Both companies had privately expressed concerns about the BCA’s leadership and direction. Their decisions to end long-standing relationships with the BCA mark a turning point in their collective effort to strengthen the business community’s approach to economic development and job growth.

BCA Chairman Perry Hand acknowledged for the first time on Monday that Billy Canary was, in fact, now the outgoing President of the group. In a letter made public by Hand, he detailed that Canary’s tenure would end sometime prior to the start of next year. The departing companies identified the uncertainty surrounding that transition as a significant contributing factor to their leaving.

In addition to BCA’s failure to settle on a timely and decisive transition plan, the companies also expressed concern over the group’s effectiveness and financial health. The Yellowhammer Multimedia Executive Board has itself explored some of these same issues facing BCA.

Regions Financial Corp. is a multi-state bank based out of Birmingham. According to its website, it is the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in Alabama and has $123 billion in assets.

Allison Ross is the owner and publisher of Yellowhammernews.com.

The questionnaire was formulated by the editors of Yellowhammer News and our partners over at the Alabama Policy Institute. Here’s the rather straight-forward question on abortion:

“Alabama has four abortion clinics operating across the state, and Planned Parenthood has announced plans to build a new clinic in downtown Birmingham. How do you feel about these clinics and what would you do as governor about any taxpayer funds they receive?”

And here was the mayor’s answer, which as you can read isn’t really an answer at all:

“I’m a pro-life Democrat who is concerned that many Republicans are more pro-birth than pro-life,” Maddox wrote. “Perhaps Sister Joan Chittister best summed up my feelings when she said “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

He continued. “Although I am personally opposed to abortion, under the law of the land a woman has a right to choose up until the point of fetal viability,” he wrote. “The federal Hyde Amendment prohibits use of federal funds to pay for abortions except those that endanger the life of the woman, or that result from rape or incest, and Alabama law does not provide any state funds for abortions. The courts will ultimately decide which of Alabama’s several laws regulating abortion are constitutional, including any restrictions on new abortion clinics. As a governor sworn to uphold the federal and state constitutions and the laws of Alabama, I will faithfully execute Alabama’s laws within the constitutional limits defined by the Supreme Court.”

Here’s a breakdown of Maddox’s pro-choice phraseology:

— “Republicans are more pro-birth than pro-life.” 

I’ve seen this same line in dozens of emails from pro-choice activists after every pro-life column I publish. 

It’s like clockwork. They can’t cope with keeping the focus on abortion because the act is indefensible, so they attempt to change the subject entirely with what they hope is a witty turn of phrase. 

But it’s not witty. It’s hollow, and betrays the hollowness of both their argument and the moral framework it’s built upon. 

The two issues — abortion and welfare — are two entirely different subjects. But in their world, it must be OK to end someone’s life if the state isn’t willing to provide for it financially (which we do for the truly needy, by the way).

— “Although I am personally opposed to abortion, under the law of the land a woman has a right to choose up until the point of fetal viability.”

Maddox is trying to have it both ways here, but this isn’t that sort of issue. If he believes an unborn child is a person, which I suppose forms the basis for his personal opposition to abortion, then any measure of morality would compel him to oppose it completely. 

The unborn child is either a living person or not, and if so, it’s life must be defended as anyone else’s life would be defended.

To believe that, personally, yet do nothing to stop it from happening means one is either a coward or creature of such unscrupulous ambition as to be wholly undeserving of public office.

— “The courts will ultimately decide.”

No, the people will, at least in the end.

But to the point: here Maddox evades the core question by falling back on courts, as if the governor has no role. As if nobody has a role but five of nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. But we’re not living in a judicial tyranny, at least not yet. 

There are many things the governor can do — sign pro-life bills into law, make executive decisions about funding certain abortion providers, and use the bully pulpit to encourage greater action.

It seems as if Maddox might not be willing to do any of those things, preferring to toss the hot potato over to the courts.

Fundamentally, this is weakness. I’m sure one could have heard an argument similar to Maddox’s in the 1850s: “Although I am personally opposed to slavery, under the law of the land a white man has a right to own a black man. So …”

Then he quotes Sister Joan Chittister, a Catholic nun, in what he may think is some sort of clever nod to faith. 

But conservative Catholics would see straight through this, too, because Sister Joan disagrees with Catholic teaching on abortion. She’s effectively pro-choice because she has said that she opposes it as a primary form of birth control but leaves room for abortion in many other situations, which makes her opinion on the matter decidedly not Catholic at all. 

The fact that of all the people he could quote, Maddox quotes a nun who disagrees with the Catholic teaching on abortion is very revealing.

Perhaps one of his staffers wrote the response, allowing their pro-choice phraseology to seep into the answers. Maybe he would have said more if given more space and time.

If it’s sincerely held, Maddox should stand strong on his personal opposition to abortion. We need more people who share his beliefs to step forward, to convince others, and to help put an end to the awful practice. 

Yellowhammer News would happily publish a guest post by Maddox should he wish to further explain his beliefs about abortion, and we’d hope such an explanation would dispense with wordy obfuscation and answer our inquiry more directly — since he is opposed to abortion, what would he do to stop abortions from happening in Alabama?

Until such an explanation is offered, Alabamians should remain very skeptical of Maddox’s views on abortion, and certainly his ability to represent a state whose citizens are overwhelmingly pro-life.

