A roundup of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers
A roundup of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers: Anniston Star – Alabama and its potholes If they dare, homeowners can put off maintenance projects as long as they want. They can leave the gutters clogged, the AC on the fritz, the septic tank full and the roofing job ignored. It’s their house, their choice. But they know how it’ll turn out. The house will deteriorate. Small ailments will become big problems. And what used to be an attractive, middle-class two-story will become another person’s fixer-upper — or worse. That’s where Alabama’s infrastructure is today. It’s the house that needs a paint job and a new roof. But that takes money, which is one of the mains reasons why so many of the state’s roads and bridges are in disrepair. The state has put off the inevitable. It’s thrown pennies at transportation repairs that no longer can wait. Birmingham News – Bunny sex was original March madness Now that our clocks have sprung forward, the cherries and redbuds are in bloom, and I’m greeted by a melodious chorus of bird song each morning when I take out the dogs, it is unofficially spring. Official spring arrives at 11:30 tonight (Saturday, March 19th) when the earth’s orbit places the sun directly above the equator. That is pretty much the only straightforward and rational thing I can think of about this season. Certainly the cardinal that has been flinging himself against my bedroom window every morning for the last couple of weeks isn’t rational. My guess is that he thinks he is defending his territory by attacking that bold intruder which is actually his reflection in the window. But after a couple of weeks of hitting the same glass many times every day instead of another cardinal, you’d think he would get the message. Testosterone dementia, I call it. Decatur Daily – Republicans’ dangerous obstructionism The stubborn refusal of Senate Republicans to consider any Supreme Court nominee offered by President Barack Obama would be outrageous, regardless of whom the president selected to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia. But Obama’s announcement Wednesday that he will nominate Merrick Garland, a moderate federal appeals court judge who has won bipartisan praise during a long and distinguished legal career, puts the Republicans’ irresponsibility and cheap partisanship in even starker relief. Garland, 63, is the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on which he served with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who once said that “any time Judge Garland disagrees, you know you’re in a difficult area.” Incredibly, Obama and Garland barely had finished a Rose Garden news conference before prominent Republicans reiterated they would refuse to give Garland fair consideration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dusted off the specious argument that because Obama is in his final year as president, his exercise of his appointment power must be held hostage to the results of the November election. “Give the people a voice in the filling of this vacancy,” McConnell pleaded. This is a preposterous argument, and a cynical one to boot. The relevant vote of “the people” in this situation is their decision to support Barack Obama for president in 2008 and again in 2012. Perhaps sensing that his assertion was unconvincing, McConnell also cited a non-existent “Biden Rule,” which supposedly holds the Senate shouldn’t vote on Supreme Court nominations in a presidential election year. Dothan Eagle – Pay hikes insult voters – again In 2008, Alabama lawmakers passed a joint House-Senate resolution to increase their pay by a whopping 60 percent, including a provision that provides that their $3,850 monthly expense check be adjusted annually, based on the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index.. The move was widely criticized, and rightly so, particularly considering that pay increases for state employees, teachers and school support personnel are often politicized, and that the state is continually fighting budget battles. This year, the same sort of fast-and-loose salary machinations are taking place in the executive branch, and some lawmakers are having none of it. Last year, lawmakers passed a measure that abolished outdated salary caps on cabinet member compensation, and Gov. Robert Bentley took advantage of the change to put raises for cabinet members in the budget. Four members of his cabinet – Commissioners of Insurance and Revenue, the director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, and the administrator of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board – would each receive pay increases of about $70,000 per year, from $91.014 to about $164,000 annually. Enterprise Ledger – Trust me, DO NOT pay attention to this column Fortunately, I haven’t had my judgment day just yet, because if Saint Peter had seen my tournament brackets of years past, he would just shake his head and send me to the basketball purgatory… you know, right alongside the programs at Alabama and Auburn. While they seem to have the right people leading their respective programs at the moment, the Tide and Tigers have only heard of this March Madness thing for much of the 21st century. This year will be no different. By the end of this weekend, I will be telling the last soul that will listen to me that I almost took so-and-so in an upset over so-and-so, and had scratched Team A off at the last minute to replace with Team B, only to realize that Team A was playing its non-scholarship water boy in the final minutes of a lopsided victory. I was 10-6 on Thursday, and that included picking 11th seed Wichita State to beat 6th-seeded Arizona, which it did. Turns out, that was my par for the course as I went 10-6 again on Friday, and it also included picking an 11th seed, Northern Iowa, over Texas. There must be something about filling out a bracket because even non-sports fans get involved in the tournament and many don’t know the difference between the Green Bay Phoenix, which met Texas A&M in the first round, and the University
