises to the contrary, and he's created a public-private merger through ADO and EDPA that in effect allows wealthy private corporations an all access pass to the state till and taxpayer's money. In addition to allowing the appointing of like-minded players to power positions within the framework of the organization and to state offices.

Creating a public-private partnership, and placing it in the hands of Alabama schemers, won't remedy our politician and corporate inflicted ills--in fact, they'll only worsen the sickness of corruption that got us into the state we're in now by allowing more insiders to walk away with millions in taxpayer money and leave communities holding the bag. Corruption, theft and abandonment of long-standing public policy are real possibilities in PPPs as they give rise to entities larger than the original government: they can become monstrous-sized power structures with a full stranglehold on democracy and public good.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” - Benito Mussolini

We're on a slippery slope that isn't going anywhere near the smaller government republicans swear they support.  Road building and economic development are the breeding grounds for these unholy alliances of state and corporate power. Foreign entities get in on the act too with groups like Cinta and Macquerie, who have been "nosing around in Alabama" looking for roads and bridges (Macquerie has one in Alabama already) to privatize and toll.

Will one of these two foreign investors own the Elevated Hwy 280 toll road? How can Alabama claim to pay for the project when the lion's share of toll fees will go out of the country? Isn't this selling off the state's infrastructure to the highest bidder? If the county a toll road runs through gets their hands on toll fees then Harris County, Texas should serve as a clear warning of the potential for misuse.
*(Must watch video at a republican campaign event in Texas of an audience member asking about PPP's and toll roads. The candidate sits down, a yes man jumps up, and with great animation addresses the audience member's query. Watch how quickly he evades real answers, executes a classic political bait and switch, and turns the argument into those "socialistic democrats" are the real problem lady!)

So many questions. So few demanding honest answers.

The special interests involved in the the antiquated Elevated Highway 280 plan are made up of some of these types of caballers: deep-pocketed campaign donors and selectively hand-picked beneficiaries of Alabama's supposedly hard-to-come-by greenbacks. Interests like the *road gang for one.
(*Section II-- "Who Is The Road Lobby?")

They're connected to Alabama's purse strings by way of Governors Riley and Bentley and consist of groups like: cement companies (ACPA SE, Cemex), an out-of-state engineering firm (Figg), and the strategically located likely road material supplier, White Rock Quarries (WRQ), who's set to blow the smithereens out of small town Vincent, Alabama. WRQ also just happens to be a subsidiary of the stinking rich Vecellio Group. Vecellio's subsidiaries include road building (Vecellio & Grogan is one of the largest in the nation) and asphalt companies among its corporate pool.

The coziness of certain players involved with the 280 idea and sheer coincidence of 'we do that too' is a bit too handy to discount as chance. Add to the mix that the second biggest take of the WRQ quarry profits goes straight into Shelby County's coffers, and their palpable disappointment that the project may not have gone forward starts to make a lot more sense to even a casual observer.

In March of 2010 ALDOT halted all work on the 280 project due to "a lack of consensus from local governments." Shelby County took a counter view to the Birmingham News and cried foul over the abrupt stoppage. (It's important to note that unchecked development by Shelby County created much of the traffic woes that exist on 280 today.) By the summer of 2010, after a full court press by certain entities working behind the scenes in all the cities that counted, from Jefferson to Shelby County, the project roared back to life as the must-build toll road to 'breathe life into our cities.'

Vincent's Mayor claimed the "town of Vincent cannot survive without the highway" and he used that claim to push through a fast vote on a resolution supporting the project. Does WRQ's Vincent Hills Quarry have anything to do with his fervent support and was he repeating instructed propaganda from BARD, who's creator and former Bentley transition team member, Stephen E. Bradley (Bradley & Associates), represents White Rock Quarries? Were Mr. Bradley and his BARD legal sidekick, Balch & Bingham lawyer Rob Fowler (also representing WRQ), the ones who led the charge to get as many cities on board as possible through those so-called supportive resolutions?

