Ken Guin starts a newspaper
Alabama state representative and former triple dipper Ken Guin has started his own newspaper.
Guin has started his own newspaper, The Corridor Messenger, and the first edition came off the presses Wednesday. Guin said the paper, which is being distributed free to homes across Walker County for the first month, will cover news in Walker County.
The primary newspaper operating in Walker County is The Daily Mountain Eagle in Jasper. Guin said his newspaper gets it’s name from “Corridor X,” a Birmingham-to-Memphis, Tenn., highway that runs through Walker County and has been planned and under construction for decades.
I guess Guin got tired of all the negative press he earned in legitimate publications and decided to start his own so that he can misinform his constituents.
I would think that being a politician and owning a newspaper was a conflict of interest.
The three major newspapers in Alabama all have the same ownership, and work in lockstep with the Republicans, Karl Rove, and the politically motivated U. S. Attorneys who are using selective political prosecutions to seize control of the Alabama legislature. It makes perfect sense for Ken Guin to start a newspaper that can be a small countermeasure against that onslaught, at least within his own district.
Great point, Bubba. I’m sure Karl Rove just sits around all day micro managing three Alabama dailies. That’s exactly what I would do if I were a major national political advisor.
Rove is just the puppeteer. His puppets (partisan activists, partisan prosecutors, Alabama Business Council & common corporate ownership of the largest news outlets in Alabama) handle the details. Their objective is to get control of the legislature before the next congressional reapportionment, by any means necessary. They will do anything they can to destroy anyone who stands in their way.
Political prosecutors run rampant in any absolutist, tyrannical political regime, enforcing the politics of personal destruction.The clear intent is to destroy or intimidate anyone who might effectively oppose the machine, convincing normal civic leaders that it isn’t worth the risk to careers, family and freedom to run for office without an “R” label.We see it all over the country in the Bush years, but Alabama is clearly the most blatant of example of partisan prosecution in the US today.
I grew up Republican in Alabama, when Republicans were rare as hens’ teeth. I don’t recognize the current crowd.
They should keep in mind that no majority is permanent and the politics of personal destruction can cut both ways. What goes around comes around. The Republicans need to compete through ideas, not through political prosecutions designed to put their opponents through “perp walks” before the TV cameras before the election.
Are you asserting that we currently live under the repression of an “absolutist, tyrannical political regime?” I find it hard to believe that such an iron fisted political machine would allow the opposition party to take control of both houses of Congress in national elections. Must be a softer, gentler “absolutist, tyrannical political regime” than in other parts of the world.
How many Alabama legislators have been perp walked before the TV cameras? Hint: none.
I assume you’re referring to the two-year college scandal. The reason that the vast majority of politicians who have been alleged to have cushy, if not phony, jobs in the two year college system is two fold. One, the majority of legislators in Alabama are Democrats, which means that even if the offenders were proportionally represented there would be more Democrats involved. Two, my personal belief – and it is just that – is that the AEA played some role in arranging the “jobs” for the legislators in order to curry favor from them. Democrats are far more likely to be AEA “friendly” and are therefore more likely to be involved in scams to get them taxpayer funded jobs with virtually no work required nor any educational benefit to the two year system.
Should that practice be barred prospectively? Yes.
Should the part-time legislators who have taken part-time positions with community colleges, when it was customary practice in the state, be destroyed and imprisoned for it? No.
That’s where we differ. To have a squad of cops roust an aging female teacher-legislator out of the shower in the early morning, even though she had offered to turn herself in if necessary, is just raw abuse of power.
The Republicans my grandparents and great-grandparents supported in Alabama would have been appalled.
One of the allegations against Schmitz was that she fraudulently claimed she was at work when she wasn’t. She wasn’t arrested for simply being a legislator who also worked in the two-year system. The US Attorney presumably has sufficient evidence to prosecute Schmitz for knowingly engaging in fraudulent activities. We’ll have to wait to see if she is found guilty.
You can read my other posts on this topic so that I can avoid restating what I’ve already said: here, here, and here.
If there is a legitimate case of real corruption against a public official, make it. But to do a dawn raid and drag a woman out of the shower to haul her off to jail – when she has offered to turn herself in if requested to do so _ is just raw abuse of power serving no purpose but to terrorize and intimidate political opponents. It sounds like the greater corruption may be on the prosecution side.
So much political garbage gets awful boring. Carl Rove and David Axelrod are both political pimps. Anyway I spent most of my childhood between Carbon Hill and Pocahuntas in the 1950’s. I’m older than Kenneth but remember him. I heard about his political pursuits but I’m a resident of Tennessee so I didn’t follow his efforts in that endeavor. I hope that your newspaper will devote sometime to other things. Politics is a blood sport in our society. Unless you’re my age you’ve never known it any other way. Believe me there was a better time. I wish all of you could have been there.