The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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On Friday, Alabama Department of Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington announced that Alabama's chronically low labor force participation rate for June was just 57.5%. Washington did point out that did amount to an increase of four-tenths of a percentage point from where we were a year ago in June 2023. The percentage of prime-age workers however did increased by 1.4 percentage points to 79.2% over the year. Prime-age workers are those aged 25-54 years. "The number of prime age workers increased...
Spirit Airlines will offer the only nonstop flight from Birmingham (BHM) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) beginning this October. Spirit Airlines will provide low-fare travel from Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) starting on October 10, 2024. Spirit will have the only nonstop flight from BHM to Fort Lauderdale (FLL). This will also be the first time the airline serves the state of Alabama and will provide low-fare flight options to the Sunshine State and one-stop connections to...
Washington D.C. – Today, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) announced that her Washington D.C. and district offices are now accepting applications for fall 2024 interns. College students and recent graduates interested in government and public service are invited to apply for a chance to spend the semester learning about the inner workings of a congressional office. Interns will work closely with Rep. Sewell's staff on a variety of important legislative, communications, and administrative tasks. A...
On Monday, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R) announced that the Renewal of Alabama Commission has allocated over $15.5 million in Growing Alabama funding to seven economic development organizations across the state in an attempt to speed the development of industrial sites. The Growing Alabama program provides a tax credit to eligible taxpayers who make contributions to economic development organizations for approved qualifying projects. Alabama taxpayers donating to an economic development...
On Monday, Congressmen Robert B. Aderholt (R-Haleyville) and Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-Missouri) introduced the Deliver for Democracy Act in the House of Representatives. This bipartisan piece of legislation will accomplish three objectives: 1) Require the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to either achieve at least a 95% on-time delivery rate for periodicals (as highlighted in their own plan) or an improvement of at least 2 percentage points to use its 2% surcharge authority for that class of mail. 2)...
Birmingham, AL – Tonight, U.S. Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell (AL-07), Alabama's State Delegation Chair to the Democratic National Convention, announced that Alabama's Delegation has voted unanimously to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to serve as the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States. "Alabama's delegates are all in for Kamala Harris!" said Delegation Chair Terri A. Sewell. "We are immensely grateful to President Biden for his transformative leadership and we look f...
****UPDATE***** July 23, 2024 - while the below reporting was 100% accurate at the time that it was written, the ERLC has since retracted its statement firing Brent Leatherman. The Alabama Gazette has published a new story updating readers, https://www.alabamagazette.com/story/2024/07/01/news/span-classbrnwsbreaking-news-spanleatherman-survives-ouster-attempt/3664.html The uncomfortable relationship between the Southern Baptists and ERLC President Brent Leatherwood finally ended after...
On Tuesday, embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned the day after a shockingly bad appearance before a congressional committee looking into the security lapses that nearly allowed the Assassination of former President Donald J. Trump (R). Congressman Dale Strong (R-Huntsville) said on X, "Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigning is the first step in accountability for the failure to protect President Trump, but the American people still deserve real answers. I am...
7-23-2024 On Monday, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) joined a coalition of elven States in a public comment letter opposing the Biden Administration's proposal to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The comment letter was submitted in response to the Department of Justice's Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) regarding the proposed change. Moving marijuana to Schedule III would be a significant step toward fully...
July 24, 2024 - On Monday ERLC President Brent Leatherwood was removed from his position for social media and press statements praising President Joseph R. Biden (D). It appeared that Leatherman's tenure heading the Baptist's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. That widely reported story changed very rapidly and by Tuesday it was confirmed that Leatherman has survived the ouster attempt. The Alabama Gazette spoke with Baptist pastor Rev. John Killian – a noted conservative – about the Lea...
On Wednesday, the border security group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) released a statement charging that new Democratic Party candidate for President, Vice President Kamala Harris, earned the nickname "Biden's Border Czar" from Republicans after deploying to illegal immigration contributor nations to hand out money "aid" as part of what they called 'an obviously failed "root causes strategy."' ALIPAC charged he Biden-Harris administration "has supported, facilitated, and funded...
On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) warned that Vice President Kamala Harris is "way more liberal than Joe Biden." On Sunday, President Joseph R. Biden (D) announced in a news release that he was dropping out of the 2024 election for President. He then endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a post on the X social media platform. "This past weekend President Biden finally admitted that President Trump was right all along - Joe Biden was never mentally fit to be President,"...
Attention dog lovers. If you need a new best friend you need to meet Ralph. Ralph is seven-months old male of mixed breed heritage, possibly some Labrador retriever. He weighs about 40 lbs. He and his siblings, were found dumped in the woods and luckily were brought to the Elmore County Animal shelter. He is a fun pup, great with other dogs, tail wags a mile a minute, just looking for a family to call his own. The Elmore County Humane Society adoption fees are just $100 for dogs and $50 for...