One other notable thread seems to run throughout the road gang and their high-minded ideas in Alabama: Figg Engineering.

CEO Linda Figg, who has close ties to Vecillio, suitably "impressed" former Governor Riley so much he put her company on the state dole in 2005. Figg has been raking in the megabucks from state coffers on projects around Alabama ever since, including the Hwy. 280 plan. She's a mover and shaker who carries substantial clout according to Concrete 2011:

Linda Figg: CEO Figg Engineering Group, Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. The Figg Group is a relatively small but highly influential consulting firm specialising in bridge engineering, with a portfolio of inspirational structures which have realised the company’s philosophy of ‘creating bridges as art.’

We would like to know why these special interest's projects, including the far from economically challenged Ms. Figg, don't seem to be suffering from the same "debridement procedure" that the good doctor governor is applying to programs that deeply hurt average and low-income Alabamians.

And why is ALDOT being evasive with their figures to Figg and others?

Queries have been made to ALDOT by numerous individuals asking for the full amount to date spent on (the now double its initial estimate of $800 million) the Elevated Highway 280 plan. So far, ALDOT is avoiding an honest answer. John Cooper, Director of Transportation for ALDOT, recently received the green light from Governor Bentley's ATRBTA board to "talk privately with an engineering company that (allegedly) came up with a lower cost estimate."

“Governor Robert Bentley believes transparency in government is critical to earning the trust of the people it serves.”

Bentley campaigned on that issue of transparency too. Yet, the board he chairs (and John Cooper sits on) thinks it's appropriate to conduct state business "privately" about a public use road project. Trust is gained through open transparency throughout a process and quickly lost by selectively applying transparency at will, Dr. Governor. Why is the cloak of unaccountability being thrown around your appointee Mr. Cooper?

What else is ARTBTA, Governor Bentley and ALDOT not telling us about this project?

And why can't the press get it right on what the actual figure is?

Birmingham News' transportation reporter, "Driving Miss Crazy" Ginny MacDonald, has stated in her online "Live Chat" that ALDOT has "paid out $316,000.00 on the Highway 280 study" as of early summer 2011. Where is she getting her low-balled information? From ALDOT's press chat room?

Ms. MacDonald has cited difficulty in obtaining the figure because of "ALDOT in-house work, private contractors, etc." but assured readers in the "Live Chat" forum she "will get the information" from ALDOT. 

We haven't experienced the degree of difficulty she claims to have encountered. In fact, without much effort, the VAC has a memo (displayed below) to ALDOT's Finance and Audits Department, dated June 8, 2010, requesting payment of a Figg Bridge Engineers invoice in the amount of $1,143,915.00.

That's just ONE invoice--from 16 months ago! And it's a much higher figure than Ms. MacDonald has been parroting to the public through the news media forum on a subject she claims to be knowledgeable about.

This one invoice is more information than has been reported in any news agency in the state on what has been charged to ALDOT --and state taxpayers-- by the company that has been working on the elevated toll road for years!

Transparency anyone?
Figg Eng. Invoice to ALDOT

More on this topic in a subsequent post about Governor Bentley recently repeating the Riley era mantra and asking the feds for sooner-than-agreed-to increases in Alabama's share of offshore oil and gas royalties. Road building and O&G royalties--yes, they are connected.

photo credit: David Johnstone

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Governor Bob Riley-- WKRG Interview September 2011

Former Governor Bob Riley just cannot resist telling us all how wonderful he is and milking his near death experience for all it's worth.

At the 19:55 mark he's asked about becoming the first Alabama governor in history to become a state lobbyist.

Contrast and compare his recent words with what Riley had to say in 2009 about the "special interests who have ruled over a rotten system for years." He's now among the ranks of those special interest players who incidentally, despite Riley's call for it, does not have to report any amounts he spends on legislators while lobbying for his own clients.

Well, they were Riley's rules passed in December 2010 weren't they?

