Opinion & Policy

  Welcome to 2023! I can’t quite decide if I’m relieved to have survived 2022, looking forward to 2023, or just trying to be a little wary of what is coming up. There are so many unknowns right now, and it’s hard to make decisions. This is unusual for me because I am generally a…

  Here we are reading the last edition of “The Coosa County News” for 2022. There won’t be an edition next week since it is the annual week off for the CCN and its staff. Seems like it was just yesterday we were wishing each other happy 2022! It’s been an eventful year, and as…

  It may still be 2022, but the 2023 Alabama Legislature will be going into session in just a few months. The first session of a four-year legislative quadrennium is usually when lawmakers pass the most controversial bills. Tax increases, legislative pay raises and other issues that state representatives and senators want to pass, but would like…

For those that may not know, Twitter is a blogging platform that allows users to publish “tweets” limited to 280 characters. Twitter now has more than 396 million users, and after Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, it is the fifth-ranked most valuable social media company. After some back-and-forth difficulties earlier this year, Elon Musk, owner…

  Note: Last week I failed to detect an error until I saw it in print. I had accidentally typed “1781” instead of “1791” when noting when the “Bill of Rights” was ratified. The hot topic this week was the prisoner exchange where the United States traded Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for women’s basketball…

  When Sen. Tommy Tuberville was first elected there were questions about how a former football coach and neophyte to politics would make it in Washington, D.C. However, he has shown in his first two years that he is up for the job and willing to tackle difficult issues. He first took on the Biden…

  Pictured is one of America’s greatest generation, Bloise Zeigler, a defense worker at Huntsville Arsenal when Pearl Harbor was attacked.   Special to the News By State Auditor Jim Zeigler   Eighty-one years ago, in the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces surprised and killed 2,403 Americans and wounded more than 1,100. Thirty-two…

Special to the News By Emma Gibney, Alabama Policy Institute   What if I told you Alabama’s eighth-grade reading and math scores are either worse than or the same as they were more than two decades ago? Would you believe me over the various celebratory slogans touting Alabama’s “progress in education achievement” on the same…

  We have not even gotten to year end and states around the country are already fighting over who will hold the first presidential primaries. This past week President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee made the first moves to strip Iowa of its first-in-the-nation primary status. South Carolina would now come first and…

  Special to the News By Justin Bogie, Alabama Policy Institute   Recently a “Washington Examiner” columnist wrote an opinion piece entitled “Fiscal conservatism doesn’t always mean tax cuts.” It highlighted recent comments by the Alabama House of Representatives’ newly elected Speaker Pro Tem Chris Pringle (R-Mobile). The basic argument made by Rep. Pringle is that Alabama and the…