On Wednesday, U.S. Senators Katie Britt (R-Alabama), Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), Tim Kaine (D-Virginia.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee) called on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to end his government's continued campaign to wrongfully seize land owned and operated by Vulcan Materials Company. Vulcan is a respected Alabama-based construction aggregates producer. Last week, President Obrador issued a declaration that would designate Vulcan's land and port as a naturally p...
If likely Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris is elected to be the President of the United States, she would be the ninth President to have at least one foreign born parent. The first was Thomas Jefferson (Anti-Federalist). Jefferson's mother was born in England. His father was a Virginia planter. The second was Andrew Jackson (D). Both of Jackson's parents were both born in Ireland. President James Buchanan's (D) father was also born in Ireland. President Chester Arthur's (R)...
NASA and Boeing hosted a news conference with mission leadership on Thursday, July 25, to provide the latest status of the agency's Boeing Crew Flight Test aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The spaceship was supposed to return to Earth weeks ago; but has been stranded there due to a series of helium leaks and issues with the thrusters/ While astronauts on the ship have been working on fixing the leaks, NASA and Boeing have been performing ground testing of the Reaction Control...
On Thursday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) joined U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) in introducing the Ensuring Continuity in Veterans' Health Act to require the VA to consider continuity of healthcare when deciding whether seeing a provider in the community is in a veteran's best medical interest. This legislation follows Senator Tuberville's recent letter to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough urging him to reassess recent actions taken by the...
On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) spoke with members of the Alabama press corps about his growing concerns about the struggling farm economy. Tuberville said that "We have lost 150,000 farms since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office." Republicans and Democrats in Congress are at an impasse about differences in farm policy. This is largely over the size of the food assistance programs that are tied to the farm bill in Congress. The resulting partisan gridlock has made...
(Montgomery, Ala) -Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced the conviction of a Pike County man on possession of child pornography. Yuchen Wu, 34, of Troy, and a Chinese national, pleaded guilty in Pike County Circuit Court to one count of possession of obscene matter depicting a person under the age of 17. "Child pornography is a scourge on our society and must be pursued and punished relentlessly," said Attorney General Marshall. "Children who are victims of this depravity spend a...
Since the days of silent film, music has been instrumental in setting the mood for moviegoers. It is one of the many ways audiences are able to determine whether a scene is meant to be serious, spooky, or hysterical. While many aspects of filmmaking have changed and modernized since the turn of the 20th century, the importance of songs has not. A perfectly placed track—whether it's tear-jerking lyrics over a moving melody or a fast-paced power ballad that pulls audiences into the a...
For decades, the field of artificial intelligence seemed stagnant. Researchers started gaining momentum in the early 2010s as deep learning proved useful in real-world applications such as speech recognition. The real inflection point, however, did not come until November 2022, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT. The chatbot represented a huge leap in AI's capabilities. The ability to build intelligent systems out of computer chips, a goal that seemed decades away, now seems within reach. ChatGPT's...
With trucks carrying more than 70% of America's freight by weight, they're an essential part of the nation's transportation of goods. The long-haul drivers behind the wheel, who are responsible for getting those goods from point A to point B, are also essential. They often have grueling routes that require them to sleep in their cabs while driving cross-country—if, that is, they can find a place to park. Confronted with strict work and rest hours regulations, many truckers, unable to find s...
On Friday, former state Representative Fred "Coach" Plump (D-Fairfield) was sentenced by federal Judge Scott Coogler to one year in prison for his role in a kickback scheme that transferred $200,000 intended for underprivileged children. Plump received $400,000 in taxpayer dollars over a four-year period from then State John Rogers (D-Birmingham) intended for the Piper Davis Youth Baseball league Plump has long operated. Instead of spending the money on the children, Coach Plump gave half of it...
American roads are dominated by gasoline-powered vehicles, but that is gradually changing. The government is placing increasingly strict requirements for vehicle emissions on car manufacturers, which has accelerated their output of electric vehicles (EVs). At the same time, U.S. consumers are driving demand for EVs, buying more every year. However, interest and adoption rates are uneven across the country. There are many barriers to buying EVs, including higher purchase prices, concerns about ra...
Up until a few years ago, when people visited Lavalier's Berry Patch outside Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to pick strawberries, lingonberries, and apples, Stuart Lavalier would tell them to look for a red building next to County Road 91 to find the turn-off to his farm. Now, he tells them to look for the solar panels. In early 2022, Lavalier received a $17,000 federal grant to install three solar arrays that make 27 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power his entire farm. Lavalier is one of...