If Mr. Riley violates any of his own rules, like he did with a PAC to PAC transfer in March of 2011, who's going to make certain he complies? Can we count on the Ethics Commission and the legislature to enforce the laws against the creator of them?

With praise like this coming from the Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard on Riley's new gig, the chances are slim to none:

Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, leader of the state House of Representatives, said, "There has been no greater champion for education reform and economic development than Bob Riley, and I'm glad to know he'll continue to be an advocate for moving Alabama forward in those areas." 

The more things change the more they remain the same in Alabama politics--we just find different words to justify turning wrong then into still wrong now.

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Developing Stories--Conecuh County Landfill and BP Contract $$ to Senator Trip Pittman

"No Opposition"?

Conecuh County, Town of Repton--The controversial mega landfill planned for Conecuh County saga is heating up again with the owners of the landfill (Conecuh Woods, LLC) filing for a dismissal of the case citing there is "no opposition" to the landfill.

March 11, 2011:

With more than 400 people seated in the auditorium and hundreds more in line at the start of the hearing, five county commissioners listened as Stone and his attorney took about 30 minutes to defend the Conecuh Woods LLC project that would be built on a 5,100-acre tract.

During several hours of the hearing, with people allotted five minutes to speak, six supported the landfill, while hundreds opposed it.

A hearing is scheduled for this Wednesday, September 21 @ 11:00 am in the Conecuh County Courthouse.

Opposition to the landfill is fierce and lawsuits have been filed to stop the project. "No opposition" is a non-starter of an argument, but that never stopped crafty lawyers from obfuscating the reality of an issue with propaganda before. It will be interesting to see how the court rules in the motion to dismiss.

The "Republican tractor" Senator Pittman

Baldwin County, Alabama--According to a report in today's Baldwin County Now, Grand Jury subpoenas have been served on Fairhope Mayor Tim Kant, City Administrator Greg Mims, Purchasing Manger Dan Ames and Information Technology Director Jason Colee "in that probe of the $635,000 contract to Pittman Trucking Company of Daphne in 2010" for post BP spill cleanup services.

Senator Pittman defended himself by feigning ignorance because he had not yet had the ethics training mandated by the state when the 'sweeping ethics reform package" was passed by the Alabama legislature in December 2010.

The Pittman Trucking Co. is owned by Senator Trip Pittman-R and Bob James of the Baldwin County Commission. Former Alabama Governor Bob Riley put Senator Pittman in charge (along with Rep. Steve McMillan-R) of $1.2 million dollars allotted to Baldwin County from BP to administer at his discretion:

The issue has grown out of Pittman Tractor Co. winning a bid from Fairhope to provide booms around the city and the Grand Hotel in the wake of the oil disaster. Citizen activists have filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission saying Pittman’s company should never have even bid for the job, much less received it, because not only is he a state senator, but he also had been chosen by Gov. Bob Riley to help oversee BP funds coming into Baldwin County.

The Alabama Ethics Commission answered the complaints by refusing to investigate Pittman and James. Have the feds finally taken notice of the huge impropriety of the senator's (and the former governor's) actions?

More on the back-story here
*Updated Monday PM--David Ferrara Mobile Press Register story on Pittman inquiry

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New York Times: "An Alabama State Senator as Polarizing as the Issues" Senator Scott Beason-R

Story by: Campbell Robertson

Published on page A13 of the NYT July 13, 2011

GARDENDALE, Ala. — Newspaper editorials have called him treasonous. The N.A.A.C.P. has called for his resignation. Chamber of commerce groups and civil libertarians have found common cause in disgruntlement, and a Republican sheriff more or less accused him of being an accessory to any deaths that take place in his county. 

Matt Fabian, the managing director for Municipal Market Advisors, said that for years there has been a mutual understanding among investors, bond issuers and politicians that contracts and debts would be honored, no matter what it took. The rise of Mr. Beason and other anti-tax hawks has threatened that understanding, he said. 