@jpepperbryarsis the editor of Yellowhammer News and the author of American Warfighter

Astronomers have established with good evidence the existence of “low-mass” black holes, which are judged to be between 3 and 30 times more massive than the sun, as well as “super-massive” black holes, one of which has been discovered in our own galaxy to be 4 million times more massive than the sun.

“We know that low-mass black holes form and we know that high-mass black holes form,” Dr. Irwin explained, “but between these two book ends, it’s not clear whether there’s a mechanism in nature that allows black holes to be formed with, say, a mass above one hundred times the mass of our sun and below one million times the mass of our sun.”

There’s pretty good evidence now, though, that such medium-sized black holes do exist.

As Dr. Irwin explained, when a black hole rips up and consumes a star, its debris becomes very hot and emits x-ray radiation, creating data that becomes observable over time.

“There’s already a built-in time lag, based upon the distance of the object,” Irwin said.

The observations that led to this discovery were made through what Dr. Irwin described as a detective-like process.

The astronomer who began the project, Dr. Dacheng Lin, was actually a post-doctoral researcher under Irwin in years past. Dr. Lin began looking back at data recorded by a variety of telescopes in Europe and the United States between 2003 and 2006 and discovered an observable change at a particular spot in this far-away universe.

“There was a bright x-ray source in one observation and it was dimmer in the next one,” Irwin explained.

“Piecing together the history he was able to discover that this probably happened, or at least this radiation reached the earth’s telescopes, probably sometime in 2003,” he said.

Irwin stressed that we’ve known about black holes for a long time, but not of this type.

“This idea of stars being torn apart isn’t a new idea,” he said. “What’s new is that we’re seeing stars ripped apart by one of these mid-sized black holes.”

@jeremywbeaman is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News

I’m pleased that last October, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. This epidemic has been wreaking havoc on communities and families across our country for far too long. While the statistics are certainly shocking, this is about so much more than numbers. Hundreds of thousands of real American people with lives, careers, and families have lost the battle with opioid drug abuse. That’s why the House has made combating this crisis a top priority over the last several years.

You may remember that back in 2016, Congress passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act and the 21st Century Cures Act. Earlier this year, we provided $4 billion in government funding specifically to address the opioid crisis. Building upon this work, the House recently passed dozens of meaningful bills to further combat the opioid epidemic, and I’d like to share the four ways we are using this legislation to help fight this serious issue.

First, with the recently passed legislation, the House is focusing on treatment and recovery. Our bills improve and expand access to treatment and recovery services, provide incentives for enhanced care, and establish comprehensive opioid recovery centers. Hundreds of thousands of Americans from all walks of life are currently trapped by addiction, and it is imperative that we provide the resources to treat their addiction and help them recover.

Second, we’re aiming for prevention. Opioids are an important part of modern day medical care for pain treatment, but they are prescribed entirely too often – and at alarming rates. Our legislation addresses these high prescribing rates while enhancing prescription drug monitoring programs. We have the technology, and it’s past time we used it to more effectively address this crisis. Our legislation also encourages non-addictive opioid alternatives, when practical, to treat pain, and improves the data that allows us to identify and help at-risk patients before the problem becomes dangerously serious.

Third, we’re making efforts to better protect communities of all sizes throughout the country by giving law enforcement the tools necessary to remove dangerous drugs. Our bills also enable us to better intercept illicit opioids at international mail facilities and improve access to federal resources for local communities.

Last but certainly not least, we’re fighting fentanyl. The legislation we passed in the House allows us to better tackle these ever-changing synthetic drugs, crack down on foreign shipments of illicit drugs, and provide grants for communities to combat fentanyl that is destroying lives as we speak.

I am proud of the efforts we’ve made in the House recently to press forward in our fight against this horrible crisis gripping our state and nation, but our work is far from complete. We owe it to the more than 40,000 Americans who die every year – and their families – to push on until strong progress is made. You can read more about our work to combat the opioid epidemic by visiting www.opioidcrisis.gop.

U.S. Rep. Martha Roby is a Republican from Montgomery.

In an American Immigration Council article by Melissa Cruz, she points out his views, which are very clear over his career:

“Jones opposes construction of the Trump administration’s U.S.-Mexico border wall”

“Jones did not support the termination of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative”

“Jones favors upgrading the immigration system. Specifically, he has proposed reassessing the current quota system, as well as looking at potential overhauls to the administrative procedures for immigration.”

“If we can make a more streamlined process of allowing immigrants into this country legally…” Jones said, “we would have far less undocumented immigrants.”

“Jones publicly spoke out against HB 56—then considered the harshest anti-immigrant law in the country—and reiterated that position throughout his campaign.”

Why this matters:

No one believes Senator Jones would be in D.C. if it was not for the fact that the Republicans nominated a completely destroyed dumpster fire named Roy Moore.

The selling point by Alabama’s political press was that “Jones isn’t even that liberal”, a tactic they are using with Walt Maddox as well.

The problem for Jones is that eventually votes will have to be cast and positions will have to be taken.

The reality is Jones is wildly out of step with most Alabamians and every passing day will expose that.

TheDaleJackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a conservative talk show from 7-11 am weekdays on WVNN