Sorted by date Results 1005 - 1029 of 1293
Americans now have a new administration, battle lines have been drawn between the left and the right, and it would appear there is little hope that our fiercely divided nation can agree about anything. Politics naturally divides as it is only in the civil debate of opposing ideas are we able to create solutions to problems. Unfortunately, the continual stream of media commentary encouraging rancor in addition to an escalation of protests from the left designed to further divide makes the prospec...
This is my favorite line from my all-time favorite movie, The Blue Max. In this 1966 movie that my dad took me to watch when I was all of five years-old, George Peppard plays a German World War I fighter pilot, Bruno Stachel. After being denied his first aerial victory and being dismissed by his snobby, upper-crust squadron mates, Bruno shoots down a British airplane over his own airfield. When confronted by his angry commanding officer, Stachel walks over to the downed airplane, cuts the regist...
Alabama native son John M. Taylor (Alexander City) has penned a ‘must read’ for all who want to advance their understanding of our morphing from a voluntary collation of sovereign States to the forced consolidation imposed via war 1861-5 and tyrannical years of ‘reconstruction’ to follow. A well seasoned backlog of Taylor’s short articles dating back to the early 1990’s, were the starting point of the project. I was delighted Johnny asked my input over the years and truly honored when asked...
During the past couple of months everywhere I go people continually ask me why in the world the legislature could not simply put the issue of whether they could vote for or against a lottery on the November ballot. The fact that this inquiry has lingered for this long tells me that folks are upset about this travesty. They are mad at the legislature. However, the blame lies with the governor. Indeed, the legislature met in a special session to address this issue of whether or not to put the...
In addition to repealing the catastrophic Obamacare health care plan, one of President Donald Trump’s absolute top priorities must be to resist the military industrial complex and put an immediate end to the carnage and destruction our nation has been spreading all over the Middle East under the guise of saving the local people from their leaders and civil unrest. For the past 50 years and more—from Vietnam to the Middle East—our involvement has produced no benefits whatsoever. The result has b...
In the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty we're free at last." Barack Obama is no longer president and Donald Trump is. As further proof that a leopard doesn't change his spots, Obama spent his final weeks in office doing the same things he did throughout his presidency – displaying his utter contempt for America and trashing our Constitution. In a series of despicable displays of arrogance over his last few weeks in office, the lame duck circumvented Con...
Remember the line in that old pop song, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love". How true that is! God's love that will make all the difference. Don't you just get excited to see God's love manifested in someone's life? Watching new Christians learn and grow close to God to me is just amazing. You begin to see them attending church, reading their Bibles, their family lives begin falling into place, and they begin to be active for Christ and all because of God's love. Of course, we as...
Without specifics about yourself I’ll make this answer generic in a personal and in a business sense. I’m presume you looked at your financial estate planning (401k, mutual funds, stocks and bonds, life insurance, etc) and as you do you also think about your legal estate planning. After all you are a year older; you may have gotten married, had a new child, had a child reach the age of majority (19 years), gotten divorced or suffered the death of a spouse or even a child. You may have a chi...
Today every other man (and still more so during war-time) is an amateur strategist and tactician; the House of Commons is full of such folk. No politician would be considered sane if he told a chemist or an astronomer what to do, but he considers it his right to tell the soldier, sailor, and airman what to do, and even how to do it; and if his words are not based on a true understanding of war they are based on a false understanding, for there can be no middle course. J.F.C. Fuller Did you hear...
One of my major concerns with politics has been our increasing obsession with political personalities rather than the legitimate debate of issues, and this last election has done little to dispel that uneasiness. In our soundbite media culture, personalities are far more interesting and entertaining than policy, and they more easily influence voters. Details in legislation are boring and too deep into the minutiae or legalese for the average American to even want to understand, and the...
Jim Little's Opelika-Auburn News [11/21/16] article entitled, Judge declares signature requirement unconstitutional for short special elections asserted, "Future Alabama special elections will have to take into account a recent federal court ruling to allow third-party or independent candidates time to collect signatures to get on the ballot." Judge Myron Thompson (no champion of citizens' and voters' civil rights) September 30 federal court ruling determined Alabama's signature requirement for...
Alabama is going to fair well under President Trump. There is an old adage that says, “Those that bake the pie get to eat it.” We truly baked the pie for Trump. We overwhelmingly supported him in the GOP primary and helped him secure the nomination. We then gave him one of the largest mandates in the nation in the November General Election. Trump is indeed returning the favor. He has named our own Jeff Sessions Attorney General. His confirmation hearings begin this week. In addition, spe...