“He is the embodiment of that trend that we worry about,” said Mr. Fabian, who has been advising investors to be wary of buying any Alabama debt. 

In the end, Mr. Beason’s biggest liability may rise from his attempt in the casino case, as he described it on the witness stand, to “do whatever I could to help get the bad guys.” Already irked that he wore a wire in closed caucus meetings, some Republicans say that the fallout has seriously jeopardized his leadership of the rules committee, not to mention his future political ambitions.

Read more here

Politics and FBI snitches make for strange bedfellows. The worse the politics, the higher the snitch’s value. Usually.

The FBI focuses its statistics of effectiveness on power, lies and corruption. And politicians are always generous when it comes to scandal. Some are generous when it comes to being turncoats on their own party members.

Kickbacks. Treachery. Buffoonery. All courtesy of “The Candidate-esque” Senator Scott Beason and his greedy band of legislative brothers, like Rep. Barry Mask-R and former Rep.Terry Spicer-D, currently the Superintendent of Elba Schools, along with a few other assorted elected crooks officials. The bed of lies and payola being uncovered in Montgomery is messier than a two-day old hotel room during spring break, but it’s turning out some interesting couplings in Alabama politics that are sure to result in future check-ins at the Hotel Fed before it’s all done.

A few careers will crackle out and political derailment is all but certain for the main player: Senator Beason, who in his zeal to play an under-handed game of gotcha, wound up twisting in his own cover.

For those lucky enough to live outside of the state of Corruptabubba, the following video is a primer on the background of gambling in Alabama, Bingo Bob, smarmy politicians and the decades-old deceit galore that brings us to the trial now going on in Montgomery.

There are connections to indicted criminals MichaelScanlon, a former Riley press secretary, and Jack Abramoff, Riley *email pal, that are difficult to tune out. In a separate report, from Countdown on MSNBC, Senator John McCain became part of the Abramoff/Riley story with McCain acting as a 'protector' for Mr. Riley and his Abramoff tie. (*2:28 mark video link)

The trial in Montgomery is yanking back the sheets on all the dirty dealings from Goat Hill. Potentially explosive scandals, double-dealing and deceit are all being uncovered through the clandestine wire recordings--making for some 'high value' and intriguing pillow talk via the snitches that got in bed with the feds.

Senator Beason tried to parlay his value as an FBI snitch into something more. 

It was a gamble that didn't pay off.


Photo credit: Keating's Desk

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Rewriting Alabama's State Motto One Legislative Session at a Time

If it looks like a tombstone...

Alabama's official state motto adopted in 1939, "Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere" (We dare defend our rights) will be soon be changed again by our current legislature to "Audemus Jura Cape" (We dare to take your rights) at the rate our lawmakers are moving in furthering empowerment to the state and corporations and away from the citizens.

There's nothing great about the state of Alabama if you're not in the loop, a political player, a generously political corporation or one of the many bottom feeders known as lawyers for the state's interests.

Don't be from the wrong side of the tracks, exhibit any complexion hue other than lily white (or the occasional golden lily color during Redneck Rivera months) and above all else make sure you attend the white right church.

And have your politics straight, as in tunnel vision like--capable of focusing only on one narrow view of the world and everyone around you.

We've become a state of the privileged few unable to shake off our racist past. We've gotten more PC about it and hidden the more overt racism into the now accepted classicism the religious right is so fond of, but what was ugly then is still hideous now.

The gambling trial going on in Montgomery has opened up a view to an unseemly and intolerant attitude that pervades our State House like a skunk shot. We've learned that our lawmakers are not only prejudiced to great faults, but we've also found out just how corruptly they operate right out in the open, with unabashed shamelessness.

For the most part, it appears we are short on how many hides ought to be on the stand and under indictment.

