Jim Zeigler: Kay Ivey not accepting blame after her $3 billion prison rental plan failed
Speaking to the Montgomery Kiwanis Club Monday, Gov. Kay Ivey declined to accept any blame for the failure of her $3 billion prison lease plan. Ivey stated, “This is not the fault of any one administration but is due to decades upon decades of neglect.” Since the 2002 election, Ivey has been State Treasurer, Lt. Governor, and Governor the entire time. In 2020, Ivey proposed a plan to award 30-year lease contracts to three consortiums of businesses, mostly to Tennessee-based CoreCivic. Her plan would have paid them almost $100 million a year in rent. At the end of the lease, the state would have owned no equity in the prisons — they still would have been 100% owned by the favored businesses. After over $3 billion in rental payments, the state of Alabama would have to start over and pay for the prisons a second time. Ivey did not go through the legislature for approval of her prison rental plan or for an appropriation. She bypassed the legislature and proceeded with the plan by executive order. With the legislative leadership mostly silent, citizens and State Auditor Jim Zeigler strategized against the Ivey plan. “We documented the fatal flaws in the Ivey plan. We sent that information to the underwriters who would have raised the upfront money to build the rental prisons. We showed them legal flaws, financial flaws, political flaws, and the fact that the plan did not address the real problems in the prison system. Those problems include lack of safety of staff and other inmates, lack of mental health services, poor rehabilitation for when an inmate returns to the free world, overcrowding, and recidivism,” Zeigler said. One by one, the underwriters backed out, and the Ivey prison plan was pronounced dead in June 2021. Now, Ivey has called a special session for Sept. 27 for the legislature to consider a new prison plan. It will have the state building and owning the prisons with low-cost bonds.
Lynda Blanchard: Democrats singing that same old debt-limit song
When Johnny and I first married, times were tough. He was in school, and I was working a minimum-wage job. We had to watch every penny. We did without, and we made do, and we lived on what money we had at the time. Why can’t the federal government do the same? Now, we’re seeing yet another verse of the same old debt-limit song from Washington. The Democrats are pushing Bernie Sanders’ $3.5 trillion dollar budget while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is saying that unless the debt ceiling is raised, the United States will default on our debt payments for the first time in history. On Monday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that they would combine bills to suspend the debt limit once again with an emergency spending bill to avoid a government shutdown and default. Thankfully, Congressional Republicans are going to make the Democrats do this all on their own, so there will be no question about who owns it. Republicans know that the Democrats will use suspending the debt limit to fuel their wasteful spending on their progressive wish list. We’re lucky that on Monday, the Senate Parliamentarian blocked an attempt by the Democrats to put amnesty for millions of illegals in the budget. This would have basically created a new immigration policy without any input from Republicans and would have cost us an estimated $109 billion dollars, and included green cards, education, and other benefits for roughly 10 million illegals. Pelosi, Schumer, Sanders, and company want to keep turning illegals into Democrat voters, and they want you to pay for it on the nation’s credit card. The Democrats want to import voters so they can stay in power forever, and they expect us to foot the bill. They want to ram through a $3.5 trillion budget using the reconciliation process without Republicans having any say in the process, never mind that it would cause trillion-dollar deficits for the next ten years. They want to borrow and spend on every kind of perk for themselves, like a $200 million park near Pelosi’s home, when the country isn’t able to pay its credit card bill now. This nonsense has to stop. I support our Congressional Republicans in blocking the Democrats’ out-of-control spending. We also have to stop allowing immigrants to pour across our southern border, spreading themselves and the COVID they carry across the country and draining federal, state, and local resources where they settle. Until we get a handle on the Biden border crisis, we’ll continue to run up bills paying for it. We can’t fix one without fixing the other, as the Democrats’ amnesty end-run in the budget just proved. It’s time that Congress started living within the country’s means. We need to kill this budget bill, then focus on fixing our hard infrastructure that’s been ignored for decades, meeting our country’s real needs, and cutting the waste, so we only spend what we take in. Ordinary families and most states do this all the time. What will it take for the federal government to start doing this? I strongly urge the Republicans in Congress to save this bill because it’s a necessary first step toward saving America. Lynda Blanchard served as President Donald Trump’s United States Ambassador to Slovenia, the First Lady’s birth country. Ambassador Blanchard is also a successful business woman from Montgomery, where she is involved in many philanthropic activities. She is a mom to 8 wonderful kids. Ambassador Blanchard is one of only 3 Presidential appointed Ambassadors in history from the state of Alabama. She is currently running for U.S. Senate.
