The Truth About the MS Industries Donation!

We once commented on local candidates who mention their stance on abortion and other issues over which they have absolutely no control. Such references are smokescreens to cover more relevant issues or simply pandering to a public which usually demonstrates knee jerk reactions to these issues.

It should come as no shock to anyone that a local sheriff has no input on “Second Amendment Rights,” yet that was the name of a recent debate...a debate which was partially published on YouTube and linked by our blog yesterday. The interesting thing about this debate was that the second amendment rights of U.S. and Alabama citizens were hardly mentioned during this little stunt, a stunt we understand was orchestrated entirely by the Republican Party.

Who has input on Second Amendment rights? The federal and state court system and to a lesser degree the office of the state attorney general. No county sheriff is going to make policy concerning gun rights—he will, if honest, follow the laws that have been legislated and later interpreted by the courts.

The election of a new Colbert County Sheriff is undoubtedly the most important race in that county. Elections typically bring out the “crazies” and almost always the haters of certain candidates. We’ve received many derogatory comments about Democratic candidate Frank Williamson in the past few months...mostly from the same person. We believe the name used to send these comments is fictitious; however, that in itself would not make these allegations suspect.

The most damning of these allegations concerns Mr. Williamson taking a $500.00 contribution from MS Industries, the company that proposes to engage in tar sands mining in Colbert and Lawrence Counties. The somewhat dubious enterprise donated the same amount to both candidates; the salient question is did either candidate keep the money while stating he had returned the contribution.

We’ll inject here that MS Industries has not yet been proved to be detrimental to the environment or the economy. We believe at some point it will. The salient point is that if one or both of the candidates had kept the contribution...and correctly reported it...what was the harm? No candidate is in anyone’s pocket as long as contributions are made correctly.

Both candidates say they returned the contribution for whatever reason. Political enemies of Frank Williamson are claiming that he didn’t. That would make Williamson both a liar and a dishonest pol since he has not reported the contribution on his official state form. So is this allegation true?

A COPY OF WILLIAMSON'S LETTER:

A COPY OF CASHIER'S CHECK TO MS INDUSTIRES:

It would appear  Mr. Williamson has indeed done what he said he did. We reiterate that we would have had no problem with his taking the contribution, but we would have had a problem is he had indeed lied. It would seem Mr. Williamson is not the one who lied. Does Phil Andrews support these lies? We don't know...we still haven't heard from him.

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Regular readers know our policy about past crimes, etc. When one enters the public fray, they are fair game. In the past we've refused to discuss an old drug arrest for one candidate since we believed it didn't relate to the person he is today. Now we're faced with a similar dilemma.

Again, we're not going to publish this arrest. We feel others will publish the details. Having seen the arrest documents, we're only too sadly aware that many will cheer for what the person did. It's a sad world.

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Shoalanda