We have one republican that's an I-go-to-church-but-play-me-a-little-poker-on-Friday-nights hypocrite who's taking thousands of dollars from a lobbyist for admittedly doing absolutely 'nothing' annually. Other republicans who gather in groups and denigrate minority citizens and the counties they live in like they were at a Saturday night Klan meeting. Political snakes lying in the tall grass of morality and lying in wait (courtesy of hidden recording devices) for one of their own to stroll by so they can strike and deliver a fatal political bite.

Montgomery rightfully earns its nickname of Goat Hill--it's a literal animal farm of bad behavior from top to bottom.What makes the whole sordid bunch even worse is their attitude of us first, you citizens last.

No grocery tax relief passed the legislature this year, while corporate friendly tax abatement and incentives sailed through. Alabama taxes its people at the lowest rate of  income seizure in the nation--$4,500. If you make $4,500 per year, by God you are going to pull your weight and pay the state its share, but if you're a giant corporation like Thyssen Krupp, the state of Alabama will allow you millions in goodies from state coffers, and a generous reduction in tax revenues, to come to Alabama for "the good of the people."

Former Governor Riley stormed through the Alabama Senate in 2007 demanding lawmakers step-up the handouts through big business legislation by telling them if they didn't, he would defy them to "go back home and say I'm doing the right thing for the people of this state."

It's always about corporate coddling and never about giving "the people of this state" one whit of relief for their families.

An issue came up towards the end of the legislative session about Public Adjusters. PA's act as insurance policy advocates who are hired by policy holders to even the tilted playing field of the claims process. They're consumer advocates who know every in and out of the meant to confuse complicated lingo in insurance policies. And they're under attack in Alabama:

In at least 44 states, insurance policyholders can hire their own adjusters, called public adjusters, to help settle claims after a loss. But the legal status of public adjusters is cloudy at best in Alabama.

Following April’s savage tornadoes, the Alabama State Bar warned that public adjusters are illegal in Alabama, saying that they are practicing law without a license and could face criminal prosecution.

We have our fair share of natural disasters in Alabama--hurricanes, tornadoes and severe droughts that wreck not only our communities, but our chances as average citizens to be made whole after a tragedy of Mother Nature. We need the power to hire representatives who will fight on our side when one of the state's big insurers refuses to honor protection we have faithfully paid for in the form of premiums.

When someone files a claim with an insurer, the company sends an adjuster to examine the damage and determine how much repairs will cost.

A public adjuster, however, represents the policyholder, working up a separate damage estimate and bargaining with the insurer. The policyholder pays for the service, *giving a public adjuster 10-25% of a settlement depending on the state and type of claim. *(Avg. fees are 10-15%)

Insurance companies are huge players in Alabama's political process gifting millions to candidates that are raised by premiums payments from policyholders. One large insurer ALFA, has had its dirty hands in legislative sessions bills for years, directing lawmakers to favor their own corporate interests with increased campaign donations. They've bought their way into the statehouse and pay for laws designed for their sole agenda--decrease policy holder rights and increase our immunity and profits.

The right of citizens to hire PA's is an issue that will have a huge effect on everyday citizens in ways they don't fully comprehend. This July 3rd story from the Mobile Press-Register entitled "Public Insurers Called Illegal in Alabama" lit a fire under commenters who roundly thrashed the state's stance of no rights for you John & Jane Q. Public, and if you try, we'll make it actionable:

 "Alabama does not license claims adjusters so any claims settled by such third-party recovery firms are considered to be the unauthorized practice of law, which is subject to criminal prosecution," the statement said. "Anyone assisting third-party adjusters attempting to settle claims on behalf of claimants could also be charged with aiding and abetting in this illegal activity."

Alabama insurance Commission Head Jim Ridling sent a letter to Alabama AG Luther Strange for an opinion on the legality of PA's in Alabama. Shortly after, Ridling pulled the request back and said through his spokesman that he would seek a "legislative solution instead." He knows what agreeable minds he'll find in the insurance friendly legislature.

