Posts Tagged ‘Montgomery’
July 20th, 2011
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Author: WASHINGTON — The first full reports of donations to the 2012 presidential campaign show Alabamians have sent more than $212,000 to eight declared candidates, led by Democratic President Barack Obama and followed closely by Republican Mitt Romney.
The Federal Election Commission’s data about Alabama reflects what is a national trend so far in the contest. Obama’s donors tend to give frequently in small amounts, while Romney has fewer donors overall but many of them give the $2,500 maximum allowed in one big check.
Obama is the sole Democratic candidate and collected $73,963 from 92 donors in Alabama in the second quarter of the year, through June 30. His campaign finance report shows those 92 individuals made 150 donations, some of them as small as $5.
Of the $31.7 million Obama raised from individuals around the country, $21.2 million of it was from small donors, those who contributed $200 or less, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
By contrast, 49 people in Alabama made 51 donations to Romney’s campaign totaling $71,550. Many of them were checks of at least $1,000. Nationally, of the $18.2 million Romney reported in contributions from individuals, $1.2 million of it was from small donors, the center reports.
Although Obama raised the most of any single candidate in Alabama, the Republicans as a group raised more.
Second behind Romney’s total was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who raised about $26,000. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty took in $17,350, and businessman Herman Cain, $11,790.
Three other Republicans barely registered in the state: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, $6,170; Rep. Michele Bachmann, $5,450; and former Sen. Rick Santorum, $246.
Join the conversation by clicking to comment or email Orndorff at morndorff@bhamnews.com.
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Tags: HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – More than 17,000 Madison County residents filed grant applications with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for help dealing with the damage left behind from the April tornadoes.
When the application deadline passed Monday, 17,461 people from Madison County were among 87,717 residents statewide who applied for assistance. In the surrounding counties, 2,439 applications were received in Jackson County, 2,680 were filed in Limestone County, 4,797 in Marshall County and 2,390 in Morgan.
FEMA spokeswoman Debra Young said Tuesday that she didn’t have a breakdown of the type of losses for which area residents filed applications.
Typically, people file claims for losses caused by structural damage to their home, damage to their automobile, or rental assistance if the losses are not covered by insurance. Young said the FEMA grants can be used to replace furniture, clothes and appliances if the person doesn’t qualify for a low-interest disaster loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The turnaround from when someone files an application with FEMA to when they are approved for a grant can be quick, Young said. “Sometimes it’s within a few days,” she said. “Some people who applied early and already know and have their money.”
Families who applied for FEMA help are urged to stay in touch with the agency to track the status of their application, provide current contact information or appeal the FEMA decision. Young said anyone who receives a rejection letter from FEMA should read the entire letter to learn why they were denied and how to appeal the decision.
Appeals must be mailed or faxed within 60 days of the date on the FEMA rejection letter.
For more information, call the FEMA helpline at 1-800-621-3362 or go online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov.
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The “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” passed 234 to 190 in the House of Congress on Tuesday. The legislation would increase the nation’s debt ceiling, but first requires congressional approval of a Balanced Budget Amendment. The bill would also cut $111 billion dollars in spending for FY 2012 and would cap spending at 19.9% of GDP.
U.S. Rep. Martha Roby, R-Montgomery, is among the newly elected members of congress who pushed the ‘Cut, Cap and Balance Act.’
“Today’s passage of the ‘Cut, Cap and Balance Act’ is a bold step in the right direction that would make immediate spending cuts while also enacting long-term reforms,” Rep. Roby said. “Under the plan, future spending would be significantly restrained, putting America in a far stronger position tomorrow than we are today. In exchange for these straightforward and significant reforms, the bill would allow our nation to avoid default by increasing the debt limit.”
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MOBILE, Alabama — A 17-year-old was arrested late tonight and charged in connection with the robbery of two men answering a Craigslist ad for a television, Mobile police said.
Gerard Pruitt was charged with first-degree robbery and taken to Mobile County Metro Jail without bail, police spokeswoman Ashley Rains said. He was caught earlier tonight in a police sting after being identified during the investigation, Rains said.
A second suspect remains at large, Rains said.
