United States Marshals warn of ongoing jury duty phone scam in Alabama
The U.S. Marshals Service is warning the public of an ongoing jury duty telephone scam. On Monday, the U.S. Marshals Service for the Middle District of Alabama issued the warning of the ongoing scam in which the scammer reportedly calls posing as a U.S. Marshal or other law enforcement officer, and advises the victim they have missed federal jury duty but can avoid arrest by paying a fine immediately. In an attempt to make the scam appear credible, the scammer will go as far as providing the victim with information, titles and badge numbers of legitimate law enforcement officers or court officials, names of federal judges, and courtroom addresses. In addition, scammers are even spoofing their phone numbers to appear on caller ID as if they are from the court or a government agency and will leave voicemails and have set up fake voicemail prompts and inboxes to further convince the victims of their legitimacy. The U.S. Marshals have received several calls inquiring about this scam over the past few days and are advising the public that if they receive a jury duty-related call, they should not provide any personal identification information or money to the caller. Federal courts do not call prospective jurors and ask for money or personal identifying information over the telephone. Anyone who receives a “Jury Duty Scam” phone call should report it, with any available caller ID information, to their local United States Marshals Service office, or the local FBI office.
Marco Rubio on Donald Trump: First a con man, now better than Hillary Clinton
A dangerous, erratic, con man with the worst spray tan ever. That’s how Sen. Marco Rubio described Donald Trump when they were both seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Now that Trump is the nominee and Rubio is running for re-election, his tone is different. He’s no longer criticizing Trump, but he isn’t exactly gushing praise. Democrats are trying to make him look like a hypocrite for backing the man he previously said shouldn’t have access to nuclear weapon codes, and for jumping back into the Senate race after he said he wouldn’t. “Sen. Rubio is actually the real con man here,” said U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson for the Democratic nomination. “He said something to the effect of, ‘Ten thousand times, I’m telling you I’m not going to run for the Senate again.’ Well guess what? He’s running for the Senate again.” But don’t ask Rubio to reconcile supporting Trump with his past criticism. “We’ve gone through that a million times,” Rubio said at a campaign stop at a Tallahassee restaurant. “At this point we’re just going to continue to focus on my race and leave the past in the past.” Last month in Panama City, Rubio said he is supporting Trump because he pledged early in the campaign to support the Republican nominee. “There are only two people in the world that are going to be president of the United States in 2017,” Rubio said. “It will either be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. And It can’t be Hillary Clinton.” Leaving his remarks in the past isn’t something his opponents are willing to do. Republican developer Carlos Beruff often criticizes Rubio for not enthusiastically supporting Trump, and Murphy and Grayson are calling him out for his hypocrisy. Grayson described the relationship between Trump and Rubio by quoting late New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, who once said of late team owner George Steinbrenner and star outfielder Reggie Jackson: “The two of them deserve each other. One’s a born liar and the other’s convicted.” (Steinbrenner had pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to President Richard Nixon‘s campaign.) “That’s sort of how I feel about watching the love/hate fest between Marco Rubio and Donald Trump,” Grayson said. Beruff, who has spent $8 million of his own money in the Republican primary, has repeatedly criticized Rubio for not doing more to support Trump. “There are some people who don’t like the tepid response that Rubio has shown to Trump,” Beruff said. “There’s a loyalty there.” Beruff’s effort doesn’t appear to be working: He’s far behind Rubio in the polls just a week away from the Aug. 30 primary. Republicans say it’s a matter of forgiving and forgetting, despite Rubio making fun of Trump’s small hands, suggesting the billionaire wet his pants during a debate and mocking his Twitter misspellings at a campaign rally. Wearing a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap to show support for Trump, Republican Bob Bezick, 64, of Madison said after attending Rubio’s Tallahassee event that he didn’t appreciate the back and forth between Rubio and Trump. But it won’t stop him from backing Rubio. “It’s policies more than any of the chatter. All that stuff is just noise,” Bezick said. And despite the not-so-cozy relationship between Rubio and Trump, Republicans say they won’t vote for Murphy or Grayson. “That would be an extreme example of cutting off your nose to spite your face,” said Orange County Republican Party Chairman Lew Oliver. If anything, Oliver said, keeping his distance from Trump could help Rubio with independent voters or Democrats dissatisfied with their party’s nominee. “Tactically, that’s not a bad maneuver from his perspective because he’s probably going to get the Republican votes regardless,” Oliver said. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Ala. State Sens. Dick Brewbaker, Paul Bussman resign from Republican Caucus
Montgomery State Sen. Dick Brewbaker has resigned from the Alabama Senate Republican Caucus. The two-term Republican, who announced in November he does not plan to seek re-election in 2018, resigned Friday to protest the way various lottery proposals have been handled in the current special session of the Alabama Legislature. Monday, Brewbaker said he assumes his resignation means he will lose his seat as chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Affairs Committee. Brewbaker was joined by Cullman State Sen. Paul Bussman. Both lawmakers have said they remain Republican, but have sent formal letters to Senate leadership withdrawing from the majority caucus. “In order for the Alabama Senate to operate fairly, we have set rules by which all members must abide,” Bussman said in a Facebook post Tuesday explaining his resignation. “This organized process is crucial to a fair and transparent government. It is when these rules are not followed that the breakdown of the system occurs. The process broke down last week when these rules were violated. These rules cannot be used when convenient and discarded when it is inconvenient.” Bussman continued, “I can no longer sit back and ignore the actions of the Alabama Senate Republican Caucus leadership which are misguided, unequally applied, punitive and divisive. As a result, the caucus has made a significant shift in priorities since 2010. In order for us to be successful in Alabama, we cannot return to the old ways of doing business. We are expected to do better and we must do better.” Despite the defections, the GOP will still hold the supermajority in the Alabama Senate with 24 members. There are only eight Democrats and one independent.
Jeff Sessions echoes Donald Trump call for special prosecutor to investigate Clinton Foundation
Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions added his voice to the call for a special prosecutor to investigate a “pay-to-play” policy by the foundation linked to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Sessions is echoing the call made by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who called for the Justice Department to launch an “expedited investigation” into the Clinton Foundation, after new allegations emerged that the group pushed for special access to then-Secretary of State Clinton. “The fundamental thing is you cannot be Secretary of State of the United States of America and use that position to extort or seek contributions to your private foundation,” Sessions said in an interview with CNN. “That is a fundamental violation of law and that does appear to have happened.” Trump, at a campaign rally Monday night in Akron, Ohio, said the Clintons “made the State Department into the same kind of ‘pay-to-play’ operation as the Arkansas government” — paying the Clinton Foundation “huge sums of money and throw in big speaking fees” to get “to play with the State Department.” When asked to give examples of how Hillary Clinton extorted money, Sessions said that it was in the way individuals thought they could gain access to the State Department by way of payments to the foundation. “Why are these people giving money to the foundation,” Sessions asked. “Why are these people in countries that are very poor giving millions of dollars — even hundreds of millions of dollars — to a foundation that doesn’t benefit them? “They’re doing it to gain access,” he added. “And you cannot pay for access.” Sessions said the evidence, which came to light in a new series of emails located on a private server used by Hillary Clinton during her time at the State Department, warrants further study and that FBI Director James Comey had not completed a full investigation. “There is a cloud over this,” Sessions said, “just because he might conclude that there’s not a chargeable offense does not indicate there’s no wrongdoing.” Fox News reports on newly emerged documents showing a senior executive at the Clinton Foundation left nearly 150 telephone messages over a two-year period to top Hillary Clinton aides at the State Department.