Steve Flowers: Huntsville is Alabama’s largest city
Huntsville has rocketed past Birmingham as Alabama’s largest city. It is not named the Rocket City for nothing. The Census Bureau had been predicting this amazing boom in population in the Madison (Huntsville)/Limestone area, but the actual figures recently released reveal a bigger growth than expected. Huntsville grew by 20% or 35,000 people and is now a little over 215,000. On the other hand, Birmingham shrank by 12,000 or 5% to 201,000 people. Montgomery held its own, and Montgomery and Birmingham are actually in a virtual tie for second at around 200,000. Mobile shrank to 187,000 and is now the smallest of the “big four” cities in the state. Our big four cities of Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile are all led by sterling mayors. Birmingham’s mayor, Randall Woodfin, and Mobile’s mayor, Sandy Stimpson, both won overwhelming reelection victories in late August elections. Mayor Woodfin won a very impressive reelection landslide victory on August 24. Woodfin garnered an amazing 65% of the vote against seven opponents. He won his first race for mayor four years ago, the old-fashioned way. He went door-to-door and knocked on an estimated 50,000 doors. He followed up this year by running one of the most picture-perfect campaigns in modern times. He again had a stellar grassroots campaign with a host of volunteers that knocked on an estimated 80,000 doors. Mayor Woodfin and his team are brilliantly adapting to the modern politics of using social media, yet he adroitly employs the old-school politics of mainstream television, traditional media, and getting out the vote. The initial polling on the mayoral race indicated that Woodfin could probably win reelection without a runoff, but nobody saw the 65% final result figure. I am convinced that the ad firm that designed his televisions ads garnered him a 12% boost from 53% to 65% with an ad using his mother. The ad featured Mama Woodfin asking her friends and neighbors in Birmingham to vote for her boy. She was a superstar. Mobile Mayor Stimpson also won an impressive 63% reelection victory on August 24. He was elected to his third term. Stimpson is a successful businessman from an old silk stocking Mobile family. He is doing the job as a civic duty. Mobilians must think he is doing a good job. Stimpson ran a positive campaign and spent a lot of money. Stimpson will be entering his third four-year term as mayor of the Port City. On election night, he indicated that this may be his last hurrah, noting that he will be 73 in 2025 and may be ready to hand over the reins. Huntsville’s mayor, Tommy Battle, won an impressive reelection last year. Montgomery mayor Steven Reed also won a very impressive first term election in 2020. The mayors of our four major cities are indeed popular. There is another dynamic developing in our state. The Morehouse College Degree and experience has become the standard of success among the new African American leaders in the state. It seems that this traditional historic college in Atlanta is where our elite leaders are spawned. The leadership of Montgomery are all products of this proud institution of higher learning. It is truly a powerfully bonded fraternity. Mayor Steven Reed, State Senator Kirk Hatcher, Probate Judge J.C. Love, and Circuit Judge Greg Griffin all have the same pedigree. They were born and raised in the Capitol City, went off to Morehouse for their education and national political networking, then came home to lead their city and Montgomery County. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin is a Morehouse man. In his first race, his Morehouse friends and fraternity brothers from throughout the country, many of whom are professionals, doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, came to the Magic City to campaign and knock on doors for Woodfin. There was a room full of Morehouse men at Woodfin’s victory celebration on August 24 as he won his second term. By the same token, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle and Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson are products of the old school, 100-year-old University of Alabama fraternity called “The Machine.” Battle was a member of Kappa Sigma, and Stimpson was a Delta Kappa Epsilon. In closing, even though Huntsville is the largest city, folks in the Rocket City should not get too big of a head. The Birmingham/Hoover metro area is still by far the largest metropolitan area of the state by a 2-to-1 margin. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at: www.steveflowers.us.