The robbery took place about 2:40 p.m. Saturday, after two men answered an advertisement on Craigslist for a flat-screen television, according to Rains.
The buyers agreed to meet at Scottsdale Drive and Scottsdale Court to purchase the television, but when the men arrived, the sellers pulled guns on them, Rains said. She added that one of the men handed over a backpack full of tools and personal items. No one was injured.
“It appears there was never a flat-screen TV in the first place,” Rains said.
Once Pruitt’s identity was established, Rains said police set up an operation to meet Pruitt, who was taken into custody without incident.
Rains said Craigslist buyers need to exercise common sense when meeting sellers. “Do not go anywhere where you have to ask directions, and never have someone come to your home to make a sale,” she said. “Go to a public place to make your purchase.”
Also, she said, buyers should beware of preposterous offers.
“Anything that sounds too good to be true is just that,” she said.
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — The Birmingham Housing Authority and the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity are partnering to offer early childhood education programs for public housing residents from infancy through kindergarten.
The housing authority’s board of commissioners on Monday voted to enter into the partnership.
The programs will be held in buildings that once served as day-care centers in the Elyton Village, Tom Brown Village, Collegeville, Cooper Green, Southtown, Loveman Village and Marks Village communities. All of the centers have been closed for several years, said housing authority director Naomi Truman.
Children will be shuttled from other Birmingham housing communities to the centers, each of which will be able to serve 60 to 80 children, Truman said.
She said the program is “one of the most significant things we’ve ever done” as part of the authority’s mission to promote education and employment for public housing residents.
“In the past, we’ve given college scholarships, but the students had a hard time because they didn’t have basic math skills,” Truman said. “We still have to help adults, but if we’re going to have a real impact you’ve got to start young.”
Housing Commissioner Samella Cabil-Martin noted that President Barack Obama is urging housing authorities nationwide to promote early childhood education.
“That’s the basis for success throughout a child’s life,” Cabil-Martin said. “If they have the foundation we’re trying to give them, they will move through the elementary and middle school phases without problems.”
The only cost to the authority will be repairs to the centers. Truman said she wasn’t sure exactly how much that work will cost.
“They’re all old properties. In one instance, we may have to replace an old air conditioner because someone took it, and in some cases there has been vandalism,” Truman said.
The work will be done in two phases, with the first work being performed at Elyton Village, Cooper Green, Tom Brown and possibly some of the other four communities, Truman said.
The first center to open hasn’t been identified, but Truman said she expects it to open at the end of August or early September.
The program, part of the Head Start-Early Head Start program, will operate 180 days annually, according to the housing authority.
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The Jefferson County Commission is preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing by recruiting law firms and consultants who have experience in municipal bankruptcy, commissioners said Tuesday.
With time running out on a negotiated settlement with creditors, commissioners sent the strongest signal yet that they are serious about bankruptcy with their plans to interview at the courthouse this week Kenneth Klee, a UCLA law professor who worked for Orange County, Calif., on its Chapter 9 bankruptcy case.
The commission has scheduled a closed meeting with lawyers at 9 a.m. Thursday to discuss options likely to be litigated if the commission “pursues a certain course of action.”
Klee, who drafted principal revisions to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code for the House Judiciary Committee and served as a consultant on bankruptcy legislation to the U.S. Department of Justice, is viewed by many as one of the nation’s top experts on Chapter 9.
“He already has the track record,” Commissioner Joe Knight said. “He’s been down that path. He has the distinction of working on the largest municipal bankruptcy in the United States. Not that I am anxious to replace Orange County, because I’m not, but at the same time I want the very best advice we can get.”
Efforts to reach Klee for comment were unsuccessful on Tuesday.
The commission is preparing for a bankruptcy filing in the event that negotiations between the county and its creditors fail to produce a settlement for its $3.2 billion sewer debt crisis. A 30-day standstill period expires July 29.
County commissioners have already authorized their lawyers to draw up papers required to file for Chapter 9 in case they decide to pull the trigger on what would be the largest municipal bankruptcy ever filed by a government in the United States. It would eclipse the $1.6 billion bankruptcy of Orange County, Calif., in 1994.