Predictably the insurance industry wants to deride PA's, but when we are entertaining the idea of making it illegal for citizens to hire advocates on their side of things, we are going way too far. Taking it a step further and suggesting that even the citizens who seek these advocates may also be charged with a crime moves it into Gestapo territory.

Like the bad model of Arizona's anti-immigration law that Alabama picked up and ran with, charging straight into a you-should-have-seen-it-coming legal wall of trouble soon after, Florida is serving as the model for Alabama's war on Public Adjusters:

Several bills are floating around the Florida legislature which deregulate the insurance industry in Florida or strip away vital rights held by insureds in disputes with their insurance carriers. The legislative session launched earlier this month with bills which allowed Citizens to raise its rates by as much as 25% each year, prohibited Citizens insureds from retaining a public adjuster to assist in the handling of their claim, and rewording the consumer protections contained within the bad faith statute. 

Following Florida's anti-citizen rights governor's lead is an idea that makes as much sense as, well, what Alabama does all the time! Name one meaningful bill that has come out of Montgomery in the last 50 years that gave any power to the people. Next, see if you can name how many have come out of Montgomery that have ensured power remains centralized in Montgomery. You should have one blank piece of paper and a stack of page after page with the latter.

We are at the bottom of the pile on so many other issues what's this one more going to hurt?

This one will, a lot. 

We hope that citizens will begin to pay more attention to what Montgomery is doing to their rights before they wake up one day and realize they have very few left. Bit by bit the legislative goats continue to gnaw away at the tree of citizen's rights. How much more are we, as a collective people, willing to allow them to take away from us?

SI NOS NON CAPIEMUS

*if you let us we will take it

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Reanimating a "Zombie Nuclear Reactor" in Hollywood, Alabama--TVA's Bellefonte 1

The TVA recently announced plans to revive it's half century old reactor the Bellefonte 1 to the tune of almost $9 billion dollars--$4 billion has already been invested and another $4-5 billion is required to get it up and running. Skeptics say the reactor is "too expensive and too antiquated, and it lies in an earthquake zone." 

They're right about all three. 

But it's moving forward anyway despite known problems with all of the TVA'S nuclear facilities.

Excerpt from a June 15, 2011 NY Times story on Bellefonte:

Thomas Kilgore, the authority’s president and chief executive, said finishing it now would make more sense later. “Why nuclear?” he said. “Once you get the unit built, you’ve got inflation locked out.”Mr. Beaumont, the industry analyst, said that “based on cost, I absolutely think you can say it’s crazy.” But that assessment might change over time, he allowed.

The Environmental Protection Agency could force additional coal-generated power plants to close as it polices greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the demand for cleaner sources of energy, he said. The price of natural gas will eventually rise, making nuclear energy more competitive, he added, and at some point, existing nuclear plants will wear out.

T.V.A. executives have another troublesome variable to deal with, unpredictable changes in demand, which is what they say caused them to shut down construction in 1988.

“I can’t forecast out 8 or 10 years,” Mr. Kilgore said, but “we just know when we get there, Bellefonte 1 is a good economic proposition."

The TVA has a long track record of problems with its nuclear facilities. Brown's Ferry is notorious for safety issues, and the Watts Bar 1 facility was shut down in 1985 after employees came forward with safety and operating concerns that kept the plant closed for eleven years. That eleven year down time has been described as a "lax period" where "proper construction procedures were not followed, and documentation was poorly maintained." During this same time of troubling ineffectiveness, construction of the Bellefonte site was completed.

In the years between then and now, it was scavenged for parts to other facilities to within a shadow of its former self. Tearing it down and starting over would make more prudent sense, but TVA has firmly demonstrated by their own actions they are not known for sense and prudence. Or safety.

Another one of TVA's facilities in Tennessee, Watts Bar, is scheduled to have a second reactor online by October 2012 and it too is swirled in controversy and questions.