At last, the reign of the Great Traitor is coming to an end. And his hoped for successor, the Hildabeast, is also passing into the pages of history, squelching his dream of becoming a corrupt Supreme Court Justice. Right now, they are both whining about voter fraud and accusing the Russians of rigging the election. Nevertheless, much damage has been done during these past eight years, especially during 2009 and 2010, when this despot had a filibuster-proof majority in both houses. The task of...
Well…we made it, folks! We have completed another journey around the sun. Now, a new year has begun. Happy 2017! "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away, behold, new things have come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 It's the start of a New Year so we all begin thinking towards those resolutions. A resolution usually means that we want to resolve to improve or better ourselves…physically, emotionally, spiritually. That's always good, especially in the spiritu...
December 7, 2016 It is Christmas time, and since Alabama is one of the most charitable states in the nation, I would expect that many of us are in the giving mood and plan to help many worthy causes across our great state. Unfortunately, it appears that some recent rulings by the Alabama Ethics Commission are going to make it more difficult for charities across the state to raise the funds that they need to serve our communities. Many charities in Alabama are concerned that an unintended...
In September I had began to feel pretty rough, so bad that I actually went to the doctor. It was determined that I had a gallstone pancreatitis caused by a gallbladder with stones (of course) and my gallbladder needed to come out. Having had no prior abdominal surgery my surgeon was happy that I had a “virgin belly”, a pretty funny term. I know that my health insurance went up significantly last year and significantly again this year. Thank you President Obama for a real piece of work. Insurance...
No doubt my most read text from years of writing for the Alabama Gazette is “Ten Years After” (Jan. 2011 column) explaining how Texas Gov. George W. Bush became the 43rd US president although VP Al Gore received more votes in the general election. Some readers have asked for similar analysis on the recent result where Mr. Trump won the Electoral College with a much greater electoral vote margin yet STILL lost the popular vote by 668,483 (according to AP reports) or even more according to oth...
Election night 2016 was a beautiful thing to watch. Tears flowing, heads exploding, pundits demonstrating that they know absolutely nothing about anything, you name it. Obviously, I am happy that “she” did not win, but watching all of the crazed people crying and being on the verge of suicide was a thing to behold. Reports that Hillary had a profanity laden meltdown while overturning tables and launching objects around the room easily explains exactly why she did not come out to greet her sup...
On a recent October evening, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at The Heritage Foundation’s Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture, just three days after the 25th anniversary of his swearing-in as an associate justice on the Court. Described as a “fearless originalist” regarding his defense of the Constitution, conservatives anxiously wait to see if the new Trump administration fulfills its campaign promise of appointing justices who will join Justice Thomas in upholding the princ...
The term “good old days” has been around for many years. Older people have and still do like to sometimes reflect on how much better their lives were at various times in the past than they are now. The subjects are varied. They range from how much less things cost back then to how much less crime we had. For the most part, these things are true, but most of these people have not been able to comprehend the fundamental reason why few things have turned to the better and most have gone the oth...
Well folks…Christmas is upon us. Can you believe it? Is it just me or does it feel like each passing year goes by more quickly!? Stores line their aisles with Christmas goodies and décor right after Labor Day! Now that we are getting closer to Christmas, TV shows have switched to the theme of giving and love, and Santas are starting to float about. Yet, the very first Christmas seemed to do without any of these things. The very first Christmas somehow started a frenzy without the power of TV...
We will vote to select the 44th President Tuesday. The next President will be a New Yorker. Whomever is selected will enter the Oval office with the most unfavorable poll ratings of any President in recent memory. This election will epitomize the old adage that George Wallace once told and that is, “more folks vote against someone than for someone.” There is no question that our country is drifting to the left in ideology. We in Alabama are conservative, pro-life, pro-gun, Christians with a des...
All I can say is that by the time this Robservation hits the streets, the election, for better or worse, will be over and done with. It has been a long, drawn out embarrassment for the entire United States. Whether the winner is a clear political outsider who has said some questionable things in the past and had an up and down business career or whether the winner is a pathological liar who hates the Constitution, who will do and say anything for political gain, has broken the law, violated...
Though I’m reminded daily of my many blessings, November is the month specifically set aside for giving thanks, and I highly doubt I’m alone in being thankful that the bitter and divisive 2016 presidential campaign will finally end. While political pundits will analyze the results ad nauseam, conservative activists will continue working diligently during the lame duck session of Congress to minimize detrimental legislation and spending decisions which typically occur during such sessions. Unfort...
Special election Candidate “Fireman Joe” Lovvorn was installed into our Alabama House of Representatives without an election via Secretary of State John Merrill’s discretion last month. After hearing the news we (me and my eldest Godson Peter) went to the good Secretary’s office who kindly met without an appointment. Lovvorn avoided a Party primary runoff, exceeding the 50% threshold by 13 votes via another low turnout House District 79 poll result. A dismal 12% of voters participated in this...