Last week, commissioners met with Jeffrey Cohen, a lawyer at the Washington-based Patton Boggs law firm who specializes in government bankruptcies and financial meltdowns.
Fortifying the county’s legal team “is a project we are working on at this very moment,” Commission President David Carrington said Tuesday. “If we are going to try to win the World Series, we want to be sure we have the best players that we can possibly put on the team. We’re looking at free agents that might be available that can help us in the pennant stretch.”
Which lawyers and firms to add has caused some division among commissioners.
For example, Commissioner George Bowman said he has pushed unsuccessfully to get Calvin Grigsby of Grigsby & Associates, a San Francisco-based investment bank that specializes in local government finance, added to the county’s legal team.
“Since we’re considering options and we’re talking about building a team that’s going to help us as we go forward, then we need to listen to Mr. Grigsby,” Bowman said.
Commissioners acknowledge some friction over which firms, including some already under contract, will represent the county in a potential bankruptcy, which, according to some estimates, could cost $1 million a month just for legal fees.
“It’s not fighting,” Knight said. “It’s disagreements. That’s why you have five members of the commission, so you can collectively come up with a solution.”
In a related matter Tuesday, the finance committee voted to take $1 million out of reserves to pay legal fees to New York-based law firm Boies, Schiller to defend the county in a lawsuit filed by bond insurers Syncora Guarantee Inc. The firm is seeking $400 million in damages from the county and investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. over the disastrous bond deals that propelled the county into its sewer debt crisis.
Said Commissioner Jimmie Stephens: “I want to remind everyone that if we were to file bankruptcy, that this type of litigation and these costs would cease and we would be able to consolidate all the legal cases under the one legal team that would be handling our bankruptcy.”
Join the conversation by clicking to comment or email Wright at bwright@bhamnews.com.
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WASHINGTON — Defying a veto threat, the Republican-controlled House voted Tuesday night to slice federal spending by $6 trillion and require a constitutional balanced budget amendment to be sent to the states in exchange for averting a threatened Aug. 2 government default.
The 234-190 vote marked the power of deeply conservative first-term Republicans, and it stood in contrast to calls at the White House and in the Senate for a late stab at bipartisanship to solve the nation’s looming debt crisis.
President Barack Obama and a startling number of Republican senators lauded a deficit-reduction plan put forward earlier in the day by a bipartisan “Gang of Six” lawmakers that calls for $1 trillion in what sponsors delicately called “additional revenue” and some critics swiftly labeled as higher taxes.
The president said he hoped congressional leaders would “start talking turkey” on a deal to reduce deficits and raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit as soon as Wednesday, using that plan as a roadmap.
Wall Street cheered the news of possible compromise as well. The Dow Jones industrials average soared 202 points, the biggest one-day leap this year.
Treasury officials say that without an increase in U.S. borrowing authority by Aug. 2, the government will not be able to pay all its bills, and default could result in severe consequences for the economy.
Yet a few hours after Obama spoke at the White House, supporters of the newly passed House measure breathed defiance.
“Let me be clear. This is the compromise. This is the best plan out there,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, head of a conservative group inside the House known as the Republican Study Committee.
The legislation, dubbed “Cut, Cap and Balance” by supporters and backed by tea party activists, would make an estimated $111 billion in immediate reductions and ensure that overall spending declined in the future in relation to the overall size of the economy.
It also would require both houses of Congress to approve a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and send it to the states for ratification. The amendment itself would require a supermajority vote in both houses of Congress for any future tax raises.
With time dwindling, the day’s events did little to suggest a harmonious end was imminent in a defining clash between the two political parties.
Senate Democrats have announced they will oppose the House passed-measure, although it could take two or three days to reject it.
Yet there were signs that with Tuesday night’s vote behind them, House Republican leaders might pivot swiftly.
Even before the vote, Speaker John Boehner told reporters that it also was “responsible to look at what Plan B would look like.”
And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor issued a statement saying of the Gang of Six proposal: “This bipartisan plan does seem to include some constructive ideas to deal with our debt.
Debate in the House was along predictable lines, and only nine Republicans opposed the bill and five Democrats supported it on final passage.