In a meeting on June 20, 2011 in Athens, Tennessee between the NRC and TVA Watts Bar representatives, questions were raised "about the TVA's nuclear track record and the NRC's oversight" in addition to the safety of nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The NRC is still reviewing a backlog of 500 whistle-blowing complaints about the TVA's Watts Bar facility. Robert Haag, NRC construction chief reported that "the agency has reviewed and closed 79 of those allegations."

James Moorman, director of the NRC's Southeast division construction projects, is markedly more optimistic about allowing the TVA to expand Watts Bar than some in the audience:

From the mid-1970s when construction began at Watts Bar to Unit 1’s startup in 1996, whistle-blower allegations raised concerns about everything from quality control to fire protection. When work stopped on Unit 2, the whistle-blower allegations pertaining to that reactor were shelved by NRC.

“We think we’re on schedule with what we have [in that new look],” Moorman said after the meeting.

But several listeners at the meeting were full of questions and concerns.

Ann Harris, one of the whistle-blowers and former Watts Bar employees, took TVA and NRC officials to task for not checking what she said were far more than 500 allegations long ago.

“This is snake oil you’re spinning,” she told the officials.

Brian Paddock, an attorney working with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, asked NRC how the recent evaluations of failures at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant might affect the scheduled October 2012 Watts Bar startup.

“I haven’t heard anything about that,” he said.

He also questioned whether NRC’s recent re-evaluations of seismic risks to the plant are being applied at Watts Bar.

NRC officials told him they would get back to him with answers.

Sometimes dead is better when it comes the TVA's archaic nuclear facilities--they continually exhibit a morbid pattern of pouring millions of federal dollars into antiquated ideas that one day we may all pay for in deadly consequences.

Stephen Smith writing for the Institute of Southern Studies made a convincing argument against "zombie reactor" resurrection in a 2009 article:

If TVA decides to go forward with Bellefonte despite serious questions about financial and safety issues, the plant would likely not be completed until 2020 or beyond. Given that initial construction began back in 1974 and a standard operating life is 40 years, the reactor at Bellefonte could be operating at a ripe old age of nearly 90. A potential NRC-granted 20-year license extension down the road could make for an almost 110-year-old operating reactor. If in 2080 someone asks whether anyone still uses nuclear reactor technology from the Nixon era, hopefully that will be a laughable question. Yet it is deadly serious.

Mr Smith concluded his article with the hope that the TVA would "make a better and safer decision" regarding the Bellafonte reactor. Sadly, his words and hope have fallen on the usual deaf ears of most quasi-governmental agencies like the TVA.

In our opinions, all that stands between us and disaster is the NRC, and so far they have signaled a frightening unwillingness to act in the best interests of the public with nuclear energy oversight. It's almost as if Fukushima was a fluke, an anomaly that gets obligatory lip service of 'we have learned from that disaster' but we are not really going to make any big changes.

That's flirting with disaster on epic levels.

Just how safe are the US nuclear plants anyway? 

According to a recent investigative report from the Associated Press "radioactive tritium has leaked from 3/4 of all US commercial nuclear plants into groundwater from corroded buried piping." The NRC continues to "extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation" despite the occurrence and severity of the leaks increasing.

Tritium leaks have also been documented at The Southern Company's (SOCO) nuclear plants in Georgia and Alabama: Vogtle (Ga.) & Farley (Ala.) SOCO's Farley plant requires massive amounts of water to keep their reactors cooled and they aren't going to allow a decrease in available water supplies without putting up some huge resistance. The long-standing water wars between Georgia and Alabama figures into nuclear and the utility plants of Alabama Power. This link sheds some light on what's driving the issue and it's not all about over-development-- it's mainly about "Power and Water Colliding" 

Governor Bentley, inheriting the water wars battle from the previous administration of Bob Riley, signaled his readiness earlier this year to put an end to the twenty-year fight.

Lastly, it is worth considering the role extreme changes in weather will have on our nuclear facilities. What's happening in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska right now might give us a big clue and another cautionary warning we would be wise to heed:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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