Georgia’s tough new immigration law could have the unintended effect of making annual business license renewals and other routine transactions more costly and complicated, local government and business leaders fear. At issue is a part of House Bill 87 that requires anyone applying for public benefits -- such as grants, loans and business licenses -- to show "secure and verifiable" identification, such as a passport or driver's license. The aim is to prevent illegal immigrants from getting taxpayer-funded benefits they are not entitled to. Atlanta Journal Constitution
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

First South Carolina, and now Tennessee. Is Georgia close behind as Amazon.com adds more states where it will eventually collect sales taxes? The Associated Press reports Tennessee is the latest state to strike a deal with the online book retailer for an exemption in collecting sales taxes in exchange for investing millions of dollars in the state’s economy. Amazon has a similar deal with South Carolina. Amazon, which will start collecting the Tennessee tax in 2014, promises to add 2,000 full-time jobs at two new distribution centers. It gets an exemption through 2015 in South Carolina in exchange for 2,000 created jobs. Atlanta Journal Constitution
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

“Obama, Hitler and Hank Williams Jr.” is not a headline one ever could have imagined writing. But then, who could have thought that we would become so idiotic? Let's be perfectly clear: Barack Obama is not Adolf Hitler. He doesn't even look like him. Unless, that is, you paint a skinny mustache on him. Even then, he only looks like Obama with a Hitler mustache. Or Charlie Chaplin. Obama obviously has never done anything to remotely suggest a Hitler comparison, but as I read Wednesday's headlines, Hank Williams Jr. apparently compared the president of the United States to Hitler. The Washington Post via The State
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

Gov. Bobby Jindal won't attend a debate in the governor's race planned for next week that will include his nine opponents. The event -- sponsored by the Louisiana Association of Educators and several other education organizations -- is scheduled for the evening of Oct. 12. The Times Picayune
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry's meeting with federal oil and gas regulators, canceled after he compared the agency to the CIA and Gestapo, has been rescheduled for Tuesday. Landry said the meeting, to be held in New Orleans, will include Michael Bromwich, the Interior Department's lead regulator. Landry praised Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, whom he has often criticized for the slow pace of offshore permitting since last year's BP oil spill, for arranging the session. The Times Picayune
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

SPANISH FORT, Alabama — As the U.S. Justice Department and civil rights groups work to stop Alabama’s immigration law, police departments across the state are trying to figure out exactly how to enforce it. Many of the leaders from agencies across southwest Alabama walked away from a Thursday afternoon meeting with the state Department of Homeland Security shaking their heads. Mobile Police Chief Micheal T. Williams said there were too many gray areas to begin enforcement. The Press Register
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

The nation's harshest immigration law, upheld by a federal judge last week, is creating nothing short of a "humanitarian crisis" that mirrors the fear and racism felt during the Jim Crow era, opponents of the law said Thursday. During an afternoon news conference about Alabama's immigration law, lawyers, educators and children's advocates said the effects of the law mirror the fear and racism felt during the Jim Crow era and have led to thousands of children being kept home from school, pregnant women being afraid to give birth in a hospital and families having their water supply cut off. The Birmingham News
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

The number of Hispanic students absent from North Alabama public schools has declined this week, but it doesn't mean all of those children have returned to class. While the number of students absent has dwindled in the week since Alabama's strict new immigration law went into effect, the number of students completely withdrawn by their parents has, in some systems, doubled. In Albertville, a city hit particularly hard by the new law, the school system has lost about 9 percent of its 1,170 Hispanic students. The Huntsville Times
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago

Ellen Jenkins had 50 acres of produce and no one to pick it, after Alabama's tough new immigration law sent her field hands packing. But on Thursday, about 20 workers, mostly inexperienced, arrived at her Chandler Mountain farm to help, by midafternoon picking 125 cartons of tomatoes just in time to keep the harvest from being a total loss. "Me and my kids were going to just pick what we could and I didn't even think we were going to get any help," Jenkins said. The Birmingham News
Submitted 1 years 224 days ago