Kay Ivey
Kay Ivey

Alabama is looking for a PR firm to position the Yellowhammer State as a “unique travel destination.” Good luck with that one.

The search follows Governor Key Ivey’s signing into law last month the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion measure.

The law, which does not include exemptions for rape or incest, makes it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless a woman’s life is threatened or there is a lethal fetal condition. A physician could get 99 years in jail for doing an abortion.

With the US Supreme Court’s conservative make-up, abortion is the hottest of all hot button issues.

Alabama’s law is part of the national anti-abortion strategy to get the Supreme Court to overturn the right to abortion.

Any PR firm taking on the Alabama travel business would expose itself to a revolt among its staff, especially from women upset with Alabama’s decision to strip them of the right to make their own healthcare decisions.

That’s what happened in the early 1990s to Hill and Knowlton after it took on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The resulting employee unease and public demonstrations delivered a hard blow to H&K’s image. It took years for the PR firm to recover.

There is still hope. Alabama’s abortion law doesn’t go into effect for several months.

And then there is noise from Judge Roy Moore, who has been charged with sexually assaulting teen girls while he was in his 30s, is thinking about another run for the Senate from Alabama.

Moore lost the special election in 2017 to Democrat Doug Jones.

Any national PR firm has to think twice about pitching Alabama’s business. Some things are just now worth the headache and reputational damage.

And speaking of Catholic hierarchy, Pope Francis on June 9 warned against the “culture of insults” that exists on social media.

During his Pentecost Mass homily, the pontiff said: “Nowadays, it is fashionable to hurl adjectives and, sadly even insults” on social media. The more time that people spend on social media, the less social they become, he added.

The Pope also preached about the dangers from nationalism and ethnocentrism. “No one ought to remain closed in self-absorption,” he said.

Does the NFL cash machine really need to get into the beer and liquor marketing business? Shouldn’t the NFL worry about cleaning up its own mess, concerning on and off field violence, concussions and the aftermath of the Colin Kaeperick kneeling PR disaster.

Morning Consult reported May 29 that the NFL is allowing beer brands to partner with teams to use images of active players to hawk their products.

Will Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers now swill Budweisers in its TV ads in addition to his State Farm insurance ads? Does State Farm want its pitchman to be promoting alcohol? Probably not.

Riches await players who jump on the beer wagons as they are promised to get a cut of the action.

According to the NFL email obtained by Morning Consult, hard liquor brands will be barred from using the likeness of active players. They will be able to use team logos on packaging.

The new policy goes into effect during the 2019 season and “will continue indefinitely pending further notice from the league.”

The NFL should sack the new policy.

Donald Trump did it again. The president spent nine days threatening to pose tariffs on Mexico, which in reality is a huge tax on the American people, and then seemingly pulled a rabbit out of this hat and called the whole thing off.

Facing a rebellion from normally docile Republicans and warnings from US corporations led by the automotive sector, the president withdrew the tariff threat days before they were supposed to go into effect.

Trump’s base, which is still smarting over the lack of funding for the Great Southern Wall, gushed over their leader’s ability to wring concessions from Mexico to curb immigration.

Since Mexico agreed months ago to toughen its immigration crackdown the whole drama was a self-created crisis designed to make Trump a hero.

The Mexico showdown was “fake news” at its worst.

Trump ascribes to Richard Nixon’s “Madman Theory” of government. Nixon, who was desperate to end the Vietnam War by beginning peace talks with North Vietnam, told his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman,: “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, “for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed with communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”

We should be thankful for little things, like Trump not threatening to nuke Mexico. Nixon is the ideal role model for the current president. He resigned before it looked as if he was going to be impeached. Trump should follow Tricky Dick’s move.