Consumers get online tool to check nursing home vaccine data
Families and patients have a new online tool to compare COVID-19 vaccination rates among nursing homes, Medicare announced Tuesday, addressing complaints from consumer groups and lawmakers that the critical data had been too difficult to find. The information is now being made available through the “Care Compare” feature at Medicare.gov, the online tool for basic research on quality and safety issues at nursing homes. Consumers will be able to compare up to three nursing homes at the same time, and the webpage shows vaccination rates for residents and staff, as well as national and state averages. “We want to give people a new tool to visualize this data to help them make informed decisions,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a statement. Nursing home residents are a tiny proportion of the U.S. population, but they have borne a crushing burden from the COVID-19 pandemic, accounting for more than 150,000 deaths, or roughly 1 in 5. Nationally, about 84% of residents are now vaccinated, which has slowed — but not totally prevented — the spread of the delta variant among frail patients. Nursing home staffers are the bigger concern since only about 64% are vaccinated, roughly the same share as the adult population. The virus commonly gets into facilities via staffers who have been exposed in nearby communities and unwittingly pass the infection on to residents. Medicare has been posting vaccination information online for months, but it was on a site designed for researchers and industry. One way to navigate it involved accessing a huge spreadsheet. Another approach called for hunting around on a map for little red dots that represented nursing homes. The statistics reveal big disparities in vaccination rates among states and sometimes wide differences within states and communities. Among the organizations complaining were Consumer Voice, which advocates for quality improvement in long-term care, and the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a watchdog group. Their concerns were echoed by two senior Democratic lawmakers, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Citing an Associated Press report on breakthrough infections among nursing home residents, the two lawmakers urged Medicare to move quickly. Wyden chairs the Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, and Casey heads the Aging Committee. The new online tool reminds consumers comparing facilities that higher percentages of vaccinated residents and staff “are better.” Information on COVID-19 vaccination rates is available just below each nursing home’s ratings. The data reflect the latest reported by nursing homes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medicare officials say they are encouraged that even as the delta variant has swept across the country, outbreaks in nursing homes have not raced out of control as happened last year. They attribute that to the high rate of residents who have gotten their shots. Nursing home residents are expected to be top on the priority for booster shots as they become available. The nursing home industry says it fully supports vaccination of staffers and residents but that Medicare should also publish vaccine levels for hospitals and other medical care settings. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Kay Ivey promotes Alabama prison plan ahead of special session
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday blamed crumbling infrastructure for the state’s prison problems as she prepares to call lawmakers back to Montgomery for a special session on prison construction. “The main issue contributing to these struggles is that our prison infrastructure is growing worse, day by day, and is not capable of truly rehabilitating inmates,” Ivey said in a speech to a Montgomery civic club. Ivey is calling a special session next week for lawmakers to vote on a $1.3 billion prison construction plan that would use $400 million of the state’s virus relief funds for prison construction. Ivey said Alabama — already facing a Department of Justice lawsuit and separate court orders to improve on prison staffing and mental health treatment — is risking a federal takeover of the prison system. “The federal courts have lawsuits against us, and they are getting closer and closer to wanting to intervene. That is something we cannot let happen. If they take over, they’ll turn prisoners out, no questions asked, free the prisoners, take control of the money the Legislature normally has priority overspending,” Ivey told reporters. While Ivey has put the focus on facilities, some lawmakers and advocacy groups have argued new buildings will not fix the issues, including those raised in the Justice Department lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Alabama over conditions in the state’s prisons, saying it is failing to protect male inmates from inmate-on-inmate violence and excessive force at the hands of prison staff. “Buildings alone will NOT address the DOJ concerns. We need real leaders who will,” the ACLU of Alabama wrote in a tweet last week. Ivey said Tuesday that she is considering “some reforms, possibly” in the special session and is in discussion with lawmakers. The $1.3 billion proposal calls for at least three new prisons — at least a 4,000-bed prison in Elmore County with enhanced space for medical and mental health care needs; another at least 4,000-bed prison in Escambia County; and a women’s prison — as well as renovations to existing facilities. The plan includes the purchase of an empty private prison in Perry County for rehabilitation programs. The projects would be done in phases and partly funded with a $785 million bond issue, $150 million in general fund dollars, and $400 million from the state’s $2.2 billion shares of American Rescue Plan funds, a key lawmaker who drafted the proposal said. Ivey said using the virus relief funds will allow the state to build the prisons without borrowing as much money. Asked by a reporter if there were many other needs for the COVID-19 relief money, the governor replied that was speculation and “you’ve got your opinion, and I’ve got mine.” Republican Rep. Steve Clouse, who is sponsoring the bill, said the construction proposal “seems to have overwhelming support in the House and the Senate.” Clouse said the buildings are a “piece” of the solution. He said he is hopeful that more secure facilities will help the Department of Corrections in recruiting and retaining staff. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