“Our bloated and obese federal budget needs a healthy and balanced diet, one that trims the fat of overspending and grows the muscle of our nation’s economy,” said Rep. Reid Ribble of Wisconsin during debate on the measure.
Ribble is one of 87 first-term House Republicans determined to reduce the size of government.
Democrats said the measure, with its combination of cuts and spending limits, would inflict damage on millions who rely on Social Security, Medicare and other programs. “The Republicans are trying to repeal the second half of the 20th century,” said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Michigan.
Boehner played a muted role in public during the day. He did not speak on the House floor on the legislation, but issued a statement afterward saying it “provides President Obama with the debt limit increase he’s requested while making real spending cuts now and restraining future government spending and debt that are hurting job growth.”
He did not discuss what alternatives he had in mind, although the Senate’s top two leaders have been at work on one that would let the president raise the debt limit without prior approval by Congress.
The “Gang of Six” briefed other senators on the group’s plan after a seemingly quixotic quest that took months, drew disdain at times from the leaders of both parties and appeared near failure more than once.
It calls for deficit cuts of slightly less than $4 trillion over a decade and includes steps to slow the growth of Social Security payments, cut at least $500 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs and wring billions in savings from programs across the face of government.
It envisions tax changes that would reduce existing breaks for a number of popular items while reducing the top income bracket from the current 35 percent to 29 percent or less.
The tax overhaul “must be estimated to provide $1 trillion in additional revenue to meet plan targets,” according to a summary that circulated in the Capitol.
Some Republicans noted a claim contained in the summary that congressional bookkeeping rules could actually consider the plan a tax cut of $1.5 trillion. That credits sponsors for retaining income tax cuts enacted at all income levels when George W. Bush was president.
The group of six includes three Democrats, Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Mark Warner of Virginia and Dick Durbin of Illinois, a member of the leadership.
The three Republicans, all conservatives, are Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, who has a particularly close relationship with Boehner dating to their days together in the House.
In recommending higher government revenues, Republicans in the group challenged party orthodoxy that has held sway for two decades, ever since President George H.W. Bush memorably broke his “no new taxes” pledge to make a deficit reduction deal with congressional Democrats.
In the years since, refusal to raise taxes has become a virtually inviolable article of faith among Republicans, and used by them and their allies in countless political campaigns against Democrats.
Recently, Republicans who voted to repeal a tax subsidy for ethanol production drew criticism from Grover Norquist, a prominent anti-tax activist, for not applying the savings to deficit reduction.
Even so, in the hours after the Gang of Six briefed other lawmakers on their plan, at least one member of the Republican Senate leadership, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, signed on as a supporter. So, too, did Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
“We have an opportunity to act like statesmen and avoid a debacle on Aug. 2, and it seems to me that all of our efforts should be focused on that,” added Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. He and others said the plan was well-received at a weekly closed-door meeting of GOP senators.
Obama stopped well short of endorsing the plan, saying administration officials were analyzing it and not all details were known.
But he said it included “a revenue component” along with savings in Medicare and Social Security, making it the sort of balanced approach he has long advocated.
He also noted that the Senate’s two top leaders have been cooperating on a measure that would allow him to raise the debt limit without a prior vote of Congress while also setting up a special committee to recommend cuts from federal programs, including Social Security and Medicare.
“That continues to be a necessary approach to put forward. In the event that we don’t get an agreement, at minimum, we’ve got to raise the debt ceiling,” he said.
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There is a 30 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms in the Birmingham area Wednesday afternoon with a high near 94, according to the National Weather Service.
Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low around 75.
There is a 20 percent chance of rain Wednesday night. The low will be around 77.
Thursday will have 30 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms, a high near 94 and a low around 76.
Friday’s forecast calls for a 40 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms, a high near 93 and a low around 75.
Follow developments at the al.com Weather Center.
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BROOKWOOD, Alabama — Tucaloosa County Sheriff’s Department officers used a robotic device to disrupt what a man presented as a bomb during a robbery of the Regions Bank on Highway 216 at 3:30 p.m. today.
The sheriff’s department explosive ordinance dispoal team, crime scene investigators, Brookwood Police and the FBI continue their investigation.
A sheriff’s department helicopter was also used in the search.
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