Alabama in the middle of the pack when it comes to women’s equality
Women’s rights in the U.S. have made leaps and bounds since the passage of the 19th Amendment. Yet many women still struggle to crack the proverbial glass ceiling. Across the country, women’s equality in pay and job opportunities varies and America is losing ground globally, according to the personal finance website WalletHub, which in their latest study “2016’s Best & Worst States for Women’s Equality” ranked the states for gender equality. The study found Alabama was neither among the best, nor the worst states in gender equality, ranking number 35. WalletHub analysts compared three key metrics in determining each state’s rank: workplace environment, education and political empowerment. In the first metric, Alabama ranked 41st, for its high disparity of employees in executive positions by gender (with the fourth-worst score in this category), gap in number of minimum-wage workers and gap in number of entrepreneurs by gender. The Yellowhammer State ranked fourth in education — a high point of the findings. And when it comes to political empowerment, Alabama has room for improvement, coming in at 37th. Apart from unequal representation in executive leadership, salary inequity also has been central to the gender-gap debate. “Few experts dispute the existence of an earnings gap between women and men, but accurately measuring the disparity remains a challenge,” WalletHub writes. “The fact remains, however, that about two-thirds of minimum-wage workers across the country are female, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Unfortunately, women still have too few voices in government to help them achieve full social and economic equality in the near future.” This study comes just three days ahead of Women’s Equality Day on Aug. 26, a date selected to commemorate the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Here’s a look at how Alabama compares to the rest of the country: Source: WalletHub
New study reveals Alabama among the most educationally segregated states in America
A new national study reveals Alabama is among the most educationally segregated states in America, with many of its schoolchildren enrolled in high-poverty school districts, bordered by much more affluent neighbors. Birmingham has more than twice as many neighbors as the average school district, and of the 13 borders it shares with adjoining districts, six are included among the 50 most segregating in the country — more than any other district in America. The worst of these borders separate Birmingham from Vestavia Hills and Mountain Brook. Vestavia Hills and Mountain Brook, like most of Birmingham’s well-off neighbors, were formerly a part of the Jefferson County School District — the county school district near Birmingham — but Alabama law permits municipalities with 5,000 or more residents to form their own school districts, independent from larger county districts, and thus these cities seceded to form their own independent districts. These secessions established wealthy enclave districts that present a stark contrast to the rest of Birmingham. While the suburban neighbors have grown more populous and have prospered in recent decades, enrollment in Birmingham’s schools has plummeted, and its poverty rates have risen as better-off families have fled the district. In the 1999-2000 school year, Birmingham enrolled 38,120 students and had a 27 percent child poverty rate. Today it enrolls 24,858 students and has a 49 percent child poverty rate — seven times higher than Vestavia Hills and Mountain Brook, which both have poverty rates of just over six percent. Which is why a new report entitled “Fault Lines” from the nonprofit EdBuild ranks the Birmingham as the second and third most segregating school district borders in the country. “What we did is built an algorithm that identified all 33,500 school district borders in the country … and compared their school-aged child poverty rates,” said Rebecca Sibilia, the founder and CEO of EdBuild. Sibilia’s team compiled a list of the 50 most segregating school boundaries in the nation — the district borders with the largest difference in child poverty rates from one side to the other. In their report, “segregating” refers to social economic class rather than race, but the two often coincide in urban school districts. The study said 26 million children across the country live in high-poverty districts. “There is no doubt that low-income students are harmed by a system of borders that effectively quarantine them into underserved districts,” the study said. “America has permitted our schools to become a system anathema to our ideals, funding education in a manner that prevents a vast number of students from accessing an equal start in life.” It’s worth noting, Alabama is the only Southern state on the list, which Sibilia explains is because in much of the South, county borders do double-duty as school district borders, “and so there is less opportunity for intentional segregation.” Nevertheless, Birmingham is a prime example where students district border segregation results in greater educational opportunities for those who manage to live on the “right” side of these borders. The study revealed the borders separating these districts are effectively impenetrable to the neediest children from families with limited means, compounding the inequalities public education should be conquering. In effect, school district boundaries have become the new status quo for separate but unequal. Here’s a look at the top 10 most segregating school district boundaries — these neighboring school districts have some of the largest poverty differences in the country.