White House faces bipartisan backlash on Haitian migrants
The White House is facing sharp condemnation from Democrats for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S. southern border after images of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics went viral this week. Striking video of agents maneuvering their horses to forcibly block and move migrants attempting to cross the border has sparked resounding criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who are calling on the Biden administration to end its use of a pandemic-era authority to deport migrants without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States. At the same time, the administration continues to face attacks from Republicans, who say Joe Biden isn’t doing enough to deal with what they call a “crisis” at the border. Reflecting the urgency of the political problem for the administration, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday the images “horrified” him, a seeming shift in tone from a day earlier when he and others were more sanguine about the situation at the border. It’s a highly uncomfortable position for the administration, led by a president who has set himself up as a tonic for the harshness of his predecessor. But immigration is a complex issue, one no administration has been able to fix in decades. And Biden is trapped between conflicting interests of broadcasting compassion while dealing with throngs of migrants coming to the country — illegally — seeking a better life. The provision in question, known as Title 42, was put in place by the Trump administration in March 2020 to justify restrictive immigration policies in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But the Biden administration has used Title 42 to justify the deportation of Haitian migrants who in recent days have set up an encampment in and around the small city of Del Rio, Texas. The provision gives federal health officials powers during a pandemic to take extraordinary measures to limit the transmission of an infectious disease. A federal judge late last week ruled the regulation was improper and gave the government two weeks before its use was to be halted, but the Biden administration on Monday appealed the decision. “The Biden administration pushing back on this stay of expulsions is another example of broken promises to treat migrants with respect and humanity when they reach our borders to exercise their fundamental right to asylum,” said Karla Marisol Vargas, senior attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project and co-counsel on the litigation. NAACP President Derrick Johnson demanded a meeting with Biden to discuss the situation and called the treatment of the Haitian migrants “utterly sickening.” “The humanitarian crisis happening under this administration on the southern border disgustingly mirrors some of the darkest moments in America’s history,” he said in a statement. Shortly after the judge’s decision on Friday, Homeland Security officials formed a plan to begin immediately turning the groups of Haitian migrants around, working against the clock. But people kept coming. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, an administration ally, said images of the treatment of the migrants “turn your stomach” and called on the administration to discontinue the “hateful and xenophobic” policies of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump. “The policies that are being enacted now — and the horrible treatment of these innocent people who have come to the border — must stop immediately,” he told the Senate on Tuesday. Trump essentially put a chokehold on immigration. He decreased the number of refugees admitted to a record low, made major changes to policy, and essentially shut down asylum. Biden has undone many of the Trump-era policies, but since his inauguration, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials. The Haitian migrants are the latest example. More than 6,000 Haitians and other migrants have been removed from the encampment in Del Rio, and Mayorkas predicted a “dramatic change” in the number of migrants there within the next two to four days as the administration continues the removal process. As the controversy swirled around him, Biden spent his Tuesday address at the U.N. General Assembly in New York calling for the global community to come together to defend human rights and combat injustice worldwide, declaring, “the future will belong to those who embrace human dignity, not trample it.” The remarks stood in notable contrast to images of the Border Patrol agents on horseback. Biden himself seemed to acknowledge the challenge his administration faces with immigration, offering a clipped response when asked by a reporter after his U.N. remarks to offer his reaction to the images. “We’ll get it under control,” he insisted. Vice President Kamala Harris also weighed in, telling reporters in Washington that she was “deeply troubled” by the images and planned to talk to Mayorkas about the situation. Harris has been tasked with addressing the root causes of migration to the U.S. and emphasized that the U.S. should “support some very basic needs that the people of Haiti have” that are causing them to flee their homes for the U.S. Videos and photos taken in recent days in and around Del Rio show Border Patrol agents confronting Haitians along the Rio Grande near a border bridge where thousands of migrants have gathered in hopes of entering the country. One Border Patrol agent on horseback was seen twirling his long leather reins in a menacing way at the Haitian migrants but not actually striking anyone. There was no sign in photos and videos viewed by The Associated Press that the mounted agents were carrying whips or using their reins as such when confronting the migrants. The agents, wearing chaps and cowboy hats, maneuvered their horses to forcibly block and move the migrants, almost seeming to herd them. In at least one instance, they were heard taunting the migrants. Asked about the images on Tuesday, Mayorkas told lawmakers that the issue had been “uppermost in my mind” ever since he had seen them. He said the department had alerted its inspector general’s
