Alabama Rewarded

On February 29, late Friday afternoon, it was announced that Northrop Grumman/EADS won a U.S. Defense contract for $40 billion to provide air-refueling tankers in a not-yet-built plant in Mobile, Alabama. Its stock value went from $3.74 to $82.37.

The other main competitor for the contract was Boeing. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that "Boeing was considered the heavy favorite" but that "Northrop and its supporters, especially politicians in Alabama" claimed Northrop's tanker was superior.

As I began to look into who the lobbyists were who influenced this change in favored a manufacturer, which would devastate a portion of the Seattle area economy while rewarding strongly (and drastically changing) the community of Mobile, Alabama, I suddenly gasped as I saw another email about Don Siegelman provided by the diligent Mark Crispin Miller "Alabama press goes rabid for Karl Rove".

ALABAMA?! Oh, my God. Alabama. Is it possible?

So, I'm putting the idea out:

Is there any connection between Alabama's prosecution of Siegelman and its black out of the 60 Minutes segment... and the switch from Boeing in Seattle to Northrop Grumman/EADS in Mobile?

My own time to research this is limited, so I'm encouraging others to see what they might find, and please respond back.

This could be verrrrrry interesting.


by Barbara Bellows-TerraNova